Chapter 629: End of the Ball
Evan and Hermione returned to the Great Hall. Ron and Lavender were still missing. Ginny and Gabrielle were sitting with a whole crowd of Beauxbatons girls. Neville and Luna were dancing together. Harry and Colin sat down at a table far removed from the dance floor.
“Have you seen Ron?” Harry asked, looking at Evan and Hermione who had just returned.
“He’s busy outside!” Hermione said grumpily. She looked around and made sure that no one was eavesdropping to their conversation. Then she lowered her voice and said, “I just heard with Evan…”
She repeated what Hagrid had said, and Harry and Colin were equally stunned.
“So, Hagrid is half-giant?!” Colin said in surprise.
“Yeah, this thing is very bad!” Evan and Hermione nodded.
“I don’t understand. What’s the problem with Hagrid being a giant?” Harry said, watching Madame Maxime sitting alone at the judge’s table, looking very somber. “If Hagrid is half-giant, she definitely is. Big boned… the only thing that has got bigger bones than her is a dinosaur.”
“You don’t understand, Harry!” Hermione explained. “The fact that Hagrid is half-giant is terrible. It’s said in the books that giants are very dangerous magical creatures and are not recognized by the wizarding world.”
“Who cares?” said Harry stubbornly. “There’s nothing wrong with Hagrid. We all like him!”
“I know he isn’t, but … generally speaking, giants are considered to be very ferocious humanoid magical creatures,” seeing that Harry and Colin were still confused and didn’t realize the seriousness of the matter, Evan had to explain, “Like trolls, they just like killing, but they’re much more dangerous than trolls. The average height of giants is 22 feet, almost twice that of trolls. Their strong physique enables them to resist most kinds of magic. They are simply humanoid killing machines. In the dark years of the past, they had brought a lot of fear to the wizarding world, but there aren’t any left in Britain now!”
“Why, where did they go?”
“Probably extinct … many got themselves killed by Aurors. There are supposed to be giants abroad, though. They hide out in mountains mostly. After all, the present era is different from the past, when giants could wreak havoc.” Evan continued, “It’s not how they disappeared that matters. The key is that during Voldemort’s reign, a lot of giants joined him and killed many people.”
“Even so, what does this have to do with Hagrid? He’s not dangerous!”
“People who know him don’t care, because they know he’s not dangerous, but those who don’t know him, or are not familiar with him…” Evan shook his head and he saw a lot of people whispering together like them.
Obviously, this matter had already leaked out. There were many people around the fountain then.
It was impossible to keep concealing it, and it was not a long-term solution. It was not good for Hagrid.
The question of blood status and identity had always been Hagrid’s problem. Covering it up was only delaying the outbreak of conflicts.
The only right thing to do was to expose it completely and make Hagrid realize that people were still willing to accept him.
In this matter, Evan decided to make some preparations and could not allow public opinion to ferment and develop in the wrong direction.
Besides, he was also a little curious. Hagrid’s father was just an ordinary wizard, listening to Hagrid’s description, a relatively small one, then how did he make Hagrid’s mother, a pure giant woman, pregnant?!
Although mixed-race descendants of wizards and all kinds of magical creatures were common, half-giants had always been a minority.
Thinking about it carefully, the image was actually quite terrible!
When they saw that Evan and Hermione were back, Ginny and Gabrielle came over.
The six of them spent the rest of the ball discussing giants in their corner, neither of them having any inclination to dance. No matter who came to invite them, they refused!
Harry tried not to watch Cho and Cedric too much; it gave him a strong desire to kick something.
Evan advised him to invite Cho. Harry hesitated for a long time, but finally shook his head and did not act.
As for Fleur and Roger Davies, Ron and Lavender, and other couples, they didn’t come back until the end.
When the Weird Sisters finished playing at midnight, everyone gave them a last, loud round of applause and started to wend their way into the entrance hall. Evan, Hermione, and Harry accompanied Gabrielle back to the carriage.
On the way back, at the door of the Common Room, they saw Ron standing there happily, holding Lavender’s hand.
“Oh!” He saw Evan, Harry, and Hermione, and stopped abruptly.
Lavender giggled and ran in embarrassment.
There was an awkward silence, and Ron seemed to be trying to explain something, but he didn’t say a word. He just looked at them in a rather strange way, as if expecting an explosion.
But there was nothing to say to Ron, and although he and Lavender were progressing too fast, it was up to him to determine what’s fit.
So, silent and deadlocked for a while, they went back to the Common Room to sleep, each with many thoughts in mind.
Harry would tell Ron about Hagrid.
Everybody got up late the next Day. The Gryffindor Common Room was much quieter than it had been lately, many yawns punctuating the lazy conversations.
Hermione’s hair was bushy again. She confessed to Evan that she had used liberal amounts of Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion on it for the ball, “but it’s way too much bother to do every day,” she said matter-of-factly, scratching a purring Crookshanks behind the ears.
Although Hermione was amazing last night, she was also very likable this way. At least that was what Evan thought. That was the real, natural Hermione.
As for Ron and Lavender, everyone tacitly pretended that they had not seen them.
The two of them also were less physical today, not so blatantly sticking together.
Harry also told Ron about Hagrid. Ron was even more surprised than imagined and told them many horror stories about giants proving how terrible this news was.
But Hermione calmed down after flipping through a few books.
“I have long suspected that Hagrid is a half-giant,” she told everyone, raising a magic book in her hand. “I just read about the history of the giants. I think we can’t be so hysterical about giants. They can’t all be as horrible as rumors say. It’s the same sort of prejudice that people have toward werewolves. It’s just bigotry, isn’t it?!”
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