You can now access up to chapter 115 on p@treon: patreon.com/palevolt100
+++++++
Hermione walked in thoughtful silence for a moment after Henry's observation.
"You're quite right, Your Highness," she said at last. "Hagrid's understanding of magical creatures goes considerably beyond anything written in any textbook."
Ron kicked a pebble along the path and muttered, "It's just that his cooking always tests your teeth."
Everyone laughed.
At the entrance hall where the corridors diverged, Gryffindor Tower in one direction, the Slytherin dungeons in the other, they came to a natural stop.
"See you tomorrow, then?" Harry said, with a note of something that was almost hope.
"Of course," Henry said. "Enjoy the rest of your weekend."
He walked away down the underground corridor. Behind him, after a short silence, Ron spoke.
"He didn't say a single unpleasant thing. About Hagrid's hut, or about Hagrid himself."
"Because he has real manners, Ron," Hermione said. "And real manners are not about tolerating things that are different from what you're used to, they're about genuinely respecting the difference."
Harry patted Ron on the shoulder. "He also liked the animal stories. I could tell he wasn't pretending."
Ron shrugged with studied nonchalance. "Well. Maybe there really is one in Slytherin who isn't... you know. Bad."
Coming from Ron Weasley, this was practically a standing ovation.
Henry, meanwhile, made his way through the cold stone corridor toward the common room, turning over what he had seen and heard in Hagrid's hut.
The rough, teeming collection of specimens and curiosities, Hagrid's unreserved delight in all of it, the easy and genuine way Harry and Ron had been in that warm, cluttered space, it was entirely unlike the polished interiors of Buckingham Palace he had grown up in, and yet it possessed its own kind of solidity and warmth that was not so different in the ways that mattered.
"Lucy," he said quietly.
A house-elf appeared silently at his side.
"Could you put together some treats suitable for small, gentle magical creatures? Things like the wood lice Bowtruckles prefer, or the jam and crumbs that Fairies enjoy. Not a large amount, but fresh. I thought we might bring something for Mr. Hagrid's animals next time we visit."
"Lucy understands, Your Highness." She bowed and was gone.
Relationships required careful tending, and Hagrid was the sort of person who responded to genuine gestures, simple, warm, direct ones, far more than to anything elaborate.
This visit had been a strong beginning. He intended to ensure the connection deepened into something more durable.
When he entered the Slytherin common room, Draco was on his feet before Henry had fully come through the entrance.
"Henry! Where have you been? I've been looking for you for half the morning!" His tone landed somewhere between urgency and poorly managed indignation. "Pansy said she saw you leave the castle with Potter and the others."
Several heads in the common room tilted almost imperceptibly toward the conversation.
Henry settled himself into the nearest armchair without apparent hurry. "Yes, Draco. Harry invited me to visit Mr. Hagrid, the gamekeeper. He has a remarkable knowledge of magical creatures, and his hut has a genuinely extraordinary collection."
"Hagrid." Draco's voice climbed a register. "That half-giant? You went there? With Potter, Weasley, and Granger?"
His disgust was entirely predictable.
The Malfoy family's view of Hagrid, trusted associate of Dumbledore, keeper of half-giant blood—was not something Draco had arrived at independently.
Henry gestured for Draco to sit.
"Draco." His voice was even, but carried enough weight that Draco did, in fact, sit. "A person should not be reduced to their lineage or their position. Mr. Hagrid is a fully employed member of Hogwarts staff and one of the people Headmaster Dumbledore trusts most completely." He paused. "Do you know what Mr. Hagrid is actually responsible for?"
Draco looked at him.
"The Forbidden Forest," Henry said. "And the Forbidden Forest is the least known and least mapped part of Hogwarts—which means it is also the most interesting. It holds things that no classroom or library can offer." He dropped his voice so that only Draco could hear the rest. "Someone who knows every corner of that Forest, who understands the habits, the temperaments, and the particular vulnerabilities of every creature living in it—that is an asset of a different order from Galleons. Knowledge of places and things that are inaccessible to most people is one of the rarer kinds of power, Draco."
He let the thought settle, then leaned back and returned to his ordinary register. "Beyond all of that, Mr. Hagrid is a warm and straightforward person. There is no disadvantage in being on good terms with him."
Draco worked through this quietly. He would never have arrived at this perspective on his own, and he knew it.
His instincts still balked at the idea of Hagrid as anything worth cultivating, but Henry's reasoning had the characteristic quality of reaching past his immediate feelings and engaging something more calculating underneath.
"All right," Draco said, with the air of someone making a significant concession. "But you'd better make sure you haven't picked up any strange smells from that place. I've heard he keeps all sorts of things in there."
Henry smiled and said nothing.
He had no interest in changing Draco's feelings about Hagrid. Moderating his behaviour was sufficient.
Pansy and Daphne drifted over shortly afterward, curious about what Hagrid's hut was actually like.
Henry gave them a description that focused on the specimens and the more interesting facts about the creatures represented, entertaining, specific, and carefully selective about the parts that involved Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
The rest of the weekend passed quietly. He prepared his lessons, practised in the Room of Requirement, and contributed a few observations during a low-key Quidditch tactics discussion in the common room.
A message arrived from Captain Flint indicating that dedicated Seeker training would begin the following week, which told Henry everything he needed to know about how seriously Flint was approaching the Gryffindor match.
On Sunday evening, Henry sat at his bedroom window and watched the occasional dark shape move through the depths of the Black Lake far below, and wrote to his grandmother.
The letter described the visit to Hagrid's hut in some detail... Hagrid himself, the collection, the corner of the magical world he represented, so entirely unlike anything in the royal or Slytherin spheres and yet no less real for it.
...Mr. Hagrid's knowledge and enthusiasm are entirely genuine. His connection to the Forbidden Forest and his understanding of magical creatures are as much a part of Hogwarts as any of its towers, and he is one of Dumbledore's most trusted people. Building a connection with someone like him extends our understanding of this world in a direction that formal introductions and afternoon tea cannot reach.
...Harry Potter and his friends were completely at ease there. It reminded me that influence cannot be built through elaborate arrangements alone. Sometimes sincere interest and shared feeling reach people more directly than any strategy.
He added a brief enquiry after William and Harry at the end and sent his regards to his great-grandmother. Mercury took the letter and disappeared into the dark.
Henry looked at the progress bar, which remained fixed at 99.75%, and turned his attention to the question of which Ravenclaw students he might reasonably invite to tea.