II. In Which Hermione Encounters a Snake
Hagrid led Hermione into the cellars, behind a stack of barrels, through a door, and down a winding staircase. He had to stoop to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling. Hermione was impressed that he had dared the staircase in the first place. Surely nobody ever came down here, and if Hagrid tripped or hit his head he might never be found again. But then, Hagrid had never had any sense of self-preservation. Or any sense of anything, really-why on earth had he complimented her hair?
At the bottom of the staircase was a wooden door set into a stone archway. Hagrid muttered something at the door and hit it with his umbrella; it creaked open. The room on the other side was huge, cold, and very, very dark, though Hermione thought she saw some sort of arch or statue toward the back of the room. She sighed and declared, "Lux Grandissima!" Now she could see, though even her biggest sphere of light couldn't fill the entire room. In fact, it barely reached the edge of the statue, or bulge in the wall, or whatever it was. She would have to walk closer.
As Hermione approached, she realized that the bulge actually stretched along the entire far wall of the room. Maybe whoever built this cellar had simply enlarged a natural cavern, and had decided to leave one wall in the original rock?
That wasn't rock. It was moving forward and backward, very slowly . . . like something breathing. Hermione stopped walking. Hagrid promptly bumped into her. (And I thought Snape was tall! thought Hermione.)
"Hagrid . . . What is that?" Hermione asked.
"Oh, it's a very large snake. Well, part of one," said Hagrid. "I thought you might have read about it somewhere. Let's go a little closer. There's something you need to see."
Of course. It was the Serpent Chewing Upon the Root of the World, or a very small part of it, anyway. Hermione should have known that whenever she opened a bestiary, some malevolent spirit gave Hagrid ideas. Most of the creature's scales seemed to be gray and rocklike-no surprise, if its nourishment came from rock-but Hermione could see something crystalline up ahead.
The crystalline feature was a very large eye. It was set into the serpent's side, like a precious stone as big as Hermione. Most of the eye was a pale yellow-green, but it glittered somehow . . .
"I always wondered how the Serpent Chewing Upon the Root of the World kept track of the parts of its body that weren't near where it was chewing," Hermione remarked.
"Hermione, be nice," said Hagrid. "I think it's crying."
He was right. Ordinary snakes didn't cry, but ordinary snakes didn't have toenails, either. The glints were water dripping from the edges of the eye. A small pool of tears had collected on the floor.
"Do you think I should give it my coat, for a hanky?" Hagrid asked.
"Can't hurt."
Hagrid pulled off his coat and walked cautiously toward the serpent. About four feet away he stopped, and held out his coat hopefully, but the eye stared straight ahead, and continued dripping. Hagrid sighed and dropped his coat in the puddle, then walked back to Hermione.
"I think maybe the cloth on my coat isn't soft enough," he said. "And it's not exactly clean, the snake might get infected. If only we had a finer piece of fabric . . ."
"You can have my shirt," said Hermione. It was a perfectly logical offer; that way they could dry the serpent's eyes, and she wouldn't have to worry about fixing the button. However Hagrid was turning bright pink. He was rather adorable, really; unlike Hermione, who went all blotchy, Hagrid was a perfectly even shade of salmon. She wondered whether his toes turned pink, too.
Hermione pulled her hands inside her robe and unbuttoned her shirt, then gave it to Hagrid. He took it very carefully, as if her hands were charged with static. Then he tiptoed toward the snake again. This time its pupil opened slightly, as if curious. Hagrid gently blotted the scales around the serpent's eye. The pupil closed to a thin slit, and the tears slowed--
"Hagrid, be careful!" Hermione whispered. "It's breathing wider!" Indeed, the serpent's belly seemed to be stretching further out, and then in again. Hagrid retreated to Hermione.
"Don't worry," he said. "If it was a cat I would say it was purring."
"But it's still crying."
"Maybe nobody's ever been nice to it before."
"If you're going to make kindness to the section of the Serpent Chewing Upon the Root of the World that's taken up residence in our basement your new hobby, you had better tell Dumbledore," Hermione pointed out.
"Oh, I did. He says it's much safer than the baby phoenix I used to have."
Hermione was relieved. At least Hagrid was behaving like a sensible adult, not getting all secretive the way Harry did whenever something heroic was in the offing. If she didn't have to worry about Hagrid, she could get back to the real question-- why on earth was the serpent really crying?
"Oh, of course," said Hermione. "It's a girl serpent, and people keep cutting off its toenails for potions. I bet it's miffed. And they're probably hurting it."
"The poor thing!" said Hagrid. "We'll have to find where its foot is and stop them, at once."
Oh no, thought Hermione. This is where saving the world really came in, and she didn't have time for it, not with all her exams. But if she let Hagrid rush off by himself, he'd get himself killed. "Let Harry do it," she said.
"But--"
"No, seriously. If there's an evil toenail-cutting operation afoot, it almost certainly has something to do with Voldemort, I mean You-Know-Who, and that means Harry's the only one who can deal with it. Plus neither of us can talk to snakes."
"But Harry won't know what to say to it."
Clearly Hagrid was unconvinced. Yet if Hermione allowed him to go rushing off all over England looking for a plot against the world-serpent, she would have to go too, and then she would never, ever get all her work done. (If Harry went, his work would suffer, too; but since Harry and trouble had a magnetic relationship, he would find the evil-doers much faster, and Harry wasn't trying to get into St. Bartholomew's.) How could Hermione make Hagrid stay? She would have to institute a distraction.
"Hagrid," Hermione asked, "Can I borrow your shirt? It's kind of chilly down here, and I couldn't find my sweater this morning."
Hagrid looked uncomfortable, but Hermione's own shirt was obviously too soaked in snake-tears to be warm, and he was too honorable to refuse outright. "Please?" said Hermione. She stepped closer to Hagrid, and began unbuttoning his shirt. She had to start from the bottom, of course; he was so very tall. His belly was rather hairy-- but yes, he did blush pink underneath the fur. He was probably pink all over. It was oddly sweet.
Hermione thought if she could get all of Hagrid's shirt off, and maybe make him lie down so she could see all of him properly, it might be rather like having a very, very, very large cat at her disposal. By now she had undone all the buttons she could reach. Given time she could probably work out a spell for the others, if Hagrid continued to be unhelpful . . . Maybe she would just rest her cheek against him, and think about it.
Hagrid reached down and touched Hermione's hair, so lightly that she almost couldn't feel it. He was astonishingly gentle. Hermione wished he would touch something besides her hair.
"Really, I can't let you leave Hogwarts when I have to stay here and study for my exams," said Hermione. "I'd go mad with stress."
"Really? I make you more relaxed?"
"Well, you could, if you tried harder," said Hermione in frustration. Had she doubled her time once too often? Right now life seemed to be moving at half speed . . . In desperation she pulled off her robe, and tugged at the drawstring of Hagrid's pants. He really was large, and she was at almost the right height.
III. In Which Hermione is Rather More Relaxed.
As Hermione had predicted, Harry did very well without her; and under Hagrid's tutelage, Hermione felt much more confident about the practical elements of her exams. Somehow magical beasts could tell when she was happy . . .
Finis.
Preface and Contents - In Which Hermione Avoids Adventure - In Which Hermione Encounters a Snake
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