Ch 4. The keeper of the keys

BOOM.

They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake. "Where's the cannon?" he

said stupidly.

There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the

room. He was holding a rifle in his hands -- now they knew what had been

in the long, thin package he had brought with them.

"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you -- I'm armed!"

There was a pause. Then --

SMASH!

The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and

with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.

A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost

completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled

beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles

under all the hair.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just

brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it

easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a

little. He turned to look at them all.

"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy

journey..."

He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.

"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.

Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching,

terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.

"An' here's Harry!" said the giant.

Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the

beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.

"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a

lot like yet dad, but yeh've got yet mom's eyes."

Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise.

I demand that you leave at once, sit!" he said. "You are breaking and

entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant; he reached over

the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent

it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it

into a corner of the room.

Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.

"Anyway -- Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a

very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here -- I mighta sat on

it at some point, but it'll taste all right."

From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly

squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a

large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in

green icing.

Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words

got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are

you?"

The giant chuckled.

"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and

Grounds at Hogwarts."

He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.

"What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together.

"I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."

His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and

he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he

was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire

there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt

the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.

The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and

began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a

copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several

chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from

before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and

smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was

working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said

sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."

The giant chuckled darkly.

"Yet great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don'

worry."

He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted

anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the

giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said,

"I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."

The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his

hand.

"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm

Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts -- yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course.

"Er -- no," said Harry.

Hagrid looked shocked.

"Sorry," Harry said quickly.

"Sony?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back

into the shadows.

"It' s them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't

gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou'

Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents

learned it all?"

"All what?" asked Harry.

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!"

He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut.The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.

"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy --

this boy! -- knows nothin' abou' -- about ANYTHING?"

Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after

all, and his marks weren't bad.

"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff." But

Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your

world. My world. Yer parents' world."

"What world?"

Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.

"DURSLEY!" he boomed.

Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded

like "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.

"But yeh must know about yet mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're

famous. You're famous."

"What? My -- my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?"

"Yeh don' know... yeh don' know..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his

hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.

"Yeh don' know what yeh are?" he said finally.

Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sit! I forbid you to tell the

boy anything!"

A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious

look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled

with rage.

"You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore

left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An'

you've kept it from him all these years?"

"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.

Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.

"Ah, go boil yet heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry -- yet a

wizard."

There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind

could be heard.

"-- a what?" gasped Harry.

"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which

groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once

yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else

would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."

Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope,

addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock,

The Sea. He pulled out the letter and read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme

Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts

School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't

decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, "What does

it mean, they await my owl?"

"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to

his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl -- a real, live,

rather ruffled-looking owl -- a long quill, and a roll of parchment.

With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could

read upside down:

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Given Harry his letter.

Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.

Weather's horrible. Hope you're Well.

Hagrid

Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its

beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he

came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the

telephone.

Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly.

"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still

ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.

"He's not going," he said.

Hagrid grunted.

"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.

"A what?" said Harry, interested.

"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like thern.

An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I

ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said

Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"

"You knew?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a -- a wizard?"

"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a

letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school-and came

home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups

into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was -- a freak!

But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that,

they were proud of having a witch in the family!"

She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed

she had been wanting to say all this for years.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and

had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange,

just as -- as -- abnormal -- and then, if you please, she went and got

herself blown up and we got landed with you!"

Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown

up? You told me they died in a car crash!"

"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys

scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an'

James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his

own story when every kid in our world knows his name!" "But why? What

happened?" Harry asked urgently.

The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.

"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no

idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of

yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right

person ter tell yeh -- but someone 3 s gotta -- yeh can't go off ter

Hogwarts not knowin'."

He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.

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