Chapter 16 : The Groundskeeper's Hut
Hogwarts Grounds — October 5, 1991, 3:15 PM
Fang hit Matt at chest height.
The boarhound launched himself from Hagrid's doorway with the aerodynamic grace of a thrown boulder, tongue flapping, jowls spraying a curtain of drool that caught the afternoon light like a chandelier nobody wanted. Matt staggered backward, shoes sliding on the muddy path, and caught himself against the pumpkin patch fence while a hundred and fifty pounds of enthusiastic canine attempted to lick his face off his skull.
"FANG! Down! Down, yeh daft animal — sorry 'bout that, he gets excited —"
Hagrid appeared in the doorway, filling it completely. Behind Matt, Harry was laughing — real laughter, the kind that bent him double — and Ron had backed three steps into a pumpkin.
"He's fine." Matt scratched behind Fang's ears and got a tongue across the chin for his trouble. Creature Sense registered the boarhound as mundane — no magical signature, just pure overwhelming canine affection — but the animal's emotional read was unmistakable. Fang liked him. Immediately, completely, with the uncomplicated certainty of a dog who had decided and would not be persuaded otherwise.
[CREATURE DETECTED: BOARHOUND. TIER 0. NON-MAGICAL. DISPOSITION: FRIENDLY. BOND POTENTIAL: N/A (NON-MAGICAL VARIANT).]
Can't bond you, mate. But I appreciate the enthusiasm.
"Come in, come in!" Hagrid waved them toward the hut with hands that could have palmed watermelons. "Just put the kettle on. Got rock cakes."
Harry and Ron exchanged the particular look of people who'd encountered Hagrid's rock cakes before. Matt, forewarned by meta-knowledge, braced himself.
The hut was small. Every piece of furniture was built to Hagrid's scale, which meant the chairs required climbing and the table came to Matt's sternum. A fire roared in the grate. Copper kettles, cured meats, and what appeared to be an enormous crossbow hung from the ceiling. The overall effect was cosy-but-lethal, the aesthetic of someone whose idea of home decor and survival equipment overlapped significantly.
Hagrid poured tea into bucket-sized mugs and set a plate of rock cakes on the table. Matt took one and held it. The weight was concerning. He pretended to eat, broke off a piece when Hagrid wasn't looking, and slipped it to Fang under the table. Fang examined it with suspicion before swallowing it whole.
"So," Hagrid said, settling into his chair with a creak that suggested the furniture was reconsidering its career choices. "Matt. Been wantin' ter talk to yeh proper since Diagon Alley."
"About creatures?"
Hagrid's face split into a grin so wide it nearly disappeared into his beard. "Yer grandmother. Cordelia Summon. She used ter come down ter the grounds when I was groundskeeper's apprentice — years ago, before —" The grin dimmed. Before Riddle. Before the Chamber. Before the expulsion that had cost Hagrid his wand and nearly his freedom. "She'd bring injured creatures. Heal 'em. Release 'em. Never asked fer credit. Jus' did it."
Matt's throat tightened. The woman he'd never met — whose journal he'd read on his first night in this body, whose creature guide sat bookmarked in his trunk, whose portrait smiled from a Manor wall — kept appearing in the memories of people who'd loved her.
"I'm trying to continue her work," Matt said. "The reserve. The creature rehabilitation. All of it."
Hagrid leaned forward. His beetle-black eyes were bright and fierce. "I been keepin' an eye on things. The forest, the grounds, the lake — there's creatures out there need tendin'. Students don' care. Staff don' have time. But you —" He jabbed a finger the size of a sausage at Matt. "Yeh've got the touch. Saw it with tha' Kneazle o' yours. Saw it in yer eyes at the Emporium."
"He's got the touch with all animals," Harry said from behind his mug. "You should see his Kneazle with Neville. She practically lives on his lap."
"Kneazles know people," Hagrid nodded sagely. "If one trusts yeh, yer worth trustin'. Simple as that."
Matt seized the opening. Carefully, the way he'd laid woodlice near an oak tree four years ago — patience as bait.
"Hagrid, I heard the grounds have some extraordinary creatures. Someone mentioned — I think it was an older Ravenclaw — that there might even be something large near the third floor?"
Hagrid's mug stopped halfway to his mouth. His eyes went wide. The transformation from warmth to panic took approximately one second.
"Who told yeh about Fluffy?" The words came out fast, alarmed. "Tha's between me an' Dumbledore, tha' is! Shouldn'ta — I shouldn'ta said that —"
"Fluffy?" Ron sat up. "You've named it Fluffy?"
"It's his," Harry said, staring at Hagrid. "You own it?"
Hagrid's face had gone through several colours — pink, red, something approaching magenta — and was now settling into the particular shade of guilt that characterised every secret Hagrid had ever failed to keep. "I shouldn'ta told yeh that. Forget I said anythin'. Fluffy's doin' a job fer Dumbledore, an' that's all anyone needs to know."
Matt filed the confirmation alongside his mental notes. Fluffy: name confirmed, Hagrid's creature, working for Dumbledore. None of it was new — he'd known since before this body could walk — but Harry and Ron had just heard it for the first time, and the curiosity on their faces was the beginning of a thread that would unravel through the entire year.
He steered the conversation back to safer ground. "What about the forest? What's living in there these days?"
Hagrid seized the subject change with the gratitude of a drowning man finding a rope. For the next forty minutes, he catalogued the Forbidden Forest's residents with the pride and exhaustive knowledge of someone who'd spent decades walking its paths: unicorn herds, centaur clans, Acromantula colonies (mentioned casually, which made Ron go grey), Thestrals ("beautiful creatures, yeh'd like 'em, Matt"), and seasonal Mooncalf herds that emerged during full moons.
"Mooncalves?" Matt kept his voice light.
"Lovely things. Come out at full moon, dance in the clearings. Shy, mind — don' let humans get close, usually. But they've been comin' closer to the castle this year. Somethin's changed in the forest. Dunno what."
Matt stored that information with the rest. Mooncalves near the forest edge. Full moon. October fifteenth — ten days away.
The visit ended at dusk. Hagrid walked them to the castle doors, Fang pressing against Matt's leg the entire way.
"Listen," Hagrid said, lowering his voice to what he probably thought was a whisper but was actually louder than most people's normal speaking volume. "I could use some help weekends. Groundskeepin' stuff. Creature care, fence work, that sort o' thing. If yer interested."
"Yes," Matt said immediately.
"Good lad. Saturdays, eight sharp. Bring yer Kneazle if yeh like — she can patrol fer Jarveys. Little blighters keep gettin' into the pumpkins."
They shook hands. Hagrid's grip enveloped Matt's entire fist.
Walking back through the entrance hall, Harry grinned. "Hagrid really likes you."
Matt thought about the empty creature reserve back at Summon Manor. Acres of Highland wilderness, enclosures built for species that no longer lived there, feeding stations gone silent. Hagrid could help fill it someday. He had the knowledge, the contacts, the decades of forest experience.
But that was long-term. Right now, the corridor stretched ahead toward Ravenclaw Tower, and somewhere behind them, behind a locked door on the third floor, a three-headed dog guarded a trapdoor.
Twenty-six days until Halloween. Twenty-six days until a troll and a girl in a bathroom.
Matt climbed the stairs and started counting.
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