After Karkaroff's identity as a Death Eater became public knowledge, the voices calling for his probation to be lifted grew quieter.
As more time passed, those voices died out entirely, replaced by something far more radical:
"No wonder he knows the Dark Arts so well!"
"That's literally what he used to do for a living!"
"How can someone like that possibly be allowed to stay?"
"Exactly—probation isn't nearly enough. He needs to be thrown out!"
"Who's to say You-Know-Who didn't plant him here!"
"What if he does something to us while he's supposedly teaching!"
"Sack him! He has to go!"
Watching the situation spiral further out of control, Karkaroff eventually applied on his own to suspend his classes for a while, and only then did the clamour begin to die down.
"Bloody nonsense!"
Hagrid's golden hut.
Hagrid nearly blew his top when the subject came up.
Since no one was taking Care of Magical Creatures this term, they'd been seeing a lot less of Hagrid to begin with.
On top of that, both Harry and Ron were deeply reluctant about the whole business of teaching Hagrid's half-brother Grawp, so their visits to Hagrid's hut had dropped off even more than in previous years.
Take this weekend, for instance—Hagrid had originally invited all four of them.
Ron, without so much as a second thought, had gone running off to snuggle and coo over Lavender the moment he heard.
Harry would have liked to come, but Cho Chang had asked him first.
Between Cho Chang and Hagrid, Harry hadn't hesitated for long before choosing his girlfriend.
In the end, it was only Sherlock and Hermione who showed up.
Beyond simply keeping the appointment, Sherlock also wanted to pick up a bit of stock from Hagrid while he was at it.
The moment the subject of Karkaroff's probation came up, Hagrid launched into a torrent of words without pause.
"Karkaroff was a Death Eater, sure, but when he wriggled out of his charges, he handed over plenty of information on his old mates.
"Those Death Eaters would love nothing more than to swallow him whole these days—so how in the world could he ever go back to the Dark Lord's side?
"The only reason he stuck around at Hogwarts the past couple years was because he was scared of them getting revenge on him!
"And another thing—people saying he'd dare pull something right under Dumbledore's nose? That's just laughable!
"Forget Karkaroff—even Snape, all these years, he's been..."
At that point, Hagrid seemed to catch himself and clamped his mouth shut.
But the second he saw the look on Sherlock and Hermione's faces; he couldn't help blurting out in astonishment:
"You—you two already knew?"
Sherlock and Hermione just smiled and said nothing.
"Well, I never liked that woman anyway, not since last year!"
Hagrid obviously meant Umbridge. "Thought she was really something, didn't she—well, Moody put her in her place and she's been a fair sight more polite since. Shame Moody was the one who hauled Karkaroff off to Azkaban in the first place—so there's no chance he'll be speaking up for him this time round."
Hagrid went on rambling for quite a while longer after that, letting slip more than a few things he really shouldn't have.
Sherlock and Hermione were long since used to Hagrid's habit of letting secrets slip without meaning to.
Finally, right at the end, Hagrid said: "Been spending every spare hour I've got in the forest lately—Aragog's taken a bad turn, worse than before. I read to him."
At this, Hermione froze for a long moment before finally speaking up in warning:
"Hagrid, you need to be careful. If this keeps up, his children and grandchildren might turn on you one day..."
"They wouldn't—I watched every last one of 'em grow up—"
"What are you even saying? The only reason those giant spiders haven't eaten you is because Aragog ordered them not to!"
"Not a chance, not a chance in the world!"
"Sherlock, will you please talk some sense into him!"
"Hagrid, if I'm not mistaken, you're also planning to bring his body back after he dies, aren't you?"
"What're you on about—"
Before Hagrid could even finish, Hermione had already cried out in shock.
"Acromantula tradition is to eat their dead! You can't possibly be thinking of doing that!"
"Er... to be honest, yeah..."
"You—"
"I know it's their way. But I want to give him a proper burial... send him off right..."
Hermione let out a series of huffing breaths, her chest was heaving.
She was well and truly out of words.
On the way back, she still couldn't stop muttering to herself.
"I think I'm starting to understand what Ron meant now, Sherlock."
"You mean, 'Hagrid getting sacked back then was unfair, but him getting sacked now wouldn't be unfair at all'?"
"Exactly!" Hermione said firmly. "I need to give this some real thought. Next time I visit him, I have to talk him out of it."
"You won't manage it," Sherlock shook his head. "Don't waste your time on something like this."
"You call this a small thing?" Hermione stared at him in disbelief.
Seeing Sherlock nod, Hermione couldn't help but press further: "Then what does matter?"
"Karkaroff being put on probation."
"That again?" Hermione was even more baffled. "What's so special about that?"
"Umbridge has been showing up constantly at every single teacher's lessons lately."
"Isn't that literally her job as High Inquisitor? Mad-Eye Moody does more than just search teachers' offices too—he sits in on lessons sometimes, doesn't he?"
"That's exactly the problem," Sherlock's eyes took on a thoughtful, distant look. "If it had been Moody who put Karkaroff on probation, I wouldn't have found it nearly so surprising."
March was fast approaching, and though the weather hadn't changed much, the days had turned damper and windier.
On the last day of February, a notice went up on the common room board announcing the date of the next Hogsmeade trip. It fell on the first of March—a Saturday.
"Brilliant, that's my birthday—I've been looking forward to it all week!"
"Happy early birthday, then," said Hermione.
"Same 'ere." Harry seconded it at once.
"Wait, hang on, does that mean you two aren't coming to Hogsmeade?"
Ron asked, curious.
"I'm going with Cho," Harry said, a little sheepishly. "Aren't you going with Lavender?"
"Er—right, well. You will still get me a birthday present early though, won't you?"
Once Harry had confirmed he would, Ron turned to look at Sherlock and Hermione.
"I'm not going," Sherlock said, shaking his head, unsurprisingly.
Hermione hesitated a moment before saying, "I'm not going either."
And so, once again, Sherlock and Hermione were the two left behind at school while everyone else went off to Hogsmeade.
Not long after, they learned that the name of the second teacher to be placed on probation had been announced.
Rubeus Hagrid.
The reasons given this time appeared just as thorough as before.
More thorough, in fact, than the case made for Karkaroff's probation.
First, Hagrid was a half-giant.
As everyone knew, the wizarding world's opinion of giants was only marginally better than its opinion of werewolves.
Most wizards believed giants to be violent by nature—even Hagrid himself admitted as much: it was in their blood, the same as trolls, born loving to kill.
By that same logic, a half-giant would surely inherit that same trait from his giant blood.
Second, Hagrid had once been expelled from Hogwarts.
It was true that during Sherlock and Harry's third year, the real culprit behind the opening of the Chamber of Secrets over fifty years earlier had been identified, clearing Hagrid's name. But according to Ministry records, Hagrid's academic performance while at Hogwarts had not been particularly good.
Whether someone with a record like that was fit to be a Hogwarts professor was, evidently, a matter open to debate.
Third, during his previous years teaching Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid had a history of students getting injured.
It was true that some courses carried an inherent degree of danger, but the content of a course was, in the end, chosen by the professor teaching it. Having chosen to teach such content, the professor naturally bore some responsibility, within reason, for ensuring the students' safety.
Finally, Hagrid had a particular fondness for creatures that were enormous, dangerous, and ferocious.
Hippogriffs, for one. Blast-Ended Skrewts, for another. Thestrals, too—and Thestrals in particular had been classified by the Ministry as a dangerous creature.
There was also a special additional point: the Blast-Ended Skrewts that had injured students before had been bred by Hagrid himself. This creature, something between a Manticore and a Fire Crab, carried considerable danger.
Breeding new species of magical creature was, notably, subject to close monitoring by the Ministry's Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
Hagrid's private breeding of the Blast-Ended Skrewts had, from the start, skirted right up against the line.
And on top of that, the Skrewts had gone and injured a student during class—even if the injury itself had been minor.
Back then, with Voldemort's return dominating everything, and with the Skrewts having killed each other off down to just the one survivor—which was then thrown into the maze for the final task of the Triwizard Tournament and made use of there—the whole matter had simply been left to quietly drop.
But if someone genuinely wanted to dig up the past and hold him accountable now, there was no way Hagrid could escape it.
"How could this happen?"
The moment Hermione finished reading the notice in full, standing there in the Gryffindor common room, she was utterly stunned.
She never would have imagined that, after Karkaroff, someone else would be placed on probation too.
And that the someone would be Hagrid.
Hermione couldn't help but turn and ask, "Sherlock, what on earth is going on here?"
"Well-reasoned. Convincing."
Sherlock gestured toward the listed reasons, and said, under Hermione's astonished gaze.
"None of it was invented out of thin air. Going by these reasons, Hagrid genuinely does meet the conditions for probation—more convincingly, even, than Karkaroff did."
"But—but—"
"I know what you're going to say."
Sherlock patted Hermione on the shoulder.
"You could refute every one of these points, one by one:
"For instance—Hagrid may be a half-giant, but he's gentle by nature, with no violent tendencies whatsoever.
"For instance—Hagrid's marks at school may not have been good, but his knowledge of magical creatures more than meets the standard of an expert professor.
"For instance—Hagrid may have a fondness for enormous, ferocious creatures, but as long as his instructions are followed, there's no real danger to be had..."
"Yes! That's exactly what I mean!"
Hermione said urgently.
"That's precisely my point."
Sherlock shook his head slowly.
"You and Hagrid are good friends. Naturally, you're inclined to make excuses for him."
"I'm not—I didn't—"
"No. You are."
Sherlock's grey eyes held hers.
"Ask yourself honestly—if it were Snape in Hagrid's place, having done all these same things, would you be defending him this way?"
Hermione: "..."
Sherlock let out a soft laugh. "At the very least, in the eyes of most people, the reasons given this time hold up perfectly well.
"Watch and see—hardly anyone is going to speak up for Hagrid on this.
"And besides, compared to Professor Hagrid, people already had a far more appealing option waiting in the wings, didn't they?"
"You mean... Professor Grubbly-Plank?"
"Obviously, my friend."
Hermione fell completely silent.
She knew all too well, better than anyone, the gap between Hagrid and Grubbly-Plank.
Here's a sad little story for you:
Among the sixth-year N.E.W.T.-level Care of Magical Creatures students, faced with a choice between Professor Grubbly-Plank and Hagrid, not a single one of them would have sided with Hagrid.
Hagrid used to have Harry, Hermione, and Ron in his corner too—except none of the three of them had taken the course this year.
And even when they had supported him, it was never because Hagrid's teaching was actually any good—it was purely because Hagrid was their friend. That was support for the person, not the teaching.
Now, with this whole business blowing up, Hagrid on probation and Professor Grubbly-Plank back in action, nearly every student welcomed her with open arms.
Sherlock's prediction was proven correct in no time at all.
By the time most people had returned from Hogsmeade and learned that Hagrid, the Care of Magical Creatures professor, had been placed on probation just like Karkaroff, and that his classes would be taken over by Professor Grubbly-Plank, everyone was thrilled.
Hardly anyone even bothered wondering why Hagrid had been put on probation in the first place.
"Brilliant, Professor Grubbly-Plank is finally back!"
"I nearly didn't pick this course this year, I was so torn about it!"
"Same here, same here—Umbridge's finally done something decent for once!"
"Same 'ere!"
It wasn't an exaggeration to say the whole thing was met with unrestrained delight—cheers all around, universal celebration, everyone spreading the good news. Among them were two of Hermione's roommates—Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown.
"Honestly, Professor Grubbly-Plank's classes are exactly what I always pictured Care of Magical Creatures should be."
"Exactly—proper, respectable creatures like unicorns, not those monstrosities—"
"So, what's Hagrid supposed to do now?"
Harry cut in, indignant, upon overhearing the two of them.
"Harry, why are you getting so worked up?" Parvati looked at him, a little surprised.
"Am I worked up?"
Harry's eyes went wide.
"Fine, even if Hagrid really can't teach anymore, he's still the gamekeeper, isn't he?"
"That's not remotely the same thing!"
Before Harry could even respond, Ron had already burst out.
"Ronnie, calm down!"
"Am I not calm?"
Ron's eyes went wide too.
You can read more than 40 chapters on:
patreon.com/MikeyMuse