Chapter 291: Grief and Understanding
Bang!
The Great Hall's large doors were pushed open forcefully, and a tall figure appeared in the doorway. The festive atmosphere paused slightly as everyone turned to look.
"Oh! Sorry, I pushed too hard," Hagrid said in his deep voice.
"Welcome, welcome back our gamekeeper!" Dumbledore said with a smile.
The crowd began applauding warmly. At this moment, nothing could diminish their good mood.
"Oh! Hagrid's back, that's wonderful," Harry saw Hagrid and immediately showed a delighted smile, standing up to greet him.
However, moments later, the group exchanged glances, all looking somewhat guilty.
Of course, they were happy Hagrid had returned. The problem was, they had already replaced Hagrid's closest "friend" with Galleons—something difficult to explain to Hagrid.
"What do we do?" Ron whispered.
"Tell him the truth. What else can we do?" Dudley said.
The situation had been so dire that the spider hadn't cared whether they were Hagrid's friends or not. They'd had no other choice. If Hagrid couldn't understand this, then their friendship could only end there.
"Let's go. We'll greet Hagrid together," Harry stood up first, and the group walked toward Hagrid.
"Hagrid, welcome back," Hermione was the first to embrace him, then the others stepped forward and hugged him in turn.
"I was worried you'd all forgotten me," Hagrid said with a laugh.
"How could we..." Hermione said awkwardly, uncertain what to say.
Harry and Ron also felt too embarrassed to speak.
Seeing this, Dudley knew he had to be the one to address this, so he pulled Hagrid to a corner of the Great Hall.
"What's wrong? Did something happen?" Hagrid asked, somewhat puzzled.
"It's like this, Hagrid. Do you remember what you told us?" Dudley asked.
"Of course!" Hagrid glanced around, then lowered his voice to Dudley. "Dudley, I don't know how you did it, but you actually managed to get me—locked in Azkaban—to communicate with you. That really surprised me. However, I won't tell anyone about this. Don't worry."
"And thank you for solving the Chamber mystery. If you hadn't, I might still be locked up in Azkaban for a while. I'm really grateful to you all. I never want to go back to that awful place again," Hagrid said, visibly shuddering at the thought, his face turning very pale.
It was clear he held a deep fear of Azkaban.
"Um... regarding this matter, I want to tell you that based on your hint, we went deep into the Forbidden Forest," Dudley continued.
"Oh? What happened? Aragog told you the truth, didn't he?" Hagrid asked with a smile.
Harry's trio exchanged glances and lowered their heads.
"It did tell us some truth, but after our conversation ended, it allowed its offspring to attack us, treating us as food for its descendants," Dudley said directly.
"What... what...?" Hagrid's face was full of disbelief, freezing in place.
"This... this isn't possible! Aragog promised me he wouldn't harm humans! He would absolutely never do such a thing! If you're all here alive right now, that means he stopped his offspring in the end, right?"
Hagrid's face became very difficult to look at. He couldn't believe that his own companion would allow its offspring to attack Dudley and the others.
"Actually, Aragog did nothing. It clearly told us that it had promised you it wouldn't harm humans, but it never promised that its offspring wouldn't harm humans," Harry also spoke.
"It also said our flesh smelled very fresh," Ron said, looking down.
"Finally, it even said goodbye to us—'Goodbye, Hagrid's friends,'" Hermione said.
"Oh! No..." Hagrid couldn't believe any of this was real.
But he also knew that Dudley and the others wouldn't joke about such matters.
"Aragog, how could he... how could he do this...?" Hagrid's lips trembled slightly, as if betrayed by a lifelong friend.
"So in the end, you...?" Hagrid looked pale as he looked at Dudley and the others.
"We killed Aragog and the giant spiders that tried to attack us," Dudley said directly.
"Oh..." Hagrid's body swayed slightly. He had to grab the nearby wall to keep himself standing.
"Hagrid, we..." Hermione tried to say something, but Dudley shook his head, stopping her.
At a time like this, Hagrid needed time to digest this information himself and make his own choice.
After about half a minute, Hagrid's emotions finally settled.
"You're right. You did the right thing. It was my mistake to underestimate Aragog's danger. This is all because of me. Dudley, you don't need to feel sorry about this. I'm the one who should apologise to you all. I nearly got you killed in the Forbidden Forest. I'm truly sorry."
Tears flowed from the corners of Hagrid's eyes—whether from guilt or grief over Aragog's death, Dudley couldn't tell. Probably both.
Hagrid should have anticipated Aragog's danger and prevented all this, but instead, he had let Dudley and the others venture deep into the Forbidden Forest to learn the truth, leading to an uncontrollable confrontation.
At that point, death had been an almost inevitable outcome. Either Aragog would die, or Dudley and the others would.
So the current result was already the best possible—Dudley and the others were unharmed, with only Aragog dead.
"Hagrid, we..." Harry started guiltily.
"It's all right, Harry. You all did nothing wrong," Hagrid wiped the tears from his face.
"Then, Aragog's corpse...?" Hagrid wanted one final farewell to his friend.
"I burned it. Well, it also attacked us in the end, so I had to cast counter-spells," Dudley explained simply.
Harry's trio said nothing. After all, the Galleons in their possession right now were all exchanged from Aragog and its descendants.
"It's fine, it's fine... It's better this way," Hagrid raised his head slightly, barely holding back his tears.
Dudley and the others exchanged glances, all sighing with relief.
At least Hagrid was reasonable. In the end, he made the right choice and didn't blame them for killing Aragog. This way, their friendship could continue and wouldn't be completely destroyed by this incident.