Hagrid jumped and looked down at Harry as though he barely recognised him. Harry saw that he had two fresh cuts on his face and several new bruises.

“Oh, it’s yeh, Harry,” said Hagrid. “Yeh all righ’?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” lied Harry; but, next to this battered and mournful-looking Hagrid, he felt he didn’t really have much to complain about. “Er—are you OK?”

“Me?” said Hagrid. “Oh yeah, I’m grand, Harry, grand.”

He gazed into the depths of his pewter tankard, which was the size of a large bucket, and sighed. Harry didn’t know what to say to him. They sat side by side in silence for a moment. Then Hagrid said abruptly, “In the same boat, yeh an’ me, aren’ we, ’Arry?”

“Er—” said Harry.

“Yeah… I’ve said it before… both outsiders, like,” said Hagrid, nodding wisely. “An’ both orphans. Yeah… both orphans.”

He took a great swig from his tankard.

“Makes a diff’rence, havin’ a decent family,” he said. “Me dad was decent. An’ your mum an’ dad were decent. If they’d lived, life woulda bin diff’rent, eh?”

“Yeah… I’s’pose,” said Harry cautiously. Hagrid seemed to be in a very strange mood.

“Family,” said Hagrid gloomily. “Whatever yeh say, blood’s important…”

And he wiped a trickle of it out of his eye.

“Hagrid,” said Harry, unable to stop himself, “where are you getting all these injuries?”

“Eh?” said Hagrid, looking startled. “Wha’ injuries?”

“All those!” said Harry, pointing at Hagrid’s face.

“Oh… tha’s jus’ normal bumps an’ bruises, Harry,” said Hagrid dismissively, “I got a rough job.”

He drained his tankard, set it back on the table and got to his feet.

“I’ll be seein’ yeh, Harry… take care now.”

And he lumbered out of the pub looking wretched, and disappeared into the torrential rain. Harry watched him go, feeling miserable. Hagrid was unhappy and he was hiding something, but he seemed determined not to accept help. What was going on? But before Harry could think about it any further, he heard a voice calling his name.

“Harry! Harry, over here!”

Hermione was waving at him from the other side of the room. He got up and made his way towards her through the crowded pub. He was still a few tables away when he realised that Hermione was not alone. She was sitting at a table with the unlikeliest pair of drinking mates he could ever have imagined: Luna Lovegood and none other than Rita Skeeter, ex-journalist on the Daily Prophet and one of Hermione’s least favourite people in the world.

“You’re early!” said Hermione, moving along to give him room to sit down. “I thought you were with Cho, I wasn’t expecting you for another hour at least!”

“Cho?” said Rita at once, twisting round in her seat to stare avidly at Harry. “A girl?”

She snatched up her crocodile-skin handbag and groped within it.

“It’s none of your business if Harry’s been with a hundred girls,” Hermione told Rita coolly. “So you can put that away right now.”

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But this, apparently, was quite the wrong thing to say.	\|	Rita had been on the point of withdrawing an acid-green quill from her bag. Looking as though she had been forced to swallow Stinksap, she snapped her bag shut again.

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