WHO: Joseph Bell & Dempster Wiggleswade, ft. Rubeus Hagrid, Grawp, & the Carrows. WHAT: Hitwizards Bell & Wiggleswade attempt to arrest Vigilante Hagrid for throwing a Support Harry Potter party. WHEN: 24 March, night. WHERE: Hogwarts. WARNINGS: None.
Approaching the entrance to Hogwarts was eery now, with dementors visibly crowding the sky. Joe kept his face expressionless, though the unnatural cold feeling set in rather easily and he could feel himself growing rather void of any feeling. The Carrows met the pair of Hitwizards at the entrance and lead them through the ground to the gamekeeper's hut, and Joe looked straight at the castle. It was so different from what he had remembered, but maybe it was because he left the castle with fond memories and now he was back for Hagrid.
"So what's he done, then?" Joe asked, trying to be as civil as possible to the rumoured Death Eaters.
Dempster suppressed a chill as she took in the sight of the castle — had it always been this gray? Had she somehow missed the gloominess of the whole thing when she’d been at school?
“He’s throwing himself a Support Harry Potter party,” Amycus said, rolling his eyes as he worked through the spells on the gate.
“And worse yet, he has students out after curfew,” Alecto informed them before pursing her lips tightly together. “He’s been trying to corrupt them all year.”
Dempster raised her eyebrows at Joe and mouthed, “Support Harry Potter party?”
Joe shrugged at Dempster, wondering what exactly one does at a 'support Harry Potter party', but he figured he was about to find out soon enough.
His attention shifted to the Carrows and he cleared his throat before continuing, "Are there any students around, or is it literally just Hagrid himself?" Which… somehow ended up sounding sadder than he had really intended. Joe had only been curious about the students and their support, but from the rumours, he could see how they might be present.
“A few of the usual suspects,” Alecto said, her tone clipped with impatience.
Amycus smirked beside her as the gates finally opened, the magic around them seeming to give a sigh of relief. “Maybe you’d like to give them a scare?”
“Can’t resist a good scare,” Dempster said with a laugh and led the way onto the grounds. “We’ll think of something real scary for them.”
She gave the Carrows a wide berth as she passed them. With a glance at Joe, she started drifting backward in the direction of the gamekeeper’s hut. She didn’t want to turn her back on those two and she definitely didn’t want their company on the walk. With a laugh that sounded a little forced, she held up her hands and gave them a shrug. “Love scaring kids!”
Joe, on the other hand, was just about to oppose that idea entirely as he most certainly didn't want to scare children, but Dempster had reacted before he had the chance to and he managed to catch the forced laughter. Instead of resisting the twins, Joe followed it up with his own fake grin and nodded. "I think we've got experience with a few scare tactics. We'll make sure to scare them good!"
He sighed in relief after the Carrows finally left, after having convinced them that they would get a full report of what happens. Joe turned to Dempster and raised one brow, "If there's even one child there, I'm not going to use force on him or her, no matter the reason."
“We can just bring them back to the castle,” Dempster said, throwing a glance over her shoulder at where the Carrows had left them to return there themselves. She aimed a smirk at him when she was satisfied they weren’t following. “Maybe if it’s a really good party, we can stick around.”
"Depends on your definition of 'really good', I guess," Joe replied at once, though he did manage to smile at her.
Though the rest of their remaining trek to Hagrid's hut was mostly quiet, Joe felt a little queasy about what may happen. Hagrid was huge and apparently half-giant, and Joe had never had any reason to fight any half-giants, and what if things went south quickly?
When they had finally reached the steps to the door, Joe glanced at the windows to see if he could spot any figures lurking around.
Finally, he glanced at Demeter and reached for his wand, holding it at the ready. "Alright. Let's do this," he stated, his voice surprisingly steady.
Dempster held her wand securely in one hand. With the other, she reached up to knock on the door. Inside, the quiet din of conversation fell completely silent.
“Open up!” She cleared her throat. “DMLE!”
The door to the hut creaked open and out stepped the gigantic man. "'Ello there, I don' want no trouble. On'y meself here."
It was obvious that Joe was slightly intimidated by Hagrid, but even so, he spoke ahead anyway. "We've gotten reports that you're hosting a Support Harry Potter party," he started, raising his wand just a bit. "Potter is —," he paused momentarily, "— a wanted criminal and you are directly disobeying the rule of the land."
And after some time: "We are here to arrest you."
“Make this easy for us and no one gets hurt,” Dempster said, doing her best impression of a no-nonsense cop. “We know you have students in there. We don’t want to make a scene.”
And then without a warning, Hagrid's pink umbrella was aimed at the Hitwizards. Before Joe could realise what was happening, he caught sight of a brief flash from the umbrella, which sent him flying backwards and falling on the ground.
"Get outta here!" Hagrid was shouting over his shoulder, to the occupants inside the hut. "Lemme handle this meself!"
Joe attempted to throw a Stunning Spell at the groundskeeper but no matter how strong he aimed his spell, it seemed like it was weak, anyway.
Dempster shot off an arresting spell at the half-giant and tossed a worried glance at Joe. But before she could do anything else to help him, the rest of the hut’s inhabitants spilled out the door behind Hagrid. They pushed past her, knocking her over onto the ground beside Joe, and took off running across the grounds towards Hogwarts.
“You handle him,” she said to her partner with a jerk of her head in Hagrid’s direction. And with a glance at the students, she added, “I’ll get them,” before heaving herself up and taking off after the others.
Joe nodded briefly at Dempster, pushing himself up and off the ground, aiming a few more spells at Hagrid, even though it almost seemed like they were just bouncing off of the giant man. He shouted something intelligible and Joe looked confused for a moment, but his eyes caught sight of something from the hut —
A weird animal, something of a cross of a piglet and a deer, appeared from the shadows. A moment later, Joe realised it was a nogtail and he shouted, "Dempster!" Though it may have not helped at all, as the nogtail immediately launched itself at the other Hitwizard, growling.
The distraction was all that was needed for Hagrid to take off running, his height giving him the advantage of covering a longer distance in a short amount of time. But Joe had only a split second to decide what he wanted to do — run after the supposed criminal or stay with his partner. He chose the latter, as he tried to pry the nogtail away from her.
“Ugh!” She said when she realized Joe had come to her aid. “Get Hagrid!”
For her part, Dempster pushed and kicked at the pig-faced creature that had come charging her out of nowhere. She managed to scurry free while Joe distracted it. She whirled around to find the gamekeeper, but instead saw familiar figure running from the direction of the animals’ pens behind Hagrid’s hut.
“Stop right there, Corner!”
But he kept on running, dodging the several spells she sent after him in hopes of slowing him down.
"He's gone!" Joe shouted, now only able to see a distant shadowy figure in the general direction of where Hagrid was. But he managed to stun the nogtail, leaving the animal on the ground, while the students continued to scatter and head towards the castle. "We're not hurting the students, Dempster!" he yelled, making sure to remind his colleague of the promise he'd made earlier. "Come on!"
“A stunner isn’t going to hurt him,” Dempster said, breathing heavy and clearly frustrated. But she gave up on chasing the students, who were already long gone. “What happened to Hagrid? You’re supposed to be arresting him!”
"He ran off!" retaliated Joe, waving one hand in agitation. "I tried to stun him but nothing worked!"
“Seriously?” Dempster stared at him for a beat before threw up her hands. With a loud sigh, she tucked her wand under her arm and started straightening out her robes, brushing grass and mud off the best she could. “I can't believe you let him get away. Yaxley’s going to think we’re idiots.”
Yaxley can jump off a cliff, was the first thought that popped in Joe's head, though he supposed that thought would do well to stay internalised. He, instead, offered a very meek shrug and once again glanced towards the direction in which Hagrid had run off. And then he looked at Dempster a moment later and asked, "Are you okay, though? Are you hurt?"
“I’m fine,” she said, shrugging to fix her robes around her shoulders. She mostly was fine, save some scrapes and bruises from being mauled by some long-legged pig thing. “What about you?”
As if on cue, something near his abdomen squirmed with pain. Joe winced momentarily, but shrugged it off quickly. "I'm fine," he replied, maybe a beat too late, and offered her another shrug. "We should go, before the Carrows make us give them the actual full report. Come on, Dempster." He nodded towards the entrance of the school grounds, having forgotten how irritating it was that there was no Apparition here.
“No way,” Dempster said, raising her eyebrows at him. “We have to find Hagrid. He can’t have gone that far.” She glanced at the Forbidden Forest and frowned. “Somewhere in there.”
Joe stared apprehensively at the Forbidden Forest now, having only heard about the rumoured creatures lurking in the dark over there. He raised one brow and glanced at Demeter with a quizzical expression. He weighed his options for a moment, before exhaling loudly. "Alright, let's go." Joe started taking a few strides towards the forest, internally pumping himself with good vibes. He'd be fine, he assured himself. There wouldn't be too many dangerous creatures, so close to the castle with students around!
If the seventh years at Hogwarts could survive a night in the Forbidden Forest by themselves, surely two hitwizards wouldn’t have any problems. Or at least that’s what Dempster told herself when she set off toward the forest’s edge.
“It shouldn’t take long. He’s kind of hard to miss.” She hesitated at the treeline for long enough to steel her nerves and then she ducked inside.
For a few minutes, Joe walked in complete silence, trying to train his ears to listen to sounds that he wasn't normally used to. Besides the typical sounds that one would expect from the woods late at night, Joe couldn't really distinguish any other noises. The further the pair of Hitwizards got into the forest and the further away they were from the grounds, the darker their surroundings got. "Lumos," he murmured quietly as the tip of his wand lit up.
And then suddenly, a loud growl seemed to come from some distance away. Joe paused in his steps and froze, trying to catch a glimpse of Dempster.
The earth suddenly seemed to shake, as though it was an earthquake and Joe genuinely had no idea how to react, not knowing what was to come.
Dempster froze and immediately shot a look at Joe. Practically under her breath, she asked, “What the hell was that?”
Joe waited for the shaking to stop, and he shook his head at Dempster. "No bloody idea!" he stated, in a loud whisper. "We don't have earthquakes around here, do we?" he vaguely mused out loud, before taking a few steps forward.
The growl came again, this time sounding closer, as the earth shook and shook and the vibrations grew and grew …
And suddenly, a sixteen-foot-giant was merely a stone's throw away, staring down at the pair of Hitwizards.
"Grawp!" came a familiar-sounding voice moments later, as Hagrid reappeared. "C'mon, Grawpy, we shouldn'ta come here."
"HAGGER!" the giant shouted, kicking a tree over like it was a mere stick towards the Hitwizards. Joe just barely managed to duck as it flew past him.
Dempster immediately lunged to take cover behind the nearest tree and let out a sound of shock and panic she’d never admit to making.
“Oh, fuck no,” she shouted and leaned around the tree enough to send another incarcerous at Hagrid. But this got the giant’s attention, and in that instant, Dempster decided she’d had enough. Backing away from the giant as quickly as she could, she called out, “Joe? Where the bloody hell are you?”
"Here! I'm here!" Joe shouted back at her, his hand blindly reaching for her. "Come on!" he shouted again when he grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him to try and run away from this spot as quickly as he could.
It seemed Hagrid had the same idea as suddenly the giant and his half-brother were running towards another direction, faster and faster, leaving behind thunderous echoes around the dark forest.
It wasn’t until they’d made it well past the edge of the forest that Dempster finally ground to a halt to catch her breath. Between them, she gasped out, “Was that a giant? Is Hagrid keeping a pet giant now?”
Joe had knelt over, his hands resting on his legs for support as he attempted to catch his breath, as well. A few seconds later: "He has a fucking giant in the forest. Or had, I guess? They must've disappeared by now." He glanced over his shoulder, at where they had just come from and let out a loud sigh. "We should really get back to the Ministry, right away."
“Yeah,” she agreed with a wary look over her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”