The Inadequate Life

Hagrid stood on the bridge that looked out over King’s Cross station, which was as good a place as any to have a private conversation. “When’s this all going teh come to a head, Harry?” he asked.

“Soon,” Harry answered, leaning on the rail and watching as the muggles ran to catch their trains. “We’re close to it,” he continued. “Maybe just after the New Year.”

“Yeh scared?”

Harry looked around at Hagrid in surprise. “Scared? Of course I’m bloody scared!”

“Good,” Hagrid said with a satisfied nod. “Yer not denyin’ it. Allas knew yeh were smart. Even Dumbledore got scared, and there weren’t a man alive more powerful ‘n him.”

Harry thought of the look in Dumbledore’s eyes, the treble in his voice, when Harry had forced the potion down his throat in the cave, and shuddered. “Yeah,” he agreed. “But I feel a bit less scared, knowing you’ll be there to help.”

Hagrid snorted. “Yeh didn’t need teh ask,” he said gruffly. “Yeh’ve been a great friend, Harry. Right from the beginning yeh treated me like an equal, and that never stopped. Yeh done right by me, and I’ll do right by you.”

“We all might die,” Harry pointed out bluntly. “We’ll probably be facing every bit of force the Voldemort can muster.”

Hagrid shivered at Voldemort’s name. “I trust you teh see us through,” he said, turning to look down soberly at Harry. “Folk die in war, Harry, so yeah, some of us probably will die. Bloody hell, Hermione already—” Hagrid fell silent, and Harry felt a wave of guilt wash over him. Like almost everyone else in the world, Hagrid thought that Hermione had been killed a few weeks earlier in a fight with Death Eaters. And as much as it pained him, Harry had no intention of correcting Hagrid’s misconception.

“Well—that’s just the way of things,” Hagrid forced out eventually. “But if I’m one’a them that dies, at least I’ll know I went doin’ what’s right, and givin’ you the chance teh take down You-Know-Who once and for all.”

Harry looked up at Hagrid guiltily. “What about Grawp? I doubt he’d really understand all that…”

“Prob’ly not,” Hagrid admitted. “But he’ll get that it’s somethin’ I have teh do, and he won’t let me do it alone. That’s good enough fer me.”

Harry nodded and turned his eyes back to the people below him, and the two of them stood in silence for a while. “I’m surprised you aren’t telling me to ask the Order for more help,” Harry said finally.

Hagrid shrugged. “Yeh have yer reasons fer not going teh McGonagall,” he said. “Yeh told me before that Dumbledore trusted yeh with something, so I know yer just followin’ it through. I’m no leader type, Harry—I don’t get all the complicated plannin’ and such. I’m a foot soldier in this war, and I’ve always known it. I trust yeh with my life, so when the time comes, just point me at the Death Eaters and I’ll do my part.”

*****

Harry returned to the House of Black in a somber mood. When he came out of the Floo, Ginny leapt up from the kitchen table to help him up. “How did it go?” she asked, and her eyes widened when she saw his expression. “Harry? Is everything okay? Is Hagrid—”

“Hagrid’s fine,” Harry said, glancing around. He saw that Hermione and Ron were at the table, along with Alicia and Katie. Well, I hadn’t planned on everyone in the D.A. knowing much of the plan yet, but they’ll have to know soon anyway. “Hagrid’s fine,” he repeated. “He and Grawp are definitely in.”

Ron looked very satisfied, as did Hermione, although she was clearly still had reservations about including Grawp. Alicia and Katie were simply puzzled. “In for what?” Katie asked. “Not the battle?”

When Harry nodded, both the girls gaped at him. “Hagrid and Grawp?” Alicia squeaked. “We’re going to have two giants running mad in the midst of everything?”

Harry was on the verge of snarling at Alicia when Katie piped up; “No, I get it,” she said, going from shocked to excited in a heartbeat. “That’s brilliant! Giants are damned hard to take down with magic—and the Death Eaters will piss themselves when they see Grawp!”

“That’s the plan,” Ron said with a grin.

Ginny’s attention had been focused on Harry from the moment he’d appeared. “Something’s wrong,” she murmured quietly, not knowing if Harry wanted anyone else to know about whatever it was.

“Too right something’s wrong!” Harry exploded suddenly, startling everyone. “I just spent an hour listening to Hagrid tell me that he trusts me with his life! Me! He expects me to have some brilliant plan that’s going to minimize the chances of all of us dying!”

“W-we do have that,” Hermione stammered, clearly stunned by Harry’s outburst. “We’ve been working on it for months—”

“It’s not good enough!” Harry shouted. “Every single idea we’ve come up with involves throwing ourselves into the line of fire! We need something better, something the Death Eaters can’t anticipate! Something that will keep us mobile so we’re not such obvious targets, or more people that Voldemort can’t know are on our side! Something!”

In the silence that followed, Harry clenched his jaw and fought back tears. He’d known all along that they were all risking their lives and that any of them might die in the war. But he’d just had driven home to him how much everyone’s safety hinged on him, on the decisions he made. One poor choice on his part, and Hagrid could die. Or Hermione. Or Ron. Or Ginny…

“I think that Alicia and Katie may have something to offer along those lines,” Hermione said wryly.

Harry blinked, his surprise distracting him. “What?”

“They just pointed out the regular Quidditch season just ended,” Ron said.

Harry realized that it was in fact early December, when the Quidditch League playoffs started. But the non-sequitur confused him. “So?”

“So, Puddlemere United finished fourth,” Alicia said with a slight grin.

“And that,” Katie concluded, “means that Oliver’s done for the season.”

Harry’s eyes widened. Oliver Wood, the former captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, was starting Keeper for Puddlemere United. When re-forming the D.A., Harry had reluctantly passed on inviting Oliver to join them—Oliver was a well-known and popular Quidditch player, and would have drawn too much attention, not to mention that he was far too busy traveling with the team. But if his season was over—“Have you heard from Wood?” he asked.

“Just last week,” Alicia said, and Harry noted that her cheeks were slightly pink. “He invited all of us from the old Gryffindor Quidditch team out for a drink—on him, since he’s pulling down Quidditch star money—once the last game of the season was through. That was last night, by the way. Oliver will be in Diagon Alley tomorrow.”

“Do you think he’d agree to join us?”

Alicia favored Harry with an ironic look. “This is Oliver we’re talking about, Harry,” she drawled. “The man couldn’t pass up a challenge to save his life. And above all he’s a good bloke, you know that. He’ll jump at the chance—hell, he’ll probably welcome the excitement since he’s expecting a dull off-season!”

Harry glanced at Ron and Hermione, both of whom nodded their agreement. Then he turned to face Ginny, and recoiled slightly when he saw her stern look. “Um…”

“Of course it’s all right,” Ginny interrupted, “as long as we take the same precautions as usual.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “Of course.” He looked back at Alicia and Katie, who seemed to be holding back laughter. “Go ahead and contact Wood, and tell him you’ll all meet with him, then,” he said. “Ron can go along to give Wood the Veritaserum and ask him the questions.”

“But—you’re not going to come too?” Katie asked.

Harry shook his head. “It’s not safe for me in public right now,” he pointed out. “And besides, we don’t want you to attract any more attention then necessary.”

“That’s right,” Alicia said with a straight face. “Because the two of us, Angelina, Fred, George, Oliver and Ron all crammed into a booth in a pub won’t attract any attention at all.”

“If you’re through,” Hermione said primly, “we have some news you should hear, Harry. In private,” she added.

“Oh. Okay,” Harry said. “Let’s go to the conference room, then.”

Harry followed Hermione and Ron up the stairs, with Ginny right behind him. He jumped when, halfway up the stairs, a hand ghosted across his arse, gave a quick squeeze and disappeared. Fighting back a grin, Harry didn’t even turn around and continued up the stairs.

As soon as they were all in the first conference room with the door shut, Harry said “Look, I’m sorry I blew up, all right? I think our plan’s come along okay, really. I just—”

”Harry,” Ginny interrupted softly, “it’s okay. We know how much Hagrid means to you. You want to know that he’ll be safe, just like you want for the rest of us.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah,” he replied around the lump in his throat.

“Well, that is what we’ve had in mind the entire time we’ve been developing our plans,” Hermione pointed out gently. “But there’s nothing wrong with questioning the plan’s effectiveness—it will only serve to make us re-examine our thinking for any potential flaws.”

“And come up with new stuff to try,” Ron added. “Like bringing Wood in. I’d like to have a lot more people…”

“So would I,” Harry agreed as they all sat at the table. “But when we re-started the D.A. we considered everyone we could think of, and the people who are here are the only ones we felt safe inviting in, for whatever reason. Wood’s situation has changed, so we were able to reconsider, but unless that’s happened for the other people we considered then I don’t see how we can bring any of them in.”

“Maybe we could take another look at your original list of people,” Ginny suggested, “and see if anyone else might be a possibility now?”

Everyone liked that idea. “I’ll look into it,” Hermione offered. “I still have the first hand-written list you gave me, Harry.”

“Great, thanks,” Harry said. “Okay—so what was it that I needed to hear?”

“We’ve heard from Dung,” Ron said with a grimace. “And he said that there’s no chance of him getting his hands on any Basilisk venom.”

Harry groaned. Luna, Sally-Ann, Padma and Terry were still quite insistent that basilisk venom was very likely a key to destroying or transmuting the Horcruxes. They’d been researching the magical properties of the venom, and what they’d found only supported their theories. “Well… I thought that might be the case,” Harry said with a sigh.

“But it’s a big problem,” Hermione stated, nibbling nervously on her fingernail. “What are we going to do? We don’t exactly have a lot of contacts within the criminal world, and even if we did, basilisk venom is simply too rare. I doubt even Borgin and Burkes has any, so we couldn’t use the same trick that we did to get Sawol Immortalis.”

“What about the Ministry?” Ron suggested. “Maybe Tonks—”

Harry shook his head. “There’s no way that Tonks is important enough to get her hands on basilisk venom. Even if the Ministry has any, it’s probably in the Department of Mysteries, or sealed in an impregnable vault. Or they destroyed it like they did with all the Time Turners once the found out Voldemort was back.”

“I hate to even consider this,” Ginny said, clearly reluctant, “but is there any chance that the basilisk corpse in the Chamber of Secrets still has venom?”

“No,” Hermione said with regret. “Not after all this time. It’s been four and a half years—even a corpse as big as a basilisk will only be bones now, especially in a place like that, where there are probably great many scavengers.”

“I can’t say I’m too upset to hear that,” Ginny replied with a grimace. “What about at Hogwarts? I bet Slughorn’s old stash had some less-than-legal things.”

“We can’t get into Hogwarts,” Harry pointed out. “By now Minerva will have had the secret passage sealed up, and we can’t go there overtly any more.”

They all fell silent, thinking. “I’m stumped,” Harry said finally. “I can’t think of any other options.”

No one else could either. “Maybe we should ask Pansy?” Hermione suggested. “She is a talented potions student, and worked with Snape on a lot of interesting brews. Plus, her family was very—um…”

“Evil?” Ron finished.

Hermione frowned at him. “Yes, I suppose so. If any family was likely to keep that sort of illicit item around, it would be them.”

“Or the Blacks,” Harry pointed out. “But there wasn’t any here in the house. Or the Malfoys, I suppose.”

“Too bad dad raided their mansion so many times then,” Ron chortled.

“I don’t know about asking Pansy, though,” Harry continued. “I mean, won’t she want to know why we want it?”

“If she does, that’s just too bad,” Ginny replied. “She’s accepted that there are some things in the D.A. that she doesn’t know about—this is just one more.”