|
Hagrid gave a great sob. He had made himself a black armband out of what looked like a rag dipped in boot polish, and his eyes were puffy, red, and swollen. Harry patted him consolingly on the elbow, which was the highest point of Hagrid he could easily reach.
"Where are we burying him." he asked. "The forest." "Blimey, no," said Hagrid, wiping his streaming eyes on the bottom of his shirt. "The other spiders won' let me anywhere near their webs now Aragog's gone. Turns out it was only on his orders they didn' eat me! Can yeh believe that, Harry." The honest answer was "yes"; Harry recalled with painful ease the scene when he and Ron had come face-to-face with the aero-mantulas. They had been quite clear that Aragog was the only thing that stopped them from eating Hagrid.
"Never bin an area o' the forest I couldn' go before!" said Hagrid, shaking his head. "It wasn' easy, gettin' Aragog's body out o' there, I can tell yeh — they usually eat their dead, see. . . . But I wanted ter give 'im a nice burial... a proper send-off. . ." He broke into sobs again and Harry resumed the patting of his elbow, saying as he did so (for the potion seemed to indicate that it was the right thing to do), "Professor Slughorn met me coming down here, Hagrid." "Not in trouble, are yeh." said Hagrid, looking up, alarmed. "Yeh shouldn’ be outta the castle in the evenin', I know it, it's my fault —" "No, no, when he heard what I was doing he said he'd like to come and pay his last respects to Aragog too," said Harry.
"He's gone to change into something more suitable, I think…and he said he'd bring some bottles so we can drink to Aragog's mem-ory..."
 |  |
|
