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Chattering Cucumber Crumble



Hagrid spent the night at Shell Cottage and the next morning, after a breakfast of sausages and strong coffee, he made his way into the courtyard with his pink umbrella and climbed onto the enchanted motorcycle he’d gotten years and years ago from Sirius Black. Tugging the goggles over his hairy head, Hagrid waved goodbye and shouted a promise to come back in a month’s time to check on the baby thestral, then pushed off the ground and into the clouds. He found himself distracted by thoughts of the prophecy left in his care nearly forty years prior, just after the Battle of Hogwarts had concluded…

It had been a dark night in October, before Halloween, that Professor McGonagall had crossed the grounds of the castle carrying a rather ornate box under her arm. She’d rapped with her knuckles on Hagrid’s cabin door and waited, shaking rain from her cloak. “Hagrid, I need to speak with you on extremely important matters,” she called through the door.

Hagrid had been in the middle of inspecting a funny egg he’d found in the forest that day, and hesitated, unsure if the egg was something he wanted the Headmistress to see. Finally, he’d tossed a blanket over the top and opened the door. “Well Professor McGonagall,” he’d announced, clapping his hands in what he hoped was a good impression of a nonchalant greeting, “Hello there.”

“Hello, Hagrid,” she’d greeted him, “And how are you this evening?”

“Right,” he said, “Just right.” He stepped between her and the cloth-covered egg, waving a hand to the table. “Like some tea, headmistress?” he offered.

“Tea would be splendid,” McGonagall replied, but before Hagrid could bustle to the fireplace she spun her wand and produced a tea kettle, two cups and saucers, and a tin of biscuits in the air before her. “I’m afraid I’m a bit picky about my tea,” she apologized, putting the ornate box on the table. “Do help yourself.” Hagrid obliged, taking a hold of one of the tea cups in his hands. It was like a thimble compared to him though and a whole cup was but a single sip and he returned the cup to the levitating saucer, nearly knocking it out of the air. McGonagall seemed not to notice. “As I said, I have very important matters to discuss with you,” she said, placing her own teacup back on the saucer gently.

Hagrid sat down opposite her, keeping a wary eye on the blanket. “What’s troublin’ yer, Minerva?” he asked.

“I have been speaking with Dumbledore’s portrait, Rubeus, and it seems that there was some unfinished business that Albus had been attending to at the time of his death that was overlooked in the rush of preparing Harry Potter for his fight against Lord Voldemort,” McGonagall explained, only the slightest pause to her voice before saying the name of the dark wizard. She’d been trying to get quite used to saying it, now that he was gone, but as someone who had lived through the thick of his reign of terror over the wizarding world, it was quite hard to speak it even in his death without feeling a chill upon one’s spine. But, as Dumbledore had said many a time, there was no fear in the name itself but only in the hatred which was carried in the heart of he whom it represented.

“What sort of business?” Hagrid asked.

McGonagall grasped the box and pushed it toward Hagrid. “In this box is a prophecy,” she said, “A very important prophecy that Albus became possessor of after the Hall of Prophecies had been destroyed by the organization known as the D.A.” Minerva ran her fingers over the top of the box, “He says it is extremely important that this prophecy be looked after by only the most loyal of Hogwarts faculty.”

Hagrid stared at the box, too.

Minerva pushed it toward him.
Hagrid paused, the meaning of the moment sinking in. “Blimey, yer can’t be meanin’ me?” he asked in surprise.

“Yes,” she sniffed, “Dumbledore specifically requested that I give the box to you for - er, safekeeping.” McGonagall’s eyes had landed upon the blanket-covered egg, which was now trembling slightly.

Hagrid followed her stare to the egg, then looked up sheepishly. “I’ll guard it with me life, professor,” he said boldly. He opened the lid of the box and peeked inside. A clear glass ball with purple smoke swirling inside of it sat nestled in a bed of red satin. “What’s the prophecy about?”

“That,” McGonagall said, “I cannot tell you. I don’t even know. But he said it is extremely important that we hold onto it until it’s due time.”

“How’re yeh ter know when the due time’s at?” Hagrid questioned.

McGonagall had shaken her head, “He didn’t say, Rubeus,” she replied. “He won’t tell me. Simply put, he says you’ll know when it’s time.” She took a sip of her tea and upon replacing the cup to saucer once again, she ran her fingers along the length of her wand thoughtfully. “The only thing he said was that he very recently had given you book - something about recipes for salads made with magical produce - and he said if you made his favorite chattering cucumber recipe that it might be very helpful to helping you understand.” McGonagall waited for Hagrid to respond, perhaps hoping he’d explain how the gossipy little squash dish could possibly help.

The egg made a funny creaky sound beneath the blanket.

Hagrid swallowed. “Er,” he mumbled, “Er I reckon the, uh, the book’s ‘round here somewhere,” he said. He eyed the blanket nervously. When McGonagall followed his gaze to it, he stood up abruptly, nearly tipping over the table, and Fang leaped off his bedding by the fireplace and rushed to the door, tail wagging, as though he knew his master was in need of a distraction, “Now if yeh’ll excuse me,” Hagrid said, “Looks as though Fang’s got ter git outside… Bin holdin’ it since afternoon.” Hagrid flapped his arms.

McGonagall waved her wand, magicking away the tea set and biscuits and she headed for the door. She glanced back at the open box on the table, the glow of the prophecy casting an eerie tone to the interior of the hut. Hagrid pushed open the door over her head and Fang bolted out before her, disappearing into the dark pumpkin patch. McGonagall looked up at Hagrid as she stepped onto the stoop and pulled her hood up onto her head once more, “This is very serious business, Rubeus,” she reminded him, “Very serious indeed. Whatever this is is enough to have kept Dumbledore from his final rest.”

Hagrid glanced back at the prophecy, then back to McGonagall. “I understand, headmistress,” he growled.

“I certainly hope so,” she said. She started walking across the grounds, headed back to the castle via the long sloping pathway.

Hagrid looked over at Fang in the garden, doing his business on the corner of the wheelbarrow.

“And Hagrid?” called Professor McGonagall.

He looked up at her.

“Don’t tell Potter about this.”

“Yes’m,” he called back.

She walked on until she’d disappeared in the dark. Fang rushed back into the hut, shaking the water off his fur, and Hagrid closed the door again, clicking it shut. He turned ‘round and lifted the blanket from the egg only to find two broke-open halves and no creature from within.

“Blimey,” he muttered, looking around, unsure what sort of creature was on the loose.

(It had turned out to be a funny sort of tropical version of a gryffin - half parrot, half cheetah - which he’d named Bungler and kept in the hut for a couple months before Professor McGonagall had discovered it and had it sent off to the wizard zoologist department at the ministry, where Rolf Scamander had examined it… and of course it had been Bungler that had been the topic that Luna Lovegood had been researching for the Quibbler when she’d met Rolf, who’d become her husband.)

Now, that morning after attending to Bill Weasley’s thestrals, as he lowered the motorbike through the atmosphere to the grounds, another memory came to Hagrid, one that answered his question about where he’d heard that name before... It’d been years after McGonagall had come to him with the prophecy, he’d grown a particularly talkative batch of chattering cucumbers, and the head chef house elf, Winky, was complaining, unsure what to do with the basket of’em she had already, and he’d reached for a book to get her a recipe…

Hadn’t he seen a name scribbled in the margins in a tight, loopy writing?

Hadn’t Winky commented on it, pointing a long finger at the name, asking if it was the name of a victim of the last batch of chattering cucumbers?

Hadn’t he thought it was a funny name - especially that first one?

Hagrid landed in mud and the bike tipped over as he rushed off it and ran up the cobblestones to his doorway, slamming through it, stepping carefully over a line of little spiders running across the wood floor, ducking beneath a thick clump of hippogriff feathers hanging from the ceiling and knocked a toy model of a centaur to one side as he grabbed hold of Aardvarkian Asparagus to Zuzagamber Berries: Baking, Cooking, and Otherwise Preparing Wizard Produce from the shelf. Quickly, he opened the index, found the recipe for chattering cucumber crumble and turned to see the answer scrawled along the margin in Dumbledore’s too familiar handwriting.

I should very much like to chat with Miss Ermalene Talon. - APWBD.

“Gallopin’ gargoyles.”