Rubeus Hagrid

Template:HP character Rubeus Hagrid is a fictional character in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. The character is usually addressed only by his surname. Hagrid is the Keeper of Keys and Grounds, the gamekeeper and the Care of Magical Creatures teacher starting in Harry's third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Hagrid is twice as tall as the average man (roughly 3.5 meters, 11.5 feet, though roughly 8 feet in the film adaptations) and nearly three times as wide. He loves animals and magical creatures, particularly those that are unusual or dangerous. Rowling has said that Hagrid has little interest in tamer magical creatures because of the lack of a challenge, although he has a cowardly boarhound named Fang.

He is one of the first characters to imply that the idea of thinking of wizards as "pure-bloods" and "half-bloods" is a dated concept. Hagrid is known for his thick West country accent.

In the film adaptations of the Harry Potter novels, Hagrid is played by Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane. Rowling has said that when writing the first Harry Potter novel, she imagined Coltrane in the role.

His name, Rubeus, has two meanings in Latin, one meaning "red" or "reddish" and the other meaning "of the bramble", both accurate descriptions of his appearance. "Hagrid", according to Rowling in an interview with The Boston Globe, comes from an old English word "hagridden", meaning to have a nightmarish night, particularly when hung over; Hagrid is known to be a heavy drinker. In Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, the word is represented as typical Wessex slang and appears in the same passage as "Dumbledore", a local term for "bumblebee".

Hagrid was the first member of the Hogwarts staff to be introduced to Harry before he began attending the school.

Positions held

• Keeper of Keys and Grounds, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
• Hogwarts Gamekeeper
• Professor of Care of Magical Creatures
• Member, Order of the Phoenix

Background and role

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire it is revealed that Hagrid is of mixed human and giant parentage, his mother having been the giantess Fridwulfa, who left his wizard father when Hagrid was a baby. Hagrid has a half-brother, a giant named Grawp. Since giants have a reputation for being horribly brutal, and were once allies of Lord Voldemort, Hagrid keeps his parentage a secret and allows people to imagine other reasons for his great size. He has a friendly, softhearted personality and is easily driven to tears, as seen in his very first scene, when he drops Harry off at the Dursleys' in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He is very loyal to his friends, especially Dumbledore, who he refers to as the greatest wizard in the world multiple times, showing this loyalty on multiple occasions, though not always in an appropriate way; for example, when Vernon Dursley insults Dumbledore, Hagrid attempts to turn his son into a pig.

Hagrid was a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the same time as Tom Marvolo Riddle. Hagrid's first year was the 1940-1941 school year. Rowling has stated in an interview that Hagrid was in Gryffindor house. He was expelled during his third year, after being caught in possession of a dangerous acromantula: this already grave crime was worsened due to the belief that it was "The Monster of Slytherin," and that Hagrid had released it from Chamber of Secrets and, either intentionally or unintentionally, allowed it to attack and petrify (and in one case, kill) other students. This (inaccurate) belief was encouraged by Riddle, the actual criminal, who had been using the true Monster (a Basilisk) to attack students, and who had framed Hagrid to avoid the school being closed.

Following his expulsion, the Ministry of Magic broke Hagrid's oak wand and forbade him from performing magic. However, persuaded by Albus Dumbledore (who at the time was Transfiguration teacher), Headmaster Armando Dippet agreed to train Hagrid as gamekeeper, allowing the boy to remain at Hogwarts. Hagrid keeps the pieces of his wand in a pink umbrella, and performs small spells from time to time; however, he is technically forbidden to do magic, and since he is not a fully qualified wizard, he is somewhat deficient in it as compared to other adult wizards. By the time Harry attends Hogwarts, Hagrid is also the Keeper of Keys and Grounds: the former, according to Rowling, means "that he will let you in and out of Hogwarts." Part of his job includes leading the first years across the lake in boats, upon their initial arrival at Hogwarts.

Hagrid's love of dangerous magical creatures is central to the plot of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: a hooded person (Professor Quirrell in disguise) gives him a dragon egg to elicit details about Fluffy, the three-headed dog Hagrid has lent to Dumbledore to help guard the Philosopher's Stone. Hagrid lets slip to Harry, Ron, and Hermione that the way to get past Fluffy is to play music, which allows them to pursue the potential thief. The three also assist Hagrid after the dragon egg hatches, by helping to remove the baby dragon Norbert, who is taken to live in a dragon sanctuary in Romania where Ron's older brother, Charlie Weasley, works.

Throughout the books Hagrid is friends with Harry, Ron and Hermione. They frequently discover things about Dumbledore by talking to him as he has a habit of letting slip pieces of information. Dumbledore says that he would trust Hagrid with his life, and frequently asks him to carry out secret tasks. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, he delivers the infant Harry to Dumbledore at the Dursley's and, years later, is tasked to bring the Philosopher's Stone from Gringotts to Hogwarts. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, he is sent to try to persuade the giants to aid Dumbledore against Voldemort. In Half-Blood Prince, he tells Harry and company about a conversation he overhears between Severus Snape and Dumbledore, in which Snape reluctantly agrees to do some difficult task for Dumbledore.

Hagrid is romantically interested in Olympe Maxime – a fellow half-giant and Headmistress of the French magic school Beauxbatons; but so far it is not clearly revealed if a romance has come into fruition. They traveled across Europe together on a mission from the Order, planning to find giants and convince them to ally themselves with the good side and with Dumbledore, but eventually parted on the journey home because of Maxime's exasperation with Grawp, Hagrid's half-brother who he had found and was attempting to bring home with them. However, she is seen to "[throw] herself into the waiting Hagrid's arms" at Dumbledore's funeral, implying that they still have an affectionate connection of some sort.

Hagrid is less vulnerable to jinxes and spells than full-humans. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Dolores Umbridge and some other wizards come to remove him from Hogwarts he fights back. They try to jinx and Stun him, but the spells just bounce off of him because of giant-inherited resistance to magic. Hagrid is hardly seen in the sixth and seventh books although he is seen to have survived to see Harry's children.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry believes Hagrid to have died upon two occassions. The first is during the journey to Order safehouses, and later during the fight at Hogwarts.

Hagrid and Harry

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore entrusts Hagrid with rescuing the infant Harry from his parents' house after their murder by Voldemort, and later gives him the task of locating Harry, helping him to find his bearings in the magical world and to buy his school things.

Since he introduced Harry to the wizarding world, Hagrid has been one of Harry's closest friends. Hagrid constantly watches over him, and is rather protective, seeing him as a fellow orphan and outsider. Harry in turn views Hagrid as one of the most important people in his life.

Hagrid's pets

Hagrid keeps and has kept a variety of pets, including some which the wizarding community considers impossible to domesticate. They are not always wrong.

Aragog

Aragog (c.1940 - 20 April 1997) was an Acromantula - an enormous, sentient, talking spider which made a unique clicking noise as he moved in search of prey. Hagrid raised him from an egg as a Hogwarts student, keeping him inside a cupboard. The spider's discovery was partly responsible for Hagrid's expulsion. Hagrid was caught by Tom Riddle, the real Heir of Slytherin, talking to the spider in the dungeons. Riddle then alleged that the creature was the "Monster of Slytherin," and that Hagrid, by extension, had opened the Chamber and released it. In fact, the "Monster" was a basilisk which Riddle himself had released.

After Hagrid's expulsion, Aragog lived in the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid even found him a mate, Mosag, with whom Aragog had many offspring and became the patriarch of an entire colony of Acromantulas. He remained grateful to Hagrid and kept his carnivorous children from attacking him when he came to visit, but this didn't extend to anyone else (as Harry, Ron, and Fang found out in Chamber of Secrets). Hagrid had told them to simply "follow the spiders." Doing as he wished, they found Aragog and his children, who tried to eat them. They were only saved at the last minute by Ron's flying car that had been lost in the forest a few months prior. Aragog remained in the forest for the rest of his life, eventually growing weak, going blind, and dying in the Half-Blood Prince. Hagrid retrieved Aragog's body from the forest, fearing that his children would devour it. During his funeral, Professor Slughorn bottles his precious venom and takes it for himself.

Aragog's offspring are seen fighting alongside Voldemort in the final book.

The name Aragog comes from aranea (a Latin word for spider) and Gog (a legendary giant).

Fang

Fang is a large boarhound who, aside from his enormous size, appears to be an entirely ordinary dog. While Fang's appearance is intimidating, he is, in Hagrid's words, "a bloody coward." Boisterous and loving with people he knows, he seems especially fond of Harry and, at times, Hermione. Fang, like Hagrid, is not as fierce as he looks.

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone he accompanied Harry, Hagrid, Draco Malfoy, Hermione and Neville into the Forbidden Forest to look for an injured unicorn. In the following book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, he joined Harry and Ron into the forest where he was scared stiff of both the gigantic acromantula and Arthur Weasley's flying Ford Anglia.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince some escaping Death Eaters set fire to Hagrid's hut while Fang was inside, but he was not hurt because Harry put out the fire with his wand.

A boarhound is any of various large dogs, especially the Great Dane, used originally for hunting wild boars. However, in the films, Fang is portrayed by a Neapolitan Mastiff.

Fang's name may owe something to one of Farmer Maggot's dogs in The Lord of the Rings — also called Fang.

Fluffy

Fluffy is a giant three-headed dog used by Hagrid to guard the trapdoor leading to the underground chamber where the Philosopher's Stone is hidden in Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone. The only way to get past Fluffy is lull him to sleep by playing music.

In the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry, Ron, and Hermione accidentally run into Fluffy after running from caretaker Argus Filch. At Halloween, Harry and Ron witness Snape entering the door to Fluffy's chamber, and for the next few days he has a pronounced limp and is overheard saying "How are you meant to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?" However, it is later revealed that he followed Professor Quirrell into the chamber. Later, Professor Quirrell gets past Fluffy by playing a harp, while Harry, Ron, and Hermione use a flute that had been given to Harry by Hagrid.

Fluffy is based on Cerberus, the three-headed dog from Greek Mythology that guards the gates to the underworld. As with Fluffy, Cerberus was lulled to sleep with music by Orpheus.

In the book, Hagrid acquires Fluffy from a Greek he meets in a pub, while in the film Hagrid says he got Fluffy from an Irish person instead. Steve Kloves says when he wrote the script it said "Greek," but was changed somewhere down the line. J. K. Rowling was asked in an interview what happened to Fluffy after he was no longer needed to protect the Stone. She said Fluffy was released into the Forbidden Forest.

Norbert/Norberta

Norbert is a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon that Hagrid had acquired as an egg from a mysterious, hooded stranger, who turned out to be Lord Voldemort who had concealed himself in the body of Hogwarts' current Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Quirrell. The Ministry of Magic classifies dragon eggs as Class A Non-Tradeable goods. Hagrid helps the dragon hatch from the egg. Norbert becomes very dangerous and much bigger in the weeks following, so Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally persuade Hagrid to give him to Ron's older brother Charlie, who's studying dragons in Romania. While helping Hagrid take care of his new pet, Ron is bitten and is in the Hogwarts hospital wing the night Charlie comes to collect the dragon. Harry and Hermione take Norbert up in a crate under Harry's invisibility cloak. However, Malfoy also sneaks out in the dead of night and is caught by Professor McGonagall. After Norbert is taken by Charlie, Hermione and Harry are also caught as is Neville who was found lurking in the corridors on his way to warn them about Malfoy. Norbert is frequently mentioned throughout the rest of the series. Most of Norbert's story was cut out of the Philosopher's Stone film for time reasons. In Deathly Hallows, it turns out that Norbert is a female, and has been given the nickname "Norberta".

Buckbeak

Main article: Buckbeak

Template:HP characterDuring Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class, Harry volunteers to approach the hippogriff Buckbeak. Heeding Hagrid's warnings that hippogriffs are exceedingly proud animals that must be approached formally and will not tolerate being insulted, Harry successfully manages to ride Buckbeak. Later in the lesson, Draco Malfoy is chosen to train on Buckbeak. He ignores Hagrid's warnings and says "You're not dangerous at all, are you? Are you, you ugly great brute?" At this, Buckbeak attacks Malfoy, slashing his arm severely with his talons. Buckbeak is sentenced to death by the Ministry for Magic. Hagrid, with Hermione's help, attempts to appeal the sentence, but ultimately fails. However, during a trip back in time, Hermione and Harry save Buckbeak and he flees into hiding along with Sirius Black. Buckbeak appears only once in Goblet of Fire, with Sirius in a cave just outside of Hogsmeade.

As with all hippogriffs, Buckbeak is fond of eating small mammals, including ferrets and bats.

After Sirius's death at the end of the fifth book, Harry inherits Buckbeak, along with the rest of his godfather's possessions. Harry decides to give the hippogriff back to Hagrid's care at the beginning of the sixth book. Buckbeak is re-christened "Witherwings" to hide his true identity from the Ministry although those close to the hippogriff occasionally call him by his original name before correcting themselves.

In the Deathly Hallows, Buckbeak is seen with the herd of thestrals as they fly out of the Forbidden Forest to attack the giants during the Second Battle of Hogwarts.

Buckbeak was featured in the film adaption of Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004, although was not included in any of the other films.