Encyclopedia
Rubeus Hagrid is a fictional character in the
Harry Potter books are an immensely popular series of fantasy novel [i]s by British [i]...
series of books by
J. K. Rowling. He is usually addressed simply by his surname. Hagrid is the Keeper of Keys and Grounds, the gamekeeper and the Care of Magical Creatures teacher at
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Hagrid is twice as tall as the average man 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 tame 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 could serve as descriptions of Hagrid, who has a reddish face and a brambly beard. "Hagrid", according to Rowling in an interview with
The Boston Globe is the most widely circulated daily newspaper [i] in Boston, Massachusetts [i] and ...
,
comes from an old English word "hagridden", meaning to have a nightmarish night, particularly when hungover, which Hagrid is a great deal, due to his heavy drinking.
Hagrid was the first teacher at Hogwarts to be introduced before becoming a teacher.
Positions held
Background and role
It is revealed, in
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth book in the
Harry Potter [i] series by J.K. Rowling [i] ...
, 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. The fact that people who know of his heritage misjudge him as dangerous may contribute to Hagrid's steadfast inability to recognise the truly dangerous nature of
dragons,
Acromantulas, and the like, all of whom are feared much like giants are.
Hagrid was a student at
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the same time as
Tom Riddle. Presumably Hagrid's first year would be 1940, as this would place him at the correct starting age, eleven. Rowling has stated in an interview that Hagrid was in
Gryffindor house.
He was expelled during his third year after he was accused of opening the
Chamber of Secrets, for which Riddle was actually responsible. Following his expulsion, the
Ministry of Magic broke Hagrid's
oak wand and forbade him from performing magic.
Persuaded by
Albus Dumbledore , Headmaster Armando Dippet allowed Hagrid to stay at Hogwarts as
groundskeeper. Hagrid keeps the pieces of his wand in an 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 gamekeeper and Keeper of the Keys, which, 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 is the first volume in a planned series of seven book [i]s...
: a hooded person 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 again lets slip, to Harry,
Ron and
Hermione, about how to get past Fluffy , 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 Order of the Phoenix is the fifth book in the
Harry Potter [i] series of bo ...
, 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, where 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.
Hagrid and Harry
In
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the first volume in a planned series of seven book [i]s...
, 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.
Hagrid is one of Harry's closest friends. Hagrid constantly watches over him, and is rather protective. Harry in turn, apart from the dangerous animal fixation, 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 was an
Acromantula, an enormous sentient spider. Hagrid raised him from an egg as a Hogwarts student, supposedly keeping him inside a cupboard. The spider's discovery was partly responsible for Hagrid's expulsion; as Tom Riddle framed Hagrid as the Heir of Slytherin, Aragog was suspected of being the heir's beast, which in actuality was a
basilisk.
While Aragog started as Hagrid's pet, after the expulsion he lived in the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid even found him a wife, 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 . Aragog remained in the forest for the rest of his long life, eventually growing weak, going blind, and dying of natural causes after an illness in
Half-Blood Prince.
The name Aragog comes from
aranea and
Gog .
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.
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 is the first volume in a planned series of seven book [i]s...
,
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 by 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
Norbert is a
Norwegian Ridgeback dragon which Hagrid acquires as an egg and hatches himself. The
Ministry of Magic classifies dragon eggs as Class A Non-Tradeable Goods. After hatching, he becomes very dangerous and 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. Most of Norbert's story was cut out of
the Philosopher's Stone film for time reasons.
Buckbeak/Witherwings
Buckbeak is a
hippogriff. He is sentenced to death after an attack on
Draco Malfoy, which was provoked by Malfoy's disrespectful behaviour, but is rescued by Harry and Hermione and goes into hiding with
Sirius Black at 12 Grimmauld Place.
After Sirius's death, Buckbeak is inherited by
Harry Potter, who decides to give him back to Hagrid, although he is renamed Witherwings to hide his identity following his escape from a Ministry arranged death sentence three years prior. As with all hippogriffs, Buckbeak is fond of eating small mammals, preferably
ferrets. This is irony, as Mad-Eye Moody temporarily transforms Malfoy into a ferret the year after Draco had tried to get Buckbeak killed.
References
