A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky – and a huge motorbike fell of the air and landed on the road in front of them.
If the motorbike was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild – long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of dustbin lids and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms, he was holding a bundle of blankets.
“Hagrid,” said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. “At last. And where did you get that motorbike?”
“Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,” said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorbike as he spoke. “Young Sirius Black lent it me. I’ve got him, sir.”
“No problems, were there?”
“No, sir – house was almost destroyed but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin’ around. He fell asleep as we was flyin’ over Bristol.”
Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.
“Is that where – ?” whispered Professor McGonagall.
“Yes,” said Dumbledore. “He’ll have that scar for ever.”
Excerpt taken from Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2013), pp. 16-17.
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