Insert Standard Disclaimer here

A/N: To be honest, I really don't know where this one may go, if anywhere. The idea simply came to me out of nowhere and would not let go.

The guard was unhappy. Actually, he was royally pissed, in both the british and american definitions of the word. He had been drinking on duty since the word came down from DMLE. They were letting the half breed bastard go.

It was an insult is what it was, a slap in the face to all wizards everywhere. A Giant! In Hogwarts! Around pureblood children no less... What the hell were they thinking? Keeping a bloodthirsty beast like that with children, they were damn lucky only one person had died.

The more he stewed on it, the worse he felt, these people were blind it seemed, blind to the danger they were exposing their children to... A girl had died dammit! Who knew what depravities a foul beast like that had subjected her to before finishing her off? Why couldn't those idiots in the ministry see? Were they so blinded by that muggle loving bastard Dumbledore? They had the giant here, they had the dementors here... Why couldn't the pansies finish the job?

Righteous indignation and firewhiskey make a rather potent mix, when one adds the general negative atmosphere that surrounded the island prison, it made for rather questionable decision making.

Dawn had not yet arrived when the guard found himself outside of the beasts cell, staring with hatred at the figure huddled within. Ever so quietly he slipped his key in the lock and slowly turned it till the latch released. Looking in, he could see that the beast still slept, and with any luck, by the time Dumbledore and his cronies arrived, the beast would stay asleep forever.

All thru his young life, Rubeus Hagrid had been known for his gentle caring nature, to those that knew him, it was his defining characteristic. As a child, he had only his father as an example, and aside from an odd taste in women, his father was known as a good man. He was the type of wizard who would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it, and these were the values that he taught his son.

Like his father, Hagrid had his quirks. Where his father liked large women, Rubeus liked dange... err misunderstood animals, and had a habit of keeping odd pets. Aside from that, he was a quiet and kindly soul who wouldn't harm a fly under most circumstances.

However, the purebloods had one thing mostly right, and that was that blood would tell. Under years of conditioned behavior, there was a giant, a being known for immense strength and violent rages. Like a certain comic book character, giants were known to get stronger the angrier they got and were not known for feeling fear.

That last characteristic was one of the few that bled thru Hagrids psyche, the lack of fear. It was what allowed him to play with things like acromantulas with no concern for his own safety. Not to say he wasn't careful, for while he was afraid of nothing personally, he had grown up worried about hurting others, that his strength might one day get the better of him and that someone or something that he cared about would get hurt.

While others relived their worst fears in the presence of dementors, Hagrid got to get a taste of his mothers heritage, to feel a giants rage boiling beneath the surface of his psyche. But he was strong in more ways than one, he could keep the beast in it's cave and simply huddle like the rest of the prisoners waiting for the foul creatures to go by.

Strong tho he may be, everybody has their limits, everyone has a snapping point when self control is simply not an option. For Hagrid, waking up to a dementor trying to suck out his soul was such a point. Where a human would have been overwhelmed with terror and hopelessness, unable to do more than whimper, Hagrid snapped.

Gone was the gentle and oftentimes shy boy that was his fathers pride and joy, in its place was his mothers son, a giant enraged. His muscles fueled by a mixture of adrenaline and angry magic, he pushed the dementor up off of him, then kicked it thru his cell door, which unfortunately for the creature had swung back closed after it had entered, and into the wall opposite his cell.

Albus Dumbledore had a bad feeling. He wasn't sure what it was, but something was wrong. He'd had this feeling from the moment he'd been greeted at the jetty by the guard on duty. The man had a smug self satisfied air about him that set his teeth on edge. It had taken a lot of work to get Hagrid freed, but between testimony by the healer at St Mungo's that had examined Myrtle, the testimony of his own Care of Magical Creatures Professor, and ironically enough, Tom Riddles own testimony and description of Hagrids pet acromantula, he had pulled it off.

When a wizard with a Mastery in CoMC told the jury that it was impossible for an acromantula to have been responsible for Myrtle's death, it created just enough of a schism to have the conviction overturned, tho they had upheld the expulsion on the grounds that while not Slytherin's monster, an acromantula was still a very dangerous creature that should never have been brought into the school, and unfortunately for Hagrid, he had no argument for that one. Now here he was, ready to pick up his wayward student and take him out of this hellhole, and now he had a sick feeling in his gut that something was wrong.

The guard was taking his time, anticipating the look on the old meddlers face when he found his pet monster minus a soul. The concept of being caught or blamed for this never even crossed his mind, as this would not be the first time one of the guests had an unexpected snog with a guard... This was Azkaban after all, and sometimes, accidents happened.

Timing is everything at times. A little earlier and Dumbledore would have driven off the creature with his patronus. A little later and the only witnesses to what happened next would never have been believed. They, however, arrived just in time to see a large cloaked figure fly out of Hagrids cell, obviously not of it's own volition, its passage tearing the cell door from it's mooring to be pinned against the wall by the creature.

Following the dementor was Hagrid himself, but Hagrid as Albus had never seen him. Roaring with fury the half-giant threw the dementor down the hall where it rolled to a stop less than 10 feet in front of their group. Pausing only to gather the wrecked remains of the iron door, the half giant charged down the hall towards them with madness in his eyes.

Grabbing the guard before he could do something stupid like attack the crazed half-giant, Dumbledore quickly dissilusioned them both and pulled them back and to one side. He needn't have bothered, for as far as Hagrid was concerned, the wizards in the hall did not exist, all that existed was the dementor that had attacked him.

Dementors had been the guards of Azkaban for about as long as anybody could really remember, and an almost unknown fact was that they were the reason all of the bars were made of cold forged iron. Distantly related to dark fae, the dementors were slightly weak against the material, weak as in it could actually do them harm. Unlike their distant cousins, its touch was not harmful or fatal, but, given the right circumstances, a weapon made of cold iron could actually put one down. Admittedly, it still took a tremendous amount of damage to kill one of the beasts, more damage than your average human was capable of dishing out.

A berserk half-giant with an iron door on the other hand...

The group watched in horrified fascination as the supposedly unkillable being was beaten to a pulp before their eyes, the euphamism quite literal in this case, as by the time the giant began to calm down, the dementor was little more than unrecognizable lump that had been beaten into the stone floor of the prison hall. Breathing raggedly and still not quite home, Hagrid bent down and pulled up the remains of the being by its ragged cloak. Shaking the cloak a bit to dislodge the remaining lumps of what was once one of the prisons feared guards, he casually threw it on over his broad sholders, not even noticing how it expanded to fit his frame.

Finally taking note of Dumbledore who's spell had dropped from shock, he glanced over at the guard, suddenly feeling a bit sheepish.

"Ehh... Sorry 'bout the door there... Caught me off guard it did... If yeh got some tools im sure I could have it fixed up in a jiffey..." taking a closer look at the mangled remains of said door at his feet he continued. "Err... Maybeh not a jiffey... Errmm... I'll just head back to meh cell now..." With that he turned on his heel and suited action to words.

Needless to say, the other dementors attracted by the noise and violence were very quick to get out of his way.