It was because Hagrid had a thing for the most dangerous magical animals he could get his hands on. The hippogriff that bit Draco was actually about the most domesticated/docile of what he threw at them. iirc, the other teacher offered tamer critters (I think that was the one with the gold-sniffing mole?)
The accusations that he's not smart had to do with his half-Giant heritage. Even when people didn't know for sure, they were plenty suspicious of it. Remember when the chick from the other school got upset when he suggested she was also a half-Giant ... the book went into what full-blood Giants are like ...
Snape "punishing" kids by giving them to Hagrid under the noses of the Death Eaters in the last book was a big red flag that there was something more going on that met the eye.
It was because Hagrid had a thing for the most dangerous magical animals he could get his hands on. The hippogriff that bit Draco was actually about the most domesticated/docile of what he threw at them. iirc, the other teacher offered tamer critters (I think that was the one with the gold-sniffing mole?)
The accusations that he's not smart had to do with his half-Giant heritage. Even when people didn't know for sure, they were plenty suspicious of it. Remember when the chick from the other school got upset when he suggested she was also a half-Giant ... the book went into what full-blood Giants are like ...
Snape "punishing" kids by giving them to Hagrid under the noses of the Death Eaters in the last book was a big red flag that there was something more going on that met the eye.