Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling and darn proud of it!

Dedication: To my little brothers.  Heh.

Spoilers: OotP…round ‘bout the middle I should think.

Note: Forget  all you know, or think you know, about Giants…

A Giant-sized Thank-You! to Tapestry and to QueenRiley for beta above and beyond the call of duty and free prizes.

He Ain’t Incoherent, He’s my Brother

Well, quite honestly this had carried on for far too long.  Grawp idly bent a small pine tree until the tip touched the ground.  The sight of squirrel nests, and several squirrels, dropping to the forest floor was only mildly amusing at this point.  He huffed in irritation; just where in the world was Hagrid?  He’d been gone for absolute days and Grawp was getting lonely.

“This forest is the pits,” Grawp muttered as he put his chin on his fist and plucked the pine from the ground, swinging it absently.  He wished, again, that he could understand his brother.  ‘Understand’ in any sense of the word really, but Grawp would have given much to speak English and even more for Hagrid to speak Czech or Polish or Giant.  Of course, their lack of mutual language skills might have been why he couldn’t reach his brother.

Oh, he’d tried—he was still trying—but the results were less than spectacular.  Grawp had thought to dissuade Hagrid from brining him to England by appealing to the Mannish side of him.  He’d spoken of the Banská Bystrica State Opera.

“I’m telling you, if we don’t go back now we’re going to miss the autumn season.  It’s the best, I swear it; there are fewer crowds, better variety and outdoor concerts mean that when the people run there is so much open space to chase them in.”

“C’mon Grawpy, don’ struggle.  Yeh’ll like Hogwarts.  Yeh’ll have friends, Grawpy.  Real ones.  Dumbledore’ll like you a lot once yeh’ve got some manners in yeh.  An’ nobody’ll pick on yeh no more.”

 He’d invited his brother to see the Jazz Club at Thirsty Monk.  “Wonderful atmosphere, all the excitement and joy you could ask for, I say.  The sound carries extremely well into the parking lot and we could crush cars together, just you and me!  Think of how well the sounds blend.”

“Aw, Grawpy, yeh sound sad.  But I’m yer brother and everythin’ is gonna be fine once we’re home.  Did I ever tell yeh abou’ Harry, Grawpy?  Yeh’ll like Harry.”

He had even offered to break into one of the galleries by night to have a private viewing.  “Museums, galleries, you name it and we’ll do it.  Think of how much fun breaking the glass would be, and the way the wood of the doors would splinter…all of that and that’s before we get to the art, Hagrid.”

“Grawpy!  Yeh said my name!  Tha’s right!  I’m Hagger!  Yer own Hagger!”

Hagrid must not have been a lover of the arts. 

Grawp swung the tree in a wide circle and thought of the woman who had traveled with him and Hagrid for the first bit of their journey north and wished she would at least come to visit.  He was a fair hand at French and he was certain she’d be willing to translate for him.  If only—oh, if only!—she hadn’t spent all her time conversing with Hagrid in English!  Not until the moment before she had magic-ed herself away had she spoken what was apparently her native language and Grawp had placed her accent.  Too late, he thought bitterly as the pointy end of his pine connected with the sucking end of a Skrewt.

The Skrewt!  Grawp brightened.  The little bug was fairly good company when Hagrid was away and it was entertaining to watch it burn, sting, or suck blood out of whatever animal was unlucky enough to come across it unawares.  Watching the Skrewt jet flame at the offending tree (and enjoying the bang that went with it) Grawp couldn’t help but think that the bug was also good proof of Hagrid’s Giant blood, which was something he’d begun to doubt.  Giants caused things to explode, smash, or die.  But no, Hagrid didn’t seem to grasp the joy of it all despite Grawp’s level best effort to pound it through his thick skull.  When the sparring hadn’t work, he’d tried words.

“Look, I understand you have a weak stomach, but Sanach and I have a date to kill Golgomath. I’m off.”    It had been one of his first attempts at spoken English and it had got him a good punch to the jaw.  Promising, but…

“No, Grawpy!  Bad!  Yeh’re not goin’ back to Golgomath!  He’ll kill yeh, Grawpy.” 

He had neither been certain of what he had said nor of what he’d thought he’d heard Hagrid say, so he hadn’t bothered with a reply.  Instead he’d turned his back and gone to bed only to wake up to more rules.  Don’t pull up trees, don’t grab…well really, how else was he supposed to see the people Hagrid had brought?  His brother wasn’t right in the head, as far as Grawp was concerned.  But he was better company than none and the Skrewt had abandoned him after setting the tree ablaze. 

“Bother,” Grawp snorted.  “I’ll just go find the man.” He stood and broke his ankle ropes one at a time.  Hagrid was going to be angry, but it was all right since there wasn’t really any need to keep him tied; Grawp had decided ages ago that he wasn’t going to try to return home just yet.  There was a theatre troupe in London that he wanted to see, doing lovely work if the tittle-tattle was worth the breath put into it.  And, he knew, that if  he left he would miss Hagrid.  “Oh my,” Grawp stopped, surprised.  “I think I might even love the water-logged old coot.”  Amused with himself he set off to find his brother.

“Hagrid?” he called, setting off toward the heart of the forest, where the Acromantula community lived. Somebody there, Grawp reasoned, would know where his brother had gone.  Pushing aside a few trees he stumbled across a slew of humans.  Or horses.  From far away it was hard to tell.  He leaned close to the group.  “Hagrid?” he asked.  No.  Centaurs.  But something familiar, and shorter than the Centaurs, caught his eye. 

“Hermy!”