“Not food or anythin’!” said Hagrid eagerly. “He can get his own food, no problem. Birds an’ deer an’ stuff . . . No, it’s company he needs. If I jus’ knew someone was carryin’ on tryin’ ter help him a bit . . . teachin’ him, yeh know . . .”
Harry said nothing, but turned to look back at the gigantic form lying asleep on the ground in front of them. Grawp had his back to them. Unlike Hagrid, who simply looked like a very oversize human, Grawp looked strangely misshapen. What Harry had taken to be a vast mossy boulder to the left of the great earthen mound he now recognized as Grawp’s head. It was much larger in proportion to the body than a human head, almost perfectly round and covered with tightly curling, close-growing hair the color of bracken. The rim of a single large, fleshy ear was visible on top of the head, which seemed to sit, rather like Uncle Vernon’s, directly upon the shoulders with little or no neck in between. The back, under what looked like a dirty brownish smock comprised of animal skins sewn roughly together, was very broad, and as Grawp slept, it seemed to strain a little at the rough seams of the skins. The legs were curled up under the body; Harry could see the soles of enormous, filthy, bare feet, large as sledges, resting one on top of the other on the earthy forest floor.
“You want us to teach him,” Harry said in a hollow voice. He now understood what Firenze’s warning had meant. His attempt is not working. He would do better to abandon it. Of course, the other creatures who lived in the forest would have heard Hagrid’s fruitless attempts to teach Grawp English. . . .
“Yeah — even if yeh jus’ talk ter him a bit,” said Hagrid hopefully. “’Cause I reckon, if he can talk ter people, he’ll understand more that we all like him really, an’ want him to stay . . .”
Harry looked at Hermione, who peered back at him from between the fingers over her face.
“Kind of makes you wish we had Norbert back, doesn’t it?” he said and she gave a very shaky laugh.
“Yeh’ll do it, then?” said Hagrid, who did not seem to have caught what Harry had just said.
“We’ll . . .” said Harry, already bound by his promise. “We’ll try, Hagrid . . .”
“I knew I could count on yeh, Harry,” Hagrid said, beaming in a very watery way and dabbing at his face with his handkerchief again. “An’ I don’ wan’ yeh ter put yerself out too much, like. . . . I know yeh’ve got exams. . . . If yeh could jus’ nip down here in yer Invisibility Cloak maybe once a week an’ have a little chat with him . . . I’ll wake him up, then — introduce you —”
“Wha — no!” said Hermione, jumping up, “Hagrid, no, don’t wake him, really, we don’t need —”
But Hagrid had already stepped over the great trunk in front of them and was proceeding toward Grawp. When he was around ten feet away, he lifted a long, broken bough from the ground, smiled reassuringly over his shoulder at Harry and Hermione, and then poked Grawp hard in the middle of the back with the end of the bough.
The giant gave a roar that echoed around the silent forest. Birds in the treetops overhead rose twittering from their perches and soared away. In front of Harry and Hermione, meanwhile, the gigantic Grawp was rising from the ground, which shuddered as he placed an enormous hand upon it to push himself onto his knees and turned his head to see who and what had disturbed him.
“All righ’, Grawpy?” said Hagrid in a would-be cheery voice, backing away with the long bough raised, ready to poke Grawp again. “Had a nice sleep, eh?”
Harry and Hermione retreated as far as they could while still keeping the giant within their sights. Grawp knelt between two trees he had not yet uprooted. They looked up into his startlingly huge face, which resembled a gray full moon swimming in the gloom of the clearing. It was as though the features had been hewn onto a great stone ball. The nose was stubby and shapeless, the mouth lopsided and full of misshapen yellow teeth the size of half-bricks. The small eyes were a muddy greenish-brown and just now were half gummed together with sleep. Grawp raised dirty knuckles as big as cricket balls to his eyes, rubbed vigorously, then, without warning, pushed himself to his feet with surprising speed and agility.
“Oh my . . .” Harry heard Hermione squeal, terrified, beside him.
The trees to which the other ends of the ropes around Grawp’s wrists and ankles were attached creaked ominously. He was, as Hagrid had said, at least sixteen feet tall. Gazing blearily around, he reached out a hand the size of a beach umbrella, seized a bird’s nest from the upper branches of a towering pine and turned it upside down with a roar of apparent displeasure that there was no bird in it — eggs fell like grenades toward the ground and Hagrid threw his arms over his head to protect himself.
“Anyway, Grawpy,” shouted Hagrid, looking up apprehensively in case of further falling eggs, “I’ve brought some friends ter meet yeh. Remember, I told yeh I might? Remember, when I said I might have ter go on a little trip an’ leave them ter look after yeh fer a bit? Remember that, Grawpy?”
But Grawp merely gave another low roar; it was hard to say whether he was listening to Hagrid or whether he even recognized the sounds Hagrid was making as speech. He had now seized the top of the pine tree and was pulling it toward him, evidently for the simple pleasure of seeing how far it would spring back when he let go.
“Now, Grawpy, don’ do that!” shouted Hagrid. “Tha’s how you ended up pullin’ up the others —”
And sure enough, Harry could see the earth around the tree’s roots beginning to crack.
“I got company fer yeh!” Hagrid shouted. “Company, see! Look down, yeh big buffoon, I brought yeh some friends!”
“Oh Hagrid, don’t,” moaned Hermione, but Hagrid had already raised the bough again and gave Grawp’s knee a sharp poke.
The giant let go of the top of the pine tree, which swayed menacingly and deluged Hagrid with a rain of needles, and looked down.