The Tale of Swagrid

Chapter 4

Grawp woke up. Hagrid was gone. He looked around searching for his older brother, but the missing sword belt informed him that Hagrid wasn't present. "Damn," he sighed, "he could have told me he had gone hunting. I was worried for a second." He yawned, and looked into the cracked mirror that he'd found at the side of the road a few weeks ago. He'd rarely seen his reflection, only when he found a puddle, a rare thing at Siberian temperatures.

Staring back at him was a huge, ugly figure, thirty feet high, with muscles like iron, and greasy, patchy hair. He didn't like this. He didn't like his Neanderthal face, he didn't like his terrifying physique, and he hated his strength. He was always on call for labour, though he hated it, and he would rather study and draw the world around him. As he'd grown up, he'd obviously been more from Fridwulfa's side, and his once dainty fingers had given way to sausages, making drawing harder and harder through time.

He was also the smartest of the three brothers, always finding logical solutions to the problems he was presented with, even though crashing through it may work regardless. He'd been the first to notice Swagrid's rock-weed obsession, and the first to notice Hagrid's skill with a sword, urging him to dedicate time and effort.

And finally, he saw what no one else saw in him. Magic.

He'd started learning the arcane arts as a child, and was now able to cast basic spells at will. His lifelong dream was to own a wand, a magical amplifier, which would allow him to cast powerful spells currently beyond his skill, at will. He knew the trivia; long ago, before wands, wizards dedicated years to arithmancy and meditation to cast spells, as story books tell, at will. One could call forth a hurricane with one hand, and level a mountain with another, with practise. Modern wizards were closed to such magics, as they did not have the patience to mediate and understand, relying on their wands to do all the work. Which, he had to admit, worked rather well.

He spied a fire in the distance, and thought he saw a large figure beside it. After ten seconds or so of chanting, his awareness was relocated a few metres from the fire. He saw Swagrid's hand severed. He saw Hagrid cut him loose. He saw a man draw a huge, twenty inch wand, with a curled, gnarled handle.

He retracted from his clairvoyance, and sprinted through the forest, grabbing a small tree and uprooting it, holding it like a club. If that man was a wizard, three was no time to lose.