Contains Luna, Grawp, Colin and Ancient Runes

[dolorous_ett]

Here's the first half of my story. A second, shorter part should follow soon - I had hoped to be able to post the lot by now, but part of the end has proved tougher to write than I thought, so I'm splitting it in two.

It's ironic - I started reading fanfic as interludes between translation projects - and now look what's happened to my fanfic!

I would really like to know what you think - especially, whether, having read the first half, you'd consider reading the second.

At least common sense has prevailed, and I've ditched the unpronouncable title in favour of something slightly more conventional (let's face it, I was just being difficult).

Just a year later, the Wizarding world was at war, and Hogwarts castle in a state of siege. But the day Luna Lovegood and I lost the Bowtruckle, it was hard to imagine that Hogwarts could ever be dangerous, under threat or even cold. The sun was shining, the air was full of the scents of the last flowers of autumn, and the Whomping Willow was making half-hearted attempts to swat the last swallows of the summer out of the air. And we were having our first Care of Magical Creatures lesson of the year with Professor Hagrid.

Of course, everyone nowadays has heard of Luna Lovegood, the unworldly, beautiful, courageous young woman who single-handedly founded the Stabursness Snorkack Sanctuary in Norway. You can hardly fail to miss her: these days: her face gazes dreamily out of half the best Wizarding pictorials, cuddling a large-eyed, fluffy Tufted Snorkack poult, or wrestling an adult to the ground in play, with snowflakes in her hair. I took both those photographs, by the way.

But back then she was just a rather odd girl with bizarre politics and peculiar notions about unusual creatures, whom most of her classmates avoided as much as possible. And back then I was not the up-and-coming photojournalist who first brought her and her Snorkack Sanctuary to the public eye, but a skinny boy a long way from home, excited by everything I saw in Hogwarts, and desperate to be a part of it all. Of course, back then I did not really understand the ways of the Wizarding world, and occasionally I got things very wrong indeed.

***

Ironically enough, it all started in the library. I had been looking up native British magical beasts for my Care of Magical Creatures class, and Phaedra Royce from Slytherin, who knew everything about magic and was also amazingly pretty, had suggested that I look up The Slytherin Basilisk and leave her in peace.

I was so buoyed up at having dared to speak to Phaedra - and got a reply too - that I did not attach any significance to the fact that the book was listed in the library catalogue in the Restricted Section. It was the first day of term, and the library was packed with excited first years being issued with library dockets, so I managed to saunter into the Restricted Section without being stopped. Although there were some odd noises from the more distant shelves, I located the book without any problems, unclipped it from its choke chain and carried it to a desk under the window.

I got out my quills and parchments and cautiously opened the book, and all hell let loose. A thick jet of something green and foul-smelling spurted from the spine, and hit me smack in the face, as the book screeched: "Unhand me, Mudblood! No spawn of dirt may pollute our Slytherin maidens with hairy, groping hands and unnatural lusts!" and continued in this vein until Madam Pince came striding down the aisles in a towering rage, yelling "The Slytherin Basilisk? Fifty points from Gryffindor for gross moral turpitude!" and dragged me by the collar to my head of house’s office, muttering "Basilisk… restricted section…disgusting little pervert… at his age…" all the way, as Peeves floated above our hears, shouting out vulgar limericks about basilisks and Stinksap, and I tried in vain to wipe the revolting mess off my hair and robes.

The few glimpses I had managed to catch of the book made it clear that the Slytherin Basilisk was a euphemism for… well, something else. I later learned that it had originally been a manual of instruction for Pureblood youths on the eve of their marriage. It had been forbidden to the student body since Slytherin House first admitted girls in 1185, as it had caused these unfortunate young ladies much shame and suffering, and they had proceeded to make life intolerable for everyone else in the school until it was banned, though a copy was kept in the Restricted Section because the incumbent librarian could never bear to throw anything away. In common Wizarding parlance, someone who "reads The Slytherin Basilisk" is utterly ignorant of the true nature of physical love, and their expectations of it are both deeply perverse and anatomically infeasible. As various well-intentioned persons pointed out over the weeks and months ahead, only a Muggle could possibly have failed to know this.

Professor McGonagall had dealt with bemused Muggle-borns before. To her everlasting credit, she was surprisingly sympathetic about the whole thing, and sent me on my way with no more than a warning. She even did her level best not to crack a smile as she spelled out what I had done; it was not her fault that she did not quite manage to keep a straight face.

She did not, however, revoke the loss of fifty house points, or help me to remove the awful stuff the book had vomited all over my robes and hair. Between my housemates, who were furious with me for bringing Gryffindor into disrepute and getting us into negative points within my first day back, and the other students who would come nowhere near me because of the horrible stench, I spent a very lonely week. I had never felt so alone or wretched in my life, and by the time my Care of Magical Creatures lesson rolled round on Friday afternoon, I was in a very bad mood indeed, although the smell had more or less worn off.

***

We were studying Bowtruckles, in groups of twos and threes, and I was left alone and friendless by my tray. Hagrid tried several times to break up one of the other groups to get me a partner, but everyone was still ignoring me, and he was far too gentle to force them. He finally managed to detach Luna Lovegood, whom I vaguely knew from a private Defence Against the Dark Arts club we had both been in the previous year. She had that, at least in her favour, though other people in Ravenclaw said the oddest things about her. She ambled over, smiled vaguely at the Bowtruckles, and said:

"I like them, don’t you? I feel sorry for them though: they used to have their own separate republic in Central Leicestershire till Cornelius Fudge persuaded the Muggles to build a municipal swimming pool on it."

I didn’t bother to reply. Everyone knew that Luna was full of crazy ideas that made no sense. Still, there was no doubt that she had a way with Bowtruckles, and the creature gave us no trouble at all until she passed it over for me to have a closer look.

When I got round to the theory part of my homework, I learned that Bowtruckles are children the greenwood and terrified of man-made substances such as plastic: this one had been spooked by my digital watch (an affectation in a way, as it did not work in Hogwarts - but it had been a Christmas present from Dennis three years ago, far more than he could afford, and I was not about to upset him by leaving it at home). But all I knew at the time was that the beast dug razor-sharp fingers into my palm, causing me to yelp with pain and relax my grip. By the time I’d recovered my wits, it was racing off towards the Forbidden Forest as fast as its stiff little wooden legs could carry it.

Hagrid didn’t seem that upset about it. Rubbing absent-mindedly at a half-healed scab over one eyebrow, he packed us off with a jar of woodlice and a little wooden box lined with leaves, together with strict instructions to retrieve the creature, which was wanted for another class the following morning. Normally, the Bowtruckle should have been easy to catch, but it fled in terror every time it caught sight of the plastic on my wrist. After a while, we worked out that it would run from me but not from Luna, and I managed to corner it against the bole of a great oak on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Then I kept a respectable distance while she coaxed it into its box.

We were both tired, bruised and scratched after running through bushes and attempting to rugby-tackle a panicked Bowtruckle, so we sat down to catch our breath back before heading back up the hill to Hagrid’s hut. We sat in companionable silence for several minutes, and then Luna said:

"You know, Hagrid is keeping a giant in the Forbidden Forest."

"Don’t be daft," I said crossly. I was still in a bad temper over The Slytherin Basilisk, and not in the mood for fairy stories.

"I mean it," she said, and pointed towards the middle of the forest. "Look."
I turned round, half expecting to see a giant, but of course there was nothing there. Still, something had moved in the Forbidden Forest - we had both plainly heard the crash - and could see flocks of startled birds rising into the air, not half a mile off.

"There," she said. "That was the giant. Shall we go and see?"

"No way," I said. "There’s no giant. I’ve lost my House fifty points already this week - the last thing I need is to cop a detention for being out of bounds. Anyway, there are centaurs about, and I don’t care what Hagrid says - those things aren’t safe."

"Oh no," said Luna, very seriously. "They aren’t safe at all. But they’ll be much further west on a day like this, waiting for the sunset. And the giant is real - I’ve seen him. I come out here all the time, you know, when I want to be by myself - nobody notices. And he really isn’t scary - Daddy says the giants are just misunderstood. Besides, he’s all tied up."

"You’re nuts," I said nastily, getting to my feet, slinging my book bag over my shoulder and starting up the hill. "Tied-up giants in the woods, my arse. As if. Well worth getting a detention for - I don’t think."

Secretly, I would have loved to see a giant - I adored new things, and even after five years at Hogwarts, there was still so much I had never seen before. But I knew Luna was lying or deluded - everyone said so.

"Well, you’re missing a chance to see something special - but if you don’t like the idea of getting caught…" Luna fell in beside me on the path up the hill to Hagrid’s hut, twisting one of her long, feathery earrings round her finger and humming to herself. It took me a moment to identify the tune:

You might belong in Gryffindor,
where dwell the brave in heart.
Their daring, nerve and chiv -

I wheeled round on her.

"All right! If you’re so clever, put your money where your mouth is for once. You’re always telling me about these stupid weird monsters - fine - show me one then. Just for once, show me one of your daft creatures that actually exists!"

I think I had expected her to burst into tears or flounce off in a huff, like many of my Gryffindor girl classmates would have done if I’d accused them of lying. But I didn’t know Luna so well back then. Instead, she smiled happily at me, turned on her heel and set off down the track leading to the Forbidden Forest, saying:

"Come along, then. Let’s go. We can be back for supper, if we hurry. And I promise you’ll like him. He’s ever so nice, really, once you get to know him."

I hurried after her.

"If you’re leading me up the garden path, I swear I’ll get you somehow. You’ll wish it was Malfoy after you by the time I’m through with you…"

Again, I had expected her to be frightened (though looking back it is hard to see why a girl who had been bullied since she was old enough to talk would be scared of a weedy Muggle misfit barely as tall as she was), but Luna just crinkled up her bulging eyes against the sun and smiled at me.

"Don’t worry. There really is a giant. And anyway, I know you wouldn’t do anything horrible. Your upbringing is far too noble for that."

"Noble? My dad’s a milkman!"

"It’s very altruistic, isn’t it? Bringing fresh milk to all those poor Muggles with no cows of their own. But perhaps you’ve got used to that. I sometimes forget my father’s a great political reformer - to me he’s just Daddy…"

She burbled on as we entered the forest. At first, it seemed a pleasant enough place for a stroll, with the late afternoon sunlight shining through gaps in the canopy, and squirrels and birds hopping about in the upper branches. But after we had left the edges of the forest well behind us, the trees seemed to close in around us, and the light was dimmer and greener. A few minutes more, and Luna turned off the path, following a series of goat-trails that got narrower and narrower. Thorn bushes tugged at my robes, and many-years-dead leaves crackled alarmingly underfoot. For a moment, I was afraid that Luna was playing a practical joke on me, but then I heard grunting and the crack of splintering wood up ahead, and glimpsed something large and dark moving through the trees. She put out a hand to stop me.

"Now we have to be very careful," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "He doesn’t know you, so I think you should approach very slowly, and hold out your present in both hands…"

"Present?" I said, alarmed. The thought of a great adventure with real giants seemed a lot less appealing where the sun could not reach, with something huge and uncontrolled moving around just out of sight. Besides, I’d followed Luna into the Forest on a whim - I certainly hadn’t thought to bring along a box of Milk Tray or a bunch of flowers.

"Yes, with giants you should bring a present," replied Luna. "But it doesn’t have to be anything big…" she pulled a bundle wrapped in a napkin from her robes. "I picked up these Chinese-style spare ribs at lunch - Cho Chang was moaning about how this isn’t the proper Chinese style at all, and after that no-one at our table wanted any… as for you… haven’t you got anything in your satchel?"

I knelt down, rummaging frantically through my schoolbag, cursing my stupid, Muggle lack of initiative. What would one of my DA friends have done? What would Hermione Granger, the girl with a plan for every occasion, have done…? Aha! I pulled out the largest, heaviest book, and hefted it thoughtfully.

"That’ll do nicely," Luna said cheerfully. "He’s bound to like that - a book will be a new experience for him. Now, I’ll go first, because he knows me already, and then you follow, holding the present where he can see it."

We edged cautiously into the clearing. It was much bigger than I had thought, littered with the jagged stumps of trees, which looked as though they had been snapped rather than felled. In the middle of this patch of dry earth, tied to four of the largest remaining trees by long ropes knotted about his wrists and ankles, sat the biggest creature I had ever seen in human form. Broadly speaking, he was human-shaped, but the proportions were all wrong - the arms and legs too thick; the watery eyes too small, too high up in his face and somehow the wrong shade of green; the ears too round, too fleshy and set too close to his skull. His hair was brown and tightly curled, but more like a sheep’s fleece than a human scalp, and it covered his shoulders, arms, neck and what I could see of his chest in an equally dense mat, while leaving his face bare. He was wearing a tunic pieced roughly together out of animal hides. There was a strong smell emanating from him, a reek of male sweat, raw meat and something stranger and less human, more like a goat than a man. Nothing had prepared me for this, and I gaped at him in amazement.

Luna jabbed me in the ribs with an elbow.

"Close your mouth!" she hissed. "It’s rude to stare - besides, you’re laying yourself open to attack by Carnivorous Tonsil Beetles, and you don’t want that, do you? Now, let’s go and say hello - I’ll go first, to show you how it’s done."

She shook back her hair, straightened her shoulders and strode out into the clearing, holding out her parcel of food in front of her chest. When she was in front of the giant, she bowed deeply from the waist and laid the bundle on the ground.

As Luna approached, the creature, which had been sitting listlessly in the centre of the clearing, scratching idly in the sandy soil with a stick, noticeably perked up. He raised huge, craggy brows, extended a muscle-bound finger and poked the parcel experimentally. He lifted the finger to his nose, and the terrifying, flat face split into a broad grin, displaying uneven, yellow, scaly teeth. His hand shot out, untied the parcel with surprising delicacy, picked up the largest rib between finger and thumb and popped it into his mouth. The tiny, odd eyes widened, as did the smile, and a humming noise of contentment issued from his nose. He picked up the napkin, twisted it into a funnel with a flick of his enormous, blunt fingers and poured the contents into his mouth, crunching the bones as easily as I would have crunched a biscuit. There was a thoughtful pause, and then the giant belched loudly, slapping his belly in appreciation. He bent down, very slowly, and with surprising gentleness chucked Luna under the chin. She staggered, but kept her feet. Smiling, she patted his enormous fingers, bowed and withdrew.

"Go on!" she whispered as she returned to where I was standing. "Your turn now. Show him the book, bow and put it on the ground."

I suddenly realised that I didn’t want to get any closer to the terrifying creature in the middle of the clearing. True, he was even bigger than I had expected, and a lot stranger. But for that very reason, I didn’t want to get any closer. Those ruddy, muscled hands were plainly designed to rip and tear, and the scattered bones all round the clearing left me in no doubt as to his ability to tear things limb from limb. Then there was that terrifying smell of carnivore… If I had been on my own, I would probably have turned tail and fled.

I realised my knees were shaking. Luna nudged me forward. I held the big, brown volume out in front of me, and advanced slowly towards the huge figure in front of me. By the time I was close enough to offer up the gift, my arms were trembling, as much with the weight of the book as with nerves. I bowed slowly, acutely aware of that strange, sludgy gaze on the back of my neck, placed the book on the ground at my feet and straightened up.

The next thing I knew, there was a basso profondo grunt, and a hand the size of a skip was coming through the air, aimed straight at me. My nerve broke, and I rushed back to the trees, grabbing Luna by the sleeve.

"Come on!" I panted, as I dragged her after me along the path we’d come in by. "It’s coming after us - let’s get out of here!"

Indeed, there was a lot of thrashing and odd bellowing sounds coming from the clearing. Luna was trying to say something, but I was too desperate to get out of there to listen.

Once we were out of hearing, I slowed to a walk.

"What did you say?"

"I just said how nice it was of you to give him The Lay of Rh’kap-wah. Those leather-bound volumes are really expensive nowadays - fifty Galleons or more… What? What have I said now?" She broke off at the sight of my expression, looking upset. "I thought the visit would cheer you up - don’t tell me I’ve made it worse! I thought you’d understand - you’ve always liked special creatures…"

"It’s not mine," I said glumly. "It’s Professor Scrivener’s."

Professor Scrivener was the Ancient Runes teacher - a cheerful, hefty, middle-aged woman who lived in a garret above the main library. Unlike teachers such as Professors Snape or Trelawney, who were kept in Hogwarts partly for their own protection and partly for use in the fight against Voldemort, Professor Scrivener was that rare thing - a talented teacher who adored her job. Cheerfully and unapologetically half-blood herself, she was determined that her subject should be open to all students, regardless of background, and since I was the only Muggle-born in my group, she took great pains to make sure I did not fall behind - no easy task, as I showed no particular talent. Still, with extra homework and occasional hours of personal coaching, I had somehow got through all my exams to date, and Professor Scrivener had lent me The Lay of Rh’kap-wah as "light reading to keep you ticking over the holidays". I had taken it home, where it had delighted my family with its obvious antiquity and difficulty ("my grandson - the classical scholar!" my grandfather had exclaimed proudly, and given me a ten-pound note on the strength of it). The family liked the book, but it had driven me almost to distraction with its turgid sentence structure, implausible and convoluted sub-plots, its tedious hero who kept behaving in the most ill-considered way (I’d already had a run-in with the Dark Arts, and I knew) and the most unsympathetic love interest I had ever seen. I had struggled manfully to the end, as I felt I owed it to Professor Scrivener, but it had been a boring and frustrating task. I would have been happy never to see the wretched thing again, if replacing it had only been a bit less expensive. Luna was right in a way - the milk delivery business was a lot closer to altruism than money-making these days. My parents had given me a Galleon to last until Christmas - there was no question of my being able to replace Professor Scrivener’s book out of my own pocket, or ask for more.

"I’ll have to get that book back off him," I said to Luna. "I thought I was giving him my 1000 Magical Herbs and Fungi - I can share with my brother, and I’m dropping Herbology next year anyway. Perhaps he’ll like it better - I’m sure he will, actually - think of all the pictures. I’m going back to see if I can negotiate a swap." This often seemed to happen around Professor Scrivener - students would go to any lengths to avoid disappointing her. With hindsight, I have often wondered if there was some coercive magical element to it. In any case, I never seriously considered just owning up about the book.

"Hmm," said Luna. "I’m not sure that’s how it works - "

But I was already on my way down the path back towards the giant’s grove. Loud noises were issuing from the direction we had just come, and the undergrowth around us was full of the squeaking of terrified woodland creatures and the alarm calls of small birds.

The noise got louder as we approached. We could now make out a drumming sound that shook the very ground under our feet, interspersed with hideous howls, gurgles and moans.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Luna asked, as I peered round a tree trunk.

Instead of sitting, alert on the ground as we had left him, the poor giant had fallen over, and was prone on the floor of the grove. He was lying on his stomach, gasping for breath and groaning, drumming his huge, horny feet on the ground in some frightful paroxysm. The trees shook with the force of it, and he was gouging great wounds in the earth with his toes.

Luna and I exchanged a glance, and beat a hasty retreat without needing to say a word. I was grateful to Professor Scrivener, but not enough to risk my life. After all, she was very thick with Madam Pince - surely she could borrow a library copy if it came to that. I said as much to Luna on the way back.

"… and if I was her, I’d be grateful to lose that stupid Rer Krap War book anyway," I concluded. "It’s awful - can’t think what she sees in it."

"Rh’kap-wah," Luna corrected me absently. "But I love that book! It’s not very sophisticated, I’ll allow, but it’s so funny! That bit where Dhe-Grang enters the Caverns of Mors, and he thinks the mammoth’s his Transfigured girlfriend in love with him when all it wants is a scratch behind its knees…" her voice trailed off, and she burst into paroxysms of shrill laughter. She ended up having to sit at the side of the path, clutching her stomach, until the fit passed.

"What do you know about it anyway?" I said, looking down at her crossly. "You’ve never done Runes. You’ve certainly never been in any of our lessons."

"No, but I’ve been studying them with Daddy ever since I learned normal writing. He says that if you want to Fathom the Mysteries of the Ancients you really need to be able to read their works in the original. I’ve been keeping a Rune diary since I was eight. The nice professor lady said there really wasn’t much point in me going to her lower school classes - worse luck - I had to take Divination instead. It’s too bad - that woman will believe anything." She got to her feet, dusted herself down and set off down the path. "Come on, Professor Hagrid will be wondering about his Bowtruckle. And don’t worry so much about Professor Scrivener - we’ve got all weekend to think of something. Why, we could form a Conspiracy!" She tripped up the path ahead of me, singing "When Celia Was Learning" in a thin, quavery soprano.

***

Neither of us mentioned the giant to Hagrid, or the book. I wanted to, but he had given us each a slab of his special bonfire toffee as a thank-you, and this effectively glued our teeth together until well after supper. Fortunately pumpkin and eel soup was on the menu that evening, so we did not go to bed hungry.

***

I barely slept a wink all night. It was bad enough that I’d misread Professor Scrivener’s farcical and occasionally highly suggestive comedy as a third-rate adventure story (I blushed in the dark as I realised what some parts were actually implying) - but how was I going to get the wretched thing back? If I couldn’t, how was I to get the money to buy a replacement? I had plenty of rich classmates - but we were hardly on those sort of terms. I knew that as soon as I suggested anything to do with money, the friendship would be over.

I lay awake, wondering if I could Transfigure an ordinary textbook into a replacement - or borrow one from the library (impossible: failing to return one of Madam Pince’s books was even more upsetting a thought than the disappointment on Professor Scrivener’s face. Madam Pince’s wrath was terrible to behold. There were rumours that she had stuffed Vladimir Montague head-first into a toilet last year, after she caught him drawing moustaches on the illustrations of the school’s first-edition signed copy of Little Women) Perhaps I could steal one from another student? (unethical, more was the pity). Clearly, I would have to retrieve the book from that giant, or else go to Professor Scrivener and confess all.

Well, I was a Gryffindor. There was only one way it could go, wasn’t there?

***

The next day was a Saturday, and I collared Luna after breakfast outside the Great Hall. When I told her I was taking her up on her offer of help, she was happy to go along with it, especially when she realised she was my first choice of fellow-conspirator, as she insisted on calling it. We retired to a secluded corner of the Periodicals section of the library, and sat down for a council of war.

Once we had made ourselves comfortable and spread our things out on the broad oak table, it quickly became clear that organising a dangerous snatch-and-grab session was not as easy as it looked when Harry Potter or the Weasley brothers were doing it. Not only were we hampered by an idea that most of the school rules were perfectly sensible and probably there for a reason, we were neither of us especially physically or magically strong, and both harboured doubts about whether we were really justified in what we were doing (a present was, after all, a present). That was bad enough, but the real problem was that neither of us had ever instigated an adventure before, and we didn’t really knew how to do proceed - certainly, we’d been involved in all kinds of escapades, but very much in the role of hangers-on. My admiration for Harry Potter - always high - rose another notch as three hours went by without us producing a single workable idea that would not involve damaging either book, giant or ourselves.

"Look," Luna said at last, "this just isn’t playing to our strengths. I’m a Ravenclaw - I can’t make plans without data. And you - you’re an observer with your camera, not a fighter. So let’s observe and collect data before we decide what to do. I’m sure that’s much more efficient than just running in there and trying to stun a sixteen-foot giant with our wands - the power-mass ratios are all wrong, we’d never be able to do it. I think we should have lunch as normal, and then go on a reconnaissance mission to the Forest. We can pick up something nice for the giant at lunch. Watch out for the steak and kidney pies though - a contact of Daddy’s says that Hogwarts sources its kidneys from Cornelius Fudge, and we all know where he gets them."

***

We met an hour later outside Greenhouse Thirteen. Neither of us had a pie, but I had managed to smuggle out half a loaf of bread and an entire carrot cake, and Luna had spent all lunch time quietly accio’ing sausages and pork chops into a sack under the table. We shouldered our bags and set off, past Hagrid’s hut and into the dark forest.

The sky was overcast, and although there was no immediate threat of rain, the forest was silent and gloomy. We followed the previous day’s route, in a much more subdued mood. The birds and insects were silent, and even when we were quite close there was no sound from the giant’s clearing.
Luna looked at me anxiously, her protuberant eyes almost luminous in the gloom. "Golly," she said, "I hope it wasn’t the spare ribs. How awful if he turns out to be allergic to aniseed!"

"No - wait - I thought I heard something," I said. "Let’s see if we can get a bit closer - quiet as we can…"

We crept to the edge of the clearing, and peered in from behind a bush.

The giant was lying on his back, legs and arms thrown wide to fill all the available space, fast asleep and utterly relaxed. We could see his huge chest rising and falling slowly, and hear the rasp of his breathing - almost, but not quite, the most gentle of snores. All the harshness and wildness had drained from his face, and even from there we could see that the giant was smiling.

Luna nudged me, pointed, and there, by the giant’s outstretched right hand, was The Lay of Rh’kap-wah, unharmed, lying in the scored earth.

"Quick!" she hissed in my ear, and I wondered vaguely why I had ever thought of her as unworldly. "Let’s get it while he’s asleep! Not a sound now… follow me…"

When we had got a bit closer, we could see that the channels in the sandy soil looked as if they had been scored with a stick. They formed a regular, elaborate pattern of great beauty, framing the book, which sat in the middle, looking no different from when I had presented it to the giant the day before. I reached out to pick it up, but Luna suck out a restraining hand.

"Aren’t those runes? There, at the corners of the pattern…"

I could see what she meant, though the runes - if that was what they were - were done in an exaggerated, flamboyant style, with extra branches weaving in and out of the main strokes. I tried to remember Professor Scrivener’s lessons.

"Gha… az… hu… wah?" I spelled them out to myself. "A name? Or is it Wah-hu-az-gha, if they’re going anticlockwise, like on temples and gravestones?"

Luna shook her head.

"Well, it could be a name or something, I suppose," she said. "But in such a short phrase they’re more likely to be Old High Runic ideograms - Runes that convey a whole word-meaning," she added, seeing my baffled expression. "Really, doesn’t Professor Scrivener teach you anything?"

In truth, Professor Scrivener had taught us some of the commonly used meaning components of the major runes, and if I had not spent most of the summer term gazing in mooncalf fascination at Phaedra Royce, wondering how much she was wearing under her light, silky summer robes, I would have been in more of a position to help. Fortunately, I had my Rune dictionary in my bag. .

"But it still makes no sense!" I said crossly, after leafing through the dictionary for a few minutes. "Luminous - pinnacle - the Other - rhetorical question - what’s that supposed to mean? I bet he just liked the patterns in the book and was copying what he saw!"

"I don’t think so," said Luna. There was an odd look of suppressed excitement on her face. "You’re being far too literal - remember, Old High Runic’s an ancient language, and word meanings have shifted. Nothing quite corresponds to a word in English, so you’ve got broaden your outlook… try to imagine what they might mean together."

I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. "But it’s still gibberish! How can a book be luminous? It’s not even shiny!"

Luna smiled. "I can’t believe you’ve spent five years in the same House as Ronald Weasley and still have to ask me that," she said.

And then it hit me.

"Brilliant!" I cried, quite forgetting to keep my voice down in my excitement.

"Bloody brilliant, actually," she said, grinning. "A pinnacle is the highest part of a mountain, you can’t get higher, so the ancients often used it to mean the very best."

"But what about the rest?"

"Keep going," she suggested. "You’ve got the hang of it now."

"…the Other… stranger?… a different one? Leave that for now… but what’s this about rhetoric? I’m no public speaker."

"It’s a question particle," she said. "It turns the sentence into question…"

"I’ve got it!" I yelped. "Bloody brilliant - got any more? He can read! Bloody brilliant - any more? He read my book, and he liked it! Bloody brilliant - any more? Wahey!"

"Mawr? Mawr?" said a huge, deep voice behind us. "Nee mawr?"

Luna and clung to each other, scrambling to hide behind each other as the huge body rolled over and into a sitting position in a way that more resembled a major landslide than a yawn and stretch. We cowered away as fast as our trembling limbs would let us, until Luna gave a little gasp and relaxed.

"It’s all right!" she said, voice breathy with relief. "Look up! He’s smiling!"

I craned my head back as far I would go, and I was right. The giant was not just smiling, he was positively beaming, pointing to the book on the ground. The fearsome, grinning mouth opened, and words came out in that terrible, deep voice.

"Can you understand?" I asked Luna in an undertone.

"Not a word," she said cheerfully. "But it doesn’t matter a bit - let me just get my hands free…"

I realised that I was clutching Luna so tightly she could not move her arms, and let go very quickly, flushing and making a sheepish I’m-not-here-really kind of noise. Luna merely shrugged, reached up into her hair to remove her wand from her hair where she had thrust it, squatted on the ground, considered for a moment and began to write in the loose earth with the tip. Compared to the giant’s careful mandala, her runes were schoolgirlish and unformed (though at least she did not use little hearts instead of vowel markings, as some of my classmates did), but she wrote confidently, and the giant was watching her with obvious interest.

I tried to edge away, but a huge, warm hand wrapped itself round my chest, and I was unable to move or go for my wand. Once I had stopped hyperventilating, I realised that I was quite comfortable - the palms were warm, and covered with dense, dry, tightly curled hair, rather like a wraparound sofa. I leaned back, watching Luna as she wrote in the sandy soil, her expression of fierce concentration very much at odds with her normal dreaminess.

Luna drew a line under what she had written, dusted her hands and stood back. The giant let me go, pushing me off to one side with a controlled but terrible strength, and got down on his hands and knees for a good look. Luna and I sat on a fallen tree at a discreet distance and watched the giant reach up, snap a branch from a towering beech tree, use it trace a perfect circle in the dirt and begin to sketch in a series of neat, careful runes around the perimeter.

"What did you tell him?" I asked Luna.

"Not much - it takes a long time to say anything in the Old High form because of all the honorifics and titles. I told him who we were, of course. And I asked him how he came here, and if he needed anything. Apart from that, I just said we were glad he liked the book and could get him others if he liked, but this one had been given to him under a misapprehension and we were going to have to return it. I just hope I wasn’t too blunt… but he doesn’t seem to be annoyed. Now we just have to wait and see."

It took a long time, but at last the giant rose, returned to the pallet where he seemed to spend most of his days, and folded his hands in his lap, occasionally picking at the places where the ropes had chafed his wrists.
Luna and I approached the circle. One glance was enough to show me that this was way out of my league, though it was beautifully done, with perfectly proportioned glyphs spiralling inwards around a central boss, displaying three larger sigils. Luna examined it with interest.

"Isn’t it beautiful?" she said. "I’ve never seen anything half so fine, not even in the Hogwarts library."

"Never mind that," I replied. "What’s he saying?"

Luna scratched her head.

"Well, he certainly isn’t making this easy for me… this is a lot more complex than the Sagas or the Idylls… let’s see… She who feeds the prisoner will dine on glory in the house of the Gods: He who brings wine for the captive’s soul shall quaff the blood of his enemies in paradise…hmm, I think that just means he’s saying thank you for the book - if he was threatening to kill us he could probably have done it already… moving on… The younglings salute the tall one: The captive makes obeisance before his benefactor… must be saying he’s pleased to meet us and thanks again for the presents... The saga of the foolish warrior has awoken the slave to mirth: But death to him who defaults on an obligation… Well, that’s straightforward enough - he enjoyed the story, but if the book belongs to someone else it should go back to them. Now then… Those carried out of darkness and peril must endure idleness: If your brother misunderstands you, endure it in silence, for your life is held at his gift… I have no idea what that means… move on for now… Flesh and puddles and caves…oh, I see… One may have no lack of food, drink and shelter, and yet be unsatisfied: Companionship, though enjoyed in secret and with the small and unlettered, (that’s not very nice!) is sweetness indeed. He isn’t hungry or thirsty, but he likes our company and hopes we can come again. But he doesn’t want us to tell anyone. And then the last quarter is just formulaic, calling down the blessings of the gods on his sacred enterprise - that’s just the way all Old High Runic scripts end - writing used to be sacred in the old days, and my Daddy always says quite right too."

"Then I can give Professor Scrivener her book back?" I said excitedly.

"Yes, Colin," said Luna, deadpan. "You can give Professor Scrivener her book back. We can take it with us when we go back to the castle."

I remembered my manners.

"And you’ve translated that amazing… thing on the ground, too!" I said enthusiastically. "Fantastic! Do you think he’d mind if I take a picture of it?"

"Better not, maybe," Luna replied, "writing’s sacred for him, remember? Perhaps when you know each other better. Now sit there and be quiet while I write back and tell him we’re going to have to go soon but we’ll be back tomorrow. Any messages for him?"

I thought for a moment.

"Tell him I’ll get him another Rune book out of the library… wait, I almost forgot to ask. What about the three glyphs in the middle?"

"That’s his name," she said. "Grah-wuh-pharg - 'Furious Wielder of Storms'."

The giant looked up at the sound of his name. He lowered his head, and touched his mouth and forehead briefly with his bound hands.

I took a step forward.

"Colin," I said, pointing to myself.

"Krawn." The giant touched his mouth and forehead again. I bowed and did the same. Then I pointed to Luna.

"Luna"

This gave him more trouble. Luna bowed, and repeated her name.

"Ruah-nar," Again the gesture, which Luna copied. Then she bent her head briefly, crouched down with her stick, and set to work.