Harry had been awhile in the depths of the Forest that is Forbidden, meandering betwixt the towering firs, which in the time of Merlin were but precious seedlings, delicate and ephemeral. Though he thought he cared not whether he live or die, in his heart Harry retained a love of life that kept him from wandering towards the realm of low-hanging Vesperus, for that was centaur territory. Those savage horsemen, those fierce children born from the violent union of Ixion and Nephele, would have eviscerated the Boy Who Lived and, holding the bloody entrails before his dimming eyes, would have used them to extract the future, as did the prophets of old.
And so Harry, wandering, half-mad, half-blind to the forest around him, stumbled away from the winding path—oh, the folly of man!—and to the place that the diminutive giant Grawp had made his home. In love with death he staggered into the clearing, and Death, bemused, followed. He found the giant asleep, caught like a moth in the web of dreams. His lids flutter, but he cannot free himself. Unthinking of danger—or perhaps uncaring—Harry kicked the massive foot. When this had no effect, the Potter child took out his wand (a splendid object, the likes of which are not seen in the world today). With this, he shot a powerful jet into the eye of the sleeper. Grawp woke with a roar that sent the creatures of the woodland fleeing in all directions, and Harry watched with indifference as a single fairy fell dead before him from the heights of the canopy.
"Where Hagger?" demanded the giant, in a voice utterly unlike that of a cat, if such creatures would condescend to communicate with single-lived bipeds.
"Hagrid lies in his hut," said Harry, unflinching before the wild gesticulations of the aggrieved Grawp, "in an intoxicated stupor, with foul bile dripping from his swollen tongue: a sight to shock, and to make one examine oneself, and be satisfied."
"Where Hagger?!"
Harry sighed, and his spirits dropped further still in mourning for the poor simpleton.
"He doesn't want to see you. Your aspect reminds him of the hateful truth: that his own mother never loved him, and did abandon himself and his human father for a gigantic lover."
"Hagger no here?!"
"'Hagger', as you say, has sent me."
"Yeh?"
"Quite. I'm to be… your dinner."
Harry did not take time to wonder how deep his abhorrence of life and the light of day had become in order for him to make such a request. For what creature goes willingly to such a loathsome end?
"Me eats Potty?"
"That's about the length of it. You see, simple giant that you are, I have been contemplating much of late how I might take the journey to those Elysian plains of which the poets speak. I loved once, and he was like me in all things, but harder, harsher, and now is torn from me by the claws of cruel Fate. Since I can remember, I walked not the same paths as mortal men, and saw with eyes that were not human, and no sympathies did we share in common. Yet I had the flesh and form, and the semblance of being what they were truly, though among all of mankind that was not one with whom I had communion, save for—but of him I cannot speak. I was a sorcerer, and I lived among men who were men merely. Then I was a student of magic, and I moved among those whom they said were my ilk, yet they were not. Now I have glimpsed the jaws of Death, and black infinity, and can live no more. These eyes have seen all the light I could care for, and more besides; for they see still, when I would have it otherwise. Devour me, I say, for mine heart rebels against this confinement, this binding in mortal clay. Destroy me, for I command it! Let there be none who can say, in jeering accents, that Harry Potter was afraid to die, or that his soul would not leave his mangled remains for fear of that land which is after death. But there is one more thing I would say: yes, anon! I would add… Oh, alack, alack! But I said I would not speak of it! My resolve wavers; quick, I must die! But first, first, I must say of her, the one to whom my affections would ever have been bent, were it not for my resolution to flee this veil of tears… But what are these? Actual tears? Why do these roll down my cheeks, when I am determined to die? It matters not, for I was saying… Yes of her, the one who besides him was most like myself, with whom I might have—"
But Harry spoke no more, for Grawp had bitten off his head, and thus cut off the flow of his speech.