He stood motionless, his tall form silhouetted amongst the trees of the Forbidden Forest. The creatures living there were all familiar with him and so most didn't shy away from his presence anymore, instead going about their everyday business as though he wasn't there. He always spent a good portion of his day just watching them, learning from the nature that surrounded him. It was his way of calming down, collecting his thoughts and making sense of things.
They all thought him ignorant, even those he considered friends. Maybe he wasn't book smart like they were, but that didn't mean he didn't know things. He'd grown up with magical creatures all around him – he was almost one himself, after all - he knew some of their most closely guarded secrets, things that they would usually never tell to anyone outside of their own species.
Then there were these children that looked at him with scorn on their young faces, openly mocking him. They all thought that they knew everything, that the experiences they'd had in the past eleven to eighteen years were so much more valuable than everything he'd seen in over sixty years. Maybe they were right; he very rarely left the grounds of Hogwarts – not since his father had died so many years before.
There was so much that they didn't know; so much that they could never even begin to understand about the world that they lived in. None of them would ever get the full message of what he was trying to teach them, as none of them were willing to listen to everything that he had to say. They couldn't claim knowledge of the forest like he could, and even he didn't know everything – he probably never would.
These children thought that they owned the land, that it was their birthright. They were sure to lay claim on as much of the Earth as they could within their lives, and their children were bound to do the same thing. None of them thought of the Earth as the living, sentient being that he knew it to be. Every rock, tree and creature on it had all come from the same place, and would all end in the same place – all possessing a life, spirit and name.
Some of these children didn't even view him as a person due to his part-giant heritage, and he knew that was where a large part of the bigotry he'd endured his entire life had come from. They considered him an outcast because he didn't look like they did, didn't think like they did. If only they could walk in the footsteps of a stranger, just for a day, then they would begin to learn some of the things that they never realised they didn't know.
They'd never stopped to listen to a werewolf cry to the full moon, never heard the beauty in that agony filled howl. They'd never thought to find out the hidden ways of the Centaurs, never even considered that the Centaurs culture could in fact help them. They would run in fear of Aragog and his kin, not getting to know the individual personalities each of them possess like he had.
As he stood in the forest he could hear the voices all around him – voices of creatures and nature alike. He could hear the sounds of the wind and the trees and the plants, the sounds of the various creatures that called the Forbidden Forest their home, and he was glad that he took the time to listen even if others judged him for it. They would never see the beauty of this moment, or the thousand others like it that he had witnessed.
He could instantly pick out hidden trails in the forest and follow them to their destination, whilst others would be lost here for days walking in aimless circles until they managed to accidentally stumble upon the sight of the grounds of Hogwarts. He would be able to survive in this forest for however long he wanted, never once having to leave its familiar depths – and he had, on occasion. He had a vast knowledge on all of the riches that surrounded him this far into the forest, never once wondering how many galleons he could get for them.
He would stand outside in the middle of a rainstorm simply to watch how the world changed and feel the raindrops against his skin, whilst others stayed inside in the warm. He had learnt long ago to find his way using rivers and other landmarks that nature had to offer, and now it had reached a point where they were as much his family as parents. He'd made friends with the unicorns and the hippogriffs when the humans would not have him, and he understood them like others never could.
They were all connected, and he could see this even if others couldn't. Life was like a circle – a never ending hoop – all starting with nothing and ending in the ground to help nurture the new life that grows.
He would often stroll through the forest looking at the same trees each day, watching how tall they became with time – the same trees that others would sooner have cut down than stand and speculate about. They would never stop to consider any of these things, no matter how important they were to keeping the world alive. They would willingly destroy the peaceful places where nature ran free and never once stop to feel the sunshine warming their faces.
It shouldn't matter how they looked, the physical differences were just that – physical – they didn't take into account all of the wonderful things around them, never receiving the same amount of joy from nature that he did. He revelled in all of the beauty that surrounded him, always feeling the same amount of excitement as he had at that first glimpse of Hogwarts way back in his First Year.
He never wanted to let that feeling of absolute awe go like so many others before him had, he hoped he would always feel that when he entered into this land completely untouched man. He knew that no one could own this earth fully; it would always be its own master and continue despite people's effort to control it.
They would never understand.