A tall, stooped crone emerged slowly from behind a cluster of boulders, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane. Her milky eyes swept over the three visitors with unnerving precision.
Though age had bent her spine and thinned her hair, those eyes still burned sharper and clearer than any of the younger giants around her.
The young giants muttered, "Aba… aba…"
The old woman ignored them. Her gaze lingered on the hulking three-headed dog first, then settled on Ethan. Something in her posture shifted; the hunch deepened, the grip on her cane loosened into something almost deferential.
She exhaled a gravelly sigh. "I did not know honored guests would arrive today. My apologies—my grandchildren lack manners."
One of the younger giants bristled. "Gran! Why're you groveling to that scrawny little—"
Thwack. The cane cracked across the back of his knee. He yelped and hopped away, rubbing the welt.
The crone didn't even glance at him. "This way, please. The Gurg is resting."
"Brilliant!" Hagrid beamed, hurrying after her like a child promised sweets.
Ethan tucked his enchanted cards back into his sleeve and murmured to the restless Cerberus, "Patience. If this goes well…"
A slow, wicked grin spread across his unfairly handsome face.
"…we'll make absolutely sure the giants never get the chance to switch sides."
[GRRRRRRRR—]
Cerberus bared three sets of saber-like fangs and licked its chops, staring at the giants as though they were oversized meatballs. The loudmouth from earlier suddenly discovered the virtues of marching in perfect step, arms and legs moving like a broken marionette. Gooseflesh prickled along every visible inch of gray skin.
Ethan gave a soft, theatrical snort.
Human nature? Child's play.
Luna's dreamy voice drifted past. "If you chop the head and tail off first, it only takes two steps to fit in the freezer…"
Hagrid, up ahead, walked a little faster.
They were led through narrow ravines where giants on both sides raised fists or clubs in grudging salute. At last they reached the heart of the cliff: a wide, flat circle of stone stained with vast, rust-brown patches that had long since soaked into the rock.
Ethan wrinkled his nose. Execution ground, fighting pit, or both—hard to tell. The smell of old blood never quite left a place like this.
In the center sat a colossus.
Even cross-legged, the Gurg towered over every other giant like a mountain squatting on the earth. Corded gray muscle bulged beneath skin as tough as granite; his beard was a tangled storm cloud shot through with frost. Torch-bright eyes glared out from beneath brows like cliff ledges.
The younger giants who had trailed behind fell instinctively silent.
Ethan thought, That's the boss.
His gaze slid sideways.
Beside the Gurg stood another giant—nearly as tall, though leaner, younger. Violence rolled off him in waves. His fingers worried the haft of the massive axe at his belt, and his stare could have flayed a dragon.
The old woman bowed as low as her back allowed. "Lord Gurg, these wizards say they were sent by Dumbledore."
The word wizard rippled outward like a stone dropped in still water.
Instant uproar.
"Wizards?! What're those murdering scum doing here?!" "Smash 'em!" "Skin soup tonight!" "I call dibs on the dog!"
Clubs and stone axes rose. The younger giant beside the Gurg took one eager step forward, lips peeling back from yellowed tusks.
Then—
"QUIET!"
The roar hit like an avalanche. Every giant froze mid-shout.
Shadows swallowed the circle as the Gurg unfolded himself, rising… rising… until Hagrid's neck craned back so far his beard brushed his own shoulder blades.
A voice rolled down from the sky. "I am Gurg, chieftain of the giants. We have not forgotten what wizards did to us. We retreated to these final mountains because of wizards. But Dumbledore… Dumbledore once spoke to us as equals. For his sake alone, I will hear you. Speak. Then we decide whether you leave on your feet or in pieces."
Hagrid practically bounced. "Thank you, thank you! Dumbledore sends this gift—"
He opened the box with trembling hands. Inside hovered a sphere of everlasting golden flame—warm, living, eternal.
Ethan studied it with open envy. "Self-sustaining light and heat source… gorgeous bit of spellcraft. I'm nicking that idea for the Enlightenment Society. Hang one over the front doors—ten million lumens of pure enlightenment. The first-years will ascend on sight."
Then, quieter, to himself: "Still… I'd rather have the real thing. The primordial fire seed your people pulled straight from the planet's veins. Legendary-grade alchemical reagent. Mmm."
He licked his lips, eyes glittering.
While Ethan daydreamed about forbidden fire, Hagrid launched into the prepared speech: looming darkness, return of Voldemort, plea for neutrality at the very least, etc., etc.
Cerberus yawned so wide all three tongues lolled out.
When Hagrid finished, the Gurg brooded in silence long enough for the wind to moan across the stones. At last he gave a dismissive grunt.
"Keep the gift. Let them sleep one night. Out of respect for an old debt to Dumbledore, I deny myself the pleasure of crushing them tonight."
Hagrid nearly wept with relief.
The surrounding giants did not bother hiding their sulks. The would-be usurper at the Gurg's side looked as though someone had spat in his stew.
Ethan saw everything.
Luna's soft voice floated past again. "Tonight's moon is so sorrowful… it's already mourning the lives that will end before dawn."
Ethan turned. In her pale blue eyes he saw the Gurg's reflection—huge, proud, doomed.
He offered his hand, palm up, smile sharpening. "Care to watch me rewrite fate in real time?"
Luna tilted her head. Ethan's reflection danced in her eyes now. She laid her delicate fingers across his without hesitation.
"I've been waiting all evening, Ethan."
That night they were given a shallow cave that smelled of smoke and wet dog.
Hagrid's snores shook dust from the ceiling like gentle earthquakes.
Outside, thunder gathered that had nothing to do with weather.
Ethan slipped between sleeping giants the way moonlight slips between clouds—silent, inevitable. He reached the Gurg's private cavern.
No Gurg. Only the faint red glow of banked coals and curling smoke.
Then pressure—titanic, crushing—descended from behind.
"I told you not to wander, little wizard."
The voice rolled like boulders down a mountainside.
Ethan turned leisurely, smiling up at the stone axe already descending like the blade of a guillotine.
"Good evening, Chief."
The Gurg blinked, honestly startled that the tiny human showed no fear.
"Brave," he admitted grudgingly. "Or stupid. The old woman was right—you do command that monster hound. Doesn't matter. No insect crawls unpunished in my home."
He hefted the axe higher.
Ethan didn't flinch. He looked, if anything, faintly pitying.
"You're mistaken about one thing," he said conversationally.
"It isn't me who's about to die."
The Gurg's brow furrowed. "What—"
Puchi.
A wet, meaty sound.
A blood-slick spear burst through the Gurg's chest from behind, lifting him an inch off the ground.
The giant's eyes flew wide. He twisted, disbelieving, to stare at the wielder.
His second-in-command—Gorg—grinned with savage triumph.
"You're old, Gurg. Weak. Grovelling to wizards. The tribe needs strong leadership."
He twisted the spear. "My leadership."
The Gurg crashed to his knees, then to his face. Blood sheeted across the stone, thick and black in the firelight.
Treachery from the one he trusted most—shock outweighed even the pain.
And in the last coherent corner of his mind he remembered the little wizard's words:
He will die.
How had the human known?
Magic?
What did he—
Ethan's voice ghosted across the cavern, amused and icy.
"I'm very much looking forward to the gift your tribe will offer me in the morning."
Hagrid had brought everlasting wizard flame.
The giants, Ethan had decided, would surrender the far more valuable primordial fire seed—the one torn from the heart of the earth itself.
Because wizards asked for neutrality.
But when Ethan Vincent finished rewriting the night… the giants would beg for mercy, if they wanted their species to survive another season.
Moonlight spilled through a crack high above, silvering the pooling blood.
Ethan smiled like a pleased cat, flicked his wand almost lazily, and slowed the crimson flood to a lazy trickle—keeping the Gurg alive just long enough to fully appreciate what came next.
"Sleep well, Chief," he whispered. "Big day tomorrow."
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