Chapter 137: The Weight of Kingship
The portal bloomed in the darkness of the Forbidden Forest like a wound of golden light, seven meters high and shimmering with impossible energies. Through its arch, the frozen carnage of the Giant's Maw was visible—the headless corpses, the kneeling titans, the steam of cooling blood rising in the moonlight.
Hagrid stared at the portal, then at the familiar trees behind it. His brain, battered by the last hour of terror and revelation, struggled to connect the two images. The Forbidden Forest. The bones of dead giants. The two realities should not coexist.
Then he saw it. A flash of something familiar in the background of the portal's image. A pile of broken furniture. A dented, oversized bell.
His blood turned to ice.
"Grapp?" he whispered. "No… no, Elian, you can't—not Grapp, he's just a babe, he's not ready fer this—"
But Elian was already reaching through the portal, not with his hand, but with his will. The connection he had forged in the Forbidden Forest pulsed. A summons.
And Grawp came.
The young giant shuffled through the portal with obvious reluctance, his massive, childlike face a mask of confusion and mounting terror. His eyes swept across the scene before him—the kneeling giants, the bodies, the colossal head of Korg lying in the mud like a discarded boulder—and he made a sound like a wounded animal. He tried to retreat, to flee back to the safety of his forest and his bell and the small, fierce girl who spoke to him with authority.
Hagrid was at his side in an instant, one massive hand on Grawp's trembling arm. "It's alright, son, it's alright. I'm here. No one's gonna hurt yeh."
"Grapp no like," Grawp whimpered, his voice a low, rumbling quake. "Grapp want go home."
"This is your home now," Elian said. He stood before Grawp, a figure of absolute stillness amidst the chaos. His voice was not unkind, but it was absolute. "These are your people. You will be their chieftain."
Hagrid whirled on him, his fear momentarily eclipsed by fury. "He's a child! Yeh can't just—yeh can't make him—he don't understand what yer askin'!"
"He will learn." Elian's gaze did not waver. "He has you. He has Hermione. He will not rule alone. But the giants need a symbol, Hagrid. A face they recognize. A bloodline they respect. Korg is dead. The Death Eaters' alliance is broken. There is a vacuum, and if I do not fill it, someone else will. Someone who will use them as fodder for Voldemort's war."
The name hung in the frozen air like a curse. Even the kneeling giants flinched.
Hagrid's anger crumbled. He looked at Grawp's frightened face, then at the rows of cowed giants, then at Elian. The boy—no, not a boy, never just a boy—stood with the Vishanti's Sword still glowing at his side, its light casting sharp shadows across his features.
"He's just a babe," Hagrid said again, but his voice had lost its fire. It was a plea now.
"He is sixteen feet tall and stronger than any wizard alive," Elian replied. "He is not a babe. He is a giant. And giants follow strength." He paused, and something flickered in his grey eyes. "But they also respond to kindness. You've taught him that. Hermione is teaching him that. That is why he will be a better chieftain than Korg ever was."
He turned away from Hagrid, facing the assembled giants. His voice rose, carrying to the farthest edges of the camp. "This is Grawp! Your new chieftain! He speaks with my voice! He carries my authority! You will obey him as you obey me!"
The giants stirred. Several of the bolder ones raised their heads, studying Grawp with wary, calculating eyes. A runt. A weakling. But the golden-eyed demon stood beside him, and his blade had claimed twenty of their number in as many minutes.
Elian's gaze swept the crowd. He saw the doubt. He saw the resentment coiling beneath the fear. He raised his hand, and the Vishanti's Sword flared with renewed brilliance.
Four giants, emboldened by some desperate calculus of pride and terror, rose to their feet. They did not attack, but their posture was clear: defiance.
Elian did not hesitate.
The sword sang. Golden arcs of pure energy traced through the air, too fast to follow, too clean to comprehend. The four giants fell in perfect, silent sequence, their heads parting from their shoulders before their bodies had even completed their rise.
The thud of their corpses hitting the frozen ground was the only sound.
Elian lowered his blade. "Anyone else?"
Silence. Absolute, complete, eternal silence. The remaining giants pressed their foreheads to the earth. Not one dared to breathe too loudly.
Grawp let out a terrified keen and buried his face in Hagrid's coat. Hagrid held him, his own hands shaking, his mind a battlefield of horror and dawning, reluctant understanding.
This is war, he told himself. This is what it takes. Dumbledore said… he said things have changed. He said Elian is the centre now.
But looking at the boy who had just executed four living beings without a flicker of emotion, Hagrid wondered if the cost of this new war was something they hadn't yet begun to calculate.
The return journey was silent.
The portal deposited them at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, near Hagrid's hut. The night air of Hogwarts was mild compared to the frozen peaks of the Giant's Maw. The scent of pine and lake water replaced the stench of blood and death.
Grawp, still trembling, was coaxed back toward his clearing with promises of Hagrid's rock cakes and the bell he had left behind. He went reluctantly, casting terrified glances over his shoulder at Elian, who stood motionless at the forest's edge.
Hagrid lingered. His face was grey with exhaustion and something deeper—a fundamental shift in his understanding of the world.
"Elian," he said, his voice hoarse. "What yeh did tonight… I can't say I liked it. I can't say I understand it. But I see why Dumbledore trusts yeh. I see why them centaurs knelt."
He paused, searching for words. "Yeh're not like other wizards. Yeh're not even like Dumbledore. Yeh're… somethin' else. Somethin' new."
Elian said nothing. His face, in the moonlight, was unreadable.
Hagrid sighed, a great, weary sound. "I'll tell Dumbledore what happened. All of it. He needs to know." He paused at the door of his hut. "And Elian? Hermione… she was worried sick about yeh. Don't keep her in the dark forever. That girl deserves better'n that."
He went inside, closing the door behind him.
Elian stood alone at the edge of the forest. The System's notifications glowed in the corner of his vision—rewards claimed, new missions pending—but he dismissed them. He looked up at the distant, lighted windows of Hogwarts Castle, where hundreds of students slept, unaware of the new order being forged in their name.
Somewhere in that castle, his friends were in trouble. He didn't know the details yet, but he could feel it—a tension in the air, a wrongness that hadn't been there when he left.
The Levitation Cloak settled around his shoulders. He began to walk toward the castle.
It was time to find out what he had missed.
(End of Chapter)
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