Everyone gaped at him, their eyes wide.
"Hagrid, when you said 'little brother,'" Harry said very slowly, as though he could not believe his ears, "did you mean—?"
Harry looked at the giant. It was his first time seeing one. By his estimate, Grawp was nearly sixteen feet tall (about 4.9 meters), towering over the eleven-foot-tall (about 3.5 meters) Hagrid by more than half a body length.
Was Hagrid undersized?
"Actually—he's my half-brother. Same mother, different fathers." Hagrid wiped away a tear and corrected himself. "I found out later that after my mum left my dad, she took up with another giant, and then she had Grawp.
"But he's too small by giant standards, so he was always getting bullied. And there was a whole series of uprisings in the tribe. Even the old chief was killed.
"I was afraid something would happen to Grawp, so for his safety, I found a way to bring him back to Hogwarts."
That explained it. Everyone understood at once: Hagrid had done it to keep his brother safe.
"But Hagrid, isn't it a bit inappropriate to just leave him in the Forbidden Forest? A giant is a danger to every creature living here."
Hermione took a few deep breaths to steady herself, then glanced again at Grawp, whose snores had already become frighteningly loud.
"I did tie him up, actually, but it looks like I'll need something thicker." Hagrid pulled over a thick green vine. One end was tied around Grawp's waist, but the other had snapped off, with the remaining length still fastened to a nearby tree root.
Hagrid's conduct was hardly what one would expect of a Hogwarts professor.
Although his unusual physique meant that Hagrid judged danger differently from most people, he had made little progress despite having taught for