It certainly wasn't Draco's imagination.
After all, Giants were not particularly intelligent, and they simply had no idea how to hide their thoughts or intentions.
Naturally, Pansy and the others noticed the Giant staring their way as well.
That behavior made everyone who noticed him tense up, except for Draco, who stood there with calm confidence, and Luna, whose thoughts were impossible to read. Ginny, meanwhile, reacted exactly as any normal person would. She immediately drew her wand, her face full of wary alarm.
Never mind how strong he was, or whether he meant them harm. That five meter tall body alone, so massive they had to crane their necks to look up at him, was more than enough to create a terrifying sense of pressure...
"We... seem to have become his target?"
"Looks like it. Those Centaurs can't stop the Giant at all."
"He's coming over!!"
Unlike the tense girls around him, Draco carefully studied the Giant from head to toe as he drew closer...
The exposed muscles in his arms.
Those enormous feet that left a deep crater with every step.
Skin dark and tough, like a rhinoceros hide.
If not for that foolish, vacant look in his eyes, one would have to admit that a Giant truly was the perfect warrior, favored by heaven itself.
If a Giant appeared on the battlefield, he would be nothing less than a war machine, never mind an entire group of them.
No wonder both Dumbledore and Voldemort had tried to win the Giants over...
Just as Ginny was about to remind Draco that this was hardly the time to be standing there in a daze, Draco seemed to notice something. In a low voice that only the people beside him could hear, he murmured, "I see. So this is your new 'pet'?"
"Pet? What are you talking about, Draco?"
"Look over there."
Without explaining further, Draco pointed toward the Giant's feet.
"That's... a rope."
"To be precise, a broken rope. Someone clearly meant to stop this Giant from escaping the Forbidden Forest. Or rather... that person had no choice but to do it."
Ginny stared in shock and blurted out, "Who would be crazy enough to bring a dangerous Giant into Hogwarts? The school would never allow that, would it?!"
"..."
"..."
At Ginny's question, Pansy and Hermione exchanged a glance. Both of them had immediately thought of a certain professor.
After a brief silence, Hermione finally said with difficulty, "I understand now. So that's how those injuries happened."
Pansy, meanwhile, looked at the Giant ahead of them with a strange expression. "I'd already heard all kinds of things from you about that man's... behavior, but I really didn't think he could go this far. This is a Giant."
Aside from Rubeus Hagrid, who else could possibly stuff something like that into the Forbidden Forest...
...
Even with the Centaurs trying to restrain him from the side, that short stretch of distance was only a matter of a few steps for a creature with a body that huge.
Before long, while Draco was still explaining, Pansy and the others suddenly realized that the daylight in front of them had gone dark.
It was the Giant's shadow...
"Hagrid... where is he!"
Before this, none of them knew what "Hagrid" meant, or what language it even came from. With the Centaurs' earlier misdirection, they had even assumed it was the Giant's own name.
But once Draco pointed out the key detail, Pansy and Hermione, neither of them stupid, immediately understood why the Giant had singled them out, and what that cry of "Hagrid" really meant.
"Hagrid, Hagrid... I see. Is it because we look a lot like Hagrid... no, like Hagrid?"
"Probably. In a Giant's eyes, we all count as 'dwarves,' don't we?"
When no one answered him, the Giant's tone turned even more anxious. Irritated, he raised the weapon in his hand and shouted again, "Hagrid!"
Without warning, the tree in the Giant's hand swung straight at Draco and the others.
The terrifying rush of air made the girls' faces change at once. Just as Pansy and the others were about to act, a low, magnetic voice, calm and strangely reassuring, sounded in their ears...
Draco drew his wand from the exquisitely crafted cane.
A flawless arc cut through the air.
"Sectumsempra!"
Boom!
The trunk was sliced cleanly in half. One half crashed to the ground with a thunderous roar under its own weight, while the other remained in the Giant's hand, the cut surface smooth and flat.
For a moment, not only did the Centaurs stop attacking, even the Giant himself lifted the broken weapon toward his face in confusion.
Perhaps there was simply too little intelligence in that dim witted head of his to understand what had just happened.
Pansy and Hermione looked proud, but Ginny, seeing Draco fight up close for the first time, sucked in a sharp breath and muttered with difficulty, "This is... dark magic?"
Draco had no obligation to explain to her what dark magic was. He merely rolled his wrist and took another step forward.
"I do have some thoughts about Hagrid's actions, but since you attacked, I assume you were prepared to be killed."
"....."
"....."
Violence and elegance.
Those two contradictory qualities somehow existed side by side in Draco, giving him a unique and irresistible charm.
Even Luna, who was usually calm no matter what happened, could not help glancing at Draco's back a few extra times. As for Pansy and Hermione, their eyes were practically glued to him.
It was also at that moment that the Giant, unable and unwilling to understand anything, instinctively sensed the danger coming from Draco. He slammed one foot into the ground in fury...
"Hagrid!!"
Fragments of stone shot toward Draco at astonishing speed.
Draco raised his eyes, ready to strike, but in the next instant, the rocks flying at him suddenly froze in midair...
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
It was an incantation so familiar it could not have been more familiar. That masterful Levitation Charm had come from Hermione.
Her powerful control over magic put all of the effort she had poured in over the past year on full display.
And while everyone was still stunned by Hermione's move, Pansy, unwilling to let Draco's attention rest on Hermione alone, acted as well.
"Engorgio!"
Roar!
At some point, Pansy had already Transfigured a nearby rock into a bear, then cast the Enlarging Charm on it.
Where Hermione had displayed flawless fundamentals, Pansy showed everyone the dazzling brilliance of combined magic.
Ginny, on the other hand, had become nothing more than a spectator before Pansy and Hermione, who had joined the fight without the slightest hesitation. Her whole body stiffened, her pretty eyes filled with disbelief.
Was the gap between her and them really only a single school year?
Even Harry could not do something like this....