THE CENTAUR AND THE SNEAK

“I’ll bet you wish you hadn’t given up Divination now, don’t you, Hermione?” asked Parvati, smirking.

It was breakfast time, two days after the sacking of Professor Trelawney, and Parvati was curling her eyelashes around her wand and examining the effect in the back of her spoon. They were to have their first lesson with Firenze that morning.

“Not really,” said Hermione indifferently, who was reading the Daily Prophet. “I’ve never really liked horses.”

She turned a page of the newspaper and scanned its columns.

“He’s not a horse, he’s a centaur!” said Lavender, sounding shocked.

“A gorgeous centaur…” sighed Parvati.

“Either way, he’s still got four legs,” said Hermione coolly. “Anyway I thought you two were all upset that Trelawney had gone?”

“We are!” Lavender assured her. “We went up to her office to see her; we took her some daffodils—not the honking ones that Sprout’s got, nice ones.”

“How is she?” asked Harry.

“Not very good, poor thing,” said Lavender sympathetically. “She was crying and saying she’d rather leave the castle for ever than stay here where Umbridge is, and I don’t blame her, Umbridge was horrible to her, wasn’t she?”

“I’ve got a feeling Umbridge has only just started being horrible,” said Hermione darkly.

“Impossible,” said Ron, who was tucking into a large plate of eggs and bacon. “She can’t get any worse than she’s been already.”

“You mark my words, she’s going to want revenge on Dumbledore for appointing a new teacher without consulting her,” said Hermione, closing the newspaper. “Especially another part-human. You saw the look on her face when she saw Firenze.”

After breakfast Hermione departed for her Arithmancy class as Harry and Ron followed Parvati and Lavender into the Entrance Hall, heading for Divination.

“Aren’t we going up to North Tower?” asked Ron, looking puzzled, as Parvati bypassed the marble staircase.

Parvati looked at him scornfully over her shoulder.

“How d’you expect Firenze to climb that ladder? We’re in classroom eleven now, it was on the noticeboard yesterday.”

Classroom eleven was on the ground floor along the corridor leading off the Entrance Hall from the opposite side to the Great Hall. Harry knew it was one of those classrooms that were never used regularly, and therefore had the slightly neglected feeling of a cupboard or storeroom. When he entered it right behind Ron, and found himself in the middle of a forest clearing, he was therefore momentarily stunned.

“What the—?”

The classroom floor had become springily mossy and trees were growing out of it; their leafy branches fanned across the ceiling and windows, so that the room was full of slanting shafts of soft, dappled, green light. The students who had already arrived were sitting on the earthy floor with their backs resting against tree trunks or boulders, arms wrapped around their knees or folded tightly across their chests, and all looking rather nervous. In the middle of the clearing, where there were no trees, stood Firenze.

“Harry Potter,” he said, holding out a hand when Harry entered.

“Er—hi,” said Harry, shaking hands with the centaur, who surveyed him unblinkingly through those astonishingly blue eyes but did not smile. “Er—good to see you.”

“And you,” said the centaur, inclining his white-blond head. “It was foretold that we would meet again.”

Harry noticed there was the shadow of a hoof-shaped bruise on Firenze’s chest. As he turned to join the rest of the class on the ground, he saw they were all looking at him in awe, apparently deeply impressed that he was on speaking terms with Firenze, whom they seemed to find intimidating.

When the door was closed and the last student had sat down on a tree stump beside the wastepaper basket, Firenze gestured around the room.

“Professor Dumbledore has kindly arranged this classroom for us,” said Firenze, when everyone had settled down, “in imitation of my natural habitat. I would have preferred to teach you in the Forbidden Forest, which was—until Monday—my home… but that is no longer possible.”

“Please—er—sir—” said Parvati breathlessly, raising her hand, “—why not? We’ve been in there with Hagrid, we’re not frightened!”

“It is not a question of your bravery,” said Firenze, “but of my position. I cannot return to the Forest. My herd has banished me.”

“Herd?” said Lavender in a confused voice, and Harry knew she was thinking of cows. “What—oh!”

Comprehension dawned on her face. “There are more of you?” she said, stunned.

“Did Hagrid breed you, like the Thestrals?” asked Dean eagerly.

Firenze turned his head very slowly to face Dean, who seemed to realise at once that he had said something very offensive.

“I didn’t—I meant—sorry,” he finished in a hushed voice.

“Centaurs are not the servants or playthings of humans,” said Firenze quietly.

There was a pause, then Parvati raised her hand again.

“Please, sir… why have the other centaurs banished you?”

“Because I have agreed to work for Professor Dumbledore,” said Firenze. “They see this as a betrayal of our kind.”

Harry remembered how, nearly four years ago, the centaur Bane had shouted at Firenze for allowing Harry to ride to safety on his back; he had called him a “common mule.” He wondered whether it had been Bane who had kicked Firenze in the chest.

“Let us begin,” said Firenze. He swished his long palomino tail, raised his hand towards the leafy canopy overhead, then lowered it slowly, and as he did so, the light in the room dimmed, so that they now seemed to be sitting in a forest clearing by twilight, and stars appeared on the ceiling. There were oohs and gasps and Ron said audibly, “Blimey!”

“Lie back on the floor,” said Firenze in his calm voice, “and observe the heavens. Here is written, for those who can see, the fortune of our races.”

Harry stretched out on his back and gazed upwards at the ceiling. A twinkling red star winked at him from overhead.

“I know that you have learned the names of the planets and their moons in Astronomy,” said Firenze’s calm voice, “and that you have mapped the stars’ progress through the heavens. Centaurs have unravelled the mysteries of these movements over centuries. Our findings teach us that the future may be glimpsed in the sky above us—”

“Professor Trelawney did astrology with us!” said Parvati excitedly, raising her hand in front of her so that it stuck up in the air as she lay on her back. “Mars causes accidents and burns and things like that, and when it makes an angle to Saturn, like now—” she drew a right-angle in the air above her “—that means people need to be extra careful when handling hot things—”

“That,” said Firenze calmly, “is human nonsense.”

Parvati’s hand fell limply to her side.

“Trivial hurts, tiny human accidents,” said Firenze, as his hooves thudded over the mossy floor. “These are of no more significance than the scurryings of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by planetary movements.”

“Professor Trelawney—” began Parvati, in a hurt and indignant voice.

“—is a human,” said Firenze simply. “And is therefore blinkered and fettered by the limitations of your kind.”

Harry turned his head very slightly to look at Parvati. She looked very offended, as did several of the people surrounding her.

“Sybill Trelawney may have Seen, I do not know,” continued Firenze, and Harry heard the swishing of his tail again as he walked up and down before them, “but she wastes her time, in the main, on the self-flattering nonsense humans call fortune-telling. I, however, am here to explain the wisdom of centaurs, which is impersonal and impartial. We watch the skies for the great tides of evil or change that are sometimes marked there. It may take ten years to be sure of what we are seeing.”

Firenze pointed to the red star directly above Harry.

“In the past decade, the indications have been that wizardkind is living through nothing more than a brief calm between two wars. Mars, bringer of battle, shines brightly above us, suggesting that the fight must soon break out again. How soon, centaurs may attempt to divine by the burning of certain herbs and leaves, by the observation of fume and flame…”

It was the most unusual lesson Harry had ever attended. They did indeed burn sage and mallowsweet there on the classroom floor, and Firenze told them to look for certain shapes and symbols in the pungent fumes, but he seemed perfectly unconcerned that not one of them could see any of the signs he described, telling them that humans were hardly ever good at this, that it took centaurs years and years to become competent, and finished by telling them that it was foolish to put too much faith in such things, anyway, because even centaurs sometimes read them wrongly. He was nothing like any human teacher Harry had ever had. His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even centaurs’ knowledge, was foolproof.

“He’s not very definite on anything, is he?” said Ron in a low voice, as they put out their mallowsweet fire. “I mean, I could do with a few more details about this war we’re about to have, couldn’t you?”

The bell rang right outside the classroom door and everyone jumped; Harry had completely forgotten they were still inside the castle, and quite convinced that he was really in the Forest. The class filed out, looking slightly perplexed.

Harry and Ron were on the point of following them when Firenze called, “Harry Potter, a word, please.”

Harry turned. The centaur advanced a little towards him. Ron hesitated.

“You may stay,” Firenze told him. “But close the door, please.”

Ron hastened to obey.

“Harry Potter, you are a friend of Hagrid’s, are you not?” said the centaur.

“Yes,” said Harry.

“Then give him a warning from me. His attempt is not working. He would do better to abandon it.”

“His attempt is not working?” Harry repeated blankly.

“And he would do better to abandon it,” said Firenze, nodding. “I would warn Hagrid myself, but I am banished—it would be unwise for me to go too near the Forest now—Hagrid has troubles enough, without a centaurs’ battle.”

“But—what’s Hagrid attempting to do?” said Harry nervously.

Firenze surveyed Harry impassively.

“Hagrid has recently rendered me a great service,” said Firenze, “and he has long since earned my respect for the care he shows all living creatures. I shall not betray his secret. But he must be brought to his senses. The attempt is not working. Tell him, Harry Potter. Good-day to you.”