Sometimes Bad is Good

Chapter Ten

"Vampires are not creatures of mercy, child, one would not release you until you were drained and they properly fed, do not take us for fools!" barked a severe looking brunette Centaur, his face mangled and gnarled with old but painful looking scars that ran from the uppermost middle of his forehead to the bottom of his left cheek. His pale brown eyes burned into Harry's. "Lie to us again, and you shall find yourself with an arrow between your eyes and your body beneath my hoofs."

Harry was unable to stop the small growl from leaving his throat at the threat issued by the brunette Centaur. He snapped his head to the left and swept the sticky blood covered hair over his shoulder, allowing his smarting wound to take in the freezing air sweeping through the trees. "Well this one did release me," he said through grit teeth, the growl still in his voice. "However unwillingly."

"You are not human," said a pale Centaur, though he voice it like it was a question. He seemed to be the only cool headed being in the group, and reminded Harry magnificently of Firenze, their new Divination professor. He even had the astonishingly blue eyes that Firenze was known for. One of the three armed Centaurs lowered their bow, seeing no reason to attack the pale injured boy in front of them. The other two pawed nervously at the ground, their weapons still raised and ready to fire.

"No," Harry admitted, eyeing the other Centaurs suspiciously. "I, like the other students at Hogwarts, went through a creature inheritance. I'm a Valerian."

The gnarled and seething Centaur who had previously spoken stepped forward, his muscled posture tense and rigid as if wishing to strike him. "A Valerian? There is no such being. You lie," he snarled, his hoof clacking on the flat rock that separated them as he pawed angrily at the ground. It made the other tense Centaurs nervous.

"The stars did speak of change," mused the pale Centaur thoughtfully, his expression neutral in spite of the tense atmosphere. Harry growled low in his throat when the brunette Centaur made as if to charge him. "In fact, they were unusually bright and active the night of the Potter boy's birth. I was drinking from the stream when I noticed the moon glowing magnificently -"

"Have we not sworn to do away with any stray human in our forest, Keenan? Or have you already forgotten the oath you yourself swore to in the dabbles of your childish mind?" the brunette Centaur snarled, rearing back on his thick hind legs and turning on the pale half-man beside him. "He should not be spared for your compassionate nature, he has violated the conditions on which the oath has been set! We must do away with the humans who dare -!"

"Silence your tongue, Noma, it speaks too quickly for your mind to comprehend. This boy is not a human, he is a Valerian," Keenan, the pale Centaur, said lowly, his voice dark. "I suggest you take your leave before you make a fool of yourself."

"The only fool here is yourself, Keenan. You blind yourself with the false light of others, you believe their lies and you will reap the rewards of your negligence upon your return to the herd. I shall see it done," snarled Noma, the severe brunette, his deep baritone voice booming and echoing in the trees as he once again reared up on his magnificent hind legs, kicked his front feet in Keenan's direction twice and took off over a small bend in the pathway, his hoofs clapping the ground as he went until only a few dull thuds echoed back to them.

The other Centaurs seemed to think that his disappearance was for the better, as they relaxed their uptight stances until they were more comfortable in the way that they aimed. Harry, however, was still tense.

"You won't be in trouble for defending me, will you?" He asked quietly, looking in the dark direction that Noma had just disappeared in. The shadows had shifted and curled around the Centaurs form, almost as if acting like a curtain. It unnerved him greatly.