Book: Courage
Chapter 73
Word Count: 4219
"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."
"He's not a horse, he's a centaur!" said Lavender, sounding shocked.
"A gorgeous centaur..." sighed Parvati. Layla, who had come down only to say good morning to Ginny, chuckled from a few seats down. Both Parvati and Lavender snapped their heads in Layla's direction.
"What's so funny?" snapped Lavender, huffing.
"Nothing," Layla quietly laughed. "It's just that you wouldn't react like that if he was a werewolf, would you, girls?"
Both Lavender and Parvati didn't know how to respond, simply huffing and turning away. Layla smirked, satisfied, and turned back to Ginny.
"I'll see you later, Gin," she then stood up and departed for her Divination lesson.
They were no longer in the North Tower for Divination since a centaur wouldn't be able to climb up the stairs. The class had been moved to classroom eleven.
Classroom eleven was on the ground floor along the corridor leading off the Entrance Hall from the opposite side to the Great Hall. Layla 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 she entered it and found herself in the middle of a forest clearing, she 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.
"Remus' daughter. I remember you," he said, holding out a hand when Layla entered.
"Yes, hello, Firenze," Layla greeted, shaking hands with the centaur.
"Are you still up to all sorts of mischief?" said Firenze, surveyed Layla unblinkingly through those astonishingly blue eyes but did not smile.
"Er," said Layla, "yeah, I guess you could say that."
"I'm not surprised. Just like your dad, you are," said Firenze. "Please take a seat, Layla Lupin."
Layla noticed there was the shadow of a hoof-shaped bruise on Firenze's chest. She turned to join the rest of the class on the ground, who all seemed to be intimidated by the centaur.
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 Layla 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 from in between Layla and Seamus.
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. Let us begin."
Firenze 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."
Layla stretched out on her back and gazed upwards at the ceiling. A twinkling red star winked at her 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."
Layla turned her head very slightly to look at Parvate, who looked very offended, as did several of the people surrounding her.
"Sybill Trelawney may have Seen, I do not know," continued Firenze, and Layla 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 Layla.
"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 Layla 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 Layla 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.
The bell rang right outside the classroom door and everyone jumped; Layla had completely forgotten they were still inside the castle, and quite convinced that she was really in the Forest. The class filed out, looking slightly perplexed.
As Layla left the classroom, her name was called somewhere behind her. She turned to see Dean jogging to catch up.
"Hey, Dean," said Layla.
"Hey, can I walk with you?" Dean asked, smiling widely. Layla nodded and the two set off. Dean eventually let out a sigh. "You don't think I hurt his feelings, do you? About the breeding comment?"
"Maybe just a little bit," said Layla. "But he'll get over it. It's not his fault that most of the class has never come across a centaur and are just eager to know more about him."
"That's true. Thanks," said Dean, looking more at ease. "Anyway, I just asked to walk with you so I can discuss our second date. How about on the Quidditch pitch this weekend? We can have a quick one-on-one game and then finish the day with a picnic."
"That sounds really nice," said Layla genuinely. "But if Umbridge sees me on a broom, it won't end well for either of us."
"Okay," said Dean, sighing as he thought of something else. "What about just the picnic? We can do it around the side of the school. Umbridge never goes round there. Like, ever."
"Okay. It's a date," said Layla. "I'll see you later, Dean."
She gave Dean a quick kiss on the cheek and walked off. She was actually looking forward to their second date. Layla wanted to go on a few more, just to know if her feelings for Dean were real or if it was just a way to get over Cedric. If her feelings for Dean were actually genuine, there was a chance she could make things official with him and finally move on.
As a dull March blurred into a squally April, Layla's desire to get out of Hogwarts for good only increased. It was no longer her home, no matter how much it used to be...
The OWLs were drawing ever nearer. All the fifth-years were suffering from stress to some degree, but Hannah Abbott became the first to receive a Calming Draught from Madam Pomfrey after she burst into tears during Herbology and sobbed that she was too stupid to take exams and wanted to leave school now.
If it had not been for the DA lessons, Layla would have fled the school a while ago, or found a way to get herself expelled. She sometimes felt she was living for the hours she spent in the Room of Requirement, working hard but thoroughly enjoying herself at the same time.
They had finally started work on Patronuses, which everybody had been very keen to practise, though, as Harry kept reminding them, producing a Patronus in the middle of a brightly lit classroom when they were not under threat was very different from producing it when confronted by something like a Dementor.
"Oh, don't be such a killjoy," said Cho brightly, watching her silvery swan-shaped Patronus soar around the Room of Requirement during their last lesson before Easter. "They're so pretty!"
"They're not supposed to be pretty, they're supposed to protect you," said Harry patiently. "What we really need is a Boggart or something; that's how I learned, I had to conjure a Patronus while the Boggart was pretending to be a Dementor—"
"But that would be really scary!" said Lavender, who was shooting puffs of silver vapour out of the end of her wand. "And I still — can't — do it!" she added angrily.
Layla was having trouble, too. Her face was screwed up in concentration, but only feeble wisps of silver smoke issued from her wand tip.
"You've got to think of something happy," Harry reminded her.
"Don't you think I'm trying?" snapped Layla. "I've not been happy for a while, so excuse me for not remembering the last time I was!"
Harry tried to think of all of the times he had seen Layla happy. He went to suggest thinking about him, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, all of them all together, but he realised that it might not work since they hadn't been all together that much all year. And then an idea came to mind. A rather perfect idea.
"Think of Cedric," he said. As much as it pained Harry to think of it, he knew that nobody made Layla happier than Cedric. "Think about your time together, how he made you feel... every good moment you guys spent together."
So, Layla did just that. She closed her eyes as all of the memories came flooding back to her. Their laughs, their hugs, their dates, their kisses, their smiles... how a genuine laugh would escape her. Nothing had been genuine about her in a while. But with Cedric, she could never pretend. He made her so happy...
A small smile made its way onto Layla's face at the thought of Cedric. She raised her wand.
"Expecto Patronum."
A moment later, a bright light came whisking out of Layla's wand, and only a second later, it took the form of a shark, zooming around her, its mouth opened wide menacingly. Many students jumped out of the way of the shark Patronus as it zoomed around the room, but Layla was watching it in awe. Her Patronus was a shark?
She turned to Harry and shot him a small smile.
"Thanks, Potter..."
Harry smiled back.
"Harry, I think I'm doing it!" yelled Seamus, who had been brought along to his first ever DA meeting by Dean. "Look — ah — it's gone... but it was definitely something hairy, Harry!"
Hermione's Patronus, a shining silver otter, was gambolling around her.
"They are sort of nice, aren't they?" she said to Layla, looking at it fondly, and Layla nodded in agreement.
The door of the Room of Requirement opened, and closed. Layla paid no attention to it. It was a few moments before she realised that the people close to the door had fallen silent. She looked round to see a familiar house-elf approaching Harry. It was Dobby.
"Hi, Dobby!" Harry said. "What are you — What's wrong?"
The elf's eyes were wide with terror and he was shaking. Everybody in the room was watching Dobby. The few Patronuses people had managed to conjure faded away into silver mist, leaving the room looking much darker than before.
"Harry Potter, sir..." squeaked the elf, trembling from head to foot, "Harry Potter, sir... Dobby has come to warn you... but the house-elves have been warned not to tell..."
He ran head-first at the wall. Harry made to seize him, but Dobby merely bounced off the stone, cushioned by his eight hats. Hermione and a few of the other girls let out squeaks of fear and sympathy.
"What's happened, Dobby?" Harry asked, grabbing the elf's tiny arm and holding him away from anything with which he might seek to hurt himself.
"Harry Potter... she... she..."
Dobby hit himself hard on the nose with his free fist. Harry seized that, too.
"Who's 'she', Dobby? Umbridge?"
Dobby nodded, then tried to bang his head on Harry's knees. Harry held him at arm's length.
"What about her? Dobby — she hasn't found out about this — about us — about the DA? Is she coming?"
Dobby let out a howl, and began beating his bare feet hard on the floor.
"Yes, Harry Potter, yes!"
Harry straightened up and looked around at the motionless, terrified people gazing at the thrashing elf.
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" Harry bellowed. "RUN!"
Layla looked around the room as many others pelted towards the exit, until her eyes landed on the girl she was trying to locate. She sprinted up to Ginny and grabbed her hand, shoving past horrified students and into the hall, spinning herself and Ginny around the corner where it was quiet, not another person in sight.
"Lay, what are you doing?" said Ginny quietly. "We have to hide."
"What about Harry?" said Layla, worried. "If Umbridge found out about the DA and the Room of Requirement, she probably found out that Harry is behind it all, too! We need to help him."
"I thought you hated him," said Ginny. Layla let out a sigh.
"Harry was my best friend before he was my enemy and I still care about him, of course. What do we do?"
"There's nothing we can do," said Ginny quietly, reaching for Layla's hand. "We just have to go back to take refuge and hope for the best. It's either that or we get caught, too, and then we definitely won't be able to help Harry."
"Fine," Layla gave in. Ginny pulled her back around the corner so that they could make their way to the nearest place to hide, which was the Owlery, quietly but quickly.
Layla didn't sleep a wink that night, too worried about what was going to happen to the DA, when she came across a notice the next morning in the common room.
BY ORDER OF THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
Dolores Jane Umbridge (High Inquisitor) has replaced Albus Dumbledore as Head of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-eight.
Signed: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister for Magic
The notices had gone up all around the school overnight. Layla scowled as she saw another one of those stupid signs on her way back from Herbology.
But Hogwarts had been well-known for their fast-travelling news. Everyone already seemed to know what had happened before a single sign could be printed, although the details were a bit skewed. From what Layla had heard, Dumbledore had taken credit for the DA, and escaped from the Minister when he had tried to arrest him, though no one was quite sure how.
Layla hadn't eaten a single thing in a while and, to prevent the risk of passing out and drawing attention to herself, she decided to go down to grab a quick cupcake on her way to the library. Seeing that Harry didn't seem to be at dinner, and Ginny hadn't arrived yet, Layla decided to sit with Ron and Hermione.
"Hey, g— oh my god!" Layla suddenly exclaimed, amusement flickering in her eyes as she looked over Ron's shoulder at the Ravenclaw table. "What the hell happened to her?"
Cho Chang's best friend, Marietta, seemed to be trying to hide her face, but she was unsuccessful. It was fairly easy to see the spots that covered her face, spelling out 'sneak'.
"Someone must have been pissed with her," said Layla, laughing quietly to herself. "I wonder who."
"You haven't heard?" said Hermione. "Marietta is the reason why Umbridge found out about the DA."
"Merlin, no wonder she has pissed people off," said Layla, highly amused. I wonder who it was — hang on..." Layla turned to Hermione, connecting the dots. "Wait, that's what your hexed sign up sheet did?"
"Yes," Hermione shrugged. "I had to take precautions, didn't I? Rat us out, face the consequences. It is simple, really."
"Remind me to never annoy you again," Ron joked.
Ginny then approached them, taking a seat beside her brother and opposite Layla.
"Have any of you seen Fred and George?"
Ron and Hermione exchanged a look that both Layla and Ginny caught.
"Have they planned something?" asked Layla eagerly. "I mean, I don't blame them. If I didn't want a good career, I would have planned something ages ago to get me expelled."
"Agreed," said Ginny. "The old cow deserves it. I wonder what Fred and George have planned."
BOOM.
Ginny jumped. Hermione yelped.
"What was that?" said Ron.
"Sounds like fireworks," said Layla, excited to see what the twins had come up with.
"It sounded like it was coming from upstairs," said Hermione.
"Should we go see?" said Ron. The others nodded.
So, the four of them jumped up and hurried off, running upstairs. They weren't the only ones. They found the source of the commotion two floors up. A large crate of fireworks had been lit, and it was very obvious who had done it.
Dragons comprised entirely of green and gold sparks were soaring up and down the corridors, emitting loud fiery blasts and bangs as they went; shocking-pink Catherine wheels five feet in diameter were whizzing lethally through the air like so many flying saucers; rockets with long tails of brilliant silver stars were ricocheting off the walls; sparklers were writing swear words in midair of their own accord; firecrackers were exploding like mines everywhere Layla looked, and instead of burning themselves out, fading from sight or fizzling to a halt, these pyrotechnical miracles seemed to be gaining in energy and momentum the longer she watched.
Another door opened and in came Filch and Umbridge, looking horrified. Several of the dragons and a large purple bat that was smoking ominously took advantage of the open door at the end of the corridor to escape towards the second floor.
"Hurry, Filch, hurry!" shrieked Umbridge, "they'll be all over the school unless we do something — Stupefy!"
A jet of red light shot out of the end of her wand and hit one of the rockets. Instead of freezing in midair, it exploded with such force that it blasted a hole in a painting of a soppy-looking witch in the middle of a meadow; she ran for it just in time, reappearing seconds later squashed into the next painting, where a couple of wizards playing cards stood up hastily to make room for her.
"Don't Stun them, Filch!" shouted Umbridge angrily, for all the world as though it had been his incantation.
"Right you are, Headmistress!" wheezed Filch, who as a Squib could no more have Stunned the fireworks than swallowed them. He dashed to a nearby cupboard, pulled out a broom and began swatting at the fireworks in midair; within seconds the head of the broom was ablaze.
Layla had seen enough; laughing, she ducked down low, ran to a door that was concealed behind a tapestry a little way along the corridor and slipped through it to find Fred and George hiding just behind it, listening to Umbridge and Filch's yells and quaking with suppressed mirth.
"Impressive," Layla said quietly, grinning. "Very impressive... you'll put Dr Filibuster out of business, no problem..."
"Thanks, LayLay," whispered George, wiping tears of laughter from his face. "Oh, I hope she tries Vanishing them next... they multiply by ten every time you try."
The fireworks continued to burn and to spread all over the school that afternoon. Though they caused plenty of disruption, particularly the firecrackers, the other teachers didn't seem to mind them very much.
"Dear, dear," said Professor McGonagall sardonically, as one of the dragons soared around her classroom, emitting loud bangs and exhaling flame. "Miss Brown, would you mind running along to the Headmistress and informing her that we have an escaped firework in our classroom?"
The upshot of it all was that Professor Umbridge spent her first afternoon as Headmistress running all over the school answering the summonses of the other teachers, none of whom seemed able to rid their rooms of the fireworks without her. When the final bell rang and they were heading back to Gryffindor Tower with their bags, Layla saw, with immense satisfaction, a dishevelled and soot-blackened Umbridge tottering sweaty-faced from Professor Flitwick's classroom.
"Thank you so much, Professor!" said Professor Flitwick in his squeaky little voice. "I could have got rid of the sparklers myself, of course, but I wasn't sure whether or not I had the authority."
Beaming, he closed his classroom door in her snarling face.
Fred and George were heroes that night in the Gryffindor common room. Even Hermione fought her way through the excited crowd to congratulate them.
"They were wonderful fireworks," she said admiringly.
"Thanks," said George, looking both surprised and pleased. "Weasleys' Wildfire Whiz-bangs. Only thing is, we used our whole stock; we're going to have to start again from scratch now."
"It was worth it, though," said Fred, who was taking orders from clamouring Gryffindors. "If you want to add your name to the waiting list, Hermione, it's five Galleons for your Basic Blaze box and twenty for the Deflagration Deluxe..."
Hermione declined, while Layla immediately hurried up to Fred, grinning sarcastically.
"Kindly add my name, Sir Fred."
Layla could still hear the distant bangs of escaped firecrackers when she and Hermione went up to bed an hour later; and as she got undressed, a sparkler floated past the tower, still resolutely spelling out the word 'POO'.
She got into bed, yawning. She turned on to her side, wondering how Umbridge was feeling about her first day in Dumbledore's job, and how Fudge would react when he heard that the school had spent most of the day in a state of advanced disruption. Smiling to herself, Layla drifted off into the first peaceful sleep she'd had in a long time.