"I'll bet you wish you hadn't given up Divination now, don't you, Hermione?" asked Parvati, smirking.
It was breakfast time a few days after the sacking of Professor Trelawney, and Parvati was putting mascara onto her eyelashes, examining the effect in the back of her spoon. They were to have their first lesson with Firenze that morning.
"Not really," Hermione said indifferently, who was reading the Daily Prophet. "I've never really liked horses." She turned a page of the newspaper, scanning its columns.
"He's not a horse, he's a centaur!" Lavender said, sounding shocked.
"A gorgeous centaur..." Parvati sighed.
"Either way, they don't mate with humans. Or females in general," Allison informed her.
Parvati nudged her hard with her elbow so that Allison bumped against Harry on her other side.
"I don't want to mate with him!" She said exasperatedly. "I just think he's very pretty with his blue eyes..."
"How can they not mate with females?" Ron asked confusedly. "You don't say they are..."
"Well, there aren't any female centaurs, so they mate with other males of their species," said Allison, and Parvati sighed, letting her head sink down onto her crossed arms.
"Probably another reason why Umbridge hates them."
"So, they are...gay?" Ron asked with huge eyes.
Dean beside him choked on his coffee, cheeks flushed. Seamus clapped him on the back, which did not seem to help.
"Well, yeah," said Allison, shoving the pile of napkins closer to Dean. "Actually, many magical animal species and creatures have been discovered to display homosexual -"
Hermione cleared her throat and folded her newspaper unnecessarily loud.
"How about we don't discuss our new teacher's sexuality during breakfast?" She said and turned back to Lavender and Parvati. "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?" Harry asked.
"Not very good, poor thing," said Lavender sympathetically. "She was crying and saying she'd rather leave the castle forever than stay here if Umbridge is still here, 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," Hermione said darkly.
"Impossible," Ron said, 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," Hermione said, taking a sip of tea. "Especially another part-human. You saw the look on her face when she saw Firenze..."
After breakfast Hermione departed for her Arithmancy class, and Allison, Harry, and Ron followed Parvati and Lavender into the entrance hall, heading for Divination.
"Aren't we going up to the North Tower?" Ron asked, looking puzzled, as Parvati bypassed the marble staircase.
Parvati looked scornfully over her shoulder at him. "How d'you expect Firenze to climb that ladder? We're in classroom eleven now, it was on the notice board yesterday."
Classroom eleven was situated in the ground-floor corridor leading off the entrance hall on the opposite side to the Great Hall. Allison knew it to be one of those classrooms that were never used regularly - at least for classes -, and that it therefore had the slightly neglected feeling of a cupboard or storeroom.
YOU ARE READING
WE'LL TAKE ON THE WORLD ; h.j.p.
Fanfic─ "i won't let go with you by my side, the calm, the storm we'll face it all." She had read about love all her life. Never had she imagined she would ever experience it herself, especially with dark forces rising to power and a war approaching fast...
