Amie and the Army (Harry Potter fan-fic) Book 5 COMPLETED

Busted

"I'll bet you wish you hadn't given up Divination now, don't you, Hermione?" asked Parvati, smirking.
It was the morning after the sacking of Trelawney, and Amie and the others were having breakfast in the Great Hall. 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, 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.
"First of all, Parvati; ew," said Amie, grimacing, "Second, Hermione; I hope you realize how very inconsiderate it is of you to call him a horse," Amie piped in.
"You know I don't mean anything by it, Amie," Hermione waved it away, "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 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," said Hermione darly.
"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 her newspaper. "Especially another part-human. You saw the look on her face when she saw Firenze..."

After breakfast Hermione departed for Arithmancy while Amie and the others headed towards Divination.
"Aren't we going up to North Tower?" asked Ron, looking puzzled, as Parvati walked passed 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 on the ground-floor corridor leading off the entrance hall on the opposite side to the Great Hall. It was one of those classrooms that weren't used on a regular basis, and as such they expected to enter a room with a feeling of neglect, but that wasn't what they found.
"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, looking rather nervous. In the middle of the room, 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 looked at him with piercing blue eyes, but didn't smile. "Er - good to see you..."
"And you," said the centaur, inclining his white-blond head. "It was foretold that we would meet again."
Amie could see a hint of a hoof-shaped bruise on Firenze's chest, and she wondered what had happened to him. Looking around the room, Amie noticed the rest of the class looking at Harry in awe - impressed that he was on speaking terms with Firenze, who they all seemed to find intimidating.

Once the door had 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," explained Firenze, "in imitation of my natural habitat. I would have preferred to teach you in the Forbidden Forest, which was - until Monday - my home... but this is not 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 can no longer return to the forest. My herd has banished me."
"Herd?" said Lavender in a confused voice, as if she couldn't possibly tell what he meant. "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 slowly to face Dean, who immediately seemed to realize he'd 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 short 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."
That explained the hoof-shaped bruise, Amie thought.