Son Of Riddle

Chapter Twenty-one - The centaurs; part one

Riddle opened his eyes, his head was still spinning. What happened?
He blinked several times and slowly regained his memories from the earlier series of events. His ears reddened from embarrassment and he sat up and looked around. He was in a large, dimly lit room full of beds, presumably the hospital wing.
He jumped out of his own bed and ran out of the room, slamming into Madame Pomfrey in the doorway, who grabbed him by his collar and pulled him back.
"Where d'you think you're going?" She asked him, dragging him back to his bed by his robes hood as though he were a kitten. "You've got a bad concussion, not to mention you're dehydrated and sleep deprived, you severely need rest."
"I feel fine." Riddle insisted, trying to get out of Madame Pomfrey's grip. He needed to get out of this room.
"You may think you're fine, but you need rest or this whole thing is going to happen over and over again. I told your friends not to visit you so you would rest, you can see them tomorrow." She said sternly, clearly not giving up.
Riddle, trying to figure out different ways he could escape, grudgingly went back to his bed and laid down, though not sleeping.
An hour or two passed and he tried to escape again.
Madame Pomfrey took him back to his bed.
He tried again when night fell.
The same scenario happened.
Good grief, does that woman ever sleep? He thought as he tried to figure out different ways he could get out. He needed out as soon as possible, he needed to not be in this room anymore.
He tried several more times, but only succeeded when morning actually came, but by then he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep.
Madame Pomfrey took pity on him, knowing he had been cooped up in a room for the past 20 years (McGonnagle tells her everything)
and let him go.
Riddle took the time before his first class to walk around the grounds, relishing the freedom that had been briefly taken from him.
As more students started to wake up and see him, he noticed they were all staring at him more than usual.
As he walked around more, ignoring the oppressive stares, he started noticing laughter. Given this was a school, laughter was not uncommon, but this was laughter at his expense.
He scowled at the loudest ones, and hastily walked to his first class.
When he walked into the classroom, he breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed it was shared by Ravenclaw.
He scanned the room for Adam, and found him in the back of the classroom, presumably doing homework.
He walked up to him, pulled a chair out from under a desk and sat next to him.
"Why is everyone laughing at me?" He asked in an alarmed whisper.
Adam looked at him incredulously, like he should know. "Dude, you fainted. You, the son of Voldemort, who can best every one at this school in battle, fainted because a girl confessed to you."
James let that information sink in, then facepalmed.
"No offense mate, but it's kinda hard not to laugh, you can't really blame them."
James gave him a look that could curdle milk, which counterproductively made him laugh. "You caught Lucy off guard though, she tried to carry you to the hospital wing by herself, dumb kid."
James froze. Lucy...oh shoot, he never got to answer her.
"If you want to talk to Lucy, the last class of the day is shared with all the classes, if we get there early, you should have time to talk to her." Adam said, a smug smile on his face.
"Thank you." James said, ignoring Adam's smugness.

The day dragged on painfully slowly, as most usually did for Riddle, it felt like years before it was finally over.
He and Adam met up and walked out of the the castle, and joined a large group of students gathered near the forbidden forest, next to Hagrid's hut for the next class, Care of Magical creatures. They recognized Benjamin immediately, only... something was off...They just couldn't figure out what it was. They got his attention and he joined them, and James almost forgot about his small emotional dilemma.
James paled when he saw Lucy, and his pulse quickened. If this was what having a crush was like, it sucked. He did not like this all.
Lucy scanned the group for them and waved ecstatically. When she walked over to them them, James felt a lump form in his throat. He was going to tell her, he just couldn't...get the words out.
Lucy looked at him and smiled. "Try not to pass out today." She said with a nervous laugh.
"I like you too" He blurted out, not thinking.
Lucy blinked in surprise, stunned for a couple seconds "And thus, I die." She said.
Adam and Benjamin laughed, but James was confused. "Why?" He asked.
"...Because I wasn't sure whether or not you did." She said. "And you telling me you did so bluntly really is rather embarassing...and I was not expecting it and I'm pretty sure my heart stopped." She explained. "Also...That's just what I say when I have no idea what to say." She nervously laughed.
"I see." James said. Was there a different way he could have approached this?
Lucy greeted Benjamin, then looked at him strangely. "Are you...not wearing shoes?" She asked, quite confused.
"Yep." Benjamin said proudly. "I've never really liked shoes." That answered the question about what seemed off about him that day.
Just then, Hagrid walked in front of the group of students, interrupting the tension and confusion.
"Now now, settle down." He said, waving his arms around to get their attention. His forearms alone were the size of tree bases, so it wasn't that difficult for everyone to see him. Most of the students seemed to like hagrid, except for the occational clique in the back, whipering and belittling.
"I have a surprise for you today." He said, his face gleaming with a mixture of pride and excitement, making him look more like a small child than an enourmous half-giant teacher. "Headmaster McGonnagle was against this, but I have full permission. We're going to take a walk through the forbidden forest."
The crowd erputed in whispers and murmers, one kid spoke through all this: "It's not much of a surprise if you tell us here." He said.
Hagrid seemed to have expected this comment. "That's not the surprise." He said. "The real surprise is what's inside."
The students followed the giddy teacher into the forest, most of the first and second years marvelling at the forest around them. James suspected it was just because the forest was strictly forbidden except for care of magical creatures, and they were just happy to be someplace they weren't normally allowed to go.
"Aren't there trolls in the forbidden forest?" He heard one student ask from behind them.
"I heard there's werewolves." Another said.
"I thought there's vampires who lived there."
"No, idiot, vampires don't exist in real life."
The quartet shot each other knowing looks, hearing this conversation, and had to struggle to keep themselves from laughing.
"Oh, an' just so you know, there's nothin that could kill you in this forest," Hagrid said to the crowd. "...As long as you all stay together." He finished.
The students started murmuring to each other again, more afraid this time.

Hagrid took them deeper and deeper into the forest, so deep in fact, James was beginning to wonder if Hagrid actually knew where he was going. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime of walking and tripping over loose roots sticking up in the ground, Hagrid led them to a small clearing that seemed to be inhabited by...centaurs?
"I brought you here to learn from centaurs!" Hagrid announced and looked at the crowd of small children expectantly, like they were supposed to jump for joy or something.
"Aren't they like...wild animals or something?" One Gryffindor girl in the back asked.
"Not these ones." Hagrid said proudly. "These centaurs have been schooled in etiquette and given special permission by Dumbledore, The previous headmaster for those of you who dont know, to live here."
James wasn't sure about the centaurs. On on hand he was intruiged, he wanted to know more about these centaurs. But on the other hand, they also set off major warning signs in his brain, like he couldnt trust them and he needed to either fight them, or get away from them as soon as possible. something smelled...familiar. He just couldn't figure out what it was, or why is smelled so familiar. James' heightened sense of smell allowed him to recognize many different scents, but this was different, he had a strange feeling this was imortant. 
Adam seemed to sense something was off. "Everything ok there Mate?" He asked in a quiet whisper.
James just nodded. "Yeah, everything's fine." If he was wrong, he didn't want to worry his friends for no reason. He just followed the rest of the class into the clearing where they were greeted by a large chocolate brown centaur holding a walking stick. He looked young, maybe 30 or so, but something told James he was far older than that.
As Hagrid was talking with him, and the rest of the group observed the centaurs both wearily and excitedly, the centaur Hagrid was talking to met eyes with James, and his gaze went cold.
"He is not welcome here." He said, pointing at James with his walking stick.
"Woah man, he didn't do anything." Benjamin said from next to him.
"We do not trust the kin of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." The centaur said, earning angry protests from the rest of the quartet. James was beginning to think he should have trusted his gut feeling.
"Come on, Marceos, he's only a boy." Hagrid reasoned. "He can't have done anything bad, right?"
Marceos kept his cold stare on James. "You are not welcome." The centaur told him."We know you've been using dark magic."
After a while of arguing, Hagrid took James aside. "He really don't mean no harm, he's just...a little jittery from the last time You-Know-Who was here."
James nodded. He understood. He was upset from being treated like a freak, yet again, but he understood. "I'll just um...wander a bit then."
"Don't wander too much." Hagrid advised. "There are still...Dangerous things in this forest."
James nodded, quite aware of just what was in this forest, then took off down an empty road. As he left, he recognized the smell. It was Jasmine...where had he smelled Jasmine before that was so imprtant?

After a little while of wandering around the same dirt road, he was relieved to see The Chaos Quartet running towards him. "You left your bag in the clearing." Adam said as he handed it to him.
"Those centaurs are jerks." Lucy said, her arms crossed. "They're cool, but they're jerks."
Benjamin agreed.
"Don't you need to go back to the class?" James asked, confused.
"Nope." Adam said. "Let me tell you about the art of playing hookey, my friend."

By the time the quartet heard the clamor of the students on their way back to the castle, the sky was getting dark. Who knew Care of Magical Creatures could drag on so much? The quartet joined the crowd of students, but they avoided them like the plague. Like a centaur calling James a freak made it official or something.
"I'm happy we skipped, because it seems like the only thing they taught was 'how to be a jerk' class." Lucy said, giving a particularly rude Hufflepuff boy the evil eye.
James laughed, but it was partly forced. He didn't know why the centaur's words weighed on him so much. It was like...he had heard them before somewhere. As the long walk back to the castle dragged on, James racked his brain for an answer. What was it?
He was already at the castle before he figured it out.
"I'll meet you guys back at the great hall." He told the quartet. "I've gotta check something."
He ran down the secret passageway that led to the girls' bathroom on the second floor, and basically threw himself into the chamber of secrets. He ran as fast as he could to the little nook he claimed as his own and rumaged through school papers, failed spell experiments until the finally found it. a small, folded up piece of paper, long forgottten about amidst the chaos of school.
He unfolded it and studied it. A trace of the smell still lingered on the paper. Jasmine.
We know you've been using dark magic. The words rang in his head over and over again.
It was the centaurs who sent him that note. Now he just had to figure out why.