Hogwarts
Hermione’s POV
I led Professor Umbridge and Harry down through the castle, Harry staying a little distance behind me, having no idea what I was up to yet neither of us dared to concur.
I was building a plan in my head, if I could just find something, anything in the forest, and I don’t know, loose Umbridge and make a break for it somehow, we could try and go for Sirius. But this in no way was going to be easy and would have to be on the spur of the moment otherwise nothing would happen. It would take all my quick thinking and lying to make anything work in our favor.
‘It’s hidden in Hagrid’s hut, is it?’ Umbridge said from quite a distance behind me.
‘Of course not,’ I said scathingly and in a tone that said that was the most stupid thing I had ever heard, ‘Hagrid could have set it off.’
Umbridge made some comment about Hagrid being a half breed and I could feel Harry seethe behind me.
‘Then… Where is it?’ Umbridge asked, her voice almost shaking in uncertainty.
‘In there of course,’ I practically scoffed, pointing towards the forbidden forest. ‘It had to be somewhere where students weren’t accidentally going to find it.’
‘Of course,’ Umbridge said, trying to sound as if she had expected that but now sounding slightly apprehensive. ‘Of course… very well, then … you two stay ahead of me.’
‘Can we have your wand, then, if we’re going in first?’ Harry asked from behind me.
‘No, I don’t think so Mister Potter.’ Said Umbridge in a fake sweet voice that made me mentally gag, ‘the ministry places a rather higher value on my life than yours, I’m afraid.’
We met the edge of the trees and I looked back, Harry gave me a look but I just gave Umbridge a contemptuous glance and walked straight into the forest as if it was a sunny meadow.
‘Is it very far in?’ Umbridge asked, clearly worried.
‘Oh yes, it’s very well hidden.’ I replied.
I strode on further and could hear Umbridge struggling to keep up and even Harry seemed to have taken on a half jog.
‘Err – are you sure this is the right way?’ Harry asked as Umbridge seemed to have been left behind.
‘Oh yes,’ I said thrashing through the undergrowth as loudly as I could without looking as though I was doing it on purpose. ‘It’s a bit further in!’
‘Hermione, keep your voice down,’ Harry muttered to me, jogging once again to keep up, ‘Anything could be listening in here –‘
‘I want us heard,’ I whispered back, while hearing Umbridge jogging along noisily behind. ‘You’ll see…’
We walked in further, it began to get so dark that it would have been almost impossible to go quietly anyway as you could barely make out where you were going.
‘How much further?’ Umbridge demanded, annoyed by the length of time it was taking.
‘Not far now!’ I shouted in reply as we came upon a small dank clearing ‘Just a little bit –‘
An arrow flew through the air just above my head, the air was suddenly full with the sound of hooves, just as I had wanted. We could feel the hooves pummeling the forest floor, Umbridge screamed a little and pulled Harry in front of her like a shield. Harry pulled himself free as around fifty centaurs were emerging all around the clearing, their bows raised and loaded, pointing at the three of us. Slowly we moved into the center of the clearing, Umbridge was making whimpers and Harry glanced at me as I wore a triumphant smile.
‘Who are you?’ said a deep voice. We all looked left, a chestnut coloured centaur was walking towards them out of the circle, his bow, like the others, was raised. Umbridge whimpered as she pointed her wand at the advancing centaur.
‘I asked you who are you human.’
‘I am Delores Umbridge!’ Umbridge exclaimed in a high-pitched screech, ‘Senior Undersecretary to the Mister of Magic and Headmistress and High Inquisitor of Hogwarts!’
‘You are from the Ministry of Magic?’ the chestnut centaur asked as a lot of the centaurs shifted restlessly.
‘That’s right!’ she shouted, becoming even higher pitched, ‘so be very careful! By the laws laid down by the Department for the Regulation and control of magical creatures, any attack by half breeds such as yourselves on a human –‘
‘What did you call us?’ Shouted a black centaur angrily as a lot of mutterings came from the circle.
‘Don’t call them that!’ I said furiously, making sure it was loud enough for all the centaurs to hear my outrage.
‘Law fifteen “B” states clearly that “any attack by a magical creature that is deemed to have nearly human intelligence, and therefore considered responsible for its actions –“’
‘”Near-human intelligence?”’ The chestnut asked in outrage as a few of the centaurs pawed the ground angrily. ‘We consider that a great insult, human!’ Our intelligence, thankfully, far outstrips your own.’
‘What are you doing in our forest?’ bellowed a hard faced grey centaur Harry and I had seen on our last trip into the forest. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Your forest?’ Umbridge said, ‘I would remind you that you live here only because the Ministry of Magic permits you certain areas of land –‘
An arrow was launched, only barely missing Umbridge’s head, she let out an ear piercing scream and ducked down, covering her hands over her head, some centaurs laughed and I let out a small chuckle myself.
‘Whose forest is it now, human?’ bellowed the black centaur.
‘Filthy half breeds!’ she screamed, her hands starting to come undone as she straightened up, ‘Beasts! Uncontrolled animals!’
‘Be quiet!’ I shouted at her, but I was too late, Umbridge pointed her wand at the chestnut centaur and screamed ‘Incarcerous!’
Ropes flew out of her wand at the centaur, wrapping themselves tightly around the centaur’s torso and neck, he started to choke. I gasped in shock and leapt over to where he had fallen to the floor struggling, I grasped and tugged at the ropes trying to free him as the other centaurs launched themselves at Umbridge.
Harry leapt towards me and pushed me against a tree as the struggling centaur freed himself and went after Umbridge.
‘Noooo! Nooooooooo… I am Senior Undersecretary … you cannot – Unhand me you half breeds! Noooo!’ Umbridge hollered. Umbridge was lifted into the air by two centaurs and her wand fell from her hand to the ground. Harry jumped towards it but a centaur stepped on it and broke it cleanly in half.
‘Now!’ a voice shouted not far from us and Harry and I were dragged up to our feet in time to see Umbridge being carried off into the forest.
‘And these?’ said the grey centaur that was holding me.
‘They are young,’ said a wise looking centaur behind Harry, ‘We do not attack foals.’
‘They brought her here Ronan,’ the centaur holding Harry replied, ‘and they are not so young … he is nearing manhood, this one.’
‘Please,’ I said breathlessly, ‘please don’t attack us, we don’t think like her, we don’t work for the Ministry! We only came here because we hoped you’d drive her off for us.’ Straight after I finished I knew I had phrased that completely wrong, the grey centaur snorted in outrage.
‘You see, Ronan? They already have the arrogance of their kind! So we were to do your dirty work, were we, human girl? We were to act as your servants, drive away your enemies like obedient hounds?’
‘No!’ I said as quickly as I could, ‘Please – I didn’t mean that! I just hoed you’d be able to – to help us –‘
‘We do not help humans!’ snarled the centaur holding Harry, ‘we are a race apart and proud to be so. We will not permit you to walk from here, boasting that we did your bidding!’
‘We’re not going to say anything like that!’ Harry tried, ‘We know you didn’t do what you did because we wanted you to –‘
‘They came here unasked, they must pay the consequences!’ a bearded centaur shouted.
‘They can join the woman!’ a dun coloured centaur roared.
‘You said you didn’t hurt the innocent!’ I shouted, now very scared and my arms beginning to go numb with pain from the tightness of the grey centaurs grasp. ‘We haven’t done anything to hurt you, we haven’t used wands or threats, we just wanted to go back to school, please let us go back –‘
‘We are not all like the traitor Firenze, human girl!’ The grey centaur roared meeting more approving cheers from the surrounding centaurs. ‘Perhaps you thought us pretty talking horses? We are an ancient people who will not stand wizard invasions and insults! We do not recognize your laws, we do not acknowledge your superiority, we are –‘
Centaurs began to stop listening and scatter, suddenly both Harry and myself were dropped as the monstrous form of Grawp came bumbling through the gap he had created in the trees. He peered down at Harry and me and opened his mouth.
‘Hagger.’ He came out with, still peering down at us and the centaurs. I gripped on to Harry’s arm as Grawp looked from us to the centaurs and looked down and around as if looking for something he had dropped.
‘Hagger!’ He said again.
‘Get away from here giant! Called the chestnut centaur, ‘You are not welcome among us!’ These words seem to have no affect upon Grawp at all, He bent down a little like a toddler looking at something on the floor and then bellowed ‘HAGGER!’ A few of the centaurs looked worriedly amongst each other.
Then I gasped, ‘Harry!’ I whispered loudly, ‘I think he’s trying to say Hagrid!’ Then Grawp’s eyes locked upon us, ‘Hermy.’ He said.
‘He – he remembered!’ I gasped to myself more than Harry, it was almost sweet that he had.
‘HERMY!’ Grawp roared, ‘WHERE HAGGER?’
‘I don’t know Grawp,’ I replied loudly, ‘I’m sorry, Grawp, I don’t know!’
‘GRAWP WANT HAGGER!’ He shouted again, clearly frustrated that he didn’t know and seemed also annoyed that he found it hard to communicate.
Grawp’s massive hands came towards us, knocking a snow white centaur out the way, but this is what the centaurs had been waiting for, around fifty arrows soared through the air at the giant, getting him in the arms and torso, some seemed to have no affect but some had dug in deep and were drawing large amounts of deep red blood. Grawp, now angry, went after the scattering and galloping centaurs.
‘Oh no, that was awful, what if he kills them all?’ I asked rubbing where the grey centaur and gripped me so tightly.
‘I’m not all that fussed to be honest.’ Harry said bitterly.
‘Right.’ Harry said almost angrily. ‘Where do we go from here?’
‘We need to go back up to the castle.’ I said knowing what was coming.
‘Great, by the time we’ve done that, Sirius will be dead!’
‘Well we can’t do anything without wands.’ I said calmly. ‘Anyway Harry, how exactly were you planning to get all the way to London?’
‘Yeah, we were just wandering that.’ Said a familiar voice behind me. Harry and I drew closer together instinctively, but there was no need to as Ron came into sight, followed by Ginny, Neville and Luna. They all looked a little bruised and fumbled, but at the same time all looking rather pleased with themselves.
‘So,’ said Ron, pushing aside the last branch that separated us from them, and then handing Harry his wand, ‘had any ideas?’
‘How did you get away?’ Harry said in amazement, as Ron gave me a glance and smiled before looking back at Harry, I blushed slightly, luckily it was dark so the moment was forgotten.
‘I remembered I had a few of Fred and George’s sweets, got them out and they asked me what they were, of course they then took them for themselves and told me to shove off. They soon ran off with various illnesses.’ Ron smirked.
‘That’s … very clever Ron.’ I smiled.
‘It’s been known to happen.’ He smiled at me. ‘Anyway, what’ve you done with Umbridge.’
‘She got carried away, by a heard of centaurs.’
‘And they left you behind?’ Ginny asked.
‘No, they got chased off by Grawp.’ Harry replied.
‘Who’s Grawp?’ Luna asked interestedly.
‘Hagrid’s half brother,’ Ron answered, ‘Anyway, never mind that now. Harry, what did you find out in the fire?’
‘He’s not home. But I’m sure Sirius is still alive, but I can’t see how we’re going to get there to help him.’
‘We fly of course.’ Luna smiled, in the most matter-of-fact tone I have ever heard her say.
