“Headmaster Merlinus,” the woman’s voice from the floo declared. “This is Deputy Partridge from the Department of Magical Integrity and Security calling. Are you there?” Her face, thin and stern with hair pulled into a merciless bun, shifted in the coals, looking for him.
“I am here, Madame,” Merlin answered quickly, even as he moved to the door and swept it open. Mr. Brimble, the evening watchman, stood outside, his eyes wide, his face the colour of putty. He stepped into the doorframe and glanced around hectically. His eyes alit on James and then dismissed him, flicking back to the headmaster.
From the floo, the woman from the Ministry said, “There have been several breaches in temporary magical boundaries this night. We have incoming reports of unnamed magical species venturing into protected areas. Hogwarts School is one of them. Initiate Ministry regulation lockdown protocols until further notice.”
“I shall take whatever precaution the situation dictates, Madame Partridge,” Merlin replied smoothly. “Just as soon as we ascertain which magical species has decided to visit us.”
Brimble bounced on his toes, nearly bursting with impatience.
Merlin turned to him, his brow raised inquisitively.
“They pulled down the watchtower, sir!” he said breathlessly.
“Hawtrey and Rheem barely got out before they toppled the whole thing over into the lake using their ropes and hooks! They’re right furious, although none of us can understand a word they say! Seems like they think we were using the tower to spy on them or something!”
“Who, pray tell?” Merlin asked.
“Merpeople, sir!” Brimble said, his eyes bulging further.
“They’re gathered all along the shore, shouting nonsense and brandishing those mad, three-pronged spear-things at us!”
“I believe the word you are groping for is ‘trident’, Mr.
Brimble.” Merlin suggested.
The horn sounded from beyond the window again, closer now, low and throaty. The noise chilled James and prickled his hair.
“That is not the horn of merpeople,” the headmaster said, turning back to Brimble. “That is blown from a golden Graphorn, the traditional rallying call of—”
“Centaurs, Headmaster,” Partridge concurred from the floo.
“We’ve just received word from remote viewers. The entire eastern congress of centaurs is on the move. Hogwarts School is either their destination, or in their path. Evacuation may be imminent.”
“Perhaps let us not leap to extremes,” Merlin suggested with almost impish calm. As a man accustomed to action, even war, it appeared that these were precisely the moments he lived for. “Have we any idea what our guests are seeking?”
“They’re threatening the lot of us with their pointy, er, tridents, sir!” Brimble exclaimed, his voice climbing into near falsetto range. “I think it’s bloody well obvious what they want!”
“The centaurs, I mean,” Merlin said, holding up a hand to Brimble. “The merpeople are waterbound, thus of some lesser concern at the moment. Yet, the centaurs are not a people to attack without warrant and reason. Has anyone inquired what they are seeking?”
“This is not the time for diplomacy, Mr. Ambrosius,” Partridge commanded from the floo. “Initiate lockdown, as protocol demands.
Hundreds of students are in danger.”
“Not unless any of them attack our guests,” Merlin countered smoothly. “And even then, I expect the centaur sword would be used to spank rather than gut. These are a patient people. We shall meet with them as comrades.”
More footsteps echoed heavily up the spiral stairs beyond the door. A figure plowed into the office, pushing Brimble aside unceremoniously. It was Hawtrey this time, his face red and clammy with sweat, his chest heaving from the exertion of having run some distance. His brown beret was pushed back, revealing his high, balding brow.
“Centaurs, sir,” he wheezed between gasps. “In the courtyard…
Demand palaver with the Pendragon, whatever that is…” He swallowed and fell against the doorframe, raising one hand to cover his heart. “And two counselors… of his choosing.”
“Please sit and recover yourself, Mr. Hawtrey,” Merlin instructed, and then turned to Brimble. “Go and summon Professor McGonagall. She will surely be found in her quarters at this hour.
Have her meet me in the courtyard within five minutes. We should not keep our guests waiting. James?” He turned and looked down at James where he still sat, now perched forward on the edge of his chair.
“Yes sir?”
“You will accompany me as my second counselor.” This did not seem to be a suggestion.
“Me, sir?”
“I can think of no one else I would prefer. You may consider it credit toward your, ahem, Junior Auror-in-Training elective. I shall inform Professor Debellows.”
“Headmaster,” Partridge interrupted sternly, “we have instituted official protocols for a reason. I insist that—”
“Rest assured, Madame,” Merlin said, turning back to the face in the coals. “If the outcome of this evening’s palaver requires it, I shall follow Department regulations to the very jot and tittle.”
“Mr. Ambrosius!” Partridge called stridently, but Merlin was already stepping toward his open door, passing Hawtrey where he sat gasping and wheezing on the antechamber bench.
James jumped up from his chair and ran to catch up, leaving the face in the hearth fuming, both literally and figuratively.
As he passed the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, the old headmaster offered him a solemn nod. “Courage and prudence, Mr.
Potter.”
Next to him, the portrait of Snape rolled its eyes hopelessly.
James ran on, clumping down the spiral steps in pursuit of the headmaster. He had a sinking sensation that somewhere, somehow, a final corner had been turned. There was a sense of destinies shifting on the huge, crushing axes of fate, like a minute hand on a galactic clock ticking one notch closer to absolute midnight.
It was a deeply unsettling feeling, and yet he was barely aware of it. He was too caught up in the inertia of things to come; a momentum that he feared would not let up from that day forward, until the final, ultimate end.
21. – Disintegrating Plans
“Shouldn’t we be meeting atop the Sylvven Tower, sir?” James suggested as he followed Merlin through the entrance hall. Students milled in urgently whispering knots, collecting around the main doors and peering out, some with trepidation, others with nervous excitement.
Bright, wide eyes turned to follow the headmaster as he parted the crowd, walking straight toward the open doors and the twilight courtyard beyond.
“As I am quite certain that it would be pointless to send you all to your common rooms,” he declared without breaking his stride, “At least do respect the confidence and gravity of our guests by staying inside and quiet. I need not remind you that centaurs are solemn creatures who do not bear offense lightly.” In a quieter voice, he said to James, “The Sylvven Tower is indeed the traditional place for meetings such as these, but it was not built with centaurs in mind. The many stairs would be an injustice and an insult.”
The air beyond the open doors was still warm with the dying sunlight, but swirled with capricious night breezes. James stopped on the top step as Merlin progressed down, slowly, moving to greet his guests with stately grace.
The courtyard was filled, nearly wall to wall, with centaurs.
James had never seen so many at once, had never imagined there could be this many gathered in one place. He knew that the eastern congress of the Forest centaurs had to include more than Firenze, Bane, Ronan, and the few others he’d met or glimpsed on rare occasions. And yet the sight before him boggled the mind. Part of his awe was in the sheer weight of the hundreds of stony gazes, all facing toward the doors in ranks and rows, corresponding to some secret hierarchy that James couldn’t fathom. Part of it was the array of weaponry on display— massive bows and staffs, ornately crafted
broadswords and daggers— none wielded, but held at the ready or worn in creaking belts and leather scabbards. And part of it was that, for the first time, he was seeing female centaurs. They were clad just as the men, but with slighter bodies and, if anything, even more regal bearings, with tapered up-thrust chins and large, grave eyes.
But most of the fearful reverence the colony inspired, however, was in the rarity of their marching in numbers such as this. The centaurs were elusive and secret creatures, vastly preferring their own society to that of man or wizard, and therefore fiercely defending their lands and culture from curious eyes. Yet here they all were, exuding a sense of aloof, cautious superiority so thick that it seemed to darken the very air.
James looked for Magorian, their aged leader, but couldn’t find him in their ranks.
Someone hurried alongside James, and then past him, clacking down the steps to join Merlin as he neared the leading row of centaurs.
It was professor McGonagall, of course, dressed in a surprising quilted housecoat with a tartan shawl tight around her shoulders, her peaked hat wobbling crookedly. She glanced back at him briefly, her eyes sharp, and nodded him curtly forward. James hurried to join them, coming along on Merlin’s left side, while McGonagall stood straight on his right.
In unison, she and the headmaster bowed. It was a stiff movement, bending at the waist, but slow and deliberate. James rushed to mimic their movement, feeling awkward and woefully conspicuous.
“Hail, noble denizens of the Forest, your domain,” Merlin announced, straightening. “Is Magorian among you? Or to whom shall I address tribute?”
“Magorian is no more,” one of the near centaurs answered stiffly.
He was tall even by centaur standards, with grey dappled horse flanks and deep brown man’s skin from the waist up. His grey hair was loose and long, hanging about his shoulders in ragged ropes and ribbons. “I am Jakhar, his successor, and leader of this colony. Pay tribute to me, Pendragon Merlinus, and bid us welcome, for we come with a warning, and a promise.”
“Master Jakhar, venerable leader of a noble people,” Merlin acknowledged with a dip of his chin.
Jakhar’s face grew harder and his eyes narrowed. “Noble we may be, but people we are not, insofar as your own leaders are concerned.
Call us beasts, for that is the title we prefer, lest we fall under the same category as the other odious creatures upon whom you’ve bestowed the title of ‘beings’.”
McGonagall replied, “A history lesson we are all quite familiar with. Clearly you remind us of this distinction for a reason?”
“I do,” Jakhar concurred. “The news in your world surely confirms what we have divined from the Dance of the Elders. Your mistake in absorbing the lesser creatures into your society has come to its inevitable consequence. Hags, vampires, Goblins, and other such vermin have rotted your culture to its very foundation. And now they threaten to incur and topple unmagicked human civilization as well.”
“An overstatement, perhaps,” Merlin hedged mildly. “But a concern that we are striving to address. The Centauri objection notwithstanding, there are yet many individuals of those species who not only uphold our laws and society, but who repudiate the actions of their wayward brethren. The revered Magorian and myself debated this topic at length, and yet even he, late in his life, understood the error of condemning an entire population for its worst members.”
“An opinion that he recanted in his final day,” Jakhar bristled, stamping his forehoof. “The clarity of death brightened his inner eye, and he saw the truth: a spring that is only half poison will yet kill those who drink of it. An apple that is only half-rotten will still spoil the lot.
Humanity has failed to guard itself from the poison and rot of lesser creatures. And now human civilization is as a golden statue with clay feet, cracked and ready to collapse.”
“This is an ancient debate,” McGonagall declared smoothly, if a bit wearily, “and one that we shall not satisfy this day. What is your warning, Master Jakhar? And what is your promise?”
Jakhar regarded McGonagall carefully, and then switched his gaze to Merlin, and then James. “Our warning is simple and irrevocable, and it is this: the age of Man is over. Wizardkind may be blind to this truth, but we Centaurs have observed the spiral of mankind for decades.
Your unmagicked brothers wage war upon each other with ever more terrible weapons. They grow arrogant on power, drunken on technology, and lazy on diversion. The circle of their age closes more with every cycle, devouring itself with increasing speed. We have observed this and shown forbearance, knowing that such monumental portents require absolute surety before action. But the signs have culminated. The point of certainty is past and the time to act has come.
Man can no longer be granted the freedom of self-governance. Thus we, the Centaurs and our allies, will mount a revolution into the citadels of human rule. We will save them from themselves. We will eradicate the rot that has beset them in their ignorance, and grant them the security of wise rule, once and for all, under true and prudent dominion.”
“You’re going to take over human governments?” James blurted, unwilling to believe that he’d heard properly.
“It is the only way to balance the collision of destinies,” Jakhar nodded, peering down at James gravely. “The influence of humanity has grown too powerful not to drag the rest of us into its own destruction.”
McGonagall’s voice was shrill with restrained anger, “Unstable humanity may be, but on the verge of destruction they simply are not.
We witches and wizards learned long ago that power does not give one the right to make decisions on behalf of an independent culture and people.”
“In fact, Madame Professor,” another centaur spoke up, this one the female who stood to Jakhar’s left, “It is wizardkind’s failure to make decisions on behalf of lesser peoples that has led to this impending catastrophe. We Centaurs will not repeat that mistake.”
“How soon?” It was Merlin who asked, his voice as unfailingly calm and measured as always. “We know that the Centauri do not act without much planning, proper preparation, and fair warning. We recognize your warning and ask: how soon do you intend to move upon the Muggle world and their governments? Let us prepare them for your strength and manner, that fewer of both sides might be harmed.”
The female centaur blinked at Merlin, and then glanced aside at Jakhar, who shifted on his hooves, his tail flicking restlessly against his flanks.
“You misunderstand, Merlinus,” he said, dropping his voice to a confidential tone. “It is not the Muggle world that we intend to move upon. The warning is not for you to pass onto them, but for wizardkind itself.”
James felt a wave of coldness fall over him as he looked up at the solemn centaur, standing at the head of his ranks and rows of grim warriors.
After a long, breathless pause, Merlin’s voice was somber. “I see.
You intend to move upon the bastions of wizard rule. Because you believe that we have failed in our duties to humanity as a whole.”
The female centaur raised her chin. “Those whom you call Muggles are as your charges. It has always been your duty to shield them from themselves, and from the worst of your own kind. You have done neither. Your mission cannot be said to have failed, for you never took it up. And now, the Centauri have no choice but to accept the mantle of responsibility. We shall establish the rule that you have ignored, and we shall do so first with you and your people. Your Ministry will submit to us. Your leaders will be subject to us. And this school,” her eyes sharpened as she challenged Merlin’s gaze, “shall be our first stronghold.”
Merlin merely nodded, slowly and consideringly. “Your warning is received with respect,” he said. “And your promise?”
“That not one hair on a single head shall be harmed so long as we are met with the respect and obeisance that we require.”
Merlin nodded again, even more slowly.
“That is quite a stringent requirement,�
� McGonagall said, her voice hushed. “Submission to occupying forces is not something that comes naturally to most of us.”
“And that is why we offer our warning,” Jakhar replied. “For the day of our coming is not today. But it is soon. We abhor violence. We abhor it so strongly that when forced to fight, we do so with the ferocity and viciousness of conviction, that it may be ended as soon as possible.
Those who stand up to Centaurs do not stand up again. This is the only way to shorten the time of violence. Do what you must to assure that it does not come to that.”
Without waiting for a response, Jakhar and his escorts turned, their hooves clopping on the flagstones, and paced regally back toward the open courtyard gates. The ranks behind them parted smoothly, forming a silent thoroughfare for them to pass through.
McGonagall turned to Merlin, her eyes sharp, but said nothing.
Merlin merely stood and watched the departing Centaurs. They filed out row by row, front to back, funneling through the gate and into the deepening dusk. When the last of them exited, four abreast, their tails flicking restlessly and their heads raised, Merlin finally spoke.
“We should have a word with our Mermish friends. I will explain to them that our watchtower was not intended for them, but that we shall relocate it out of respect for their concerns.”
“Headmaster,” McGonagall whispered harshly, her gaze still sharp. “What are we to do? The Centaurs mean to take the school! Is it possible that they could indeed breach our boundaries if they came in force?”
“Centaurs do not threaten, Professor,” Merlin answered. “If they state an intention, it behooves us to trust that they have the means to accomplish it.” He stepped down onto the cobbles and strode for the gate, apparently heading toward the lake to converse with the Merpeople. James and McGonagall followed.
“Surely, we must inform the Ministry immediately,”
McGonagall said, her voice low and serious. “This is a terrible matter indeed.”
“As a matter of fact, Professor,” Merlin said as he passed through the gate and turned toward the lake below, where it glimmered with coppery sunset light, “I believe we may count our lucky stars.”
James Potter and the Crimson Thread Page 50