House: Slytherin
Category: Drabble
Prompts: Professor Firenze [Character]
Word count: 464 (Excluding Author's Note, but including entire Entry and Title)
Warning: This is an AU (Alternate Universe) piece. Though, I would love to believe this is Canon :)
Characters: Firenze; Bane; Albus Dumbledore; Harry Potter.
Summary: Professor Firenze never knew compassion until he met Harry Potter. During a break from class, Firenze looks forward to the change that is to come.
Author's Note: I thoroughly enjoyed writing this particular character; it's not everyday I get to explore any minor character :)
As always, enjoy
-Carolare Scarletus
Heart of Compassion
Firenze could hear everything, but he dared not open his eyes. He was as interlaced with the world as he had ever been; even the faint patterns of their footsteps transpiring in the forest and the trickle of the river was becoming more than a faint, distant dream. His eyes remained closed. Through the connection, he could see them, feel their energy as if it were his own. His herd would have been ashamed of him, deem it dishonorable to connect to the world as he'd done; Firenze did not see it as such. In fact, the closer he was to the rest of their world, the better. He felt an overwhelming need to protect, to shield; his herd did not understand human compassion. It was a beautiful thing, and he just wished they could see it they way he did.
"I see no point in what you are doing, Firenze," Bane's harsh words reminded him, slowing rising from the depths of his memory. It was the night the Dark Lord was amongst them; he remembered watching him defile the unicorn, partake from its living-giving blood as if he was entitled to it. The creature had looked up, his red eyes glimmering in the moonless forest. The memory still scared him until this day but it did not resolve his decision to fight alongside the humans; one of them came to him in their time of need, and he remembered clearly of their encounter and kind words.
"This is not just about you. It is about what's best for all of us," he had told Bane gently. "You do not want to live in a society like this, yet you do not want to do anything about it."
Firenze opened his eyes, and stared at the lively landscape of his classroom. Everything in his vision was dark, yet outside was alive with the cries of war, the lights of wands pointing to the sky. Firenze slowly maneuvered over to the glassless window, fascinated by the straks of magic as it wove together, forming a blanket-like veil in the sky as though it was doing so now. Hogwarts would be under attack. For the last several months, this school had been his home. His sanctuary. If watching humans taught him anything, it would be that the heart was the most important, and he needed to protect it.
He maneuvered around his classroom, waiting as the lights flickered on and his students filtered in. They were blissfully oblivious to the chances that were to come.
Within the next two years, they would be tested. Darkness will shroud their vision, clouding their minds and hearts with with uncertainty.
Firenze stood there thinking of the only one who had shown him what compassion truly was.
~Fin~