Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition: Round 4

Team: Kenmare Kestrels

Position: Chaser 3

Creature: Centaur

Prompts: Soul, "Not all who wander are lost," and "Did you really need to do that?"

It had been an odd night in the forest even for a full moon. The moonlight had spilled through the trees and coated the whole forest in a silver light so pure that Firenze had stepped especially lightly in fear of getting silver-coated hooves.

Firenze had slipped through the saplings and trotted gleefully to his favorite star gazing clearing, ignoring his father's plea not to go too far —the old centaurs were far too superstitious nowadays. The clearing was just as bright as the rest of the forest, and he admired his freshly grown adolescent pelt as he made his way to the center of the glade.

Firenze had just turned his head toward the sky, when he heard a clattering of hooves. He turned to face a twisting beech tree, only to see a large stag standing with its chest puffed out, as though it was trying extra hard to be magnificent.

Firenze paused and opened his mouth to neigh—or as close a centaur could get to neighing—when the animal turned its large brown eyes toward him. Firenze held back a startled gasp; the eyes that had turned to him were not those of an animal. He wasn't quite sure how he could tell, but he was certain this stag had a human soul.

It must be an animagus, he thought. Firenze felt his chest swell with a very un-centaurish kind of excitement.

"What brings you to this clearing, young wizard?" Firenze said, trying to sound as wise as the other centaurs did when the herd ran into the rare human. In all actuality, Firenze couldn't have been much older than the stag-human, but he was far too haughty to admit that.

With a faint pop, the stag materialized into a tall boy with messy black hair and astonishingly round glasses that framed wide chestnut brown eyes. The boy couldn't have looked worse if he tried; he had a large scratch down his cheek, his robes were muddy and torn, and his hair was covered in leaves. However, his eyes were brimming with excitement.

"How'd you know I was a wizard?" he asked, peering curiously at the sleek fur of Firenze's coat. Firenze pretended not to be too pleased with the attention.

"It's all in the eyes," he said, drawing his words out slowly to make them sound more impressive. "But you have not answered my question, wizard. Why are you here tonight? It is a full moon, you know."

"Oh, I know all right," said the boy.

Firenze felt vaguely insulted at his tone. How very rude these humans can be! he thought.

"As to why I'm out here… can you keep a secret?" the boy said.

"Of course," said Firenze indignantly. This was quite true. It was unanimously acknowledged that Firenze was the best secret keeper in all of the forest, a fact that Firenze was quite proud of.

The boy narrowed his eyes in scrutiny, and Firenze shuffled his hooves uncomfortably.

"Alright." Apparently, he had deemed Firenze trustworthy enough. "Well—" the boy began, but he quickly cut himself off with an overly dramatic slap to the forehead. "I'm sorry. I forgot to introduce myself. My name's James Potter." With this the boy, James, grinned devilishly.

"Firenze."

"Anyway," said the boy. "One of my best friends is a... well, let's just say he's not exactly fully human."

At this point, Firenze become quite lost. He puzzled shamefully over this tidbit as James continued.

"So, we— I mean, I, decided to become an animagus. I'm a stag," he said proudly. "Please don't tell anyone we're here. Me and my friends kind of snuck out."

At this, Firenze could barely contain his excitement; none of the other foals had ever talked to a wizard, let alone met an animagus. "I would not dream of telling anyone else, but I am curious as to where your friends are," he said. James seemed to be the only person there, and no matter how far Firenze craned his neck, he couldn't spot another creature.

James Potter's forehead creased in worry. "I don't know," he said. "That's the problem."

"I could help you find them!" Firenze exclaimed, and immediately wished he hadn't. He sounded as eager a newborn foal. "I mean... do you require assistance in finding your friends?"

James looked faintly amused. "I would love some assistance," he said with a flourish. "You go this way, I'll go that way. Sound good?" He pointed vaguely in two different directions and then stared at Firenze expectantly.

"Certainly," Firenze replied, and he watched the boy plod through a small patch of nettles before turning smoothly into a stag and galloping off nimbly.

Firenze followed suit, but he wasn't quite sure where to go. I'll try the pumpkin patch, he thought.

But the pumpkin patch contained only a few cranky bats and one overgrown pumpkin. He found nothing better in the hedge of flutterby bushes and only a lone butterfly in the aspen grove.

Where, he thought, would I go? Not the lake; that's too close to the castle. Perhaps the blackberry briars? Or the bubbling creek? I've already traipsed across most of the forest. Why did I even agree to this again?

He was still lost in thought when he spotted a slight movement through the light-speckled foliage. He peered at it curiously, barely making out a fuzzy black blur that seemed to be heading closer steadily.

Firenze squinted at it; it took a second for him to recognize it as large, furry dog. The dog had its snout bent firmly toward the ground and was sniffing the dirt as though its life depended on it.

Then Firenze realized that the dog was nowhere near stopping, and that it was still heading straight for him. He turned quickly to move out of the dog's path. Unfortunately, he was a moment too late, and the dog collided into Firenze's sleek coat and bounced off rather comically into the dirt.

It didn't seem to be upset; on the contrary, it looked rather excited. It wagged its tail happily as it clambered to its feet, and then with the second pop Firenze had heard that day, it stretched taller and taller until it had fully transformed into a pale boy with inky black hair and an arrogant sort of air.

It was obvious he was an animagus too, but Firenze was too upset by the damage the boy had done to his coat to pay much notice. He brushed the coarse dirt off his pristine coat and glared at the wizard. "Are you lost?" he said coolly.

"You're a centaur!" cried the boy happily.

Firenze ignored his comment. "Do you need me to help you find your way?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Not all who wander are lost," the wizard said grandly. "I stole that from Remus; he's a friend of mine, by the way." His stage-whisper made it sound like it was some sort of grand secret. Inwardly, Firenze rolled his eyes.

Suddenly, Firenze remembered why he was even in this part of the forest. "Would you, by any chance, happen to know James Potter?" he asked, hoping his search would finally be over, although he was pretty sure James would have chosen a better person than this boy.

The boy threw back his head, sending his dark tresses whirling through the air, and laughed heartily.

Firenze felt almost offended. Was this boy laughing at him?

"Know him?" asked the boy through muffled snorts. "He's my best friend! Of course I know him."

Firenze narrowed his pale blue eyes in dislike. "Well," he said stiffly, "he requested my assistance in finding his friends tonight."

The boy stopped laughing, but his eyes retained their excitement. "Where is he? I haven't been able to find anyone else."

Firenze paused. Where was James? "That," he said reluctantly, "is a very good question."

The boy bit his tongue. "But you have met him?" he inquired.

"Yes," Firenze said. "He was looking for his friends."

"And you didn't, I don't know, make sure you could find him if you found his friends?"

Firenze most definitely felt offended now. "Maybe," he said. "People should actually keep track of their friends and not rely on busy centaurs to help them!" Firenze wasn't really busy, but he was mad.

The boy opened his mouth to reply but at that moment a scuffling of leaves behind them interrupted him.

Firenze scanned the leaves, saw that it was only a rat, and turned back to the rude wizard animagus to put him back in his place.

But the boy had knelt in the fallen leaves, extending his slender hands towards the rat.

Firenze wondered if most wizards were this... interesting. Was he planning to eat it?

"Peter, is that you? What took you so long?" the boy said exasperatedly, rubbing his forehead wearily.

Firenze almost cried; there was yet another animagi. He hoped this one was like James, not the prickly dog animagus

The rat gave a sharp squeal as the boy picked it up and flung it haphazardly into the air; right before it crashed onto the ground, the rat swelled at an alarming rate, and soon there was a squat boy with pale blonde hair and watery eyes almost the exact shade of Firenze's own standing where the rat had been. He coughed miserably and turned to the other boy resentfully.

"Did you really have to do that?" he said, glaring at the other boy sullenly.

"Come on, Peter, live a little," the boy replied. "But, seriously, what took you so long?"

"Sirius, it's not easy crawling through the mud and muck of the forest when you're about two inches tall and have to stop every minute to cough, and somebody hasn't even bothered to tell you where the people you're looking for might be!" The boy, Peter, coughed again but looked the slightest bit cheered to have found Sirius.

"May I inquire how many of you there are out here?" Firenze asked, trying hard to be impressive and wishing a genuinely rational wizard was present.

"Four," said Sirius shortly. It was then that Peter seemed to have an epiphany.

"You're a centaur!" he called out exactly as Sirius had moments earlier.

"Yes," said Firenze proudly. "I was fortunate enough to be born as a centaur."

Sirius tried to disguise his snort with a hacking cough, but failed miserably.

Peter elbowed him rather noticeably. "Have you found James or Remus?" he asked, glaring at Sirius and muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "Are you trying to get us killed?".

"Well, Mr. I'm-so-distinguished over here found James, but then he lost him," Sirius said bitingly.

Firenze felt his temper swell, and he pawed the ground angrily.

Peter backed up quickly. "I- I'm sure Sirius wasn't trying to be offensive," he said nervously.

Firenze glared at Sirius, Sirius glared back, and Peter's gaze flickered nervously between the two.

"How—what if—" Peter cried, twisting his hands together. He was cut off by a sharp howl.

Without warning, both Peter and Sirius changed swiftly into animagi, fur sprouting wildly as their skin disappeared behind their newly grown coats.

Firenze glanced nervously around the clearing, but the forest was empty. He heard the howl again, but it was behind him this time.

Peter and Sirius pricked up their ears in anticipation as he held his breath.

Slowly, he turned and then he saw it. Suddenly, Firenze couldn't breathe. He felt his heart clench in terror, and his tail swished back and forth like a nervous tick. "IT'S—IT'S A WEREWOLF!" he yelled. "RUN!"

But Sirius and Peter didn't move.

Firenze was torn between self-preservation and selflessness now, and he pranced nervously on the spot. To his surprise, Sirius barked loudly and wagged his tail.

The werewolf skidded to a stop, and Firenze could feel his heart banging in his chest like a caged bowtruckle. Suddenly, it hit him that the werewolf was not trying to hurt the dog and rat; its hackles were down, and it's mouth was open in a toothy sort of grin.

"Are you friends with a werewolf?" he asked and then cringed at his wording.

The dog—Sirius—nodded.

"I suppose that was who we were searching for," he continued. The dog bobbed its head up and down. Firenze took a moment to take everything in as the animals whisked around happily.

Then the werewolf gave another howl, and the three animals sprinted off into the woods without a second glance.

It took Firenze a moment to decide whether or not he should have followed them, but by that point they were specks in the distance. He watched them bounce further and further away until they were joined by another speck, this one with antlers, and vanished completely in a tangle of silvery branches.

Firenze felt strangely saddened by the loss of the quartet (well, perhaps not Sirius or the werewolf) and he found himself hoping that one day James and possibly Peter would return to the forest again.

Later, as Firenze made his way through the leaf strewn forest, he mulled over the strange encounter. James Potter is certainly someone although he does keep odd company, he thought, and that was when he remembered what he came out to do.

He turned his head to the stars, but it was not of the looming war he thought of, but of James Potter.

The other centaurs had warned him."You can't focus on a specific person."

"Centaurs have wasted their lives trying."

"It's very rare."

But James Potter was the first human Firenze had ever really met, and he had always been a bit too curious.

Slowly, he raised his head to the stars, thinking only of James. But he needed more than thoughts, and thoughts were all he had; and so defeated, Firenze bowed his head, and when he looked up again, he did what he had come to do: focused on the war.

Mars was bright as ever, but Venus had shifted slightly to the left, and for the first time in several months, Firenze found something new in the stars. Two parents, he saw, would give their lives to protect the chosen one. That was the first time that Firenze connected Harry Potter's name with James's but certainly not the last, and he felt his heart constrict in fear.

Firenze wasn't quite certain if James Potter and Harry Potter were related, but somehow—he was not quite sure how—he knew that James Potter would not survive the coming war.

The thought made him immeasurably sad, something that he could not yet understand. Firenze had only known him for a night, but already he felt that James Potter was the laughter at a party and the arm chair in a waiting room, and that when he died, more than a few people—and perhaps one centaur—would lose just a little bit of light from their lives.

Years later, Firenze finds a little boy in the forest. His name is not James Potter, but he is the son of James Potter, and Firenze saves him not only because he is the chosen one, but for James—because although this boy does not have the same sideways grin or reckless joy that James did, he has James's loyalty and flyaway hair.

And sometimes, on nights when the full moon shines bright as a fairy orb, he hears the faint howling of a wolf in the forest, and from his cozy spot in the castle—he hasn't been in the forest in a long time now—he remembers the boy who could turn into a stag, his three furry friends, and an exceedingly haughty centaur.