Chapter One
The Meeting
" COME TO ORDER!!!" the head
dragon screamed.
Firenze
shook his head. The inhabitants of the Forbidden Forest never mixed very well.
Finally, silence descended on the clearing.
In this clearing stood every kind of magical creature you
could think of. From dragons to centaurs, they were there. The subject of the
meeting was extremely important. As with the meeting that had been held in the
Forest fourteen years before, it was the centaurs who had noticed it first,
Firenze thought to himself, but did Humans listen? Of course not. Well, except
Albus Dumbledore and his small crowd.
"Thank you. Now, will the
centaur named Firenze please step up and say his piece," boomed out the head
dragon, Korona.
Firenze stepped forward and bowed in respect to the heads
and elders. Not doing this would have been a bad thing. Then Firenze stepped
lightly onto the humongous rock the Forest used as a podium. Firenze tilted his
head back to look at the stars, and then looked at the clearing before
starting.
"I've been studying the
stars."
A chuckle ran through the clearing. Centaurs always
studied the stars. It was all they did. Firenze continued as if he did not hear
them.
"The stars have a warning
for us. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has risen again."
The clearing went in to a frenzy.
"Can that be possible?"
"You're off your rocker this
time Firenze!"
"You-Know-Who can't be back!
Can he?"
"You're crazy—it 's not
possible!"
Firenze reared back in anger and bellowed,
"IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HEAR
THE WORSE NEWS, BE QUIET!"
Everyone froze. Centaurs rarely lost their tempers so
fast, especially Firenze. He was one of the more quiet ones. You really did not
want to see a centaur lose his temper like that.
"Thank you." He said it with
a lot of patience, " The stars say that You-Know-Who has specific targets. They
are The Seven and their guardians."
The clearing lost it. This can't be true. The Seven
weren't supposed to fight until much later, around seventh year. The only calm
ones were the elders and heads. They were shocked. It seemed that only Firenze
had read this, otherwise Gramin, the centaur elder, would have told them. Since
dragons get very irritable when it got very noisy, Korona rose to his full
height.
"ENOUGH," He screamed to the
clearing. Then he opened his mouth as if he was going to flame. In no time at
all, the clearing was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. The head dragon
sat down majestically, his scales rattling as he did.
"Firenze," he asked, " do
you have anything else to add? As we have quiet now."
Firenze looked toward the
stars again.
"The stars advise to alert
Albus Dumbledore as soon as possible. He should tell the guardians of what is
going on. The children cannot know. It will jeopardize what they will have to
do later on."
Korona nodded.
"Agreed," Korona turned
towards Fawkes the Phoenix, who represented the magical creatures at Hogwarts.
"Go tell Dumbledore immediately. Tell him also to be in touch."
Fawkes sang a note in agreement and took off in the
direction of Hogwarts.
A voice in the back spoke out.
"What about us? What can we
do to help?"
There was a murmur of agreement until Korona looked up.
Before Korona could say anything Firenze stepped in,
"You should watch the
forest. Make sure none of them come near the Forest. They could get themselves
killed before they even know their roles."
Korona nodded.
"You understand what to do?"
There was nodding of heads and several creatures murmured in agreement.
"Good, this meeting is
adjourned."
The animals scattered in different directions towards
their homes, talking about what had just happened.
As the inhabitants of the Forbidden Forest headed home, a
boy named Harry Potter was sleeping. He was more special than anybody realized.
