A/N: There isn't much by way of warnings for this chapter - Firenze unintentionally harms Harry, but quickly rectifies that.
The language that is used by the symbiotes is a bastardization of Coptic and ancient Coptic. It's probably gibberish even to people who speak the language. The full translations will be at the end.
The weak light that filtered through the clouds was plenty illumination to see the damage to the castle. Scorch marks and divots standing out in sharp relief, painfully obvious to anyone who had ever been a student at Hogwarts. Harry's heart clenched at the sight of his true home, the battle that had raged while he'd been gone was clear in it's effects.
He trudged up to the entrance hall doors, hoping he wouldn't run into anyone. Harry just wanted to collapse into his four poster in the Gryffindor boys dormitory. Preferably without being interrogated by anyone beforehand. He sighed heavily when his name was called as he walked through the first floor corridors.
"Yes?"
"Harry Potter."
"Firenze!" Harry startled at the sight of the centaur, he didn't take Divination anymore, had dropped it after O.W.L's.
"The walls have eyes, and the doors ears, Harry Potter." Firenze turned and retreated back into his classroom after that cryptic comment. Leaving Harry to puzzle out the meaning.
Harry stared dumbly after him, not really sure what to make of it. However, as he turned to head toward Gryffindor tower again his eyes were caught by one of the many paintings that lined the walls. 'Paintings that move, and speak… and often guard doorways.' With a pleased smile he followed Firenze into the forest like room, happy to have solved another riddle without Hermione having to take over.
"We had thought the sleplip keke were all eliminated. After the moste prrie ih sleplip retreated. Apparently we were wrong." Firenze looked steadily at Harry for a long moment before his gaze shifted, seeming to bore straight into Harry's soul. "Masheaneah eavol ha pay mah, ih sleplip. Oe!"
The lake creature's emotions exploded, mistaken, not like that, apology, other, similar but different to us, and Harry heard 'me prrie, askios psiki.' echo inside his mind. He shook his head wildly. He had never heard it speak before, the possibility of another language hadn't even crossed his mind. 'anok an pay reeti moste prrie ih sleplip, anok an ih sleplip, anok sleplip keke.' His confusion must have be easy to read because a soft wave of apology, frustration came from the presence in his mind.
"It is talking to you." Firenze's solemn voice brought him back to the present.
"I... think so?" Harry didn't stop to wonder how Firenze knew that there was something else with him, he was too busy wondering what it was trying to say. "But it isn't anything I can understand. It sounds like what you saying before, though."
"I was speaking Coptic, or at least, a very old form of it. Could you relay to me what it was saying?"
"I can try," Harry paused to collect his thoughts, reaffirming the memory, "The first thing it said was: meh piri, askio piki."
"That makes very little sense, but it seems to be trying to say something about being a worthy soul and emanating love. Was there anything else?"
"Yeah, much longer. Anok an pay reti moste piri i sleplip. Anok an i sleplip, anok sleplip keke."
"This is slightly more fluent, but still," Firenze's brows furrowed deeply, mouth twisting into a grimace. "It is saying that it is not like the ones that were banished from this world thousands of years ago. That it is a child, that it is not like those my ancestors helped to vanquish."
"Wait. Wait. There was something on Earth. A forever ago that the Centaur's are still wary of."
"Yes. Harry Potter the moste prrie ih sleplip sowed discord wherever they went. They were terrible creatures, and it took many centuries to push them out. An alliance that has never been seen since, between all native magical species was formed. We have stories of dementors fighting beside unicorns, giants beside wizards. Every magical creature left behind their prejudices and feuds because they knew if the moste prrie ih sleplip stayed the balance would be destroyed."
"But, what were they?" Harry said, after a long, shocked silence.
"They are what the creature that sits in your gut will become." Firenze's voice was cold and hard. Harry had never seen a Centaur act like that before and it sent a shiver down his spine. no! not like that, never. The emotions were so strong that Harry double over as pain lanced through his skull, swiftly followed a churning in his gut as the symbiote writhed inside him.
Firenze rushed forward, Harry barely registered the sound of his hooves before he was being shoved up against the classroom wall. Hands pushing his shoulders flush with the cold stone.
"I will not allow you to hurt him." Firenze's voice was distorted, as if being heard through water, and then one of the hands moved away from his shoulder. Lightning fast it plunged into his gut and removed the symbiote.
Harry gasped again as his mind was flooded by foreign emotions no, horror, impending doom, apology, desperation, imminent death, mortality.
"No!" Without thinking Harry reached out toward the creature that was wriggling desperately in Firenze's grasp. His arm hung suspended in the air for but a minute before he collapsed against the wall.
"Harry Potter."
"Firenze, give them back." Harry didn't know how he had managed to decipher anything from the emotional bombardment, but he knew that if he wanted to survive he needed the symbiote inside him once more.
The pallor of his skin, the rasp of his breathing and the shudder pervading his limbs must have convinced the centaur. Harry was rolled onto his back and gently flattened out. Firenze lowered himself to the ground and carefully pushed the symbiote back into the pouch.
Harry sighed, when he finally reached the Fat Lady, both in relief and consternation. He was so close to his bed, and thus far mercifully unchallenged. The rest of his conversation with Firenze had been no less confusing than it's beginning. The countering emotions of the symbiote that were always fighting with Firenze's accounts of the 'moste prrie ih sleplip' - the demon snakes, as he had translated - hadn't helped at all. Harry was too tired. He needed sleep before even beginning to untangle the new mess he was in.
"Is it true?" The whisper startled Harry out of his daze.
"What?"
"Is Dumbledore dead?" Harry was silent for a painful minute before choking out his answer.
"Yes. He is." He couldn't look at her, didn't want to think about it, and he was thankful that she just swung open without bothering to ask him for the password.
Translations: in order
sleplip keke - snake child
moste prrie ih sleplip - hate emanating demon snake
masheaneah eavol ha pay mah, ih sleplip. Oe - get out of this place, demon snake. Go
me prrie, askios psiki - love emanating, worthy soul
anok an pay reeti moste prrie ih sleplip, anok an ih sleplip, sleplip keke - I not like (this) hate emanating demon snake, I not demon snake, I snake child.