Unplottable Island

Chapter 17: A Lesson in War

Hagrid stalked down the beach, returning from yet another conversation with a tribe of centaurs. None of them were particularly helpful, nor were they any hindrance. They all said the same thing: "Virgo shines brightly in this time of danger, but so does the Serpent."

Never, Hagrid thought to himself. Never ever try to get a straight answer from a centaur. "Ruddy star gazers," he muttered, wishing for a good mug of ale. "N'ere interested in anything closer than the moon." As if the moon heard him, it poked its full face out, shining a clear light across the ocean. It was odd for a tribe of centaurs to live on an island, but they had formed a close kinship with a nearby tribe of merpeople. These merpeople were Hagrid's next destination.

The breakers smashed noisily against the rocks, throwing bits of driftwood and weed high into the air. Hagrid watched them warily, wondering if one would choose to come his way. None did, and the giant man moved on; the moon slowly retreated behind its cloud cover.

Then the unmistakable sound of retching stopped him dead in his tracks. Hagrid spun.

A human shape lay face down halfway in the waves; body heaving as he or she coughed up what seemed an impossible amount of water. Every so often they would painfully drag their body a little farther out of the water, then begin retching again.

"Hey!" he called. "You okay?" No reply. Hagrid walked over and turned him or her over, sitting them up. "Hey there. You okay?"

The girl coughed, spewing more water down her front. Hagrid patted her on the back as her entire skinny frame shook with the effort to rid her system of the sea.

Hooves sounded on the sand, and a young female centaur galloped over. "Ruebus Hagrid? Who is this?"

"Not sure, ma'am, but it would be a good idea to get 'er somewhere else."

The girl moaned and opened large eyes, blinking a few times to rid them of the encrusting salt. She tried to sit up, but the centaur pushed her back down. "My name is Delphi," she said softly. "Who are you?" The girl didn't say anything, her face shadowed by the absence of the moon. She ran hands over her long masses of black hair, checking herself for injuries. "Who are you?" She wheezed, but still remained silent.

"Maybe she doesn't speak English," Delphi remarked to Hagrid. "Know any foreign languages?" To the girl she asked something in a whickering language Hagrid didn't know.

"Nope," Hagrid replied. "What was that?" Her reply was forgotten as the moon came out from behind the clouds.

The girl raised a hand to cover her eyes, their slit pupils narrowing in protest against the white light. Hagrid's jaw dropped. The 'girl' had golden-pebbled skin like many beads fused together, claws on her hands, and slit pupiled eyes!

Delphi muttered centaur curses under her breath. "Well, well," she said softly. "What have we here?" She looked up at Hagrid. "I know what this thing is. It's a Dreki, one of those Death-Eater replacements."

The lizard-girl shook her head, hissing something in her own tongue. In desperation, she scratched a message in the wet sand.

I'M AGAINST VOLDEMORT. MY NAME IS BIANA.

"Biana, eh?" Delphi remarked. "And how do we know you aren't just a spy, sent to wipe out more centaurs?"

She wheezed in something that might have been laughter, and then wrote, A SPY WOULD HAVE BETTER TRANSPORTATION.

Delphi nodded. "Ruebus Hagrid? I daren't take her to my tribe—take her with you. Keep her locked up until you find a translator. Don't trust her." Delphi trotted away, her short golden hair luminous in the moonlight. "Don't turn your back on her. Ever," she tossed backwards at Hagrid.

Biana rolled her eyes as Hagrid insisted upon tying her arms in front of her and followed him as he retraced his path, heading back to Hogwarts.

**

Tim awoke the next day a mass of bruises, aches, and a long bolt of pain in his back from a pulled deltoid. He had a splitting headache and was just as relieved as everyone else when Professor Gahlapault announced at breakfast that today would be devoted entirely to one big Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson.

It was fascinating. The old Professor was in his element: he paced before the all of the seated students like a general before his troops, hands clasped behind his back as he walked, occasionally breaking loose into a frenzy of waving arms and shouted words, sometime crouching low to emphasize something else. And his subjects! Past magical battles fought, tactics, weaponry, spells and more!

He spent a particularly long time on two battles: the Battle of the Bulge, where magical tactics had still been overrun by brute force, and the Battle of the Ruin or Battle of Division, which had happened a thousand years earlier on Hogwarts grounds.

"See, it went like this," Gahlapault began in his thunderous bellow. "You have one side, who have a half-finished castle—good, but not great—four extremely talented fully trained wizards and witches—okay—and maybe fifteen-odd magic students between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. On the other side, nearly ten villages united, that's maybe twelve hundred men and boys, with maybe fifty mercenary fighters. Can someone please define mercenary for me?"

Hermione's hand was, as usual, the first one in the air. "A hired man who fights for profit."

"Very good. Take five points. And they're usually pretty good, because you can't collect your pay if you are dead. Which side has the advantage? Mr. Malfoy?" Draco Malfoy had been participating more than usual in this lesson. Though Harry whispered to Tim, this could be because Draco was eager to prove that wizards could always best Muggles. This had not been true at the Battle of the Bulge, and Draco had stewed quietly through that detailed lesson.

"The united mercenaries and villagers," Draco replied. "They have the advantages of numbers and battle experience."

"Wow," Hermione whispered. "I was expecting him to go for wizards, no matter how bad the odds would be." Tim nodded.

"Excellent. Take five points. Now, lets get in a little deeper on both sides. Wizards first.

"Now, who are our wizards? Our founding Mothers and Fathers, of course. We've got Godric Gryffindor, who was the most admired swordsman of his time, and really good at Transfigurations. He used to turn his enemies into pigs and give them out as gifts to his family and friends." A few students giggled as Professor McGonagall flushed: everyone had seen her Transfigure her desk into a pig at least once. Gahlapault smirked, then continued. "We have Helga Hufflepuff, who was really good at defensive spells and a menace with a bow and arrow, and Rowena Ravenclaw, who was an overall awesome magical power in herself and could wield an axe like nothing else—it's legend that she was from Atlantis. Lastly but most certainly not least, we have Salazar Slytherin." Cheers from the Slytherin table. Harry snorted. "Salazar was one of the best military strategists that ever lived." More cheers.

"On the other side, we have religion-crazed armed peasants and mercenaries." Laughter from all sides. "Now, this paints a pretty picture: the handsome and brave few witches and wizards who nobly defended their castle against crazed peasants." Professor Gahlapault stood arms and legs askew, looking over the crowd. "You like that version of the story, don't you, my young witches and wizards?"

There was a general roar of agreement from all sides. A few teachers applauded as well.

"Well, that's biased. A very one-dimensional opinion. Let's give your thoughts a new dimension." Gahlapault began to pace again, like a bear. "Oh no!" he cried in a falsetto voice. "What are those people doing in our wheat fields? Don't they realize that this grain is all that keeps us alive?" He switched to a deeper voice. "I don't know, but I'm going to ask them about it!" He paced over out of sight, and then came running back in. "They're building a castle!" "In our wheat field?" "Yes! They've trampled nearly five acres already!" "What're we going to do?" he alternated voices, switching facial expressions. It was quite funny, though nobody laughed.

"You see? This was in no way the land of Hogwarts; this was some farmer's wheat field. Not ours, theirs. And we stole it, giving them every right to royally boot us off their land. They tried, but wizards have this nasty curse that give you boils"—Harry shot Goyle a sidelong glance—"and they chased them away. Let's review the options: let them stay on the land, and lose profit and food, chase them away, or kill them all and use their bodies as fertilizer. Though they may not have chosen the peaceful route, they went about it properly. They had a leader, Grogan Fontein, the patriarch of the village that Hogwarts was founded on. You now know that village as Hogsmeade. They hired at fifty mercenaries."

Draco Malfoy raised his hand. "Why didn't they hire more mercenaries? If they were mostly killed trying to take Hogwarts, then the villagers wouldn't have to pay."

Professor Gahlapault stopped and looked at Draco. "Ten points to Slytherin. That is very well seen, thought very shrewd."

As the Professor moved on, holding up detailed maps covered in symbols that reminded Tim of Cho's Quidditch charts, Tim stole glances at Draco Malfoy. The blonde boy was watching everything, completely fascinated by the charts. His cold mask was melting off, revealing a person that reminded him a lot of someone Tim knew. He struggled to put his mental finger on it, and then gave up to study the strategy.