The day after I had visited Hogwarts, I found myself going towards the forest. As I walked past the lake, I saw Victoria sitting there, reading a book. She looked me up and down.
"You're getting fat, you know," she said brightly. I stuck my tongue out at her and carried on. She called "Fat!" after me.
My sister...no, I didn't love her. People always say of squabbling siblings: "Oh, you love each other really." but sometimes they don't! But I didn't quite hate her either. I mean, when we were both younger...she used to take me swimming. But since I didn't like it much, she gave up and attemped to teach me how to knit. I got quite good at that.
I kept on walking. She didn't yell anything else. But when I reached the forest, I was feeling annoyed. I decided maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all...I didn't want to mix with centaurs! But then...I thought of Victoria and the things she always said to me...fat, stupid, hopeless...and all of a sudden, I felt like...rebelling against my family, and Victoria in particular. The look on her face if she discovered I was friends with a centaur! If I had power over a centaur! For, as mean and inhuman as they were...they seemed to me to be quite powerful. Determined, I marched further into the forest...
And I did find the centaur...Parath. He was standing in front of two other centaurs. But these two were children. A young boy, and a very young girl. They were almost...cute. Parath was telling them a story.
"The group of heroes escaped the darkness," he said gravely. "And they were rewarded. But the evil witch was sentenced to years of torment for her misdoings. She was left powerless and was never spoken of again."
"The end!" the little girl...little centaur spoke up. Then she spotted me, and her eyes grew wide and terrified. Parath turned around and saw me too.
"Get out of here," he said.
"No!"
With a growl he looked me up and down, as if checking I had no weapons. I did, though...my wand in my pocket. He narrowed his eyes.
"I won't cast a spell on you or anything!" I snapped. "I won't hurt you unless you hurt me. I'm not stooping to your level." Actually, back then I didn't even know whether they did attack innocents or not...I just said it because it sounded grown-up!
Parath turned his back on me and started to lead the children away, but the centaur girl was staring at me.
"I've never seen a human before!"
"And with good reason," Parath muttered.
"Do you live in the house?" she asked excitedly. "The big house? Do you have a name? How come you're here?"
I didn't know what to say. Parath placed his hands firmly on her shoulders and turned her around. "Come on. Let's get away from it."
"I am not an it!" I yelled. "I'm a her."
"I don't care what you are," Parath said. "This is our home. Stay out of it."
"But I want to talk to you," I complained.
"Why?"
"Because..." I did my best to look as miserable as possible. (My, I was manipulative!) "There's no-one else to talk to."
"Well, I'm sure you can find someone." And he left, taking both the children with him.
"Stupid centaurs!" I said, as soon as I was sure they couldn't hear me. And I stormed back out of the forest.
*****
A few days after that, my aunt came for a visit. My favourite aunt...my mother's sister, Josepha. She brought along her son, my cousin David, an overweight and ugly boy. I hated him on first sight.
Aunt Josepha and my mother talked for ages, and somehow, the conversation turned to non-humans...and centaurs.
"Horrible beasts!" my aunt was saying. "If I could have my way, I'd have them carrying us around like they ought to, not living in our forest and acting like they're better than us."
My cousin had been sitting quietly on the sofa and watching Snarron go about his work. "I didn't know they acted like that," he said.
"Don't speak unless you're spoken to, David."
"Mother, you've never met a centaur. You don't even know what they're like."
"Be quiet!" She gave him an angry glare, and turned back to the conversation.
My cousin was, I believe, killed by Voldemort when he was thirty years old. It is a great wish of mine to teach the children that attitudes like his are dangerous.
For they are.