To clear up a mistake in the first chapter, Dumbledore was born on the year 1844 not 1841 (it was a typo, the keys are right next to each other :D ). Yeah, it was slow in the making, but I wrote this and nearly finished it when exams came around, therefore postponed it, then I was on holiday with no story what-so-ever. Anywho...
all recognisable characters, locations etc belong to JKR. Everything else belongs to me.
In the forest, I tripped and stumbled over roots, branches whipped my skin and clothes and all the time I was crying and blubbering. Miraculously I had reached the old tree I was playing around with Romani earlier that day. Fairies flitted about the tree, giving me some source of light when previously I had none. I found my coat next to the trunk. I huddled inside it, curling myself as tightly as I could to the confines of the roots. If I had any sense back then, I would've climbed up the tree and slept there for the night, but it didn't occur to me at the time.
I snuffled and sniffed for a little while until the fairies distracted me from my punishment. There were many different colours of the fairies and I had the best notion of the time to collect each colour of the rainbow as an "I'm Sorry" present. So, I got to work and managing to grab red, yellow and blue fairies before I spotted a pretty orange one in the distance. It was a few metres when I realised the orange fairy was not exactly a fairy. It was a camp fire, a pretty large one too.
Against common sense, I crept really low to the ground, not making a sound, and headed towards the source. I'm surprised that the sentinels of the camp didn't spot me, but I got as near to the clearing as possible.
The clearing was wide and clean, with a fire crackling in the middle. Centaur family groups huddled together talking and some sleeping. It was a clear night so many of the elder Centaurs were star gazing and talking anxiously, while a group of young foals were being taught about the basics of the stars. I remember a few things on what the elders were talking about:
"Mars is directly overhead tonight, should we put more guards out on the perimeter tonight?" A roan stallion said, his brows knotting close together. A painted mare shook her head.
"Orion is protecting Sagittarius, if we are attacked, nobody will be seriously hurt or killed." She informed, pointing out the individual constellations. I knew nothing about the stars then, only that they were bright, pretty and there were many of them. Ignoring this conversation, I inched towards the small group of foals and yearlings where I saw Romani. They didn't have their eyes on the earth at all, but were craning back to look at some planets and star groups. I listened to their teacher, lying on my back and looking at the stars and their meanings as she pointed them out. Their teacher happened to be the first Centaur I saw, the beautiful chestnut mare. Now, Centaurs as a rule, do not wear clothes on their upper bodies (sometimes they wear furs in winter or flowers on festivals but not all the time), so I was as deeply interested in her chest as I was in the stars. My study of them (the stars) was distracted when I heard a clip-clopping of hooves in the trees nearby.
I shrunk away into the hollow of a log as they passed and luckily no one saw me. From where I was, I could only see just a sliver of light and some of the sky, but I could hear everything. Suddenly there was an uproar of voices and whinnying and much galloping of hooves. The light of the fire was stamped out and the galloping of hooves disappeared into the trees. When all I heard was total silence, I edged out of my hiding place and looked at the devastation around me. The camp was turned upside down and hoof prints everywhere, some of them were so big, I could fit into them if I curled up.
I began to panic when I thought of Romani and the chestnut mare being hurt, and dashed off back into the forest to the old tree. As I reached the tree, I heard voices behind me. I wasted no time clambering up into the branches. As I was hiding myself, three figures appeared below, one very small and two others huge. I peered down into the gloom, afraid of what I might see. What I saw was Romani cornered by two stallions built like draught horses.
"Come along, little prince, we wont hurt you." One of them said, twanging a tune on his bowstring. Romani was terrified with only a tiny knife to defend himself with.
"Yeah, we just want to play nya-nya." The other said, advancing on the colt. I couldn't take it any more, I grabbed the nearest thing to me (a puffskein, ho-ho) and threw it with all my might at the advancing stallion. He cried out in shock and twisted his torso around to see where the shot came from.
"It came from the tree, Gragorn." The other said and aimed an arrow at me. Well, it was dark, so the centaur was only aiming in my general direction, but if it was in full daylight, I would not be telling this story right now. The arrow sang past me, but it was too close for comfort. The next thing I grabbed was a large stick, caught in the tree branches. I weighed it in my hands and found it quite heavy. Gargorn was trotting closer to the tree trunk and was almost directly under me, what happened next, I can't remember exactly, but I'll tell you what I know.
Somehow, I jumped out of the tree brandishing my stick and landed on the back of Gragorn. I suppose he wasn't expecting that and I had enough wits about me to smash the stick into the back of his head. He dropped like a bag of sand, me with him. I rolled down some roots and crouched on my feet.
"Why, you filthy human!" The other centaur roared with rage and strung his bow. I must admit, I don't know why I survived this encounter, but I think it due to my quick thinking. I reached into my pocket with the fairies in and threw them into his face. As he was briefly distracted by the bright lights, Romani dashed behind the stallion and cut his sinews with his little knife. The centaur fell down with a roar and loosed his arrow at me. I ran forward and with a mighty crack, I brought down my stick onto his head. He slumped to the ground and nothing could be heard by the big tree but our heavy breathing.
Romani looked at his hands, which had some blood on them. He wiped them on his hide and them looked at me and gasped.
"Albie! You're bleeding!" He pointed at my arm. The centaur's arrow had grazed me on the shoulder and blood was pouring down. I had not noticed it in the excitement, but now I felt a deep painful throb. Romani rushed forward and ripped off a sleeve from my shirt, artfully binding the wound.
"Ow." I moaned as he pulled away.
"What are you doing here, Albie?" He asked, crossing his arms.
"Oh…urr, I got in trouble with my father for going into the forest today. He chucked me into the forest for the night. I can't get back out." I said bashfully. Romani shook his head.
"Your father is stupid, making you spend the night in here. Those two would've killed you if they found you. Anyway, I'm also grateful that he did so…I may not be alive if you weren't here." And he bowed. This is the first Wizards debt that I had ever held. I was quite proud.
"No need to thank me. Who are they?" I nodded at the motionless couple.
"They're from a neighbouring clan…they hate us and are going to take over this piece of land. That's all I know. I just wish I knew where mother is." And he began to cry.
"Don't cry, Romani. I heard from the elders that nobody was going to be hurt tonight." I assured him. He looked at me sharply.
"You heard the elders?" he asked, frowning. I think I could've done something very offensive to his customs, but didn't know at the time.
"I saw a fire when I was chucked in here…I walked to it and found your clan and heard them by accident. I'm very sorry if I did something bad." I stuttered. Romani sighed.
"It's alright. Normally, if I heard the elders talking about something like that, I would be severely punished. You would be killed. But, at least I know my clan is safe."
"We should go look for your clan," I said, "And find a way to rescue them, if we can." Romani nodded and we trotted off in the general direction of his camp. As we drew near, we heard voices and activity. I motioned to my companion to be silent and I crept forward by myself to the edge of the clearing like earlier. Romani's clan were in a group, bound and gagged. A group of about nine stood around guarding the group; it seemed like all the attackers were in one place. I had an idea and crawled back unnoticed to where Romani was hiding.
"Your clan is all safe," I said very quietly, "Do you want to help?"
"I'll do anything to save my family." He responded.
"Alright. Here's my plan." I whispered, "How fast can you run?"
"I'm the fastest in my clan."
"Good…now, I want you to lead the attackers away from the camp. I have a feeling they may want you alive, so don't be worried about arrows. And, I'll need your knife."
"What for?"
"I'll be making some traps which you will need to remember to dodge." I replied. He got the idea and we set to work. Later, close to midnight, we had finished without being noticed. We had several traps in all: five trip ropes made of ivy, two pitfalls Romani had found and a Whomping Willow. The willow was the best find and it was all well that it was in the bottom of a hollow of loose rock, it was fine for me to get out but it was hard for centaurs as the hooves sink in easily. We drew near to the camp and we looked at each other.
"Ready, Romani?" I asked the colt.
"Ready when you are." He said. I nodded and he walked forward to the clearing. I could see him perfectly from where I was hidden. He was spotted by the invaders and a shout went up, he waggled his fingers under his chin, which he later told me was a very rude sign amongst centaurs. Romani then ran away with most of the centaurs in hot pursuit. As he drew near to me, I braced myself for action. He jumped over the limp trip line and I pulled it taut. It was a good thing I hooked it around a tree branch, otherwise the weight of the centaurs would've severely hurt me. Three centaurs went down, their legs broken.
As I look back now, I still don't quite understand how those ivy ropes didn't break. In fact, I can't remember, for the life of me, how we set it up so quickly. I must've been using some unconscious magic, or luck was on our side. With the first trap done, I hurried to the next one. Romani made his route in such a way that I could easily get to the next trap before him. All was going well, with the pitfalls being the most useful, until the second to last trip rope. The branch I had hooked around the ivy rope snapped as a centaur rode through it and with a second snap, I felt my uninjured arm break.
I dared not scream in case of being found out, so I bit my lip so hard, my teeth came together. I was faint but the only thing I thought of was getting to the next trap, as Romani was getting tired and had a few close calls. I staggered to the trap, but my timing was off and missed the group of five pursuing centaurs. I hoped to Merlin that the willow would finish them off.
By the time I got to the willow, it was in full battle mode with all five centaurs. Romani was in a tight spot, even though lighter than the others, he too had sunk into the gravel. He was assailed from all sides by the willow. I ran, clutching my arm to the edge of the hollow and was immediately hit by a whip-like branch. I hurt, that I can remember, but I trudged on anyway. I reached Romani looking very like the Bloody Baron in all his glory; lip, arm, forehead, legs and scalp bleeding, not to mention my broken arm. I extended my bleeding arm out and pulled him out of the hollow.
We were the walking victorious wounded; we had reduced thirteen centaur warriors into piles of twisted, broken anthromorphs. But we were exhausted and found it hard to walk back to the camp. You could imagine our disappointment when we saw three more centaurs guarding the prisoners. I slipped around the perimeter as Romani went to grab a bow and a quiver of arrows from one of the fallen centaurs. He returned with a fresh scratch across his chest.
"What happened?" I whispered.
"I didn't know that stallion wasn't unconscious." He replied, "I got this away though." He held up the weapons. He slid out an arrow from his quiver and aimed his bow for the largest centaur stallion. He loosed it and it went straight into his chest. He fell like a stone. The stallion's companions looked at him in wonder, then alarm. But before they could respond, Romani had plugged in five more arrows in varying places amongst the other three centaurs. Romani dashed from the cover of the trees and raced forward to free his clan. His family shouted in joy at his return and sprang up when he released them, cutting their bonds with his little knife.
It's unfortunate that the loss of blood, the pain and excitement all suddenly took its toll on my body and I fainted. When I came too, I was looking at a pale dawn, surrounded by warm fires. I wondered how I got there, when I saw Romani snoozing beside me, his wounds dressed and his honey gold hair spilling over his shoulders onto the ground. My arm was in a splint and several cuts, including my lip had been stitched with horsehair. I felt so sore that I began to cry. I stopped when I heard a soothing voice nearby.
"Hush, little foal, it's alright." She said. She being the beautiful chestnut mare I had seen earlier.
"It hurts." I whimpered.
"Here, drink this." She said and handed me an earthenware cup. It was a beautiful cup, very much in the style of ancient Greece. I drank and felt much better for it, "Jaspere, come here, the human's awake." She called softly. I tensed as I saw the huge figure of Jaspere.
"I won't hurt you," he said in a tone I had not heard earlier, "but I do want to thank you. On behalf of my clan, we deeply thank you and owe you for what you have done." He bowed so deeply, I thought he was about to fall over.
"N-No need to thank me. It was all thanks to Romani. I couldn't have done without him." I stuttered.
"My son wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. I owe you more here than anyone else."
"You're Romani's father?" I asked.
"Yes, and Philomena over there is his mother." He pointed to the chestnut. She smiled and blushed, "We will do whatever you want."
I thought over this carefully and answered, "Can I please go into the forest when I want and can I be taught like a centaur child? Can I also please stay friends with Romani?" I asked eagerly. Now when I look back, I had almost asked for too much; but a centaur's oath is a loyal oath.
"I think you have already earned the right to stay friends with Romani," He laughed then frowned seriously, "but being taught by a centaur is a very big ask; very few humans have been taught by centaurs."
"Men like Jason and the other Greek heroes right?"
"Right. But I must ask you to never, ever repeat the secrets that we taught you. Will you promise us that?" He looked at me with such seriousness, I am still chilled to think what might've happened if I did break the promise.
"I promise." I said in utter seriousness. He took my word for it and nodded, "Sir?" I asked again, "I have one more favour to ask of you; can you please hit my father? I'm not very happy with him, but my hitting arm is broken."
"Don't worry," Jaspere laughed, "I was planning to do that anyway."
Jaspere kept his promise. I was paraded out of the forest like some hero, and I saw father waiting where he had left me sporting a black eye already; apparently mother had already had a go at him. Father's face drained of blood when he saw me all wounded and stitched up. I wasn't happy with him, so I stood obediently beside Jaspere as he advanced upon father.
"Sire of Albus Dumbledore, I hope you are proud having such a fine colt, but," THWACK, my father was hit squarely in the left eye, "never ever throw away your son's safety on a whim ever again." Father reeled back, clutching his head in agony. Jaspere turned to me and bowed, "we'll be looking forward to your contributions in our classes." And he trotted back into the woods, with Romani waving wildly behind him. When they disappeared I turned to Father and stuck out my tongue. He said nothing, but grudgingly took me back home.
Mother really did have a go at him this time round, seeing how wounded her first born son was. But my adventures did not stop there, oh no, they'd only just begun.
TBC...