Fight and Flight

Sherlock fought against his captor, straining to go with John, and earned himself a split lip. He watched John walk half a step behind Hermione, but he couldn't get past the thick wall of swirling thoughts and visions racing through John's mind. He glanced at Dean, and knew he was just biding his time, his body tense, eyes slowly raking around the room, looking for his opening. Dean caught Sherlock's eye and nodded almost imperceptibly, and Sherlock stopped struggling. Instead, he tried to watch John.

They walked past Hagrid's hut and towards the Forest, Umbridge struggling to keep up on her short legs.

Cas had his eyes squeezed shut, the quaking in the room reduced to barely a rumble, but sweat dripped down his temple.

Soon, all of the others except Luna noticed that Dean was thinking hard, and they all stopped struggling to watch him. The Slytherins didn't seem to notice, and began to relax, laughing and joking with each other.

Sherlock turned to John again, feeling a thrill of terror shoot through him, and found him face to face with the centaur herd, all of them furious.

'You are from the Ministry of Magic?' Magorian asked, as the rest of the herd circled restlessly.

'That's right,' said Umbridge in a high voice, 'so be very careful! By the laws laid down by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical creatures, any attack by half-breeds such as yourselves-'

Sherlock and John both flinched.

'What did you call us?' shouted Bane, and there was a great deal of muttering and tightening of bow-strings from the rest of the herd.

'Don't call them that,' Hermione said furiously, but Umbridge didn't hear her, and continued, shaking her wand at Magorian.

'Law Fifteen "B" states clearly that "any attack by a magical creature who is deemed to have near-human intelligence-'

Sherlock and John both cringed again.

'"Near-human intelligence"?' repeated Magorian, as several of the others roared with rage and pawed the ground. 'We consider that a great insult, human! Our intelligence far outstrips your own.'

Dean stared intently at Cas, willing him to open his eyes, just for a moment. The Slytherin's grip on him was loosening, and he knew the perfect distraction. At last, Cas seemed to sense his gaze and opened his now brightly glowing eyes. Dean squinted, but nodded slowly at Cas.

Cas swallowed but nodded back in understanding. He took a quick glance around the room to make sure everyone was ready, then, his eyes flashed and the Slytherin holding him flew back, smacking into the wall.

Taking the advantage, Dean jerked his head back, getting a satisfying crunch from the nose behind him. He yanked the gag out of his mouth and snatched his wand from the now bleeding Slytherin.

The others had all sprung into action as well, most of them Stunning, but Neville went with a particularly well-aimed Impediment Jinx, and Ginny with her specialty Bat-Bogey Hex right at Malfoy. Before any of the Slytherins could recover, they had snatched their wands, along with Harry, Hermione and John's, and were all sprinting from the room.

'Where?' Dean yelled at Sherlock as they ran.

'Forest,' Sherlock shouted back, leading the way through the castle, as he watched the centaurs carry Umbridge off deep into the Forest.

John, Hermione and Harry were dragged upright by centaurs.

'And these?' said the one holding Hermione.

'They are young,' said Ronan, 'and this is the Oracle, we do not attack foals.'
'We do not recognise this Oracle,' the centaur holding Harry growled. 'They brought her here, and they are not so young. This one is nearing manhood.'

'Where is Elder Oseus?' John gasped, but this was clearly the wrong thing to say.

'You do not speak her name, human!' Bane roared. 'You are nothing to us.'

His anger and grief cut through John like a knife. He suddenly felt the collective sorrow of the herd and saw her funeral pyre.

'Please,' Hermione said breathlessly, 'please don't attack us, we don't think like her, we aren't Ministry of Magic employees! We only came here because we hoped you'd drive her off for us.'

John knew at once that she had made a grave mistake. 'She didn't mean that,' he said immediately. 'She meant-'

'You see, Ronan!' the one holding Hermione snarled. 'They already have the arrogance of their kind! So we were to do your dirty work, were we, human girl?'

'We brought you the one that restricted your lands!' John shouted. 'We thought you might want to deal with her yourselves!'

But the centaurs were no longer listening.

'They came here unasked, they must pay the consequences!'

A roar of approval met these words and another centaur shouted, 'They can join the woman!'

'You said you didn't hurt the innocent!' Hermione cried. 'We haven't done anything to hurt you, we haven't used wands or threats, we just want to go back to school, please let us go back - '

'We are not like the traitor Firenze, human girl! Perhaps you thought us pretty talking horses? We are an ancient people who will not stand wizard invasions and insults! We do not recognise your laws, we do not acknowledge your superiority, we are - '

Sherlock stumbled and almost fell as he saw Grawp emerge from the trees, but Cas caught him by the arm and kept him upright. They raced across the grounds and into the trees, following Sherlock so they could give Grawp and the centaurs a wide berth, until they finally heard Harry and Hermione's voices.

'Anyway, Harry, how exactly were you planning to get all the way to London?' Hermione was asking.

'Yeah, we were just wondering that,' Ginny called to them.

They finally found Harry, Hermione and John, all three covered in blood.

'It's not ours,' John said at Cas's horrified expression.

Ron handed Harry, Hermione and John's wands back to them.

'How did you get away?' Harry asked in amazement.

'Took 'em by surprise,' Dean said. 'Where's Umbridge?'

'Carried off by the centaurs,' Harry told them.

'And they left you behind?' Ron said, raising his eyebrows.

'No, they got chased off by Grawp?' said Harry.

'Who's Grawp?' Ginny asked, but Dean interrupted before Harry could answer.

'Does Voldemort have Sirius, or not?'

'Yes,' said Harry. 'He's alive, but I don't see how we're going to get there.'

'Well, we'll have to fly, won't we?' said Luna.

'First of all, "we" aren't doing anything if you're including yourself in that,' Harry said irritably, rounding on her. 'Second of all, not all of us have a broom.'

'I have a broom!' Ginny said indignantly.

'Yeah, but you're not coming,' Ron said angrily.

'Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!'

'You're too-' Harry began, but Ginny said fiercely, 'I'm three years older than you when you fought You-Know-Who over the Philosopher's Stone, and it's because of me that Malfoy is stuck up in Umbridge's office with giant flying bogies attacking him-'

'Yeah, but-'

'We were all in the DA together,' Neville said quietly. 'It was all supposed to be about fighting You-Know-Who, wasn't it?'

'It's not that simple,' Dean said, finally jumping into the argument, reluctant to allow anyone without real experience to go.

'This is the first chance we've had to do something real, or was that all a game or something?'

'No, of course it wasn't,' Harry said impatiently.

'Then we should come too,' Neville said simply. 'We want to help.'

'That's right,' Luna said, smiling.

'Well, it doesn't matter anyway, we have no way of getting there,' Harry said, frustrated.

'I thought we'd settled that,' said Luna. 'We're flying!'

'Look,' said Ron, barely containing his anger, 'you might be able to fly without a broom, but the rest of us can't sprout wings whenever we-'

'There are ways of flying other than with broomsticks,' Luna said serenely.

'I s'pose we're going to ride on the back of the Kacky Snorgle, or whatever it is?' Ron demanded.

'The Crumple-Horned Snorkack can't fly,' said Luna in a dignified voice, 'but they can, and Hagrid says they're really good at finding places their riders are looking for.'

Dean followed her gaze and saw two Thestrals standing between the trees, staring at them with their gleaming white eyes. 'Oh,' he said quietly, wandering over to one of them to pat its long black mane.

'Is it those mad horse things?' Ron said uncertainly. 'Those ones you can't see unless you've watched someone snuff it?'

'Yes,' Cas said shortly.

'How many?'

'Just two.'

'Well, we need three,' said Hermione, looking determined.

'Four, Hermione,' Ginny scowled.

'I think there are a few more of us than that,' said Cas.

'Don't be stupid, we can't all go!' Harry said angrily. He rubbed his head, his scar clearly still hurting. 'Fine,' he said curtly, relenting to their protests. 'It's your choice, but unless we can find more Thestrals-'

'Oh, more will come,' Ginny said confidently.

'How do you know that?'

'Because, in case you hadn't noticed, you three are covered in blood,' said Ginny. 'We know that Hagrid lures them with red meat. That's probably why these two turned up in the first place.'

'Look, here come more now…' Luna said, still smiling. 'You three must really smell…'

More Thestrals picked their way through the trees, and a couple started licking Harry's robes.

'All right,' Dean said exasperatedly. 'Everyone pick one and get on.'

Welcome back! Thanks to Morgan Teri Befan for the review! See you again next time :)