A/N: Heh, sorry, but the flower just sneezed on Harry. It wasn't trying to convert him. The transformation takes intent and the right "heart." Harry's heart belongs to Ginny in this story (and his kids), and I'm not a home-wrecker!

Beta Love: fluffpanda, who keeps me on target, somehow. It's a miracle!

Sehanine, who helps trip over the grammar holes.

The Heart of the Herd

Chapter 8

No Means No

Hermione woke feeling much better, physically at least. Her mind, however, was having a bit of freak out session. The comfort of her mini-herd was undeniable, but the part of her that had grown up human for quite a bit longer wasn't quite ready to kick the bucket just yet.

The attack, while traumatic in its own right, was not what was giving her mind a good run. It was her condition. During the course of half a year, she had been transformed into a new species, had to tell her parents about it, become intimate for the first time with someone who had tried to convince her nothing could ever come it it, ended up pregnant, been proposed to, accepted the proposal, craved odd foods like oats and smoked fish, and found out that she was in a perpetual state of lactation for the "betterment of the herd." It was a little much to take in, and that block in her brain that had just been able to take it like a trooper was starting to get tired.

The foal!

Was it okay? Was it hurt?

She was going to have a… FOAL!

Was she okay with that? HOW was she okay with that?

It had been months since she and Severus had found out she was with foal, but only now was the idea really settling in. She was going to have a baby—a foal. Even if there was a cure for her condition… could she take it, knowing that her child was a centaur? Would she even take it, having found a strange sort of peace and undeniable bond with the centaur people? What would happen if the change… wore off?

Hermione whinnied softly in distress, standing up from where she had been sleeping and bolted upright, rising to her legs in a surge of motion. The others were passed out in a convenient comatose state, and she quickly propelled herself forward before the tug of the herd's comfort ensnared her again. She wanted a clear mind, or at least, as close to one as she could manage. Being close to the herd was like a tranquiliser. The world could be ending, but as long as she felt the touch of another centaur her instincts would tell her it was okay. She wondered how Firenze had been able to stand it, being separated from his herd during the war.

Dumbledore, whether he had truly realised it or not, had asked Firenze to tolerate something no centaur would ever want to do: be deprived of another's comforting touch. She figured Dumbledore couldn't have known. He must have thought"it will be hard for Firenze, but it's for the best." Without being a centaur, he would have had no idea at all the kind of social and mental suicide it would have taken to leave, no matter how right the reason. Hermione respected Firenze's strength even more, now that she knew.

Harry, who had been passed out on the nearby bed, woke as she passed. He eyed her somewhat frantically and then relaxed.

Hermione silently gestured to him to follow her.

As Hermione stopped at Poppy's desk to have her look her over, Severus lifted his head. She and Harry began to walk out of the hospital wing, and he started to get up. A soft hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Give her some time to sort out her head with an old friend, brother," Firenze said with a nod. "She has had us from the start, but I imagine she hasn't been able to have a long talk with Harry since her transformation. Poppy wouldn't have allowed her to leave if she had been hurt."

Severus flicked his ears nervously, fighting his instincts. Finally, he nodded.

The three foals jolted awake together, making nervous sounds when Hermione was missing.

"Be at peace, younglings," Firenze soothed. "Hermione shall return to us again. She always does."

-o-o-o-o-o-

"You're sure?" Harry asked with wonder. "How do you even—?" He stared at her equine body. "You say it has been months, but I can't tell. I'm rubbish with centaur anatomy."

Hermione chuckled. "Scent, apparently. Remus knows."

Harry's eyes grew wide. "My supposedly hidden escapades with Ginny are suddenly so much more exposed and embarrassing."

Hermione gave a short laugh. "Try being poked and prodded by about twenty elder mares, Harry. You will definitely be desensitised to the idea of privacy."

Harry half-choked. He ran his hand through his hair and frowned. He stared at his pollen-covered hand. "Your moonflowers sneezed on me."

Hermione arched a brow. "It's a blessing, apparently," she answered. "They just bite Neville… or snub him."

"Really?"

Hermione nodded. "Every time he tries to examine one of them, he gets bitten by a flower. He says he gets treated better by the fanged geraniums and the venomous tentacula."

Harry gave a small smile. "Poor bloke. Any sign of a cure for his parents?"

Hermione shook her head. "I don't know, Harry. Whatever did this to me and to Severus, it seems to benefit the centaurs, but it's not like we can test it on a human patient in good conscience. What if it had odd side effects? The elders seem to think the plant made the choice to change us. It judged us and made its own decision regarding our fate. As for our healing properties, which you've seen from last night, it obviously works to help heal another centaur, but there is no telling what it would do for a human."

Harry shrugged. "The flower sneezed on me, and I haven't sprouted pointed ears."

Hermione snorted. "That would be an improvement."

"Hey!" Harry scoffed, shoving her arm.

Hermione shrugged. "I happen to think long, pointed ears are quite sexy."

Harry arched a brow. "Black ones, perhaps."

"Especially black ones," Hermione said with a wink.

Harry almost managed to suppress a shudder, but failed.

Hermione tsked. "Harry," she admonished. "He wants to be good to me He wants to do right by me. Surely that is worth a little less shuddering?"

Harry waved his hands. "No, Hermione. I'm happy for you. It's just… Ron and I never knew him like you do. We just remember how he was.

Hermione looked skyward. "He can't help but see your mother and your father when he looks at you, Harry."

Harry winced. "My father was a git to him," he admitted. "Mother just couldn't handle being an exception to all the hate for Muggle-borns. I think… I think she wanted something from him he could never give."

Hermione tilted her head. "What?"

Harry took took Hermione's hands together and held them. "This, Hermione. I think she wanted simple affection in front of everyone. She wanted to be something he was proud of. She wanted something like my father's brazen affection, and he couldn't give it. Not then. I don't think he could ever have."

Hermione furrowed her brows.

Harry smiled at her. "She wasn't you, Hermione. You unlocked that in him. It wasn't the love of my mother transferred. It wasn't some penance to her memory that opened him up to proposing to you. It was you, Hermione. He will stay with you until the world is dust and ash. You can see it in his eyes, and I can't help but be a little envious."

Hermione flattened her ears. "Envious? Why?"

"Don't get me wrong," Harry said. "I love Ginny. She loves me. I love our life and our children, but if Ginny looked at me just once the way Snape looks at you, Hermione, I don't think I'd ever leave the bedroom."

"Harry!" Hermione sputtered.

Harry laughed, clasping her hands in his own. "In all seriousness. There is something raw there. It is something so genuine, I can't even deny it. He loves you. He would take a Cruciatus for you, and I think, had I known he was capable of that back when we were growing up, things would have been different."

Hermione hugged Harry tight. "I love you, Harry."

Harry rubbed her back and the base of her mane. "I love you too, Hermione. You've always been a sister to me. I am sorry I didn't always appreciate you."

Hermione smiled sadly. "We all have moments when we cannot appreciate what we have. I think… I think I can accept what has happened to me better, now."

Harry gently rubbed Hermione's back at the base of her mane, getting accustomed to the change in comfort methods. He had learned that as her close pseudo-family friend, he was allowed to touch. He could drape his arm across her back, massage her muscles, and rub her ears. He would be allowed, Hermione had explained, to help her put on baskets and carrying gear if she needed to haul things, and if she asked, he would be able to attach her to a travois or cart.

As one of Hermione's close friends, he could even ride upon her back, if she so chose, and it wouldn't carry the stigma it would the night Harry had unintentionally shamed Firenze. It hadn't been that he had ridden on his back, strictly, that had pissed off Bane and Magorian that night. It had been that none of them truly knew or trusted Harry; they hadn't had a true link to him. Firenze had carried a practical stranger, one which they knew only by reputation and the stars, rather than by deed. Harry had brought danger to the centaur people, and then Firenze had carried danger on his back in the forest where their foals and mares were hiding.

Now, after seeing how close the herd-family was, Harry understood much better what he hadn't growing up. The centaur herd was as close if not closer than a nuclear human family. Unlike with human families, where the mother, father, and children made up the core dynamic, herd members were as important as dam and sire. It wasn't to say they all got along famously all the time, no more than it was true in human families. It was to say, however, that the young centaur had an abundance of love coming from multiple places. Part of Harry wondered, if his Aunt Petunia had been a centaur… just how dysfunctional would it have made her to turn on both her sister and her nephew as she did?

Harry make a choking sound.

"What is it, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"I just wondered, in my head, what the centaur would have done with someone like Dudley," Harry mused.

Hermione's eyes went wide. "I'm not sure. I'd like to think he would never have been… like he was, if centaurs had raised him."

"Kind of like the opposite of being raised by wolves," Harry mused. "It would have been better for him to be raised by centaurs."

Hermione snorted. "I'd hope so, anyway, and hey, maybe Dudley would have turned out good if Remus has raised him."

Harry snickered. "I'm thinking Hagrid could have raised him better. Witherwings even."

"Fang? Hermione mused.

Harry grinned wickedly. "Fang."

"How is it, having centaur children in Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

"They are infinitely curious," Hermione said. "Take me with a chance to look at the world's largest library only apply it to everything. I have talked to Minerva about the accommodations for the centaur foals, however. She agrees that having a place for them to gather together is intrinsic to their mental health. Unlike goblins, they need to be able to touch their herdmates for security. I had no idea they were running to Firenze every night before returning to their normal dorms."

Harry nodded. "I hear you've made it happen already of sorts. A sort of shared common area?"

Hermione nodded. "I didn't, if you will believe it. Hogwarts did."

Harry tilted his head. "Hogwarts always was curiously more intelligent than Crabbe or Goyle."

"Harry!" Hermione laughed.

"What?"Harry protested. "It's true!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "At first I thought the lack of privacy would drive me mad, but it's calming to have the foals around. They get their homework done faster too."

Harry snorted. "With three professors there to pester for questions, I should hope so."

"Harry," Hermione huffed, shaking her head.

Harry grinned. "So, do you remember anything specific about the attack, Hermione?"

The centaur witch frowned. "There was a crying child, or so I thought. I turned into an otter to fit on the stairs. I got maybe half way up, and I noticed the portrait of the nymphs. They were waving at me to stop. They were warning me not to go up."

Harry frowned. "Was there anything else you saw?"

"It wasn't about seeing," Hermione said strangely. "It was what I wasn't seeing. There was no child that I could see, and the crying was repetitive. It was too repetitive. Then, it stopped. I started to back out, but I had to send a Patronus. The moment it left me, whatever it was knew I was there, and the spells came after me. I was running. At that point, all I knew was I had to keep running. It was all I could do to keep another spell from hitting me."

"Did you recognise the energy?" Harry said, pulling out his wand to run it over Hermione's body. The wounds she had were gone, not a trace of them lay on her skin. He clucked his tongue against his teeth. "There are traces of Dark magic, Hermione, but it's barely noticeable. It's like your body is cancelling it out."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. Two moonflower horses peered out from behind her ears and neighed at Harry, shaking their petal manes at him.

"Collins and Ramford found little in the hallway," Harry detailed. "They found a tear of cloth from where Firenze shot at it, but short of a few drops of your blood at the end of your run, the rest of the hallway was disturbingly clear. They're with Ron now, searching the Divination Tower. Trelawney is apparently snoring through the entire affair. They tried to wake her to let her know they were searching her rooms, but she apparently snores like Fang and sleeps as deeply as Hagrid."

Hermione shook her head. "Trelawney has never been quite right," she admitted. "Quite a few students prefer her style of Divination, but most of the students seem to like Firenze's style of teaching better."

"Do you have any reason to think Trelawney would have something against you?" Harry asked.

"Trelawney?" Hermione repeated. "No! I mean, I did quit her class and call it a bunch of mindless drivel, but that was a long time ago, Harry. I am civil to her now, and while I may think she's off her rocker, I don't say that to her face with children watching."

Harry sighed. "Does anyone know about your blood, Hermione? Other than Neville and the other centaur?"

"Minerva?" Hermione speculated. "It is possible someone else may have found out, but I haven't actually been advertising anything. The foals know, and they talk amongst themselves. Someone could have heard, but until last night with Firenze, none of us had confirmed it could heal on a live subject. We only tested the samples."

"Where are those samples?"

"I took them to Magorian," Hermione said. "His decision was that it was too risky to expose a possible cure that would spur people to invade centaur forests for either the flower or centaur blood—especially if it meant exposing me or Severus to scrutiny. It was one thing to try to save Neville's parents, but he didn't want to risk any one of us being locked up in a cage somewhere like a resource to be tapped."

Harry nodded. "As much as I'm for helping Neville, Hermione," he agreed, "we both know what could happen if Muggles found out about such a cure. Wizarding folk would not be so different, if they thought it was a miracle cure."

"I want to help Neville," Hermione said adamantly, "but I cannot risk the centaur's safe homes, even for him."

Harry held her hand. "It's okay, Hermione. Neville will understand, if he doesn't already." Harry paused, his eyes widening. "Maybe, and this is a big if, but maybe if you do find a way to make what you have into a viable cure, you can have Mr and Mrs Longbottom transferred temporarily to Hogwarts under Poppy's care. She knows about you, but she'd never tell. She already knows about your blood, pollen, and sap. If it worked, you could administer it here. Get a temporary transfer from St. Mungo's. Maybe use an excuse that Neville wants his parents to see the supermoon over the Black Lake?"

Hermione's face burst into a smile. "Harry, you're wonderful! That could work!" She frowned suddenly. "Supermoon?"

Harry blushed. "I've been reading some of the papers Arthur brings home—the Telegraph and the Sun."

Hermione looked at Harry seriously. "Tell me you haven't been encouraging Arthur to read the Sun, Harry?"

Harry flushed. "He really likes it. I don't have the heart to tell him—"

"Harry James Potter," Hermione half-screeched. "I will not have you corrupting Arthur Weasley into thinking the SUN is a legitimate newspaper that portrays real life in the Muggle World!"

"Hey, at least he's not reading Private Eye any more," Harry said, shrugging off Hermione's irritation.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "If you want to have an intelligent Muggle conversation, Harry, talk to my parents. They adore you and would love to talk about… supermoons with you sans all the drama."

Harry gave a lopsided grin that seemed so like Sirius Black.

Suddenly there was yell from above them, and Harry and Hermione looked up to see Ramford dangling by his hands from the broken North Tower window. Ron's voice was yelling spells, flashes of light were coming out of the North Tower, and Ramford was losing his grip very fast.

Harry was on the move in an instant, leaping onto his enlarge broomstick with his wand as he sprung of the ground and shot into the air. He gripped his broom tightly as he channeled his years as Seeker into the rescue of his fellow Auror. In the meantime Ramford was blasted out the side of the North Tower wall, debris knocking Collins off the broken window. Down he plunged, and Harry zoomed after.

Hermione bolted into action, wand out, summoning her cushioning spell, levitation spell, and roping spell in rapid succession. She galloped at top speed, latching onto the rope and pulling Ramford across the green as he slowly fell. Her hooves pounded into the ground as divots went flying in all directions, pulling Ramford towards the Black Lake. Ramford splashed down into the lake, cushioned by her spell. He skipped like a stone across the lake surface and came to a halt, and began to sink, but Hermione had him, pulling him to the shore. He was soaked to the bone, but he was alive and unhurt.

Hermione panted as Ramford dripped and tried to catch his breath from the strain and screaming of his fall. Hermione, gathering her thoughts recited, "Ramford, ally of Harry Potter, my brother, my chosen kin," she said quickly. "He has chosen to trust you, and I trust him with my life. I choose to trust you as well. Get on my back, and I will carry you back to Hogwarts."

Ramford, too tired and shocked to argue, leapt upon Hermione's back, wrapping his arms around her human waist to keep from steady himself in his breathlessness.

Hermione reared up and tore across the green, carrying Ramford with her as she galloped at full tilt back to the school. She didn't stop at the door, instead choosing to keep running toward the North Tower from the inside. "Hold on!" she yelled, praying her hooves didn't slide across the flagstones.

She bolted down the corridors, yelling her Patronus at the same time. Otters flew in all directions, swimming off to deliver messages. She screeched to a halt, her hooves sliding and her body tilting as she skidded across the stone at the base of the North Tower. Ramford jumped off, thanking her as he had his wand out and rushed up the stairs.

Hermione stared at the small door, giving an equine squeal of frustration. Sounds of battle were coming from above her, and flashes of light were bouncing off the stone. Hermione paced as Severus, Minerva, and Firenze came running down the hallway to meet her.

Minerva, channeling her authority of Headmistress, waved her wand, and the doorway enlarged. Hogwarts shuddered. The stairs reformed as a few other professors came rushing up.

Minerva barked orders for most of them to guard the stairs in case "whatever was up there came down here." Flitwick nodded and organised the other professors into teams. Hermione, however, plunged forward like the Gryffindor she never stopped being. Severus and Firenze followed close behind.

A strange silence descended from above, and the group froze on the stairwell, very slowly creeping up the stairs. Hogwarts, having sensed Minerva's need, had rearranged the ladder stairway. Now, the stairs lead up into the room above with a gradual incline. Minerva waved her wand, silencing their feet.

Severus tapped Minerva on the sleeve, mouthing something. Minerva nodded. He waved his wand silently, disillusioning each of them. He made a gesture to Hermione, and they fell to the ground as an otter and a panther, their smaller and more stealthy forms barely discernable thanks to the disillusionment spell. Minerva, too, went into her Animagus form, leaving Firenze to creep in as stealthily as possible on his own.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Ronald Weasley was not having a good day. Somehow, he had managed to track down the culprit who had attacked Hermione by tracing the energy signature to a ratty set of robes in the Divination classroom. Ramford and Collins had joined him, and they had searched the entire room. At first they had though whatever it was had fled out the window, but Ron had noticed that the trace didn't end at the window as they had expected. Instead, it went towards the adjoining private chambers.

They had found Trelawney snoring away in her bed, buried under what could only have been twenty some duvets. Ron shook his head at the snoring as he and the team ran traces all around the room. Trelawney could apparently sleep through the apocalypse, and McGonagall had given them authorisation to do whatever they felt necessary in order to find out what had happened to Hermione.

Something had seemed off.

Strange, almost hoof-prints had been scattered across the floor of the classroom. A broken window had made it look as though something had escaped, but the trail of magic had remained here in the tower.

As the three of them found themselves back in the classroom, looking for where they had gone wrong, a nasally voice croaked at them, "I see pain in all your futures!" Trelawney stood in the doorway and flipped a switch just before everything went pear-shaped. After that, Ronald and his fellow Aurors were too busy screaming.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Minerva wasn't sure what she was looking at when she entered the room. Aurors lay strewn about the floor, enchanted table legs wrapped around each person like the legs of an octopus. The far wall was blasted out, exposing the entire room to the ramparts of the school, and Sybill Trelawney was standing in the middle of the room, vulturing over a collection of plants.

Hermione and Severus rubbed up against her, letting her know they were still beside her, under the disillusionment charms.. Both of them were taking in the sight with stunned, unmoving silence.

Trelawney stood up straight. Really straight. Never before had Minerva seen the woman in anything other than a hunched over posture. Sybill removed her thick, bug-eyed glasses to expose strangely large eyes. No, it wasn't just that they were large. The pupils were large and oval. Thick eyelashes like bristles shaded each eye. Dark pigmented skin surrounded her eyeballs, outlining her eyes with a dark brown or black. They weren't human eyes at all.

Minerva stared, every whisker on her muzzle frozen. Trelawney's thick glasses had concealed the eyes of a horse.

"I've been working on this room for years, decades even," Sybill said, her voice no longer the nasally, grinding sound it had always been before. "Originally, it was to trap Death Eaters," she explained to the trapped Aurors, "but as you can see, it trapped you just fine."

Minerva, Severus, and Hermione were on the move, slowly working their way to the fallen wands. Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, pushing them towards the trapped Aurors that had been disarmed. Minerva heard the slow pull back of a hidden bow and the muffled tck of a notch touching the bowstring.

"You weren't supposed to be here," Sybill huffed. "No one was supposed to die, but Neville was taking too long. I was the one who slipped the book into his reading shelf. I was the one who crafted the page inside the book to lead him to the centaur's sacred little flowers. I knew he would take it to that horrible know-it-all Granger to get it analysed. I knew she would bat her eyelashes at that Death Eater reject and get him to help her with it. It was only a matter of time before they found a way to extract the sap and collect the pollen. Stubborn little flowers refused to open for me. They never did. Decades, I've tended them, and they just hang their flower buds and never bloom."

Trelawney threw off the outer shawl she was wearing, and she suddenly looked so much thinner, taller, and more arrogant. She pulled out a flask. Red, silver, and green blood swirled within. It was Hermione's blood.

"The first flower I found had been damaged," Trelawney said conversationally, shaking the flask. She picked up a nearby moonflower and stroked it with her fingers. "It was dying, but I was kind to it, and it gave me something… a vision. Long had I coveted my ancestor's Seer powers, but until that moment, I had never truly Seen anything. It told me of a boy who would rise to be the Dark Lord's doom. I used that vision to get the old fool to hire me. He knew I had not inherited my family's powers, but that night—oh, that night—I convinced him I was special. I convinced him he was wrong."

I knew I had found my key to real visions. I scoured the forests for more of the flowers while the war raged on," Sybill giggled in a sing-song voice. "I found a centaur named Rockhoof. He was coming in to join the local herd. I captured him, changed his memories. Made him think that a human had killed his mate hundreds of years ago. I filled him with hate and then let him go, stirring up the herd to bar all humans from their lands. It made it so much easier to sneak in, dig up the flowers, and leave, knowing they would protect my little flowering secret. It would have stayed a secret," she said through gritted teeth, "if that bitch hadn't made peace with the centaur." She throttled the plant in her hand, and the plant writhed in her grip. She tore it out of the dirt like one would repot a mandrake and stabbed the plant with a syringe, drawing out the silver and green sap.

The moonflower let out an equine scream, its flowerbud shaking, its leaves trembling, and its vines writhing and lashing out at her hand, but she throttled it tightly. Sybill sneered, pulling out every bit of fluid as she crushed the flower bud. A small spurt of pollen dropped down into the vial as the plant went completely limp. The last sound it made was a sad, droning whinny.

Minerva heard Firenze's bow snap back, and she quickly ran over to where he was and rubbed up against his leg over and over, trying to snap him out of the rage she knew he was fighting a losing battle against. Fortunately, it seemed, she got through. She heard the bow string relax.

"That horrible little Muggle-born bitch," Sybill seethed as she injected the plant sap into the mix of Hermione's blood. "She gets the flowers to bloom. She gets them to not only volunteer their sap and pollen, but they give her a gift. The full gift. Not this half-baked gift from a defective, dying flower that could only give me a taste of what I could have been!"

Trelawney tore away the robes covering her lower legs, exposing human upper legs and almost-horse lower legs. "She has annoyed me from the day she walked out of my classroom, dismissing my class as something less important. I sent photographs of her pretty little horse body to her parents, hoping they would shun her like she shunned my class, but they still loved her. They still accepted her! Oh, but soon, enough, they will have to accept that she is dead, if they even find out at all—considering that all of you will not be alive to report it!" Sybill kicked one of the nearby Aurors, leering down at them with wild, insane, animal eyes.

"But, I know the secret now— she and her infatuated Death Eater friend's blood. I will take their precious blood of Chiron. I will make myself a Seer. People will flock to me like they come to the old guru on the mountain top. I will counsel Purebloods and Kings, and I will get what I have deserved."

Trelawney took one of the magical syringes that Minerva recognised from the Hospital Wing. Poppy had used it to magically infuse potions into the blood of her patients when they were unconscious and unable to drink them. Sybill sucked up the mixture of blood, sap, and pollen, and, before Minerva or anyone else had an inkling of what she was going to do with it, stabbed herself in the gut and pushed in the plunger.

Sybill grunted, laughing hysterically. She threw the plunger against the wall as she threw back her head and arms. "At last! I can see EVERYTHING!" She let out a mad cackle. "Including YOU!"

She waved her wand, incanting. Suddenly all the Auror's wands went flying out the open wall. The Disillusionment spell was broken. Firenze managed to get one arrow off, but it only managed to pin Trelawney to the table in front of her. Minerva let out a terrified meow as Sybill waved her wand and sent Minerva flying over the ledge. Hermione let out a squeak of surprise as she was slammed into Severus' mouth. Severus twitched and writhed to fight the compulsion to clamp his jaws around Hermione's otter body and kill her. Firenze gave an equine roar as his legs were swept out from under him, and one of the nearby tables came to life and enveloped him in a magical prison.

Trelawney chortled into the table. "So predictable. No one ever expects Sybill Trelawney, poor vacant and untalented Trelawney, to actually have a plan. She began to push herself up off the table with a grunt. "Pity the Headmistress fell to her death. No one will be around to refute that a horrible, horrible monster swooped down and took out the wall of the tower. The Aurors fought so bravely, but—" She slapped her hand to her face. "Alas, they all died saving poor, defenceless Trelawney."

A malicious grin spread across her face. "I will stagger down the stairs, dazed and confused. No one will ever think I could be anything else. No one, until it's too late."

Sybill frowned as she realised her sleeve was caught on the desk by Firenze's arrow. She tried to jerk it free, but it was held fast. Frowning, she tried to slide out of the robe, but that was when she noticed that the vines from the nearby plants were curling around her wrist. Firenze's arrow had company.

Snarling, she took out her wand and cast a spell to sever the vines, but it reflected back on her, cutting into her shoulder. Sybill cried out, clutching her shoulder. More vines were creeping up her arm, dragging her down, and Sybill tried to wrench herself free, crying out in agony as the pain in her wounded shoulder protested.

Low, angry, whispers came from the moonflowers on the table. Vines began to reach out,moving across the table and slithering around Trelawney's body.

The buds of the flowers were opening, but instead of golden yellow pollen, dark red pollen puffed out of each flower and formed angry horses that galloped into the air and slammed into her open wound. Sybill twitched and writhed, the vines pulling her into the mass on the table. The flowers burst from their pots, covering her body, slithering under her robes, and tightening around her flesh.

The moonflowers shook their heads, the horse-shaped flowers were tinted with dark purple as black sap oozed from their inner "mouth." The vines covered Trelawney completely as rivers of black and purple sap flowed over her skin and the dark, moving vines multiplied and layered themselves around her body.

A thunder of low, angry whispers filled the room as Trelawney's screams peaked. Heat blasted outward, toppling over the few things in the room that were still standing, burning away the magic that held each of Trelawney's victims captive,and filling the room with darkness as black as pitch.

Then, there was silence.

-o-o-o-o-o-

The first thing Severus did when he was able to move was spit out Hermione, thankful that Trelawney's spells hadn't forced him to eat her while he was in his panther form. It would have been a horrible way to break the engagement, and he really didn't want Hermione haunting him for the rest of his life as the "git who ate me while I was an otter."

Hermione shook her body off before changing back into her centaur form. She bolted to the open wall and kneeled down to the stone floor, reaching out into the darkness.

Minerva meowed pathetically as Hermione pulled her against her warm body and hugged her and the scrap of curtain she had managed to cling to for however long. Cats apparently did have multiple lives or astounding luck. Perhaps, it was both.

Severus took his centaur form once more and helped Firenze up, and they worked together to smash the table parts off of the Auror team. Whatever Trelawney had done to rig the room to catch Death Eaters, it had worked just smashingly on the Aurors. Each of them had been beaten soundly and then drugged into a non-combative state. Sybill had covered all of the bases.

By the time Potter, Weasley, Ramsford and Collins had recovered enough to stop drooling over each other, each of them stared at the massive cocoon of vines and leaves in the middle of the Divination classroom.

"Will she become a centaur?" Minerva asked, worried.

Firenze shook his head. "I do not think so, Minerva," he said lowly. "Can you not feel it? The anger? The flowers create centaurs in love."

Harry, rubbing the large goose egg on his noggin, tried to stand and immediately sat back down. "Ugh," he groaned. "Like a bludger to the head. I flew back up here with Collins, and I was stabbed with something in the back. I could hear everything, but I couldn't move."

"Trelawney had a hospital potion syringe," Severus noted. "She must have used it first on all of you."

"I was attacked by a bloody table," Collins grunted. "Five bloody tables." He picked a piece of porcelain out of his hair, "and apparently a vase."

Ron groaned. "I saw Trelawney, and things went flying around the room like a whirlwind. I dodged a few, shielded from some others, but then—the tables got me."

"Do we have to report this?" Ramsford moaned. "I don't want to have to report that a team of four Aurors just got our wands handed to us by possessed furniture."

Severus' eyebrow went into his hair. "She had been preparing this room for years. Now we know why she was always so secretive, why she never wanted to move into the regular quarters on the lower levels, and why she never invited anyone up for tea."

Minerva rubbed her head. "Albus is turning in his grave, I'm sure," she commented. "He was so sure that her prophecy was real."

"It was real," Firenze said. "For a moment, she was given the sight of the centaur Seer. Her prophecy was real."

"That explains why she never had others after it," Minerva said. "No matter how much Albus wanted something more telling, the only great prophecy she gave us was the one for Mr Potter, though I suppose the one regarding Pettigrew was also correct."

Harry rubbed his head. "What happened to her? Why was she… changed?"

Firenze frowned. "I can only guess, but, when she found the damaged and trampled flower, she was kind to it, so it wanted to give her something positive. It gave her a vision. She wasn't happy with the one vision. She wanted more, but when she took more flowers, they didn't bloom for her. She tried to force one, but it did that to her. Changing her eyes and her feet. Maybe that is how she managed to get a few real prophecies, minor ones, after Harry's. She figured something was missing, so she spent years raising the flowers in secret up here in the tower. She couldn't get them to bloom, so she planted the book with the information for Neville. He never managed to get them to bloom either, but then Neville brought the plants to Hermione and Severus, hoping for a cure for his parents. She realised, when Hermione and Severus were changed, that the key she wanted was in them."

"So she attacked Hermione," Ron said, "for her blood."

Firenze nodded. "The one ingredient she hadn't been able to procure—the blood of the Changed."

Hermione approached the writhing mass of black tentacles and angry moonflowers. "We shouldn't just leave her under there," she sighed.

"I'm not sure we should touch them," Firenze warned. "Just as they passed judgement over you, so too have they judged her."

"To what end?" Hermione said in distress, "to digest her?"

Suddenly, the pile of tentacles and foliage shuddered and shrank away.

Each of the gathered gasped as Trelawney's body fell out from the strange cocoon.

Sprawled on the floor of the classroom was a old, grey, broodmare. Her eyes were milky in half-blindness. Her ears were tattered. Barely any hair remained in her mane, and her tail was in a sad state of affairs. Her sides heaved and her lips pulled back from elongated buckteeth. Her pelt was a ragged and pitted as her fur thinned in patches across her coat. Even Rose Weasley would have had a hard time finding love for this particular horse.

Severus tapped his finger to his jaw. "Well… she did say she would get exactly what she deserved."

Harry and Ron exchanged glances.

"One of us has to write this up," Harry said grimly.

All four Aurors threw out their hands and bounced their fist in rapid succession in the ancient art of decision making: stone, cloak, and wand.

Ron moaned as his stone lost to cloak in the final battle. "Why do I always lose?" he complained.

"Consider it a win for you, Mr Weasley," Severus said, deadpan.

Ron looked up, confused.

"The other three have to figure out how to get a horse to the Wizengamot," Severus completed his train of thought.

Harry, Ramsford, and Collins facepalmed together, Minerva grinned like a Cheshire Cat, and the three centaur breathed out a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, the moonflowers behind Hermione and Severus' ears nickered cheerfully.

Suddenly, Hermione's ears flattened to the side as she jumped a ways off the ground. Her eyes went wide.

"What is it, Hermione?" Severus asked, concerned.

Hermione took his hands and slowly placed them on her equine sides.

Severus' eyes widened as the faint ripple of movement kicked out from her belly.

Within minutes the old, grey broodmare was forgotten as everyone else took turns pressing their heads and hands to Hermione's equine sides.

Minerva, having satisfactorily felt the kick of new life in Hermione's womb, turned to the gasping, panting, and sagging, old broodmare. "Sybill Trelawney, I fear as Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I must inform you that your job has been terminated."

The dilapidated old mare could only make distressed sounds in reply.

-o-o-o-o-o-

A/N: Whoa, who saw that coming? Did I surprise any of you with that? No one expects anything of Sybill Trelawney. It's the perfect cover.