Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following is set in an alternate universe where some characters and situations have diverged from canon, and is complementary to 'Saint Potter?' This chapter takes place at the centaur settlement in the 'Forbidden Forest' a short way from Hogwarts where the herd who live in the area have their homes. It takes place the day after the previous chapter, and roughly two after the first chapter. This story is (as of 12th July, 2014) currently rated 'T' although the rating may go up at some later point/chapter.

Further Note: Kassia, from whose perspective this chapter is portrayed, is an original character. In appearance, from the waist up she is a dark-eyed and black haired human woman 'of Grecian extraction', and below the waist dark skinned and black-haired mare. Her personal history is a little complicated, and there will be more on her in the Author Notes at the end of this chapter.

Further Further Note: As of July 12th, 2014, the opening notes of the first chapter have been expanded slightly to comment on a matter pertaining to Bane and Firenze.

Friday, 12th July, 1991

Kassia had not been pleased by her prospective future, half a decade ago, as it had seemed to unroll in front of her in Argos. There were only three roles for female centaurs of breeding age actually within Greek centaur society, and she was hardly suited to be either an elite warrior of one of the Aegean colonies or a prophetess; and unlike most female Greek centaurs, Kassia had not always been raised in their society, and had missed out on being drilled from birth to submit to fulfilling the other role – with the result that she was unwilling to muster the appropriate enthusiasm (or even resigned acceptance) necessary to play such a part.

But then, on her sixteenth birthday, she had been sent as a 'gift' – purportedly in the role of a breeding mare – to join a British herd, and things had started to improve. She had been paired off by the chief of her new herd, Magorian, with a centaur a couple of decades her senior called Bane – only it turned out that what time Bane had to spare from the daily tasks of survival he preferred to spend studying the heavens. Magorian must have known that, but she had been sent out from Greece to be someone's mate, she had duly been 'paired off', and the senior Greek centaurs had no doubt patted one another on the backs that a potentially awkward problem for them had been passed off in a way that allowed them to completely save face.

Life in the forested valleys and mountains of northern Britain was a day to day fight against the wilderness, some of the other occupants of which were potentially highly dangerous (if Kassia ever discovered the idiot responsible for introducing an oversize species of intelligent carnivorous South American spider to the Forbidden Forest, she wanted to give her or him at the very least a darned good kicking), yet it was oddly satisfying – and considerably preferable, to Kassia's mind, to what would have been her likely fate in a forced role or as an outcast back in Greece. The climate here was often much cooler and damper than that of the land of her birth, and she lived in a log cabin in a settlement at the outmost limits of what most centaurs would consider capable of counting as 'civilisation', but there was nobody looking down their noses at her here informing her that right now her sex and age were the only things of importance about her.

And although, in theory, she was free of any obligations to Bane, he was kind to her, and she tended to worry over any period of his unexplained absence.

Right now, as the evening of the day after he should have been back slowly crept across the forest, this wasn't exactly a case of unexplained absence on Bane's part – as a result of a visit late last night by the one Magorian referred to as The wizard of Hogwarts, she knew where Bane was, and even an approximate reason for his having been delayed – but still it bothered her.

There came a sound of hooves on the turf outside the cabin, a brief formal rap on the plaque outside the curtained doorway, and then another centaur was ducking inside.

It was Ronan – the reason, after the inadvertent slight he had given the Greek centaurs at the gathering during the previous eclipse, for Bane's absence to attend this most recent one.

"Bane and Firenze have returned. They have reported to Magorian, and Magorian requests your presence as a matter of some urgency." Ronan informed her.

"Did Bane seem well?" Kassia asked. Centaur etiquette allowed that even in the face of an urgent summons from her chief that she might delay slightly to enquire after her nominal mate's well-being.

"He seemed perturbed." Ronan said. "Whatever tidings he and his pupil carried back with them concerned matters of confidence that they were under instructions not to immediately disclose or reveal to any save Magorian. Bane looked tired, but otherwise physically well."

And that was all that Kassia was going to get out of Ronan.

In common with the other centaurs of this herd, Magorian dwelt in a rough log cabin – which in his case he had built with his own hands. It was a far cry from the ancientry and elaborateness of the marble-and-cedarwood halls in which his Grecian counterparts dwelt, although it was backed up directly against a crag, out of which a hollow had been painstakingly carved deep into the rock by generations of the centaurs who had lived in this region. It was in this latter chamber, by the light of rushlights, that the chiefs of this herd held their private councils.

Ronan showed Kassia to that very same chamber then departed, drawing the bear-skin curtain between it and Magorian's cabin back behind him, going to stand guard against any outside interruptions or intrusions.

Besides Kassia herself, there were three others present.

Both Bane and Firenze looked tired – the younger centaur occasionally pacing back and forth nervously, and Bane simply looking unbelievably weary and moving no more than was strictly necessary.

Magorian looked profoundly disturbed by whatever had taken place thus far and he was looking over a long scroll when Kassia entered – which he set aside, however, upon detecting her arrival.

"If you would explain again, Bane, for Kassia's benefit." Magorian waved to him.

And so Bane did, patiently going over his experiences of the past few days, from the unusual attitude and greeting he was given by the presiding centaur, Chiron, upon his arrival at the gathering, right through to the belated (and eventual) return by side-along apparition, almost a day late. He went over what he himself had observed during the eclipse, in some detail, and touched on points of interest that other noted stargazers had spotted, crediting each centaur their observations with scrupulous accuracy. And he went over the principle points of the debate which had followed, which had gone on for several hours, until the arrival of the Supreme Mugwump had cut it short. And then he gave a rough account of the encounter between the Supreme Mugwump and Chiron, and its abrupt end. And then he went into the much longer, even more frenetic debate, which had started after that, and of Chiron's orders that, pre-arranged timed portkeys or not, nobody was going to leave until matters were discussed to Chiron's quite thorough satisfaction. It was a debate which had gone on for hours, and when it finally closed, must have left dozens of centaurs from around the world facing huge difficulties in returning to their homes, having well and truly missed their portkeys by then.

The telling of this all took quite some time, during which Firenze stopped pacing and tried to adopt an 'at rest' attitude that was not disrespectful to the presence of Magorian.

Once in a while Magorian signalled Bane to pause, whilst he made some adjustment to a rushlight, or consulted on something in a book or scroll. On one occasion he even offered Bane a goblet of water, which the other gratefully accepted and tossed down in a moment.

Bane and Firenze had of course not been reliant upon timed portkeys for their travel, but upon the good graces of the Castellan of Hogwarts, whose personal services and a means of contacting whom by any of his nominated delegates Magorian had insisted upon, once it became clear several eclipses ago that both the Greek centaurs and Albus Dumbledore required the presence of a formal observer from this herd at such gatherings. That insistence was now looking remarkably foresighted, as it had ensured that (once the gathering finally broke up) Bane and Firenze had been able to almost immediately depart the small Pacific island they had been upon. Other centaurs were likely going to be stranded there for several days.

"Chiron screwed up." Magorian said, Bane finally having concluded his narrative, for likely the second time this evening. "Bane and – earlier – Firenze, have reported that even Chiron admitted, in the immediate aftermath of his failed encounter, that he had erred in how he tried to negotiate with Albus Dumbledore. Chiron put most of the blame on the Supreme Mugwump, for acting unreasonably, but Chiron was prepared to allow that he had 'seriously misjudged the man'." Magorian paused, significantly. "Members of the High Council do not often acknowledge that they have made a mistake, and when they do, it is my experience that it is usually not long before they are looking for someone else to fix whatever has gone wrong. There is no doubt in my mind that Athens will soon be looking in this direction, for us to dance attendance upon Albus Dumbledore and to try to patch up what Chiron set awry. Even so, as Bane has recounted, there are particular things which Chiron has made it quite clear that he does not want the Supreme Mugwump to know, except as a last resort, so offended does Chiron feel by the turn that events took. Athens is unlikely to shift position on that, which will likely make the task even harder. And I am sure that Athens will want me to have a Greek centaur at hand, watching everything I do, and telling me when they think that I am going wrong. Now, for the good of centaurs everywhere, I will be prepared to put myself out to some considerable extent, to try and clean up this mess. I feel that in the doing so that it would not be helpful, however, for my having to be constantly taking and waiting upon 'directions' from Athens. Athens has yet to send any emissary out in this direction, though, and I would prefer not to wait until one arrives as a 'special advisor' to 'advise' all my doings. So: I wish to appoint you as a senior advisor to me, Kassia. You are a Greek centaur by origin; the High Council themselves sent you out here to me, almost five years ago. If I am already taking advice from you, Athens will have little cause to impose anyone else without embarrassing themselves severely, and I feel that anything which you have to say in this matter will be at least as useful as anything any other centaur from Greece might be able to contribute…"

Author Notes:

Centaurs & Kassia:

As far as the Saint Potter universe is concerned, I have assumed that centaurs first arose in ancient Greece as a result of experiments by witches and wizards to create improved cavalry troops for the city-states of that time. (Witches and wizards then were not removed from 'muggle' society.) The first centaurs were created by merging witches or wizards and horses (there were a lot of failures and deaths along the way) and although centaurs proved capable of reproducing by 'natural means', becoming in effect a new species in their own right, Greek centaurs retained the secrets and capabilities (although the enchanted objects used in the process have become increasingly less reliable with the centuries) to so 'create' new centaurs to the current day. The process only works on the young, and there are now so few relics left usable for the process that it is usually only attempted a handful of times a century, and only on children with highly favourable destinies.

At one time Kassia was (on her 'human' side) such a child with a potentially propitious destiny (born on the autumn equinox of 1970), and her parents sold her to the Greek centaurs. The transaction actually took place relatively late (usually the centaurs prefer to acquire female children before they learn to talk, but the timing and place of birth of this particular child had amazing potential in centaur eyes), with a result that Kassia had some experience of witch and wizard culture and society (and the norms therein) before she was handed over to the Greek centaurs on her eighth birthday for transformation. She survived the process, but by then had acquired attitudes and experiences of things at odds with what Greek centaur society expects of most of its females of child-bearing age. As she grew-up Kassia became, by Greek centaur standards, an increasingly rebellious 'teenager', and since to simply exile her as an 'outcast' (the usual fate of Greek centaurs who refuse to 'fit in') to a Mediterranean island sized for one was for various reasons not an option, the Greek centaurs sent her to Magorian instead (notionally as a 'breeding mare') figuring that in that weird out-of-the-way place, Britain, she might fit in better, and that if not she'd likely to be too busy in what by centaur standards is a distinctly 'wild and woolly' 'frontier area' (there are still wild dragons and trolls and... other things... in the woods and on the mountains) to cause any bother for anyone.

General Notes:

Argos (as is Athens) is a place in Greece, assumed in this universe to have a magical population and/or specifically a centaur presence.

When Kassia is thinking of an '...oversize species of intelligent carnivorous South American spider...' she is of course thinking of the acromantulas of the Forbidden Forest, with whom the centaurs in this universe do not get on terribly well. Especially not since the acromantulas are always interested in putting centaur meat on their menu, should an opportunity arise...

A rushlight is a sort of candle or miniature 'torch' (of the flaming variety) created by soaking part of a rush in fat or grease. It seemed to me the sort of thing that centaurs in a relative 'backwater' area like this might use for illumination, since they could make it themselves from things they have to hand.

I went back and forth for a while, wondering what sort of accommodation might be used by the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest (some sort of shelter would be necessary, given the Highland winters) and in the end settled on log cabins. There are *a lot* of trees around, after all, even though the ones most immediately to hand are likely not the most ideal sort. (At the altitude the centaur settlement exists at, I assume a cover of 'magical' deciduous trees.)

Bane and Firenze were equipped with a temporary magical communications device by means of which they were able to notify Severus Snape (the 'Castellan of Hogwarts') first of all that the meeting was over-running and that they would be unable to make the 'scheduled' time he had arranged to collect them by apparition (and could someone please pass that message on to the other centaurs in the Forest?) and subsequently that they had finally finished (once they were done so) and could he please come and pick them up as soon as conveniently possible?

As with previous chapters, I'm trying to convey a sense that (at least when dealing with each other), centaurs operate in general by very strict rules of etiquette. Magorian, under these rules, is not supposed to publicly (or in council) criticise the Greek High Council, unless he is reporting or repeating an admission by a Greek High Council member that said Greek centaur actually got something wrong. He can write whatever he likes in private to the High Council (though it may not do him much good politically to do so) but doing so otherwise is a strict no-no.

Also under these rules, of etiquette and hierarchy, Magorian is supposed to give the utmost weight to any advice that a centaur sent to him by the Greek High Council gives him. (If he's getting conflicting advice from one or more such centaurs, he's free to make up his own mind about which one to pay more attention to.) Some significant centaur herds outside of Greece have 'advisors' from Greece living with them on a practically permanent basis. Magorian's herd live in such 'basic' conditions that it's not been thought worth the bother by the High Council to send an 'official' envoy out to live with them in recent years.