A silence stretched in the expansive quarters of the library. Students seated irregularly, some of their noses stooped into the crevice of a dusty old tome, others listlessly twirling the quills in hand as their eyes glossed over with the aged texts barely making an impression. Curiosity mixed with duty resulting in a cacophony of expressions. Those more animated and demurer equally exist.
The point of interest in this instance was a single girl that flicked past pages with an amused gleam in her eye. She barely registered other people in the room. It was a realm that existed solely for her and the book that sat in front. A huge, thick tome that could easily take the place of a brick. Her hands aching from pivoting the book, finally she had settled on leaving the book lay flat against the oak table. Her nose practically touching the old paper as if she were entering the world lay bare within those pages herself.
A boy of the same age sat opposite, his eyes nervously alternating between the floor and the girl across the table. Her chair teetered back and forth off balance as she flipped the pages, the smile on her face deepening slightly as the next page was revealed. That routine continued unabated a few times before the boy could no longer swallow his silence.
"H-How do you do it?" He threw the question out, seemingly out into the void rather than expecting an answer from his immediate companion.
"Do what?" She asked without even looking back up from the book.
"All this…" He gestured to the books strewn about the small corner of the library, a tiny sanctuary of the immense halls. But a sanctuary of study, nonetheless. Numerous books half opened with notes sticking out of them littered the floor and table. Books stacked atop each other by the sides of the chair. Most were old dusty tomes that hadn't been dredged up in decades. Karuizawa had to urge the librarian to retrieve them. What books existed for telling fortunes and related sorcery were few and far between. The large ledger she had sat in front was in fact an encyclopaedia of past fortunes proven true, the oldest dating far back before the Common Era.
He didn't have to say it clearly, even after all these books, devoting her entire time so far to excavating the fortune telling materials, she hadn't made a single step forward in her long-reaching goal of becoming a seer. Of delving into the future with the same clarity as the past.
She scoffed, turning the page with a bit more aggression. "I don't get what you mean?"
"…It's pointless. How can you keep…" Neville tenderly grabbed a book, shutting it with a clap, dust pluming and painting his face. He sneezed, clumsily bumping into the table, warily placing the book onto one of the many piles surrounding their forgotten hollow. "Y'know, putting in all this effort?" It appeared as if the young boy's head had shrunken between his shoulders.
"Who decided it was useless? I'll make that choice for myself. I'll succeed. Absolutely…" Her nose hooked back into the book, taking in every letter, every word, once again. Desperation. An act that screamed shameful. If the boy's grandmother were here, she'd have any number of criticisms to dole out.
The boy watched on in silence, equal parts in admiration and jealousy. Even though his injury had healed from the incident, Neville found that his arm and wrist especially, ached with a dull throb when such thoughts came into his mind. It was the same feeling he had when that broom had lost all sensibility and dragged him to the great beyond, the same sensation whenever he thought about his parents.
Karuizawa sucked in a sharp breath, speaking in a quiet agitated tone. "If you're just going to be negative the whole time don't bother talking; you'll disturb my concentration."
"S-sorry. I didn't… mean it like that." Without thinking he reached a hand forward, dropping it just as soon. A small smile more akin to an unsteady line scrawled on paper than an expression of joy sat on his face.
She finally unhooked her vision from the weathered letters dancing across the old weary pages, to strike him with a piercing glare, one that assuredly looked straight through the meek boy. "Then what did you mean it like, huh?"
"There hasn't been a reliable seer… in centuries. B-before that it's an inborn thing." Like flying a broom or just having magical ability in general. For the main part it was a genetic difficulty, struggle as you will, some things were unchangeable regardless of the effort. Life had taught Neville that fact at a young age.
"…" She looked at him with something adjacent to revulsion.
The boy followed up, perhaps encouraged by her silence. "L-Like a talent, I guess…"
"What, you saying I don't have any talent or something?" She threw back.
"N-No!... W-well if you can't already do it…" Neville further shrank into himself.
Her gaze steadied on him for a moment. "This is why everyone thinks you're a loser, Neville."
"Ugh… M-Maybe, but isn't carrying on just a waste of time?"
"Should I be like you instead and wallow in self-pity?" Karuizawa's jaw tightened, a look of victory in her eyes. A victory short and bitter as her eyes wandered to the area of his lower arm and wrist. She coughed once. "Wizards can fly, shoot fireballs, make the earth shake. A rat can become a cup. And you assume trying to look into the future is too far?" Karuizawa stared at him with a plain face.
"No…" Hands clammy from a sudden breakout of anxiety the young boy brushed them hurriedly against his cloak, not quite gathering the courage to look the girl back in her eye.
She sighed forlornly, her chin collapsing onto the heavy book with a thud. "But it isn't for someone else…" Her blue eyes wavering as they appraised Neville and his clumsy, ham-fisted, but truthful insistence.
Neville gripped his cloak, his lip trembling slightly, eyes focused on the ground. Prepared to be brushed-off or berated, something was better than this silence where his anxiety persisted.
The young witch tutted under her breath, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. Whisper-hissing into the confines of the book as if to engrave her own passage in the text. "Ridiculous."
Neville's ears perked up at the noise, looking up towards the girl. "…I-"
"Don't talk. I'm reading." Her eyes had already returned to the dusty pages lay before her. A wonder that the book hadn't spontaneously combusted from the heat sparked in her gaze.
"…"
"…If you think everything's pointless what the hell are you even doing here?" She whispered her frustrations aloud, the girl's eyes straining slightly to ensure tears didn't smudge the pages below. But they continued to well up regardless of her desires. Before those bitter tears could taint the page, she pulled back, the chair making a loud thud as it sat securely on the ground. Her feet meeting the floor, not even stopping to collect her writing materials, she whisked away from the table in a hurry like a passing storm. "Whatever!"
"Ah, s-sorry-!"
"Shut up. Don't follow me. I don't want to see your face for a while."
"…"
"…Definitely. I'll do it…" She whispered, storming down the straight path towards the entrance of the library. The crashing of the wooden doors vaguely thundering in Neville's peripheries.
[Scars of White]
Taking a bite out of the generous red apple, Harry cut in through the awkward silence that had developed. "Where is Ron?"
"…You've asked me the same thing several times now Harry, I don't know the answer. And frankly I'm going to get sick of answering the same question." She responded in a huff. Harry had trouble speaking to Hermione alone, the argument they had last time didn't help in any capacity whatsoever. The disappearance of an integral member of their trio was yet another unforeseen obstacle.
"Sorry…" His eyes focused on the bed cover, picking at his fingernails. "When was the last time you seen him?" He asked.
"Honestly, you could at least focus on the person taking the time to visit you." Hermione sighed exasperatedly. Going quiet just as quickly.
"I'm grateful, really, Hermione. But… I'm beginning to get a little worried." It was true but it was also for different reasons at the same time. One thing was for sure, Harry thought, we can't go on like this. Perhaps it was the fact he was stuck in this bed, but he needed an escape from this oppressive silence, where he knew he was being judged, even if Hermione thought she was helping him. He knew for sure that Ron would see his side of it. Or at least he had thought that before the incident, but then again that was before the two of them had argued about Taka's supposed manipulations. 'That might've been a mistake', he thought for the hundredth time today.
"It isn't as if he hasn't been around, I seen him at lunch yesterday, as a matter of fact." Hermione perked up but avoided eye contact as soon as Harry had become obviously excited. The mention of his 'best friend' was hardly encouraging for her.
"Was he okay?!" Harry had burst out automatically.
"Of course, he was fine." She responded politely, obviously bothered, but Harry didn't seem to take notice of this.
"And? Did he say anything?" He urged her.
"I couldn't speak to him." Just as quickly Hermione said that had Harry visibly deflated. She continued. "He was sat on the edge of the table, almost seemed like he was avoiding everything. No sooner than I had picked him out of the crowd, he was already gone."
"And he knows that I'm still here?" He asked already knowing the reply.
"…Where else would you be Harry?" Hermione admitted reluctantly.
"He's avoiding us." Harry plopped back on the bed, his head surrounded by the plump silk cushions, the distant ceiling of the infirmary wing stretching beyond his vision.
"…I'm sure he'll come around. He's known Ayanokouji longer than us… I suppose it's only natural he would be annoyed, even if he is wrong."
"I don't think that's it." Harry replied, his eyebrows furrowed.
"What else could it possibly be?" Hermione asked exasperatedly, it felt as if they had beaten around this conversation at least five times in the last hour, through awkward silences and noncommittal answers. This time they went straight to the heart of the matter.
"Maybe he realised I'm nothing like the stories said I would be? Maybe he's just mad at me like you were?" He pointed his damaged gaze at Hermione, who took it head on. They had yet to confront those feelings properly, Harry was certain his decision was the proper one. He looked away just as quickly, a few words escaping from his mouth. "Maybe we weren't as good friends as I thought we were…"
"Oh, Harry, you know that's not true-"
"Then why isn't he here?"
A hand rested on his shoulder. "Ronald-…Ron's been quieter in class as well. Actually paying attention, as far as I could tell. Even told Seamus to shut up once in McGonagall's transfiguration lecture." She laughed lightly to which Harry raised his eyebrows. An obvious air of confusion coming from him. "Mind you, we weren't even learning a spell, just pure theory." Hermione explained.
"…" Harry sat deep in thought, the ceiling seemed to grow slightly more distant from him. The pain had mostly subsided, maybe that was just the nature of the injury, or whatever they were giving him for treatment, regardless he would be free to rejoin classes for the last week of the first month. Meaning he'd have just enough time to join in a few team practices for the Quidditch match at the end of the month. More importantly he could find Ron himself, wouldn't have to rely on the youngest Weasley coming to visit him, then they could sort all this out, he thought.
Noticing his gaze, Hermione leaned forward. "I brought some more notes." Hermione slung a shoulder bag to the front and procured a ridiculous number of parchment rolls neatly folding them one over the other onto his bedside table. She stopped for a moment as she noticed Harry hadn't looked at them. "…Maybe you could talk to him about it, the notes; I mean. Transfiguration is on the second scroll, you should give it a once over, the lesson was actually quite intriguing, you see Professor McGonagall-"
He felt compelled to interrupt, if not by impatience, then by divine intervention. "Does he blame himself for it?" Commanding his leg to move, the string holding it up pulling against him didn't budge at all. He was stuck here, whether he liked it or not.
Hermione smiled weakly. She gazed at the cast around the-boy-who-lived, his leg still suspended. "Shouldn't we?"
"Obviously not! It was my decision, you guys shouldn't have to risk yourself for me!"
"But don't you see that's what we think as well?!" She countered heartily, her frustrations welling up once more, threatening to manifest.
"…We'll just end up going in circles like this." Harry turned as best he could to the other side, his leg restricting him from showing his full back to Hermione.
Hermione took a deep breath through her nose. "…You'll be back for the last week, everything should be back to normal after that. Right?" She gently asked, as if rocking a cradle with her words alone.
"…" He wanted to reply, but truthfully Harry didn't know. Maybe things were too good to be true, they had been ever since he got his acceptance letter. This might just be how things are supposed to be, he was a freak after all, he had always been told as much, maybe Ron finally realised it. I mean, what kind of friend would be so suspicious of their other friends? Maybe he was just jealous over Ron's and Taka's longer-lived friendship, the fact he was the Headmaster's son and no matter what Harry does when summer arrives, he'll have to return to the Dursley's… The thought alone drained the happiness from him.
"I'll bring more fresh fruit when I come again tomorrow, alright? Please, cheer up Harry." Hermione left those words to breath, hoping for a reply. When she noticed he hadn't moved an inch she stood and made her way towards the door.
"…" He wanted to remain silent, to shun her and turn his back. "…Yeah, thanks Hermione. For coming, I mean it." He offered quietly, not turning back until she had wandered out of the infirmary wing. 'Really… I'm being a terrible friend to the both of them…' He thought to himself. He just wanted things to return to the way they were. It wasn't the same when the Hufflepuff students arrived, Harry liked them, they were fun and appreciated what he did, but it just didn't feel the same as with Ron and Hermione. It felt like he was appreciated for what he was rather than who he was. 'By saving someone you aren't their friend just their hero.' It was the exact uncomfortable feeling he got whenever anyone called him 'the-boy-who-lived' or when they had great expectations of him. That his father was a seeker so he should be one too, or his mother was incredibly skilled at charms so he should show the same talent… He didn't even know them, yet he was a collection of them in one body, rather than feeling connected it made him feel slightly lonely. If only he could see his parents once, talk to them once.
His anger welled up, a curse rolling on his tongue, coiling like a snake to be let free at the slightest break in composure. The dam burst, as if the concept of revulsion and rejection, hatred and malice was compacted into a single word, the name of the person responsible for all the hate inside him.
"Voldemort."
He waited for a few moments, the empty room remained as it was. No other patients, no staff. He watched the corners of the room and ceiling where the shadows gathered, but they too were empty.
He waited, the word still seemed to be echoing in the emptiness of this place, but despite it all; the orchestra of his own whispering voices chanting the dark lord's name as if requesting some meeting with the devil, Harry's own will to see the person responsible for the greatest tragedy of his life, the almost perfect opportunity to finish what he started with the-boy-who-lived as defenceless as the day he was born. The room remained empty. A sigh of regret emptied from Harry's lungs.
No such spectre or villain appeared, nor even the slightest sense of unease that this dark lord truly existed stirred within Harry. And that, to Harry, was even worse than his presence.
[Scars of White]
An arrow set loose flew, as if cutting through the air, the tip puncturing a bird's wing nailing it to a large tree, the overgrown roots branching in all directions connecting with the bodies of other trees, as if some entangled ball of yarn had come to life and spread throughout the forest.
Two hasty hoofbeats alerted the archer from behind.
"HAH!" The assailant cried out, a makeshift club in his hand, brutally swinging it horizontally towards the archer's head. The archer ducked turning clockwise and abruptly kicking his two back legs into the newcomer, his body sent flying against the forest background and crashing into a large tree.
He recovered mid-air, all four legs connecting with and jumping from the tree onto the forest floor. "Good to see you still have your wits, Firenze!"
"I don't need the stars to foresee such a lousy attempt." The proud centaur scraped one hoof against the forest floor, a small amount of dirt pluming.
"The ever proud and mighty warrior, my hoofs tremble in your presence, 'o exalted one." Bane mocked.
Firenze's cold gaze stuck to the fallen prey, holstering the bow over his shoulder. "I'm on the hunt. Is there a reason to sneak up on me in such a distasteful way?" He asked the younger centaur.
"There are no laws against challenging a hunting party, all alone out here, it's like you were asking for it." Bane trailed the club over the thick trees, a terrible sound coming from the bark.
"Laws and decorum are lost on you, Bane."
"There are no laws other than the fate set out by the stars. I should say you are the one really lacking here." The club made a dull impact against his free hand as he hefted it a few times, the sound of calloused flesh meeting with the serrated, crude, carapace of his weapon.
"The stars can be read, leaving such a duty to the illiterate is tantamount to sacrilege." Firenze spoke calmly. Bane's face turned from the faux bantering grin to unrestrained rage in all but a moment.
"…You dare to question my comprehension of the constellations? FIRENZE?!" He shouted; Firenze approached the fallen prey. "Don't you turn your back on me!" Bane added.
"One so lacking in formality and etiquette such as yourself can hardly complain when he is given his dues." Firenze ripped the arrow free from the trunk and stowed the game with a small silver hook at his waist. "You have devotion Bane, I'll give you that, but you lack compromise and the conviction to seek truth. No amount of star-gazing will ever change that."
"There is no truth other than what the stars align! I am their greatest servant!" Bane exclaimed hastily.
"A messenger doesn't interpret his master's meanings; he gets them to their destination without personal involvement. You pollute the universe's will, to supplant your own. Do you believe yourself a God?" Firenze turned to meet the gaze of his fellow centaur, his torso a head or two taller, causing Bane to arch his neck.
Fury burned in the eyes of the aggressor. "Heathen! Backstabber! Earth-gazer! I will not be ridiculed by one who proclaims the stars to be his master whilst never looking towards them!"
"I simply follow the great will; I don't interpret it for my own needs. Tell me, Bane; was it the will of the stars that asked you to attack me and usurp my position?" Firenze countered plainly.
"Prepare yourself!" Bane held the club above his head loftily in a single outstretched hand, his free arm procuring a dagger attached to rope, swinging it clockwise by his flank.
"I will make my first and only prediction, right now." Firenze said matter-of-factly, his eyes never leaving Bane's in search of the stars. "The day that you defeat me in combat will be the day every last one of those stars above fall to the ground." Firenze didn't reach for his bow, placing the flat of his palm on the bark of the overgrown tree and closing his eyes briefly.
"FIRENZE!" Bane shouted, the dagger flying loose from his grasp, the rope extending and cutting through the air.
Thunk!
A branch caught the dagger, the steel embedded in the living tendril. Firenze's eyes remained closed, his fingers tremoring and tapping at seemingly random intervals, only for branches and roots to erupt from above and below, collapsing in on them.
"You never learn." Firenze whispered as Bane cut through the branches, kicking roots and jumping between trees. But never closing the distance.
…
Vines wrapped around each of his appendages, containing the flexing horseman, his struggle changing nothing as the forest actively twisted and turned, loosened and tightened restraining Bane without hurting him.
"Do you submit?" Firenze asked, his hand still firmly planted, eyes open, gazing at the younger centaur. A tinge of green speckled the whites of his eyes encroaching along the veins.
"…Never." Bane coughed out.
"The branches should loosen and allow you free in a few hours. Spend some time looking upwards in the meanwhile, without allowing yourself to be influenced by base desires.... Perhaps one day the stars will align with your will, Bane. Until that day." Firenze trotted off.
"I swear, I'll get you back for this!" Bane struggled against the thick branches for a while, eventually giving up when he noticed they hadn't given an inch. Same as always. The branches and roots stuck him in place almost consciously, almost. It was at these moments when Bane would think about the great will, the universe, stars, fate and come to a conclusion. He couldn't adhere to it. If he did that would mean everything he seen was preordained, everything. Much better that he couldn't read the stars, much better that he acted directly in opposition with what they foretold.
Unlike the other times Firenze had mentored him and berated him, defeating him, this time a specific memory played in Bane's mind, one from long ago, one that he had forgotten until now.
Firenze had taken him to see the stars from the edge of the Forbidden Forest, near the Black Lake, where one could view the stars and their reflection in the abyss-like water at night. Seeing the original and its mirror side by side was a rite of passage for every centaur that reached the age of maturity. The water reflected fate, just as centaurs should reflect the stars without altering fate's path… Now, whenever he thought about the sky, all he could imagine was the same image with ripples cascading along the water's surface distorting space and time, the universe in chaos.
When had he decided to stop following the path set in front of him? Was it before his rite of passage? Or after seeing that reflected fate? When had he read the stars that would determine his and the world's demise? It had been so long ago now that he forgot.
Had it all been just one bad dream?
A cold sweat trailed down his exposed back.
Bane's vision darkened, his head pounded as if a terrible miasma was spreading across his skull. The feeling made him finally remember those words from a forgotten time, Firenze's final words as his astronomy mentor.
…
"Man, animal, being. No matter the classification. All things have a will of their own, sometimes it conflicts with the great will of the universe. As the arbiters of this knowledge, we have a sacred duty to watch the stars, listen and allow fate to pass. No matter the cost. Even in death, we act as nothing more than a messenger of the great will. As you read the stars and constellations, eventually ill tidings will be revealed; for you, your family, friends, perhaps even a lover."
"Ill tidings? Like death… or worse?" Bane's voice was weak, clearly finding it's footing, a determinable youth attributed to it, he even squeaked as the word 'death' echoed from his vocal chords.
"We only think death is horrible because we live. In time we shall join the great will and become part of the whole. No one ever truly disappears; we are all connected through existence itself." Firenze's sage advice did nothing to pacify the boy.
"…" Bane faltered as he looked at the sky, it had never looked so dreadful before.
"Depending on how far you can see, no doubt, horrible things arise. However, we look past the good. What is one horrible thing compared to a hundred or a thousand good outcomes? The universe and the great will, like all things; must be balanced appropriately." Firenze did not smile as he talked. A not so much cold as it was detached look enveloped the stars and the world. Bane could not help but liken his teacher's gaze to that of the water of the Black Lake, they were the same, if you removed the light glittering in the reflection.
Bane couldn't draw his eyes away from that terrifying sight. He attempted to look at the stars, his face pointed towards the sky, but he looked past them into the void of space, where not a single tiny ray resided, in the blanks of the canvas, unpainted regions that could never tell a story and never predict heartbreak.
"Bane. Look at me." Firenze focused on the young centaur, patting his upper back. Bane's eyes retreated from the stars, he took in his teacher's dignified features; the aged and prominent bridge of his nose. The greyed hair, tamed unlike the other elders of his tribe. "It is our duty, but it is also our privilege to know. Make do with no more than that, those who alter destiny for their own sake will find their way onto a path of destruction. Do not let the weight of the world crush you." His hand sat on the younger centaur's shoulder as he watched over the universe.
Bane nodded, but examined the sky again, all of those bright spots had never looked so dark. Countless stars and constellations, but even then, there were innumerable dark patches he could sink his gaze into, considering all that how could he not feel crushed by the sheer immensity of the universe, of the great will and of his prophecy?
…
The memories flooded into his mind, the sheer pain from his head burned, it felt as if his skull was moulting and deforming. He could hear a cold, deep voice.
"If you're so scared, I can take it out of your hands. All you have to do is give in." It said.
"Remove your will. Ignore the stars. I can give you the power to achieve what you want." It whispered ever so slowly.
"Yes. What your heart truly desires, I can give it to you. But only if you… comply." Bane hadn't even replied, but he felt as if the presence could read his mind.
"Provide me your flesh, your body. In return I shall provide you, my mind. My power." It felt as if his brain was snaking, coiling in on itself, eating itself, consuming and becoming nothing more than a husk.
"W-what power? What power, monster?! What are you?!" Bane shouted desperately, his gaze faltering but never looking upwards for salvation.
A laugh came from behind. "The power to cheat death. To betray destiny…" His voice trailed.
Bane waited with bated breath, the pain causing him to shudder, the vines constricting against his taut body which writhed in agony.
Finally the voice uttered one last thing into his ear.
"To make the stars fall."
---
Word count: 4776
Might feel as if the story is going all over the place and a bit haphazard but I'll do my best to keep it interesting. I tried to keep somewhat faithful to Firenze and Bane's character, not that they had much of one, but changed some things to suit the story going forward, just thought this was more interesting. Centaurs being star-gazers obsessed with fate and nature made druid-like magic revolving around animals and plants to be an obvious choice. Sorry if it felt a bit uninspired, I'll try to showcase the different races magical abilities in interesting ways going forward with the series.
Hopefully you all enjoyed the chapter and let me know your thoughts below and sorry for the delay in releases.
Until next time.