RULER OF STAR

Harry’s first memory is of seeing a unicorn when he’s nearly two. He’s sat on the hip of his amí, since he can’t walk yet – not for lack of trying – and though he doesn’t remember the exact words, he knows his amí bent her head to him and quietly said, “that’s a unicorn, child.”

He doesn’t remember the specifics of the unicorn. It’s whiter than any other whiteness he’s ever seen, with kind eyes and a long, flowing mane. The memory that sticks more, though, is the emotions the unicorn had made him feel; something far too vast for his little two-year-old mind to handle, certainly, but there it is anyway – the sense of love and familiarity – of knowingly gazing into the eyes of something far larger than himself.

It’s impossible to recall the meeting with the unicorn without also recalling the sense of confusion that followed in the wake of his amí telling him, “that you recognize its greatness is a promising surprise.”

*

Amí is strong. She’s strong enough to carry Harry in her arms while she races through the forest; he watches, delighted, as the sun spills out in patterns and golden spirals across her face and hair. She’s soft, too, when she tucks him into her warmth at night, and hums quiet tones in a tongue he doesn’t understand.

Plahm, his littermate, makes funny faces and carries him around, too. Sometimes he gives him sweets that stain his hands red and purple with juice. It makes apá laugh. Apá likes placing his hands on Harry’s cheeks; they’re huge and warm and calloused, and Harry sneezes a lot when he does so, but apá is always the one to hold him after the scary flashes of green when he sleeps, so it’s okay.

There are others, too - warm hands and faces that comfort, help him stay steady, offer him food. He explores his surroundings with toddling steps, uncertain at first, then determined as time goes by.

His world grows from their hut, with its blankets and weaves and furs and firecircle, to their village-camp, with its firepit and berry patches and laughing, playing foals. He’s lifted by the arms to harvest fruits from towering trees, shown how to shape bowls from hardening clay, and his peeling laugh rises among those of his peers as he ages, and grows, and learns.

*

Harry’s second memory is from when he’s nearly four and a flood ruins their village-camp. He tries to pay attention to the growns speaking around him, but Plahm and Tustur and her older littermate, Fris, are distracting him with his toy bow and knife. Still, he catches murmurs of, “he’s not strong enough” and “he can barely walk!” and “he’s too old for a sling.”

He understands they have to move because of the flood - and that there’s conflict. About him.

Again.

Amí and apá have never said anything, but Plahm and Tustur and Fris have explained, in the unruly way of foals, that Harry is a human and that the herd has never had human foals before, but he’s an exception so he shouldn’t worry. But Harry does worry – worries he’s not strong enough, not fast enough, not smart enough. He knows he’s human, and different, and can’t do the same things as his friends and littermates and guardians.

So, when Bronislaw clears their throat and says, “I shall carry him upon my back,” Harry is just as horrified as his herd. 

Bronislaw is so old they no longer care for things such as gender; their long, gray hair is meticulously braided and yet loose down their back. Only their hind remains its original coat - dark chestnut - and that, too, is speckled with silver.

Harry is convinced the only reason they want to help is out of pity. One isn’t supposed to go against a wise one, especially when you’re not even a foal, like Harry, but he still jumps to his feet and exclaims, “you don’t hafta!”

Thankfully, this is said at the same time as several growns voice their complaints, so he supposes it’s alright just this once.

Bronislaw levels them all with a mightily unimpressed look. Harry slinks back, even when it softens over him. “I am not deigning myself to carry a human,” they say, voice slow and strong with age as they lift their head high. “I am helping a member of the herd; so mote it be.”

“So mote it be,” echoes the herd, as one. A wise one has spoken, after all.

And so there is fashioned a wicker basket and goat pelt to be fastened over Bronislaw’s back, along with luggage and sacks that any other also must carry.

It is highly embarrassing to be carried, but at least the basket and pelt is soft enough, and the steady rhythm of Bronislaw’s hooves beating the ground serves to ease Harry into gentle sleep more than once as they travel.

Harry is old enough in years to be considered a foal, which means his education should have begun, but he hasn’t yet reached the maturity of his littermates. The first night of the traveling - first of three, Harry has been told - he curls in with Plahm against amís tummy, eyes closed and feigning sleep as Bronislaw speaks to her and apá in hushed tones. It is in English, which Harry hasn’t quite gotten the hang of yet, though he understands most of what they say. “I have spoken with Elek the Wise and Magorian. Harry is a clever foal - cleverer than many yearlings close to him in mind. If he is to rejoin his kind when he is of age, we do not have much time: his lessons must start before he reaches a foal’s mind, or he will be taken from us.”

Harry curls up closer against amí, entirely against his better judgment. He doesn’t want to be taken.

The growns and wise one quiet, for a good while, before they speak again. 

“Will he be able to learn? He’s still so young.” That’s apá, sounding worried.

“Elek the Wise tells tales of human foals learning from birth,” says Bronislaw quietly. “Harry will be fine. I shall take his lessons, see if he can learn our ways and our history, before Stella the Wise may attempt to teach him the ways of the stars.”

Soft inhales from both amí and apá follows that statement. Harry furrows his brow, then, consciously, unfurrows it again. “Magorian has agreed? Elek the Wise, also?”

“Yes,” says Bronislaw simply. “He must know his fate. He must be taught.”

Apá - Harry knows it is apá because apás hands are heavier than amís - places a gentle hand onto Harry’s head. He feels safer at once. “Vísk,” he murmurs, which Harry knows is amís Inner Name, her stuntmó. “Uranus shone upon his birth; we know this. He is not his kind. He is only a foal.”

“I know,” says amí quietly. “And it was I who agreed with the Moon, and her hands, which held Jupiter.”

Silence, for a moment. “I did not know the heavens spoke to you of his rearing,” says Bronislaw, not unkindly.

“He is my foal,” says amí. She has returned to Kentauroi. “I will hear no more of it.” She brushes apás hand aside and touches light, light fingers to Harry’s jagged scar. “You will teach him, Bupót. You will ensure that he excels.”

And so begins Harry’s education, aged three and three quarters, as he is a passenger in a wicker basket atop an ancient centaur’s back. He makes himself useful by polishing wood for handles and mentally classifying vegetation they pass - oak, beech, hawthorn, bramble - while Bronislaw’s heavy, lumbering voice washes over him. The stories attract Harry’s littermates, as well as some of the tenlings who are growing into adulthood. One is a slow ager and has already gained his Outer Name: Bane. Despite being nearly grown, even Bane listens intently to stories he undoubtedly already knows.

Harry understands. Bronislaw is an amazing storyteller.

They begin at the beginning - not of time, but of centaurs. Harry learns of their Father, Centaurus, who was thrown aside from mankind because he was different - and of their Mother, the wild horses of Magnesia - and of their Creator, Magic.

Harry, endlessly curious and fascinated by the tale, leans forward in his basket to ask, “did he mate with the horses?”

Bronislaw chuckles. Several of the littermates around them laugh, as well. “He did love the horses for their open acceptance of him, and for their strength and perseverance and courage, but he did not mate with them. It was the Magic of the mountains that gifted them with foals.”

“And that was us?” Harry breathes, amazed at the story. He had no idea magic could do that!

Bronislaw is quiet, for a long moment, before they say, “yes, Harry. That was us.”

*

They spend many weeks telling and repeating stories of Centaurus and Magnesia and Magic. Harry learns of how Centaurus charted the stars and taught his descendants; how they were betrayed by their uncles and aunts; how mankind failed them, again and again and again.

“There was a time we were a people,” Bronislaw explains to his eager student, who nowadays spends most his time whittling to practice coordination. “Before mankind scattered us across Europe, and further beyond. We had a King; a leader. We were mighty.”

Harry frowns. “We are still mighty.” He holds up his knife, a magnificent piece of hammered metal he was given by Bane when he no longer had use for it. “Just look at this pedek.”

Bronislaw smiles. “Yes, foal, that is a pedek, but it is not from our herd. It was traded, many moons ago, when you were a suckling.”

“Traded?” Harry repeats, thumbing at the sharp point of his knife. When he pricks his finger he yelps, but only sighs and stuffs it in his mouth. Life in the Great Forest is not free of pain or hurt; he learned early to roll with the punches. “Wha’eve’ fo’?”

“Speak not with your hands in your mouth,” says Bronislaw, though they don’t sound angry. “We trade our weavery and hides, our leather and string, our handles and pots. In return we get pedek and pedík and peplab.”

“Peplab?”

“In the human tongue it is glass,” says Bronislaw patiently. “Though, I believe a proper term is… glass beads.”

“Oh,” says Harry. His thumb has stopped bleeding. “But that’s still mighty, Wise One.”

Bronislaw eyes him, for a long moment, before they incline their head. “Yes, youngling. In many ways, we are.”

*

When he is four, two yearlings, Sanne and Huddar, grow into foals. They are only slightly older than a year, and eager to learn, though their minds are older than Harry’s. Still, apá brings Harry along to his new littermates’ first sparring session, because it’s the only one he has any chance of surviving. His older littermates, who share his year of birth, have already been learning to fight for three years - a spar against them would only hurt him. Or so apí says. Harry doesn’t really believe it.

He does believe him three hours later, after their trainer, Bálint, has run them into the ground. It’s hard. It’s exhausting. Once again, Harry’s human strength is no match to his herd’s - but, perhaps for the first time ever, his experience with handling tools and fletching knives and sharp sticks makes him better balanced, coordinated, and prepared.

It’s a good start.

“Promising,” says Bálint, which is such a great compliment Harry doesn’t stop smiling all day.

He doesn’t need an incentive to practice, but he gets one anyway, when apá tells him, over stew and common dinner, that, “when you can beat Sanne or Huddar, then you shall learn the ways of the stars.”

*

When Harry trains, he trains hard. He wants to be good. He wants to make his watchers proud - to prove to those that still hesitate at calling him one of them that they are wrong. He might not have four hooves, but he is a centaur nonetheless. He has to be, because centaurs are good, and strong, and patient – and humans are anything but.

*

There’s no time for play, not anymore. Where humans his age are learning to read and write and do basic math, or otherwise enjoying fieldtrips or playgrounds, Harry - who already has learned to read and write and do basic math - spends his time sparring, running, handling bows and arrows and knives and spears, hunting small game that comes too close to the village-camp, climbing trees and teaming up with snakes to take down rabbits and fowl.

His younger littermates, Sanne and Huddar sometimes join him, but spend more time chasing each other through the fields or watching the year’s sucklings and yearlings. Plahm and Tustur enjoy this change in him - this gained maturity - but aren’t yet so well-developed in their own fighting that they can teach him. Fris, however, is only a few years away from becoming a tenling, and though he is better versed with the ways of the stars, he is excellent at self-control and becomes Harry’s closest sparring partner.

Harry adores him. Fris has always been kind, and now he is a great teacher – and a better confidant. They spend time together, under the tall branching trees of the forest, pointing out fauna and flora and what it’s good for, what’s safe to eat and what’s not, the histories of woods and stones, and in hushed tones Fris teaches Harry to listen to the forest’s voice. It is, perhaps, the most important thing he ever teaches him.

It’s not exactly losing his childhood, per say. Harry is very much still a child, and he still sleeps in amís furs, and he laughs at silly jokes and understands yearling humour better than that of his littermates.

But he is growing, and he is stronger. He gives it all to keep up. He owes it to them.

*

The entire herd watches when Harry goes up against Huddar, the strongest of his younger littermates. It is December, and the snow lies thick upon the ground, and Harry is burdened by furs and hides wrapped around his arms and feet; not to mention his torso, though Huddar also wears covers for that. Almost everyone in the herd does, to battle the chill of the North.

It’s a long fight. They’re both inexperienced and unstable and non-refined, but they are on the same level, and Harry’s shorter statue makes it hard for both of them for different reasons.

Harry wins, in the end, to roars and cheers from the herd – though he does earn himself a wide gash along his shoulder. In return, he gives Huddar a jagged slash along their flank, and the both of them come together after, exhausted and delighted, to share in warm juice and spit roasted meat and laughter.

His lectures on divination – reading the stars, astrology, astronomy, and the signs of the world around them – commence immediately the following day.

*

By the time Harry turns five, he’s as learned as his littermates and just as mature. This is when amí and apá, together with Bronislaw and Stella, pull Harry aside during a full moon and point out the tale of his future among the specks in the sky. Harry listens, and takes note, and eventually asks, “what do the wizards think about this?”

Amí and apá share a look.

And then they tell him about how magic had taken him to them, carried in a wicker basket with naught but a letter – not addressed to them, but to some human muggles, presumably Harry’s relatives.

“Mankind have no herds,” amí tries to explain, when Harry asks why he’d be placed with them. “In the herd’s place, they have relatives.”

Harry struggles to understand. A herd is safety, family, home – relatives are just the people you share direct blood with, nothing more. He supposes, if they have no herd, then relatives are the next best thing…?

“But whyever would he leave me with naught but a letter? What did it even say?”

“It was a thinly veiled threat.”

Harry sighs. “A good choice, then, by the heavens and magic, to place me here instead…” And then, on a whim, he twists his neck to bare it, essentially – wordlessly – saying, ‘are we in agreement?’

Apá snorts and throws his head aside. “Certainly. This was the right choice.”

Bronislaw, who has spent long hours with Harry and understands better what he is truly asking, says, “you are welcome, Harry.”

“You cannot stay forever,” says amí. “You will receive a letter to their school, and you must answer, for there are things they teach that we cannot.” It isn’t often any centaur admits to shortcomings; when Harry tilts his head in confusion, she tersely explains, “we have no need for wizarding magic, but to rise against their Dark Lord, you must learn their ways. Do you understand?”

Harry bows his neck. “Qui, amí.”

She reaches for him, placing a gentle hand beneath his chin. Her dark eyes meet his. “If you stay true,” she says quietly, “there will be a place for you, here. But you are human, and if you choose their world, then it is only to be expected.”

He knows she says it from love and their peoples’ long history of conflict. He might even have said the same, if he were in her position.

Had he been any other person, at any other age, he would have been offended; hurt; scared.

But Harry takes her hand, holding it between his small, broad palms. “Vins, amí. I am a centaur.” And she is his amí, but there comes a time for all foals to make this gesture to their amís, and this is Harry’s time. He leans forward and bares his teeth. “I will prove you wrong.”

This is not disrespect. This is independence.

And amí, like any good amí, feels only pride.

*

That summer – the summer before his sixth – Harry is taken from the village-camp, with only a single grown, for the first time in his life. It is Stella, his mentor in magic, who takes him. He does not ride on her back, of course, but trots beside her through the forest as fast as his human feet can take him.

The majority of the forest is centaur territory and hunting grounds, of course, but their protections and safety zones are centred on a much smaller area. Harry feels it when they pass through the wards: like a dip in the river early spring, when the snow has yet to fully melt. He shudders and steps closer to Stella. She is a mighty warrior in her own right, and Harry only reaches to her belly, so he feels nothing but safe in her presence.

They walk for a long time. It’s dark – there is no moon upon the sky tonight – and Stella has eyes better equipped for the dark than Harry, so he staggers along beside her. It matters little now, how familiar he is with the forest and its undergrowth: he is nervous and skittish – has no idea what is to come – and spends more time trying to calm himself than to see his surroundings.

Eventually they come to a halt by a clucking stream. Stella folds herself down into the grass; Harry takes a seat on a moss-grown rock, watching as she pulls out a fistful of tinder from the pouch around her waist.

When she breathes upon them, they flare to life. “Harry Potter,” she says – and at once, Harry realizes what is happening, and all the blood drains from his face. “You have walked among these trees as one of them. You have learned, and grown, and fought. You are a centaur, as much as you are human. I have revealed to you the Secrets of the Stars and you have proven worthy of their words.”

He’s going to become a foal. Officially a foal. At last, the herd has accepted him as mature enough to bear the rank of his littermates, his brothers and sisters and friends. All the blood comes rushing back so fast it nearly knocks him out.

“Tonight,” Stella continues, “I shall reveal to you my Inner Name, and I shall reveal to you the Secrets of Magic, and I shall reveal to you the Path Homeward. Do you accept?”

Her eyes – as green and piercing as his – are glowing orbs in her dark face. The stars catch in her pupils; the firelight flickers across her centaur nose, her human cheeks. Deep forest shadows have only deepened since she began to speak, yet Harry has never felt so certain they cannot reach him.

“Qui,” he says, willing his voice to be still. “I accept.”

*

He spends the summer learning the Secrets of Magic – how centaurs have no inherent magic for themselves, but how they have learned to draw on the magic of nature, how they may use it to bless and help and assist and curse and defend and countless other things.

And he is warned, in quiet mutters in dark shadows, that betraying the Secrets of the Stars may exile him from his herd – but betraying the Secrets of Magic exile him from the Herd; no centaur anywhere on Earth would ever look upon him kindly again.

Harry writes the Secrets of Magic into his bones and marrow. None shall ever take them from him. He will never part from the Herd.

*

It’s true that Harry cannot learn wizarding culture from his herd, and so they create a glamour-amulet for him to wear outside their wards. The amulet doesn’t give him a horse’s hind, but it does confuse the magic around wizard’s enough for them to think it does. And so, after Harry’s sixth birthday, Rónán takes him from the wards, and from the forest, and onto Hogwarts grounds.

Harry sticks close to his uncle – Rónán is not his actual uncle, but he is Tustur’s, and they’re practically from the same teat anyway – as the castle rises from the ground, tall like only mountains are, and just as sturdy. There are human younglings running about, wrapped in cloth and wool even in the midday sun, and Harry inhales sharply when some of them make to approach.

Rónán steps in front of him, a protective barrier between Harry and the unknown. “I have you,” he says, in Kentauroi, nodding his head reassuringly.

“Fru kít,” says Harry quietly, wanting no humans to hear him thank Rónán, even if it be in a language they do not understand.

“This way, child,” says Rónán, once again in English, as he ushers Harry towards a rundown wooden hut at the edge of their forest.

“Do they always stare so much?” Harry asks, glancing over his shoulder as the humans chatter and whisper behind their hands.

Rónán snorts. “They are human.”

Harry nods sagely.

As they settle to wait among the trees’ shadows by the hut, Rónán explains that Hagrid is welcome in their woods, for they have an understanding. He is half giant, Rónán says, and though he has chosen to live with mankind and not giantkind, he has great respect for his heritage – and that is important.

They wait for a good long while. There are no lights beyond the windows in the hut, and no movement within the shadows, so Harry supposes Hagrid isn’t home. He watches with a hunter’s eye, a centaur’s eye, as the day drags by around them.

Rónán gives him words for manmade things. He explains that the shiny sheets in the windows, cut through with hardened metal, are glass; it’s ingenious, Harry thinks, to make windows from glass. He’s seen glass beads and glass bottles, because glass is easy to form into those shapes when heated right, but using it for something to see through, like that, is quite smart. He wonders if Hagrid did it himself – Harry has never tried glassblowing, but he knows they have sister herds in a southern part of the Forest that are quite good at it.

The stones of the castle are bricks. The thing above Hagrid’s door is a bell. It’s all so very curious. For a moment, Harry feels utterly hopeless – he has so much to learn about mankind, and so little time, and such a heavy destiny. Will he ever rise to do what the heavens have foretold?

A twig breaks to his left. He startles into Rónán’s side, and the both of them whip their heads around to face the potential threat – two hands, one human and one centaur, snap toward knives held in woven belts.

It’s a human child. Or – it looks like a tenling, which Harry thinks is called a teenager, but he isn’t sure. It’s not a very old tenling, in any case, but still older than him. He eyes it warily.

“Sorry,” says the child, whose hair is even redder than amís. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t help but notice – are you waiting for Hagrid? Only, I think he’s helping Filch prepare the Halloween decorations…”

Oh, it’s trying to help. Harry relaxes minutely.

Rónán says, “we will wait if need be.”

The child shuffles its feet. “I, er. I can go get him, if you want?”

After a long pause, Rónán smoothly says, “that is agreeable,” and the child darts off across the fields.

Harry leans against Rónán’s side to ask, “why did you agree?”

“He has likely never seen a centaur previously; it would not do to give him an unpleasant impression.”

That makes sense, Harry supposes, so he nods solemnly. “How do you know it’s a he?”

“Human males often wear their hair short – not always, however, so you must not rely on that alone, child.”

“I see. Thank you.”

Harry thinks on the human child for a long, long time afterward. Even after Hagrid nearly stumbles over himself when Rónán requests a tutor for ‘the foal’ and promises, rather excitedly, to find one within a fortnight. Even after they make their way back to the village-camp and amí asks how it went, and Tustur wants to know if the humans smelled, and Fris chastises her for it. Even late that night, when he cannot sleep, he thinks on the human child, and how its first instinct was to offer help.

*

“Bronislaw,” says Harry, and waits for Bronislaw’s nod of approval. “Are all humans bad?”

Bronislaw eyes him for a long, long time. So long, in fact, that Harry is about to turn his chin in apology when they rise from the forest floor. “Come, Harry. I must show you something.”

They take him to a riverbank just outside their wards. This is one they don’t often come to, not even for its fresh, cool water, for the bank is covered in loose rocks, and the legs of foals and yearlings are not meant to walk on rocks like that. But Harry… Harry is different.

“I wish for you to find me two stones,” says Bronislaw, folding their feet beneath them as they lay down in the shade of a tree. “One smoothed by the water, and one untouched.”

Harry, familiar with Bronislaw’s metaphor-rich teachings, scurry along to do as told. When he returns five minutes later, it’s with the smoothest, and most jagged, stones he could find. “Here, Bronislaw.”

Bronislaw examines the pebbles in their dark palm, then nods and holds them both up for Harry to see. “These are both stone, yes?” Harry nods. “And yet they have been shaped differently by the water. Do you see?”

And Harry understands, in a rush of relief, what they mean. “Oh, I see,” he says, and points to the smoothened pebble. “This is a grown wizard conditioned by their society, and this is a… a child. Or…” He frowns, trying to turn the metaphor around to see another perspective. “Or I am this, shaped by the herd, while this is a wizard. Qui?”

“Correct,” says Bronislaw. They glance over their shoulder, then lean closer to Harry. “None of the growns will tell you this, child, because they are not old enough to realize – but you are ready, for your heart is different, and you will accept this truth.”

Harry trembles, eager to learn a Wise One’s secret, and nods hurriedly.

“Our truth is not the world’s truth,” Bronislaw says softly. “Our river is but one of many, and the pebbles upon our banks are endless. This – ” They hold the smoothened pebble into the air. “ – might be a wizard, or a centaur, or a goblin, or a giant. But in the end…” They close their fist; magic trembles in the air – and they spread their fingers to let grains of sand fall from them. “…we are all stone.”

*

Harry’s wizard tutor is not a human at all; he is a werewolf, which Harry knows only because he has smelled them on the peace-speakers of his herd when they’ve traded with the packs in the Forest. The herd has little respect for wizard-werewolves, but they have more respect for those than regular wizards, and so Harry is rather delighted to be speaking with Remus Lupin.

“You want to learn about wizards?” Remus Lupin asks, the first time they meet, in the twilight that is Hagrid’s hut. “I’ve never known a centaur who wanted to learn about wizards.”

Rónán has come with Harry today as well, to ensure the meeting goes well. “Few do, krèstúps – but we do encourage curiosity. This youngling was brave enough to ask, and we must honour that.”

It isn’t a lie. Harr has asked plenty of times.

Remus Lupin eyes Harry with interest. “And what’s the young man’s name?”

“You may call me what you like,” says Harry, which is the truth. He only has one name, like his littermates… but his is, technically, an Outer Name. He has no Inner Name; he wasn’t born with one.

Remus Lupin watches him for a long time, and only knowing that there is a wolf behind his eyes makes Harry feel like prey. “I think I’ll call you Gregory, then. It means ‘vigilant’.”

It’s a good name. Harry is okay with being Gregory, when he speaks with Remus Lupin.

*

Remus Lupin teaches Harry many interesting things. Under his biweekly tutelage, Harry learns of wands and wizard magic – how wizards have cores and that’s how they reach their magic – and spells and potions. He learns of wizarding history; of Hogwarts, and the War, and the Purebloods (Remus Lupin says Purebloods should not be capitalized, but that doesn’t seem right at all, so Harry decides he’s wrong).

He learns of Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster, and of the Ministry, and of Gringotts, and wizarding currency. Remus Lupin gives him books to borrow and read, on magical theory and history and all sorts of things, if only he’s brave enough to ask.

Harry’s brave enough for a lot of things. He reads over the books in the hushed silence of dawn and dusk, when everyone else is sleeping – not for the sake of secrecy, but for usefulness. The information is fascinating – interesting – and he sucks it all up like a sponge. He will need to know this to succeed in his endeavours.

*

After four weeks and eight meetings, Rónán stops accompanying Harry during them. He still accompanies him to the meetings, and comes by to pick him up afterward, but Remus Lupin has earned enough trust to be with Harry on his own.

He probably has no idea the great honour that is.

Harry is not about to tell him.

*

“Hello? Sorry, is it okay if I talk to you?”

First-snow drifts gently through the air. It hasn’t yet coated the ground, but Harry can tell it will, from the pressure of the air and the sharpness of the distant wind. It’s the human child – the one Harry recognizes only because of its – because of his, he corrects himself – fiery hair. “Hello,” says Harry, eyeing the thick layers the child wears. “You may speak to me if you wish.”

“Cool!” says the child, and holds up his hand. “I’m Cha – ” He drops his hand again. “Er, sorry, do centaurs shake hands?”

“We do not,” says Harry, and the child winces. “We do, however, clasp arms. Like so.” And then he holds out his arm and clasps the child’s elbow. He’s quick to return the gesture, beaming brightly. “I will not part with my name, but you may call me what you wish.”

“I’m Charlie,” says the child. “Charlie Weasley. I’m a third year – that means I’m thirteen. Can I call you Greenie? For your eyes. How old are you?”

Harry blinks slowly. “Your tongue races like a river,” he tells Charlie, which might be a bit rude, but since they’re both younglings it should be okay. “Hello, Charlie Weasley. I am amicable with being known as Greenie. This is my sixth winter.”

“You’re six?” says Charlie. “How old is that, in human years, do you know?”

Harry frowns as he thinks on it. A centaur of six years is a foal who may, at any moment, become a tenling… but they are no less mature-minded than a foal of two years, or nine. He thinks foals might be around ten, in human ages, but he’s not sure.

“Six,” he eventually says. “Though, it could be closer to ten.”

“Six!” Charlie repeats, and beams. “My brother, Ron, he’s six.”

Harry lights up. Maybe he can get to learn more about how families work among wizards – Remus Lupin hasn’t gotten there yet. “Do you have many brothers? Tell me more about this… Ron.”

Charlie is more than happy to do so, prattling on about his siblings until Harry’s escort – it is Bane today, and not Rónán – emerges from the trees to bring him back.

“Bye, Greenie!” calls Charlie, waving after him. “I’ll see you next week!”

“Farewell, Charlie Weasley,” says Harry, inclining his head in the manner that shows budding respect. He has earned it, from not insulting centaurs even once.

*

Centaurs deal with friendships differently from humans, and Harry knows Charlie might never become a friend, but the encounter opened his eyes to the possibility that other humans might also approach with friendly intent – and if that were ever to happen, he needs to know if he can accept.

And so he approaches the Wise Ones, Bronislaw, Elek and Stella – as well as Magorian – while they enjoy their afternoon meal, one cold day mid-December. Harry approaches subduedly, showing them his flank and bowing his head aside to flare his neck, which is enough to get their full attention. A foal wanting to speak with their elders doesn’t usually require such formality.

“I request counsel,” Harry says, and leaves it for them to decide.

The firepit crackles as the Wise Ones deliberate.

Then Bronislaw, easily the oldest of them with their pure silver hair, tilts their chin.

Grateful, Harry sinks to his knees in the snow. It has been a long time since a foal sought counsel from their elders.

Harry is… a special case.

Eventually, the Wise Ones come to a conclusion. “You will need allies,” says Elek slowly. “I have little love for humans, but you must, to speak their tongue and share their drink. I say, let the foal carve new riverbanks where he wills it.”

“So mote it be,” says Stella, and nods.

“So mote it be.”

*

As the days became weeks and the weeks became months, Harry did, in fact, strike up a friendship with Charlie Weasley – by both human and centaur standards. He proves an invaluable source of information on young wizarding culture and tells Harry all about how Hogwarts really is - not the padded descriptions from a nostalgic adult. Harry learns about the classes and the professors, the Quidditch and the homework, the etiquette and loud boisterous Gryffindors. He learns about the houses and the meals and the great feast, and the Sorting Hat and the barmy headmaster and everything else.

In return - because he must give something in return - he takes Charlie into the forest and teaches him to listen to the soil beneath their feet. It isn’t a Secret of the Stars, and it isn’t a Secret of Magic, and so he’s free to tell.

Charlie’s main interest is dragons and magical beasts. Harry learns a lot from those conversations, too.

Months go by, and soon it is summer, and time for Charlie to leave. Harry waves him goodbye and wonders if they would have ever been friends if he was a normal human, and not a centaur in a human body.

*

It’s an interesting summer. Kirrilly and Ham bear lucky twins, and Harry is among the foals to welcome them into the world, helping with their cleaning and teaching along with his littermates. It’s a great honour to be tasked with caring for such young ones, and Harry is delighted to be asked.

Fris wakes two inches taller and with a voicedrop mid-June, and Tustur runs around in mad joy as she chants that her brother has become a tenling. Poor Fris is very flustered by it all - he admits to Harry, when it’s just the two of them and Harry’s climbing a tree, that he doesn’t feel ready at all to become grown.

“It’s another year yet,” Harry reassures him, and doesn’t say that it feels odd to think about his childhood friend as anything but a foal. Centaurs value honesty, but more than that they value safety, and Harry isn’t willing to lose his friend just because he said the wrong thing.

Fris’ growth and maturing is a rapid thing. Over the summer he withdraws from everyone, embarrassed and flustered that he’s gangly and unable to wield his usual weapons and tools. Harry tries to comfort him, but feels entirely out of his depth, and spends more time caring for the fresh sucklings-turned-yearlings instead.

When the Hogwarts school year begins again, Harry meets up with Charlie and is relieved to see that he, at least, has not grown much over the last two months. He has grown a little, but so has Harry - it’s a human thing, he supposes.

Harry isn’t old enough to join in on the big hunts - none of the foals are - but as a tenling, Fris is invited along. 

Harry worries for him. He knows he can hold his own, of course, and has many scars and bruises to prove it, but with how uncertain he has been lately - how unsteady on his hooves - Harry has half a mind to sneak after them, to make sure nothing goes wrong.

So he’s rather relieved when Fris invites him along to watch. “Just stay in the trees,” he says, eyes gleaming. “We are to hunt deer; they could seriously harm you.”

There’s a lot in the Forest that could seriously harm Harry. It’s never stopped them before.

The hunt goes well, for the most part. Harry follows in the trees as they approach the deer herd - he has more experience climbing than swinging from branch to branch, but he’s nothing but a fast learner, and the trees grow thick.

Fris is nervous. He tries to hide it, but Harry knows him well enough to recognize the whipping of his tail for what it is. Harry wonders if he’s read any signs of things that will come to pass that makes him nervous; Fris isn’t the best hunter, but he’s still quite good. His nerves put Harry on edge, and he thumbs at the knife in his belt - the arrows in his quiver.

Someone breaks a twig beneath their hoof. Harry winces.

Thirteen deer heads rise to stare in their direction.

A sharp whistle from Bálint - and the hunters explode from the undergrowth, racing across the herd to circle them in, loosing arrows toward their targets and largely missing, though the scaring tactic works. They hope to take down more than one, tonight, for this shall go for their winter stock.

A deer buck guarding his young ones, delirious with fear and rage, picks out their weakest link and goes thundering toward Fris.

Fris lets an arrow fly, and then a second, but his bowstring - made for meeker muscles; made for a foal - snaps from the force. Curses lift from the other hunters, too far away and facing down their own prey, as Fris pulls a knife from his belt and steels himself.

It won’t do him any good. Harry has seen a better hunter mauled by a deer buck before, after his spear broke off in the buck’s throat. A measly knife, however sharp Fris keeps it, will only maybe save his life.

Harry holds his breath and draws an arrow from his quiver, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the sun springing through the autumn greenery. He aims.

The buck roars, veers - skids against the torn ground, and - thunders to the ground.

Harry’s arrow, fletched by his own hand, protrudes from a bloodied eye.

It’s a lucky shot, of course. Harry knows he’s not good enough to hit a moving target mid-flight… particularly since he’d been aiming for the buck’s knee, hoping to incapacitate him long enough for a hunter to help.

They fell three deer that day, and the largest is Harry’s kill. Fris thanks him, subduedly, after Harry has hugged him within an inch of his life.

“Perhaps,” says Bálint, grinning with all his teeth as he flays the buck, “we shall have you accompany us more often.”

Bane scrapes at the ground; Harry eyes him nervously, knowing he has never approved much of Harry’s presence before… but what he says surprises him greatly. “There is more to the climbing of trees than I thought,” he admits, which gets many surprised sounds from those listening. Bane is as prideful as any centaur comes; admitting one’s faults, even just to another centaur, is a great show of respect. 

As is tradition, Harry gets to eat from the liver first, still warm from the buck’s life. Its thick blood sticks to Harry’s hands, and he trails a finger through it, brings it to his mouth, and drinks.

“We have need for his antlers,” says Bálint thoughtfully, much later as they bring their harvest back to the village-camp. “But you may have your choice of the tines, if you wish.”

“I will fashion it into a knife,” says Harry somberly, hoisting the buck’s hide better into his arms. First-Slayer he might be, but he must still carry his load. “To honour his warrior spirit.”

The hunters nicker in approval.

Amí, who is not a hunter, but an expert in weaving with grass, kneels so she may hug him upon his return. “I’m proud of you,” she tells him, and Harry’s eyes widen.That means more to him than anything else. “You did well.”

He hugs her back, smearing blood and sweat across her back. She bears it with satisfaction.

Harry gets to take part in the curing of the buck’s hide, which starts the moment they return. And then, that night, he is painted in a hunter’s colours by the fire. It is nothing final, only a formality, but Fris clutches at his hand as he’s painted, whispering his gratitude again.

“What would you have done,” asks Bronislaw, when the mud and paint is drying and Harry sips his honeyed mead, “if the arrow missed?”

Harry weighs his answer carefully. “I would have jumped on his back with my knife.”

Bronislaw looks severely disappointed. “That would have been a reckless move.”

“I know,” says Harry, because he does. “But Fris is of the herd.”

“So he is,” says Bronislaw softly, and bows their heavy head.

Winter comes and goes. Harry grows and learns and makes his deer-buck knife, and his elders nod in approval when he shows it to them. It isn’t his first craft from wood and bone - he has made bowls and handles and spoons and spears before - but it has double meaning, now, and is his best work so far.

“You have earned your first braid,” says Elek the Wise, after appraising the work, and Harry’s heart nearly beats out of his chest. He thought he would never earn a braid - Sanne and Huddar haven’t yet, despite their bravery and cunning. “What will you call the blade?”

Harry weighs the knife in his palm - the solid handle, carved with vines, and the leather strings wound tight about the guard, the blade filed thin and sharp and strong. He thinks of the deer buck that had raged, and thundered, and his dying breath.

“Mighty,” he says, and then repeats it in Kentauroi. “Buvís.”

“A righteous braid you shall have,” says Elek the Wise, and inclines his head. “Who do you wish to braid it?”

Harry thinks on it. Had he been younger, he would have asked for amí - had he been older, he might have asked for Bronislaw, or perhaps Calypso, who is their most talented carver.

“Fris,” he says. “I would like Fris to braid it.”

It’s a great respect, to be asked to braid someone’s first - and Fris has given Harry so much, such infinite pools of patience and knowledge and love, not to mention the chance of making the knife at all.

“So mote it be,” says Bronislaw, eyes glimmering.

*

Spring swells into harmony with summer. Harry refines his climbing techniques and comes along on more hunts, and carves more wood, and gifts Sanne with a bowl for mixing colours for her dyes. He watches the sun rise and fall as Fris grows more distant; as Plahm and Tustur begin to get unruly with impatience for their own growth spurt. Sometimes, late at night, he crawls out from under his covers and scales the trees, clinging to the utmost branch and watching the stars, reading his history in them.

Harry Potter, they sing, Harry Potter, Harry James, James Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived.

Mars grows brighter and brighter, swelling in his nightmares until it pops.

By June, Fris has finished his tenling year and braids allium flowers into his tail. Harry claps and bends his knee and neck like all the others, and is proud and scared in equal measure. He has grown so tall.

At least he still has not received his Outer Name. That will come in his tenth year - the same year as Harry’s.

*

“I don’t know how much I can talk this year, Greenie,” says Charlie apologetically. “I’ve got my O.W.Ls.”

Harry carefully schools his dismay the way he has been taught and only nods somberly. “You are in fifth year already?”

“Yeah. How old are you, now?”

“Eight,” says Harry. “Have you heard from the Dragon Reserve yet?”

Charlie shrugs haphazardly and scratches his neck. “Said I’m way too young… gotta get my O.W.Ls at least before I can get an apprenticeship. But they said, if I get an O in Care, I can go interview with them next summer.”

Harry nods. “Those are good news. You might yet get the career you dream of.”

“Oh, that’d be wonderful, Greenie. How’s your carving coming along? Any new braids, yet?”

Harry levels him with a look.

Charlie goes red in the face instantly. “Shit, I’m not supposed to ask that, am I? Sorry. Er…”

“No new braids,” says Harry, because he likes Charlie and knows he meant nothing of it. “I will not receive that honour with every knife or tool I carve. Only those that matter.”

Charlie chews his lip as he thinks about it, then nods. “I guess that makes sense. Thanks for explaining.”

“You’re pretty good for a human,” says Harry. He doesn’t say, I hope you want to still be my friend, when you know who I am.

*

He still isn’t sure what the plan is for when he leaves the Forest, and the lingering thought of Charlie one day knowing who he is makes him wonder more than usual. For a while he considers asking the Wise Ones, or even apá, but then his hand falls to Buvís in his belt, and he goes for the river, instead.

*

“Harry?”

It’s Mint, the older lucky twin. They’re a patient one, deemed for slow words and wise thoughts, and it shows in how they have yet to leave their yearling phase.

“Mint,” Harry greets, opening his eyes to face them. “Is something the matter?”

Mint shakes their head, a little nervous twitch as they stagger closer. They don’t have the certainty of a foal yet. “What are you doing?”

“Meditating,” says Harry, smiling kindly. “I must speak with the essence to seek answers, and the river hears me the easiest.”

Mint eyes the river for a while. “It doesn’t hear me.”

“You are not yet a foal,” says Harry patiently, as Mint staggers closer to him. “Mind the pebbles, yearling, lest you fall.” He nods when they heed his warning. “Nature speaks to every centaur differently. Your littermate, Sanne, speaks mostly with the wind. Huddar hears the mountains clearly.” He gestures to the rushing water. “And I have an ally in the river streams.” At a second thought, he cocks his head and smiles. “As well as the serpents of the earth and air, though that is a different thing.”

Mint sits quiet for a long time yet again. It is a centaur trait, to take time to ensure one’s thoughts are sorted through before one acts. 

Then they say, “what answers do you seek?”

Harry eyes them. The river clucks. “I will have to leave the herd within three years,” he says. “And I must know, then, how to act, and what to say. I have an ally among the humans who might help, if he knew, but he does not.”

Mint nods slowly, but they’re frowning. “Why don’t you ask the Wise Ones?”

“Because I am eight,” says Harry. “And foals are expected to try and learn things on their own, first. If the river confuses me, I will ask the Wise Ones, too.”

Strictly speaking, Harry isn’t expected to answer every question a yearling asks - the yearling year is meant for exploration and familiarisation, reading and writing, not learning the greater things. But Mint is nearly finished, and their sister has already become a foal, and Harry knows what it feels like, when your friends are different from you.

Mint clearly feels left out, too, for the next thing they ask is, “why are the Wise Ones wise?”

Harry thinks on it for a moment, ensuring he tells Mint the right things. It wouldn’t do at all if he spoke falsehoods. “The Wise Ones have seen many moons come and go,” he explains “They have learned to speak with all their senses, and listen with more, and they are one with the river, and the wind, and the mountains, and the serpents, and all else. Their experience means they know when to listen, and when to speak, and when to act.”

“And when to not?” asks Mint thoughtfully.

“And when to not,” Harry agrees.

Mint nods slowly. “May I listen to the river with you?” they ask, which is very respectful, especially from a yearling to a foal. Harry honours the respectful request by giving it honest consideration.

“You may,” he says, and leans forward to listen.

And so he listens.

And the river speaks, and the wind hums, and the ancient trees with roots that tumble far below, far further than Harry knows, whisper.

Eventually, he sits back.

Mint tilts their head. “What did the river say?”

“It speaks of honesty,” says Harry softly. “And acceptance, and goodwill. What do you think that means?”

Mint furrows their brow and thinks very, very hard before they say, “I think the river says you should speak with your ally.”

“I think so, too,” says Harry, and decides to take it to his elders.

*

It takes the Wise Ones naught but a week to discuss Harry’s suggestion and suspicions, which makes him swell with pride. That they would take him so seriously, that they would weigh his input so heavily… he had expected the deliberation would take months, if not upwards of years, and ultimately end in rejection.

But it doesn’t.

The Wise Ones agree. When the time is right, Charlie Weasley will have to know.

*

The grass rustles. Harry pauses his whittling to eye it warily; grass rarely rustles entirely on its own, even here, in the Great Forest.

His caution is rewarded only a few moments later, when he hears, “big prey… hunt prey…”

Harry narrows his eyes. And, yes - there - a flash of something brown and beige amidst the leaves… heading his way. “Please do not bite me,” he says, tucking his feet onto the rock he sits on as he puts aside his knife.

The snake pauses. Harry’s understanding of snakes - Parseltongue, Charlie has eagerly informed him - goes above and beyond the usual centaur understanding of nature and beasts. It isn’t born from practice or patience; it’s inherent, and a source of pride for both Harry and his herd. “You speak?” says the snake, and lifts its head from the ground to face him. Harry eyes it with interest; it’s neither a grass snake nor an adder. “You speak with a snake tongue?”

“Serpent’s tongue,” Harry corrects - not unkindly. Snakes are as prideful as centaurs. “It is a grand gift. I honour this meeting.”

The snake bobs in the air before it lowers itself unto the ground and comes near. “What is your name, serpent tongue?”

It isn’t the first time a snake has made this mistake, so Harry smiles patiently. “It is rude to ask a centaur’s name.”

A cloven tongue flits out to taste the air. “You have me fooled,” the snake says. “I thought you a two-leg.”

“A human,” Harry says. “I have a human body, but a centaur’s spirit.”

The snake hisses, noncommittal. “What must I do to earn your name, centaur who speaks?”

Harry giggles. “Nothing,” he says. “I will tell you when I feel like it.” He pauses. “My name is Harry.”

Clearly pleased, the snake ascends the rock to ascertain him. “I am Ssshashhn.”

Harry translates this to Sash, for convenience. “I may have to refer to you as Sash,” he tells the snake. “For the convenience for those who do not speak.”

It - or, she, Harry thinks - bobs her head at this.

“Are you hungry?” Harry asks. “Do you need help with hunting?”

She does the equivalent of scoffing. “I need no help. I am hungry, yes, but patient. I was taken from warmer woods than these.”

“I see,” says Harry. “Would you tell me mor -”

The thundering of hooves cuts him off. “Harry! Harry!”

He jumps to his feet. “Tustur,” he says, eyeing the way her short hair has become unruly, how her chest heaves as she cuts through the undergrowth. She hasn’t yet become a tenling - Plahm has - but it can’t be long now. “What news?”

“It’s Bronislaw!”

Harry runs. He isn’t - will never be - as fast as his herd, but he knows these woods, and he knows himself, and he goes flying over rocks and logs, bounding over brooks, as he trembles with adrenaline.

Tustur takes him to the village-camp, and from there, to Bronislaw’s hut. Kirrily, their healer, speaks quietly with Elek the Wise outside. Around the firepit - which isn’t lit, this early in fall - sits nearly the entire herd. None of them speak.

They look up when Harry and Tustur comes tumbling through the wards. Sanne points quietly to Bronislaw’s hut.

Harry sees them even from here, lain down on their pelts and furs, their torso resting on a straw-filled pillow. “Bronislaw,” he says softly.

Kirrily gestures him inside. “They asked for you,” she mutters. “The stars are calling them.”

Harry’s chest tightens. “Not already,” he begs. “Not already, Kirrily.”

She looks away, baring her neck. She needs not say another word.

Harry goes to Bronislaw, sinking to his knees beside them. Their dark eyes, wrinkled with silver, flutter open to look at him. “Harry,” they say, and their voice is weak. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Harry whispers.

“Answering my summons,” Bronislaw mutters. They reach for his hand - he rushes to take theirs, holding it hard between his. “I wanted to tell you, before I go…”

Harry interrupts, “you cannot go, Bronislaw, not like this! You deserve a warrior’s fall, a - a - ”

“I am pleased to go like this, child,” says Bronislaw sternly. Their fingers - whose grip had been so strong only yesterday, when they handed Harry a water sack - tighten weakly around Harry’s. “Now, listen. Come.”

Blinking away tears, trying desperately to pay utmost attention, Harry leans close.

“Bupót,” says Bronislaw.

Harry chokes back a sob. “Please,” he whispers. “You cannot go. Not after that, not after giving me such honour…”

Bronislaw - Bupót - chuckles breathily. “I want you to remember me as who I always was, child. You deserve the honour. There is much you have taught me.”

“No,” Harry croaks. He swells and aches and whimpers at the sheer pain of it; a foal like him is not meant to teach a Wise One like Bupót, and for Bupót to admit he has is both a vast honour for Harry, and a great hit to their pride. “I have nothing to give in return.”

“I need nothing,” says Bupót. “I wish to see you succeed. That is all I need. And I will watch you, Harry, my child, from the stars and all beyond. Will you fight for me?”

Harry sniffles. He’s crying now, despite his valiant attempts to keep the tears at bay. “I will,” he says. “I swear it, I will.”

Bupót nods tiredly. “Good.” They lay their head down onto the pillow, exhaling hard. “I am not long for this world. Get Bálint. I want my littermate. My last…”

Shaking, Harry stands and makes for the cloth-covered entrance. Every head lifts to look at him when he exits. “Bálint? It’s time.”

Magorian and Stella join Bálint, as the leader and the star-guide. Harry is about to leave the crowded hut when Bupót holds him back. “Harry,” they whisper. “Harry, Child of the Stars. Remember what I said about the river stones. Remember it.”

Harry doesn’t dare leave after that, even as Bupót’s gaze drifts, as they say their goodbyes to their littermate and friends, as they bless Magorian with her continued leadership.

He doesn’t leave until after Bronislaw, Bupót, has drawn their final breath and stilled at last.

*

Harry doesn’t sleep. He watches the stars from within the canopy. Usually he doesn’t climb much in the dark, but tonight he needs to be closer to the distant lights. Absently, he rubs at his wrist, where a dark spot has appeared. It’s proof of Bronislaw’s love for him, and many others bear it, too - their littermate, and Elek, and Stella, and Tustur, and Fris, and Sanne, and Rónán, and Calypso, and Kirrily. There might be more, but Harry hasn’t pried. It’s rude.

Bronislaw’s body has been tended to by Bálint. As their closest friend, it was their duty and honour to perform. Tomorrow, their remains will be buried, and a tree shall sprout from their resting place. Harry wonders what seed Bálint chose, and if magic will grant their request for hasty growth.

He wonders what part of Bronislaw Bálint chose to keep, too. Bronislaw was always so good at speaking, surely they must have taken their tongue? Though they were quick, also, so their hooves might be hollowed out and used for storage… but their head of hair was gloriously silver, too, so Bálint might want to braid or weave something from it. Harry doesn’t know. He shan’t pry for that, either.

“Harry-speaker?”

Harry lowers his eyes, blinking the stars away. The snake from before - Sash - is curled about the branch, closer to the trunk. “Hello,” says Harry, and wipes at his tears. “Did you find food?”

“I did,” says Sash. She watches him with dark eyes. “Why do you smell of grief-water?”

Tears, Harry realises. He didn’t know snakes had a word for it. “Today, I lost my…” He trails off, searching for a word. “...the one who taught me to hunt. They were dear to me. They were my…” He trails off again. There is no word for ‘respected elder’. “They were my friend, and wise and old.”

“That is a loss,” says Sash, after a pause. She coils across the branch and onto Harry’s lap, where she coils about his torso. “You will use it for strength.”

“I will try,” says Harry, and presses his fingers into the splotch of darkness on his wrist. “The stars have them now. They will be safe.”

Sash noses at his jaw. “Yes.”

And Harry is not a Wise One, but he feels secure enough in this knowledge that he takes a shaky breath and utters, “so mote it be.”

*

Sash doesn’t leave, after that. She tells Harry he is far more interesting than any other creature in the forest, and he is warm and willing to fight for her, to boot. “I am not a pet,” she tells him - she had escaped from an apothecary in Hogsmeade, apparently. “But it is safer with you. You are not my owner. You are my hunt-mate.”

Harry is more than alright with this arrangement. Both Plahm and Tustur have become tenlings, now, and within a year they’ll be grown. Sanne and Huddar are busy trying to court Mint, who is ignoring them both, and Harry isn’t close with any other of his littermates. He is in dire need of more hunt-mates.

*

Plahm becomes grown during late spring; it’s just in time for the herd to buckle under an illness. Kirrily and Fris work tirelessly to care for their sick, and the village-camp suffers - both from the illness, and the grief of having to miss out on the Meeting of the Herds. It’s only held every seventh year, and Harry cannot recall the one he attended last - he was only two, then, after all - but he, like all his herd, shut their mouths and do not complain.

The healthy carry water and herbs. They hunt, and prepare food, and hope to all the stars they will not succumb.

Fris and Tustur lose both their amí and apá, Calypso and Ferdia. Rónán and Bane fall severely ill, but recover. Mint’s younger twin succumbs to the soil; Elek the Wise, as well as Huddar, get a rasping cough that refuses to leave no matter what.

Harry is not affected. He spends a lot of time hunting that summer - deer and rabbits and fowl and fish - and, with Sash’s help, he becomes the sole provider of meat. It means the rest can spend more time healing, or helping, or cooking… and if he sleeps less, and if his nails are stained with blood, and if he only spends long enough at camp to skin his catch and feed the liver to his sick apá before he returns to hunt, then no one mentions.

Mid-July they receive a visit from the alphas of the werewolf pack of the forest, who had heard of the illness and come to offer medicinal help. There is no love lost between the werewolves and the centaurs of the Great Forest, but there is no hate, either. It is a wary alliance they have; to ensure goodwill and balance, the herd offers to trade for the medicine.

The werewolves accept. They do not give Harry a second look. Apparently a human child covered in mud and grime and dried blood, with twigs and leaves in his unkempt hair, is not that strange a sight.

He supposes it isn’t, for them.

It is for amí, though.

“Sit still,” she tells Harry, cheeks sunken from her recent bout of sickness. She had been lucky, though, and recovered. “You’re not caring for your hair.”

“Amí!” Harry complains, trying to bat her hands away. “I’m too old for you to touch my hair!”

She snorts. “Pah! Too old! You are my son, you will never be too old. Especially when you show no care! Have you no pride?”

It’s a low blow, but it does make him listen. He lets her clean his hair, and brush it, and even tie it out of his face. But when she tries to undo his braid, he moves away. “That is for Fris,” he says to her, “and Fris only.”

“Very well,” she says, and levels him with a weighted gaze - but she does let it go.

The sickness passes from them all eventually. They mourn their dead and celebrate their living, and as summer turns to fall, Harry turns ten.

Fris turned ten just two weeks prior, so when the full moon rolls around, Harry expects the naming ceremony. It’s Stella, of course, who hosts it - painted in pale clay and with her hair unbound, flanking the firepit as the herd gathers around to hear. The atmosphere is tense and expectant. They’ve lost many to the sickness: they’re eager to welcome another full-fledged grown into their ranks.

The growns are humming, deep and low in their throats. The foals don’t join; their voices would disrupt the harmony of the ceremony.

“Fris of Centauros, Ferdia, Fris of Magnesia, Calypso, Fris of Magic.” Stella places a hand on the blade about her waist, the only item she carries tonight, and it gleams in the firelight. “Step forth.”

Fris, in all his golden-grown glory, rises from the seated crowd and stands before her. “Òntie, Stella - víbri, pès,” he greets, ensuring both her titles of teacher and healer are spoken into power. “I hear you.”

“You know to keep our secrets, and you vow to keep them safe. Bare yourself to the stars.”

Fris tilts his head back, his pale throat bright against the night.

With one swift flash, Stella spills his blood. The cut is so shallow it will not scar, but the blood trickles down his breast nonetheless. She gathers it in a hoof-bowl, lifts it to the heavens, and drinks.

Harry holds his breath, enraptured.

“The stars find you worthy,” says Stella, and a relieved exhale runs through the crowd even as the humming continues. Fris lowers his head and kneels unto the ground.  “You were named Fris for flower blooms upon your birth. Be born again - and rise! Firenze.”

The humming rises and swells as the herd takes Fris’ new name into their mouths: “Firenze!”

Firenze stands, and bows, and returns to his seat. It is a good name. It is a fitting name; Harry catches Firenze’s eye and smiles, relieved when Firenze smiles back. The chasm between them has never felt this vast; he’s glad he’s not the only one who tries to cross it.

Stella lifts her voice and says, “Harry of Centauros, Tarek, James, Harry of Magnesia, Sasha, Lily, Harry of Magic. Step forth.”

Harry stops breathing.

No one told him he would be receiving a name. Ever. He already has an Outer Name, doesn’t he?

Sanne nudges him in the ribs.

He staggers to his feet. The fire is hot against his sides and exposed skin as he approaches Stella. “Òntie, Stella,” he breathes. And then, louder: “Víbri, pès! I - I hear you.”

She watches him and does not smile. Had he not been raised among them, he would have been nervous, but he knows what this expression means: focus. Determination. “You have learned to keep our secrets,” she says, and Harry notices the difference immediately. “You have learned to keep them safe. Bare yourself to the stars.”

Harry tilts his head back, eyes on the distant lights above, on the full moon creeping over the treetops, the crackling ashes that fly from the fire. Stella must kneel to reach him. And then - slash.

It’s a clean cut. It barely stings.

Harry holds his breath as Stella fills her bowl with his blood and lifts it to her mouth. What will they do, if the stars don’t accept him? Surely, Stella would not be doing this if she thought they wouldn’t… but will they? 

It seems to take her forever to drink. Harry wonders if his blood tastes different from Firenze’s.

Stella lowers the cup. “The stars,” she says, and meets Harry’s gaze, “find you worthy.” His breath explodes from him as he sinks onto the ground. The bloodied grass sticks to his knees. “You were named Harry for ruler of land upon your birth. Be born again - and rise among us! Hasnávid.”

Harry’s eyes water with pride and shock and love. He hears it in the voices of his herd, too, when he rises and they echo Stella: “Hasnávid!”

*

Tustur becomes grown mid-winter, much to Firenze’s delight. They are the last of their direct family: Rónán and Bane were the brothers of their amí and apá, respectively, but it isn’t the same as a littermate or child or parent. It’s later this year, after they fill ten, that they will receive their very own Outer Names.

Harry has carved his Inner Name into his very bones. He has not stopped repeating it to himself, in whispers and mutterings, whenever no one is around to hear - he still cannot believe it. He truly is a centaur, now, and none can take it from him.

Winter becomes spring, and as spring lumbers onward toward summer, Harry goes to meet his human ally. It’s Charlie’s last year at Hogwarts, and he is old enough now to be an adult in wizarding eyes. 

Charlie probably assumes this will be one of their last meetings. He will be leaving to study dragons in Romania over the summer, after all - and Harry is still a foal.

No, he reminds himself. He is not a foal. The herd had agreed: he has risen to the strength and maturity of a tenling.

Still - a tenling has no business leaving the herd to be a wizard’s companion, and Charlie knows this. He doesn’t really seem ready to say farewell, though, when he meets up at their regular time in Hagrid’s backyard, in the patches where the sun meets the shadows of the forest. “Greenie!” he greets, picking up speed when he notices Harry waiting for him. “How are you, mate?”

“I am good, Charlie.” He hasn’t told Charlie about his new name. It’s not a Secret of the Stars, that centaurs have two names, but it’s still a secret Harry is hesitant to spill. “Would you walk with me?”

“Sure thing!” says Charlie, and joins him without a second thought. “The twins haven’t been causing too much trouble, have they? I overheard they’d have to be escorted back to the castle by one of you guys…”

Oh, Harry remembers that. It’d been only a month ago, and it was amí who had stumbled over the young humans while foraging for fresh produce for her weaving. She’d been very amused when she returned to the camp-village. “No,” he says, “no trouble. Amí found them - she is not a diplomat-warrior and doesn’t deal with humans, but they are foals. We do not harm foals.”

Charlie hums, hands in his pockets as they walk. “That’s true. Good on you, for that. Honourable.”

Harry laughs. It’s such a baffling thing to say, that not harming young is honourable and not expected. “I will never understand wizards,” he says.

They walk some time in silence, enjoying each other’s company, before they come to the clearing where Rónán and Magorian are waiting.

“Charlie Weasley,” says Harry, and comes to a stop. Charlie stops, too, stiffening at the tone of Harry’s voice. “You have been naught but a friend of friends to me since I met you. You have kept my secrets and trusted my word, and in turn, honoured my trust. If you will it, I shall share with you the secret of my herd.”

Charlie’s eyes have gone very wide. “Is this… is this one of the big secrets?” he whispers, leaning closer as though the trees might rat them out. It’s a good decision: these trees would rat them out.

“No,” says Harry, amused. He hasn’t ever told Charlie about the Secrets of the Stars or the Secrets of Magic, but he has referred to secrets as ‘big’ or ‘small’ – big meaning he will never under any circumstances share them, and small meaning he technically can, but would prefer not to. “This is not one of the big secrets, but it is… a big secret.”

Charlie’s brow furrows. “And would it… will it harm either of us, if I hear it?”

“No,” says Harry again, smiling not out of amusement, but fondness. “It would actually be rather beneficial for me.”

“Then… then I will it,” says Charlie, and nods, once. “If it’ll help you, I’ll hear it.”

How Charlie Weasley was sorted Gryffindor and not Hufflepuff, Harry has no idea.

He beckons Rónán and Magorian from the shadows, saying, “Charlie – this is Rónán, who you have met before, and Magorian, our leader. And I…” He touches a hand to the amulet about his neck, asking the glamour to cease its functioning. Nothing changes as far as Harry is concerned, but Charlie’s eyes flick to the side before widening further. “…am Harry Potter.”

Charlie’s jaw drops. “You’re what?”

Harry brushes aside the lock of hair that usually covers his jagged lightning scar. “Harry Potter.”

“Blimey,” says Charlie, and sits down. “Harry Potter? Greenie? This is where you’ve been… all this time?”

“More or less,” says Harry.

“Harry Potter,” says Charlie again, sounding distant. “Raised by centaurs. No…” He frowns, focusing back on Harry. “Not raised by centaurs. You are a centaur! And – bloody hell, Harry Potter is a centaur Parselmouth… why are you telling me this? Not that – not that I’m not honoured! But…”

It’s Magorian who speaks next. “Harry requires an ally and an escort to Diagon Alley once he receives his Hogwarts letter. We cannot let the wizards know he is one of us before he has been accepted by the magic of Hogwarts, or blood will be shed.”

Charlie looks from Magorian, to Harry, to Rónán, and back to Harry. “I… well, blimey, Greenie – Harry.” He chuckles a bit breathlessly. “You’re my friend. ‘Course I’ll do it. I’ll make it work.” He looks thoughtful, then nods determinedly. “Yeah. Yeah; I’ll make it work.”

*

Harry’s letter comes on his eleventh, from a quite confused Hogwarts owl. He takes it, thanks her, skims the letter, and writes his acceptance on some parchment he’d gotten from Hagrid earlier the same month.

Next he does is convince a wild owl to take a letter to Charlie.

*

Diagon Alley is large. Harry has heard a lot about it from both Charlie and Remus Lupin, but it’s no less fascinating just for that. There is tight-bound magic everywhere, wixen bustling about - owls hooting, bargaining, stalls advertising with their voices. It’s a lot of sound, and a lot of sight, for someone who has lived his whole life in a forest.

“We should head for Gringotts first,” says Charlie, who’s walking right beside him. “D’you reckon we can get into the Potter vaults? I can sponsor some of your stuff, but some of it is really expensive…”

“We will try,” says Harry. “You are not expected to pay for my things, Charlie. Come.”

*

“Charlie Weasley and Harry Potter. We, uh, we’d like to visit the Potter vaults, if possible.”

The teller gives them an unimpressed look. Harry supposes they might have many visitors attempting to fool them. “And does Mr. Potter have his key?”

“Ah, fuck,” Charlie mutters. “A key, Harry? Do you have one?” When Harry shakes his head, Charlie asks of the goblin, “who’d have that key?”

“That would be Mr. Potter’s magical guardian.”

Charlie looks rather out of his depths.

Harry clears his throat. “Excuse me, ma’am?” When the goblin turns to him, he smiles politely and bobs his head, saying, “may the stars be in your favour,” in Kentauroi - he doesn’t know the proper goblin greeting, but a centaur one can’t hurt - before asking, “would you be so kind and define a magical guardian for me?”

She watches him with thin eyes before stating, “for those who have no magical parents, a magical guardian is their representative in the magical world.”

“I see,” says Harry, nodding. “How is a magical guardian decided?”

“Usually by paperwork,” says the goblin. “However, if no paperwork is signed, or no non-magical guardians are available to sign, magic will appoint someone who has the child’s best interests at heart.”

Harry nods slowly. “I see. Who is my magical guardian?”

The goblin eyes Harry for a long time. He’s used to being watched while others think, and so it doesn’t bother him, but Charlie shifts nervously beside him. “Come with me, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley.”

*

They’re taken to an enclosed room where a new goblin comes to meet them. He introduces himself as Harry’s account manager and requests a blood sample to confirm Harry’s identity, which Harry naturally gives. Once it’s confirmed he truly is who he says he is, Griphook sits behind the desk and gives them both a hard look. “I understand you are unaware of who your magical guardian is.”

Harry and Charlie nod.

“I trust you have been informed of what a magical guardian is? Very well. James and Lily Potter signed the documents for your magical guardian before they passed - they entrusted the role to Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.”

Harry’s blood runs cold. “Him?” he gasps, tilting his chin in the way that portrays anger. “I apologise, Mister Griphook, but that man does not have my best interests at heart.”

Charlie frowns. “Why’d you say that?”

“On the night my parents were murdered,” says Harry coolly, “I was taken from the rubble, placed in a wicker basket with only a blanket for protection, and left on the porch of a muggle family. At night - in November.”

“What?” says Charlie, jaw practically on the table in his shock. “Why would he do that? He said - he said he put you somewhere safe.”

Harry turns his eyes toward him. This is a gaze Charlie previously has called ‘unnerving’ - but Harry doesn’t care, right now. “According to the stars, I would not have had a safe life there.”

Griphook lifts an eyebrow. “According to the stars, Mr. Potter?”

Harry bows his head. “I was raised by the centaurs in the Great Forest, Mister Griphook. I am one of theirs.”

“Ah!” Griphook stands at once. “May the stars be in your favour.”

“And yours,” says Harry, surprised. “You speak Kentauroi?”

Griphook flashes him a grin with more teeth than lips. “Only enough to get by. Am I right, then, to assume magic would appoint a non-wizard as your magical guardian?”

Harry nods. “My amí or apá, most likely.”

There is a wicked gleam in Griphook’s eyes. “Excellent. Then, Mr. Potter, there is a loophole.” He returns to his seat, explaining, “muggleborns do at times come to request a new magical guardian. As long as they are minors, we are unable to change the guardian to whoever they wish and must instead leave it in the hands of magic… however, according to wizarding law, a magical child’s guardian must be a wixen.”

Harry frowns, tilting his head as he thinks on it. “If magic chooses amí or apá, it will be annulled by wizard standards.”

“Correct,” says Griphook. “After which we are able to sign new documents, with Gringotts representatives as witness and magic as the bond. You will, however, need to sign the magical guardian status over to a wixen you trust.”

“Charlie,” says Harry at once, “will you be my magical guardian?”

*

They leave Gringotts an hour later, pockets full of gold and with a newly signed contract sealed in their respective vaults. “This might make your work in Romania hard,” Harry says apologetically.

Charlie waves a dismissive hand. “There’s a clause in my contract about this. Parents and guardians are allowed a certain amount of leave to tend to their wards. Sure, I didn’t think it’d apply to me, but still… where do you wanna shop first?”

*

Harry gets everything on his list, of course, though he invests in some extra sets of robes and clothes - unfortunately, he can’t run around in Hogwarts with only a loincloth and belt - as well as a trunk with two compartments, one of which is as large as a room. When Charlie muses that would be practical for his dragon-related travels, Harry gets him one, as well.

He gets books on defensive spells and protective wards, as well as Dark Arts and magical creatures and beasts and beings, and some snacks for Sash from the pet store. From Ollivander he receives a stunning wand of beech and vine, whose horned serpent horn core sings when placed in Harry’s hands. The price is nearly double that of the regular wand, but from the wondrous lightshow Harry produces with its assistance, it’s undoubtedly worth it.

*

The last of summer goes by in a haze. Harry learns his first few spells, making proper friends with Mint and strengthening the bonds he already has with Sanne and Huddar as they watch, intrigued. 

Harry, as a tenling, has a right to his own hut. He hasn’t claimed this right yet, but he knows he won’t be allowed to sleep with amí and apá for much longer: amí is pregnant and will need all the space she can to care for both herself and the coming foal. Still, Harry’s last night before he leaves for the Hogwarts Express is spent with her and apá, two walls of safety on either side of him as he strokes a hand down Sash’s spine.

“I’m worried,” he admits quietly. “I’m worried I will forget the truth. That I will grow deaf to nature’s voice, and to the stars, and that I will never become strong enough.”

Apá brushes a hand down Harry’s hair. It is such a gentle, comforting motion Harry lets him get away with it. “You are young, yet,” apá mutters. “Eleven for a wizard is merely a foal. And we know…”

The silence grows thick.

Harry lowers his head against amís flank. “We know I must die,” he whispers. “To save the world from his destruction. I must die, and he must kill me, and he must die, and I must kill him.”

Amí shifts her weight, muscles rippling beneath his cheek. “And yet, they speak of your greatness, Hasnávid.”

“We do what we can,” says apá, “with what we have been given. You will become strong enough, my son. I know you will.”

“Father,” Harry breathes, and apá nickers. “What if someone tries to steal our secrets from me?”

Amís hand joins apás on Harry’s hair. “We ask magic to stay your tongue, my son. It knows our secrets; it will keep them for you.”

Harry closes his eyes. “Mother. Yes.”

Those words - son, father, mother - are the truest form for acceptance any centaur can show. It is, essentially, saying, “I see our lineage and accept you as mine”.

It is the first time Harry has used them. It is the first time he hears amí or apá use them, too.

“You will do well,” says amí quietly, leaning down to brush her lips over Harry’s forehead. “The stars may yet change. And if they do not…” She takes his hand and squeezes. “We stand with you.”

*

If Diagon Alley had been much on Harry’s finely-tuned senses, Platform Nine and Three Quarters is an utter onslaught. Sounds and sights and smells galore - the steam and smoke from the train mingles with crowing owls and chattering wixen and children crying. Harry makes quick work of thanking Charlie for the Apparation, claps his hands over his ears, and boards.

He finds a compartment soon enough - thankfully empty - and takes his seat. His heart beats and his guts churn, and churn, and churn. Swallowing thickly, he tries to adjust his tie - tries to make the clothes less restricting, somehow. It’s weird to have something pressed against him at all times, but he understands the need to conform. Harry has conformed his whole life; he can do it a bit longer.

At least there is silence in the compartment. Not the silence of the forest, mind, but far from the roar outside.

It doesn’t last long before a human child - his age, Harry thinks forlornly - with a remarkably familiar head full of hair pokes his face inside. “Oy,” he says, smiling nervously. “Can I sit here? Everywhere else is just full of older years…”

Harry gestures for the open seat. “Feel free.”

The boy beams and takes the offered seat, then holds out his hand. Harry considers it for a moment, then decides to do it the centaur way and clasps his arm. Though surprised, the boy adapts and clasps Harry’s in return. “I’m Ron. Ron Weasley.”

Oh. That explains the familiarity.

“I’m Harry,” says Harry. He supposes he ought to give his last name, too. “Harry Potter.”

Ron’s eyes go wide. “Are you - I mean, are you really?”

“Yes.” Harry tucks his bangs aside to show the scar. “Though I am no one special just for that. I would prefer to have a reputation for something I did - something I deserve.” He shrugs a little at Ron’s gobsmacked expression. “I have not done anything in particular yet. My… fame… is not deserved. Would you want to be famous for something someone else did?”

Ron’s nose wrinkles. “I guess not. Ugh, I think I get what you mean - I’ve got five older brothers, you know? They’ve all gone to Hogwarts. All Gryffindors. All anyone’s gonna see when they look at me is them.”

Harry nods. “You understand, then. I suppose my reputation can give me benefits, but there are many who dislike me, too.”

“Who’d dislike you?” asks Ron, scandalised.

“I believe a good ten percent of the population are purebloods,” Harry muses, thinking back on his lessons with Remus Lupin. “And half of you are Dark families, most of which were loyal to the Dark Lord during the war. Those are… prominent enemies to have.”

Ron eyes him for a long moment. “You’ve got big words there, mate.”

Harry grins. Charlie had said nearly the exact same thing to him, five years prior. “It’s the way I was raised, think nothing of it.”

“If you say so,” says Ron. “How were you raised, actually? The books don’t really say…”

“Because they don’t know,” says Harry, and steels himself. “I was raised by centaurs.”

Ron blinks.

“I consider myself one of them,” Harry continues. “I would appreciate it if you respected that.”

“R - right,” says Ron meekly. “Er… centaurs. You’re serious? How’d that happen?”

So Harry tells him the story of how he’d been abandoned on that muggle doorstep, how magic had taken offence, how the herd had taken him in as one of theirs. “I fully expect wixen to say they should have returned me to your world,” Harry explains, while Ron grows to look more and more conflicted. “But I have had a happy childhood. Is that not what matters most?”

“Course,” says Ron immediately. “Yeah, mate, it does. Just…” He chuckles. “Just, er, a lot to take in, y’know? Charlie - that’s my brother - he’s been friends with a centaur from… well, I guess it’d be your herd, actually - he says you’re very secretive… you’ll let me know, yeah? If I say something I shouldn’t?”

Harry smiles. “I know Charlie well.”

It takes Ron five whole seconds to connect the dots. “Merlin’s beard!” he exclaims. “You’re -”

“Greenie,” says Harry, “yes. And now that we both know who we are…” He holds out his hand again. “Charlie has told me as much about you as he has about me, and I would like another ally. What say you, Ronald Weasley?”

Harry fully expects him to say it’s a hasty decision and therefore decline. 

Instead, Ron grins and takes his hand. “I say yes, Harry Potter.”

*

“Excuse me?”

It’s the face of an utterly miserable boy who makes an appearance, followed swiftly by a girl with the mane of a lion. 

“Has either of you seen a toad?”

“No, sorry,” says Ron.

“A toad?” Harry repeats, and rises from his seat. “Where did you last see him?”

The miserable boy, with his round cheeks and wet eyes, says, “right here on the train… grandma’s gonna be so mad…”

“Worry not,” says Harry. “We will surely find him. What sort of toad is he?”

“Common toad,” says the boy, and wipes the tears from his face. “It’s… bufo bufo, in Latin.”

“Bufo Bufo,” Harry repeats thoughtfully. “You are lucky we are on a train and not a glade, lest we never find him - give me some minutes, and I will make an attempt.” He gestures for the newcomers to sit. “I am not very good at tracking, but I might be able to tell which direction to search. Please be quiet.”

He kicks his shoes off - odd things; he can’t feel the ground through them - and places a palm flat against the compartment wall. There is nothing living here, in the metals and the cloth, and that might make it easier… 

Had he been an experienced tracker, he would do this with far more ease, but without the aid of nature’s movements Harry has to resort to chanting. Only within his mind, of course, but he does it nonetheless - asking magic to aid him in his search.

There. His consciousness loosened from his body, just enough to spread outward and blanket parts of the train. He goes further than he ever has before - usually he gets overwhelmed immediately by all the living things about, but there are mostly insects and humans here. The movement of the train is disorienting, but the vacuum of the metals is easy to cling to.

Bufo Bufo, he tells himself, and tells his magic, as he pictures the common toad for his inner eye. 

There are four nearby, he’s fairly certain, and three of them are close to larger shapes - humans, surely. One, however, is…

Harry rises, eyes still closed, trailing the wall as he closes in. His magic guides him, wand warm in his pocket as he feels…

He opens his eyes; he stands in the hallway, close by a radiator and cracked-open window, Ron and the two others trailing behind him. “He’s close,” he murmurs, still as a stone as he scans their surroundings.

There, a twitch of movement, brown against beige, snug in the shadows of the radiator. Harry eyes the window, then the toad, shifting his weight - thank Centauros he kept his shoes off - before he lowers himself, slowly, into a crouch.

The toad seems none the wiser. He’s clearly used to humans; it only makes this easier.

Harry waits. Waits.

Lunges!

His fingers close around the toad, who croaks in distress, before he shoots upright and holds his catch out to the sniffling boy. “Here! It was not as difficult as I expected.”

The boy takes his toad, but he doesn’t look away from Harry. “I - er - th… thank you. Are you…? Are you Harry Potter?”

Harry’s hand shoots up to his forehead. Darn, his hair must’ve gone askew when he rose so swiftly… he hurriedly pats it back into place and smiles sheepishly. “Yes, but please do not mind that. Er… we ought to return to the compartment.”

They introduce themselves to each other on the way back. “I simply must know what spell that was,” says Hermione Granger, cheeks aglow with excitement. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“It was wicked,” says Ronald “call me Ron” Weasley, thumping Harry on the back like warriors-in-arms do. “Can you do that for me if I lose my rat, too?”

“Thank you,” says Neville Longbottom meekly, for the third time. “I… I really do appreciate it. He could’ve jumped out of the window!”

Harry takes it in stride. “It wasn’t a spell,” he says. “It was the art of tracking, and it takes a lot of practice… I’m still not very good at it. Certainly, I can try and help you with your rat, Ron. And yes, Neville, he could have.”

It leads to more questions from Hermione, especially when he explains he was raised by centaurs. She gets frustrated when he can’t answer all her questions, which leads to an impromptu history lesson in why centaurs need their secrets. Hermione gets very quiet and contemplative by the end of it.

Neville gets coaxed into discussing herbology when Harry asks. It’s very fascinating, hearing about plantlife discussed with such love and dedication from someone who wasn’t raised in a forest. “I would quite like to learn more,” Harry tells him. “Would you be willing to exchange tutoring in herbology for tutoring in listening? We would be able to strengthen each other considerably, I believe.”

“O - oh!” says Neville, bright red but smiling. “I - yeah, I mean - sure! If… if you think I have something to teach you…”

After a beat, Hermione giggles. “You’re sure to be a Ravenclaw with how much you want to learn!”

“Maybe,” says Harry, smiling. After a moment he corrects himself to say, “possibly.”

“You don’t think you’ll be a Ravenclaw?”

Harry takes a long moment to weigh his words. “I don’t know,” he eventually says. “But I shall trust the process to take me where I will do greatest.”

“That’s – that’s a very Slytherin thought,” says Neville, still smiling, albeit more nervously, now.

All three of them turn to give Harry a thoughtful look. Harry doesn’t mind; truthfully, he expects to be a Slytherin… though he won’t be displeased with any of the houses. He does trust the process.

“I can see it,” says Ron.

Hermione gapes at him. “And you’re – you’re alright with that? I mean – the Boy-Who-Lived… in Slytherin?”

Ron goes red in the face. “Well, I mean – it’s not like – ” He glances rapidly between Harry and Hermione. “I mean, he’s already said he wants to be famous for something he’s done.”

“He’s the Boy-Who-Lived!”

“And he’s right here,” says Harry drily. He opens his hands to gesture calmly as he speaks, presenting two fronts to the confused Hermione. “Yes, Hermione, I am the Boy-Who-Lived… but I want to be more than that. Do you understand? I am known for something I cannot even remember. It might not even be me who vanquished the Dark Lord – it might have been my parents. It might have been a fluke!” He shakes his head. “I will never understand wixen belief of inheritance.”

Neville frowns. “What do you mean, inheritance?”

“The deeds of the parents are the child’s weight to bear,” Harry explains. “It is rather ridiculous, really. Such things are not passed through blood.” He doesn’t bother looking at Ron when he says this, focusing instead on Neville and Hermione. “Wouldn’t you rather be known for you, than for your parents?”

Ron snorts, leaning back in his seat with a grin. “Definitely Slytherin.”

“Ron,” says Harry, giving him a tired look. “You are not helping.”

“Sorry. I’m just…” He makes a wobbly gesture with his hands. Or perhaps his hands are just shaking? “You’ve made me realize some real heavy stuff, mate. I’m a bit…”

Harry suggests, “elated?”

“Sure, whatever that means.”

“Ecstatically happy,” Hermione meekly supplies. “I mean, if that’s what you want to do… then… then I suppose Slytherin is a good way to… to do that. But… but hasn’t Slytherin always been full of evil wixen?”

The compartment falls quiet.

“It’s,” says Neville – clamping up when all three turn to look at him, but quickly finding his bravery again to continue. “It’s a… a house with usually Dark wixen, but… but that doesn’t mean they’re evil, I don’t think.”

Hermione frowns. “I suppose. What is it that makes a wixen Dark or Light, anyway?”

The long silence says enough about their knowledge on that particular subject.

Harry delightedly announces, “that’s our first research project, then!”

*

Conversations turn to lighter topics – subjects they’re excited to learn, favourite foods, pets and familiars – but it doesn’t last long before the door slides open and three boys pour in.

“Is it true?” says one of them, a tall – for a human – lanky boy with pale skin and paler hair, eyes on Harry. “They’re saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment. So it’s you, is it?”

Harry doesn’t answer at once, instead taking a moment to familiarize himself with the two other boys, as well. Both of them are thickset and burly, one with dark eyes and the other pale – the one with the pale eyes looks to be the stronger one, while the dark eyed has more fat on him, but Harry knows to not underestimate anyone for that. They eye him back, eyes bright with attention.

Returning his focus to the pale boy, Harry calmly states, “it is.”

“I’m Malfoy,” says the boy, sounding both proud and ignorant all at once. Harry can respect pride, but not when it comes with ignorance. “Draco Malfoy.” His gaze swings to Harry’s companions and ally, and a rather unattractive sneer mars his face. “Longbottom,” he greets. “Weasel. And…” He looks Hermione up and down. “I don’t recognize you at all. Half-blood?”

“Muggleborn,” says Hermione, tense.

Draco turns to Harry. “You’ll find, Potter, that – ”

Harry has had quite enough of him already, so he focuses his attention to Draco’s companions instead. “Pardon me, I did not catch your names?” He holds out a hand to the one with the dark eyes. “Harry Potter. Call me Harry.”

“Er,” says the dark eyed boy.

Draco gapes.

The boy takes Harry’s hand. He has a strong, firm grip. “Vincent Crabbe.”

Harry turns to the other boy and shakes his hand, too. “Gregory Goyle.”

Harry smiles pleasantly at both of them, then gestures to Hermione and Neville. “These are my companions, Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom. They are both quite clever, and Neville will be tutoring me in herbology.” Lastly, he inclines his head toward Ron, a more respectful gesture. “This is my ally, Ronald Weasley. I have never met someone so knowledgeable about Quidditch.”

There’s a beat.

Turning to Draco, Harry says, “I apologize, were I interrupting you?”

Draco, who has gone quite red in the face, huffs loudly and storms off.

After a moment’s hesitation, Vincent and Gregory follow. The door slams shut behind them.

“Hm,” says Harry. “I was being perfectly polite.”

“Don’t worry about Malfoy,” says Ron, sounding delighted. “He’s a big git.”

*

“Granger, Hermione!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

*

“Longbottom, Neville!”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

*

“Potter, Harry!”

Harry strides forward and does not look back.