“And that is why we offer our warning,” Jakhar replied. “For the day of our coming is not today. But it is soon. We abhor violence. We abhor it so strongly that when forced to fight, we do so with the ferocity and viciousness of conviction, that it may be ended as soon as possible.
Those who stand up to Centaurs do not stand up again. This is the only way to shorten the time of violence. Do what you must to assure that it does not come to that.”
Without waiting for a response, Jakhar and his escorts turned, their hooves clopping on the flagstones, and paced regally back toward the open courtyard gates. The ranks behind them parted smoothly, forming a silent thoroughfare for them to pass through.
McGonagall turned to Merlin, her eyes sharp, but said nothing.
Merlin merely stood and watched the departing Centaurs. They filed out row by row, front to back, funneling through the gate and into the deepening dusk. When the last of them exited, four abreast, their tails flicking restlessly and their heads raised, Merlin finally spoke.
“We should have a word with our Mermish friends. I will explain to them that our watchtower was not intended for them, but that we shall relocate it out of respect for their concerns.”
“Headmaster,” McGonagall whispered harshly, her gaze still sharp. “What are we to do? The Centaurs mean to take the school! Is it possible that they could indeed breach our boundaries if they came in force?”
“Centaurs do not threaten, Professor,” Merlin answered. “If they state an intention, it behooves us to trust that they have the means to accomplish it.” He stepped down onto the cobbles and strode for the gate, apparently heading toward the lake to converse with the Merpeople. James and McGonagall followed.
“Surely, we must inform the Ministry immediately,”
McGonagall said, her voice low and serious. “This is a terrible matter indeed.”
“As a matter of fact, Professor,” Merlin said as he passed through the gate and turned toward the lake below, where it glimmered with coppery sunset light, “I believe we may count our lucky stars.”
James glanced up at the big man, frowning. “Lucky? How in the world is being invaded by Centaurs lucky?”
“Two reasons. First, because Centaurs measure time in years, not minutes. It may be that they will attack tomorrow, or in a decades’ time. Likely, there is ample time to prepare. And second, because they might indeed have chosen to invade Muggle governments first. With the earth balanced as precariously as it is, that surely would have tipped the scales of fate into irreversible collapse. As it is, there is a shred of hope.”
“I daresay I fail to see it,” McGonagall breathed, and shook her head.
Merlin glanced aside at her, and then at James. Something glinted in his eye, a grim, puckish twinkle, cracking his fa?ade of stony calm. Quietly, he said, “That is because you fail to remember the single most important difference between the non-magical world and our own.
Unlike our Muggle friends, when faced with a magical enemy, we are able to fight back.”
There was no point in James telling Rose, Ralph, Scorpius, or anyone else about the Centaur summit, since the entire school had been watching breathlessly from the open front doors and every surrounding window. Merlin made an announcement within mere minutes of his meeting with the Merpeople, broadcasting his voice throughout the school as everyone trickled to their common rooms, hushed and abuzz with worrisome chatter.
“Attention students and faculty of Hogwarts,” his voice echoed from every wall, resonated from each flat surface, as if the entire school had been converted into a magical sounding board, which it probably had. “As you are now aware, the Merpeople have been mollified, while our Centaur friends of the Forbidden Forest have expressed their deep concern about the welfare of the human world, both its magical and Muggle counterparts. You may have heard that they believe it will soon be their responsibility to govern us all, and that they will come in force to impose that governing, starting here, with this school. You did not misunderstand. But I assure you: diplomacy will rule the day first.
Centaurs are eminently thoughtful creatures, unruled by emotion.
Ministry ambassadors will surely be dispatched this very night to negotiate with the Centaurs, and those negotiations shall surely, partly by design, and partly by their very nature, take a very long time. The day may indeed come when diplomacy fails and the centaurs invade Hogwarts. But I expect two things when and if that day comes: you will no longer be here, and we will be equipped to resist them. Fear not, students. Attend to your studies. The fate of the world may not rest on you completing your homework, but the fate of your future does. Let that be your primary focus.”
His voice died away as the students, frozen in place with wide eyes and alert, listening expressions, all began to move again, turning to each other, resuming their whispered, nervous conversations, albeit with a new note of relief in the air. Merlin was the most powerful wizard (and the only living sorcerer) in the entire magical world. If he was not concerned, then perhaps the world was not, in fact, about to fall apart around everyone’s ears.
But as James made his own way up the crowded stairs to the Gryffindor common room, shouldering past slower moving knots of urgently chattering students, watched by the unsettled gazes of dozens of paintings, he thought of Merlin’s comment back during James’ first year.
The last tenth of magic, he had said, was pure and unadulterated bluster.
Merlin couldn’t know how long the centaurs might take to mount their forces against the school. He couldn’t know if they would even engage in diplomacy with any Ministry ambassadors. Based on what James had just heard in the courtyard, he thought it extremely unlikely, in fact. Diplomacy had stopped the moment that Jakhar and his advisors had turned tail and stalked away, leading their troops back to the Forest, leaving their warning and promise ringing in the air behind them.
And of course, James was one of the few people to know that while Merlin may indeed be the only living sorcerer in the world, there was a living sorceress out there as well. And who knew what she might do in the wake of this news. Or even if it was somehow a part of her plan.
The next day was Tuesday, and both of James’ first two classes, Potions and Muggle Studies, were canceled, replaced with study periods in the suddenly very crowded library. The rasp of whispers and shuffle of gossiping students from table to table was nominally overseen by the librarian and, inexplicably, Professor Revalvier.
“The rest of the teachers are in a sort of war-room meeting, I hear,” Rose whispered to James, peering low over an open textbook.
“The Ministry is in a complete uproar ever since the news last night.
They’re sending new watchmen, including a few retired Harriers and Aurors. The teachers hate it, but they’re worried, too. All of them are in a mandatory emergency response training class with Headmaster Merlinus today.”
Ralph glanced back over his shoulder toward the reference desk.