Harry Potter and the Final Prophecy

-- Chapter Three --

     The Final Year

The first lesson on Tuesday morning was Defence Against the Dark Arts. When they had all sat down, a rustle of expectation filled the room. Under their previous Defence against Dark Arts teachers these lessons had certainly been quite eventful, sometimes too much so ... Professor Vanadair stood up, looming over the front desk where Dean and Seamus were sitting, and said 'Welcome, everyone!' with a broad smile, revealing a set of abnormally long and pointed teeth. There was a collective gasp of horror from the class.

'Ah, yes, I think there is one small matter I should clarify before we begin,' she continued, giving everyone a piercing stare, 'not that it is really any concern of yours, but I would not like any foolish and incorrect rumours to spread. My background, as you may have deduced, is slightly unusual. My mother was a witch, but my father was a vampire.'

There was a further sharp intake of breath around the room. 'Told you,' whispered Ron, although he looked as shocked and scared as everyone else.

'This does _not_ mean that anyone is any danger at all, of course,' she said with an annoyed tone at their reaction, 'you should not judge individual beings on the myths and legends and horror stories you may hear. Vampires do seem to have suffered some really rather bad and unfair publicity over here in Europe. Your Vlad the Impaler, who after all was merely a Muggle with an unpleasant taste in tortures, gave everyone the absurd idea that we have to kill to feed, but nothing could be further from the truth!' She smiled in an attempt to reassure the class, but as this displayed the dagger-like incisors again, it had the opposite effect. Everyone remained sitting very still. 'Why, in the States there are even people who _volunteer_ to be, er, prey, it's seen as rather glamorous, rather daring, to ... ''donate" to a vampire, and of course we're very grateful for all donations!' Her eyes panned round the class, as if unconsciously evaluating who was likely to be able to provide the largest quantity of sustenance. She paused at Ron, who blanched and trembled, and Dean, who shrunk down into his robes as if to avoid exposing his neck to the fangs.

'Bottled blood simply cannot compare to the liquid velvet texture and rich flavour of warm blood fresh from a wound ...' she continued, eyes gleaming in contemplation. 'But enough of me, you should already have studied vampires thoroughly in your second year, and we have more interesting and challenging subjects to deal with in this, your final and most critical year of education.'

She waved her wand at the board and a long list of topics appeared: Disguise and Concealment methods -- detection and use; Advanced defence techniques -- Patronus charm; shield charms; transfiguration spells; Mayhem and Distractions; The Unforgivable Curses; Advanced Dark Beasts: Lethifolds, Basilisks; Advanced Dark Beings: Dementors, Liches; Revision.

'I will try to cover all those topics that are likely to come up in your NEWTs,' she assured them, 'but of course this subject is not just about exams. By the end of the year I hope that many of you will be able to use methods of defence against quite advanced and dangerous forms of the dark arts. I know some of you may already be familiar with many of these techniques,' she smiled at Harry in a way that was obviously intended to be friendly, but he couldn't help but imagine how quickly those sabre-like teeth could plunge into someone's neck, pierce an artery ... 'but I must ask you to be patient while others less experienced catch up. Firstly then, disguise and concealment ...'

She took out a heap of silvery glistening material from her case. Harry recognised this instantly as an invisibility cloak, since he'd been using his fathers', bequeathed to him by Dumbledore, from his first year. 'Does anyone know what this is?' she asked, letting the sheet of strange fabric unfurl to the floor. Apart from himself, Ron and Hermione, only Neville recognised it, or was willing to risk drawing Professor Vanadair's attention.

'Yes?' she said in her syrupy voice, pointing a long skeletal forefinger at Neville, who quaked, as if suddenly realising the bravery of raising his hand.

'It's an invisibility cloak,' he stuttered.

'Well done, it is indeed,' she said, tossing the shimmering material over her head so that she vanished. Parvati and Lavender gasped in amazement. The lesson continued, Professor Vanadair demonstrating the correct way to wear the cloak, 'always make sure your feet are covered, there's nothing more of a giveaway than a couple of boots strolling along by themselves!' and how to take advantage of people's assumption that if they can't see something, it isn't there.

By the end even Harry felt that he'd learnt something useful, and they streamed out of the class to lunch gossiping cheerfully.

'There, you see,' said Hermione as they sat down at the Gryffindor table, 'vampires can be quite nice people really. It's just prejudice that makes people fear them, as Professor Vanadair said.'

'And of course you weren't scared at all,' Ron teased her, shovelling a huge mound of mashed potatoes onto his plate.

'Not really, not as much as you,' she retorted, 'female vampires prefer male prey anyway, and she was certainly rather interested in you, wasn't she? That's the most interest a woman has shown in you for a long time!'

'What! How dare you!' spluttered Ron, speechless with indignation.

'Oh, sorry, that was a bit unfair,' continued Hermione calmly, 'I'd forgotten about Luna Lovegood.' She looked over to the Ravenclaw table where Luna was sitting on her own, being given a wide berth by her housemates, probably due in part to her wearing a hat which looked as though it had live bats dangling from its brim.

Harry guessed that Ron would like to forget about Luna Lovegood as well. Unable to think of an adequate comeback, Ron angrily spooned meatballs from a metal tureen onto his plate and ate rapidly in an offended silence.

The afternoon was taken up by Care of Magical Creatures, which Harry and Ron continued to take out of loyalty to Hagrid, although the events of the previous year had given them cause to regret this. Hermione however needed the subject for her plans to join the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and ''change their policies from within!" as she claimed.

Hagrid appeared from behind his hut carrying a huge bunch of outsized dog collars and muzzles. 'Got some really interestin' creatures fer yeh this year!' he announced happily. The class shuffled nervously.

'By ''really interestin'" he means ''really dangerous", of course,' muttered Ron as Hagrid led the reluctant straggling line of students once more into the Forbidden Forest, the sun rapidly blotted out by the dense canopy of dark foreboding trees.

After five minutes of struggling through narrow paths the forest suddenly opened out into a small clearing, and on the other side were half a dozen lethal-looking beasts, with very long sharp horns and menacing teeth, a strange hybrid of hyenas and gorillas in appearance, about six foot long with a short scaly tail. Harry had to look twice before he could believe his eyes. Beside him Lavender gave a smell yelp of fright and Seamus blanched very pale.

The creatures sat up on their hind legs and stared at them with the same intent look of hungry interest that Professor Vanadair had given Ron and Dean.

'Oh no!' gasped Hermione as she arrived in the clearing. Everyone had stopped at the end of the path as soon as they'd realised what Hagrid had waiting for them.

Harry was not very reassured to see that the beasts were tethered by iron chains to a thick tree trunk. The dog collars in Hagrid's hands made him particularly uneasy.

'C'mon, come closer, they won' hurt yeh!' Hagrid shouted encouragingly as the monsters curled back their lips to show a collection of razor-like teeth. 'These are a special cross between Graphorns an' Jarvey's. I reckon the Jarvey side should make 'em easier ter train!'

'Train them to do what?' wondered Harry aloud, taking a reluctant step forward.

'Don' be afraid, they're on'ly youngsters!' Hagrid reassured them as one Graphorn-Jarvey suddenly leapt violently towards Ron, horns quivering as it strained with all its strength against the chains.

'Thought yeh'd like a bit of a challenge fer yer final year!' Hagrid continued cheerfully, 'now, does anyone know how yeh pacify a Graphorn?'

Everyone's hands stayed down, including, uniquely, Hermione's.

'Anyone? Hermione?' Hagrid pleaded.

'They're very hard to control,' she said cautiously, 'their hide is tougher than dragon skin and will repel most spells. I suppose you could try the conjunctivitis curse ... but maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea ...'

'No,' agreed Hagrid seriously, 'that'd on'ly make 'em angry an' they might charge blindly in any direction. But there's a special technique, which the trolls use. Yeh have ter get astride 'em an' pin down their neck, like this.' He leapt on the back of the nearest Graphorn-Jarvey, grabbing its head so it couldn't turn and use its teeth or horns. It looked highly annoyed and struggled furiously to free itself. 'Right, now if one of yeh would like ter fix a muzzle an' leash on this one, while I keep a hold 'o it ...' Hagrid asked.

The entire class moved as one several steps back towards the relative safety of the forest path. 'Now come on,' Hagrid said, wrestling the beast with all his strength, 'those of yeh tha're going ter work with dangerous creatures at the Ministry will have ter deal with worse than this, these'll be good practice fer yeh, see?'

'That's assuming we're still alive after your lessons,' muttered Ron, attempting to retreat behind Harry and Hermione as Harry tried to do the same to him, leaving Hermione nearest the monsters.

'Thanks fer volunteerin', Hermione,' Hagrid said, 'now jus' pick up one of the muzzles an' slip it over his jaw, nice an' easy, like, don' frighten him ...' The creature growled murderously at her, its mouth gaping wide in warning as she tentatively approached it ...

     *

By Thursday however Hermione was out of the hospital wing and fully recovered, only a faint seam showing where her arm had been rejoined to her body. The rest of the week's lessons were quite uneventful in comparison to the first day, although both McGonagall and Flitwick had lectured them on how critical this year was to their futures and how hard they would have to work. Both had given them unfeasible amounts of homework, which Harry was trying to postpone doing as long has possible, his mind still lingering in holiday mode. He'd taken the homework with him on his visits to see Hermione in hospital, but she had seemed strangely unwilling to do it for him. 'You could do it with your left hand, surely?' he'd said, but she had just glared at him. Ron was also adding to Harry's workload, insisting that the Gryffindor Quidditch team start practising as early as possible to improve their performance. So after dinner he and Ron changed into their scarlet team robes and headed for the common room door.

'Can I come and watch the practice?' Hermione asked, to Harry's surprise, since she had never evinced any interest in Quidditch before, 'I don't have anything important to do, I've finished all my homework, and prefect duties.'

'It'll be really crap,' Ron warned her, 'Jack Sloper still can't tell the difference between a bludger and someone's head, usually one of our team's heads. And Andrew Kirke still thinks his job is to run away from the bludgers instead of hitting them ...'

When all seven players were gathered on the pitch Ron began with some scoring practice for the chasers, and then started trying to train them in the Hawkshead attacking formation, which Harry felt could be somewhat overambitious for the level of skill in the team. While Ginny was a very confident flyer, the other two chasers, Grant Chalby and Muriel Beltane, were often more of a menace to their team-mates than the bludgers were. It was a miracle that Gryffindor had even come close to winning the Quidditch cup last year. Ron was almost tearing his hair out after the tenth failed interchange between Grant and Muriel. 'You have to _watch the ball_,' he told them between clenched teeth, 'not each other, not anything else, just focus on that quaffle until you've got a good grip on it, and then don't let go! Now, try again. Ginny, you start, then to Grant, then to Muriel, back to Ginny ...'

Finally they managed to complete a length of the pitch without dropping the quaffle once. Hermione and the other players applauded, with a faint degree of irony on Ron's part at least. 'Now let's try it with a bludger,' he announced, 'and Harry, I'll also let the snitch out as well.'

As soon as the golden blur that was the snitch zoomed into the sky, Harry shot after it in pursuit, so managed to avoid Ron's increasing exasperation with the chasers and beaters. Finally it grew too dark to continue, and Harry landed after catching the snitch for the fifth time. 'We'll have another practice Saturday morning,' Ron told them, 'and we're going to keep practising twice a week until we're able to play a match without becoming a laughing stock.'

Hermione joined them as Harry and Ron trudged dispiritedly back up to the castle. 'I thought Ginny was really good,' she said, trying to cheer them up, 'and you too, Harry, of course.'

'Yeah, well that's pretty much the team isn't it, Harry and Ginny,' said Ron morosely, 'the others can barely stay on their broomsticks, much less do anything useful with them ...' Darkness closed down on the grounds, the path lit only by light slanting out of dozens of windows of the castle.

'Wood had it easy,' Harry said, 'with Fred and George as beaters and Angelina, Alicia and Katie as chasers, he hardly had to do more than give us pep talks ''you've got to win this match or die trying", that kind of thing. He'd have had apoplexy with this lot.'

'Yeah,' agreed Ron as they entered the castle by a small doorway, 'with Grant and Muriel it's like teaching beginners to fly, I just have to keep covering the basic techniques over and over. I reckon even Hermione would make a better chaser than those two.'

Hermione frowned at this rather backhanded compliment. 'Um, thanks, I think,' she said.

As they went along the corridor discussing the practice, a centaur with striking white-blond hair and piercing blue eyes suddenly stepped out of the shadows and beckoned Harry to him, 'Harry Potter, may I have a word?' he asked, in a sombre tone.

Harry hesitated, remembering guiltily that he hadn't yet apologised to Firenze for abandoning his subject, Divination, last year. He looked round at Ron and Hermione, who urged him on before departing. Harry followed Firenze into his classroom, which was still imitating a clearing of the Forbidden Forest, the trees now tinged with Autumn gold, brown and rust hues.

Firenze closed and locked the door behind Harry. 'Harry Potter,' he said, in a grave, doom-laden, manner which reminded Harry of Professor Trelawney when she was just about to predict his death, yet again. 'I have been studying the portents for some months, and they point to an inescapable conclusion, a conclusion that affects all of us, but I believe, you in particular.'

Harry looked up at the sky and noticed that Mars was shining very brightly. His heart sank as he guessed that good news was very unlikely to be in what Firenze had to say to him.

'Yes,' agreed Firenze, following Harry's gaze. 'But that sign needs no skill to interpret. We all know what is happening in the world outside this school. Please, sit down.' He gestured Harry to a tree stump.

'I cannot, of course, be certain in my conclusions, for nothing in the heavens or earth is certain. We move along paths of fate and chance, on these paths at certain times a decision may occur, a critical event, and the paths diverge, giving alternative possibilities and worlds, only one of which we inhabit, only one of which becomes corporal and true.' He stared unblinkingly at Harry. 'However, in this case all the signs seem to lead to one inevitable conclusion: that the next twelve months will be a year unlike any other, a year in which there is a conflux of all the intersecting lines of chance, a nexus of fate between the future and the past,' he made a sweeping gesture with his hands, bringing them together as he swung them from left to right, until they met, then sweeping them apart again. 'All the choices are gathered here, at one point. At this point is determined the future and past for 1000 years, the form of the world we will have -- for all of our races.'

Harry struggled to concentrate on the meaning of what Firenze was telling him, his exhaustion from the long day and the Quidditch practice befuddled his thoughts. 'Have you told Professor Dumbledore about this?' he asked.

'Yes, as soon as the pattern became undeniable. He said that it confirmed other information he had, another prophecy.'

Harry suddenly felt chilled. Again Dumbledore had deliberately kept him in the dark, hidden important information from him. Dumbledore must still believe Voldemort was reading his mind, or simply didn't trust him to act sensibly ... 'You said I was particularly affected by this, this critical time?' he asked apprehensively.

'Yes. You have been several times now at the epicentre of the intersections of fate. The world would have been very different, for example, if Voldemort had succeeded in killing you when you were an infant, and had not been destroyed himself. By now we would all have been enslaved or murdered -- the freedoms we centaurs have taken for granted, however much we may resent the power of humans to grant them, would all have been taken away. There are of course no signs in the sky that refer to particular individuals, but my intuition is that, in this of all years, you will again be implicated in the critical events.'

Harry sat silently and thought all this over. Although Firenze's predictions were more oblique and hedged around with uncertainty than Trelawney's doom-mongerings, they seemed to come to much the same conclusions in the end. Putting what Firenze had just told him together with Trelawney's first genuine prediction about him and Lord Voldemort (had there now been a third, he wondered, which Dumbledore was refusing to divulge to him?) it seemed to imply that this was the year he would have to kill, or be killed by, Lord Voldemort.

'Did you tell Professor Dumbledore this, as well?' he asked.

'Yes,' murmured Firenze, his tail flicking in agitation, 'he quite agreed with my conclusions.' He reached out and held Harry's shoulder. 'I'm sorry to lay such a burden upon you, Harry Potter,' he said sadly, 'but I felt you should have some foreknowledge, some forewarning, of what may be expected of you.'

He unlocked the door and left Harry to climb alone through the deserted midnight corridors back up to Gryffindor tower. Harry felt indeed that he'd never been so alone.