The Forbidden Forest of the Centaurs?
Sebastian's eye twitched. The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of the claim was enough to send a ripple of pure magical fury through his control. He stopped dead, taking a slow, calming breath, the familiar, precise knot of the Iron-Clad Spell Stack humming beneath his skin.
He looked in the direction the arrow had come from, his sight piercing the dense undergrowth. As he had approached, his magical perception—the quiet, omniscient hum of his immense power—had already mapped the position of the patrolling centaurs.
He had intended to walk directly up to them, extend a polite, non-magical greeting, and request an audience with their leader. A diplomatic effort, as required by the terms of Dumbledore's invisible, silent supervision.
Instead, these beings, fueled by generations of self-importance and a fundamental inability to grasp the concept of legal property ownership, had fired a warning shot from the shadows. Had Sebastian not instantly recognized that the arrow's trajectory was deliberately deterrent—a psychological boundary, not a lethal threat—he would have already returned it, not merely shattered, but transmuted into a flock of very startled, very confused house mice, which would then be aimed directly at the shooter's most sensitive area.
He glanced to his side, where the faintest shimmering of refracted light indicated Dumbledore's concealed presence. The Headmaster, of course, remained perfectly still, his mood radiating a profound, almost weary calm—a clear sign that this haughty, aggressive behavior was simply par for the course when dealing with the Centaurs.
Yes. Courtesy first. Then obliteration, Sebastian mentally noted, adjusting his strategy.
The sound of rapidly approaching hooves preceded the Centaurs' emergence. Two imposing figures burst through the tangled ferns. The Centaur at the front was a magnificent, powerful specimen—a muscular, red-bearded, red-haired human torso mounted upon the massive, brown-red body of a warhorse. He was already drawing his bowstring taut, the flint arrowhead aimed squarely at the center of Sebastian's face.
"Wizard, I am speaking for the final time!" the Centaur shouted, his voice a harsh, echoing bark. "This is the sacred, ancient, Forbidden Forest of the Centaurs! Leave now, or I guarantee this arrow will pierce your skull before your hand can even reach the pathetic stick you call a wand."
A guarantee, is it? Sebastian smiled, but the coldness of his gaze never wavered. Come on, try it. I'll stand right here and see if you can manage to puncture the magical barriers of the Iron-Clad Stack before your arrow turns to smoke.
But he forced his fury back into the deepest recesses of his control, remembering the invisible Headmaster. He had to demonstrate that the Centaurs were the aggressors, the unreasonable party. When the violence inevitably started, Sebastian needed Dumbledore's implicit consent to escalate.
Sebastian lowered his shoulders in a gesture of non-aggression, though his eyes remained challenging. "I am Sebastian Swann, the Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he announced, his voice smooth and carrying. "I am here, under the authority of the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, to request a meeting with your Chief to discuss a matter of vital mutual interest."
"Bane, hold your rash anger," a second Centaur, slightly less imposing and with calmer, darker eyes, advised his friend, lowering his own drawn bow a fraction. "Let us at least hear what this wizard has to say, as he claims to be an emissary from the Castle."
"Hear what?" the first Centaur—Bane—snapped, his red eyes blazing with contempt. "Some random, untested wizard appears and claims to hold a title? How do we know he is not a liar, a poacher, or an agent of the Ministry's oppression? If he intends to harm our Chief, Sander, will you bear the responsibility?"
Bane glared at his friend with fierce disapproval. Sander is too naive. Wizards, in Bane's estimation, were a plague—soft, arrogant, and prone to intrusion. The fact that this man had not been instantly struck down was a testament to Centaur patience, not a reward for the wizard's audacity.
Furthermore, the Deputy Headmaster was supposed to be a severe witch named McGonagall; this newcomer was clearly an imposter, possibly a particularly shameless type of squatter or resource thief.
Sebastian's jaw tightened at the sound of the Centaur's name. Bane. Of course. In every account, every prophecy, every interaction known to the wizarding world, Bane was the most xenophobic, belligerent, and utterly uncompromising of the Centaurs. This was the Centaur equivalent of hitting the hostile jackpot.
Well, diplomacy just took a nosedive.
Sebastian opened his mouth to reply, attempting to salvage the decorum, but Bane cut him off with a loud, sneering snort.
"Wizard, I care nothing for your titles or your supposed authority. You are not authorized to see our Patriarch." Bane tightened his grip on the bow. "If your matter is truly so important, let Dumbledore come in person, and alone. You, however, will now submit to supervision and leave our Forbidden Forest immediately."
Bane punctuated his command by brandishing the arrow closer to Sebastian's face, his threatening demeanor radiating aggression.
'Not qualified'? 'Your Forbidden Forest'?
Sebastian's pleasant expression vanished, replaced by a mask of cold fury. His white teeth flashed, a chilling gleam in the dappled sunlight.
"Let me correct one egregious mistake before this conversation proceeds," Sebastian's voice was low, resonating with a dangerous, controlled edge. "This Forbidden Forest belongs to Hogwarts, and by extension, to the Ministry, not to you Centaurs. You are guests upon this land, not the sovereign power."
He continued, his eyes locked onto the arrowhead. "And secondly, I have a deep, personal aversion to having a weapon pointed at me."
"What idiotic nonsense are you spewing!" Bane roared, his patience snapping. "The Forest has always been the Centaurs' domain! You are merely looking for trouble, wizard!"
Bane drew his bowstring back fully, ready to make good on his promise and punish this arrogant trespasser.
But before Bane could release the arrow, a silent, almost imperceptible surge of energy flowed from Sebastian's wand hand—a wave of highly localized magical disruption. Bane watched, horrified, as the taut bowstring suddenly went slack, and the magnificent, handcrafted wooden bow in his hands froze in place, spiderweb cracks instantly appearing across the polished wood.
With a minor, final exertion of force, the entire weapon shattered into countless splinters and shards that rained harmlessly to the forest floor.
"What happened?!" Bane shouted, looking at his suddenly empty hands.
From the surrounding foliage, the muffled, shocked cries of the other hidden Centaurs followed: "The arrows! They're all broken! They shattered on the ground!"
Sebastian curled his lip in contempt. Did they truly believe they could engage in open warfare with a competent wizard? He was aware of the three Centaurs hidden in the bushes—Kum, another named Harkan, and the cautious Sander—who were currently part of the patrol. They had surrounded him, using the two aggressive Centaurs as bait, clearly intending to launch a sneak attack if the parley failed.
So clumsy. So predictable. This is the difference between true power and feral strength. Any Auror could handle these tactics, but only someone as inept and morally compromised as Umbridge would succumb to such obvious, brutish intimidation.
The loss of his weapon, however, only fueled Bane's barbaric rage. He was not deterred; he was enraged.
"Wizard! What manner of cowardice is this? Do you think we fear you simply because we lack a bow?" Bane bellowed, dropping his splintered weapon.
Then, with a furious, scraping sound of hooves, he charged. "Take this!"
Sebastian's expression darkened completely. He was done with diplomacy. He had met the requirements of courtesy. The Centaur had chosen violence.
The sheer frustration of dealing with such unthinking arrogance caused Sebastian to abandon subtlety entirely. He raised his wand, and the air around Bane's charging form condensed instantly.
A thick, rapidly growing cylinder of pure, opaque ice erupted from the forest floor, enveloping Bane's muscular, equine body and his thrashing legs. The Centaur was frozen solid, held firmly mid-charge. Only his neck and head were left exposed, his face contorted in a mask of impotent, red-faced fury.
"Coward! Release me! Fight me fairly, you snake!" Bane shrieked, his voice muffled by the ice-crystal air.
"Obstupefac! Silencio Lingua!" Sebastian whispered, adding a stunning jinx and a specialized silencing charm directly to the Centaur's throat.
The world went silent again, broken only by the startled gasps of the remaining Centaurs. Bane's enraged, wide-eyed gaze was fixed on Sebastian, but no sound escaped his lips.
Bane had fallen—subdued with barely a gesture. No struggle. No resistance.
A cold, visceral terror ran through the remaining Centaurs. What kind of demon is this?
"Run! Turn back and report! Scatter, every one of you! The one who escapes might yet live!" Kum, one of the hidden Centaurs, screamed, his primal instincts overriding all command. He tried to wheel his horse body around to flee.
Before Kum could even complete the turn, he let out a strangled cry. He watched in horror as the air around him shimmered, and a crystalline world enveloped the ground in a near-silent wave. His massive horse hooves were instantly fused to the forest floor, trapped by a rapidly hardening sheet of ice. He was anchored completely, unable to move a single inch.
"When… when did this happen? I felt nothing! Why can't I move!" Kum cried out in panic.
Sander, who had only managed to take a single, hesitant step backward, looked down at his own struggling hooves. They were cemented to the ground by the same inexplicable, powerful ice.
"Brother Sander, our hooves! We are frozen! We cannot move at all!" Harkan's muffled voice came from the bushes, equally terrified and trapped.
Sander, the cautious one, sank into absolute despair. A simple patrol. Why had they stumbled upon a wizard of such unimaginable, cruel power?
Sebastian walked slowly toward the immobilized group, stepping around the massive, frozen bulk of Bane. His voice, when he spoke, was deceptively soft, yet it seemed to vibrate with all the crushing power of the Castle itself.
"Did I give you permission to leave?" he asked, a hint of steel in his tone.
Sander shivered violently, shame warring with terror.
"Witch—Wizard, please, what do you want? Do you intend to start a war with the Centaur people?"
Sebastian stopped, his expression one of profound, withering disdain.
"Start a war?" Sebastian repeated the phrase slowly, as if tasting something utterly ridiculous. "What arrogance must you possess to believe you have the right, or the capability, to start a war with me? I assure you, dealing with the entire Centaur tribe would be no more difficult than crushing a single, bothersome insect."
He lifted his wand and gestured toward the colossal ice sculpture that was Bane. "As I stated initially, I am here to conduct a civil discussion with your Chief on behalf of Hogwarts, the rightful owner of this land. Your patrol member, Bane, chose hostility. To prevent unnecessary bloodshed, I was forced to employ non-lethal, calming restraints. I am, in fact, quite friendly, and extremely easy to talk to, provided the person I am talking to is not pointing a weapon at my head or trespassing on my patience."
Sebastian stared at the silent, trapped Centaurs. The message was clear: I am the power here. Your traditions and threats are meaningless against this.