Entry tags:

mini-fic, my fic

Mini Fic: The Four-Legged Prince


Title: The Four-Legged Prince
Pairing: Firenze/Hermione
Rating: PG-13ish
Warnings: Drug use [Alihotsy is JKR's creation, a plant known to induce hysteria.]
Word Count: 5,500 words approx
Summary: It's always bothered me that Hermione compared centaurs to horses [to Parvati in HBP]... especially because she is the one who is supposed to stick up for all non-human magical creatures. This is, somewhat, in response to that.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who looked over this [Sonia, Lina] and my beta servantofall36. Also: HBP timeline.

*~*

If she were to look, she might notice something off in the heavens tonight. How each star dotting the sky holds a red tinge, dimming and fading before bursting with light, as if the galaxy were somehow suffocating—making each orb compress so that the mysteries above should be bled out, expunged.

But she’s not looking at the sky. Not interested, at the moment, in what a vast region of unearthly space has to tell—all of which seems like a fool’s dream.

Instead she watches the one she used to call a fool, and chews the tips of her fingers, ruminating over her human misdeeds.

It hadn’t been quite a lie to tell Parvati that she’d “never really liked horses”. They were large animals, with square yellowish teeth and flighty personalities that made them prone to causing injury. As a child she’d been bitten twice, and kicked once, while tending to her uncle’s beasts during a summer at his farm.

However, it was certainly an untruth to allude to Firenze being such an unintelligent animal. Parvati had been right to call her out for being a hypocrite. The guilt gnaws at her on nights like these, the ones she spends atop the astronomy tower gazing down at the statuesque figure that stares up at the stars.

Always the pragmatist, it mystifies her how anyone could spend so much time studying helium and hydrogen. What could possibly be divined from luminous balls of plasma?

She wants to know … to know everything, from what he thinks he sees, to what is truly there, and so she watches, and waits, hoping that she can glean knowledge from observing him alone.

His pale hair is dappled by the moonlight in hazy rings of white, the silvery illumination stretching like a spectral cloak over the soft down of his coat. He looks towards the stars with the same expression Hermione wears when reading a fascinating book.

And he’s mesmerizing.

He’s no common nag, no common fool … no common anything … she’s come to realise, and if house elves, who did not even speak proper English, deserved her support, how puerile of her to shun centaurs.

But now she knows why she’d spewed such nonsense before. In Hermione’s world the fairytale always starts and ends the same. The beautiful maiden needs rescuing, whether from loneliness or a fearsome dragon matters little, and the rescuer is a handsome man riding a horse … not attached to one.

The soft sound of Firenze’s hooves treading across the ground startles her from her thoughts, and she watches as he breaks into a trot, only then to stop short of the darkened expanse of forest. He stands stiffly for a moment, a quiver running from shoulder to flank, before he spins around and breaks into full speed, his tail waving in the air like a banner. Hermione curls a loose tendril of hair around her finger, wondering if the wispy roughness feels the same as the thick strands of his tail.

Her pensive thoughts turn to awe as she watches him glide in smooth stretches of sinewy muscle across the land, a bloated sense of appreciation pressing hard against the confines of her ribs, and she wonders how anything could be so simply breathtaking.

Especially because there’s nothing simple about him.

One thing is simple, however. Hermione should not be out here, after curfew and skulking in the shadows, spying on the centaur who dances across the grass and studies the heavens.

Her mind acknowledges other reasons she should quit this intrusive behaviour, the fact that he’s a professor, furthermore one who belongs to another species, but her heart seems oblivious to such things, only hastening its pace every time she sneaks out of the common room to spy on his nightly activities.

Parvati’s silliness over the attractiveness of the divination teacher doesn’t seem so ridiculous now. Hermione feels drawn like a moth to a flame, heart fluttering like wings, mind burning with curiosity as she watches every movement of the centaur below.

Why does he risk coming out here, so close to the ones who have banished him? Is he lonely? she wonders. How does it feel to be alienated from one's family?

This she thinks she knows, having lived among Muggles as one of their own, only to be told she was different, sent away to those who still considered her not ‘one of them’.

Does he truly divine the answers from above?

Something inside her twists at this question, a conflicting pang of doubt and hope piercing deep within. The unknown has always been Hermione’s calling, and any scrap of knowledge is one worth pursuing. Especially one as fascinating, and as potentially enlightening, as exploring the complexity beneath her.

But in her fairytales the maiden always waits for the prince to come for her, and Hermione has waited, is still waiting. Alone and lonely night after night, up amidst rough stone, and high on the tower. Waiting. Watching. Wishing.

He never comes for her.

Tonight she decides that she is sick of remaining idle, and she’ll wait no longer. She’s no princess in a fairytale, anyway.

It takes a moment to gather her courage, hands smoothing down the ruffles of her pleated skirt and then lifting to finger comb her hair. She spends a few moments fighting with a particularly nasty tangle, only to realise she’s procrastinating, and Firenze isn’t likely to care about such human vanity.

Hermione doesn’t let herself ponder that he might not care for anything else related to her either.

Her shoes seem to clop loudly as she walks down the stone steps, despite her slow descent, and Hermione cringes at the thought of being heard before she’s ready to reveal herself.

How well can centaurs hear, anyway? If he notices me will he disappear? And if he confronts me what will I say?

She trails her fingers against the worn walls, letting the ridges and bumps wear away at her skin, the slight pain serving as a useful distraction against the threatening spiral of her thoughts.

The stone under her feet soon gives way to dewy grass, and Hermione breathes a sigh of relief for the quietness of her step this affords. Cautiously she glances towards the entrance of the main hall, making sure she sees no one lingering near, before she turns to round the side of the tower, heading back towards the forest and Firenze.

Suddenly a pair of lamp-like eyes flash at her, catching her attention. A chill runs down Hermione’s spine, her eyes squinting to make out the scrawny frame of Mrs. Norris hiding amongst the shadows.

Bloody hell—Filch is on the prowl!

“Meoww,” the vile creature yowls, and Hermione spins around to flee, hoping that Filch is too far away to catch her in time.

As if fate were trying to taunt her, Hermione turns only to crash right into the man she’s trying to avoid. Her head smacks into his chest, shooting pain through her skull, and a dizzying rush pulls her to the ground.

“Owww,” Hermione moans, reaching up to rub at her forehead.

“Well, well, well,” Filch says, his breath fast and wheezy. “The perfect prefect out breaking curfew? And what is she doing skulking around at this hour? Up to no good, I imagine!”

“Studying, sir … I was—”

“Ha! You have no idea how long I’ve waited to catch you at something. Umbridge will be mighty pleased with me. Maybe she’ll even let me whip you a bit, hmm? What do you think about that?”

Hermione stares up at Filch’s quivering jowl and leering eyes, the pain in her head shifting to a hot flare of panic.

This can’t be happening.

“S-sir,” she stutters, hands rushing to pull the fabric of her skirt into place. “I—let go of me!”

His bony hands grasp her forearms, pulling her up even as she tries to shift away. Her nostrils burn with the raw stench of unwashed flesh, and Hermione can’t stop a horrible noise from clawing its way out her throat. Giving a man like Filch the notion she’s afraid is akin to showing vulnerability to a rabid dog—a vicious gleam alights his eyes and he shakes her like a rag doll.

“Stop!” she yelps, twisting until she manages to rip one of her wrists free.

Filch growls in frustration, and the grip on her tightens, his free hand balling into a fist. For a terrifying moment she fears he might hit her, feeling entitled by all the leniency Umbridge has given him as of late, and she contemplates trying to fight him—kicking and biting if she has to—until she can get a hold of her wand.

“Let her go,” a calm, masculine voice drifts from somewhere behind her. “She’s with me.”

Hermione feels her skin burn crimson, and a new wave of dizziness that has nothing to do with her previous collision, or Filch, envelopes her.

“Oh, is that right?” Filch answers, his tone laden with doubt and his eyes darkening. “If she’s with you, then why’s she all the way over here?”

Hermione stills her struggles when she feels the press of something tall and firm against her back, and a large hand comes down to encase Filch’s. The caretaker releases her as if Firenze’s touch burns, and an angry hissing sound escapes between his browning teeth.

“Umbridge will hear about this!” Filch shouts, scuttling backwards with his eyes still fixed on the centaur, as if turning away will render him susceptible to an attack.

A blur of dark fur zips past her, and Hermione hears a sharp cry as Mrs. Norris hastens to follow her master.

For a moment Hermione continues to stare after the pair, the shock of the situation making her mind sluggish, only able to comprehend that she’s narrowly avoided a painful and humiliating punishment.

You have someone to thank … her mind whispers.

Slowly, with her eyes cast towards the ground, Hermione turns to face her savior, hoping that he will fail to notice the red stain of embarrassment on her skin.

“Thank you, sir,” she says softly.

Only silence answers her, and nervously Hermione shifts her weight from her left foot to her right, keeping her gaze on Firenze’s striped white hooves. Several moments pass as she counts each dark band; three on his left forefoot, two on his right. Darkness prevents her from making out the colour of his hind hooves.

“There are no answers amongst the blades,” Firenze says finally.

“No, I suppose not.” Hermione lifts her chin to look him in the eye, and once again finds herself startled by the blue flames of cognizance that resides within.

Since their first introduction, she’s always been rather unnerved at how such intelligence could be attached to the wide frame of an equine.

“I should not be here, nor should you.” Firenze’s tone holds no conviction, only that calm airiness that both irritates and intrigues her.

“No, I know …” Hermione answers. “I’m grateful you stepped in for me.”

“Friend of Harry Potter, why do you roam alone at night, when punishment will be forthcoming if you are found out?”

Her lips tighten into a thin line at his way of addressing her, and she finds herself wondering why she ever thought she could converse with such an aloof character. The sudden ache in her throat belies the anger at simply being proven wrong.

‘Friend of Harry Potter’, indeed!

“I have a name,” she mutters, casting her eyes away from his curious expression, and those damn eyes that seem to burn through her.

“I know your name.”

Despite the cool indifference lacing his words Hermione’s breath catches, and her eyes fly back to his. That familiar stab of dread and hope comes back with new force.

“Hermione Granger,” he continues. “Girl who studies me instead of the stars each night.”

This time her breath expels so sharply that she’s surprised he doesn’t startle and vanish into the distance like a unicorn approached by the impure. Or, perhaps she simply wishes he would.

“You knew?” she asks before she can stop herself.

Good one, you idiot—questioning the obvious!

Firenze merely stares at her, his expression smooth and inscrutable, as if he were looking at nothing more than the wisps of grass under her feet, or at an uninteresting pile of dirt.

She feels akin to the latter at the moment.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her hands flying to busy themselves with her clothing. “I didn’t mean—didn’t mean…”

But she cannot fathom how to finish such a statement, not when she is so unsure of what she does mean, and not when his attention is both completely on her and still completely beyond.

“I should—” Hermione starts to excuse herself, starts to tell him that she really ought to be off, but thanks ever so much again for his help, when he interrupts.

“Walk with me. I’ve told him that we would, and the skies look unkindly on those who lie.”

Hermione blinks up at him, noting the little smile gracing his lips as if he might be joking, but then it seems to disappear, and she wonders if it were just a shadow after all.

“Alright then,” she whispers, because isn’t this what she wanted in the first place?

She doesn’t feel all that sure now.

They start off slowly, his steps seeming awkward and stilted as she tries to keep in stride. The swishing of grass under their feet sounds amplified in the suffocating silence. Wind moves through her hair, picking up tendrils and twisting them into knots, and she shivers slightly, though the breeze isn’t cold.

“I had planned to burn tonight. Would you like to join me?”

Hermione’s neck stiffens involuntarily, the question not forming any sort of relevance in her mind.

“Burn?”

She watches his hands move towards his abdomen, and then spots a tiny leather bag she hadn’t noticed before, tied around his waist with twine. He opens the bag with a twist of his fingers and pulls out something that looks like a mass of red, fuzzy leaves.

“Hermione Granger, woman-child who believes all things worth knowing derive from books—”

“Excuse me?” Hermione interrupts, her voice high and thin.

And that’s when she sees the ghost of a smile again.

“You’re having me on, aren’t you?” Her voice raises higher, disbelief warring with a sickening sense of humiliation.

To her astonishment Firenze lets forth a noise that can only be described as amused, a soft yet throaty laugh that ebbs with the breeze. For reasons she can not comprehend she feels her heart lighten marginally, the sound soothing her anxiety like ice does a burn.

She lets the residual hurt taint her words. “I didn’t know you possessed a sense of humour.”

“Burning is a time for allowing the mind to expand,” he says, as if this explains everything.

Hermione sniffs, still uncertain as to whether or not she should remain offended at being the brunt of his joke, before her curiosity gets the better of her.

“Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Alihotsy,” Firenze whispers, coming to a halt.

“But that induces hysteria!” Hermione’s hands fly to brush back the whipping strands of her hair, and she almost bumps him with her elbow as she sways to a standstill.

“Only if you eat it,” Firenze says, and something in his tone toys with the latent fantastical visions in her mind, coaxing her with its whimsy.

“We aren’t going to smoke it, are we?” She laughs then, but the sound becomes harsh, cutting off with the waver of his smile.

“Alihotsy means ‘lightness of—”

“Mind,” Hermione interjects. “I know, I’ve read about it before, though I’ve never seen it, other than a crude drawing in—” She trails off when she realises she’s rambling, about books at that, and once again, Firenze seems somehow entirely focused on her, yet not.

“Well, all of that doesn’t matter. The point is … isn’t it illegal?” She bites her lower lip, hating the childish tremble that laces her question.

He straightens so swiftly that she cringes back, his gaze seeming to sharpen on her, no longer looking through. “Centaurs do not conform to such man-made conventions. We have burned Alihotsy for centuries—no human can stop us from practicing our sky-given rites.”

The boom of his voice holds no true malice, and his expression twists, making him look older—defeated. He gazes towards the trees as if they, instead of the skies, will answer his convictions.

Hermione frowns, her nervousness superseded by conflicting desires. A large part of her wants to chide him, inform him that obviously there’s something sinister about burning if it’s banned via Wizarding law. But a deeper part, an uncomfortable pressure under her left rib, wonders if he speaks the truth. Not that no human could stop the centaurs from burning, but that no one should have the authority to deny ceremonies so intertwined with centaurian heritage.

She’s pulled out of her internal dilemma when Firenze speaks again.

“The stars are flickering with light,” he says softly, but he’s not looking at the skies, his eyes are back on her.

Her face colours, the pressure inside her chest shifting, and then she asks quietly, “Is this to be our secret, then?”

I can’t risk getting expelled, she thinks about adding, but the idea of sharing a secret with him is too tempting to tarnish with such worries. Especially when she’s disregarded the rules before with her friends, ones that could have landed her in just as much trouble—and none that called to be broken quite like this.

“There are many secrets that the planets hide, one of which will be ours.”

Hermione nods slightly, heat suffusing her insides, and she fights the urge to smooth her clothing. “So how do we start?”

She expects that they will have to chant something, maybe do a strange dance. Silly images of them swaying and singing under the night skies fill her mind, and although she’s mildly horrified at the potential absurdity of such, she’s also willing. Perhaps lightness of mind will answer some of her deeper questions.

“You are expecting something grand,” Firenze whispers, and once again she’s caught on the edge of whimsy in his voice. “There are no special acts one must perform before burning. Though I imagine you would be more comfortable sitting.”

It’s not a question, and he points off to the very edge of the woods, where a few stumps are scattered—Hagrid having made use of the bordering trees for lumber.

Hermione much prefers sitting to the dancing she’s imagined, so she ignores the little voice inside her head that says ‘Too close, that’s too close to the woods,’ and turns to walk towards where Firenze has directed. There’s a convenient tree blocking one of the stumps there, anyway, and she takes comfort in knowing they can hide behind it. Just incase Filch riles Umbridge from her stolen throne.

She sits down, trying to ignore the uncomfortable hardness of uneven wood beneath her, and how awkward it feels to have Firenze tower over her.

“Courage is not feeling unafraid, but conquering doubt and anxiety by moving forwards,” Firenze says.

Hermione glances up at him, his pale hair glinting in the moonlight, and smiles.

“You’ve been spending far too much time around Dumbledore.”

“The stars agree with him,” he says, and then he digs back into the pouch around his waist, procuring a small stone dish.

She watches him place the red leaves into the dish, his fingers careful and reverent, as if he were setting flowers on a gravestone.

“May I light it with my wand?” Hermione asks in barely a whisper.

She knows how centaurs feel about wands and magic, how they scorn humans for using tools to aid them. But she wants to be a part of this, be a part of what they are about to do together—not simply a passive recipient, or worse … a sycophant.

Firenze stills before her, the silence almost making her back down, and then he says, “Yes.”

Her fingers reach into the left, deep pocket of her robes and she pulls out her wand, muttering a word that makes the tip flare with fire. She touches it to the leaves that sit within the small stone basin in Firenze’s palm, pulling back when the foliage bursts into flame, hazy smoke making trails in the air.

Firenze lifts the dish to his nose, breathing in the haze as though he’s imbibing the richest of wine. And then the dish is passed to her.

“I—” Hermione starts, unsure of what exactly to do.

A long stream of air sounds from his nostrils, misty ringlets forming around his face. “Inhale.”

She does. Her nose directly above the bowl, the sensation of breathing in oxygen that’s somehow purer, cleaner, laced with a foreign sweetness that seems to expand inside her lungs.

Firenze’s fingers curls around her hand, holding it into place until she exhales, and then his grip shifts, lifting the dish away. Hermione can only stare at the spots of white that glow against his coat, the moon’s reflection, the paleness growing and receding as if it possesses a life of its own.

“I feel … something,” Hermione whispers.

At first, it is only a slight tingle behind her eyes, the urge to rub them. Then a slow building pressure, her spine a numb nerve that ends with a dull throb at the base of her skull. She lifts a hand to stare in wonder at the shadows between her fingers, the way the dark points end abruptly in pinpricks of light.

The sound of movement takes her by surprise, and she jerks in her seat, and then realises that it’s just the wind blowing through the blades of grass around them. Her gaze fixes on the long, dark strands, and even though they shine silver she can see the underlying green—can even see where stalks meet earth, the tiny bumps of dirt like a scalp’s follicles sprouting hair.

“Earth bound as you are,” Firenze says softly—though his voice suddenly seems unbearably loud, making her gaze snap to his, a soft hiss issuing between her teeth. He drops his tone so that he’s almost lip-synching. “My apologies … I often forget that newly enlightened foals find burning to be a sensory overload. The effects may be instantaneous, but they are quick to wear away. Now look above you, not below.”

Her breath catches in her throat, eyes squinting automatically at the intrusive brightness. Tones of red, blue, and green replace the white orbs in a once monochrome sky, now illuminated streaks, the void above her magnified as though she were looking through a telescope. The moon appears more like the sun, a great mass of fiery white, so intense that she has to look away; she exhales sharply.

“Merlin.”

“Chiron,” Firenze says with just as much veneration.

“God of centaurs,” Hermione murmurs, and then she points to a constellation, the lines forming before her eyes to create a silhouette of Sagittarius. “Given a place among the heavens by Zeus.”

It doesn’t surprise her that Firenze would utter Chiron’s name—the mythical Greek god whose intelligence, civilized nature, and kindness surpassed the damning fact that he possessed the body of a beast and the face of a man. He is the perfect embodiment of everything a centaur like Firenze would value.

He may not be a prince, but years prior even centaurs were only make believe … and he’s more than that.

So much more.

He doesn’t pass the bowl to her again, for which she is grateful. Out of politeness she would continue the ceremony, even though she knows her mind is overstretched, continuing to distend as her bloodstream fills with chemical.

“After a few moments focus, let your mind grasp the complexity of a single star. Threads of the future are woven amidst light beams; concentrate on the colours and from there the emotion that fills you.”

Hermione wants to ask what he can possibly mean by that, how one could get emotion from a colour. Instead she listens, eyes transfixed on the star which constructs the tip of Sagittarius’ bow—watching as the blue, green, red tints blur together, forming a colour she cannot name. Shock and awe chills the blood within her veins, her body stiffening, her mind reaching out … widening, bloating, all encompassing…

There.

No previous sensation compares to this. Hermione feels almost as if her skull has been split open, a flood of sensation—heat, knowledge, desire, power—and she sees, quick flashes of light; a knife at her throat, pain, Ron walking out, Harry’s blue-stained lips as he struggles to push himself above water … suffering.

“Oh, God!” she chokes, lurching out of her seat.

Firenze’s arms wrap around her, holding her in place, and then as sudden as the vision came it disappears, leaving nothing behind but the sensation of a hole torn through her chest, acid pushing up and into her throat.

“Shhh, stay calm,” Firenze whispers. “You must not trust the vision as though it is complete … rarely does one see the whole picture.”

“You don—” Hermione rasps, trying to struggle out of his arms, but only managing to press herself harder against him. “You don’t understand! I saw … I saw…”

“Yes. And no.”

The urge to claw him, to shout that he doesn’t have any bloody idea what she saw or didn’t see, comes over her. But his soothing voice is quick to assuage the vicious desire.

“One-sided visions are common, especially among those new at divining answers from the skies.”

His hand brushes her cheek, and Hermione feels the wet slide of his palm against her skin.

“It’s too much,” she whispers, voice shaky and raw. “I can’t stand it!”

His nose pushes into hers, giving a soft exhalation of sweet breath, and he makes an odd noise—a snuffling sound. Hermione freezes, unsure at first of his intention, before attributing his actions to something unknown, his species nuances of communication.

“I need you to prove them wrong. My herd … my … Humans can handle mind expansion too, if they only try. Remain calm; look again.”

There’s a desperation to his words that unnerves her, a complete contradiction to his usual tranquil façade. Her mind latches on to his plea, wanting—more than wanting—internalizing his desire, making it her own. Sorrow morphs into determination. Humans aren’t simple bodied morons—connection can be found even by the most different of species.

She ignores the heat of his skin on hers, and lifts her eyes back to the stars. Wind whispers into her ear, Firenze’s fingers burn through the velvety fabric of her robes, and yet she pushes her concentration, her whole being, her whole soul, on one flickering ember above.

Her breath recedes as once again she’s taken into something larger, something outside of herself—her body, her mind; green-eyed children standing in front of a train, a small hand slipping into her own, the warmth of her father’s embrace … peace.

But before she can contemplate the images they disappear, leaving her with only a residual sense of calm—of completeness. Her consciousness recedes back into herself; Firenze’s large hands gripping each shoulder, his hair tickling her throat, his breath soft, yet rapid at her ear.

“Does your spine hurt, bending so far?” Hermione whispers, trying to ease the sudden pressure in her throat, the urge to squirm.

Firenze snorts, his exhalation hitting her cheek. “Well? Did—”

“I saw. Everything will work itself out.”

He keeps one hand on her as he shifts upright, and she turns to regard him. A wide smile greets her, one that breaks across his face like a dawning sun. The previous tingle behind her eyes seems to relocate to her chest, and her mouth suddenly feels dry—never has she imagined he could express such blatant emotion.

“I owe you much, Hermione Granger. I knew—knew that the herd was wrong!” Firenze’s back legs lift in rapid succession, making his whole body lurch, the hand on her shoulder lifting away.

Hermione’s jaw tightens, and her gaze drops from him to the ground.

“Now they will have no choice but to see through the prejudicial blindness…” Firenze pauses, the excitement in his voice dying. “This is a great achievement, do you not understand?”

She doesn’t lift her face when she looks back at him. “Yes. I’m pleased to have helped you.”

And now I see why you truly wanted to walk with me.

“I won’t betray our secret; many moons will pass before I enlighten the others.”

“And will they even have you?” Hermione whispers, unable to stop herself, the drug inside her seeming to intensify her self-righteous anger.

The question rings in the air, lingering. She can hear the stirring of the tree leaves, Firenze’s soft breaths, and the slight crunch of foliage as he shifts his weight … but nothing sounds louder than the silence that blooms between them.

“We were both searching for answers,” Firenze finally says.

His nonchalance burns her, the anger deepening. She wishes that she’d never taken part of this, never imbibed a drug that made her feel so deeply. Speak so freely.

“Your question wasn’t mine.”

“How can I answer a question that has yet to be asked?”

“Do you truly believe I’m a child?” That isn’t what she had meant to ask, but her previous hurt seems intent on making itself known. “Or that I’m just another dense human, trying to relate to something that is too far beyond her?”

Her mind screams, these questions aren’t ones she truly wants answers to—not answers she feels capable of hearing…

Just turn and go.

“Is this what you think of me?” Firenze asks, his voice stilted, his whole body stiff.

Hermione feels the swift pain of regret—a sensation so deep it makes her feel dizzy. How could she ever accuse the centaur who left his herd to stand alongside people not of his own?

I’ve done just what his brothers have, shunned him when his only crime is thinking differently. He never meant me harm.

She steps onto the stump, almost eye to eye with him now, and slowly, she leans forward and presses her nose into his. It feels awkward, trying to mimic his previous gesture of comfort, but he doesn’t pull away.

Instead he snuffles softly. “You learn quickly.”

“I like to think so,” Hermione whispers.

“To have a human’s pity,” Firenze says with a small smile. “My herd will never take me back now.”

His face tilts to press his nose more firmly against hers, as though to assuage the possible sting to his facetious words. Hermione can’t focus on anything but the fact of sharing his breath, sweet like spring grass, his lips much too close to her own.

She closes her eyes, pushing forwards and letting her mouth brush his.

He pulls away then, and Hermione feels her heart constrict, rejection threatening to overwhelm her when he speaks.

“You will have to show me,” he murmurs. “Centaurs differ—”

She doesn’t let him finish, pressing her mouth to his and sucking his lower lip in, laving it with her tongue. He learns quickly too, she realises, his lips imitating hers, caressing and sucking, a rush of heat flowing through him and into her.

And then his mouth is on her throat, burning her skin, wet suction that makes her spine curl, her torso pressing firmly into his. She can’t breathe, the sensation of his muscles twitching against her, both horse and human flesh quivering under her touch, and she can’t tell where he ends and she begins.

“You—you’ve answered my question,” she chokes, pushing her hands against his shoulders.

They can’t let this get out of control, there’s just no way … some differences between humans and centaurs are just too much to breach.

Firenze stills and gazes upon her with such intensity she wonders if she might burst into flame.

“Will you enlighten me?”

“Understanding,” Hermione whispers, letting her hands stroke slowly down his arms. “I wanted to prove that you could feel hu—could feel what I feel.”

He kisses her again, gently.

“May the morning star rise to find you well rested, woman-child,” Firenze says softly, the previous slight of a nickname now turned into one of affection.

Although the bloated ache of Alihotsy intoxication is wearing away, she can still discern the hint of sadness lacing his words.

“Goodnight, Firenze.”

Neither of them has to say that the goodbye is one of finality, and their brief crossing of paths must once again divide. Dawn quickly threatens to expose their world of peaceful darkness into chaotic light. The stars above fade, the smothering brightness of a rising sun threatening to reveal the stolen moments of the night.

After all, the planets can only keep so many secrets.

*FIN*

End Note: Written for the mini-fic theme~ Rectification.


Feedback and/or constructive crit is love. And bonus art: The World Wouldn't Understand