Chapter 240. Bart and the Dementors
After saying goodbye to the twins, Adrian Wesson left the castle and headed straight for the Forbidden Forest.
He had promised Bart that, if he had time today, he would go and see him.
At the forest's edge, he noticed several inky shadows drifting out from between the trees—Dementors.
However, those creatures showed no intention of approaching him, and Adrian was only too glad not to provoke them.
Who would go looking for trouble?
Not long after he ventured deeper into the forest, a familiar reddish-brown figure appeared in his sight.
"Good morning, Ronan," Adrian called from a distance.
Ronan immediately broke into a run, his hooves thudding dully on the soft earth.
He stopped before Adrian, twin jets of white vapour snorting from his nostrils.
"Hello." Ronan's voice held less gloom than usual.
Even so, Adrian keenly noticed a faint weariness in the centaur's eyes.
"What happened?" he asked bluntly.
That simple question, however, set Ronan off at once.
His mane seemed to bristle as he said angrily, "Those evil beings trespassed on our territory! They attacked our village and even injured a few of the foals!"
Adrian was taken aback.
By the look of it, Ronan was truly furious—so much so that he hadn't kept his usual slow, melancholy cadence.
And the "evil beings" he spoke of were, in all likelihood, Dementors.
In the end, the Dementors had interfered with centaur life as well.
Perhaps realising it was a little improper to speak of this in front of an outsider, Ronan's anger gradually subsided.
"Can you tell me what those things are?" he asked, taking a deep breath. "You must know something, professor from Hogwarts."
"Most likely Dementors," Adrian explained. "The Ministry of Magic is using them to hunt a criminal named Black—ah, Hagrid should've mentioned it to you yesterday—that criminal has hidden himself in the Forbidden Forest."
At that, Ronan clenched his teeth and nodded. "The Ministry of Magic... I will remember."
Adrian shrugged.
Perhaps the Ministry had just earned itself another enemy.
Then again, relations between centaurs and the Ministry were never very good.
He had heard there was a department in the Ministry called the Centaur Liaison Office, under the Beast Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
But the centaurs had never made use of that office.
There was even a joke in the Ministry that anyone "sent to the Centaur Liaison Office" was about to be sacked.
After parting from the still-angry Ronan, Adrian continued deeper into the forest and soon reached Bart's spot.
Strangely, even when he was standing right before him, the talking tree made no movement at all.
"Bart?"
Adrian tapped the trunk lightly.
A face slowly surfaced on the bark, but Bart's brows were knotted, his eyes downcast, and his mouth drooped; a pall of gloom shrouded his whole face.
"Bart?" Sensing that something was wrong, Adrian softened his voice. "What's the matter?"
Bart's eyes opened a fraction, and he stammered, "Master... last night... it was too frightening..."
Before he finished, Bart began to sob—even though he had no tears to shed.
Seeing this, Adrian frowned. "Dementors?"
"They were drifting around me..." Bart said in terror. "I felt very afraid... but there was no one who could help me..."
"Oh, don't be afraid," Adrian said gently, patting the trunk. "I'm here."
The gesture seemed to work. Bart quivered, and the lines of the bark eased a little.
The fear in his eyes faded somewhat, though he was still uneasy.
Adrian suddenly had the odd sensation that he was soothing a very old child.
Though Bart's looks and voice were rather aged, his mind was clearly not very mature.
"Master..." Bart murmured, a little steadier than before. "Will they... will they come again?"
"They won't," Adrian said flatly.
Perhaps that was why he hadn't been able to sleep the night before.
Bart's fear had affected him too, leaving him unsettled.
Still, never mind the centaurs—he hadn't expected a tree like Bart would also be affected by Dementors.
It seemed it was time to teach those Dementors a lesson.
He would not allow them to frighten Bart again. "Right, speaking of which, Bart," Adrian changed the subject, "are you really not going to live somewhere else?"
"No, Master," Bart said, dejected. "I must stay here. I left before, but... that won't do."
"Very well."
Hearing that, Adrian did not press him.
"Wait!"
All at once, a thought struck him, and he looked at Bart in surprise. "You've been somewhere else before?"
"Yes," Bart replied.
"How did you manage that," Adrian raised an eyebrow, "I mean—how did you get to other places?"
"I walked," Bart said blankly.
"Eh?"
Adrian looked baffled. "You can walk?"
"Oh, I can."
Bart answered as if stating something perfectly ordinary.
Adrian suddenly felt it all a bit absurd.
This was too strange!
Perhaps to prove he was telling the truth, Bart began to move.
In an instant, the ground began to shudder and split.
There was a huge sound from Bart's base as his thick root-system started to writhe slowly.
Adrian's eyes widened as those gnarled roots drew from the earth like tentacles and gradually twisted and reshaped—
Until they became two sturdy wooden legs.
"This is..." He involuntarily took a step back.
Bart took a clumsy step, his branches swinging like arms to keep his balance, the face on his trunk scrunched up with the effort.
"See," he said, "I can walk, but walking is tiring."
Just then, his left "foot" caught on a bump, and the whole tree pitched forward.
Adrian hastily flicked his wand and used a Levitation Charm; Bart's massive body hung suspended in mid-air.
"Oh, thank you, Master, I'm not quite used to it," Bart said awkwardly, his roots paddling at empty air.
With a helpless wave of his wand, Adrian "planted" him back where he belonged.
Bart did not try again; the two legs reshaped into roots and burrowed back into the mound of earth.
Perhaps he had burned through too much energy, for Bart promptly yawned in a very human way. "I'm tired, Master."
"Have a good rest," Adrian said softly.
No sooner had he spoken than Bart's eyes closed at once; the whole face slowly sank back and he slipped into slumber.
It seemed that walking took a great deal of energy for Bart.
What an amusing great fellow.
Adrian slowly reached out his hand and provided Bart with a bit more magic.
After he finished, Adrian turned and left.
About half an hour later, not far from Bart, a black dog came padding along, a rabbit dangling from its mouth.
The blood at the rabbit's neck had not yet dried—clearly it had only just been taken.
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