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I\u2019ve been reading the Jim Kay-illustrated edition of Sorcerer\u2019s Stone to my cat, because I feel like that version deserves to be read aloud, and Scraps is a pretty good audience. We just finished Chapter 15 \u2013 The Forbidden Forest, and it brought something to the front of my mind that I\u2019ve been thinking about for a while: is there free will in the Wizarding World?
\nThis is the chapter in which Harry meets the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest\u2014Ronan, Bane, and Firenze. Bane is furious with Firenze for interacting with Harry and saving him from Voldemort. Firenze tells Harry, \u201cThe forest is not safe at this time\u2014especially for you.\u201d Later, he tells the furious Bane, \u201cThis is the Potter boy. The quicker he leaves this forest, the better.\u201d Bane responds, \u201cWhat have you been telling him? … Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?\u201d
\nEvery other time I have read this scene, I have always assumed that this conversation revolved around the dangers Voldemort posed to forest-dwellers at the time. But perhaps the centaurs knew something else. Maybe they knew Harry was destined, one day, to die in the Forbidden Forest.
\nWe don\u2019t know much about the centaur brand of divination\u2014we only see Firenze teach it during the latter half of Harry\u2019s fifth year, since Harry gives up on the subject after his O.W.L. results come back. In their lessons with Firenze, we learn that centaurs \u201c\u2026watch the skies for the great tides of evil or change that are sometimes marked there,\u201d that \u201c\u2026it may take years to be sure of what [they] are seeing,\u201d and that \u201c\u2026even centaurs sometimes read [signs] wrongly.\u201d Most important, perhaps, is Harry\u2019s takeaway that, \u201c[Firenze\u2019s] priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even centaurs\u2019 knowledge, was foolproof.\u201d
\nIn contrast to Professor Trelawney, who more often than not radiated confidence in her incorrect predictions, Firenze seems to represent a more grounded version of divination, which seems\u2014in the Wizarding World\u2014to be rooted in truth.