TBAY Busy Hairy Sunflowers

[Melody]

No: HPFGUIDX 46756

Digging through her closet for a pair of blue jeans and a sweatshirt,
Melody was glad to finally be able to leave her room.  Seems Pip and
Grey had felt it was best for her to be confined for her own safety
and their sanity.  But now off her prescribed meds and beginning to
feel her head returning to a fairly round state, breathing free air
was her only care.  Well that and working out a project Frankie
brought her.

While she was under close supervision, Frankie was kind enough to busy
Melody's mind and hands with the possibility that Dumbledore's watch
was created by the centaurs.  Intrigued by the idea, Melody worked all
her few non-painful hours on the idea.  She had most of it mapped out
and wanted to run it by Frankie.  Finding what she was looking for in
her closet and dressing quickly, Melody gathered her notes and books
to head off to the RATS room hoping to find Frankie there.

Skipping down the stairs, a strange scent hit her.  Seems Frankie was
indeed in her room and was currently repainting the walls.  Not sure
she wanted to kill more brain cells, Melody paused, but in the end,
her curiosity got the better of her.

Coming to the steel door, Melody knocked on the frame and called
"Frankie?"

Carefully balanced on an end table, Frankie looked up from her
masterpiece.  Dressed again in her yellow and black tank top and
cutoffs, this time not as saturated from the bay, Frankie greeted,
"Hi, Mel.  You look tons better."

"Thanks," she smiled.  "Why are you repainting the mural?"

Frankie dropped her brush into a boar-headed stein full of mineral
spirits and looked over her work.  "The pig part was too realistic and
the trousers looked a little lopsided.  I wanted to kick it up a notch
and make piggy's cheeks shine.  Do you like it?" she asked while
wiping brow causing a bit of pink streak across her face.

"Yeah, you really captured the eyes.  Can you take a break?  I want to
go over the centaur connection." Melody said shifting the weight of
the books and papers in her hands.

"Sure, sure.  Let me get down," she said while jumping off the table.
 Melody sat down making herself comfortable on the floor.

"You can sit in one of our chairs, Mel.  Grey Wolf made plenty,"
Frankie offered as she settled into one.

Melody eyed the bent and twisted willow branches and shivered a bit.
"No.  No, I am fine here."

Frankie sympathetically smiled and asked, "What have you worked out?"

"Oh, all kind of stuff," Melody said while flipping through her pages.
 "Do you have any figurines in here?  I want to create a model of the
centaurs and forest to work with."

Frankie looked around and found three porcelain piggy banks.  "Will
these do?"

"Well, they could in a pinch.  Though it would be hard to imagine the
human part.  Hmmm.  I wonder if the safe house has a toybox?" Melody
asked.

"I don't know.  I would ask Sneeky," offered Frankie.

"Oh, good idea.  Sneeky!" Melody called.

"Yes Miss," the house elf replied almost immediately.

"Sneeky, do we have any action figures or toys around here?" Melody
asked the little elf.

Sneeky thought a bit, "Yes?m.  Mr. Wolf has a box he uses to work out
his theories, though he does not want them anymore.  He says they are
too hard to manipulate with his paws."

Melody jumped at the idea of all those toys being thrown away,
"Sneeky, please don't say you?re threw them out." she urged.

"Oh, no Miss.  Trash comes on Wednesdays.  They are still here.  In
Mr. Wolf's room." Sneeky squeaked.

Hurrying out the door, Melody called behind her, "Thanks Sneeky."

Coming to the main living room, Melody looked around her.  She had
never visited Grey's room before and had no idea where it was.  For
that matter, she had no idea where Pip stayed either, but she had an
idea that it was up those spiral stairs moving gently like an
escalator.  Going with the odds since she had never been in the west
wing of the house, Melody headed down the corridor.  Coming to massive
oak door scarred with claw marks, her only guess was that this was it.

Knocking at the door, Melody wondered if this was a good idea.  Grey's
gentle voice came from within, "Come in."

Pushing with all her might, Melody cracked the door open and saw Grey
Wolf standing there with his massively sized wireless keyboard in one
paw and a projected CG images of his current theories dancing around
the room.  Upon seeing the girl, Grey relaxed and smiled, "Glad to see
you are mending Mel."

"Thanks," she blushed as she walked in and looked around at the
images, "What are you doing?"

Grey looked around the room realizing it might look a bit odd.  "I was
working out the timing of Spy!Sirius's escape and months away from
Hogwarts.  The CG figures help to equate the distance and needed
mileage of the bird posts and when and where Sirius could of gone."

"Cool," Melody said impressed.

Looking a bit apprehensive and chewing on his lip a bit, Grey asked,
"Mel, do you remember anything about your little loony adventure in
the backyard a few days ago?"

Melody, surprised he asked, said, "Um...not really.  I remember being
a bit dizzy and something about a grass stained thundercat, but it all
blurry now.  Why?"

Grey looked back down at his keyboard, "I just wanted to make sure you
did not believe what I said that day.  I decided a long time ago that
it is best to not try and outguess JKR.  She is a crafty little thing.
 I only tried to argue with you that day to get you calm down."

Smiling at the earnest werewolf, Melody breathed, "Understandable.
Far be it for me to assume you meant what you said.  You were only
trying to get me back inside and in yours and Pip's safe arms.

Relieved, Grey put down the keyboard and moved over to his dark
leather desk chair next to where Mel was standing.  "So then.  What
can I do for you?"

"Well, Sneeky said you had a toybox here that you do not want anymore,
and I was wondering if I could have it?" Melody asked picking a flower
petal from Grey?s mane not expecting him to say no.  He has always
indulged her.

He pointing to the corner but asked, "Why would you want those?"

"To play with," Melody said quite frankly.  It seemed pretty obviously
to her.

"Very well, they were too small for my paws anyway.  I kept breaking
the wings off Buckbeak," Grey said sitting back in his chair.

Melody managed to raise the box and balance it on her hip.  "Thanks,
Grey.  Will you be at dinner?"

"Definitely.  A wolf has to eat sometime and Sneeky is a wonderful
chef," Grey added.

"Great, See ya," Melody called as she headed back down the corridor to
the RATS room.  Reaching the door, Melody was happy to see Meg had
joined Frankie and Sneeky had brought a tea tray.  "Hi, Meg.  What
brings you here?" Melody asked lowering the toybox to the floor.

"Frankie called me by fire.  Told me that you had figured out how to
prove the centaur watch connection, so I was greatly intrigued.  And
besides, I?ve got exactly one half-hour before my next class," Meg
said settling in her willow rocker.  Her pigtails were swaying along
to the rhythm of the chair.  "But first, what is this about you taking
too much medicine?"

"A completely accident I assure you," Melody looked up with innocence
painted on her face.  "I did not mean to take that much.  I just could
not see the dosage for the pain."

Meg sized her up, "Alright then.  But next time, I am bringing it
myself in time-release canisters that open only when the hour strikes.
 But still...glad no harm was done, so on to the theory."

"Ok," Melody said sorting through the toy box.  "Let see."  Pulling
out three My Little Ponies, Melody quickly cut off their heads [why do
I feel like the Godfather  :) ] and spliced the ponies with the top
body of a few he-man figures.  "Ok, here we go.  Y'all comfortable?"

Frankie and Meg giggled at the muscular centaurs with the smooth
fluffy pastel tails and clicked their tea cups to encourage Mel to start.

"All right.  Where should I begin?" Melody wondered looking over the
books.

Frankie rocked back, "Well, what exactly does PS/SS say about the watch?"

"Let's see," Melody said opening PS/SS to where she marked it.

----
PS/SS Ch1:
...as he took a golden watch from his packet and examined it.  It was
a very odd watch.  It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little
planets were moving around the edge.
----

"So the watch has little planets running around the edge.  I assume to
be a sort of language of the stars for Dumbledore to read.  Now who
else reads the stars and planets?  The centaurs," Melody began placing
the he-man ponies out.  Ronan had the purple tail, Bane the dark blue
tail, and Firenze the pink.  "Here is a bit passage a little later on
from PS/SS Ch 15."

---
He [Ronan] flung back his head and stared at the sky.  "Mars is bright
tonight."
---

"Band did the same thing a couple of paragraphs later, and Firenze
knew perfectly well what their planet reading meant, so it seems all
centaurs, or at least the ones in the forbidden forest, can read the
planets."

Melody pulled out the lego trees from the toybox to create a rather
sparse forest and a small Victorian dollhouse to represent Hogwarts.
Happy with her little HP world, Melody tossed the next book and said,
"Here, Frankie, read what FB&WTFT says about the centaurs."

Frankie caught the book and let it fall open to the well broken
binding of the part about the centaurs.  Reading out loud the
highlighted parts,

----
...being intelligent and capable of speech, it [a centaur] should not
strictly speaking be termed a beast...

The ways of the centaur are shrouded in mystery.  They are generally
speaking as mistrustful of wizards as they are of Muggles...

They are reputed to be well-versed in magical healing, divination,
archery, and astronomy.
----

"Sounds straight forward enough.  Back to you Mel," finished Frankie.

Melody continued, "So the centaurs are well known to be into planet
watching and are intelligent to the point of being thought equal to
humans.  They are also mysterious and keep to themselves.  Now, we
know Dumbledore has made friends with the merpeople of Hogwart's lake
when in GoF Ch 20 Dumbledore talked to the Mercheifaintess Murcus
after task two.  So we can say that Dumbledore is on good relations
with the merpeople on the lake."

Melody picked back up PS/SS and turned to Ch 15 again, "In the forest,
Hagrid had made friends with the centaurs even though they mistrust
wizards and muggles."  Bringing out a rather large stuffed smurf,
Melody placed it in the forest then continued, "He had earned their
trust and are on a first name basis with them.  So, I figure, if
Hagrid is good friends with the centaurs, it is safe to say Dumbledore
also has good relations with them as well.  Dumbledore is known to be
kind and noble, so I would assume, or rather hope, the centaurs would
also respect him."

Melody stopped.  "Y'all still with me?  You are very quiet," she asked.

Frankie and Meg looked up.  They had been playing with the he-man
centaurs making them charge each other and thus caused the he-man
bodies to fall out.  "Yeah, Dumbledore is friends with the centaurs.
Fair assertion," Frankie agreed.

"Yeah, no big jump of logic I think," Meg nodded piecing Firenze back
together again.

"Ok, then I will continue," Melody said stretching a bit.  "So since
Hagrid and Dumbledore are friends with the centaurs, it could be
assumed that gifts could also be exchanged.  So, what would a centaur
give a powerful wizard?  I say the planet watch."

"But how can you say that the centaurs created it?  They are in a
forest," Frankie asked combing and braiding Bane's tail.

"Good questions, now we know the forest is forbidden, right?"

"Yeah," they chimed in agreement.

"So no students can go out there.  They are told for their safety, but
it is possible for more reasons.  They were told the same for the
third floor corridor, and it was not a complete lie.  Fluffy was
dangerous, but it was also to keep intruders from the stone.  So, it
is possible the forest hides the centaur's little workshop."  And with
that Melody rummaged in the toybox to find a little matchbox and
placed it in the middle of the lego tree forest.  "So, the centaurs
can do something besides just look up.  They can go work in their shop
to create special delicate rare timepieces for their use."

Meg looked up from twisting the tails of Firenze and Ronan together
and asked, "But there is no proof in the books."

"Ai, but there is the possibility.  Like Frankie read before, 'The
ways of the centaur are shrouded in mystery.'  No one really knows
except those that have befriended the centaurs."

Frankie looked down at the book again, "Hey, it says here they are
'forest-dwelling' so where ever there are centaurs, there could be a
hidden watch shop.  It even says here that centaurs live in herds of
'10 to 50 members,' so they are in communities to work together."

"Does it say where the centaurs are from?" Meg asked, "Maybe they are
originally from Switzerland and picked up the art from there."

Frankie skimmed down the book and said, "No, it says here Greece, but
that was a great hope."

"Yeah, I don't know how to work the Greece part in yet, but I am sure
it could possibly.  But even without it, we know the centaurs are
smart enough, they know enough about the stars and planets, they are
well hidden and cloaked in enough mystery that no one would know the
watch shop existed, and, as Frankie pointed out, the centaurs have
opposable thumbs.  Besides, they must do something in that forest
beside wander around and looking up."

Frankie kicked her legs.  "Like huge, hairy sunflowers."

Melody and Meg smiled.  "So what does this leave us?" Meg asked.

"I think with the possibility that Dumbledore and the centaurs are
friends enough to give Dumbledore a special centaur watch," Melody
said quite convinced.

Frankie and Meg nodded in agreement and continued playing with the
tails of the he-man centaurs.  Glad that she finally presented her
findings, Melody sighed and thought, "At least there is more proof
that a centaur created the watch than the likes of Trelawney."


Melody