Unicorns/"Stargazing"/Prophecy

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 110002

--- Neisha Saxena <neisha_saxena at y...> wrote:
> 
> Has anyone else wondered about the centaur's reading
> of the stars in Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone in
> light of the prophecy revealed in OOTP?  IIRC, the
> centaurs try to dissuade Firenze from saving Harry by
> saying something like, you know what is coming, we
> don't interfere with what is written in the stars. 
> They also keep repeating to Hagrid that "Mars is
> bright tonight," which is exactly what Firenze says in
> Divination class in OOTP.  It seems that when Mars is
> bright, Voldemort is about to make a move toward the
> upcoming war.  

I think that the centaurs are actually being fairly direct, within the
confines of their own "neutrality" policy, when they make the
astrological comments.  It is a symptom of the breakdown of
interspecies communication that Hagrid (and, to a lesser extent,
Harry) does not understand them ("ruddy stargazers").  "Mars is bright
tonight" was pretty clearly supposed to indicate a premonition of war,
Mars being the god of war, and of course Firenze confirmed that in his
first Divination lesson in OP (ch. 27).  I'm pretty confident that if
the centaurs had said that to Dumbledore (or even to Hermione, now
that she has broadened her mind a bit), there would have been no
confusion about what they meant. 
 
-- Matt