Even though Pomona had paid "tuition," Dolan was only a sparring partner, and he was not particularly combative. Yet Pomona hoped the Centaurs could teach Severus some real skills.
While chasing the key, she thought of Ronan, a Centaur with red hair and a beard, a long red tail, and a fierce appearance, though he spoke in a slow, melancholy manner. When he ran, his hair, beard, and tail seemed to burn like fire.
Because Centaurs were "savage primitives," people often assumed they would shoot anyone who trespassed into their territory with the arrows in their hands. Hogwarts' Forbidden Forest happened to be home to a herd of Centaurs.
No headmaster had ever required the Centaurs not to harm minors. The Centaurs had made that rule for themselves: do not use violence in front of "foals."
But Centaurs were not ignorant of humans. Many of them had seen what happened beneath the beech tree that day.
There had once been a Minister for Magic who told a joke about "a Centaur, a ghost, and a Leprechaun walking into a bar." Since ghosts had no legs, they could only glide, and even if they had once been human, by that definition they were no longer people. The ghosts accused the living of disregarding the feelings of the dead.
Leprechauns had two legs and could speak human language, yet they were classified as beasts because they had never asked to be categorized as "beings." In any case, that Minister for Magic enraged the Centaurs with his joke. He survived a Centaur assassination attempt by the narrowest margin.
All creatures knew how to protect themselves and attack their enemies. They knew where their natural weapons were and how to use them. A wild boar knew how to use its tusks, a rooster used