The fires vanished as if someone had turned them off at a wall switch, and so did the smoke. Nora had been about to dive, but she stopped and pulled up again to hover – and the acromantulas stopped as well.
One of the centaur's arrows was loosed, perhaps by accident, and before it was halfway it turned into an odd brown-and-steel bird which hovered in the air.
Professor Dumbledore walked over towards it, extending his arm, and the bird alighted on it.
"Good afternoon," he said pleasantly. "I do hope someone knows what's going on here, because I was in the middle of quite an excellent cup of tea."
It was almost an odd thing to think about Professor Dumbledore – who'd been nothing but pleasant for Harry's whole time at Hogwarts – but it was now that Harry could really see why it was that Tom Riddle had been outright scared of Dumbledore.
It wasn't that he was angry, really – Dumbledore seemed more sad than anything, even though he was polite and courteous and smiling. It was partly just how good he was at magic, because Harry was now at the point he felt like he knew how hard what Dumbledore had just done was, and partly that he was completely pleasant and well mannered at the same time.
Harry sort of knew what it was like when people met someone like Gandalf or Belgarath, now.