"Mr. Potter! Why don't you come and sit here?"
But Harry had little time to answer for as soon as his steps had landed inside the room of Neutram Compar, he had been forcefully pulled down by Dumbledore to sit on his right. Still taking in the details of the room, Harry apprehensively glanced towards a boy and a girl, sitting beside each other, anxiously discoursing over something that sounded very much like a figment of the boy's mind. Ron and Hermione! On sighting Harry, Ron bravely pulled up a grand smile but Hermione, who was looking at Harry as if he could drop dead any moment, failed horribly even at contriving a perhaps-to-be-happy-face. And to hide her wonderment, she began to take relatively big swigs of water from one of the goblets; but that only after she had thrown multiple furtive glances between Harry and Dumbledore. Watching Hermione made Harry jittery; he wanted her to stop being nosy and to mind her own business. But instead of conveying his well meaning sentiments to Hermione, Harry chose to look into some other direction.
Soon he realized looking away wasn't a good decision either for the man who stared back from the opposite end of Hermione was none other than Snape. No doubt Harry hated Snape as much as Dobby loved Harry but since Dumbledore trusted him unequivocally, a decision Harry had long doubted, he had little choice but to stay in close proximity with the teacher.
"Mr. Potter" said the simpering voice; teeth clenched; lips curled from the corners; hair stuck around the ears like an untidy cloak sticking around Filtch's shapeless body. "too much of wizardry consumed in saving our hero's life, ehh?"
The statement thus made wasn't conjured by the way of expression but a question and for the reason that Snape couldn't taunt Harry directly under the very nose of Dumbledore he had acquired the habit of choosing his piercing innuendos ultra cautiously. Harry, who had perfectly known that the potion master meant no good, at once turned around and pretended to look with an unparalleled interest at something kept at the distant end. And at the other end there indeed was something to capture Harry's interest! At the end of the table he saw a chair, and by any Muggle's standard he could have called it a Throne, resting a few inches above the ground. The chair was as grand as the one Dumbledore had in his headmaster's office at Hogwarts. The only difference was that the one present in the room had an air of eeriness about it that the Dumbledore's one certainly lacked. Also there was something illegible written on the back of the chair which although Harry tried very hard to read, yet made no sense to him. He was about to ask Dumbledore about the mystery of the swirling chair when his eyes fell on the gates, present on the left and the right sides of the room, which allowing a quick entry to hundreds of Dementors and 8-10 ordinary looking wizards suddenly burst opened.
From one side the Dementors glided inside the room and from the other, a few ordinary looking wizards walked in. They all stood in a row, placing themselves on the left and the right sides of the dining table. They stood squared off with each looking at the one opposite to them with the eyes of complete distrust and loathing. Harry noticed that these wizards instead of holding a wand were holding a peculiar looking knife in their hands. In the hustle bustle and the strangeness of the scene Harry had completely forgotten that although the dementors, hundreds of them, stood at his left, nobody grew cold or weak. He was curious and so he turned around to ask Dumbledore who already had his face turned towards the boy and was now smiling thoughtfully at him.
"Yes Harry?" Dumbledore plodded in his honey like voice.
"Professor, I don't understand who these people are and why they are all brandishing knives on the dementors? I mean, I didn't know Muggle things work on them!"
"I am surprised Harry you didn't ask me what this room is and why you are here? Yet again, you have impressed me with your innocent habit of missing a Bludger for a snitch, Harry" The phoenix standing behind Dumbledore's chair gave a loud musical cry.
Harry realized how stupid he had been in asking Dumbledore about the wizards before knowing about the reason they were all there.
"Professor this is the room I..."
"Never unravel your dreams in front of your enemies, Harry, they always find a way to dismantle them"
"Sorry!"
"Don't be Harry! Being gullible is a quality. This room is called Neutram Compar. For years it had been used to reach at conclusions on matters that have long been ignored or haven't been sorted out intelligently; and you know how it is done?"
Harry nodded briskly.
"Harry, this is the room of equality. One cannot have a discussion here unless the two parties stand against each other equally. Equal at power, wits and emotions! That's the strength of the room! And one cannot exit it unless a conclusion has been reached. That's its weakness!"
"But Professor, I am still not clear why those wizards are standing against the dementors. The dementors are the foulest creatures who feed on your happy memories and they probably could be shooed away only by a..."
"A Patronus? Listen Harry, it is not always an easy thing to make a Patronus work and also, only an extremely powerful wizard such as yourself in the presence of Voldemort can invoke one. I need not tell you much about how a Patronus works as I believe professor Lupin has already done a great amount of work on you. But for your information these wizards aren't for controlling the dementors, they are for balancing the Voldemort's unforgivable incantations"
And before Harry could speak again, he sensed Snape gasping at a distance. He turned around sharply to look at the source that had created this subdued commotion in the room and found his eyes fixed on the black robe, ascending now the chair right opposite to Dumbledore's. And when the black robe had turned around to face them all, Harry's mark had begun to burn.
"Ouch" yelped Harry, fighting hard to suppress the pain from its creator.
"It hurts Harry, doesn't it?" asked Voldemort, looking indulgently at Harry.
"I hope it stops soon for how else would Hogwarts be able to hand you to me."
And then he gave out a loud cold laugh. A laugh that made no one smile; even the death eaters sitting close to Voldemort moved a little towards Dumbledore.
"And why exactly do you think we will give him to you, Tom?"
"Well, well well Dumbledore, the newspapers are incessantly talking about how you have lost your marbles but believe you me, I still hold trust in your mental faculties. Don't make me believe otherwise, professor! Give me Him and I promise I shall go away, forever."
"And what made you think I believe your promises, Voldemort?"
"You don't have any option, do you?" and with that Voldermort rose in the air, pulled out his wand, and pointing it towards an unprepared Harry yelled, "Avada Kedavra"
...
The room had turned to dust. To wherever the eyes travelled, only fumes and dirt followed. For the first time in his life Harry thought about Moaning Myrtle and how difficult it would be for her to be not living and to be just around. Probably life after death was living without life at all. Probably he had been sent to hell and in a minute would be summoned in the court of gods. But as the minutes passed by and the blood began to show its presence in Harry's limbs, he realized that he still was very much alive. But it was impossible to make way through the slimy looking silvery thick liquid that he was now lying upon. Harry tried really hard and finally succeeded in not only just sitting up straight but also in finding his fractured glasses and fixing it with a reparo.
What Harry saw next was beyond his wildest dream. He sat amidst the dead bodies of a dozen Unicorns. But he remembered seeing not even a single unicorn in the room of Neutram Compar. So how did they get to the place and how did they all die. He looked in the front where professor Dumbledore sat huddled between Ron and Hermione. They all were looking at the pool of Unicorns' blood in a pitiful and helpless state. Harry walked up to Dumbledore, fell on his knees and in a straggling voice implored him to tell what had had happened. Dumbledore signaled towards Hermione and without speaking a word left the room.
"Hermione what happened? How did I survive?"
"So eccentric you are Harry! You only care about yourself; you can't even see the hundreds of dead bodies lying in front of you."
And she followed the Dumbledore's way outside.
"What is wrong with her?" Harry asked Ron who now was trying really hard to evade an eye contact.
"While you know who hexed you, these unicorns protected you."
"But where did the Unicorns come from? I don't remember seeing any one of them!"
"Those wizards you remember who stood with knives in their hands were Animagus, Harry. And they all knew how to turn into a Unicorn."
"That makes sense. Still I don't understand how could a Unicorn protect me from Voldemort's spell?"
"Harry, before Voldemort could pull his wand out these wizards had already turned into Unicorns and thrown themselves on the knives. The moment they were killed, there blood flowed out and built up a membrane of protection around you. You remember they told that the room had to be equal before a discussion could began. Harry, these weren't simple Unicorns. They had known a life giving charm called Vitriolay, which is as powerful as Avada Kedavra. But the problem was that the charm required the sacrifice of Unicorns' blood."
"So why could not they just bring plain Unicorns? Are you saying that these people gave away their lives simply for me?"
"I am afraid that is so, Harry! And for why not Unicorns because they don't chant! Voldemort would have known these wizards were Animagus had they not known Occlumency well. "
With a sharp cry Harry fell down flat on the unicorns' blood ...