CHAPTER TEN
Dudley caught up to Harry and Hannah surprisingly easily, for all that they were invisible.
By the time he found them, they were huffing and puffing and hauling a crate of baby dragon down a long stretch of hallway towards the stairs to the astronomy tower. He kept a careful distance behind them and stuck to the shadows, since he wasn't invisible as they were, and wished the entire time that they were being a little more quiet and careful. It was tempting to step forward and help, but the cloak wouldn't be enough to cover him and if someone did come by it would be extremely suspicious.
They reached the corridor just beneath the tallest tower without incident, and then there was movement up ahead. Harry and Hannah immediately went silent, and Dudley ducked into an alcove that was partially covered by a suit of armor. He watched through the cracks as a lamp flared, and could just make out Professor McGonagall in a tartan bathrobe and hair net. She had Malfoy by the ear, and looked absolutely thunderous.
"Detention!" she shouted. "And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you-"
Malfoy winced, and protested, "You don't understand, Professor! Harry Potter's coming - he's got a dragon!"
"What utter rubbish!" said McGonagall, and hauled him away. "I shall see Professor Snape about you, Malfoy!"
When they had gone, the invisible first years crept out to the spiral staircase and began to ascend. Dudley, sure that nothing awaited them but Charlie's friends at the top of the tower, decided to settle in until they returned. He'd be able to fit under the cloak for the return trip, and he doubted they'd mind. He hadn't been waiting long, however, when Filch poked his head into the corridor. Dudley went very still, and thought very carefully about Not Being There. Mrs. Norris, thankfully, was nowhere in sight, and Filch didn't think to check behind the armor. He'd leave soon enough, and that would be that.
Except it wasn't, and minutes later, Hannah and Harry came down the stairs, looking cheerful, and by the time they realized they'd forgotten the invisibility cloak, it was too late. They left with Filch, drooping, and as soon as they were out of sight, Dudley hurried up the tower. It was a lovely night, with clear skies, and if Dudley squinted he could just barely make out a dark shape he thought might be Charlie's friends. He cast about for a sign of the cloak, and eventually spotted it crumpled near the wall. "At least it didn't accidentally go with Norbert," he muttered, and picked it up.
He descended the stairs, folding the cloak as he went. It was unlikely that anyone else would be out this late at night, especially now that Filch and McGonagall both were occupied, and while he'd be careful, he doubted the cloak was needed. It was carefully tucked inside his bathrobe, and he made his way through the castle, sticking carefully to the shadows.
His luck didn't hold, because what he hadn't known was that McGonagall's office was on the first floor, and that his route would take him right past it. He also hadn't known that a certain cat would be lurking and trip him just as he neared it, nor that Filch would open the door and spot him. And so it was that he joined his friends - and Malfoy - in McGonagall's office. He thought he could see a nerve throbbing in her temple.
"Dursley," she said, sounding as though she were trying incredibly hard to keep her temper in check, "I hope I won't see the rest of you tonight."
"No, Professor," Dudley said politely. "Just us."
She regarded them all coldy. "I would never have believed it of any of you," she said. "Abbott, Potter, Mr. Filch says you were up in the astronomy tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."
Hannah folded her arms and looked away, face bright red with embarrassment, and Harry shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other. Neither seemed capable of coming up with a suitable answer. McGonagall turned to Dudley, and he heaved a sigh.
"It was my idea, Professor," he lied. His friends stared at him, and so did Malfoy, mouth agape. The Professor raised an eyebrow, and Dudley scuffed his toe. "I wanted to prank Malfoy, y'see. He just wouldn't leave us alone, and I thought that if we embarrassed him enough, he'd back off. So we pretended to have a dragon, and made sure he'd overhear it and go to stop us. I talked Harry and Hannah into going to give him a scare, too, maybe, we hadn't decided." He shrugged, looking down at his slippers. "I thought it was taking too long, so I came out to see and got myself caught. But none of the others knew about the sneaking out bit."
He risked a glance at McGonagall's face. She looked about ready to burst with anger. "I'm disgusted," she said after a long, tense moment. "I would have thought you'd have more sense, all of you! Detentions - yes, you too, Mr. Malfoy - and I'll be taking fifty points from each of your Houses." She was breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose. Harry and Malfoy opened their mouths to protest, but immediately shut them again at a glare from her. "It's fortunate for you that Mr. Dursley was so forthcoming. Get back to bed, all of you."
No one regarded them very kindly the next day. Fifty points was just enough to knock Gryffindor's lead, and put it on the same level as Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Almost immediately, too, the other houses began to retake points, and by the end of the day, almost all of Gryffindor was shunning Harry. Dudley snuck Harry's cloak into his school bag over dinner, and assured him and Hannah that it could've been much worse.
"Imagine you'd been caught with Norbert," he pointed out, and they had to agree.
A week before exams, Harry burst into the library with bad news. "It's happened!" he hissed, with a wary look at Madam Pince. Seeing that the librarian was absorbed in her work, he continued, "Snape's finally done it!"
"There's still Fluffy," Hermione said, but she sounded worried.
"Maybe Snape's figured that out too," Hannah said, frowning. "I'm sure that if you knew what to look for-"
"What do we do?" Neville moaned.
There was a moment of silence as they considered their options. The light of adventure had just begun to kindle in Ron's eyes when Hermione said, "Go to Dumbledore. That's what we should've done ages ago."
"But we've got no proof," said Hannah. "Quirrel's too scared to back us up. Snape's only got to play innocent, and everyone knows we hate him - Dumbledore'll think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn't help us if his life depended on it, he hates students. And we're not even supposed to know about any of this, so it'd take a lot of explaining and we'd probably lose every point our Houses have got."
Ron opened his mouth, but Harry, who'd been on the receiving end of a number of fierce lectures on losing points by nearly everyone in Gryffindor and had reconsidered this investigation business, said, "We've done enough poking around. We'll just - have to let the teachers handle it, I guess." He pulled a map of Jupiter toward him and carefully studied it, and after a moment, the rest of them settled in to work on their own homework.
The following morning, notes were delivered to Harry, Hannah, and Dudley at the breakfast table. They were all the same:
Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight. Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall.
Professor McGonagall
Dudley had forgotten all about the detentions, since he'd been devoting most of his time to studying, and from the look of it, so had his friends. But none of them complained, and at eleven o'clock that night, met up in the entrance hall, where Filch was waiting with Malfoy. The blond boy pointedly did not look at them.
"Follow me," said Filch, lighting a lamp and leading them outside. "I bet you'll think twice about breaking a school rule again, won't you, eh?" He leered at them, and began to wax poetic about torture. Dudley wasn't listening. All he could think about was that they were outside, and once they started moving, that they were headed for a very specific location.
The moon was bright overhead, almost unnaturally so, but the passing clouds kept throwing them into darkness. They approached Hagrid's hut with some apprehension, especially considering Filch was nearly beside himself with glee.
"Is that you, Filch?" Hagrid called. "Hurry up, I want ter get started."
And relief must have shown on someone's face, because that was when Filch informed them, very cheerfully, that they would be serving detention in the forest.
Dudley absently toyed with his wand as the others talked. He wasn't sure what it was, but something had him feeling on edge. It wasn't quite fear, nor even a proper sense of forboding. He hardly noticed as Hagrid split them into groups, putting Malfoy with Harry and Fang, taking Hannah and Dudley himself, and it took nearly walking into a treet to snap out of it.
"All righ', Dudley?" Hagrid asked as he righted himself.
"Could be worse," Dudley said. "What're we after, again?"
"Weren't yeh listening?" the giant cried, sounding exasperated, and pointed out a silvery liquid on the ground. "Unicorn blood. We're tryin' teh find the poor thing."
Frowning, Dudley fell into step behind Hannah, who was thrumming with an emotion somewhere between fear and excitement. Her pigtails swished back and forth like a pendulum, the moonlight turning the blonde hair into a silvery blur, and, suspecting it might help, Dudley allowed himself to be lulled into something of a trance. As he walked on autopilot, he attempted, for the first time since the previous summer, to sense magic - only this time, he did it with his eyes open.
At first, nothing much happened. But the more he relaxed, the more shimmering lights crept into his line of sight, and Dudley quickly realized he had no idea what he was looking for. I'll know it when I see it, he thought to himself, but the magic was so tangled he wasn't sure if he actually would.
They ran across two centaurs, Ronan and Bane, and Dudley only listened with half an ear as they drove Hagrid up the wall with their vague answers. It was as he was peering around that he noticed something strange. The thing about the magic in the forest was that it all seemed to wind together properly, even the darker bits. There was a pattern, almost like a spiderweb, that seemed to lay over everything. But now that he looked, there was an anomaly - a thread that didn't fit into the weave, an intruder. He didn't notice Hagrid and Hannah leave, instead taking his own path. He knew, somehow, that he was following the creature responsible for the injured unicorns, and Dudley also had the feeling that if he touched the thread of magic it left, it would know he was there and would probably kill him. He therefore gave the thread a wide berth.
By the time he stopped and took stock of his surroundings, Dudley wound up snapping entirely out of his trance, because he realized immediately that he had no idea where he was. He grimaced, then tried to fall back into the pattern, but it was too late. With an annoyed huff, he took out his wand and was about to send up some kind of signal, he wasn't sure what, when voices drifted through the trees.
"-Potter," one of them sneered, voice oddly tinny, as if it was an echo. "And when my father hears - what was that?"
Dudley stepped out onto the path, and Malfoy and Harry stared at him in consternation. "Dudley? I thought you were with Hagrid," Harry said.
"I got a little lost," Dudley admitted. Fang eased close to him and whined, and Dudley obligingly scratched his ears. "How're we supposed to signal? I didn't hear earlier."
"Sparks," said Harry, glancing past him - and froze. "Look-" he murmured. Dudley turned to see, and Malfoy craned his neck. Just ahead, lying in a clearing, something white was gleaming on the ground. They all inched forward for a better look.
It was the unicorn, and it was definitely dead. The long, slender limbs were stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen, and the pearly-white mane was tangled in the dark leaves. They stared at it in silence, mournful, and Harry had just stepped forward when they heard a slithering sound. Dudley threw an arm out to stop him, and as they watched, a bush on the edge of the clearing quivered. A hooded figure slowly emerged from the foliage, crawling hand over hand across the ground in a strangely lizard-like motion. It reached the unicorn and seemed to consider its prey for a moment before lowering its head to the wound in the animal's side and beginning to drink.
"AAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Malfoy uttered a horrible scream and bolted. Fang did too, bowling Dudley over in the process, and the hooded figure raised its head. It looked straight at Harry, who was frozen in terror. Unicorn blood dribbled down the figure's front as it got to its feet, and as it strode right at Harry, Dudley struggled up, swallowing down his fear.
"No you don't," he growled, and grabbed Harry by the robes. Before the figure could react, Dudley plunged into the trees, dragging his startled cousin behind him. Harry staggered, crying out in pain, and almost dragged Dudley down with him. Turning, the Hufflepuff scooped him up with all the ease of someone who'd carried children around for years, then, barely sparing a glance for the persuing figure, hurried off in a different direction.
Harry was, admittedly, a great deal heavier than a baby, especially now he'd gotten used to regular meals, and Dudley was, in truth, occupying the body of an overweight eleven year old. It wasn't long before the only thing keeping him going was sheer determination and protective instinct.
It was a root that finally did him in.
He and Harry crashed to the ground in an ungraceful heap, and Dudley lay there stunned for a moment before pushing himself up on shaky arms and turning to face the direction he'd come. A breeze gently wound through the trees, but otherwise, the forest was eerily silent. Beside him, Harry got up with a groan, cringing and rubbing his head. "What was that?" he asked, voice strained.
"No idea," Dudley panted, then thought to get out his wand. He shifted up onto his knees, but his legs felt like jelly, and he wasn't sure if he could run like that again. "See anything?"
"No, nothing." Harry had his wand out now too, and was squinting out into the darkness despite being obviously in pain.
They wouldn't have seen the figure at all when it came, if it weren't for the glistening unicorn blood down its front. "There!" Harry said through gritted teeth, hand trembling dangerously as he pointed his wand. Dudley brought up his own with a spell on his lips - he wasn't sure which - but before they could make a move, they heard the sound of galloping hooves. Something charged into the clearing straight at the figure, which fled, and as Harry toppled to his knees in relief, Dudley finally remembered to raise his wand and fire red sparks into the air.
A centaur stepped up to him a few moments later, as Harry's face began to clear of pain. He was younger than Ronan and Bane, with white-blond hair and a palomino body, and he looked kindly at Harry. "Are you all right?" he asked, offering a hand.
Harry accepted the help and got shakily to his feet, sharing a look with Dudley before answering. "Yes, thank you - what was that?"
The centaur didn't answer. He studied Harry with astonishingly blue eyes, then said, "You are the Potter boy. You had best get back to Hagrid, the forest is not safe at this time." He turned to Dudley, frowned a little as if puzzled, then said, "Come, I will guide you. My name is Firenze."
He led them in silence after warning them to keep close, and patiently kept a pace they could manage. Once or twice, Dudley thought he caught a glimpse of other centaurs, but none came forward, and Firenze didn't seem to notice. He seemed to have no interest in speaking to them, but eventually, he stopped and said, "Harry Potter, do you know what unicorn blood is used for?"
"No," said Harry, startled. "We've only used the horn and tail hair in Potions."
"That is because it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn," said Firenze. "Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips."
Harry and Dudley stared at him. "But who would be desperate enough to do that?" Harry asked, frowning. "Wouldn't death be better?"
"Yes," Firenze agreed, "unless all you need is to stay alive long enough to drink something else that will bring you back to full strength and power, something that will give you immortality." He turned his pale sapphire eyes upon the two boys. "Do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?"
Dudley's blood ran cold. Harry, oblivious, said, "The Sorcerer's Stone! But who-"
"Voldemort," Dudley whispered, and his cousin turned to gawk at him. He watched the smaller boy's face change as he worked through that in his mind. He looked at Firenze; the centaur nodded.
"Harry! Dudley! Are you all right?" Hannah burst through the trees with the energy of a small whirlwind, brandishing a large stick, with Hagrid puffing along behind her.
"We're fine," Harry croaked, sounding utterly unconvincing. "The unicorn's dead, Hagrid, it's in that clearing back there." He pointed.
"This is where I leave you," Firenze murmured as Hagrid hurried off. "You are safe now. Good luck, Harry Potter." He leaned close to add something else, then turned to Dudley. "And you, Starless. The heavens have been read wrongly before, even by centaurs, but we have not seen you among them. I would caution you to be careful, and take great care where you tread."
He turned and cantered back into the forest, leaving three confused children behind him.
Malfoy and Fang were waiting at Hagrid's hut when they returned, both trembling with cold and fear. The blond looked ready to pass out with relief when he saw that all was well, and as they approached, Dudley called out, "All right, Malfoy?"
The boy jerked back in surprise, almost as if he'd been struck, then nodded hesitantly. "What was that thing?" Malfoy demanded, going for imperious but utterly failing.
"We're not sure," Dudley said, deciding not to panic him. They hadn't said anything to Hagrid about it being Voldemort, and while they were going to tell Hannah, this wouldn't be the best time for it. "But I think we scared it off for now. Or, well, the centaurs did."
"In any case, yer detention's over," Hagrid said. "Migh' as well get on up ter bed. I'll walk yeh up ter the castle." They went quietly, each lost in their own thoughts, and he dropped them off with a stern warning not to go wandering around. None of them were inclined to do so, however, and immediately split up to go to their separate Houses. Malfoy walked with Hannah and Dudley a short ways, then left silently for the dungeons when they reached the stairs.
"What was it really, Dud?" Hannah finally asked when they reached their destination, keeping her voice down as she tapped the correct barrel.
"We think Voldemort," Dudley whispered, and went over everything Firenze had said to them as they curled up in armchairs in the common room. She listened attentively, and shuddered in horror as he finished.
"I'm glad I was with Hagrid," she said, then frowned. "Why did you wander off, anyway?"
Dudley thought about how to explain, then said, "You know how I meditate? This time, I sort of... meditated while walking, and stretched out my senses so I could try and see magic." He waited, but she only nodded. "I thought maybe it would help, y'know? And once I figured out the pattern the forest has, I saw what was wrong and sort of followed it."
That surprised her. "Isn't that pretty advanced magic?" she said, hugging her knees. "I mean, sensing magic is one thing - but being able to understand patterns... I thought you had to be trained for it."
"I hadn't thought about that. Maybe it's just a focus thing? I know some people have trouble learning to meditate in the first place, for example."
"Maybe," Hannah conceded. "Have you tried it in the castle?"
He shook his head. "I'm kind of scared to," he confessed. She nodded, sympathetic, then yawned and took herself off to bed.
Dudley stayed where he was, staring quietly into the fire. "Starless," he murmured, testing it. "What does that mean?" He pondered it for a while, then resolved to ask Dumbledore next time he saw him, and finally went to bed.
