Daria, Meli, Luna, Patricia, and Harry huddled close to Lyra as the bubble of heat from her staff paved their way through the waist-deep snow. When they got closer, they could see Hagrid standing next to Professor Kettleburn and four other students. There was a small fire going next to his hut, and they were standing around to keep warm.
Lyra recognized three of the four from their year group as Elisa Sweetleaf, Lloyd Hickories, and Jason Middleton. The fourth Ravenclaw looked much older and wasn't recognized. Harry and Lyra hadn't met Professor Kettleburn yet, only known him by reputation. They had seen his mechanical arm before but were seeing it up close now for the first time.
He had white hair that covered one side of his head where he was missing an ear, on the other side of his head, he wore an eye patch for a missing eye. Sticking out one arm of his winter coat wasn't a human hand, but more like a pincher with three fingers, equally spaced around the wrist joint. Even in the snow, he wore a kilt that went down to his knees so they could see he had two metal legs; one of them was just a foot and went halfway up his shin, the other they couldn't see the top of. All of them were the color of brass, and he was using his real hand to hold a large cigar, which was smoking in the light of the fire.
"Welcome, welcome," he began. "We're all here now. For those who don't know me, I am Professor Kettleburn, for the Care of Magical Creatures class. Tonight we will be going into the forest to visit the unicorns. How many of you have gone to see the thestrals?"
Two of the Ravenclaws and all of the Scamanders raised their hands.
"Excellent, we will be going to the same clearing to see them. I will be giving each of you a backpack to take with us. It contains leaves, flowers, berries, and fruits that we will be using to feed them. Mr. Hagrid here will lead the way, as most of the more dangerous creatures in the forest will avoid him and those who accompany him. Any questions?"
No one responded so Professor Kettleburn pointed them towards a pile of bags for them to take.
Hagrid picked up a large lantern and yelled towards his hut, "Fang! Get out here!"
The large boarhound barreled out the door and barked as he approached the students. Harry and Lyra just growled right back at him. Seeing the two of them, he just stopped and laid down in front of them, rolling onto his back and showing his stomach to them.
"Bloody coward," Hagrid grumbled at the dog. "Get yerself up and come over here." The dog slowly got up and trotted over to the groundskeeper.
With all of them prepared, they started to walk through the forest. All of the students had their wands lit. Harry forced his light to be as dim as possible to allow other students to use the spell as well.
Both Harry and Lyra loved the forest, but they hadn't had time to come back or try to find a teacher to explore it with. Lyra desperately wanted to climb some of the trees, and Harry wanted to explore the forest to look for potion ingredients. When they had been walking for five minutes, they heard the sound of chittering laughter from a couple of places around them. Everyone stopped and looked around. Professor Kettleburn left the rear of the group and approached the front.
"We've got some pixies around us. They're trying to scare us, but I doubt there are enough of them to abduct anyone." Looking at the two older students, "Mr. Squabs, Miss Stimpson, have you learned how to deal with pixies?"
"Yes, sir," the older Ravenclaw stated confidently, while Patricia nodded as well.
"Draw your wands and wait for them to come for us," the professor told them.
The two older students had their wands out, as the younger students all stood between them. The laughter echoed from various places around them. After a minute of listening to it, there was a pitched scream as a tiny creature flew out of the trees towards them.
It was about half a foot tall with long skinny legs and arms. It had long pointed ears and a set of four wings on its back that beat as fast as a hummingbird. They couldn't tell the color in the shadows of the trees, but it seemed to shine just a bit when the light hit it. Mr. Squabs took aim, balancing his wand on his opposite forearm, and incanted, "Immobulus!"
A small wave of energy burst from his wand, almost imperceptible in the dark, but it passed over the small creature, slowing it down almost to a halt in the air. Keeping his wand braced on his arm for aim, he cast, "Stupify!" and a bright red bolt tagged the slowed down the creature and caused it to fall to the ground.
From that point, there were almost a dozen screeches as many more of the little creatures flew at them from the trees. Patricia and Mr. Squabs took them all down with precision accuracy, one by one. Sometimes the Immobilizing spell caught a few of them at once and then each was stunned individually. One brave pixie grabbed Hagrid by the beard and attempted to pull him upward, very unsuccessfully. The great big man just reached up and slapped it down with a giant hand, causing it to crash into a tree and fall into the snow.
"Good work, both of you," Professor Kettleburn praised them. "Ten points to each of your houses. Let's keep moving."
As the group started to move, Harry noticed that Luna stopped to scoop up the pixie that Hagrid knocked down, and slipped it into her pocket. Shortly before Harry remembered they would be at the clearing, they all started to hear the sound of hooves on the ground and perked up to look around. The beats on the ground grew closer, but what approached wasn't unicorns. Two centaurs approached them at a gallop.
The first was a large male, his head reaching nearly eight feet tall. The horse section was brown with spotted hindquarters. His human head had brown hair down to his shoulders, just above a muscular torso. He held a bow in one hand with a quiver of arrows across his back.
The second was a female with a near golden horse body. She was shorter than the male by about two feet with long and black hair. It cascaded down the front of her lithe, but very toned body covering her breasts, but as she galloped, it would move so they could be seen in brief glimpses from the wand lights of the students. Most of the children alternated between trying to catch a quick glimpse of her form and blushing at the sight of it. She carried a long spear with an ornamental yet menacing head on it.
Hagrid held up a hand and gestured for the students to gather behind him. He called out to the two, "Good evening Talos, Agestra. What brings you here?"
The female, Agestra, stopped in front of Hagrid as Talos began to slowly walk around the group.
"We were alerted by the sound of spellfire and came to investigate," Agestra said to them.
Talos spoke softly, "Mars continues to glow brightly as the months go by, one would have thought it would dim at the beginning of summer, as the defiler of our woods was banished, but it continues to flare." He continued to circle behind Professor Kettleburn at the back of the group. Fang half growled, half whined at the archer.
"There were some pixies," Hagrid explained.
"You did not injure those that dwell in our forest?" Agestra asked.
"They were only stunned," Hagrid told her.
Talos stopped his circling near the students and pointed to them, "You bring the star among the darkness to us."
Agestra trotted around Hagrid to look at the students, "Not only that but also the darkness among the stars." She tilted her head, then said, "But it is not as dark as we predicted. Strange that it changed so much from how we first foresaw it."
All of the students were a bit freaked out by the cryptic words of the centaurs and huddled closer together. Even the two older students looked concerned and weirded out.
Agestra took a few steps closer and pointed the base of her staff towards Meli, "You, child, may see great things in your life. Take heed of what you see, and try to separate what you can change from what you cannot."
Talos looked back towards Hagrid, "We will stay with you until you leave our woods."
The two centaurs walked towards the front of the group and then paused to wait for Hagrid to begin leading the group again. Everyone followed in silence.
When they reached the clearing, Professor Kettleburn led the students towards the middle of the expanse. They unloaded the backpacks into a large pile with stacks of sparkling leaves, red berries, small fruits of different colors, and the buds and petals of many different flowers. Hagrid put down a large wooden box that he had been carrying, from which he took out a honeycomb nearly as large as Lyra, and placed it against a rock. When everything was unloaded, they were taken back to the treeline to wait.
Just like before, they didn't need to wait long before the magical equines came out. Harry was almost dancing in place when he started to see bits of light between the trees. They looked almost spectral and without form before they exited the trees from the other side of the clearing. Like they were slipping between the shadows with practiced ease. When they fully revealed themselves, they seemed to solidify so you could see their precise and elegant forms.
Looking around, he could see they had a similar effect on the other students. They were all taking deep breaths and holding it as it was almost like happiness was getting into every cell of their bodies and they wanted to hold it in for as long as possible. Each of the luminescent horses had a horn of various lengths which somehow was an even purer color white than the rest of their bodies. Looking at the two centaurs, they were standing with their arms out, as if to embrace the feeling that was permeating their bodies.
Nearly thirty stallions came out to eat, the last of which was a foal with a golden coat. Harry could hear Professor Kettleburn explaining facts about the unicorns to the other students, but Harry couldn't take his eyes off the animals in front of him. The foal in particular shined with a powerful light that made its golden hair shimmer from every angle.
Harry was snapped out of his thoughts by Hagrid's gruff voice, "Yea, the herd is smaller than last year. We had some sort of dark creature attacking them. Definitely vampiric in nature, I saw it myself feeding on one of the poor horses, before I put a crossbow bolt into it."
He pulled out a large crossbow that was larger than most of the students, with a silver-tipped arrow resting on top, waiting to be cocked. The arrowhead was bigger than Harry's fist and all the students stared at it with a touch of fear.
"Did you kill it?" Lyra asked.
"Wouldn't be possible," Hagrid replied. "I just scared it off. Once you drink from the blood of a unicorn, not even getting your head cut off will kill the drinker."
"It's just temporary," Professor Kettleburn amended. "Once you take your first sip, the blood curses you. By killing something so pure, you are condemned to die. As soon as the effect of the blood wears off, you will slowly die, as your body will no longer be able to heal itself from any wound inflicted on it. No healing spell or potion will be of any effect, and you will just crumble away, eventually turning to dust." All the children looked horrified at this. "So, the moral of this story is, don't hurt unicorns. Don't drink their blood."
Trying to lighten the mood, Hagrid asked, "Who wants to go say hello to these beautiful animals?"
That seemed to shake a few of them out of their dread musings and Luna raised her hand, "I do!" she smiled widely.
Professor Kettleburn slowly led the little girl out onto the field, where she almost skipped up to a medium-sized unicorn and held out her hand, palm up in greeting. Everyone watched in baited silence as the pearly white horse sniffed her hand, and gave it a slow lick. There was a collective sigh from everyone watching as Luna leaned in to hug one of its legs. Kettleburn looked back towards the group and motioned to Hagrid.
"OK, Who's next?" the giant man said.
Every hand but Harry's rose immediately. He picked one Lloyd Hickories and guided him out to the group.
Daria asked Harry, "You don't want to go?"
"What if they don't like me?" he asked apprehensively.
Daria didn't know what to say and looked to Meli for help.
"Give them some jerky," Meli told him. "I don't like the stuff, but all the animals seem to like it."
Harry nodded and took some out of his pouch and put it in his coat pocket, to have prepared. Kettleburn had come back and started to take another Ravenclaw. He and Hagrid switched off, bringing students out until it was just Lyra and Harry left.
Lyra took her brother by the hand and asked the professor, "Can we go out together?"
Kettleburn looked at Harry. The boy might have killed a dark lord and done many other legendary feats, but here he was, just scared that unicorns wouldn't like him. He just nodded to Lyra and walked the two of them towards the magical horses. The rest of the students were petting them and feeding them the various treats they had brought by hand. They were all smiling and enjoying themselves.
As they got closer to one of the unoccupied unicorns, it looked up suddenly towards Lyra and Harry, causing Kettleburn to stop dead and put a hand back to signal them to stop. After it stopped staring at them, they continued their slow approach. When they got right in front of their target, Lyra mimicked Luna's approach and just held out her hand to the magnificent creature. It leaned in to sniff her hand, then rubbed its head on her hand, as she giggled and began to scratch it.
Kettleburn motioned for Harry to approach another stallion and hold out his hand. Inch by inch, he got closer until he could almost reach one of the larger unicorns and held out his right hand towards it. The pure white horse leaned in to sniff his hand. It seemed to inspect his hand much longer than anyone else, which had Kettleburn on guard for something to happen. After nearly a minute of sniffing, it started to work its way down Harry's forearm to where his wand was holstered and gave a grunt towards Harry, nuzzling his wand in its spot.
"I think it wants my wand," Harry told the professor.
"What is the core?" he asked. "Is it from another unicorn?"
It continued to nuzzle his arm as Harry responded, "No, it's a glowing white deer called a Lampong."
Professor Kettleburn didn't seem to recognize the name, but took a metal band out of his pouch and wrapped it around Harry's shoulder, explaining, "This is a portkey. If there is any danger, I will activate it. You can go ahead and unsheath your wand."
His attention was so focused on the unicorn in front of him and his wand, he didn't notice that all the others; unicorn, wizard, and centaur were now staring intently at him. Harry slowly pulled the long curved wand of Erman's Birch, with the core of powdered Lampong antler from his arm and held it up. The unicorn in front of him continued to nuzzle the wood, and one by one, the others came to take turns to do so as well.
When the adult unicorns were done paying attention to him, they parted to allow the foal to approach him. Its eyes were a brilliant blue to contrast its golden coat. It trotted between the adults, curiously looking towards Harry, and began to sniff his wand, like the others. However, as the foal started to rub his head on the wand, the tip seemed to prick a spot on its forehead and a small trickle of blood came out.
Harry jumped back and looked to Professor Kettleburn, "It's bleeding! I didn't mean to do it!"
Kettleburn looked to be panicking as well, but just as he was about to say something, a hand fell on Harry's shoulder. He looked up to see Agestra standing behind him, she did not seem agitated.
"Children, Professor, Friend Hagrid," she said calmly. "You have just witnessed a great event. Look closely at the head of the foal."
The others gathered closely and looked at the foal as the little bit of blood trickled down its face. At the spot where it originated, there was a small sparkle, like a diamond, in the middle of its head above the eyes.
Talos spoke from behind them, "This foal has sprouted its horn. This will be a day of celebration for the rest of the herd."
Kettleburn smiled as well, "I have never seen a horn sprout myself, I did not know there would be blood. As the new horn grows, the white coat will spread from where the horn has sprouted until no gold remains."
One of the adults approached the foal and licked away the blood until it was clean of the crimson liquid staining its golden coat. From there, the other bright white horses returned to paying attention to the other students and eating the food that they had brought. Thirty minutes later, the group started the hike back to the school.
After the group had left the clearing, a speck in the sky, unseen by those below due to the light of the moon shining around it grew closer to the ground. As it moved away from the moon, if anyone was left in the clearing, they would have been able to identify the figure as Albus Dumbledore floating on a small flying carpet. He watched as the unicorns gazed up at his presence, then returned to their food.
Turning to the side, he said, "So Fawkes, what do you think?"
There was a swirl of fire in the air and a phoenix appeared, his wings spreading from inside the flames and dispersing them, leaving only the golden-orange bird in the air. Taking a couple of flaps of its wings, he perched onto Dumbledore's shoulder and gave a melodious trill.
"I know, it was a bit surprising to see as well, but I was more curious about the girl."
Fawkes twisted his head slightly as if questioning the man he was sitting on.
"You didn't think it would go differently? I assumed the unicorns' reaction would mirror Mr. Potter's interaction with the thestrals."
The phoenix gave a short chirp that sounded like a negative note.
"Yes, she is one of your chosen wands, but she also communes with the shadows, while young Harry commands the light."
Fawkes just nodded and started to sing a bit, which had the unicorns looking back up at the man and the phoenix in the sky.
After a few moments of listening to the phoenix song, Albus sighed. "Well, he does have a connection to the unicorns. I will endeavor to nurture that. Please take us back to my office."
Fawkes jumped up from Dumbledore's shoulder and flew a circle around him then flew up from under him, stopping behind his shoulders and spreading his wings wide. Flames burst from his wings and enveloped the old wizard in a sphere of flame, which collapsed and left an empty sky in its wake.
Harry walked back with the rest of the group, with a smile in his heart that the unicorns hadn't reacted to him like the thestrals. That they also seemed interested in his wand made him wonder how they would react to his staff.
Agestra trotted next to him and looked down to Harry, "Young wizard, you carry a great light in your magic."
Harry smiled, "I forgot to show them my staff, it contains more light than my wand."
"Would you show it to me?" the dark-haired centaur asked.
Harry reached into his pouch and pulled out his larger focus. She reached out to it with her spear and touched the tip to the antler, rubbing them together slightly.
"There is great strength and incredible light contained inside," as she looked at the staff she took quite a few deep breaths.
"I like your spear," Harry told her.
"Forged by the Goblins, long ago. They have no talent for seeing the future, so we see it for them and they provide us with the means to protect our homes."
Lyra walked next to Harry, and asked, "And Talos's bow?"
"There are none who compare to the Centaurs in archery," Agestra told Lyra with confidence. "We make all our bows and arrows on our own, from the trees that grow in our forest."
As they reached the edge of the forest, the centaurs said goodnight and exchanged a few quiet words with Hagrid before returning to the darkness of the forest. Professor Kettleburn collected the backpacks from the students.
When it came time for Lyra to hand in her pack, she asked the professor, "Professor Kettleburn?" When he acknowledged her, she continued, "Some of the other students told me you might want to have Whispers come to your classes."
"I didn't want to intrude," he told her. "Though it would be amazing to have such a fine specimen to help with the instruction, especially since you and Mr. Potter probably know more about their care and lifestyle than I do. I have a series of lessons planned with Mr. Scamander at the beginning of February when he will bring Dougal by. I can write a pass for you and your brother to bring Whispers as well."
"That would be great!" Lyra told him.
"I expected him to be here tonight, I rarely see the two of you without him."
"He's back in our common room," she explained. "There's a portrait there that helps him learn to speak properly."
"Is that how he learned?" the professor asked with great interest.
"No, it was just from being around us, we've known him since he was a baby. His name comes from when he first started to mimic us, it sounded like whispers."
"Incredible. Well, I'll send you a note when I have the lessons planned. I'll try to put them on when you have a history class scheduled, but no promises." He smiled and winked, which lost its effect because he didn't have a second eye to keep open.
Cedric managed to catch up to Harry the next morning at breakfast, almost vibrating with excitement as he sat down across from him, Lyra, and Whispers at the table. His sudden arrival had quite a few people look towards him.
"I need to talk to you after breakfast," he said quietly, now that so many eyes were on him.
"Ok?" Harry said questioningly. "Why?"
"It's a surprise… but a good one. Meet me in the common room after breakfast," After getting a slow nod from Harry, he grabbed some toast and an almond croissant and headed back to the room to get things ready.
Cedric sat and waited at the base of Harry's favorite tree, with the black helmet in a box. He was visible from the door, straight through the trees, so when he entered, they saw each other and walked over. Whispers ran ahead and started poking at the box. Harry and Lyra just stopped and waited for him to say something when they arrived.
Smiling, Cedric held his hands out like he wanted to keep them from immediately rejecting his offer, "Ok, so you know how you said that you wouldn't play quidditch without helmets?" Harry nodded slowly, "Well, I got together with a few people and we designed a helmet that all of the teams are going to use. That way you don't have to worry about getting hurt. Not you, or your sister, or anyone else."
He pulled the box away from Whispers, who was trying to open it up. He took out the jet-black helmet and showed it to Harry. Harry took it and looked it over, not knowing what to say. Lyra on the other hand was smiling and bouncing with excitement.
"Try it on!" she poked her brother in the side.
Harry slowly put it on his head. It fit perfectly, and he asked, "Is this why the Twins wanted to measure my head?"
"Almost certainly," Cedric chuckled. "Buckle the strap under your chin."
"Whoa!" Harry exclaimed. "I can see everything!"
"Let me see!" Lyra reached up to take it from her. He passed it down to her.
As soon as she had the strap buckled, she gasped and started looking around.
"So, what do you think?" Cedric asked. "Would you like to play quidditch now?"
Lyra took the helmet off and passed it to Whispers, who put it on and started to play with it.
"Can we play, Harry?" Lyra asked, with a pleading look.
Harry was still conflicted. He had seen the injury that the bludger had caused Arthur. Despite how quickly it had been fixed, he still could hear the snapping of bone in his head as the iron ball crushed it. He looked back up at the expectant faces of Lyra and Cedric, as Whispers wandered around with the black helmet wobbling on his smaller head.
"I'm… not sure," he said slowly, drawing looks of disappointment from the two of them. "I need to think about this." Without waiting for a response, he walked off towards his dorm.
Cedric looked down at Lyra, "Do you think he'll want to do it?"
Lyra frowned, "I don't know… He really doesn't want to hurt anyone." She ended up sulking away towards her dorm, with a helmet-clad Whispers loping after her.
Cedric didn't know what to do, that was supposed to seal the deal. He needed to go after Harry and get this solved. Not wanting to interrupt Harry's immediate thought process, he sat near the kitchenette outside of the first-year boys' dorm and made himself tea with a slice from a lemon another student had picked that morning. However, after thirty minutes of waiting, Harry hadn't come out, so he went to the slightly open door and knocked while poking his head in.
"Harry? Are you here?" he asked.
Colin and Arthur were sitting near a desk looking through some photos. Colin's entire side of the room was covered with picture frames of his family, housemates, and various things around Hogwarts. Arthur, William, and Harry had some frames near their beds, though they still had some open wall space.
"Heya, Cedric," Colin greeted him. "You just missed him, he ducked out about ten minutes ago."
"What?" Cedric looked confused, "I have been sitting outside, I didn't see him come out."
Arthur swished his wand and incanted, "Tempus!" which caused a small analog clock to appear in thin air, made of whitish lines.
"Yea, just about ten minutes ago. He asked me if I was interested in playing quidditch, but I told him after getting my arm shattered, it lost its appeal. I'm happy to cheer on my sister and fly for fun, but I don't think I'll be going near bludgers any time soon."
Cedric swore to himself. He had no idea how Harry had managed to sneak past him, so instead of searching for someone who didn't want to be found, he sat with the two first years and chatted with them about their lives and classes. Though it was through talking with Colin and looking through his photographs that he got an idea for what he could do for his project to benefit Scamander house and check off one more box to becoming a prefect.
Once Harry got up to the second floor he turned visible again. He had no idea what to do. Everyone thought quidditch was the best thing in the world, and he loved to fly but didn't want to do to anyone what that bludger did to Arthur. He wanted Lyra to be happy, but also didn't want her to get hurt.
Cedric as well seemed to be incredibly dedicated to his mission of getting him to join the quidditch team. He went out and had helmets designed for the entire school just to assuage his feelings about the danger the sport presented to him and his sister. Even with him doing so much to get him to join, he still couldn't tell the nice older boy 'yes.'
Making up his mind, he took a hike up to the owlery to send a letter to Brandt. It took him a whole page to tell him about the situation and ended it with a plea for guidance on what to do. Just as he finished, Hermes flew in and scared off the other owl that was waiting for him, puffing up his chest with the vest pocket for Harry to put the letter into. He gave the proud bird a scratch on the head and put in the missive to be sent to Brandt.
When he got near the bottom of the stairs, he saw Cedric coming towards the owlery and jumped back and vanished. Cedric must have seen him for a second because he looked like he thought he saw him but looked confused when he turned up the stairs and the boy was missing. Looking around, the older boy pushed on a stone in the staircase and a secret passage opened up. He looked inside, and after seeing it empty, continued up to the owlery, past an invisible Harry, with the passage closing once he had gone.
Once Cedric had gone, Harry looked at where the hidden door was and knew he needed to investigate whatever this secret of the castle was. With a sigh, he pushed on the stone that Cedric had and opened the door, and entered the dark tunnel. Casting a Lumos spell with his wand, he trekked down many stairs until he got to a flat wall. Luckily, there was one darker stone which was obviously the way out, and when he pushed it, The wall slid out from in front of him.
On the other side, he found himself in a library. Stamping his feet three times showed that he was in the library and not some other place in the castle. Before following the green footprints back to the circulation desk, he tried to make a note of where he was. There were books on magical birds and a small owl was carved into the bookcase next to the hidden door. He would need to mark this down in the explorer's club logbook and add it to the mapping paper that Tracey had given to him.
After lunch, Lyra grabbed her warm coat and headed out to the courtyard to meet Seamus and the other Gryffindors. The three boys were waiting for her, along with Parvati, Lavender, Ginny, and Shirley. The group of Gryffindors and Lyra followed the path she had paved the previous night down towards Hagrid's hut and then she blazed a trail through the snow towards the Whomping Willow.
The tree had less foliage hanging than it did when she first saw it at the end of summer, and they could see a few spots in the branches of the giant tree where they came together to form large fists made out of wood. The entire tree was covered with a light dusting of snow and ice that looked a bit like powdered sugar, sparkling in the midday sun. The group stared at the tree for a few moments.
Ron broke the silence, "So what exactly are we doing?"
Everyone looked towards Lyra, but Seamus was the one who answered the ginger boy, "Dean can conjure squirrels, so he's going to send them towards the tree. Once they get crushed, we're going to mark the spots with large rocks. I'm going to enchant the rocks to turn red, permanently."
"Where are you getting the rocks?" Shirley asked.
"Well, Ron here, as our master of levitation;" Seamus began, "he's going to bring some large rocks from the lake over here."
Ron grumbled a bit and started practicing the incantation for the spell under his breath.
"What should the rest of us do?" Shirley Baker asked.
"You all just followed us out here," Dean smiled. "I guess you can help us bring out more rocks."
"But they need to be big," Seamus told the group. "At least this big," he made a hoop shape with his arms to show they needed to be about two feet across.
Ron looked towards the lake and frowned at the snow blocking the way. With a bit of hesitation, he asked, "Hey, Black? Do you think you could melt the snow down to the lake?"
Smiling, Lyra led the group down the path she had just melted towards the tree and stopped when she got to the path that went between Hagrid's and the castle. With everyone waiting behind her, she pulled out her staff and wand.
Motioning to everyone to back off, "I'm going to try to burn it out instead of melting it."
Seamus smiled as he motioned for the group to back off even more. There was about a football field's length from where she stood before the ice of the lake began. Placing her staff and wand together, she focused her magic, and incanted, "Incendio Orbis!"
The ball of fire coalesced at the end of the staff and shot forward into the snow patch, melting as it went. It managed to make it about thirty feet before it fizzled out, the cold and snow draining the spell. It took three more attempts of the spell pushing through the frost until the last one hit the ice and exploded, causing the ice to crack on the surface. From there, she, Seamus, and Lavender used warming charms to melt away a large patch of ice to look for large rocks under the surface.
Ron Weasley was the first one to wrangle a large stone, with very deliberate and practiced wand movements and pronunciation, he cast, "Wingardium leviosa."
A large rock about three feet across lifted out of the lake and he directed it back towards the tree as he walked. Seamus grabbed one slightly smaller, while smaller ones were taken in teams of two by the remaining six of them. When they returned to the tree, they took a break before returning to their task.
Stepping up to the tree, Dean brandished his wand, and cast, "Sciurusortia!"
A small brown squirrel with a fluffy tail appeared in the snow in front of him. It looked around in small movements that looked twitchy and almost mechanical. He waved his arms to scare it towards the tree and it started to run diagonally. When it got close, the tree leaned away, causing a cracking noise as the ice on the branches fell off, then a large fist of branches swung down on the squirrel, crushing it into the ground, shaking it, and causing everyone to flinch a bit at the death of the squirrel.
When the tree resumed its original posture, they were all reminded that the squirrel was never alive, as whatever magic had been holding it together vanished and it started to fade away. No blood or body parts were left in the snow at the impact mark.
Ron levitated his large rock and placed it a few feet back from the impact site. The tree swung again to try to hit the new object that had encroached on its territory but landed a few inches short. The rock was levitated again back towards the group, just to give it a bit more space.
Seamus carefully approached the rock and cast a series of spells.
First was, "Accipir!" which caused the surface to be covered with a jelly-like substance.
Then he cast, "Colovaria!" and then twisted his wand slightly as the rock turned red.
Finally, he incanted, "Obsepi" which caused the jelly to absorb into the rock.
Turning back to the group, he explained, "That was a basic enchanting spell, it makes charms cast on the object permanent."
"How many charms can that spell hold?" Parvati asked.
"Two or three very simple spells," he told her. "Why?"
"Can I add one?" she asked again.
Seamus cast the jelly on the rock again, and Parvati cast, "Splendino!" which caused the jelly to sparkle. When Seamus closed the enchantment again, the rock was red with sparkles.
With the plan in place, Dean summoned squirrels to mark the range of the Willow's reach, with Seamus and Parvati enchanting the rocks with red and sparkles around the outside. The rest of the group made multiple trips down to the lake to retrieve more rocks. They took a break after two trips, with Lyra handing out bits of Harry's flobberworm jerky. Everyone was a bit hesitant to try it, except for Ron, who just saw food and ate it. Though when he reported it was pretty good and felt the energy boost, everyone else took the plunge as well.
The whole project took until dinner time, and they hiked directly back into the castle and straight to the great hall. Lyra looked around when she arrived but didn't see Harry anywhere. Halfway through dinner, Dumbledore approached the lectern at the front, which caused a lot of whispering until there was quiet across the hall.
Speaking with some magical amplification, he said, "Good evening to all you hungry children. I wanted to make note of a particularly interesting event that I witnessed this afternoon. A group of students just spent their afternoon marking the boundary for the reach of the Whomping Willow. The tree has been on the Hogwarts grounds for nearly my entire tenure as Headmaster, and not once during that time has anyone thought of making sure that there was any kind of demarcation around it… including any professor and myself."
Lyra looked over to the Gryffindor table and shared a smile with Seamus and the others.
"To properly reward them, I am giving fifteen points to each of the Gryffindors who participated in the event, an extra ten points to Seamus Finnegan for leading it, and twenty-five points to Miss Lyra Black for conceiving of the project."
There was a cheer from the Gryffindor table as 115 points were added to their current total and polite clapping from the Scamander table for Lyra.
"Additionally," Dumbledore continued, "I will be adding my own enchantments on the stones that the group placed, so that they will softly glow at night and when underneath snow or mud."
Short of burning down every deadly tree in the world, this was an acceptable outcome for Lyra.