Chapter 1
Note: I realize that the scene in the book that involves the unicorn also involves Harry and Draco being sent to get the creature's body, but I decided to put my own interpretation on the scene. In this version, Cedric is the one to discover the unicorn's dead body, rather than Harry.
Another note: This chapter is a revision of the one I'd posted here before; I've cleared up some of the phrasing and corrected some grammatical mistakes.
For Hogwarts third-year Cedric Diggory, Care of Magical Creatures with Professor Kettleburn was always exciting. It was early October and now that Cedric's class was done with the unit on Hippogriffs, they were meandering through the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest looking for Bowtruckles. The transition was an odd one, but maybe Professor Kettleburn just wanted to give his remaining limbs a break.
Cedric's classmates were still gossiping about Harry Potter's arrival at Hogwarts – this was his first year and rumors about the famous Boy Who Lived were everywhere – but Cedric wasn't one to listen to gossip. His reverie was interrupted when one of the other students literally screamed.
"What is it, Ms. Peters?" asked Professor Kettleburn as he hobbled over to where she was.
"It's… it's…" she stumbled over her words and simply pointed to a clearing in the distance.
Drawn in by morbid curiosity, the class nervously made its way in the direction of her pointing.
Ahead was a forest clearing where a pearly liquid was smeared and splattered all over. It had come from a slash in the neck of a large white horse with a horn coming out of its forehead.
Someone had killed a unicorn.
Gasps and cries erupted from the group. Cedric felt his heart stop. This scene was so eerily strange and familiar.
Last night, Cedric had a nightmare that he was running for his life, until a jinx made him trip and fall in this very clearing. He remembered the way the moonlight illuminated the face of his attacker: a fearsome, snake-like face with menacing red eyes. Those red eyes had stared hungrily into Cedric's gray ones, before the attacker raised a knife and slashed open Cedric's throat.
Cedric woke up screaming and hadn't gotten back to sleep for the rest of the night.
"Back. Get back," ordered Professor Kettleburn. "Reconvene at the edge of the forest and we'll get back to the castle. Go."
Talk of the emergency buzzed low as the gaggle of third-years followed Professor Kettleburn's directions. Unicorns were a protected magical species and it was a crime to kill one – punishable with time in Azkaban if you were found out.
Cedric's mind wasn't with the gaggle of third-years, though. It was back in Ollivander's wand shop where he'd bought his wand. Twelve and a quarter inches, ash wood, unicorn hair core, from the tail of a very fine, strong male unicorn. He'd felt his wand twitch a little when he set eyes on the unicorn. Had that unicorn been the donor of his wand? Cedric loved using his wand. The idea that no one else would get a wand from this beautiful creature made him unreasonably sad.
Later that night, Cedric meant to go to the library, but he somehow found himself wandering out of the castle. He wandered past the greenhouses, right to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The twilight gave him enough light to see by, so he waited for the cover of the trees before he lit his wand. Would he even be able to find a dead unicorn in the dark? Why was he even doing this? Why did it even matter?
He needn't have worried about finding the creature. His wand pulled a little in one direction and all Cedric had to do was follow it like a compass. And then he was there.
The unicorn still lay on its side, still with an open throat wound, one of its gray eyes staring blankly at the sky.
Cedric tiptoed over to it, knelt down, and gazed into its perfect face. Even in death, it was so, so beautiful. "I'm sorry, buddy. I'm so, so sorry," he murmured. He moved to its side and closed its upward-staring eye.
Footsteps sounded behind Cedric, prompting him to extinguish his wand and tiptoe behind a tree. Lit wands led two figures to the clearing: Professor Dumbledore and Hogwarts Game-Keeper Hagrid. A third figure, a centaur, approached from the side.
"You will need to clear all this away," said the centaur.
"You are right, Firenze," said Dumbledore. "It will not do to leave evidence of such a crime out here in the open."
"Such a shame," said the centaur. "In times of strife, always, the innocent are the first victims. So it has been for ages past, so it is now."
"Aye," Hagrid replied somberly.
"As no one has been seen in the Forbidden Forest, we must be ever watchful, should the perpetrator give themselves away. I will tell Professor McGonagall and a few others of this development, but it would be better if fewer people knew of it.
Hagrid just nodded and traced his trademark pink umbrella around the clearing, causing the blood splatter to gradually disappear. Then, he bent down and lifted the lifeless unicorn into his arms.
Cedric followed them in silence. Clearing up the unicorn, keeping silent about it, it all made sense. But something about the procedure made Cedric feel weirdly violated. Would no one mourn the creature? He watched, unsatisfied, as Hagrid placed the creature's body in a shed behind his cabin, presumably to be disposed of – maybe used for potion ingredients – later. Dumbledore bid Hagrid and Firenze good night and that was that.
Cedric decided to hide among the trees until he could get back to the castle unobserved. But a faint white glow had him turning around.
A female unicorn and a smaller unicorn, probably her foal, stood not 10 feet from him, their gray eyes looking balefully into his.
A large stick cracked under Cedric's foot as he took a step toward the creature. God, he could be so daft sometimes! But the unicorn and her foal did not stir.
"I'm sorry about your friend," Cedric said. "You must really miss him."
She gave a low whinny under her breath and bowed her head, as if to mournfully nod.
Cedric just stood there, not daring to approach her the rest of the way, and also not wanting to leave. He was transfixed.
The foal solved the problem by ambling forward and nudging at his school satchel. He could guess its quarry: a large piece of coconut cake he'd snagged in the kitchens to have as a snack for later. He got out the cake, unwrapped it, held it out in his hand, and let the foal take a taste. The touch of its mouth was pleasantly warm on his hand and its tongue was soft as velvet. This was so unreal.
When the foal had finished the cake, it raised its head to avoid skewering Cedric with its horn and extended its snout. Cautiously, he petted the silky fur on its soft face. A tickling by his ear made him realize that the mother's nose was by his ear, smelling him.
Nervous and elated, Cedric stayed put. The female unicorn and her foal nuzzled him for a moment longer before they delicately removed their heads and gracefully walked off into the forest.
Cedric could barely believe what'd happened to him, which was how he knew no one would believe him about this. It didn't matter, though. This sort of experience didn't bear being de-sanctified by boasting about it.
"It's dark out, Cedric. Shouldn't you be getting back to the castle?"
He turned around to find Professor Dumbledore with a light glowing on the tip of his wand.
"Headmaster, I am so sorry!"
"There is no need to be sorry for comforting grieving unicorns, Cedric. Walk with me."
Cedric just nodded.
"Mysterious creatures, unicorns," mused Dumbledore. "We know so much about the uses of their blood, their tail and mane hairs, and their horns, but we know so little of the creatures themselves. And of what is recorded, we can hardly tell fact from myth. It is said that unicorn blood is a substance so pure and powerful that drinking it can save you if you are an inch from death – but from the moment the blood touches your lips, you live a half-life, a cursed life… it appears that we humans are tainted in their comparison. To be greeted by a unicorn – that is a rare honor, Cedric. They recognize the purest hearts among us."
"Or… uh, maybe they just like coconut cake?" That felt closer to the truth, but Cedric felt like an idiot the moment he said it.
Dumbledore nodded and smiled in that way that told you he was thoroughly delighted with you. His blue eyes twinkled behind his half-moon spectacles in the light of his wand. "Perhaps both."
"You know," Dumbledore continued, "In addition to his accomplishments as a storyteller, Beedle the bard liked to observe the natural magical world and its magical creatures. He wrote about the rebirths of phoenixes. In fact, I have his recordings about my own phoenix, Fawkes, in my office. The Bard wrote a bit about unicorns, too. Sweet creatures, he found them. And he had stories about them from many years back, about how they were reborn; not through flames like the phoenix, but by reincarnating in a new body and living a new life. Some unicorns even reincarnated as humans; you know."
Cedric didn't know what to make of this, but Dumbledore carried on, "Of course, since there haven't been any unicorn-to-human reincarnation stories from after the year 400 and Beedle the Bard lived in the 15th century, there's no knowing if they're true. But I believe in it, regardless. You know, Cedric, your bright gray eyes are so much like those of the creature felled in the forest, the same creature that donated its hair to your wand."
They reached the torch-lit door front door to Hogwarts Castle, which opened itself to admit them to the empty entrance hall.
"I hope you find out who got that unicorn, Professor. It didn't deserve to die."
Dumbledore faced Cedric and his blue-eyed gaze seemed to pierce deep into Cedric's very soul. "No, indeed. But it may yet walk among us."
"Uh, I'm just a clumsy Hufflepuff. I get good grades and I'm not half-bad at Quidditch, but I'm not really, uh, a graceful, super-powerful, naturally brilliant…" He trailed off, thinking it best not to mention that he was wearing mismatched socks that had probably been jammed onto the wrong feet when he was running late to Herbology class this morning.
"Yes, that makes sense." Dumbledore nodded.
Cedric had never thought he was particularly special, let alone the first human reincarnation of a unicorn to appear in one and a half millennia. And besides, modesty was always the best policy. But Dumbledore's comment still made him feel robbed of something.
"Unicorns are such sweet, modest, unassuming creatures. Instead of boasting, they simply let their excellence speak for itself. Sleep well, Cedric." And with that, Albus Dumbledore swept off to attend to whatever mystical business awaited him next. Or maybe it was his bedtime and he slept in pink bunny slippers. What did Cedric know of the glamorous and mystical life of the Hogwarts headmaster?
What he did know was that he was soooooo going back to the Forbidden Forest with coconut cake the next time he possibly could.