Chapter 32

It was so easy to run across in her unicorn Animagus form that Araminta would have laughed out loud if she had been a person. Instead of slipping on the wet grass, her unicorn hooves magically adhered to the grass and kept her from falling down. She galloped across the ground, feeling her silvery mane flapping in the wind.

Araminta vaulted over Hagrid's garden and raced along the outside edge of the forest. It felt so free to run so fast and take big breaths of clean air. She knew that her unicorn form could run forever and never tire.

Finally, Araminta remembered that she had a dare to do and she stopped, prancing back and forth. She lit up her unicorn horn for light and walked toward the forest. "If I were a purple toadstool," she whinnied, "where would I hide?"

She looked and looked but she only saw red, blue, green, and yellow toadstools. "Draco said they would be close to the edge," she whinnied. "Maybe he didn't mean this close," she decided. She cantered under the canopy of trees, her feet clip-clopping on the ground.

There was a soft, rustling sound in the bushes. Araminta peered into the darkness, but even her sharp unicorn vision didn't show her anything. There was another rustle, and she turned to see, but still there wasn't anything here but Araminta wasn't worried. Her unicorn senses were just heightened.

She raised her nose into the air and sniffed. She could smell the color purple off in the distance somewhere so she pointed herself into the forest and began to walk over fallen logs and pine needles. It was completely dark by now but that didn't matter. Unicorns can see in the dark, and besides, she had her softly glowing horn to guide her on the way.

Araminta hummed a happy tune, which wasn't quite as pretty as what she could sing with her witch's song magic, but quite nice nonetheless. Since she missed Fawkes-Iolanthe, she decided to sing an oldie but goodie in her honor, 'Imaginary' by Evanescence. (It's probably better if you put on this CD right now while you read.)

I linger in the doorway

Of alarm clock screaming

Monsters calling my name

Let me stay

Where the wind will whisper to me

Where the raindrops

As they're falling tell a story

The rain started falling hard through the trees on Araminta, but she still hadn't found a purple toadstool to take to Draco.

In my field of paper flowers

And candy clouds of lullaby

I lie inside myself for hours

And watch my purple sky fly over me

Araminta wanted more than purple sky. She wanted that purple toadstool.

Don't say I'm out of touch

With the rampant chaos--your reality

I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge

The nightmare I built my own world to escape

Araminta sat down on a log for a minute and sighed. If she didn't find the toadstool, she'd be out here all night. Her eyes were getting grainy and sandy with tiredness. She rested her unicorn head against the trunk of a tree and she was getting ready to close her eyes when a ghostly yellow glow started coming her way.

(Dun dun dun!)