Year 1 - Unicorn Killer, Forbidden Forest
"Ahhhh!" In the middle of the night, the Forbidden Forest had welcomed the students with a little surprise. A small deer that is, which shocked Draco and Ron who was expecting something way more vicious... such as a giant spider.
"..." Harry did not say anything. His hand had already gripped the handle of his sword on his waist, and blood veins were popping out from his hands. Obviously despite being mostly silent, Harry wasn't exactly comfortable with the situation right now either.
As a skilled duelist and fighter, he knew that there are many things in the forest that could hurt them badly even with Hagrid's protection. Not withstanding rumors of giant man-eating spiders and werewolfs, even just "normal" dark creatures were trouble enough for Harry when he had three relatively "useless" teenagers tagging him. Harry can deal with an giant spider or a saber tiger in a few minutes, but if a whole group of them come then it would be very troublesome for Harry to keep everyone safe.
"Harry, I think I have seen the blood spattered both on that tree and the rock over there. It seems like our unicorn hunter isn't satisfied with just one killing..." Hagrid observed the shining unicorn blood remains and said to Harry.
"... I can handle the tree's direction. ". Harry said, and had already drawn his sword out while gripped harder on the wand in his left hand. The tree's blood shined brighter than that on the rock's, which means it was very possible that the unicorn killer was on that direction. Hagrid was his first real "friend" after he comes into Hogwarts, and Harry did not want him to get injured. After all, Harry was special when it comes to life and death situations.
"Yah... I better take these students with me. You can handle yourself, but I can't say the same about these guys who probably haven't seen a dead body in their life!" Hagrid laughed slightly and took out his giant claymore that is probably longer than one and a half Harry combined.
Being a half-blood giant, Hagrid was naturally privileged to use weapons normal wizards cannot handle. Harry knew Hagrid was a pretty decent gladiator back in his young days after he got kicked out of Hogwarts for breeding man-eating spiders for profit. He made a good living out of killing monsters for show, but after he killed a werewolf that was forced to participate in the bloody business and saw the werewolf's last wish, he got sick of it and retired to take care of the dangerous creatures in the forest to atone for his past sins of killing "innocent" creatures. People thought Hagrid was a goof, but only those who actually knew him know that under his peaceful appearance and funny accent was a lot of blood-thirst and power inherited from his giant mother.
After Harry and the rest of the crowd gets separated, Harry traced the blood trail closely and noticed the blood gets fresher and the sign of struggle got more obvious. Finally when he came to a small opening in the thick forest, he saw the dead animal. Unlike what people might imagine, Unicorns are not some innocent animal that you can just hunt. They are vicious animals that love to stick their spear-shaped horns into the enemies and enjoy their blood that gets soaked into their skin and horn. It takes serious skill to kill them. The shadow that stood beside the killed Unicorn looked liked a man, but it's hard to tell when his sound was distorted and face masked with artificial dark shadow that obviously comes from a spell.
"...So you are the one that has been killing the Unicorns. Not a lot of disease today need desperate measures like this... Except one that I know. " Harry said calmly to the standing shadow while raising his sword.
"Of course you would know. After all, dear Bella has obviously taught you well. Not a lot of young kids can get the champion duelist trophy when they were merely 10 years old... Isn't it, Harry? Look at me, so pathetic, a wraith that can barely wield a wand..." The shadow said, revealing his face.
The face looks strangely both old and young, and the man's eyes were as red as blood. But his face and skin feels weirdly transparent. Harry knew who that man is; everyone knew. It is Lord Voldemort, the most brilliant warrior and the most evil man in 50 years. He has not yet been able to attain a body, but his strength had obviously recovered enough to support a physical appearance as a wraith. Harry had to give it to him, most wraiths can barely move physical objects, but Voldemort has a mind so strong he can even use wands.
"... Cut the dialogue, Voldemort, I did not walk here to have a chat." Harry said, and pushed his magic into both his legs to lunge forward and swishes his long sword towards Voldemort.
"No need to be so impatient, young snake... " Harry's attack did not reach Voldemort, as his sword was stopped by a semi-transparent barrier that shot out from Voldemort's wand. Even though the barrier very quickly broken, Harry's sword still lost its momentum and had to put up a physical shield to parry the quick consecutive blows coming from Voldemort's wand.
"...You are more powerful than I estimated you should be, Voldemort..." Harry said, and grimaced when one of the hits from Voldemort's wand hit his left arm. A shallow gush cut through his flesh and he bled a bit.
Voldemort was very quick, but Harry wasn't slow either. He threw his half-broken iron shield transfigured from a rock to Voldemort and while Voldemort had to avoid the blow, he quickly threw a few disintegration spells towards Voldemort. Voldemort recognized the sickly green light from the disintegration spell and quickly used his wand to neutralize the spell. After a few quick rounds of throwing spells that can easily disable a person, Harry and Voldemort both could not gain much ground.
"Swish!" Voldemort's flying blades managed to put another wound on Harry's face. Now Harry's torso and arms were wounded several times and blood was dripping from his cloth. However, with a little sacrifice, Harry managed to finally cut into Voldemort's hood and tore out his protection spell. Voldemort quickly shot a Crucio to force Harry to either block with a physical object or retreat, but Harry seemed like he anticipated a shield-breaking spell and jumped sideways while wield a full half circle horizontally.
Voldemort's clothes were torn away and his wraith body also looked like it was shining "blood" from the new wound. Wraiths cannot regenerate their magic, so Voldemort's body has a limit of how much magic it can use before it gets completed, and by damaging their bodies with spelled weapons or spells, wraiths would be forced to retreat or even worse disappear.
Strangely, Harry have a feeling that Voldemort's moves are somehow predictable. He seemed to have seen or even used some of them before, which makes it easier for him to break through his defense.
"Hmm... I have never met you after that night, but you know how I use my spells... strange..." Voldemort backed off from Harry and reapplied his protection spell despite the additional magic usage that made his body even more transparent. However, just as Harry wanted to launch forward, Voldemort seemed alerted and suddenly turned into pure shadow and quickly flied away.
"Young one, you have come here to face the devil indeed." A giant figure appeared behind Harry. About 9 feet tall with a large horse bottom half and a human top half with black hair and black eyes, it was the centaur's chief. Apparently Voldemort still cannot handle the lighting arrows from the centaurs yet.
"...Chief Bane." Harry transfigured some bandages from the leaves and applied them on the wounds on his face and arms.
"Come, follow me to find your companions. The mars is shining brightly..." Bane looked at the sky and his eyes were masked with sadness and anxiety.
"...Indeed. Mars shines brightly tonight. Hope it does not continue that way..." Harry said to himself and sheathed his sword. Voldemort has already appeared and with way more strength than Bellatrix estimated. He wonder what conspiracies and struggle will come next. He knew his foster mother would start her hidden plans if she knew that her formal master had come back, but he cannot anticipate how it would affect him.