Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: I foresee two more chapters after this one, possibly three, and the first installment will be complete. Thanks to all of my loyal readers. As always, please review.

/-wujy

Chapter Eighteen – Unicorn Blood

When she wasn't studying or practicing Quidditch, Whitney spent a great deal of time with Hagrid over the next few days, trying to help him get over his loss of Norbert. She drank the tea he offered—which was occasionally just hot water that he'd forgotten to add tea to—and ate the cakes he offered—which were often as inedible as tiny boulders—and very slowly, Hagrid's mood seemed to improve. After nearly a weak, he had brightened so much that he'd agreed to teach Whitney to play the wooden flute he'd given her for Christmas.

Feeling mildly excited, Whitney carried the flute down to Hagrid's hut. When she arrived, however, Hagrid was stoic and even Fang, sensing his owner's emotions, didn't bark at the door when she arrived.

"Oh, Hagrid," Whitney said after he'd handed her a cup of steaming water. "I thought you were beginning to accept that Norbert had to go to Romania to be with other dragons."

Hagrid took the cup from her to add tea to it, and shook his head. "It ain't that," he told her. "Much as I miss the little blighter, I know 'e's in a better place. No, it's… it's summat else. Summat's been killin' unicorns in the Forest."

With as much as she had seen and learned over the past few months, Whitney was still relatively surprised that unicorns existed. More so, she was surprised that something was killing them. "Oh," she replied. "Do you… I mean, is there a way to stop it?"

"Short of goin' out there an' findin' whatever it is?" Hagrid asked. "Nah, me an' Fang'll have ter do it. I just can't think what could even catch one."

Don't do it, Whitney told herself, even as she felt the emotion bubbling up in her. Don't you dare do—

"I'll go with you," Whitney said. Ah! I told you not to do that!

Hagrid was silent for a moment as he watched the girl, his expression turning hopeful. "Yeh'd really go?" he asks. "I mean, it'd be dangerous, an' I'll have ter get Dumbledore's approval fer yeh to be in the forest"

Whitney took a deep breath and released it slowly. "Of course," she replied, unable to say no to the grateful look on Hagrid's face. "I'll see if anyone else wants to help," she offered.

Oh, god, stop talking. You're volunteering yourself and your friends to go into the forest at night!

"Hermione's wicked smart, and Ron and Neville…" Whitney's voice trailed off as she tried to think of a single reason they'd be helpful in the woods. "Well, it'd be good to have a few more pairs of eyes looking out?"

The last came out as more of a question than she had intended, but Hagrid didn't seem to notice. He was swelling pride, and the damage had already been done. "All right, then," Whitney said uncertainly. "I'll go and talk to them now."

"I can't believe I agreed to this."

"Shut up Ron," Hermione told the boy, as she clutched her wand to her chest uncertainly.

Neville, apparently, was too terrified to put his two cents in to the conversation, and Whitney walked next to him looking just as pale.

Hermione had agreed based on the educational value of the trip, but the look on her face made it clear that she would rather be doing anything else but walking down to Hagrid's hut right now. Ron, Whitney had spoken to while he was eating and therefore distracted. Neville… Well, Whitney wasn't really sure why Neville had agreed to come. He looked uncertain when he'd agreed, and looked sick now that the task was at hand.

Whitney was glad that none of them had back out, though. She half-expected at least Ron and Neville to bolt back to the castle when they'd gotten halfway down. She wanted to run, too, but cared more about not letting Hagrid down than she did about her own fear.

Whitney knocked on Hagrid's door three times, and the enormous man opened it, dragging Fang out by the collar. "Lookin' good, you lot," Hagrid said approvingly. "Ready ter go inta the Forest?"

Three sets of eyes glared at Whitney, but she swallowed her nerves and nodded to Hagrid, answering for all of them. "We're ready."

"Good. Off to it, then."

Hagrid led the three students plus Fang into the Forbidden Forest, where the trees overhead made the air around them several degrees cooler. Whitney pulled her robes closer as a chill set in, but set her expression to be as stony as she could manage. At a fork in the path, Hagrid paused and turned to face the group.

"All righ'," Hagrid said to them, "this'll be where we split up."

"S-Split up?" Hermione asked shakily.

"Only way we'll find the unicorn 'fore mornin'," Hagrid confirmed. "I'll take two o' yeh, and two will go with Fang. If summat happens an' you need me, send up red sparks from yer wand. If yeh find the unicorn, send up green, understand?"

Neville scooted closer to Whitney and grabbed a handful of her robes. "All righ', then," Hagrid said, pointing to Neville and Whitney. "You two with Fang. I hafta warn yeh, though. He's a bloody coward."

Fang whined slightly, but Whitney scratched him behind his ears confidently. "Don't get off the path, now," Hagrid added, before pointing Whitney toward the left fork. She cleared her throat and walked away, fingers tucked under Fang's collar and Neville still clutching her robes.

The walk through the forest was largely in silence. Whitney was constantly straining her ears to listen for the sounds of anything dangerous, and Neville—she suspected—was keeping his mouth shut in order to keep from vomiting. After a few feet, Whitney disengaged Neville fingers from the cloth of her sleeve, and took his hand tightly in hers.

"I c-can't believe w-we're in the F-Forbidden Forest," Neville stammered after ten minutes of walking. Something in a bush nearby moved, and both of them jumped slightly, wands in hand. Fang whined, but nothing emerged, so they kept walking.

Whitney slipped on something underfoot and fell hard on her knees, landing on a raised tree root. She cried out in pain, holding her bruised and bleeding knee, but looked down to see what she had slipped in. She dragged two fingers through a pool of silvery liquid, and then wiped it off on her pants.

"What's that?" Neville asked, but Whitney shook her head and accepted his help in getting up.

"No idea. Come on. Let's keep going."

Fang took a sniff of the liquid and pulled forward suddenly, moving to another puddle, and another.

"Or maybe it's what we're looking for," Whitney amended. "Fang seems to know where we're going now, anyway."

They followed the hound until they reached the edge of a clearing. "Look," Whitney said to Neville, though she wasn't sure why she was whispering. "I think… That must be it. The unicorn."

The beautiful, white beast lay on the ground, a stark contrast to the darkness of the Forest. Whitney raised her wand and green sparks sprang from it, into the sky.

Neville grabbed her robes again, but didn't say anything, and Whitney looked immediately back to the unicorn. A figure in black was hovering over it and…

Whitney covered her mouth to not be immediately sick. Someone, she was sure, was drinking the unicorn's blood. She took a step forward to be sure, and her shoe snapped a twig on its way down. In the quiet forest, the noise sounded like a shriek, and the hooded figure froze. Its face turned up and looked at the pair of them. Faster than Whitney could have thought possible, it crossed the clearing toward them, arms outstretched.

Pain tore so violently through Whitney's head, beneath her scar, that she screamed and fell back, knocking Neville over. Through eyes blurred with pain, she could barely see something enormous jump over them, charging down the hooded figure.

After a single, shocked second, Whitney went into panic mode. "Up! Up, up," she urged Neville, pulling him to his feet. Fang was nowhere in sight. She slipped her wand from her sleeve and threw up red sparks, and then held it before her as the large creature returned for them.

"Lower your wand, childling," said a deep voice, and Whitney's mouth dropped open as the full image of what had saved them could be seen in the moonlight.

"You're a… You're a centaur!" she exclaimed, sounding daft. Meanwhile, Neville was trying to crawl away, tugging furiously on Whitney's robes as though to drag her with him.

"You're in danger," the centaur replied, reaching out and lifting her off the ground. Whitney made an indignant noise at being picked up like so much dead weight, and the centaur turns toward the trees. Before the he could leave the clearing—and Neville-behind, however, Whitney hit Firenze in the shoulder as hard as she could, but the centaur didn't seem to notice. He made to run through the forest, but Whitney hit him again.

"You can't just leave him!" she shouted at the centaur, gesturing at Neville. "You can't just leave him behind. Put me down! What's going on!"

Firenze paused, then, and came to a stop, looking over his shoulder at her. "Darkness lurks in these trees. The sooner you leave the forest, the better."

"Excuse me," Whitney repeated, poking Firenze harmlessly in his side with one finger. "I am not a doll, and you can put me down anytime now."

Unencumbered by her weight, Firenze seemed to have entirely forgotten he was even holding her. He put her down on her feet next to a silent Neville, where she turned to look up at him. "And what do you mean, 'darkness lurks'? That was a man. I saw him with my two eyes."

Firenze looked sternly at her. "Perhaps once," he said, "but it is a terrible thing to kill a unicorn, and worse to drink its blood. Any man who does can no longer call himself a man, for he lives a cursed, half-life from that moment on. A man who is near to death, with nothing in life to lose, could drink it and yet live." He looked around and over his shoulder toward the clearing. "It's not safe here."

Whitney, however, still had questions. "Why would anyone drink it, then?"

At that moment, Hagrid came stumbling through the trees, nearly out of breath, with pale Ron and Hermione behind him. When Hagrid saw the centaur, however, he exclaimed, "Oh, it's only you, Firenze! I saw the sparks an' thought summat bad had happened."

Firenze blinked placidly at Hagrid and replied, "Something has happened, groundskeeper."

Without another word, he reared around and raced off into the forest, leaving Hagrid looking very confused, and Whitney very frustrated. She turned to Hagrid abruptly. "Trolls! Brooms! Nutters who drink magic blood! Why does it seem like everything here is trying to kill me?"