A young unicorn peaked its head through the branches. It took a few more cautious steps from behind the trees. Its silver mane shined in the moonlight and mimicked the stars. He stepped out a bit more and smelled the air while his eyes stared at me. I noticed his walk was a bit uneven. When I looked him over I noticed a dark splash of silvery blue on his right side. He was breathing heavily and the wound looked fresh and seemed to still be gushing dark silvery liquid.

I was afraid to move and risk scaring him away because surely there was something in the forest that would finish him off in his injured state. He was still young too, his horn just beginning to grow. I slowly took a step forward never taking my eyes off him. He watched me and didn't appear to be afraid of me. He looked sort of curious and took another step towards me. I took a few more steps towards him and he kept watching me. I slowly lifted my hand to touch him and held it in the air in front of him. He sniffed the air again and took a step forward and nudged my hand with his nose. I rubbed his nose and moved my hand to his neck, his mane felt like silk between my fingers and his fur like the richest velvet.

I moved to look at his side sliding my fingers over his back as I walked. It was worse than I thought. There was a gaping puncture wound and his silvery blood was flowing down his side and dripping from his stomach to the ground. I had no way of knowing what gored him or if it was poisonous. I had to act quickly. I removed my shoe and took my sock off before placing my sock as gently as I could against the wound. He jerked in pain but didn't run. I held my sock firmly against his side to slow the blood flow. I placed my free hand on his neck and led him in the direction of Hagrid's hut.

By the time we arrived at Hagrid's my sockless foot was frozen and I could barely move my toes. I patted the unicorn's shoulder and walked up the stairs to Hagrid's door. I knocked loudly and I could hear him moving about moments before the door opened. I felt the warmth escaping through the open door as well as the smell of some strange food he was making.

"Ruby." Hagrid said looking me over. "What brings you here at this time of night and where is your sock?"

I grabbed his wrist with both hands and tugged him outside. "He's hurt, Hagrid. He came out of the forest and he's been bitten by something, it's pretty bad."

Hagrid followed me down the stairs. I noticed the blood covered sock laying on the snow and a small puddle was now forming in the snow. Hagrid made a grunting noise and rushed back inside his house and came back out with a sheet of fabric.

"Tie this around him." Hagrid instructed. "He trusts you and I'll go get Professor Snape. We're going to need some potions and dittany."

Hagrid rushed off to the castle and disappeared inside. I spread the sheet over the unicorn and started to walk around to the other side of him when he began to lay down. Something about the gesture of him laying down in the snow pushed me over the edge and I began to cry. He was the first unicorn I had seen up close and I was sure he was going to die. The tears flowed down my cheeks and blurred the world around me. I held some of the wadded cloth over his wound.

"Please, please don't die." I begged the unicorn.

He looked at me with his golden eye and continued to breathe heavily.

I sniffled. "If I give you a name then you can't die." It was a completely irrational idea but I was going to name him anyways. "Oliver. That's your name."

I continued to cry over Oliver when I heard the bang of a shutting door. Through my blurred vision I could make out the form of Hagrid lumbering back to where I was. My heart was crushed when I couldn't see Snape. I instantly hated him for not agreeing to help. He was selfish and I hated him. I laid my head on Olli's shoulder.

I heard the crunch of footsteps in snow. I felt a cold hand gently rest on mine.

"Ruby, may I see?" A deep voice spoke softly.

I lifted my head and wiped my eyes. Severus sat across from me on the other side of Oliver. Hagrid was still a distance away. Severus lightly squeezed my hand before lifting it off the sheet and pulling the soaked fabric away from the wound.

"Please tell me you can save Olli." I whispered.

"Who?" He asked while searching for a clean part of the sheet and pulling out a bottle of dark liquid.

"I named him." I explained slightly embarrassed. The look he gave me made me question whether naming the unicorn was strange. "Oliver."

Severus smiled a little and pulled the stopper from the bottle he was holding. "I would have gone with Spike."

I let out a sloppy, wet laugh.

He placed the now wet sheet on top of the gouge and held it there.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Venentha." He said. "Do you know what it's for?"

"It pulls out poison." I said. "So it was poison?"

"Yes. Hagrid told me he thought it to be an Erumpent and I have to agree. It's odd that there would be one in the forest but there are many strange things we don't know of inhabiting it."

"Is he going to be alright?" I asked stroking Olli's neck.

Snape looked at me for a moment then back down at the sheet. "I need to get the poison out before I can begin to stop the bleeding. But he hasn't exploded so that is a good sign."

"Exploded?" I asked.

"Normally the venom located on the horn of the Erumpent causes its victims to explode. Olli hasn't yet so it's promising that he'll be alright if he doesn't lose too much blood first."

I couldn't help it. More tears flooded my eyes.

"Miss Winston, please." Snape's tone had changed and I looked up when he called me Miss Winston. Hagrid was standing next to him. "I'm almost done with this part."

I wiped my eyes again and watched him pull out another bottle from his pocket.

"Ru…Miss Winston." Snape corrected. "What I need you to do now since Olli seems to trust you is hold his head and keep him from moving. Dittany stings."

I placed my hand on his cheek and whispered that he was going to be fine. I told him the dittany would hurt but it was going to make him better. He looked at me with his golden eye almost like he understood me.

"Ok." Snape said and let a few drops of dittany fall into the wound.

Olli took a few deep breaths like he was dealing with the pain. I could see flesh beginning to fill the hole. He let a few more drops fall and silvery skin began to cover the spot where he had been gushing blood moments earlier.

I smiled as Olli's breathing slowed and became more normal. I looked up at Severus as he replaced the cover on the dittany.

"I knew he was a tough one." Hagrid said.

"So he's going to be alright now?" I asked fairly confident the answer was yes.

"He'll be fine." Snape answered instantly.

"But we can't let him back in the forest yet." I blurted.

"O' course we can't." Hagrid said. "He'll stay with me for a few days. You can come visit 'im if ya like."

"I will." I said.

"I can escort Miss Winston back to the castle." Snape offered. "It's late."

Hagrid nodded and helped me up.

Snape waited for me. My legs were both frozen and my sockless leg was numb and caused me to limp.

"What is taking you so long?" Snape groaned and turned around to see me hobbling a few steps behind him.

"It's sort of hard to walk when you can't feel your legs!" I shouted at him.

He looked me up and down. "You're going to get frostbite."

"I can fix that." I patted my robes for my wand but remembered I left it in my room since I wasn't going to need it for detention. "Later I suppose."

I waddled forward a few more steps.

"I can fix it." Snape said. "And probably faster than you can if you have to go upstairs."

"I'll be fine." I insisted.

I was surprised that he seemed to let it go that easily. We walked the rest of the way to the castle in silence. Severus slowed down to the same speed as me. I stumbled a few times over my own numb feet but he was there to catch me before I went face down in the snow. If I didn't know any better it seemed that he found enjoyment in my incoordination.

He held the door open for me and when I entered I felt the warm air around me but it felt as though a bubble of cold wouldn't let the heat touch my skin. I made a B-line for the stairs when Severus seized my wrist and began to pull me towards the dungeon.

"What are you doing?" I squealed caught off guard.

"You are never going to make it up those stairs." He said.

"I can take care of myself." I protested.

"You really believe that, don't you?" He asked opening the door to the dungeon. "Follow me."

I took one step down but my legs went funny and I stumbled. Severus already had his arms ready to catch me. He wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted most of my weight and walked, dragging my feet over the stairs. We reached the bottom of the stairs and he let go of me.

"Come in here." He told me and disappeared into his classroom.

I followed him. He had already made his way into the potions cabinet and I could hear the clinking of bottles. He came out with a small vial filled with bright red liquid.

"Drink this." He said thrusting the vial in my face.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Aestus Venae." He said. "It will make you feel better."

I took the bottle from his hand and pulled out the stopper. I looked up at him skeptically.

"Drink it, Ruby." Snape demanded.

I tipped my head back and downed the contents of the bottle. It tasted sort of like cinnamon candy and I could feel a fuzzy radiating warming sensation down my throat all the way to my stomach. The warmth began to leak from my stomach. It was the strangest feeling, as though I could feel the potion flooding every vein in my body. The heat spread from my stomach to my sides to my heart to my shoulders around to my back and slowly seeping into my arms and down my legs.

"Woah." Was all I could say.

Snape smiled at my reaction.

"Why aren't you a healer?" I asked him.

"I like potions not helping people." He said and took the vial from my hands.

"Then why do you help me?" I asked.

"You're different." He said flipping the bottle between his slender fingers as if to distract himself from what he was saying. "You're…my friend."

As I walked up the spiral stairs to the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room. I was unsure if the warm feeling in my chest and brain were still caused by the Aestus Venae or if they were the result of Severus admitting we were friends. I decided to let it be a mixture of both.

I entered the common room after answering another riddle from the bronze eagle doorknocker. Susan was one of the few people still sitting there.

"What happened?" She asked as soon as she saw me. "You haven't been this late in a while."

"You will never believe what happened!" I squealed and ran to sit in the seat across from her.

I told her all about the unicorn though I lied about why I was outside. I left out the part where Snape walked me inside and took me to his classroom and gave me a potion and said were friends and I'm not sure which my current feeling came from.

"Wait." Susan said. "I don't understand. Snape was nice to something?"

I shrugged. "Maybe he likes unicorns."

Susan and I looked at each other and giggled. Growing up as muggles I think we both associated unicorns as being girly like glitter and rainbows even though now we knew they were real and actually quite dangerous.

"Maybe he should start wearing pink robes instead of black." Susan laughed. "It would certainly make him less intimidating."

"I don't know." I laughed. "That scowl is scary no matter what."

"Did he look scary when he was hunched over a unicorn?" Susan giggled.

I thought about how concentrated he was, how his hair fell into his face as he watched the wound heal, how swiftly his fingers moved. He looked almost handsome but I couldn't tell Susan that. I only shrugged to answer Susan's question.

"So what is happening to Olli?" Susan asked a different question.

"Hagrid is keeping him for a few days until he's better." I said. "He's just a baby. His horn is just starting to grow."

"Oh." Susan said losing the face of someone who was interested in anything I had to say.

I internally sighed. "What are you still doing up?" I asked realizing something must have happened that made her want to stay up this late.

Her eyes popped. "Mark has already asked me if I want to meet his family over Christmas holiday!"

"His family?" I asked a bit shocked. "Isn't this all a bit soonish?"

"I've met your family." Susan countered.

"You have." I agreed. "But I'm not your boyfriend and it wasn't over Christmas. Isn't it a bit much pressure? You just started dating. What if you aren't even together by the time Christmas comes around?"

The look that washed over Susan's face told me I shouldn't have said any of that. "Ruby Katherine Winston, how dare you? Just because you've never loved anyone doesn't mean the rest of the world has to be as closed off as you! Mark and I are in love and I would thank you to not question the validity of our relationship and keep your thoughts about how long it will last to yourself."

She spun around and ran up the stairs leading to the dorms.

"Susan!" I yelled after her. "I didn't mean…I'm sorry."

The statue of Rowena Ravenclaw at the base of the stairs shushed me and moved in my way so I couldn't follow Susan.

The other remaining person in the commons room looked up from his book and stared at me.

I was filled with embarrassment that he had heard the whole thing and anger at myself for not thinking before I spoke. Why couldn't I just let Susan be happy and be happy for her? In my frustration I stormed from the commons and sat outside the door at the top of the steps. All feelings of warm fuzzies from Severus were forgotten.