Chapter 22: Shattered Dreams
"Stay out of the Forest of the Old Gnarled Trees.
They'll ignore all your shouts, nor listen to your pleas."
--Dwayne Leon Rankin-
\|/\|/\|/
In the fervor of the sudden upset in the contest for the House Cup, Malfoy getting the changes reversed for Slytherin, Allie's retaliation, and the Professors' final decision on how to deal with the problem, Harry had completely forgot about the detentions. So the letter he received from Professor McGonagall one morning at breakfast about a week before exams came as something of a surprise.
Filch was already waiting in the Entrance Hall with Malfoy and Allie when he arrived.
"Allie," he said to his friend who was standing near Malfoy but had her arms crossed and looked very much like she'd prefer to be anywhere else.
"Harry," she said tersely.
Hermione and Parvati arrived next, trooping down the stairs that were the most direct route to Gryffindor Tower. Unexpectedly, Neville Longbottom followed after them.
"Harry," Hermione said, her expression chilled when she spotted Allie. "Blackthorn."
"Hermione."
"Granger. Parvati."
"Allie," Parvati said. "Harry."
"Parvati."
"Neville," Harry said. He'd seen the boy in the Great Hall and in doubles Herbology classes, but they'd rarely had a chance to speak. Now he looked up at Harry in surprise.
"H-Harry," Neville said, then, with only slightly more confidence, "Padma."
"Neville."
"That'll be enough of that," Filch growled.
They waited in silence for what seemed like ages but probably wasn't more than a minute or so before Padma arrived.
Filch lit a lantern and headed out the doors. "Follow me," he said as he was swallowed up by the night.
Harry and the others hurried after.
"I bet you'll think twice about breaking school rules next time, eh?" the Caretaker asked. "Hard work," he said this with a kind of unholy reverence, adoration twisted his face. "Hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me. Use the rod and beat the child…"
The adoration faded and a nighttime breeze caught a wistful sigh, "A pity that they let the old time punishments die out. I bet you lot wouldn't be tracking mud in the halls, or flinging curses in the corridors, or flinging your Fanged Frisbees around if I still had the power to hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days…"
He froze so suddenly that Harry, who had been following very close behind, almost ran into him and Parvati, who was hovering even closer to Padma than usual, actually had bumped into her sister. "God," Filch whispered with a kind of obscene mournful reverence, "I miss the screaming."
He continued on, and as they followed after he let the first years know: "I've got the chains still in my office, keep 'em well oiled just in case."
Harry shivered, dropped to the back of the group, and nearly tripped. The moon was very bright and loomed overhead, still four or five days from being full, but dark clouds ghosting by in the sky scudded across it, throwing the grounds into deep shadows without even a moment's notice. He wondered where they were going, Filch seemed to be heading for Hagrid's hut—Harry could see its lighted window in the distance—but he couldn't think of what Hagrid would need all of them for in nearly the middle of the night. Nor could he think of what type of punishment Hagrid could have waiting for them. It must be terrible, Filch wouldn't be nearly so delighted if it weren't, but while Harry could well imagine Snape having something like that for them, this was Hagrid.
"Is that you, Filch?" Hagrid's voice boomed in the distance. "Hurry up. I want ter get started."
Well…maybe it wouldn't be too bad after all, Harry thought. If Filch was just assigned to be escorting them across the grounds, maybe he thought they were in for something worse than what Hagrid was going to have them do.
"I suppose you think you'll be enjoying yourselves with that oaf?" Filch asked. "Well don't get your hopes up, boy—it's into the Forbidden Forest with you lot and I'll be very much mistaken if all of you will be returning in one piece."
Someone—Harry thought it was Padma but he wasn't sure—made a soft moan and Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks.
"The Forest?" he asked, his voice a little higher and much less cool than usual. "We can't go in there at night—there's all sorts of…things that live in there—werewolves I've heard."
Hermione scoffed. "Werewolves? It's nearly a week past the full moon, Malfoy! Why else do you think Professor Sinistra had us doing lunar observations last week?"
Hagrid came striding out of the darkness. He carried his giant crossbow, a quiver of bolts for it, and Fang trotted along at his heels.
"Abou' time," he said. "I bin waitin' fer half an hour already. All right, Harry, Hermione?"
"I shouldn't be too friendly to them, Hagrid," Filch said. "They're here to be punished after all."
"That's why yer late, is it?" Hagrid asked with a frown. "Bin lecturin' them? 'Snot yer place, Filch. Yeh've done yer bit, I'll take over from here."
"Then I shall return for them at dawn," Filch said. He gave Harry a nasty sideways look, "What's left of them anyway." He turned and stalked out into the night in the direction of the castle. His lantern bobbed and weaved in the darkness.
"I am not going into that forest," Malfoy said, and Harry was happy to hear the panic in the other boy's voice.
"Yeh are if yer meanin' ter be stayin' at Hogwarts," Hagrid said furiously. "Yeh've done wrong an' now yeh'll be paying fer it."
"But this is servant work," Malfoy blustered, "this isn't the kind of thing that proper students are supposed to be put to."
Harry wondered what Justin, whose family really did have hired servants, would have thought about that. Probably not a lot, he decided. He'd never really considered it before, but Justin seemed to regard his family's retainers—Justin's preferred word—as part of his extended family, which probably explained how he got along so easily with the others in Hufflepuff, pureblood and muggleborn, rich and poor, alike. Harry wasn't sure, with all that magic could do, if the Malfoys even had servants, but he was certain that the other boy never would have regarded them as family.
"I thought we'd be copying lines or something," Malfoy was saying. "If my father knew that I was doing this, he'd—"
"Tell yeh that's how it is at Hogwarts," Hagrid cut him off. "Copyin' lines, what rubbish. What good is that ter anyone? Yeh'll do summat useful or get out. If yeh think yer father'd rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle and pack. Go on!"
But Malfoy did not 'get on.' Instead he glared furiously at Hagrid, but after a moment he dropped his gaze.
"Right then" Hagrid said, but whatever else he was going to say was lost by a cry from Parvati.
"Look!"
Harry turned.
Ghostly, shimmering shapes moved in the fog-shrouded hollow at the edge of the forest. Then, as though someone had thrown back a curtain, the fog parted and the clouds cleared and moonlight lit the grounds. The grass was dark and lush with new growth, and the trees were not half-so foreboding as they had been scarce months before. Hogwarts' white stone walls gleamed like alabaster.
"Unicorns," Hermione said in a voice hush with wonder.
"Yeh," Hagrid whispered. "The herd's been restless."
"Wow," Parvati said as her sister nodded mutely.
Allie and Malfoy were quiet, and Harry took the time to observe the unicorns. They were about the size of normal horses if slightly on the small side. White feathery tufts of fur trailed above their hooves, and manes and tails flowed behind each as they ran back and forth. And each, on its forehead, bore a single horn.
"You stare at this in wonder?" Allie asked at length.
"Allie," Harry said. This, this was magic, the moment was as pure magic as any he'd experienced and he didn't want it to end.
She shook her head at him. "You and Granger don't know better, Harry. This sight isn't something to stand in awe of, it's something to mourn."
It was Neville, quite unexpectedly, who spoke up. "We aren't as we once were."
"Maybe you aren't, Pellinore," Malfoy said nastily. "We Malfoys—" but what the Malfoys were Harry didn't find out as the other boy abruptly stopped talking, and Harry had the sneaking suspicion that Allie had just elbowed him.
"Allie's right. Unicorns aren't meant to be penned up like a herd of horses," Padma said. Her voice was low, sad as the horse-like creatures danced in the moonlight.
"Why?"
"They're immortal beings, Harry," Allie explained in a soft voice. "They are solitary and mate only very rarely. It doesn't matter if the bindings are bars of cold iron or wizard-wrought spells. They are meant roam the Old Places, the Deep Forests where it is always spring and no animals can be found by hunters. The Wild Places where no unicorn is ever seen, but signs of its presence are all around. This is…obscene."
"Nobody has seen a unicorn in the Wild in centuries," Parvati said.
"We have to hide them," Neville said. "If we didn't, muggles would find out and—"
"You think a wild unicorn could be found if it didn't want to be? Hah!" Allie's burst of laughter was cold, hard, and distinctly lacking in humor. "So we steal Magic—true magic and not the petty spells we learn in that castle—from a world that has far too little True Magic left to it, and we pen it up and keep it for ourselves and pat each other on the back and say what great people we are."
"Neville's right," Hermione said. "If the muggles knew they'd kill them all for their horns or something."
"Where do you think those horns the apothecaries sell come from, Granger?" Allie asked. "A unicorn's horn is its magic. A unicorn can slay dragons with its horn, or bring you back from the very brink of death, or knock down ripe chestnuts for bear cubs. All three are one and the same to a unicorn. To take a unicorn's horn is to take their magic. Do you know what happens to an immortal being if its magic is taken?"
"They die?" Harry asked uncertainly.
"No, they don't," Allie told him. "Well? Has unicorn-lore become so lost that you don't know the price of a unicorn's horn?"
"Ah creature tha's totally innocent, learns of loss," Hagrid said softly.
Harry looked up. Hagrid was watching the unicorns just as intently as the rest of them—even Malfoy—and Harry thought he saw tears shimmer in the corner of Hagrid's eyes.
He turned back to the herd. "I don't understand."
"Unicorns don't understand loss, Harry," Padma said slowly. "Immortality doesn't mean that they can't be killed, it means that they exist outside of time itself. They live now. Being outside of time keeps them from aging, but it also keeps them from understanding loss, sorrow, regret… A unicorn that has its horn taken will remember not knowing such things. It will remember when it could heal any hurt or open any lock. It will be able to remember all that it was once and is no longer."
"But it doesn't matter what they were meant to be," Hermione said. "There aren't any places of wild magic left."
"There are a few," Allie disagreed. "There's the Valley beyond the Scar."
"And Glastonbury Tor," Padma said. "Whatever Sealed that one either fluctuates or is breaking down. It was only a few years ago that a couple of muggles climbing the tor found a ring of standing stones instead of the ruins of St. Micheal's Church at the summit. And then there's that cave that muggles wander into all the time…"
The unicorns wheeled one last time, their horns glinting and hides shimmering. Then the fog moved back in and the clouds closed again and the unicorns disappeared into their forest.
"Right then," Hagrid said gruffly, but Harry could see that he was as moved by the beauty of the unicorns as the rest of them, even Allie despite her disgust. "You lot listen careful now 'cause it's dangerous business, what we're going ter be doin' tonight an' I don' want no one takin' risks or gettin' hurt."
He led them to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, which seemed to sigh because a draught of wind lifted their hair and made the edges of their robes snap. Hagrid lifted his lamp and they could see a narrow, twisted dirt path wind its way between the black trees.
"Look here," Hagrid said, gesturing to a small pool of silvery liquid. "Yeh see that stuff shinin' there on the ground? Silvery stuff? That's unicorn's blood. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt bad by summat."
Padma squatted beside at and poked at it with a twig.
"Careful," Hagrid warned.
"This is fresh," Padma said. "It's not dried at all."
"Stuff don' congeal like normal blood," Hagrid said.
Padma shrugged and touched a finger to it. "It's still warm," she noted, before flicking her fingers. The silvery blood beaded up and spattered on the ground, leaving her finger, to her surprise, clean.
"Second time this week," Hagrid said, passing her a flask and a giant handkerchief. I found one dead last Wednesday. We're gonna try an' find the poor thing. We might have to put it out of its misery."
Padma sniffed at the flask, then wetted the handkerchief with water from it and wiped her fingers just to be sure.
"And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" asked Malfoy, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.
"There's nothing that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang," said Hagrid. "An' keep to the path. We're gonna split inter two parties and follow differ'nt branches of the path."
"I want Fang," Malfoy said instantly.
"Alright, but I warn yeh, he's a ruddy coward," Hagrid said.
"And we are staying together," Parvati said, grabbing her sister's hand.
Hagrid looked at Padma, but when she didn't object he nodded. "So you two, me, an' Hermione'll go down the left hand path. Draco, Allie, Harry an' Fang go down the right. Neville, yeh come with me too. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practice now—that's it."
It wasn't really, Harry thought. Allie's were weak and feeble things and Padma had never even gotten her wand out before Hagrid said they were done.
"An' if yeh get inter any trouble yeh send up red sparks and the others'll all come and get yeh—so be careful—let's go."
So they went down the little path that threaded its way between the great black trees and after a while it split into two paths and Hagrid led the Gryffindors and Padma down the right
At once the weakness in Hagrid's strategy became obvious to Harry. Hagrid had the only lantern, leaving Harry's group with only the intermittent moon that was now made worse by the many thick branches that obscured its silvery light.
They walked in silence with their eyes to the ground, more to make sure that they stayed on the twisting path than to look for signs of an injured unicorn. Every so often a ray of moonlight managed to pierce through the heavy branches overhead and lit upon unicorn blood which would flash with silver-blue fire from where it was spattered over the dead leafs, dry twigs, and dirt.
"Well it could be a werewolf," Malfoy said, sounding very uncertain.
"Have you ever even seen a unicorn before tonight?" Allie asked. "Even penned in the way they are they remain powerfully magical creatures. If werewolves were attacking them we'd be seeing a lot of dead werewolves."
"Shut up," Harry said.
"Excuse me?" Allie asked.
"Shh," he hissed. "Do you hear that?" He was aware of the phoenix amulet growing warm against his skin, but it didn't grow hot. Allie and Malfoy had lapsed into silence, and over Fang's soft whine he could hear a faint slithering and crackling sound, rather like a cape being dragged over the rough ground.
"What do you think that is?" he asked.
"I don't know," Allie murmured softly.
Harry turned to Malfoy, the other boy looked dreadfully pale in the wan light that penetrated through the trees.
"A werewolf," the Slytherin said.
"That wasn't a werewolf," Allie said scornfully. "Granger was, as usual, correct; its days past the full moon. I don't think it was a unicorn either."
Harry looked around, but in the darkness he couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything either.
In the moment his attention was turned away Malfoy whipped out his wand. Harry started to raise his own to defend himself, but Malfoy threw red sparks into the air.
"What did you do that for?" Harry demanded.
"You heard it! It was going to kill me!" Malfoy said shrilly.
"What is it?" Hagrid demanded as he came crashing out of the woods with his crossbow. "Where is it?"
"I don't know," Harry said.
"Why'd yeh send up sparks, Harry?" Hagrid asked, looking around.
"Malfoy did," Harry said. "We heard something, sort of slithering and rustling at the same time, like a cloak being dragged on the ground."
"Yeh mean yeh sent up sparks and there weren' no danger?" Hagrid said. "I told yeh, yeh'll be fine s'long as me or Fang's with yeh. An' now I left Hermione and the Patil girls alone because yeh used the danger signal!"
"So what? I am in danger!" Malfoy protested.
Hagrid gave him a disgusted look.
"What do you think the noise could have been?" Harry asked.
"Don' rightly know; not w'out hearin' it fer myself," Hagrid admitted. "Yeh'll be alright now, Harry?"
"Sure, Hagrid," Harry said.
"Right then." Hagrid gave Malfoy one more look, then stalked back into the trees to rejoin the others.
"Let's go," Allie said angrily, giving Malfoy a hard look before plunging down the trail past Harry.
They walked on, now keeping an ear out for the strange slithering sound as much as they were watching the ground for unicorn blood. At length the path began to widen slightly until it suddenly opened out into a small clearing. In the clearing stood a centaur.
Her hair was gold and her horse-body shone of pale honey in the light of the moon.
"Well come, Harry Potter," she said, her voice held the depth of ages but was surprisingly light and sweet for it.
"You know who I am?" Harry asked.
"I know you better than you know yourself, Harry Potter," she replied. "Your story was written in the sky by the stars of ages past. And yet, not a full year past, the story was thrown into discord. The Hound remains kenneled, and the Warrior does not yet walk the Earth, but these signs are of the few that remain unchanged.
"Ara drips with blood yet unspilled upon it. The Arrow has been loosed into the world. Peace-Bringer that you humans name Columba has been replaced by the Crow in the portents. Noctua sleeps after dusk. Monoceros lies dying and dead, and Musca, which normally flitters about the sides of Prophecy and Foretelling, has been drawn to the scents of blood and flesh. Mars…Mars has been very bright, but especially so this night.
"Tell me, Harry Potter, do you know what these, the most basic of signs, mean?"
"Er…no, not really," Harry said. Though the sound of dying monoceros, whatever that was, didn't sound good, and there being the scent of flesh and blood didn't sound much better. "Nothing good?"
"Three score years and more it has been since the skies told of times so dark, as they did at the time of the last summer solstice," the centaur said, stamping a hoof. "They have grown only darker since. Should they continue, they could become the worst skies we have seen in twenty score centuries."
"I'm sure Potter is simply dying to know how he's going to become the savior of mudbloods and muggle-lovers," Malfoy sneered, "but I have better things to do."
She reared up and kicked her fore-hooves threateningly. "I have explained these things so Harry Potter may understand, but I am here because I bear a warning for him."
"You have?" Harry asked. What she had said so far didn't sound much like a warning. A prediction that things were going to be very bad, maybe, but not actually anything he could use. Something like 'the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side has a giant, people-eating, three-headed dog, you might consider staying away' would have been a warning. Crows, and arrows, and dripping blood that hadn't been spilled yet, just sounded like something out of a muggle horror story.
"Yes," the Centaur told him.
"Er…warn me of what, exactly?"
"Death stalks these woods."
"I knew it," Malfoy said. "I'm leaving."
"You never leave, Little Dragon, it is not in your movements," the Centaur said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Malfoy demanded.
"It means you haven't been paying attention in astronomy," Allie said. "The constellation Draco never sets."
The Centaur cocked her head and seemed impressed that she knew this. "Young human, have you learned the Dance and what the patterns foretell?"
"I only ever learned a few steps. Prophecy tells us only what will be, not what may be. Dreams of darkness and blood haunt my sleep.
"I dreamt a dream that was not a dream. The sun, the Beacon that governs the day, was put out, and the stars… The Earth became like ice as it hung in the void blind and blackening like arctic frostbite and rot on a corpse. Dawn came, and went, and came again but brought with it no day."
"Very funny," Malfoy said, but Harry watched his friend in growing alarm. Allies face had fallen strangely slack, and her eyes were glassy.
"A great Shadow fell across the land, and the World was cast asunder. Oceans fled, swallowing city and plain and desert. Mountains were swallowed by depthless chasms, a torn from their roots. The nations were brought low, and their people scattered to the far corners of the world. War came, with her handmaids Famine and Pestilence. The moon shone like blood, and the sun was like ash. The land burned, the seas boiled, and the few that were living envied the dead."
Harry was brushed aside by the centaur as she approached Allie, taking the witch's face in her hands and lifting it up. "Who was your mentor, Child? Did she not teach you to ward your sleep?"
"Glencloud," Allie whispered the name. "When I was but a child. Never before coming here have I dreamt so…"
"Humans," the centaur said with a snort and a thump of a hoof. "I shall send instruction, but tonight no nightmares shall find you, young Dreamer."
Allie shook as the centaur stepped back.
"Allie, are you all right?" Harry asked quickly.
"Better and no worse than I was before," she told him. "I'm better, honest, Harry. Better than I have in a long while." She turned back to the centaur. "Something stirs in the East. Foul beings of the Old Times that still lurk in forgotten corners of minds of man."
"Yes," the centaur agreed.
Allie looked up. Most of the small clearing was covered by wide-spreading tree limbs, but some stars were visible. "It is not just imagination then? Not just a dream."
"No, I am afraid it is not."
"Why now?"
"Ten years were promised, ten years were granted, and ten years received."
Allie didn't seem inclined to ask anything more, so Harry stepped forward slightly.
"There's a unicorn that's been hurt," Harry said to the centaur. "Can you tell us anything about that?"
The centaur shook her head, her hair, caught in the light of the moon, flashed into a golden halo around her head. She sighed, stamped one fore-hoof, and looked up at the stairs. At length she replied without turning her attention back to them. "Always are the innocent the first victims. So it has been for ages that only the stars have seen, so it is now…and so shall it be in the future until Death itself meets its end."
"Yes, yes," Malfoy said, "but have you seen anything? I can't leave this ruddy forest until we find that bloody unicorn, so if you've seen anything unusual you had best tell us now so we can be on our way."
The Centaur seemed to ignore Malfoy, and Harry was sure that she was making a point about the other boy's rude manners, but then she spoke.
"Mars is bright tonight," the Centaur repeated, her gaze still to the heavens. "Unusually bright."
"Useful, you lot are," Malfoy said. He dragged at Fang's collar and the dog followed him across the clearing and back into the woods.
Mindful of Hagrid's warning that they were safe so long as they had Fang with them, Harry and Allie hurried after. Malfoy had lit the tip of his wand and though it blinked, and disappeared and reappeared as the path weaved in and out of trees, it was easy enough to follow.
They hurried down the path and finally caught up with Malfoy who was nearly dragging Fang after him as he vainly sought for the unicorn so that he could get out of the forest as quickly as possible. They hadn't walked for very long, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, when the path, none-too-easy to follow to begin with, became almost impossible to follow as it wound its way through the thickly-growing trees.
"If you don't slow down we're going to leave the others behind, Malfoy," Harry protested.
"Well they can deal with the unicorn when they catch up!" Malfoy retorted. "We just have to find the beast and send up sparks. Then we can go back to the castle. You heard that beast, Potter, it said death is in these woods."
There was a low, but shrill, cry.
Malfoy froze, and then said in a very calm voice though the look in his eyes was not calm at all: "I'm getting out of here, Potter, unless you want to run into whatever made that sound."
Harry turned away from Malfoy in disgust. A flash of silver caught his eyes. "There, did you see that?" he asked, pointing off through the branches of an ancient oak that was growing from the side of a depression or bowl in the forest floor.
"See what, Potter? There's nothing there," Malfoy said derisively.
"Hagrid said to stay on the path," Allie said as Harry started down the embankment.
"I thought I saw something move, something silvery," Harry said. "It could be the unicorn."
"The poor thing is probably dead by now," Allie said.
"What?" Harry asked.
"Have you been looking at the blood pools? The bleeding has gotten worse. A lot worse. It's losing more here than it was at the start of the trail."
"So?"
"So even a unicorn can only stand to lose so much blood."
"Right," Harry looked at the path, then at the direction he was sure he'd seen the flash of silver. "Then we go and check it out, and if it is the unicorn we send up sparks. Either way, Hagrid's going to want to make sure."
"Grand," he heard Allie mutter behind him before continuing in a louder, mocking voice, "Draco, do be a dear and bring that dog."
It wasn't easy as Harry had hoped. The oak wasn't the only tree growing up the side of the embankment and they had to struggle down against branches that snatched at their robes. Shrubs with briars and thick thorns grew thigh-high and impeded their way.
"Harry, you think we're heading in the direction of a slain unicorn, right?" Allie asked from behind him.
"Yes."
"Presumably something killed that unicorn."
"Uh-huh."
"And what if it's still there?"
Harry stopped so suddenly he nearly kept going down the embankment before he managed to grab onto a branch and stop himself. Good question. "Send up red sparks and hope Hagrid gets here fast?"
"Merlin, Potter, if that's the best plan you've got then it's no wonder you were sorted into Hufflepuff," Malfoy said scathingly from even further back than Allie. "Even Gryffindor's have better plans, well, a plan."
"Yeah, 'Charge'," Allie said.
"I didn't say it was a good plan," the Slytherin boy sniffed. "Just a better one than hoping for someone to save us if you lead us right into the mouth of whatever is killing unicorns."
Harry pushed his way through a last line of bushes and found himself in a clearing of sorts. An oblong depression bordered by ancient trees and thick snarled bushes with nasty-looking thorns. There was another break in the bushes on the other side of the clearing; and two-thirds of the way across lay the gleaming body of what could only be a unicorn.
Harry had never seen anything so sad. It was clearly dead, blood seeped from its side and from its neck which was twisted at an angle that no neck was supposed to twist at. The unicorn's slender legs stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen, and its mane was spread like a pearly cloak over the dark leaves. Liquid blue eyes glowed unseeingly as the moon-light struck them through the trees.
"Damn," Allie sighed feelingly.
"I thought you knew it was dead," Harry said.
"I was hoping I was wrong," Allie admitted, "that the damage wouldn't be so bad it couldn't be healed."
Harry had taken one step toward it when a slithering sound made him freeze where he stood. A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered…Then, out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast. Harry, Malfoy, Allie, and Fang stood transfixed. The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal's side, and began to drink its blood.
"AAAAAAARGH!"
Malfoy let out a terrible scream and bolted—so did Fang. The hooded figure raised its head and looked right at Harry—silvery unicorn blood was dribbling down its front, but it had a great hood over its head so Harry couldn't see its face. It got to its feet and came swiftly toward Harry—he couldn't move for fear and the phoenix amulet inside his robes was very hot.
"…cantate Deo, psallite Domino…"
A pain like he'd never felt before pierced his head; it was as though his scar were on fire. Half-blinded, he staggered backward, dimly aware of Allie's panicked voice chanting in Latin from somewhere close by. The pain in Harry's head was so bad he fell to his knees.
"…ad orientem, ecce dabit voci suae vocem virtutis… "
It screeched. A mind twisting, mind-numbing thing that felt like a hundred freezing, rusty razors scraping along his spine…like an evil orchastra of hundreds of teachers scraping their fingernails across chalk boards.
"…tribuite virtutem Deo."
A hand like a vice fastened around Harry's upper arm and dragged him back to his feet. "Harry, Harry are you still with me?" a voice demanded.
Harry shook his head, his stomach rebelled at the motion but he fought it back under control. "I think so…look out!" he shouted, looking up to see the shadowy figure stalking towards them.
"Shit, um, I think Domino—yes: "Domino: 'Refugium meum et fortitudo mea…'"
The thing stopped again and opened its mouth to scream. Silver blood shone against the shadowy-outline of the figure.
"What is that?"
"Demon…I think." Harry could hear the uncertainty in her voice. "No, uh, non timb-timebis, non timebis a temor-timore…"
As Allie stumbled over words next to him, Harry groped for his wand with one hand while the other sought to free the amulet from his robes.
"Lumos!" The tip of his wand flared into brilliant light and the creature recoiled, spinning away before Harry could see its face.
"Uh, non timebis a timore nocturno a saggita volante in die! Um, A peste pera- pera-something…oh the heck with it," Allie muttered, breaking off her chant to produce her own wand. "Lumos." The end of her wand flared slightly and the air sort of rippled, but the wand remained dark. "Lumos, Lumos—damnit!"
"Was that doing anything?" Harry gasped as she continued to struggle with her wand.
"Probably just making it angry," Allie said, giving up on getting the tip of her wand to light up as she began to chant again. "…salvum me fac et in virtute tua…"
"I don't think that's helping any."
"It's the best I can come up with," she said. "And we're not dead yet so…"
"Can you send up sparks?" Harry asked. He didn't want to do it himself. The creature seemed sensitive to light and breaking his wand-light to summon Hagrid seemed like a losing proposition at the moment.
His friend nodded and flicked her wand into the sky. The sparks she produced were pale, more pink than red, but still quite bright compared to her usual wand-work. "Converte mala super inimicos meos et in veritate tua disperde illos."
Harry finally pulled the phoenix amulet out. No sooner was it free of the confines of his robes than it burst into gold and red-colored flames. Tiny green embers burned in the place of the gemstone eyes, and it clutched an orb of writhing shadows in its talons.
The creature gave another shriek as Harry dangled the amulet on its chain before them, and he heard the sound of hooves behind him. They came at a rapid beat, approaching quickly, and then just and suddenly stopped. Something jumped clean over Harry and the hoof-beats took up again as it charged at the figure. The creature shrieked at the charging figure, then turned and fled.
When Harry looked up a centaur was standing over them, not the female from the clearing; this one looked younger; he had white-blond hair and a palomino body.
"Are you all right?" said the centaur.
"Yes—thank you—" Harry said as he slowly tucked the amulet away. He looked around the clearing, but aside from the dead unicorn, Allie, himself and this new centaur, it might as well have been deserted. The danger seemed to be well-past. He looked up and used his wand to change the color of the sparks from pale pinky-red to brightly-glowing green, then turned back to the centaur. "What was that?"
The centaur didn't answer. He had astonishingly blue eyes, like pale sapphires. He looked carefully at Harry, his eyes lingering on the scar that stood out, livid, on Harry's forehead.
"You are the Potter boy," he said. "And you, the Thorne." He looked around, his tail giving a nervous little flick. "You had better get back to Hagrid. The forest is not safe at this time—especially for you," he said to Harry. "Can you ride? It will be quicker this way."
"A rare honor, sir," Allie said.
He snorted and stamped a hoof. "Sir," he huffed. "My name is Firenze."
"Can you carry both of us?" Harry asked as the centaur lowered his front legs so that he could climb on.
Firenze hesitated. "No," he admitted.
"In that case I'd just as soon wait."
"It isn't safe for you…"
"Harry, go," Allie said. "This isn't time for you to go all Hufflepuff."
"I'm not leaving without you," Harry said stubbornly.
"Hagrid's coming, I'll be fine until he gets here," Allie insisted.
"And what if that thing, whatever it is, comes back?" Harry demanded. "So far the only thing that seems to do any good against it is the phoenix amulet, which you gave me but you don't understand how it's working."
"If it shows up again then I let loose," Allie said. She jerked her sleeve back to expose a silver band that encircled her wrist. Its surface, shimmering in the moonlight, was etched with glowing runes. "I'll take this off, if I have to, but I won't do it with you around."
Harry started to tell her that she had no way of knowing if that'd be enough, if the thing that had attacked them was even capable of being controlled, but a pained sort of gasp from somewhere behind him caught his attention. He whirled around in time to see the unicorn weakly flail its legs.
"It isn't dead," he said.
"I thought surely she must be," Firenze whispered.
"As did I," Allie replied.
"Quickly, perhaps you can heal her still," Firenze said.
"What?" Harry asked. "We're first years! Healing magic isn't taught at all for years yet, and those wouldn't be near enough for this."
"Your friend can call flesh, bid wounds to close."
"In theory," Allie said skeptically. "I mean, the large is the small as the small is the large, what is above is below and what is below is above and all the rest."
Harry looked from his friend to the centaur and back. "Allie, what's he talking about? You never told me that you could Heal."
"That's because I can't," Allie said. "Supposedly I could call the cells to replicate and direct healing. But I don't have anywhere near that kind of capability."
"What about imagination and willpower?" Harry asked. "You told me that they were interconnected, that a strong force of will could make up for a lack of power."
"Because it isn't just an issue of power," she said. "It's a matter of skill. There might not be any theoretical limits on magic, but there are practical ones. Besides," she said with a heavy sigh as she fell to her knees next to the unicorn, "it doesn't matter if I can or cannot Heal. I'm mortal and she isn't. My magic is inimical to what she is."
Harry looked around. Silver blood was splashed everywhere, almost enough to conceal the great rents in the side of the unicorn if not for the…things hanging out. He could hear a shallow gurgling from the unicorn's mouth and a fine mist of silver droplets sprayed from its nose.
After a moment Allie touched its neck. The unicorn squealed, throwing its head, and spraying silvery droplets of blood.
"Allie."
"I can't," she told Harry. "I just can't. My magic hurts her almost as badly as…whatever did this to her. I'm pretty sure that gurgling means she's got a pierced lung. She's going to drown on her own blood and there's nothing I can do except watch. Firenze, is there anything you can do?"
"I have little skill in the healing arts," the centaur said, and Harry could have sworn he'd heard a note of embarrassment in his voice. He walked to stand next to Harry, taking slow deliberate movements that made very little sound.
"Come, sit on my back," Firenze said softly. "We shall let your friend try, and then I shall return you to Hagrid." He knelt his front legs and helped Harry to seat himself across his lower back.
"What about Allie?" Harry asked as the centaur coaxed him away from the dying unicorn.
"Do you think your friend so defenseless?" Firenze asked. "She has invoked an ancient and subtle Power this night. Its attention is surely upon her and that is no small thing. Besides, that which stalks this wood wants you dead more than any other. Even alone she is safer than with both of us here."
There was a sound of galloping hooves and a pair of centaurs burst out of the woods. Both were burly with powerfully-built horse-bodies and equally strong human-bodies. The first, a chestnut with gleaming flanks, red hair, and a thick beard. The second, black where his friend was red and more wild-looking.
"Firenze!" the black thundered. "What are you doing? You have human on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?"
"Do you not know who this is, Bane?" Firenze demanded in a harsh, low voice. "This is the Potter boy. Better for all that he left the forest as quickly as possible."
"What have you been telling him?" the black, Bane, demanded. "Have you forgotten that we have sworn oaths not to set ourselves against the heavens? Have we not read what is to come in the movement of the planets?"
"I am certain Firenze has done what he thought best," the chestnut said in a sorrowful voice.
"What he thought best?" Bane asked scornfully. "What is that to us? Centaurs are concerned with what is foretold. It is not our business to go running around after stray humans in our forest!"
"And when the hour has struck, Bane?"
Harry had been watching from around Firenze's shoulder, now he turned to see the golden centaur from the clearing walking towards them.
"Dreammyst," Firenze said.
"Firenze, Ronan," she nodded a brisk greeting to each before turning on Bane. "Well, Star-Watcher? When the time that the planets foretold is at hand, what shall you do? Will you ride to war, with humans if need be, or will you crouch in a clearing with your stars the way a goblin crouches with its horde."
"I am a son of Chiron," Bane roared. "Not some beast of the field. It is he that I follow. I read the stars, not act against them."
"How do we act against them?" Dreammyst asked furiously. "They tell of what's to come, not how it ends. Never, in thousands of years, how it ends. I watch the stars for they were given to us to watch, and I tell you that the hour is quickly approaching. But though the time has not yet come, I will stand with the humans this night."
"As will I," Firenze said. "Do you not see that unicorn that even now labors for life, or the human that vainly seeks to aid her? Do you not understand why it was slain or have the stars decided not to include you in that little secret. I know what stalks this forest, Bane, as would you if you would bother to open your eyes."
"And you, Ronan." Harry turned as Dreammyst spoke up again. "I would set myself against the very stars we watch rather than let that thing so near to our foaling fields were I to have your hooves."
At this Ronan became very straight and very still.
"The stars would have warned us of such a calamity." Bane said dismissively.
"And if they had?" Firenze asked. "You yourself said not five minutes past, Bane, that it was not our place to set ourselves against them."
Bane reared back on his hind legs, but Ronan stepped angrily between him and Firenze.
"Enough," he said, and his voice wasn't nearly so sorrowful now. "Enough, both of you. Dreammyst is right about my having cause to not want that thing in our forest—"
"Magorian has the fields well protected as is his duty."
"The Herd Stallion has far more duties than protecting the fields," Firenze said sharply.
"—and even if I did not," Ronan pressed on, "I'd still not want it here. This is not the proper time or place for the centaurs to decide whether or not to ride to war. But I will see no more unicorns slain in the forest, Bane. Even if that means that I have to patrol its entire length and breadth myself."
"Brother," Firenze said, "you do not."
"Then I gallop for Magorian," Ronan said. "Dreammyst, will you carry the girl?"
Bane looked from one to the other and back. "I will have no part in this," he said angrily and stormed off. Ronan watched for a moment, then turned and galloped off in another direction.
"Hagrid will be here soon," Firenze told Harry as the female centaur walked over to where Allie still knelt next to the unicorn "You should not have allowed yourselves to become so separated."
"We were trying to keep up with Malfoy," Harry said.
"There was another child with you?" Firenze asked, clearly upset.
"Draco Malfoy," Harry said. "He ran off with Fang."
"Fang is a sensible creature," Firenze said.
"Hagrid called him a coward."
Firenze stamped a fore-hoof, a gesture that seemed to serve as a kind of shrug. "Hagrid has the respect of the Forest. Even those that would otherwise mean him harm allow him to pass unmolested, and likewise those that are with him. Fang, they know as his proxy. If this Malfoy boy is with Fang he is safe enough if he stays on the paths."
"Oh," Harry said, watching as Allie shook her head at whatever Dreammyst had told her.
"Harry Potter, do you know what unicorn blood is used for?" Firenze asked quietly.
Harry looked up at the centaur, taken aback by the sudden shift in topic. "No," he said after a moment. "We've only used the horn and tail hair in Potions."
"It is monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn," said Firenze. "Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a fell deed. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. To have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself… Such a person will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches their lips."
"Who would do such a thing?" Harry asked softly. "To endure such a life would be worse than death, wouldn't it?"
"It would," Firenze said. "Only a person with nothing left to lose and everything to gain would risk such a fate. Someone who knows that they must only endure such a life for a short period of time before they can sip a more powerful drink—a drink capable of restoring one to full life, vigor of limb and power of magic—a drink that is life immortal. Do you not know what lies concealed inside the walls of Hogwarts at this very hour?"
"You mean the Philosopher's Stone," Harry whispered. "So…unicorn's blood to stay alive until it can possess the stone and the elixir of life." He frowned, "But why would a demon want the stone? Are they even alive?"
"No, for there was no demon," Firenze said. "In this your friend was sorely mistaken. Can you think of no one, Harry, who would do such a thing?"
"You mean to say that the thing we saw was—was Voldemort?" Harry asked.
Before Firenze could answer there was a heavy rustling sound in the woods. Harry and Firenze turned as Hagrid entered the clearing, his crossbow held high. Padma, Parvati, Neville, and Hermione entered behind him.
"Harry, are you all right?" Padma asked. "You sent up green sparks so we knew you found the unicorn but we saw red sparks earlier. Oh no, is it dead? What's Allie trying to do?"
"We met centaurs too," her sister was saying at the same time. "Bane and Ronan, they said that Mars was bright tonight and didn't seem very happy about it. Who are these? And where's Malfoy?"
Harry looked at Hermione. "Well?"
Hermione looked at the twins. "I think they pretty much got it all," she said.
"Harry," Hagrid said. "Yeh shouldn'ah gotten s'far ahead."
"Malfoy kept hurrying us up," Harry said. "We found this clearing and something attacked us. Malfoy took Fang and ran. Firenze drove whatever it is off."
Hagrid lowered his crossbow. "Well s'long as he's got Fang with him," he said, though he looked very worried. "Do yeh know what attacked yeh?"
Harry hesitated. After Norbert he had meant to stay on the straight and narrow. Maybe a few pranks, but leave the Stone alone. But the dead unicorn, Voldemort, and the Stone were all tied up together. "It was drinking the unicorn's blood, Hagrid," he said instead.
"You mean like a vampire?" Hermione asked.
"No," Harry said tersely, his eyes on Hagrid.
"A-are yeh sure?" Hagrid asked slowly.
Harry nodded. "Firenze was telling me about it, a little, and, well, there's that thing in the castle. I figure that if, Vol—"
"Don' say his name," Hagrid cut him off. "And he couldn' ah gotten in the castle."
"No, but if Snape was working for him—"
"Snape?" Hagrid asked loudly. "Working fer You-Know-Who? Rubbish."
"Harry," Padma repeated. "What's Allie doing?"
"She's trying to heal it," Harry said. "I think. I'm not sure, maybe she's just…being with it."
He led them across the clearing to where the unicorn lay. Allie was sitting near the unicorn's head, lightly stroking its neck. It had stopped struggling, but its breaths came in wet, ragged little pants that caused blood pooled near its nose to ripple like wind across a moonlit pond.
"Draco ran off with Fang, Hagrid," Allie said as they approached. "You'd better find him before he runs into a colony of acromantulas or that werewolf he's been talking about."
Hagrid suddenly looked worried. "Acro…there's no acromantulas in the forest," he said loudly.
The unicorn gave one last feeble kick, then lay very still.
Allie pressed her hand against the unicorn's neck for a moment, then shook her head. "That's it, then."
"Couldn't you do CPR?" Hermione asked, "like you did with Padma? My aunt raises horses and I heard that she once had a horse that—"
"Unicorns aren't horses," Parvati spat.
"They are both equines, or near enough."
"No they aren't, Granger," Allie said. "I told you, unicorns are immortal. You're trying to apply the mundane world to something that lives on hopes and dreams more so than it does on grass and clover, something that lives outside the sweep of time. And even if I was willing to inflict that on her, I have no way of closing her wounds."
She leaned forward to reach for the unicorn's head. Reaching down to close first one unseeing liquid-blue eye, then the other, she murmured, "Be at peace, Daughter of the Eastern Sky."
\|/\|/\|/
"Harry suspects that it was drinking unicorn's blood?" Albus asked sharply.
"Not suspects," Hagrid said. "He was really ada-adama…"
"Adamant?"
"Righ' on, Professor, adaman' abou' it," Hagrid said. "Reckons it were You-Know-Who."
Albus closed his eyes but wasn't able to hide the pained expression. "Every time I think Tom could stoop no lower. A desperate thing, most desperate. Were I cynical enough I'd consider that more are being killed closer together an encouraging sign. Still, I do not think that Voldemort can simply walk through the doors. Even if he could, any temporary body he may have constructed couldn't help but to set off a number of wards. Would the Centaurs help us in clearing the forest?"
Hagrid shook his great head. "Some of 'em would. Firenze, Ronan probably, sounds like his mate's abou' ter have a kid, a couple of others."
"Not enough," Albus said heavily. "Without their concerted help, which means convincing Magorian, we couldn't hope to keep Tom from eluding us without bringing in outside help."
"Professor, Harry said somethin' else," Hagrid said. "He though' Professor Snape was workin' fer You-Know-Who."
Albus sighed. "And you told him…"
"Tha' it was rubbish," Hagrid said. "What else could I have told him? The truth?"
"Harry will need to be able to work with Severus at the very least, Hagrid," Albus said. Far too much rested upon it. If he were to be killed Harry would almost certainly become the focal point of everything Voldemort was against. It would be vital Harry have access to Tom's inner thoughts and plans.
Hagrid grunted, but he didn't voice his thoughts about the likelihood of that happening. He wasn't so sure this was the best way to go about things, but Albus Dumbledore said it was and in Hagrid's experience, Albus had been right about far more things than he'd been wrong. "Abou' der Malfoy boy—"
"Draco served his detention and returned to his dormitory quite safely," Albus said.
"He cut and ran, Pr'fessor," Hagrid said.
"Understandable, under the circumstances," Albus allowed. "You were supposed to have a trio of sixth years to help. I must look into how those detentions were reassigned." He already knew that both parties were to have assembled in the Entrance Hall. The detentions that Harry and the other first years were supposed to be serving, was in the Greenhouses with Professor Sprout which made the Entrance Hall an obvious meeting point. It was the Herbology Professor who had alerted him when her expected students hadn't been escorted to her by Argus.
Unfortunately the caretaker had been subjected to a rather potent Confundus charm with a poorly performed memory charm layered over it. How anyone could have forgotten poor Quirrell's stutter was beyond him, but he didn't think he could dig any deeper without damaging the man's mind.
"Professor?"
Albus turned back to Hagrid. "I'm well aware that neither Harry nor his friends will like it, Hagrid. But under the circumstances I cannot ask Mr. Malfoy to serve a second detention, and I'm not referring just to what his father managed in regards to the House Points." He held Hagrid's gaze for a moment, then reluctantly the half-giant nodded.
"Alrigh', Professor. I think it's a mistake, is all," Hagrid said.
"Was there anything else?"
"Now tha' yeh mention it," Hagrid said. "Harry and Allie talke' teh Dreammyst. Harry said tha' Allie told her abou' some nightmare she were havin', but tha' he can' remember what she told her. Sounded like they were pretty serious though."
"Interesting," Albus murmured. "Very interesting."
\|/\|/\|/
A/N: Allie is paraphrasing Lord Byron and Robert Jordan in her dreams. Psalm 67:33-35, 90:2, 5-6, and 53:3 and 7 of the Vulgate (Respectively 68, 91, and 54 using the original Hebrew numbering instead of the Greek). .va/archive/bible/nova_vulgata/documents/nova-vulgata_vt_psalmorum_