Chapter 6 – Dragons, and The Forbidden Forest.

Over the next few weeks Quirrell proved Ron wrong, though he was starting to get paler and thinner. What bothered Andrew was that the worse Quirrell looked, the more he got bad vibes coming from him, he pegged it down to the poor guy's nerves.

Harry had taken to giving Quirrell an encouraging smile whenever they passed in corridors and Ron started yelling at anyone who laughed at his stutter. Hermione however chose to worry about something completely different.

"Morning Hermione," Andrew said one Saturday morning, "what areyou doing?" he asked while looking over her shoulder, she was colour-coding her class notes and drawing what looked suspiciously like a timetable of some sort.

"I'm preparing to revise for the end-of-year exams, as should you," she answered.

Ron and Harry had come down to the common room and heard what she said.

"Hermione, the exams are ages away." Ron complained.

"Ten weeks actually," Hermione snapped.

"She does make a fair point," Andrew chipped in with a shrug. "But I've never needed to revise anything in my life. What's the point when you never forget anything?" And with that, he left the common room to meet his Master in the entrance hall. He couldn't help but smirk when Ron started a small argument by saying "What are you revising for anyway? You already know it all."

He never heard Hermione's retort and spent the day training, he was actually able to take on Mel, Jarod and Dela by himself and hold his own; Jarod was becoming quite impressed with his Padawan's improved skill over the year.

"I take it you spent a lot of your long nights practising somehow," Dela commented knowingly.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," Andrew answered, tapping his nose with a grin.

Unfortunately for Harry, Ron and Andrew the teachers shared Hermione's opinion about revision, they piled a mountain of homework on them and the Easter holidays (which Andrew was permitted to stay for) were somewhat dull in comparison to Christmas, especially with Hermione breathing down their necks to remember the twelve uses of dragon's blood and wand movements.

"I'll never remember this!" Ron moaned one afternoon, throwing down his quill in despair.

"Count yourself lucky, I'll never forget it," Andrew answered with a sigh, calmly placed his own quill on the table and leaned back in his chair. "I'm almost with you Ron, I mean, what is the point in being made to revise when I can recite every book we bought back in September, word for word, cover to cover?!" he asked, getting louder and more agitated as he went.

"Please keep your voices down, this is a library," the librarian, Madam Pince, hissed.

"Really? I had no idea," Andrew joked, before apologising to the librarian as he started staring out of the window.

"Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?" Ron asked, catching Andrew's attention.

"Jus' lookin'," he said, he was trying to hide something behind his back, which wasn't really hard, all four of them were looking at him now. "An' what're you lot up ter?" he asked, looking suspicious, "Yer not still lookin' fer Nicholas Flamel, are yeh?"

"Nope," Andrew said with a grin.

"We found out who he is ages ago," Ron added, "and we know what that dog's guarding, it's a Philosopher's St…"

"Shhh!" hissed Hagrid, he quickly looked around, afraid that someone might be listening in, "don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?"

"There are a few things we wanted to ask you as a matter of fact," said Harry, not paying much attention to what Hagrid said, "about what's guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy …"

Hagrid shushed them again, only this time a little louder. "Listen, come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', but don' go rabbitin' about it here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'll think I've told yeh …"

"See you later then," Andrew said cheerfully and Hagrid left.

"What was he hiding behind his back?" said Hermione.

"Do you think it had something to do with the Stone?" Andrew whispered.

Ron then stood up, saying he was going to check which section he was in; he came back and placed a pile of books on the table.

"Dragons?" Andrew asked after scanning the spines.

"Hagrid's always wanted a dragon, he told me the first time I ever met him," explained Harry.

"I must have missed that part of the conversation," Andrew said, not quite remembering dragons being mentioned.

"It was on the London Tube, before we met up with you," Harry added and Andrew nodded in comprehension.

"But it's against our laws," Ron said, he then explained when it became illegal and why, it made sense, dragons in the backyard would draw attention.

"Are there wild dragons in Britain?" Andrew asked, recalling something odd from his past.

"Of course there are," Ron answered, "Common Welsh Green and Hebridean Blacks."

"I can imagine that the Ministry of Magic has quite a job hushing them up," Hermione said with an amused look on her face.

"I'd agree with that, once, when I was nine, I had been hit by something while flying; never saw what it was, but the shuttle had these huge scratch marks on the underside, they were about nine inches long and just barely avoided punching right through to the cockpit." Andrew explained. "The damn thing took a whole month to fix." He added sourly.

"You might have actually seen a dragon, but the Ministry would've sent someone to put a spell on you, to make you forget, you would've still been classed as a muggle then," Ron told him.

"So what on earth is Hagrid up to?" asked Hermione, the answer seemed rather obvious, but they'd find out when they went to see him later.

One hour later

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Andrew were sitting in Hagrid's hut, the curtains were closed and the place was like an oven, for some reason Hagrid had a huge fire going.

"So, yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?" Hagrid said.

"Yes," said Harry, "we were wonder if you could tell us guarding the Philosopher's Stone."

"Apart from Fluffy," Andrew added.

Hagrid frowned at them "O' course I can't" he said "for one thing, I don' know meself. For another yeh know too much already, so I wouldn't tell yeh if I could. That Stone's here fer a good reason, it was almost stolen outta Gringotts, I s'ppose yeh've worked that out an' all? Beats me how yeh even know abou' Fluffy."

"Oh come one Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you doknow, you know everything that goes on around here," said Hermione, causing Hagrid to smile, "we only wondered who had donethe guarding really, we wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart from you."

Andrew was impressed, he'd only know a Jedi Master to be so persuasive without using a mind trick; it worked though.

"Well, I don' s'pose it could hurt ter tell yeh that … let's see … he borrowed Fluffy from me … then some o' the teachers did enchantments … Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall, Professor Quirrell, Dumbledore did somethin' himself o' course." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh yeah, Professor Snape."

"Snape?" Harry blurted out before he could stop himself.

"Yeah, yer not still on abou' that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped protectthe Stone, he's not about ter steal it."

That got Andrew thinking though, if Snape was guarding the Stone, finding out who else was doing so was easy, after that it was just the simple matter of knowing howthey were guarding it. It seemed that Snape only had Quirrell and Fluffy to get past.

It was slightly comforting to know that only Hagrid and Dumbledore knew how to get past Fluffy.

"Hagrid, can we open a window?" Andrew asked "I'm melting here."

"Can't Andrew, sorry," he answered, glancing at the fire.

"Hagrid, what's that?" Harry asked, he'd looked into the fire to see what Hagrid had glanced at, it was an egg.

"Where did you get it Hagrid?" asked Ron, crouching over the fire to get a closer look "It must've cost you a fortune."

"I won it," Hagrid answered, "off a stranger I met down the pub. He seemed quite glad to be rid of it as a matter of fact."

"But what are you going to do with it when it's hatched?" said Hermione, a hint of worry in her voice.

"Well, I've bin doin' some readin'," Hagrid said while pulling a book from under his pillow, "got this outta the library, Dragon-Breeding for Pleasure and Profit, it's a bit outta date, o' course, but it's all in here." He explained a couple of fact, how the egg had to be kept hot and what to feed a newborn dragon; it seemed that he had a Norwegian Ridgeback which were quite rare.

"I wonder what it's like to have a peaceful life," Ron sighed one evening, the extra homework, revision and trying to convince Hagrid not to keep the dragon after it hatched were starting to get to him.

"No idea mate," Andrew answered "but if you ever find out, let me know."

"I thought the Jedi were peacekeepers," Ron said, slightly perplexed by Andrew's words.

"Yeah, but with so many people trying to argue and stuff, we never get peaceful lives, at least not in the sense that you'rethinking," he explained.

The next morning Hedwig delivered a note to Harry saying that the egg was hatching, Ron wanted to go and see, Hermione argued against it and Harry told them both to shut up, but not before Malfoy stopped dead to listen in.

Andrew pointed his, inactive, lightsaber at Malfoy menacingly, his expression clearly saying "Keep moving!"

Hermione eventually agreed to go during break, since Andrew and Harry had joined Ron in saying that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. They ran to Hagrid's hut as soon as the bell rang, he greeted them, looking flushed and excited.

"It's nearly out," he said while ushering them inside. The egg was lying on the table, shaking slightly; there were deep cracks in the shell.

They pulled chairs up to the table, watching with bated breath, when suddenly Andrew took cover under the table, just in time for the egg to practically explode, sending bits of shell everywhere, thankfully no one was hurt, the dragon was attempting to get to its feet, Hagrid helped it, and now it stood looking around, standing on its two legs and using a pair of claws on each wing for balance.

"Isn't he beau'iful?" Hagrid murmured, he reached a hand out to stroke the dragon's head, it purred and yawned, the way someone would when they just woke up, it had very pointed fangs already. "Bless him, look, he knows his mummy!"

Andrew raised an eyebrow at that, but had to stifle a laugh when the dragon hiccoughed and sent the tiniest of fireballs into Hagrid's beard, singeing it.

"He'll have to be trained up o' course," said Hagrid as he patted his beard to put out the embers.

"Hagrid," said Hermione, "how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow exactly?"

Hagrid never answered, the colour had drained from his face. Andrew sensed panic, from Hagrid and from outside, he bolted to the door, opened it and saw Malfoy running for the castle.

"Should I get him back here Harry?" Andrew asked, ready to grab Malfoy with the Force.

"No point, he's seen the dragon already," Ron answered.

'Damn, this can only bode ill,' Andrew thought.

They spent the next week in Hagrid's darkened hut trying to convince him to let the dragon go, and feeling nervous about Malfoy, but Hagrid just kept telling them that he couldn't, that he would die. By now the dragon had grown three times in length, it wouldn't be long until Malfoy had no need to report to Dumbledore.

"I've decided to call him Norbert," Hagrid said before coming close to tears, "I know I can't keep him forever, but I can't jus' dump him, I can't."

Andrew snapped his fingers and whispered something in Harry's ear, he turned to Ron.

"Charlie," he said.

"Now you'relosing it," Ron exclaimed "I'm Ron, remember?"

"No, your brother Charlie, he studies dragons, we could send Norbert to him; he can take care of Norbert, then release him to the wild!" Andrew explained.

"Brilliant, how about it Hagrid?" Ron asked.

Hagrid agreed and they sent Snowfire to deliver the letter, since he flew slightly faster than Hedwig.

It took a week for the answer to come; Ron had been bitten by Norbert on the night that the answer arrived; in short Charlie said that he could take the dragon and that it needed to be at the top of the tallest tower at midnight that Saturday.

Ron considered going to the hospital wing about his hand, more so when it had swollen by the next day, but the fear of her knowing what had gotten him held him back. But by the afternoon he'd decided that he had no choice, his hand was turning green.

Malfoy took this opportunity to pick on Ron and threaten to tell Madam Pomfrey what really bit him, what was worse was that Malfoy had 'borrowed' one of Ron's books, and, by some fluke, it had the letter from Charlie in it.

"It's too late to change the plan now," Harry was telling Andrew and Hermione after Pomfrey had chased them out of the hospital, "we haven't got time to send Charlie another owl and this could be our only chance to get rid of Norbert."

"The advantage that we have is the …" Andrew looked around, no one was in earshot, but he lowered his voice anyway, "invisibility cloak."

"So who's going?" Hermione asked.

"Well, it's my invisibility cloak, so I'm going," Harry stated immediately.

"I suppose I should go since I'm physically stronger," Andrew suggested.

"No, I'll go, you're not very good at thinking fast, no offence," Hermione answered apologetically.

"None taken," Andrew said with a simply shrug.

They told Hagrid about it soon after, Fang was sitting outside with a bandaged tail, whimpering slightly, Hagrid himself was leaning out of the window to talk to them; it took a lot of effort on Andrew's part not to laugh when Norbert bit Hagrid's leg and got away with it when Hagrid said he was "jus' playin'".

Ron was still in the hospital, so Andrew was left alone in the common room when Harry and Hermione went to get rid of Norbert, it wasn't until about half-past one that Andrew decided that something was wrong, he got up from the armchair in front of the fire and climbed out of the portrait hole to find them, only to have McGonagall marching them off to bed.

"Mr Payne, I hope you can give a good explanation as to why you're out of bed so late?" she asked dangerously.

"(Think fast!)" Andrew told himself. "I woke up, saw Harry wasn't in bed and got worried," he lied "(that's the best you could do?)"

McGonagall saw right through the lie. "You knew that Potter and Miss Granger were out of bed." It wasn't a question, and Andrew didn't see any point in trying to dissuade her from the statement.

"Yes Professor," he answered, staring shamefully at the floor, "but I was genuinely worried about them," he offered with a hopeful smile.

McGonagall's eyes narrowed, "Since you were caught here and not in any restricted areas of the castle," she shot a slight glare at Harry, Hermione and Neville, "I shall not deduct any points, however, like your classmates you shall receive a detention."

"(Could be worse.)"

"Now off to bed, all of you!" she snapped, causing the four of them to run for it.

Once inside Andrew turned on Harry, "One word, spill!" he ordered.

"We lost fifty points … each," Harry explained, looking as though someone had handed him a death sentence.

"Well it could be worse, at least she didn't order the firing squad," Andrew offered to the three of them.

"Want to bet!" Hermione asked hotly, "Just wait until the rest of the house wakes up and finds that Gryffindor lost a hundred and fifty points overnight!"

"Ah," Andrew said, that part never occurred to him, "then I have a cunning plan, if you guys have to face the firing squad, it's a good thing that lightsabers belt bullets on contact," he gave them a two-fingered salute and a cocky grin, but only earned half-hearted smiles from the boys and a slap on the arm from Hermione.

"This isn't funny!" she snapped and then sighed, "I'm sorry, I'm just so frustrated about all of this, all of my hard work in classes, brushed away like it never happened,"

Andrew placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, and Neville's too. "Don't worry about it guys, nobody's perfect, and you're not Gods, just ignore what people have to say to you, they'll get over it … eventually … you haven't killed anyone, so just get some sleep, tomorrow's gonna be one hell of a long day," he told them, they all nodded and went to bed.

Neville cried into his pillow and eventually fell asleep; Harry was too upset about the loss of points and, so far as Andrew knew, never slept at all, the last thing that Andrew thought as he fell asleep was what the detention might be.

The next day was hellish; the only good thing was that Ron was up and about. The firing squad turned out to be bigger than Andrew expected, the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students had turned on Harry, Hermione and Neville too, since they were so looking forward to seeing Slytherin lose the cup. Ron stood by Harry, like the loyal friend that he was, but nonetheless Andrew was sorely tempted to try his hand at force choke, especially on the Slytherins who called out congratulations and thanks to Harry.

Thankfully there was one good distraction for Harry and definitely Hermione, revision, they'd spend many a late night with Andrew and Ron memorising potion ingredients, charms and spells (which Andrew practised casting through his modified lightsaber), the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions and various other things.

Since revising anything theoretical was a pointless venture for him, Andrew volunteered to quiz the others, by thinking up random questions from what he'd read in text books. Even going so far to mix up subjects to try and catch them out. He'd take one line of a question from his Potions notes and another line from History of Magic, usually leaving Ron confused as he tried to figure out the answer that didn't exist, while Hermione would point out that it was a trick question.

About a week before the exams started Harry had left the library; saying that he wanted a break from revision for the evening. He came charging back in while Hermione and Andrew were testing Ron on Astronomy and told them that he suspected Snape had finally gotten to Quirrell.

They talked for a while about weather or not Snape had found out how to get past Fluffy, but when Ron asked what they were going to do, with obvious hope in his eyes, Hermione beat Harry to the punch.

"We go to Dumbledore of course. That's what we should have done ages ago." She said.

"She makes a fair point, we're likely to get expelled if we try to do something ourselves." Andrew added.

"Plus we can't prove anything," Harry sighed, slumping down into a chair.

"Maybe we could poke around a little.." Ron started, only for Harry to cut him off.

"No, we've done enough poking around." He said flatly, and then he pulled a map of Jupiter towards him and worked on memorising the names of its moons.

The next morning Andrew, Harry, Hermione, Neville and Malfoy each received a note saying that their detentions were at eleven o'clock that night and to meet Filch in the entrance hall, Andrew's suggested that he bring his lightsaber.

That night Andrew, Harry and Hermione said their goodbyes to Ron, suggesting that he not wait up for them, and made their way to the entrance hall with Neville. Filch was waiting for them, he lit a lamp and ordered the group to follow him, he started lecturing them and Andrew wondered if that was to be their punishment, listening to Filch all night.

They seemed to be heading in the general direction of Hagrid's hut, it was made definite by Hagrid when he yelled "Is that you Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started."

Harry seemed to be delighted by the idea of a detention with Hagrid, but Filch made it sound like hell by mentioning the words "into the Forest you're going …" Andrew didn't catch much else since Neville moaned in fear and Malfoy stopped dead.

"The Forest?" he demanded in a mixture of outrage and blind terror, "We can't go in there," yep, terror, "students aren't allowed!" he sounded almost like Hermione "… and there are … werewolves." He finished with a whimper.

Neville was clutching at Harry's sleeve and choking on his fear.

"Oh there's more then werewolves in those trees lad, you can be sure of that," Filch said with an evil grin, "but you should've thought of that before you got yourself in trouble."

Just then Hagrid arrived, Fang on his heels, he told Filch off for playing the lecturer and Filch left, saying he'd be back at dawn for whatever was left of them.

"Ignore him Nev," Andrew said calmly to Neville, "He's bluffing, and I've got my lightsaber with me."

Whilst Andrew was calming Neville down, Malfoy was trying to get out of going into the Forest, but was left with the option of doing so or getting expelled, to which Malfoy silently gave in.

"Right then," Hagrid said, getting everyone's attention, "now listen carefully, what we're gonna do tonight is dangerous an' I don' want no one takin' risks." He told them to follow him and led them to the very edge of the Forest, he pointed out a pool of something silvery; he stated that it was unicorn blood and that a unicorn had been hurt badly.

"Let me guess, our job is to find the poor thing and possibly ease its passing?" Andrew asked and Hagrid nodded gravely.

"And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" Malfoy asked, fear dripping from every syllable.

"There's nothin' that lives in the Forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang," Hagrid stated, then ordered that they stick to the path, that they'd be splitting into two groups to follow a different path.

"I want Fang," Malfoy said quickly, Andrew had to fight not to laugh at his poor choice.

"Fair enough, but I warn yeh, he's a bloody coward," Hagrid answered and Fang whimpered, the groups were Hagrid, Harry and Hermione going left and Malfoy, Neville and Fang going right, leaving Andrew with a choice.

"I'll go with Neville, he's scared to the point of fainting and maybe I can keep him from bolting at the slightest noise," Andrew said and Neville smiled in thanks, "that plus the fact, if my group finds the unicorn still breathing … I can handle it." he shuddered at the thought.

"Makes sense, now if anyone finds the unicorn, they're the send up green sparks, if yeh get inter trouble, send up red an' we'll come find yeh, so be careful and let's go." Hagrid said and they started along the path.

When they got to the fork in the path Andrew stopped, drew his lightsaber and slid his wand into the handle, it made a satisfying click as it was secured.

"Well, see ya," Andrew said and started at a pace that Malfoy and Neville could keep up with.

After about a minute, Malfoy stopped, Fang let out a huff as his lead went taught, causing Andrew and Neville to stop. "Can I confide something in you two?" he asked.

"Sure, what's on your mind?" Andrew asked, keeping his eyes focused on the trees.

"I … I'm scared," Malfoy admitted. "There, I said it, happy Longbottom!" he snapped.

"No, I'm not!" Neville answered. "I'm scared too."

"Would it help either of you if I said I was both proud and impressed?" Andrew asked.

"Why?" Malfoy snapped, not seeming to like showing weakness.

"Being scared, it sucks, but admitting it? That takes guts." Andrew explained, turning to the both of them. "Just take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slowly, I'll take point." They gave him a confused look. "Muggle armed forces term, it means I'll take the lead, Neville, you stay behind me and point out anything shiny, it could be blood. And Draco, can I call you Draco?" Malfoy nodded.

"You and Fang bring up the rear, his nose is stronger than ours, so if anything's coming from behind, he'll know before we do, and if he makes the slightest noise, we pull in tight and keep our backs together and our wands ready!" The others nodded in agreement.

"I just wish I knew what that spell was." the Jedi muttered.

"What spell?" Neville asked.

"Well, while I had permission to wander the corridors at night, I noticed the teachers and prefects walking around with their wand tips lit up." Andrew answered.

"The Lumos spell," Malfoy said without thinking.

"Is that the incantation?" Andrew asked, Draco nodded, Andrew deactivated his lightsaber and held his left arm straight out, his right hand hovering over the tip of the lightsaber hilt as he concentrated. "Lumos!" he called, flinging his right hand out swiftly as the blade ignited in a bright yellow glow.

Neville and Draco copied him and they continued down the path. "Can I tell you something honestly Drake?" Andrew called back softly, not wanting to attract too much attention.

"What?" Malfoy said, keeping his eyes peeled.

"I'm not sure what it is that makes you such a prat most of the time, but I think this side of you is the better person." Andrew pointed out calmly.

"Hmph, Starr keeps saying the same thing, when Crabbe, Goyle and McCarthy aren't around." Draco answered.

"McCarthy, isn't he that guy who got sorted right after you?" Neville asked, keeping his eyes on the ground.

"Yep, he was the one who got Goyle to use the leg-locker curse on you a few months ago, and got me to tease Weasley at the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match." Draco sighed.

"I'd steer clear of him, sound like he's a bad influence." the Jedi said with a slight frown.

"That's kind of hard, he's my second cousin, once or twice removed, I can never keep track of that stuff." Malfoy's voice got a little faint as he whirled around, thinking he'd heard something.

"Anything Nev?" Andrew asked Neville gave a negative grunt, too afraid to speak, "there's nothing to worry about Neville, if anything comes along then I'll just play the part of mad chef and serve it up for supper."

Neville let slip a small chuckle, his mood a little lighter, Malfoy just snorted, trying not to encourage Andrew's attempts at humour.

They kept moving, Andrew faintly heard Hagrid yell "Get behind that tree!" and he stopped dead, reaching out through the Force to see if they were alright.

They were fine, but Andrew didn't come back to himself as slowly as he should, Neville accidentally walked into him and broke his concentration, his mind snapped back to his body too fast and left him slightly dizzy.

"What's wrong," Malfoy demanded, sounding scared for the first time since their little talk.

"Nothing, just checking on the others, they've found nothing yet either," Andrew explained and kept moving.

"Andrew look!" Neville said suddenly, pointing at their first pool of blood.

"Hagrid was right, it hasbeen staggering around, hey Fang can you pick up a scent from it?" the huge dog pulled Draco a little to take a sniff at the pool and snorted in disgust, but then started to follow the scent "Good boy, and the game is afoot!"

Both of the other boys gave him quizzical looks, he shrugged. "I'm guessing Sherlock Holmes isn't all that big in the wizarding world," he said, a little stupidly, Neville nodded. "I'll have to bring some of my novels from home next year to lend out."

After half an hour Malfoy accidentally stepped on a rather large twig, the resounding SNAP scared Neville so much that he screamed and shot red sparks up into the sky. Andrew spun around, switching from Lumos spell to his real lightsaber, thinking they were under attack, only to see Draco staring at Neville like a deer caught in the headlights.

Once everyone had calmed down and caught their breath back, Neville was pressing his back against a tree and pointing his wand wildly, Draco dropped to his knees, giggling a little. The giggles broke into laughs as he gasped to get his breath back.

"What the hell just happened!?" Andrew demanded, pulling Malfoy to his feet.

"I'm sorry, I think I stepped on something," Draco sighed, getting his breathing under control. "Sorry Longbottom, I didn't mean to."

"You okay, Nev?" Andrew asked, looking over his shoulder. Neville let out a low whimper as he slid down the tree to sit on the ground. "What the hell was so funny about that Draco?!"

Malfoy stood up and shrugged. "Nerves maybe? I don't know! I'm tired and this place is starting to get to me!"

"I know what you mean, I can feel someth.." Andrew started.

"What's goin' on here!" Hagrid demanded when he arrived.

"Total accident, Hagrid, Malfoy stepped on something, it snapped and Neville panicked." Andrew explained, patting his companions on a shoulder each.

"Neville, come with me, you two wait here," Neville got up and trotted along at Hagrid's side, ten minutes later Hagrid came back, with Harry.

Andrew levitated Draco's wand from the ground and Malfoy gratefully plucked it out of the air, they explained to Harry how to cast Lumos and continued along the path.

After a few minutes they started to have trouble seeing the path, even with Andrew's light but the spots of blood were becoming more frequent and that was starting to worry them all.

"I don't like where this is going." Andrew commented.

"You think we're going to find it?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of." Andrew answered.

"How come?" Draco asked, speaking for the first time since Harry arrived.

Andrew slowed to a stop. "It's difficult to explain." he started, taking a moment to organise his thoughts. "Well, we Jedi, have a strong connection to the Force, which binds all life together." He started.

"Is this going to be a lecture?" Draco asked, crossing his arms.

"Not really," Andrew answered, bristling a little. "Because of this connection, I can sense all the life around us, the trees, the birds, hell, even the termites living in the bark!" Harry nodded as Andrew paused to make sure they understood, Draco nodded as well and he carried on. "Well, if you were to walk over to a tree and start squashing those termites … I'd feel them die."

The two of them realised what he was saying and shuddered. "You're hoping we find the unicorn dead, so that you don't feel like you're dying when you kill it." Draco said sadly, Andrew nodded and they pressed on.

They started coming to a clearing and Harry halted them, there was something gleaming on the ground in the centre of the clearing, they inched closer to it. It was the unicorn and, thankfully, it was dead.

It looked so pathetically sad but, even in death, gloriously beautiful. Andrew was about to suggest the sparks when he sensed a disturbance in the Force. A hooded figure came out of the bushes and started crawling towards the poor beast.

When it got there it bent its head and began drinking the unicorn's blood, Malfoy let out a scream and ran for it, Fang hot on his heels. Harry stood frozen in fear and then clutched at his head as he fell to his knees, it was just as the creature looked at him.

The creature started towards Harry and Andrew jumped in between them, but before the creature could get within striking distance a centaur leapt at it and it scurried away.

"Are you two alright?" he asked, Andrew nodded in both an affirmative and thanks as he helped Harry to his feet.

"What was that thing?" Harry asked once he was standing, the centaur didn't answer.

"You are the Potter boy; you had better get back to Hagrid. The Forest is not safe at this time, especially for you." He said while lowing to his knees for Harry to ride.

"Who are you?" Andrew asked, choosing to be cautious.

"I am Firenze, can you ride Harry Potter? It would be quicker that way," Harry nodded and clambered aboard "I should not leave you behind young one." Firenze added to Andrew.

"That's alright, I can run." Firenze looked unconvinced so Andrew demonstrated by Force running around the wide clearing in two seconds flat.

Before they could leave two more centaurs arrived, one of them was shouting at Firenze and the other was trying to keep things civil, Andrew just decided that it wasn't any of his business and waited until Firenze chose to end the proceedings by galloping off, Andrew hot on his heels, or hooves as the case was.

Harry seemed to know the other two centaurs and asked why one of them, Bane, was so upset and again Harry asked what that creature was. Firenze unexpectedly slowed to a walk and Andrew shot past him, tripping up on a tree root when he tried to slow down.

Andrew got back to them as Firenze explained that a unicorn's blood would keep someone alive even if they were on their deathbed, but at the cost of being cursed.

"But who would choose such a life? Death's better than that isn't it?" Harry asked.

"It is, unless you only needed it until you drank something else, something that wouldn't allow you to die at all," Firenze said, "do you know what is being kept up at the school at this very moment?"

Harry looked at Andrew.

"The Philosopher's Stone!" they said together.

"Can you think of anyone who has waited for many years to return to power, who has clung to life by any means possible?" Firenze asked.

It took Harry a few moments to process that and he came to a conclusion.

"You mean that was …" he started.

"(Voldemort!)" Andrew thought as Hermione called to them, Harry told Hagrid where the unicorn was and Firenze let Harry down and left. It turned out that Fang had led Malfoy to Hagrid who came looking for Harry and Andrew, but Hermione refused to be left behind that time.

Hagrid came back, led the way to Malfoy, Fang and Neville and then led them all out of the Forest. The four Gryffindors found Ron asleep in the common room, Neville went straight up to bed and Harry shook Ron awake; then started pacing as he and Andrew explained between then what happened.

After they announced that Snape only wanted the stone for Voldemort, Harry explained the argument between the centaurs.

"Firenze saved me, but he shouldn't have … Bane was furious … he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen … they must show that Voldemort's coming back … Bane thinks that Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me … I suppose that's written in the stars as well." He ranted.

"Will you stop saying the name!" Ron hissed.

Harry pretty much ignored him and carried on until Andrew said "Mate, you're ranting, calm down okay?" at which point Harry sat down in an armchair.

They didn't end up going to bed until the early hours of the morning, they were exhausted, Ron got into the dormitory and fell asleep, Andrew managed to levitate him to his bed and crawl into his own bed, Harry became surprised to find his Invisibility Cloak folded neatly under his bed sheet and that was all that Andrew knew, before falling asleep.