(hey guys! I'm baaaack! sadly, my hiatus wasn't as relaxing as I'd hoped, due to real life being a bunch of ass, but anyway! chapters will resume being posted! please support me on Ko-Fi, or Patreon, and enjoy the newest chapter of From a Serpent to a Lioness!)

 

Draco’s overweening cockiness runs down his face like milk.

“That wasn’t a joke!?” he splutters, looking actually spooked. “I can’t go in there! Students aren’t allowed! And there are… werewolves!”

For the briefest moment, he looks triumphant, before Filch turns to him. “Ohhh, there’s more ‘n werewolves in those trees, lad. You can be sure of that.”

With a nasty grin, Filch mutters, “Nighty-night,” before stumping his way back towards the castle, taking his lantern with him. The darkness grows thicker, and I can definitely see why Malfoy’s nerves are getting the better of him.

His preparations finished, Hagrid steels himself. “Roight… let’s go.”

The massive groundskeeper and his equally-sizable dog march towards the treeline, the four of us (and Malfoy) following, huddled together as if to ward off the gloom.

 

Several hundred yards deep in the ancient, almost-alive Forest, Hagrid pauses, then changes his trajectory for something… shimmering, on the ground ahead. A puddle of rainwater or something, the lantern-light glinting off its surface. Kneeling, he dips two giant fingers into the water, before drawing back and turning to us, hand out. Upon closer inspection, the water… isn’t water. It’s… thicker, and a rich, vibrant shade of purest silver. Whatever it is, it feels… wrong, somehow, as if the very nature of the substance cannot bear to be here.

Harry speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. “Hagrid? What… what is that?”

A grave, solemn look on his thickly-bearded face, Hagrid stares at us. “What we’re ‘ere for. See that?” he presses his fingers and thumb together, the liquid making a sticky, wet sound.

“That’s unicorn blood, that is.” Ron’s face blanches, pale as the moon, and I recoil slightly.

“I found one dead, a few weeks ago. Now, this one’s been ‘urt bad by summin’.”  The leaves and branches around us shift and rustle in the faintest breeze, as though the Forest itself is listening in.

Hagrid says carefully, “so… it’s our job to go… and find the poor beast. Ron, ‘Ermione, you’ll come with me.” 

Ron chokes out a strangled, “’kay!”, his face twisted in a nervous grimace.

“’Arry, Max, you’ll go wi’ Malfoy.”  I nod, keeping my face set. This is nothing. This is no challenge to a witch like me. This is NOT going to stop me from transitioning. If something out there thinks that it’s going to get in my way, I’ll show it that messing with a witch of the Darcy family is the biggest mistake it could have ever made.

Malfoy raises his voice. “Okay, then I get the dog!”

Hagrid huffs, “Fang? Fine… just so’s yeh know, ‘e’s a bloody coward.”

As if on cue, a low, mournful whine rumbles from Fang’s throat, and he looks up at me with a look of misery of his jowly face. I beckon him over, and he lumbers up, letting me pet him to console him.

 

Twenty minutes later, Fang, Harry, and I have trekked deeper into the Forest, Malfoy having somehow wheedled Hagrid into handing over his lantern too. He holds it aloft, bitterly complaining the whole time.

“You just wait till my father hears about this! This is servant’s stuff!”

I swear, he’s always been like this. A selfish, spoiled, bratty little gremlin who whines like a baby when he’s not getting his way. I do my best to ignore him, Fang close by as he snuffles at the roots of trees and noses through the thicketed shrubbery.

Harry finally interrupts. “If I didn’t know better, Draco, I’d say you were scared.” Malfoy’s stunned silence last only a few seconds, but by Merlin’s most holey socks, it’s bliss while it lasts.

“Scared, Potter-?” He starts, before a loud, low howl breaks comes from somewhere deep in the Forest. It sounds like it’s coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“Do you hear that?” the Slytherin boy hisses, looking around, before we resume our slow, cautious pace. I move closer, Fang at my side.

 

The trees grow thicker and more gnarled the deeper we go, with the ground beneath our feet less stable thanks to the matted, twisted roots breaking through the soil and spreading out all over. These trees are ancient beyond ken, centuries a mere suggestion to their lichen-encrusted bark. It’s been almost an hour, as far as I can tell, since we parted ways with Hagrid and the others.

As we descend a shallow slope into a bowl-like depression between several trees, Fang halts in the centre. A deep, vicious snarl starts bubbling out of the huge dog’s throat as he holds position. Harry asks, “What’s wrong? Fang?”

I nudge him and point. To one side of the clearing, almost dead-on from us, is a unicorn. The brilliant white of the creature’s hair shimmers in the brief beams of moonlight piercing the canopy high above. It’s lying on one side in the awful stillness that even a child like I can tell indicates death, blood staining its fur. Someone hunched and horrible, clad in black robes, is almost sprawled over its neck, making grotesque slurping and snuffling sounds. Harry suddenly winces and presses a hand to his forehead with a muffled hiss.

 

The thing pauses, looking up. All I can see of its face is its mouth, teeth bared, stained silver. More lustrous blood flows from the sides of its mouth, and it lets out a chilling growl, even more menacing than our canine companion’s.

Draco starts screaming, and Fang bolts, the pair of them dashing off without us, the lantern still clutched in the boy’s nerve-locked hand. Harry and I whirl back to face the apparition as it begins advancing. It prowls around from behind the bulk of the unicorn’s corpse, low and sinuous, still emitting that sinister snarling noise. I whip out my wand, holding it ready. In the distance, I can still hear Malfoy shrieking.

The creature raises itself, spreading concealed limbs wider, and I let out a cry of my own. Not entirely fear, but still coherent. “LUMOS!”

A blast of incandescent white light erupts from my wand-tip, igniting the clearing for a brief few seconds, sending the wraith reeling back a few feet.

It shrugs off the effect as it begins stalking towards us, however, and I back up, trying to shield Harry as best I can. He lets out an undignified squawk however, and I flick my head around for a second. He’s tripped over a mass of roots, and is scooting back on his rear. I focus my attention back on the threat. Harry’ll have to figure out how legs work on his own, I have my hands full right now!

As I wrack my brain, trying to think of a spell I can use, the sound of drumming comes from behind, and a deep voice bellows, “Move, child!” I dart to the side as a set of hooves crash down, right where I’d been standing moments before.

A man on horseback- no, a centaur!- takes my place, squaring off against the spectre, rearing and lashing out with his great forelegs, hooves flashing in the moonlight. His human upper body is powerfully muscled, and bare-chested.  His appearance apparently causes the spectral entity to give up, and it vanishes into the mist, rising out of sight, as I keep my wand ready for a few moments longer, before lowering it and bowing to the centaur.

 “Thank you so much… I didn’t know what I was going to do!” I gasp, adrenaline flooding my body as I almost collapse. The majestic horse-man turns to us, a strangely-merry twinkle in his ochre eyes.

“Well fought, little filly.” His amusement fades as he turns to Harry. His voice is softer and higher than you would expect from such an imposing creature, but his use of ‘filly’ has me a little distracted.

“Harry Potter. You MUST leave. You are known to many creatures here; the Forest is not safe at this time, especially for you…”

I step between the centaur and my friend. “I understand, master centaur. We were simply tasked with finding out what was killing unicorns. We can head back and make our findings known to Hagrid-”

Harry interrupts, a hand on my forearm.

“But what was that thing you saved us from?”

The centaur pauses. “A monstrous creature.” He gestures to the fallen, lifeless body beside him.

“It is a terrible crime to slay a unicorn… drinking the blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are but an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something so pure, that, from the moment its blood touches your lips, you will have a half-life. A cursed life…”

“Who would choose such a life?” Harry muses, and I look at him, already suspecting just who might desire even the most wretched existence in order to continue.

The centaur asks, “Can you think of no-one?”

Harry and I lock eyes for a moment, and we nod. “Do you mean to say… that the thing that killed the unicorn… and was drinking its blood… that was Voldemort…?”

The horse-man leans in, bending so as to be on eye-level with us.

“Do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment, Mr. Potter?”

Before I can stop him, Harry whispers, “The Philosopher’s Stone!”

Before we can continue this scintillating line of enquiry, barking and light breaks the hushed darkness, and Hagrid, Ron, Hermione, Malfoy and Fang burst onto the scene. Hagrid’s crossbow is raised, and he looks like blood and thunder. Upon seeing the centaur, he lowers his weapon.

“Hello there, Firenze. See yeh’ve met our young Mr. Potter and Max. Y’alright there, you two?”

Harry and I nod, and I murmur, “Nox,” extinguishing my wandlight.

Firenze inclines his head towards us. “Harry Potter, this is where I leave you. You are safe now. Good luck. And you, young Max. You have impressed me this night. The courage of a foal to stand against such a dark entity is not something to be underestimated…young witch…” he murmurs the last two words, solely for my ears alone, before turning on his hooves and cantering away. I try to hide my blush as I watch him leave. Hagrid stares solemnly at the body of the unicorn, lying still and silent in the moonlight, his expression unreadable.

 

 

In the Common Room, Hermione and Ron sit opposite Harry and I, eyes wide.  Hermione asks,

“You mean, You-Know-Who’s out there, right now, in the Forest?”

Harry nods. “But he’s weak. He’s living off the unicorns!”

He paces before the fire. “Don’t you see? We had it wrong! Snape doesn’t want the Stone for himself! He wants the Stone for Voldemort!”

He turns to face us, still pacing. “With the Elixir of Life, Voldemort will be strong again! He’ll…” Harry takes a seat on a pouffe, finishing. “He’ll come back.”

Ron grimaces nervously. “But, if he comes back, you don’t think he’ll try to… kill you, do you?” the redhead swallows, clearly wigging-out after the events of detention.

“I think if he’d had the chance, he might’ve tried to kill me tonight,” Harry responds. Turning to me, he reaches out and takes one of my hands. “Thank you, Maxine. If you hadn’t been there, I’d probably be as dead as that unicorn.”

Ron gulps, “And to think, I’ve been worrying about my Potions final!”

I splutter, blushing a little, as Hermione hugs me affectionately. “She’s definitely a witch to be reckoned with!” she giggles, and I squirm, a little embarrassed by all the praise being heaped on me.

“I just did what anyone-who-isn’t-Draco would do!” I protest, and we all chuckle, remembering how Draco had screamed like a little girl. “I thought I was supposed to be one of the girliest ones in our group!” I giggle. Hermione perks up.

“Hang on a minute. We’re forgetting one thing. Who’s the one wizard Voldemort always feared?”

We look at her as she smiles, her bushy brown hair cascading down her shoulders. “Dumbledore!”

She leans in, confidentially. “As long as Dumbledore’s around, Harry, you’re safe! As long as Dumbledore’s around, you can’t be touched.”