13 Detention

Hagrid came out of his shack and sniffed. Harry said "What's wrong Hagrid?"

Hagrid wiped his eyes and said "They took Norbert away. Shipped him off to Romania to live with a colony." Hermione questioned "Isn't that good? He'll be with his own kind." Hagrid retorted "But what if he doesn't like Romania? He's only a baby, after all."

Blue popped her head out of Cross' robe and Hagrid said "Well anyway, let's go." Draco said "Wait, we're going into the forest? Students aren't allowed!" Cross rubbed Blue's head and said "Well technically, we aren't allowed to be out right now anyway..." he paused and mumbled "Kinda makes you wonder..."

Draco looked at him and said "There are Werewolves!" Cross shrugged and said "Maybe we can hunt some down!" displaying a rare excitement. Draco slowly stepped away from him and Hermione slowly shuttled next to Cross, believing the safest place being next to Cross.

Hagrid laughed and shook his head before saying "Come on then." and walking to the forest.

Cross followed along with a straight face but his eyes bright, Blue perched herself on Cross' shoulder and looked around curiously. Hermione quickly followed Cross and the rest followed after them.

A few minutes later

Hagrid stopped and touched a pool of blood on the ground, Harry asked "Hagrid, what is that?" Hagrid sighed before replying "Unicorn blood. I found one dead a few weeks ago..." he looked at the blood and said "This one's been hurt bad by someone. So it's our job to find the poor beast. Ron, Hermione, look come with me. The rest will go together."

Draco immediately said "Then we get Fang!" Hagrid nodded and said "Fine, but just so you know, he's a bloody coward he is." Draco gulped and Cross immediately walked away, feeling a spirit of adventure in his blood!

Draco ran after him saying "Wait!" Harry followed along while Hagrid, Ron, and Hermione kept moving forward.

A while later

Draco kept complaining as they walked until the group stopped, Draco screamed and ran away with Fang. Harry looked at the cloaked figure that was drinking the blood from a Unicorn, Cross tilted his head and looked at the figure in doubt. Why would he be here?

With his eyes, seeing in the dark was a simple matter. The person Cross was looking at was Professor Quirell! Quirell slid over to the two line a snake and Harry stepped back, Cross sneered with his eyes but put on a frightened expression and stepped back with Harry.

Suddenly Quirell stopped and a centaur jumped over the boys and forced Quirell to flee.

Cross walked past the centaur and touched the unicorn with his hands and sighed. The unicorn was dead. Cross looked at the Centaur, who was speaking to Harry, seemingly ignoring him. He wondered why that might be.

Cross had an extremely narcissistic thought. 'Maybe he's ignoring me because I'm more handsome than him?' he shook his head and sighed 'It's a blessing and a curse...' as he kept looking over the Unicorn, inspecting the bite marks and feeling the blood.

Hagrid and the rest turned up and said "Harry, Cross! You both alright?" They both nodded and Hagrid said "Ferenze, I see you've met our young Mr. Potter." Ferenze, the centaur, nodded and said "You are safe now, Mr. Potter." before turning around and glancing at Cross.

Cross looked at Ferenze curiously, Ferenze said in Elven "What yourself, Prince. Not everything is as it seems at Hogwarts." Cross replied with a smile in Elven "I know these things very well. I assume you also know of the creature lurking within that boy?"

Ferenze nodded and said "These things we cannot interfere with, it is beyond our reach. Be careful in what you meddle in, Elven Prince. Not everyone can be trusted." Cross frowned and replied "Are you referring to yourself as well?"

Ferenze shook his head and said "The plots and plans of Humans, will never reach into our creature kingdom. I await your rise, Prince. As it once was, it will be again. This path is inevitable for you, tread carefully." before running back into the forest and disappearing into the darkness.

Cross watched him go with a serious expression, trying to think of the meaning behind Ferenze's words. He felt a crisis, if he didn't get stronger soon, he would be in grave danger.

Hermione walked up to him and said "What was that?" Cross went back to a straight face and said "Nothing. I'm surprised the Centaur speaks Gobbledegook as well." Hagrid said in surprise "You speak Gobbledegook?"

Cross nodded and said "I like languages." spouting out bullshit once again. Hagrid shook his head and Cross changed the subject "Can we harvest the Unicorn parts?" Hermione said angrily "Cross!"

Cross was confused and replied "What? It will become dirt like this. At least it's corpse will be useful after dying for nothing." Hermione was stunned and Hagrid sighed as he said "He's right. Though, Hogwarts doesn't need the money. I guess you lot can split the spoils."

Cross nodded and turned to Hagrid as he said "Can you do it?" Hagrid nodded and handed Cross the lantern before dissecting the corpse for the useful parts.

A few minutes later

Hagrid handed the parts to each of the 5 and taking the lantern back. Cross looked at the unicorn horn in his hand and revealed a small smile before putting it in his bag before looking at the unicorn's corpse.

Really, he also wanted the meat but he assumed that would be a bit too far... Well at least in front of other people, or else there might not have even been bones left. He stopped looking at the complete waste of good unicorn for fear he might not be able to control himself.

Hermione looked at the Unicorn hair in her hands with a slightly pale expression, while the rest were looking at their parts curiously. Hagrid stood up and said "Alright, let's go back. I think that was enough excitement for one night." before walking back to the castle.

Cross and the rest followed him, Harry gave his part to Ron, knowing that he needed the money more than he did, as did Hermione, out of sheer disgust. Draco kept his part, even if he didn't want it, he definitely wouldn't give it to a Weasley.

The group arrived back at Hagrid's shack and parted ways towards their Houses, going to bed.

Cross got back into his room and took out the unicorn horn while looking at the blood cocoon. A thought floated into his mind and he created a bowl of spinning strings that were extremely fine.

He places the bowl over Carl's blood cocoon and dropped the Unicorn horn into the bowl, shredding it to powder and sprinkling into the cocoon, changing it from blood red to a darker shade of red with stars twinkling in it.

The blood cocoon expanded and Cross places his hand over it as his eyes glowed gold and he chanted in Elven "Divine Tree hear my call! Bless the beast for which I have chosen! Nature's Gift!"

A gold aura surrounded the blood cocoon and seeped into it, blending the colors together, forming into a golden red with bright star-like twinkles glittered along the surface.

Cross nodded in satisfaction and teleported into the Room of Requirement. He absorbed his clone and then sent him out again before practicing all the spells it had learned. He was going to grind for the rest of the year, while sending his clone to classes and everything else.

The warning from Ferenze made him a bit nervous. So he immediately started practicing with high intensity training, all day, everyday, until the school year was over. His goal was to practice at least 3 advanced things from every category he had learned.

Time passed slowly for Cross

It was almost torture, but he kept motivating himself with the thought of pain today, freedom tomorrow.

He had made his clone go to class, studying books constantly and display his mediocre talent with a cold and aloof attitude. He only spoke with Daphne, Draco, and Hermione and even then it was only a few sentences, truly not wanting to be bothered.

He also made the clone keep tabs on Carl every night to check his progress and to his surprise, Carl was doing quite well! The new blood cocoon was condensing much quicker than before and Cross estimated that by the end of the school year, Carl would be out.

Cross' clone also brought him food every night, when he teleported to the Room of Requirement. During the night, Cross' clone would train Blue and feed her as Cross practiced spells and the like.

Blue made significant progress and even learned how to fly and blow out Ice breaths! Cross was shocked at her progress and felt like she would actually be stronger than him very soon. Not only that but she was also growing at an astonishing rate, she was already the size of a dog!

Thankfully, Blue was able to control her size and shrink down to a small bird once more or else, he wouldn't be able to bring her around anymore.

Just like that, day by day, 5 and a half months passed.

Cross merged with his clone and let out a turbid breath. He reached his goal and still had a ton of information in his mind, but it was truly time to take a break. Not just a week this time but the whole summer.

He packed his things and Blue shrank down before sitting on his shoulder as he teleported back to his room.

Cross measured his strength and felt that in terms of pure strength he was around 5th years, but in terms of knowledge he was definitely at the top of the school. All he had to do was keep practicing and he would get stronger. Unfortunately for him, the training session, although helpful, wasn't as helpful as he thought.

His strength increased, of course. But it wasn't a significant increase like before. Obviously this was due to the fact that Cross had learned Dark Magic before, which was stronger than normal magic. He also trained up in his Dark Magic this time, however he focused more on normal magic along with the other subjects taught at Hogwarts.

He didn't want to fall behind in school studies despite being much more powerful than his peers, wouldn't he look like a joke then? Indeed, in the class he showed average talent but outside the school he was a super genius.

Cross was happily surprised that he hadn't caught any heat or attention from any teachers or students during the entire school year. He made sure to command his clone to pay close attention to all the teachers during, class, meals, and even when he was walking around.

The clone was basically a well oiled surveillance machine and the strings helped immensely. Constantly checking everywhere, even places he had already been to. Cross wasn't going to let himself destroy everything he had worked so hard for by becoming arrogant, it really wasn't worth it at all.

Though he couldn't truly tell if any teachers were paying attention to him in the dark, his assumption that he was in the clear was 90% accurate according to Cross himself. He had done his best. Besides a few hiccups, there was nothing else for him to do.

If someone still had their eye on him, then he was helpless against it and maybe that person had a problem. Constantly paying attention to a specific child was a bit strange, especially a completely average child.

He had also rectified his Quidditch problem, by performing normally. The whole incident was chalked up to beginner's luck and his celebrity status was forgotten by the students. Cross really wanted to laugh at these ignorant Humans, if you're exceptional they flock to you but if you're mediocre the next day, they will ruthlessly abandon you for someone else.

And so, Cross was removed from the team and recommended to try again next year. After an extremely 'sad' talk with Marcus, Cross 'accepted' that he was off the team.

Cross had to say that was probably his best acting performance yet.

Currently, Cross was stretching his back in his room and looked over to see the blood cocoon glowing.

He walked over to the cocoon as it shrank, revealing Carl's body.

Carl didn't change too much, his fur was the same just much shinier and more beautiful, his eyes were golden-red with white star-like speckles, and he had a small pure white horn in the middle of his forehead.

Carl slowly opened his eyes and yawned, he turned his head to see Cross' face looking at him. Carl was excited and leapt towards Cross as if to say 'Master, how I've missed you so!' Cross laughed and slapped his head before grabbing him and looking at Carl closely.

Carl was aggrieved, he had evolved! He became the only badger to ever do it! He changed from a Badger to a magic Badger! Even his parents would be proud! And yet Cross still slapped him all the same. Secretly, Carl was happy, he knew Cross only slapped him when he was happy.

Cross, completely oblivious to the masochistic tendencies of his pet, said "Carl, you took too long. Blue is stronger than you now." Carl was confused 'Blue? Who the fuck was Blue?' before seeing the blue bird on Cross' shoulder.

Carl almost cried, while he had been changing from the inside out, Cross had gotten someone new?! Cross rolled his eyes at Carl's 'abandoned wife' look and put him on his other shoulder before leaving his room with a smile.

He was happy Carl was back, but more importantly he had heard something from his clone and wanted to see exactly what happened. And so, he went to breakfast after waiting for Daphne.