the forest

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Human ignorance, like an opaque veil, obscures the light of knowledge. Only the fervent desire to learn and transcend the boundaries of ignorance can dispel this darkness, revealing the true clarity of understanding and enlightenment.

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| May 25, 1992 | Hogwarts | 

(Third-person POV)

On the same night as the birth of the baby dragon, five children found themselves in Professor McGonagall's office.

"Really, children, all five of you have broken Hogwarts rules. And you will be punished accordingly. In addition to that, I deduct 40 points from Slytherin and 60 points from Gryffindor for this," McGonagall said sternly, looking at the young wizards.

Draco Malfoy's smug smile fell when he realized he was included in the punishment.

"Uh... I believe you made a mistake somewhere, Professor. I'm the one who reported their wrongdoing. Why should I be punished too?"

Looking Malfoy in the eye, the professor retorted, "Regardless of your goodwill, Mr. Malfoy, it remains that you were also outside your dormitory after curfew. It is legitimate for you to be punished as well."

"But... but," shocked, the Slytherin was at a loss for words.

'Well done for you,' thought all the other children present.

While the young sorcerers looked at the young blond with disdain, especially Hermione Granger, who was still in shock from the experience, a translucent phoenix appeared and delivered a message to Professor McGonagall, disturbing her.

"Well... as punishment for breaking curfew, you will patrol the Forbidden Forest at night with Hagrid to look for an injured unicorn. And this will take place tomorrow." Although uncertain, the deputy headmistress still gave the punishment.

This shocked the first-year wizards, and enough for Lilian to question the mental health of his teacher.

"Are you crazy... you're asking five first-year students, who are still learning, to enter a forest that the headmaster specifically said not to go to because it's extremely dangerous and would pose a problem for seventh-years, with the only person protecting them being a wizard who had his wand broken, and all of this just to look for an injured creature that is blessed by purity itself, which only horrible beings would want to attack? Is that what you're telling us?"

Exposed like that, McGonagall herself looked at her young students, wondering what Dumbledore had in mind to choose this punishment.

She cleared her throat and replied, "Yes, that's correct."

"For once, I must say I hope you have better excuses because I can't wait for this daddy's boy to send his letter," Lilian said, laughing at this ridiculous situation.

The discussion is over; now go back to your dormitories.

After the children left her office, Professor McGonagall sat exhausted in her chair and said to herself, "I also hope you have a good excuse, Albus, because it's me, and not a letter from the Malfoys, asking for explanations."

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(POV Lilian) 

"Even though I must say I am very intrigued by the experience of visiting a forest so charged with mana, with all these exotic creatures and rare plants. That doesn't change the idiotic decision to send us here," I said to everyone as we were led by Argus Filch to our detention location.

"For once, I have to agree with Potter. This wouldn't have happened if this school were led by a pure-blood," said that idiot.

"For the love of magic, Malfoy, stop with the prefect phrases said by your father. He's a damn hypocrite. If he cared so much about keeping pure-blood for wizards, Snape wouldn't be your godfather. So shut up, at least if you want to say something, don't spit out every word your damn father said."

This idiot gets on my nerves, really. I know that, like Ronald, it's his family's fault, but every time he speaks, I want to hit him.

"And before you insult me with words you'll regret, should I remind you that you angered someone not long ago and ended up in a bad state with your arms going in different directions than normal."

This damn inbred paled, recalling the atrocious experience I made him go through, and kept everything he wanted to say to himself.

"All right, here we are. I should say that, for my part, this punishment brings me back to the good old days when torture was allowed for those who misbehaved, but well, morality now no longer allows that."

Okay, maybe he's a Squib, but he's scary.

"Thank you, Mr. Filch, I'll take care of them from now on," said Hagrid.

Now that we were truly in front of the Forbidden Forest, Ronald, Malfoy, and Hermione were starting to worry.

As this place is dangerous, I asked Skotádi to do a reconnaissance in the sky for me to avoid any danger.

At the moment, she is perched nicely in the trees, waiting for us to enter.

"Okay, kids, here's the plan. For some time now, I've found unicorns drained of their blood in this forest, and one is currently missing from its original territory. Our mission is to find it. For that, we will split into two teams, which are me, Hermione, and Ron. And for the other team, it will be Harry, Lilian, and Malfoy. Are we all in agreement?"

"What do you mean, are we in agreement? How can we split up to enter this forest!?" Malfoy cried.

"Oh, don't act like a coward; we'll only be in the outer area of the forest. There's not really any danger."

"In that case, I want the dog to come with us," demanded Malfoy. Honestly, what could that dog do against magical creatures?

"Okay, but I warn you, Fang is a scaredy-cat; he'll run faster than you to save his life," said Hagrid.

After this somewhat equal distribution of teams, Hermione asked a question. "Hagrid, if the unicorns have been drained of their blood, then it must be the work of a vampire, right?"

To which I replied instead of Hagrid, "Firefly, as I mentioned yesterday, unicorns are creatures blessed by purity itself. This means that anyone who drains them of their blood for any purpose will be cursed for life and see their mana become unstable. This causes horrible pain and other harmful consequences. One must be really on the brink of death with no other solution to do that. So even bloodthirsty vampires wouldn't do it."

"You're right, Lilian. The one who does this atrocity is undoubtedly a pitiful and evil being who values life too much," said Hagrid, affirming my words.

During these two weeks of getting to know him with the Gryffindors, I could tell that Hagrid, despite his naivety and inexperience in magic, knew a lot about magical creatures.

"Okay, it's time to go. We'll take this direction, and you'll take that one. Good luck."

"It sounds like the beginning of horror movies my aunt and uncle used to watch on TV. I always heard the characters saying they were going to split up. But since I was in my little room, I couldn't see, just hear screams afterward," Harry suddenly said.

"You know what, my dear little brother, you and I will go to the movies during the holidays. I've never been, and I'd like to experience it," I said as the three of us and the dog ventured into the forest.

"What's a cinema?" Malfoy asked; his father must have forbidden him any knowledge of the Muggle world.

"It's a Muggle entertainment venue where amusing films are projected on a screen." The sentence seemed to confuse Malfoy even more.

"Films? Muggle? How can a Muggle invention be entertaining?" he asked with a disdainful air.

"You know, Malfoy, you should try it. I don't know how you have fun at home, but you should really try to understand the Muggle world before mocking it. Or what? Are you afraid of having too much fun and learning that your father was wrong?" My question pricked his pride; people like him are too easy to manipulate. He's like the biggest children in the orphanage always wanting to prove this or that. In short, easy to manipulate.

"You... you'll see, I'll watch these things, cinema, and prove that my father is never wrong."

Smiling at my victory, I turned my attention to our surroundings. The Forbidden Forest had a really enormous amount of mana, not as much as Hogwarts, but still substantial.

The forest smelled a lot like trees, which was logical, but there was also this acrid smell coming from the ground, as if all the earth covered a huge lot of decaying bodies. Of course, it wasn't strong enough for normal people, but for me and Harry, especially me, it was clearly noticeable.

And as if to contradict this, there was a scent I had never smelled before. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be... hmm, yes, purity. A smell of purity permeated the air, making us less wary of the forest.

As we advanced into the forest, Skotádi watched our path ahead. And some time after being left alone, the three of us felt a sense of urgency through the link I had with my owl. Looking through her eyes, I saw the target of our mission being drained of its blood.