The Divination classroom was thick with smoke, the scent of incense swirling through the air like phantom whispers. Twelve rickety armchairs formed a half-circle around the center, where a crystal ball sat on a low table, glowing dully under flickering candlelight.
Harry Potter stared into the misty gray swirls inside his crystal ball, the fog refusing to part or reveal any sign. His fingertips absentmindedly traced the crack in the wooden armrest beneath him. This was the third time that month he had seen "absolutely nothing" in Professor Trelawney's class.
"Focus, my dears," came a soft, trailing voice from the front of the room. Professor Sybill Trelawney's violet silk robes swept the floor behind her, leaving behind a faint scent of lavender.
Harry looked up and met her usual unfocused gaze, but the next second, her wide, gray-blue eyes suddenly trembled violently, as though caught by the tip of a Legilimency spell.
"Blood," she rasped, fingers gripping the edge of the crystal ball until her knuckles turned white. "Unicorn's blood... dripping onto a cursed silver dish..."
Clink.
Parvati Patil's crystal ball rolled off her table and shattered on the floor. Neville lunged to retrieve it, knocking over a cup of tea in the process.
A gasp rippled through the classroom.
Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. This wasn't one of Trelawney's usual vague predictions about "bad omens arriving at midnight" or "an owl bearing ill tidings." Her voice was low, hoarse, barely audible, and carried an eerie sobbing undertone, as if muffled by a Silencing Charm.
"Dark magic is awakening in decaying roots," she went on, trembling all over. Her headscarf slipped from her shoulder, exposing the bluish tip of one ear. "When the shadow of the Chosen One falls upon the Forbidden Forest..."
"Enough!" Dean Thomas stood up abruptly, his chair screeching against the wooden floor. "This is just another one of your dramatic performance pieces—"
"Silence!" Trelawney's shriek sliced through the room like a blade.
She collapsed forward, her forehead slamming into the desk with a loud thud. The crystal ball cracked, a spiderweb of fractures blooming across its surface.
The room fell into an eerie stillness. Even the logs crackling in the fireplace seemed to have gone quiet, as though struck dumb by a Silencing Charm.
Sweat beaded on Harry's palms.
He stared at Professor Trelawney, now slumped across the desk. The last time he'd seen her like this was during the Triwizard Tournament in fourth year, when she'd made a true prophecy about Voldemort's return — at the Hog's Head Inn, hidden behind a curtain.
Only now, the prophecy had mentioned "the Chosen One." And "the Forbidden Forest."
"Class dismissed," Trelawney said abruptly, voice suddenly calm and crisp as if nothing had happened. She straightened her turban, smoothed her robes, and added, "Next lesson, bring your moonstone."
Harry didn't realize he was already out in the corridor until he felt Hermione Granger's hand grip his shoulder, grounding him.
Ron Weasley was still clutching his book bag, Adam's apple bobbing nervously. "That... that really was her, wasn't it? My cousin Olive says she once claimed a stuffy nose was 'a sign of impending vision.'"
"This time was different," Hermione said seriously, adjusting her round-framed glasses. The smell of incense still clung to her hair. "Her pupils dilated, her breathing changed — all consistent with a documented 'Forced Prophetic Trance,' according to Advanced Predictive Magic."
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Harry, she mentioned unicorn blood, dark magic reawakening, and... your shadow."
Harry pressed a hand to the lightning-shaped scar beneath his collar. It didn't hurt, but his chest felt tight, like an invisible fist was squeezing his heart.
"I need to find out what's going on," he said, looking down the corridor where stained glass windows shimmered with Gryffindor lions in the morning light. "Unicorn blood is forbidden in Magical History. It can extend life, but at a terrible curse... if someone's experimenting with it..."
"To the library!" Hermione grabbed his wrist. "I remember a section in Dark Arts and Defensive Practices that mentioned rituals involving unicorn blood. Ron, you check Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for anything on unicorn behavior in the Forbidden Forest."
Ron wrinkled his nose. "Right now? I was going to the kitchens for some rock cakes—"
"Ron." Harry's voice was quiet but steady. "If the prophecy is real, someone could be hurting unicorns. Or worse..."
He didn't finish the sentence, but Ron's face turned grim.
The heavy oak doors of the library closed behind them with a muffled thump, and the familiar scent of old parchment and damp stone filled the air.
Hermione beelined toward the Restricted Section. She tapped her wand against a shelf labeled "Dark Magic," and with a soft click, the bookcase parted. Ron climbed precariously to the top shelf to retrieve Fantastic Beasts, accidentally knocking One Hundred Cauldron Techniques to the floor with a crash that made Mrs. Norris leap from a nearby window ledge.
"Mr. Weasley!" came Argus Filch's nasal snarl from upstairs, his keys jingling menacingly. "Up to no good again, are we? I swear, this time I'll—"
"We're investigating vital evidence, Mr. Filch!" Hermione turned, holding up a heavy book with copper-trimmed corners. "Evidence connected to dark magic!"
Filch hesitated, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
He eyed the books in their arms, his throat working in a slow gulp. With a final huff, he muttered, "Just don't let me catch you in the Restricted Section," and shuffled off with Mrs. Norris in tow, keys rattling into the distance.
"Here," Hermione said, passing the book to Harry. The gilded letters on the cover were almost worn away. Blood Magic and Dark Contracts: Seventeenth-Century Rituals.
Inside, the brittle pages were covered in spidery ink and strange symbols.
"...Unicorns are symbols of purity. Their blood can temporarily stave off death, but it plants a seed of decay within the drinker..." Harry read aloud. "When the blood of seven unicorns is gathered into a silver basin, the shadow of the Dark Lord shall rise again..."
His finger froze on the words: seven unicorns.
The sunlight outside suddenly vanished behind a thick cloud, casting the page into shadow. The words seemed to ripple and move across the parchment like slithering creatures.
"Harry?" Ron said, voice tight. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"The unicorn blood in the prophecy... it could be this ritual." Harry snapped the book shut, fingers white with tension. "Trelawney said, 'dark magic in decaying roots' — maybe someone's recreating the seventeenth-century experiment."
Hermione twisted a lock of hair between her fingers. "But why mention your shadow? The shadow of the Chosen One... does it mean you're going to get involved?"
"Because I'm the only one who can stop it," Harry replied, surprised at how distant his own voice sounded.
He thought of his first year — the unicorn bleeding in the snow, Quirrell's wand glinting red, blood like fire on the ground. That had been only the beginning.
Crack.
All three looked up at once.
There was a heavy thud upstairs, followed by quick footsteps.
Harry caught a glimpse of a figure slipping past the corridor window — deep green robes, a hooked nose casting a sharp shadow on the glass.
"Snape," Hermione muttered. "He's been watching you. Last week in Potions, he gave me detention just for handing you the tongs."
Ron's ears turned red. "He stared me down in the corridor for thirty seconds like I stole his Veritaserum."
"He suspects me," Harry said quietly, fingers tracing the brass clasp on the book. "Because I keep researching dark magic. And he..."
He didn't finish, but all three of them remembered Snape's past as a Death Eater.
By evening, the wind rattled the dormitory windows, shaking the sycamore leaves outside. Harry lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
Downstairs, Ron and Neville were playing wizard chess, and Hermione was reviewing Transfiguration. But Harry's mind was a whirl of confusion — Trelawney's trembling voice, the strange sigils in the book, Snape's piercing gaze, and the swirling fog in the crystal ball that had never cleared.
When the shadow of the Chosen One falls upon the Forbidden Forest...
He closed his eyes.
And saw red.
He closed his eyes.
And saw red.
A brilliant, blinding red — like a sky torn open by lightning, like blood sprayed across marble, like the flicker of a Killing Curse reflected in shattered glass. He wasn't dreaming — not exactly — but rather falling into something. A memory that didn't belong to him. A place that reeked of ash, iron, and damp earth.
He stood, barefoot, on the mossy floor of the Forbidden Forest. The trees rose like cathedrals around him, ancient and watching. The smell of rot hung thick in the air.
Then he heard it.
A scream.
Not loud, not panicked — but raw, ragged, like something primal being torn out of someone's soul.
He ran toward it.
Branches slashed at his arms as he tore through the underbrush. Light filtered through the trees like moonlight through a grave, illuminating a small clearing ahead.
And there — at the center — lay a unicorn.
It was dead.
Its silvery mane was matted with blood, its flank torn open, its eyes still wet with life that had already left.
Beside it, kneeling in a pool of its blood, was a figure cloaked in emerald robes, holding a silver bowl.
The figure looked up.
Harry's heart stopped.
He had no face.
Or rather — it was blurry, like mist seen through a windowpane. A smooth, shifting void where features should be. But the eyes — black, endless, inhuman — were fixed on him.
"You're too late," it whispered. "The roots are already rotting."
The bowl tipped.
Unicorn blood spilled across the forest floor, seeping into the roots, which began to writhe like serpents beneath the soil.
And then—
"Harry!"
He gasped, bolting upright in his four-poster bed. The dormitory curtains were flung open, Ron's pale face looming above him.
"You were screaming," Ron said, breathless. "Mate, you okay?"
Harry was drenched in sweat. His sheets were tangled around his legs like vines. The taste of iron still lingered in his mouth.
"I saw it," he said hoarsely. "A unicorn... someone killed it. There was blood. And a face I couldn't see."
Ron frowned. "You mean, like a dream?"
"No," Harry said. "A vision."
Hermione appeared in the doorway, wand in hand, hair frizzed from sleep. "I heard shouting. Harry, what did you see?"
Harry's voice was low, strained. "Someone's already started the ritual. The unicorns are dying."
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. Cold air hit his feet like a slap. "We don't have time. We need to go to the Forbidden Forest."
Ron's jaw dropped. "Now? It's past midnight! If Filch catches us—"
"Let him," Harry said. "If I wait, someone else might die. Or worse — they'll finish the ritual. We've stopped dark wizards before. We'll do it again."
Hermione's eyes searched his face. For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she turned on her heel and began pulling on her robes.
"I'll grab the Invisibility Cloak," she said briskly.
Ron groaned. "Why do we always do this at night?"
Because that's when the darkness stirs, Harry thought grimly. And this time, it's not just shadows in the forest.
It's something much older.
Something that bleeds unicorns and sees with faceless eyes.
As the three of them crept out of Gryffindor Tower beneath the folds of the cloak, the castle seemed to breathe around them — ancient stone groaning in the wind, tapestries fluttering with secrets.
Far below, beyond the edge of the trees, the Forbidden Forest waited.
And somewhere within it, a second unicorn was already bleeding.