On the second night of the Easter holidays, Maurise ventured into the Forbidden Forest for a long overdue midnight excursion. He did not have a grand scheme or a specific target in mind this time. He purely wanted to take his pet out for a nice, relaxing walk.
Or, more accurately, a joyride.
Just a few days prior, his skeletal unicorn had completed its advancement ritual, successfully ascending to a tier two undead creature. Naturally, with a promotion came a brand new perk.
"Faster... come on, just a bit faster... Woohoo!"
Maurise leaned low over the skeletal unicorn's back, feeling the exhilarating rush of wind as the dark trees of the Forbidden Forest blurred past him. He was thoroughly delighted. The new ability his undead mount had acquired was incredibly simple but profoundly practical: absolute speed.
As long as you strapped a comfortable saddle to it, the skeletal beast could carry you at a frankly absurd velocity. Of course, you could ride it bareback without a saddle, provided you had zero attachment to the comfort of your own rear end.
Though the skeletal unicorn was nothing more than a frame of bones, it was astonishingly graceful. The gnarled roots, overgrown bushes, and treacherous ravines of the forest were basically non existent to it.
Whether it was swerving around a massive oak or leaping effortlessly over a fallen log, the creature handled the terrain with supernatural ease.
It was the perfect magical mount.
"Halt."
The moment the command left his lips, the skeletal unicorn decelerated smoothly and came to a perfectly stable stop. This flawless mastery over its own momentum made Maurise smile. He vaulted off its bony back, brushed off his robes, and took a good look at his surroundings.
The area was dead silent. It was a patch of the forest he rarely visited because it happened to be the primary nesting ground for Acromantulas. In the past, Maurise would never have dared to wander this deep into spider territory. Now, however, with his skeletal unicorn standing guard, he felt completely fearless. The giant spiders might have significantly more legs than his horse, but they could never hope to catch it.
Maurise gave the unicorn's icy cervical vertebrae a gentle pat, signaling it to keep watch, and pulled out his Death Compass. Since he was already here, he figured he might as well bring some local souvenirs back to the castle.
Following the compass, he arrived at a small clearing near a dark, glassy lake.
With a quick flick of his wand and a murmured Bone-calling, a shovel crafted entirely of bone materialized in his hand. He tapped it once, enchanting it to dig automatically, and then strolled over to sit beneath a nearby tree for a well deserved break. The skeletal unicorn stood silently by his side, its hollow eye sockets staring fixedly out over the lake.
The enchanted shovel made quick work of the earth. Within minutes, it had excavated a remarkably large crater.
Maurise cast a quick Lumos and peered down into the dirt. A massive, pale object was jutting out of the soil. Intrigued, he summoned three more bone shovels and set them all to work simultaneously.
The pale object was soon entirely unearthed. It was an absolutely gargantuan bone.
Using the Hover Charm to float the heavy object out of the pit, Maurise inspected it closely. It appeared to be the femur of some colossal magical beast, measuring well over a meter in length.
He reached out and prodded it. With barely any pressure applied, a small fragment flaked off into his hand. It seemed the bone had been buried for centuries and was suffering from a severe case of osteoporosis. Still, finding a bone of this magnitude was rare, and wasting it was out of the question. Maurise hit it with a Shrinking Charm and tucked it neatly into his expanded bag. He planned to mail it to Frick later to get an expert appraisal on what exactly died to leave behind a leg that huge.
Just as he finished filling the pit back in, a disturbing rustling sound echoed from the nearby undergrowth.
Maurise instantly snapped to attention, his wand raised and ready. Beside him, the skeletal unicorn shifted its stance, turning its skull toward the noise.
Logically, his magical scout Sparky should have warned him if something dangerous was approaching. The mystery was solved a second later.
Crawling out from behind a low bush was a baby Acromantula. It was roughly half the size of Maurise's head, actually looking a fair bit smaller than the one he had caught at the start of the school year.
Maurise blinked at the furry little trespasser and casually cast Incarcerous.
Thick ropes shot from the tip of his wand, tightly binding the young spider's eight legs to its abdomen. Caught completely off guard, the baby Acromantula let out a pathetic hiss, wiggling uselessly in the dirt.
Right at that moment, Sparky swooped down from the canopy above, letting out a series of frantic, piercing whistles.
The translation was clear: a massive swarm of very angry, fully grown Acromantulas was currently stampeding in their direction.
Maurise did not need to be told twice. Abandoning the useless baby spider on the ground, he threw himself onto his skeletal unicorn.
"Retreat!"
The undead beast bolted. It instantly transformed into a pale blur cutting through the pitch black forest.
As they fled, Maurise commanded the unicorn to push its speed to the absolute limit. The trees on either side of him smeared into continuous streaks of shadow. For a brief moment, Maurise finally understood the mindset of those adrenaline junkies in his past life who drag raced on empty midnight highways.
It was utterly exhilarating.
His skeletal unicorn was far more agile than any sports car, and he did not even have to steer. Plus, it was significantly safer. Or so he thought.
Suddenly, a dark shape loomed directly in their path.
"Brake! Brake!"
THUD!
"Aaaargh!"
Even though the skeletal unicorn had attempted to stop, physics took over. They slammed hard into the shadowy figure.
Maurise sat in complete silence for a few seconds.
Judging by the heavy, meaty sound of the impact, that was definitely a living creature. And judging by the very specific, pained wail that followed, it was almost certainly a human being.
Should he just quietly flee the scene?
Ultimately, his conscience won the battle against his common sense. Maurise conjured a smooth bone mask over his face to hide his identity and urged his mount slowly toward the crumpled black mass groaning in the dirt.
"Lumos!"
The second the wand light flared, the figure violently scrambled to his feet, spinning around to face Maurise. The man was draped in an oversized dark cloak, his face obscured by a swirling, magical black mist.
Despite the disguise, Maurise immediately deduced the man's identity.
It was Quirinus Quirrell.
Quirrell was currently experiencing a severe state of shock. He stared blankly at the bizarre sight before him: a masked stranger casually riding a reanimated unicorn skeleton. His brain completely flatlined.
Did he just bump into a fellow dark wizard?
Truthfully, Quirrell was having an abysmal night. Voldemort had ruthlessly ordered him into the Forbidden Forest to hunt down a unicorn, but he had spent hours wandering without finding a single silver hair. When he finally did spot a lone unicorn, a herd of angry centaurs had ambushed him before he could even raise his wand. He had been running for his life, desperately trying to catch his breath, only to get run over by whatever this bony monstrosity was.
Quirrell tasted something incredibly bitter in the back of his throat. He only wanted to appease the Dark Lord. He never signed up to play dodgeball with angry horse men and creepy necromancers on a daily basis.
"You there, sir," Quirrell stammered, forcing a shaky semblance of authority into his voice. "Who are you?"
Maurise decided that ignoring Quirrell completely was the smartest tactical move available. He calmly turned his skeletal unicorn around, preparing to ride off into the night.
But the moment he turned his back, the sharp whistle of displaced air echoed through the clearing.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Several long wooden arrows shot out of the darkness, whistling viciously toward both Maurise and Quirrell. The projectiles were incredibly fast and aimed with lethal precision, clearly fired by experienced archers.
"Kruk... Tak... Gûl!" (Bone Calling)
A thick, curved wall of bone instantly erupted from the ground in front of Maurise, effortlessly catching the two arrows meant for his chest.
Quirrell was significantly less fortunate.
An arrow violently grazed the very top of his head, ripping a piece of fabric clean off his heavy turban. Quirrell let out a terrified shriek, diving into the dirt and covering his head with his hands.
Then, a cold, high pitched voice rasped from somewhere beneath the ruined turban.
"You useless fool!"