Newt examined the wound carefully. It sat at the unicorn's neck, deep enough to have bled heavily, with ragged, torn edges.
"What caused this?" Hagrid asked.
Newt studied the wound for another moment, his expression uncertain. "Possibly a wolf, but the marks are strange. I've not seen anything quite like this before."
Harry couldn't hold the question back. "Then what could have done it?"
Newt didn't answer. He drew a small bottle from his coat pocket and applied its powdery contents directly to the wound.
The unicorn shivered but held still. The bleeding slowed and stopped almost at once, and Newt followed with a bandage, wrapping it carefully around her neck.
"Hagrid, we need to move her," Newt said, straightening. "She's too weak to walk back on her own."
Hagrid was already moving. "I'll carry her."
He lifted the unicorn from the ground with extraordinary gentleness for someone his size. She trembled against his shoulder but didn't struggle, her eyes half-closed as he began the walk back.
At Hagrid's hut, Newt conducted a thorough examination.
"The wound missed anything vital," he said at last. "She'll need rest and quiet, but she should recover within a few days."
The breath Hagrid released seemed to come from somewhere very deep. "Thank heavens."
The Gryffindor trio collectively exhaled.
Cho Chang leaned forward from where she sat. "Is she well enough to eat?"
"Yes," Newt said. "Fresh grass and clean water for now."
Hagrid was on his feet immediately, going to prepare both.
Newt settled beside the unicorn and stroked her mane with slow, even movements.
She lay on the floor of the hut, eyes half-closed, her breathing noticeably more settled than it had been in the Forest. The silvery sheen of her coat caught the firelight and scattered it gently across the walls.
After a while, she opened her eyes and looked around the room.
Her gaze moved across Newt's face, across Hagrid's broad back where he worked, across the Gryffindor trio and Cho Chang seated together, and then it landed on Henry.
She held his gaze for a moment. Then, with visible effort, she gathered herself and rose to her feet.
Hagrid startled. "What's she doing?"
Newt said nothing. He watched.
The unicorn walked slowly across the hut to where Henry sat, lowered her head, and pressed her muzzle softly against his shoulder.
Then she lay down beside him, curled her legs beneath herself, and rested her head across his knee.
The room went very quiet.
Henry sat completely still for a moment, then carefully reached out and stroked her neck. Her coat felt unlike anything he had touched before, warmer than it looked, impossibly soft.
She made a low, contented sound and pressed closer.
Hermione had both hands over her mouth. "She chose him," she breathed. "She actually chose him."
Hagrid stared, genuinely bewildered. "How is that possible? Unicorns won't let just anyone near them—"
"Unicorns are among the most perceptive creatures in existence," Newt said quietly. "They read people. If one is willing to approach you, it means she has found something in you worth trusting."
He looked at Henry with an expression of quiet consideration. "Your Highness, you carry something she recognizes."
Henry didn't respond, continuing to stroke the unicorn's neck in long, unhurried movements. She exhaled slowly and closed her eyes.
She was asleep within minutes.
For the next two days, she remained beside him.
In Hagrid's hut she lay near the fireplace, and as long as Henry was present she rested with quiet contentment, her snow-white mane catching the warm light.
Whenever he stepped outside, even briefly, she would rise and begin to pace, issuing soft, restless sounds until he returned.
"She'll only settle with you," Newt observed.
Henry sat with her, her head resting across his lap. Her breathing was steady and even now, as calm as a sleeping cat. "Why me?"
"As I said," Newt replied, with the faint trace of a smile, "something in you reads as pure to her. She's not wrong." He paused. "I find I'm even more curious about this sanctuary of yours now."
Henry visited her every morning, bringing fresh grass that Hagrid had gathered from the unicorn's preferred corners of the Forbidden Forest, changing her water for mountain spring water that was clear and cold.
She greeted him each time by standing, nuzzling his shoulder, and waiting for him to sit so she could settle beside him. Each time he left, she watched him go with a sound like a soft exhale of protest.
Hagrid watched all of this with increasing bafflement and something that looked very much like envy.
"I've fed her, cared for her, carried her out of the Forest on my own back, why won't she be affectionate with me the way she is with him?"
Newt smiled. "With unicorns, care and affection are separate things, Hagrid. They make their own judgments and they make them differently from anyone else. They perceive things we can't, who is simple, who is complicated, who they can trust and why."
Hagrid scratched his head. "So I'm not pure enough, is that it?"
Newt looked at him gently. "Your heart is entirely good, Hagrid, anyone can see that. But your goodness runs along a particular channel. You love magical creatures the way some people love family. His Highness is different." He glanced toward Henry. "Whatever she senses in him is something else altogether."
The following morning brought something no one had anticipated.
Henry arrived at the Great Hall for breakfast at his usual time, settled into his place at the Slytherin table, and had just reached for his pumpkin juice when a commotion broke out near the entrance.
"What on earth—"
"Is that, good heavens, is that a unicorn?"
"How did a unicorn get into the castle?"
Henry set down his glass.
The Great Hall entrance was flooded with pale morning light, and standing in the center of it, impossibly still, was a figure of pure white.
She stood there with the composure of something that had decided exactly where it was going. Her coat caught the candlelight and scattered it in soft directions.
The hall, which had been loud with the noise of several hundred students eating breakfast, went silent in stages, one table at a time, as the realization spread.
Then it erupted.
"That's a real unicorn—"
"She just walked in—"
"What is she looking for—"
She ignored all of it. Her gaze traveled across the four long tables with unhurried deliberateness, past the students who had risen to their feet, past the professors who stood at the high table watching with expressions ranging from alarm to wonder.
Then she found Henry.
She walked toward the Slytherin table at her own pace, not quickly, but without any hesitation.
Students scrambled to clear a path for her, pressing back against their benches, some holding their breath, some covering their mouths. The hall was almost silent by the time she reached him.
She lowered her head and pressed her muzzle gently to his shoulder.
Then she lay down beside him, settled her head across his lap, and quietly closed her eyes.
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Early chapters: [email protected]/palevolt100