I am Happy to Publish Another Chapter of The Wandless Archmage
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Harry heard about the unicorn before breakfast.
The news moved through the castle the way bad news always did—mouth to mouth, picking up weight as it travelled. By the time he reached the Great Hall, there were three distinct versions circulating: a unicorn dead in the Forbidden Forest, a creature drained of all its blood, and something dark hunting in the trees that should have been impossible to catch.
He passed Hagrid near the heavy entrance hall doors, speaking in low, hurried tones to Professor Sprout. Harry slowed his pace. He had only spoken with Hagrid properly during the boat crossing across the black lake, but he had liked the gamekeeper instantly.
There was none of that easy warmth in Hagrid now. His face looked grey under the tangled beard, and his massive hands opened and closed uselessly at his sides.
"Never seen anythin' like it," Hagrid was saying, his voice rough. "In all me years. Whatever did it drank the blood right out of her. A unicorn, Pomona. You don't... you can't..." He trailed off, shaking his head heavily. "It's a terrible thing. A crime against somethin' pure."
Professor Sprout murmured a reply Harry couldn't catch and rested a reassuring hand on Hagrid's forearm. The giant nodded once, though the lines on his face didn't soften.
Harry slipped past before either professor noticed him. The shadow on Hagrid's face followed him all the way to the Ravenclaw table, where Terry and Michael had cleared space and Cho was already pouring tea.
"You heard?" Terry asked the second Harry slid onto the bench.
"About the unicorn. Yeah."
Michael buttered his toast with rigid concentration, clearly working to distract himself. "They're saying it was drained. Completely dry. That isn't a wolf or a stray dog. Beasts don't hunt like that."
"No," Harry said quietly. "They don't."
He stared down at the table, his appetite gone. The hollow ache in his limbs from yesterday's duel with Bletchley had mostly faded, replaced by an uneasy tension he couldn't quite shake.
Cho set a steaming cup of tea in front of him. She tilted her head, reading the tension he hadn't voiced. "What are you thinking?"
Harry turned the teacup by its rim without drinking. "That it's piling up. A mountain troll gets inside on Halloween. Quirrell comes back from the forest coated in mud, lying about valerian root. Now a unicorn is found dead in those same woods." He met her eyes. "Three incidents. All pointing toward something we haven't seen yet."
Terry leaned across the table. "You reckon they're tied together?"
"Things don't fall into place like this by accident." Harry kept his voice down; the Great Hall buzzed with tournament excitement, but he had learned not to trust how far whispers could carry. "Something large is moving behind the walls."
Hermione materialized at the edge of their bench, two thick volumes tucked under her arm, her dark hair escaping its tie. She moved between house tables without the hesitation she'd had at the start of term.
She sat beside Cho and set her books down with a soft thud. "Did you hear what Hagrid said about the wound?"
"We heard it was drained," Cho answered.
"Drained clean, not savaged. Whatever killed it didn't do it for meat; it was calculated."
Hermione opened the top book, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, where a strip of parchment marked a page. "I looked into unicorns. Their blood can sustain a life even on the brink of death. But there is a price. I haven't found the full warning yet—the text I need is locked in the Restricted Section—but every account agrees on one detail: only someone truly desperate would take it. Someone with nothing left to lose."
Harry felt a cold knot tighten behind his ribs.
"And that brings me back to the valerian," Hermione continued, leaning in. "Quirrell claimed he was out harvesting near the forest line. Valerian root only thrives in marshland. He lied about what took him into the dark, and now a creature is dead right where he was wandering. Nobody on the staff is asking the obvious question."
"Which is?" Michael prompted.
Hermione looked at each of them in turn. "What was Professor Quirrell actually doing in that forest?"
Silence settled over the table.
Harry thought back to the hushed exchange outside the empty classroom weeks ago. I am doing what I can... the third floor... And then the second voice, smooth and level, devoid of any stutter.
He still hadn't told Hermione or the others the entire truth. Giving voice to the memory felt dangerously close to making it real.
He began to speak, but a sharp silver whistle cut through the hall's clamor.
Professor Flitwick stood at the edge of the dueling stage, small and neat in his best robes, clapping his hands together.
"Round two will commence in fifteen minutes," his voice carried easily. "Competitors, finish your meals and assemble. First bout: Harry Potter versus Susan Bones."
The lingering dread in Harry's chest spiked into sharp adrenaline.
"Of course you're up first," Michael muttered. "They love leading with you. Good for the spectators."
"We're students, Michael, not a circus," Terry noted.
"Same difference."
Harry barely registered the banter. Hermione was already packing her books, the mystery temporarily eclipsed by school rules. "We'll speak after," she promised Harry. "I found another cross-reference in the library. I'll show you when your match is done." With a brisk nod, she slipped back toward Gryffindor.
Cho shifted closer, angling her shoulders to cut off the noise from the surrounding benches.
"Look at me, Harry."
Harry looked.
"Yesterday your scar flared in the middle of your match. You don't know why, and you don't know if it's going to happen again." Her tone was steady, entirely practical. "Go up there assuming it will."
His throat went dry. "And if I drop again? Blind on the floor in front of the entire school?"
"Then you decide right now what you'll do instead of freezing," Cho said. "Yesterday you threw
Bletchley because panic took over and you had no other play. You can't rely on raw surges like that. They take too much out of you, and eventually you won't have enough left to give."
He knew she was right. He could still feel the phantom ache in his bones from the force that had shattered the floorboards.
"Susan is methodical," Cho continued. "That's how she took Michael apart. She doesn't chase; she waits for you to overextend. Don't let her dictate the tempo. Use the control Flitwick showed you. The light burst, the focused warmth, the push, the lift. Keep them small. No wild floods."
"Control," Harry murmured.
"Control." Cho gave a brief nod. "Power isn't what you lack. You just default to kicking the door off its hinges. Learn to open it a crack."
A crack. In the cupboard, in the front garden against Dudley, against the troll—magic had always come out of him like broken glass. He had never been taught how to measure it.
"If the scar burns," Cho added, lowering her voice, "step back. Create distance immediately.
There's no failure in yielding the platform if it keeps you on your feet."
"I'm not stepping off."
"I didn't think you would." A faint trace of a smile touched her lips. "Just remember it's an option."
Harry exhaled slowly. The cold panic had smoothed out, replaced by a manageable blueprint.
Open the door a crack. Step back if the pain hits.
Around them, students were shuffling along the benches, climbing toward the viewing tiers. On the raised platform, Flitwick was conferring with Madam Pomfrey, who had unlatched her leather medical kit near the stairs.
"Two minutes," Terry said, tracking the teachers' table. "You set?"
Harry stood up, his balance firm. He flexed his empty right hand—the hand that carried no wand, only the strange, unshaped force he'd lived with his whole life.
Across the Great Hall, Susan Bones rose from the Hufflepuff table. Her expression was calm and focused, her square jaw set. She caught Harry's eye and inclined her head once. A quiet acknowledgment between fighters.
Harry returned the nod. "Ready," he said.
He climbed the wooden steps onto the platform.
Susan took her mark opposite him, her wand resting in a loose, practiced grip, her weight centered. She didn't fidget or attempt to posture; she simply watched his posture and his empty hands.
Flitwick stepped to the boundary line. "Wands up. Competitors ready?"
Harry raised his right hand, palm outward. Susan brought her wand to eye level.
"Begin."
Neither rushed.
After Bletchley's furious opening yesterday, the quiet was jarring. Susan watched Harry's fingers, gauging the range of a boy who had no wood to guide his aim. Harry held his ground, forcing himself not to blink.
Susan struck first. Her wand flicked—a low, rapid Stinging Hex. Unlike Bletchley, she gave no tell with her shoulder; the red dart snapped straight toward his waist.
Harry didn't leap aside. He swept his hand down and across, snapping a narrow ridge of invisible pressure through the air. The incoming curse struck the barrier, deflected sharply, and scorched the boards a foot wide of his boots.
It held. The force had obeyed him without pulling from the cold, deep well inside him, and his forehead remained entirely quiet. He could fight this match on his own terms.
Susan's eyebrows twitched upward. She had clearly anticipated a physical dodge rather than an airborne deflection. She adjusted her grip instantly, recognizing she couldn't rely on simple trajectory.
She pressed forward with a paired sequence: another Stinging Hex high, instantly followed by a Knockback Jinx aimed not at his chest, but directly at the timber at his feet to blast him off balance.
Harry didn't wait for the impact. He pulled inward with his magic, using the minor levitation
Flitwick had drilled into him—just enough to lift his weight off the soles of his shoes. He drifted back a yard on the air currents, letting the blast scatter harmlessly beneath him before setting his heels down clean.
A ripple went through the hall, and Harry caught Terry's unmistakable whoop from the stands.
He tuned it out completely. The crowd isn't on the platform.
While Susan recovered from the double cast, Harry seized the opening. Lumos. Not the blinding daylight that had filled the classroom, but a tight, sharp glare flared directly between her eyes.
Susan flinched, turning her head to protect her night vision, and in that split second of blindness, Harry pushed.
He kept the force measured—a firm, blunt shove aimed square at her right shoulder to twist her stance and take her wand out of alignment.
The strike landed. Susan stumbled sideways, her guard broken, her feet tangling as she fought the platform's edge.
The opening was clear. He could lift her wand free or drive her off the boards with one more pulse.
He reached out toward her fingers.
Susan reacted with remarkable composure. Instead of fighting the fall, she threw herself into a low roll across the wood, absorbing the momentum and popping up onto one knee near the boundary, wand already leveled.
"Protego!"
She didn't shield herself; she laid a wide, translucent wall across the platform, severing Harry's line of sight just long enough to steady her breath. Then, through the shimmering edge of the ward: "Expelliarmus!"
The scarlet beam struck Harry's open palm.
The charm found nothing to seize. It broke against his skin with a faint hiss of static and vanished. Susan had tested the fundamental rule of dueling and received her answer: disarming would not win this bout. She had only two paths left—drive him off the timber or touch her wand to his throat.
She would try to control the space.
Harry chose to advance before she could establish her defense. He closed the gap steadily, denying her the time to plan. He laid a sudden band of dry heat across the floor at her shins—not hot enough to scorch fabric, but sharp enough to force her backward. As she stepped away from the warmth, he nudged her lead foot with a kinetic flick, keeping her balance precarious.
She fired a hurried hex from the retreat, the red bolt whistling past Harry's ear.
Harry didn't let up. A flicker of light to her left made her lean right; a pulse of force to her flank checked her recovery. Every small, controlled effort guided her path across the boards, turning her own defensive caution against her until she found herself backed against the far chalk line.
Susan realized the trap a heartbeat too late and dug her heel in to brace for a counter-charm.
Harry didn't give her the room. Drawing on the steady focus he had practiced, he released a single, broad wall of pressure at her chest. It wasn't the wild gale that had thrown Bletchley ten feet into the stone walls; it was an exact, solid shove.
Susan's boots cleared the wood. She hit the flagstones below on her feet, stumbled back two paces, and caught her balance against the safety rail.
Cleanly off the platform.
"Winner: Harry Potter!" Flitwick's announcement carried over the gallery.
The cheers from the Ravenclaw benches were loud, but the quality of the sound had shifted.
Yesterday had been stunned disbelief; today was appreciation for a technical, deliberate contest.
Harry stood at the center of the stage, drawing steady breaths. His hands didn't shake, his vision stayed clear, and the hollow exhaustion had not returned. Best of all, his scar remained cold and quiet.
He looked down at Susan, who was smoothing her robes. She looked up at him, her expression a mix of surprise and dry amusement.
"You steered me," she said over the applause. "Step by step. I didn't see the line until I was over it."
"You nearly caught me with that roll," Harry admitted honestly as he took the wooden stairs down. "I thought you were done when the push landed."
"Almost doesn't count on the scorecard." Susan offered her hand, and Harry shook it firmly before she turned back toward the cheering Hufflepuff benches.
Cho was waiting at the foot of the platform stairs. She didn't offer empty praise, but the tension that had tightened her shoulders earlier was gone.
"You opened it a crack," she noted.
"Just a crack."
"How are your ribs? Your head?"
Harry checked internally. He was tired, but it was the clean fatigue of a good run rather than the aftermath of a magical burnout. "I could go another round."
They reclaimed their seats as Flitwick called the next pairing. Terry immediately began dissecting every second of the duel, reenacting Susan's roll with excessive hand gestures until
Michael told him to sit down.
The bouts progressed swiftly through the morning. The first-year bracket narrowed to its final contenders, and by early afternoon the older students took the stage. The tempo and danger of the magic shifted visibly—none more so than when Tonks stepped onto the platform, her short hair glowing the exact shade of a magnesium flare.
Harry sat forward. Tonks was matched against a sixth-year Gryffindor whose dueling posture was rigid and textbook-perfect.
When Flitwick dropped his arm, the older boy opened with aggressive precision: a sweeping combination of hexes designed to pin his opponent to the perimeter. Tonks drifted through the barrage with fluid ease, ducking and pivoting as if the spells were merely inconvenient.
Then she began dismantling him entirely through misdirection.
She would begin the wide flourish of a Knockback Jinx only to truncate it into an ankle-level Stinger. Her hair flashed from crimson to brilliant blue; when the Gryffindor flinched, anticipating an offensive shift from her face, the actual hex came from her wand tucked low beneath her left elbow, clipping his calf.
"She's hardly using anything advanced," Terry observed, his chin resting on his knuckles. "That was just a basic Trip Jinx. She's running circles around a senior with third-year spells."
"It isn't about the spells," Cho murmured, tracking Tonks's balance. "He can't find her timing.
Cedric mentioned she can fight for ten minutes straight without using the same rhythm twice."
The Gryffindor grew reckless with frustration. He drove a heavy Stunner directly at the space she occupied, but Tonks was already two paces to the left, her hair cycling through rapid shades of amber and violet. The visual noise kept his eyes constantly adjusting, stripping away his ability to anticipate her line of fire.
There was no predictable center to her form. That was her mastery—she removed every tell an opponent was trained to look for.
She closed the match without cruelty. A feint to his head drew his shield high, a low sweep disrupted his footing, and a sharp Expelliarmus plucked his wand cleanly out of the air. She caught the wood in her offhand, twirled it once across her knuckles, and offered a broad grin.
"Brilliant match," she said, tossing it back to him handle-first.
The yellow banners across the hall shook with the roar from Hufflepuff. Tonks offered a sweeping, theatrical bow as her hair settled into its familiar shade of violet. Harry joined the standing ovation, the morning's heavy theories about unicorns and dark forests momentarily cleared by the sheer brilliance of the display.
Cedric Diggory was waiting at the foot of the stairs as she descended. Harry caught snippets of their exchange—"forty-nine years" and "not if I have anything to say about it"—before Cedric laughed and clapped her shoulder.
She was pursuing the championship with everything she had. Seven years without a Hufflepuff victory on the platform, and this was her final chance to break the run.
Catching Harry's eye through the thinning crowd, Tonks let her hair flash a bright, electric blue for a fraction of a second, pointing a finger at him with a silent, mouthed message: Your turn next.
Harry grinned and tapped his chest in response.
The unresolved questions regarding Quirrell and the third floor would have to wait for the evening. For now, there was the warmth of the hall, the company of his housemates, and the quiet knowledge that he could hold his own on the platform.
That evening, a folded note found its way to Harry's place in the common room: Dress warmly, please.
Harry knew what the instruction meant. He had worn those same extra layers on a quiet hill smelling of woodsmoke and damp earth, guided by a wandmaker who could read the resonance of a magical core simply by holding an open palm. By the time he reached the third-floor corridor outside Professor Flitwick's office, his pulse was already racing.
Inside, Professor Dumbledore stood beside the tall window. He wore the same deep blue traveling cloak he had worn on their first journey, its heavy fabric catching the amber glow of the hearth fire. He turned as Harry knocked, his half-moon spectacles catching the light as he looked down at Harry's thick woolen jumper.
"Ah, Harry. Prompt as ever," Dumbledore said gently. "And properly insulated. Filius assured me you would take the instruction to heart."
"It's Master Vrek," Harry said without preamble. "The wand is ready."
"It is time for the next stage," Dumbledore agreed, inclining his head. "Master Vrek has labored over the wood since your last meeting, and he is not a man who tolerates delay when the magic is ready to speak. He is exceptionally stubborn on that point."
Flitwick looked up from his desk, his small face bright with encouragement. "Come back with something extraordinary, Mr. Potter."
"I will try my best, sir," Harry replied.
Dumbledore moved toward the doorway and held it open. "We should make our way. Master
Vrek values punctuality almost as much as his solitude, and the castle stairs are often uncooperative after dark."
They stepped out into the quiet stone corridors together. Dumbledore set a steady, measured pace, the hem of his traveling cloak whispering against the flagstones. For several minutes, neither spoke, and Harry was grateful for the quiet.
The dead unicorn remained heavy in his thoughts. It had lingered beneath the roar of the dueling matches, beneath the tactical drills and Tonks's shifting hair. Hagrid's pale face, the drained carcass, and Quirrell appearing from the treeline with dirt beneath his fingernails refused to separate into independent events.
Harry opened his mouth to speak. Dumbledore seemed to understand the deep currents of the castle better than anyone, and the question sat on the tip of his tongue: Professor, the unicorn in the forest—do you think someone killed it on purpose?
He looked up at the headmaster's profile against the dim torchlight and hesitated. The night was cold, and whatever answer Dumbledore might offer was not something he wanted to carry to the wandmaker's bench. He swallowed the question and kept his silence.
They descended into the entrance hall, where Dumbledore drew back the heavy oak doors. The night air rushed in—crisp, sharp, carrying the scent of pine and oncoming frost. Across the grounds, the lake lay like a sheet of dark slate beneath the half moon, the school gates visible only as thin wrought-iron needles against the distant hills.
"Mind the second flagstone," Dumbledore remarked softly as they stepped outside. "It catches the frost before the rest."
Harry pulled his jumper snug against his collar and followed the headmaster down into the dark.
To their left, the edge of the Forbidden Forest stood silent and black against the sky. Harry walked past without looking toward the trees, entirely unaware of how close he was to the things hiding inside them. His mind was fixed entirely on the high green hill and the wood waiting for his hand.
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