In the early morning, the silence of the Forbidden Forest was shattered by a deafening, heart-wrenching wail.
The three-meter-tall half-giant knelt on the open ground, his tear-filled eyes gazing at the pure white animal corpse lying beside the stream.
Dracula stood nearby, his expression unreadable. He helplessly covered his ears, trying to block out Hagrid's shrill, agonised cries.
Time rewound to an hour and a half earlier.
It was February now, not long after the start of the new term at Hogwarts. At the turn of winter and spring, the sun lingered lazily below the horizon, reluctant to show its face.
However, the world without the sun did not seem dim. The heavy snowfall from winter had not yet melted, and the thick, soft snow reflected the starlight in the sky, casting a gentle, ethereal whiteness over the landscape.
Dracula loved this kind of bright, sunless sky the most.
He had jumped out of his office window early in the morning, landing silently on the snow. He strolled around, admiring the night view of Hogwarts Castle, draped in a blanket of glittering snowflakes.
After wandering for a while, a huge, familiar figure caught his attention.
'Good morning, Professor Dracula.' Hagrid saw Dracula in the snow, greeted him hastily, and then hurried on towards the castle.
Dracula noticed that he looked extremely anxious; he had not even taken the time to wipe the morning dew from his flushed face.
'What are you doing in the castle so early, Hagrid?' Dracula asked, his curiosity piqued.
'There is an emergency in the Forbidden Forest. I need to report to Headmaster Dumbledore immediately,' Hagrid kept walking, his long strides carrying him quickly towards the castle.
'Oh, then go ahead. Dumbledore should be sleeping at this moment. Remember to knock on his door hard—do not let him sleep too soundly.' Dracula was not particularly interested in what was happening in the Forbidden Forest, but he had some ideas about how to wake up the old Headmaster. 'If he does not want to wake up no matter how you knock, I would be happy to help.'
He floated in the air as if on unseen wings, advancing side by side with Hagrid, his black and red robes fluttering silently behind him. At the same time, with a flick of his wrist, he conjured a snowball from the ground, one almost as big as Hagrid's head.
'I can fly directly to the roof of the castle's main tower and smash the snowball through the Headmaster's office window. That way, Dumbledore will definitely wake up,' Dracula said, his tone utterly serious.
'Uh… it is not that urgent,' Hagrid said, looking at the snowball the size of his head. He could not help but worry for Dumbledore. 'It is just that there are traces of a suspected vampire in the Forbidden Forest. To protect the safety of the young wizards, I have to quickly inform Dumbledore about this.'
Dracula's floating figure suddenly stopped in place.
Hagrid turned back in confusion, seeing Dracula standing silently on the snow, his expression now uncertain, almost cold. He could not help but shudder.
'Or perhaps we should not disturb the Headmaster, Hagrid.' Dracula casually threw the snowball aside, letting it shatter into scattered snowflakes on the ground. 'Would it not be more reassuring for the Headmaster if we went directly into the Forbidden Forest and caught this rampaging vampire ourselves?'
He snapped his fingers, the sound extremely crisp in the silent night.
The next moment, Hagrid felt a dark moon crash into him, passing through his huge body with a strange, chilling sensation. When he opened his eyes again, he was already standing near the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Hagrid looked at his familiar hut and vegetable garden beside him, as well as the deep, dark forest in front of him, and was greatly shocked. He had been running for a long time with his two-meter-long strides just to get close to Hogwarts Castle, and now Professor Dracula had brought him back to his starting point in an instant. He felt a little like crying, but no tears came.
'What… what kind of magic is this?' Hagrid asked, wiping the liquid on his face, not knowing if it was dew or cold sweat.
'Just think of it as Apparition,' Dracula said casually. 'Let us go. Take me to find the vampire's traces.'
Hagrid, having been instantly brought back to the Forbidden Forest, was now too lazy to spend another several tens of minutes running back to report to Dumbledore. It simply was not worth it.
So he resigned himself to his fate and began to lead Dracula into the Forbidden Forest.
'Professor Dracula, look at this poor rabbit.' Walking deep into the forest, Hagrid found a shrivelled rabbit corpse next to a bush. 'Its blood has been completely drained, leaving only shrivelled flesh and skin. I cannot think of any animal other than a vampire that would do this.'
Dracula frowned. He let the rabbit's corpse float into mid-air, observing it carefully.
'This was not done by a vampire.' He shook his head. 'There are no wounds on the rabbit's body. Vampires cannot suck the blood out of an animal from thin air.'
'Is there… any magical creature that can drain blood without causing wounds?' Hagrid racked his brains, trying to recall the magical creatures he had seen, but he had no clue. 'Or should we ask Professor Kettleburn? He has been the Care of Magical Creatures professor for sixty years; maybe he will have another opinion.'
Dracula did not speak, his wine-red eyes staring intently at the rabbit's intact corpse.
'Hagrid, how many days do you think this rabbit has been dead?' he suddenly asked.
'Judging from the corpse, it should be two or three days old. I have been a gamekeeper for so many years; I cannot be wrong!' Hagrid patted his chest confidently, guaranteeing his assessment.
As soon as he said this, Hagrid seemed to suddenly realise something. He looked at the rabbit's corpse in astonishment.
'How could this rabbit's corpse be preserved for two or three days?!' he said in shock. 'That is not right! In this season of food shortage, other carnivores in the Forbidden Forest would definitely drag it away and eat it when they saw such a corpse. Not to mention three days—it could not even be kept for one day!'
'That is what I wanted to say,' Dracula nodded slightly. 'So the most likely possibility is that this rabbit actually died under the curse of dark magic. Therefore, the surrounding animals instinctively dare not approach this corpse, which carries an evil aura.'
'Professor Dracula, do you mean… the evil creature in the Forbidden Forest is not a vampire, but a dark wizard?!' Hagrid looked around, his voice dropping to a low, worried whisper.
'It is just a guess,' Dracula said. 'Let us look for other animal corpses that have lost their blood.'
Hagrid took the lead. Using his familiarity with the surrounding environment, he proceeded deep into the Forbidden Forest, finding many more shrivelled animal corpses along the way. Seeing the tragic deaths of so many small animals, his expression was very sad. And this sadness reached its absolute peak when he came to a stream deep in the forest—
On the bank of the stream, a pure white, horse-like creature with a single, spiralling horn on its forehead lay on the pebble beach. The stream flowed past her golden hooves, wetting the pure white mane on her neck.
Even though two or three days had passed, and her whole body had become shrivelled and gaunt, her fur was still so bright and white that the surrounding snow seemed to have turned a dull grey in comparison.
This was a sacred unicorn. Slain.
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