The Theory of Magic (Book 1)

25 // Tom & Cauldron Cakes

Each shovel full of dirt hitting the new grave sounded heavier than it actually was.

Fi stared at the damp earth as Hagrid finished burying the unicorn, both half-giant and hedge witch quiet in their own thoughts. They stood in an outcropping of trees not terribly far from the lake's shore, the dawn air cold and shivering in their lungs.

"Have you heard anything new from last night?" Fi asked, turning a smooth pebble over and over in her hands. "Seen anything weird? Been visited by any hostile centaurs with cryptic messages?"

Hagrid snorted, the sound smothered by his matted beard. "They mean well."

"Meaning well and doing well are two different things, Rubeus."

Fi turned away, her robes curling and fluttering around her ankles, the stone a warm weight she tossed back and forth between her hands. The light barely brushed the horizon, but it was enough to see by. Grunting, Fi shimmied out of her teaching robes, leaving her in just her tunic and leggings.

"I'll be back soon, Hagrid."

"Eh?"

"I said I'll be back soon."

Fi tromped into the woods without another glance toward the new grave, the stone growing red hot against her palm. She hummed slow under her breath as the weeds broke beneath her shoes, and she set her path toward the part of the forest where she'd last seen the monster.

"Monster," Fi snorted, hand rising, tracing runes in the air. By Morgana, she had no idea what that thing had been. According to Mr. Potter, Firenze had told the boy they'd come across none other than Voldemort, the very Dark Lord whose Death Eaters were hounding Fi. She couldn't say if it was true. Whatever it had been, it hadn't looked...human, hadn't felt human, but Fi also couldn't present an alternative idea. Either way, Fi intended to find it.

Calling the thing a monster, though, felt a bit...silly. Monsters were those loathsome things that frightened children, and Fi had a visceral flashback to her childhood, telling her Mum through teary sniffles how much the howling of the wolves terrified her. Those might have very well been the very last wolves—mundane or otherwise—in Scotland, before the remainder were hunted by the Muggle Lairds. There were no more wolves now, and sometimes Fi looked back and missed the howling. Life was simpler then.

She scratched her head and paused to consider her surroundings. The space between trees widened as the boles grew thicker, allowing for the passage of larger bodies, the underbrush and mulch churned by a myriad of hoof prints. Fi guessed the tracks could belong to the Thestral herd—but her Galleons were on the centaurs. They were riled, agitated, and quite a number of little bushes and shrubs were paying the price.

Fi returned to the clearing where the unicorn had fallen. The blood had been burned away to cleanse the curse from the earth, leaving behind an ugly scorch mark and a few fine, silvery hairs clinging to the broken foliage and roots. The hedge witch crouched by the bushes the creature had entered and fled through, twisting the pebble in her hand, holding it up to her lips with two fingers so she could whisper spells into its course striations. She held it aloft—and the stone crumbled.

"Bugger," Fi sighed, sitting back on her haunches as she considered the broken remnants and the plant. My Finding spells aren't working. I know I placed a Track on the thing, but why can I not connect the two? Is...is its Will greater than my own? Is that possible? If it truly is this Voldemort character—what is he doing here? Why attack unicorns? Why bother at all?

Chewing her lip, Fi rattled the questions around in her brain before exhaling loud enough to startle a bird in the trees. She snatched up a handful of pine needles and rotting leaves and set them on fire with a thought, the blue flame tickling and curling around her clenched fist and wrist as magic poured into the clearing like an unleashed river. "Ba mhaith liom a fháil," Fi chanted, eyes on the fire. The ground beneath her began to glow. "Ní mór dom a fháil."