A rainstorm lashed against the castle of Hogwarts.
Storms of this magnitude were rare, and even the water level of the Black Lake seemed to have risen significantly.
A flash of lightning tore through the sky outside the window, momentarily illuminating the dark night.
Agnes Greengrass sat in the Ravenclaw common room, staring blankly at the rain and lightning outside.
She rested her chin on her left hand, gazing out in a daze.
The new term had already begun, yet there was still no news of her missing friend, Rey MacFusty.
Whenever she had free time at night, she would sit here and look out the window.
There was another person—no, perhaps not a person—in the common room who did the same. She was the Ghost of Ravenclaw: Helena Ravenclaw.
Both of them stared at the rainstorm outside, waiting for the momentary illumination of the lightning.
When people share a common interest, they quickly become friends.
When women share their secrets and innermost thoughts, becoming best friends is almost inevitable.
Agnes listened as Helena recounted a poignant and beautiful love story. In this story, there was an important promise that spanned a thousand years.
"Helena, can he really live for a thousand years?" Agnes turned her head, looking skeptically at the ghost of Helena.
Although Helena hadn't mentioned any names in her story, Agnes just knew that Helena was talking about her own past.
"Yes. I've never doubted it."
A reminiscent smile tugged at the corner of Helena's mouth, perhaps recalling the sweet moments they had shared.
"Don't you regret it? Stealing your mother's diadem," Agnes asked further. Having never experienced love or its sweet happiness, she was naturally curious about Helena's actions.
"Regret?"
Helena repeated the word, pausing for a moment before a look of pity crossed her face. "I don't regret it. I just think it's a pity. Wearing the diadem didn't make me smart enough to figure out how to stay eternally young."
"Don't they say that when you love someone, you don't care about their appearance?" Agnes countered.
Helena shrugged and pursed her lips. "When you fall in love with someone, you want to show them the best version of yourself."
"By the way, enough about me. Tell me about your missing friend."
"What's his name? How did he disappear? Is there really no clue at all?"
---
There were plenty of people who stayed up late at night. Aside from Helena and Agnes chatting in the common room, there was also the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Cabor Doric.
At this moment, a pale-faced Professor Doric was in his office, fiddling with a table full of glass containers.
In a finger-sized glass vial sat a single drop of fresh blood. Cabor Doric picked it up and carefully poured it into a fuming glass container.
This blood was what he had taken from Rey back then. Vampire fangs are hollow. To maximize the utility of the blood, Doric had pulled out his own fang to extract this tiny amount.
The fang would slowly grow back, but the excruciating pain had made even an Auror like him curse out loud.
It was hard to imagine that a first-year student at Hogwarts possessed the blood of an ancient dragon race. It was precisely this blood that had successfully turned him from an undead vampire into a living one.
That little girl, Agnes Greengrass, had pointed him out to Dumbledore as a vampire.
Because of this, Dumbledore had personally tested him.
Thanks to the potion brewed from this blood, his body's vitality had increased, making him indistinguishable from a truly living person.
Otherwise, he might be sitting in a Ministry holding cell right now, awaiting torture and interrogation.
Dumbledore was already suspicious. To fool him completely, Doric needed more blood; he needed to truly come alive.
But now, only one drop remained.
Every so often, Doric had to take a dose of the potion brewed from this blood; otherwise, his body would gradually begin to die again.
This was the last drop, and the last dose of potion. He had to be careful.
With steady hands, he dripped the crimson blood into the smoking container.
The blood passed through the neck of the vial without leaving a trace. The vial was special, and the blood was even more so.
Once the blood hit the mixture, the smoke instantly settled, and the green liquid inside turned crimson red.
The ingredients in this potion were rare and precious, his life savings accumulated over many years.
One drop of blood could brew one cup of potion. And this one cup could keep him "alive" for ten days.
His hands trembling, Cabor Doric picked up the cup like an addict craving a fix and eagerly poured the potion down his throat.
As the potion entered his system, it was like water pouring into parched earth. It quickly spread through his veins, invading every limb and bone, merging with every fiber of his being.
The slow, stagnant dead blood in his body suddenly burst with vitality, pumped by his heart to every corner of his form.
It felt so good to be alive!
Being alive was wonderful!
But this "wonderful" feeling would only last ten days.
Cabor Doric's face flushed with color, and he smiled as he felt his bodily functions return. However, the thought of the time limit made his face turn cold in an instant.
---
BOOM!
A loud thunderclap echoed as dense, root-like lightning streaked across the sky.
Simultaneously, a bolt of lightning struck a large tree in the Forbidden Forest.
The tree snapped and crashed to the ground, bursting into flames.
Despite the torrential rain, the fire showed no sign of going out.
The dark Forbidden Forest was illuminated. Awakened by the lightning, a squad of centaur warriors immediately arrived to investigate.
A tree thick enough for two people to hug had been snapped by lightning—it was somewhat unbelievable.
Five or six centaur warriors circled the burning trunk, examining it repeatedly, perhaps hoping to glean some omen from this ominous event.
"Firenze, let's go. It's just a tree. Nothing much to see."
The strongest centaur warrior called out to another centaur who was staring blankly.
The centaur named Firenze looked up, preparing to follow his kin.
But just then, in the empty space to his front-left, threads of transparent blue light suddenly emerged.
These lights seemed to come from all directions of the forest. All the centaur warriors were captivated by the strange phenomenon.
The blue threads swirled and converged, forming a long tunnel.
The tunnel was bottomless, leading to an unknown destination, as if connecting to another world.
Clop, clop, clop...
Once the tunnel formed, the sound of hoofbeats echoed from within.
The centaur warriors immediately stepped back in tension, arrows nocked on their bowstrings, ready to attack at a moment's notice.
---
The sound continued. Even the rainstorm couldn't drown it out; it felt as if the hoofbeats were ringing directly in the warriors' hearts.
This showed just how tense they were about the mysterious creature about to emerge.
However, just as their tension peaked, the converging blue lights of the tunnel suddenly shattered with a pop, catching them off guard.
As the blue light dissipated into sparkling motes, a pure black horse emitting a faint glow galloped out and stopped right in front of Firenze.
The horse had a long horn on its forehead. It was clearly a black unicorn.
Unicorns were the most sacred of creatures, but black unicorns were something they had only heard of in ancient legends.
Seeing one appear suddenly before them, the centaurs were so excited that they felt their souls being purified. Joy leaped onto their faces.
"Oh God, there's a child on its back!"
Amidst the excitement, Firenze spotted the child carried on the creature's back.