Elysia Riddle [A Harry Potter Fan Fiction]

Chapter Three ~ The Forbidden Forest

The unicorn's body emerged out of the darkness, twisted and mangled beneath a tree. It's long, slender leg's pointed out in awful directions and, judging by the blood, it was very much dead. I gasped at the deathly sight, and it seemed as if an angel had been slaughtered before my very own eyes. Me and harry exchanged worried glances before creeping closer to the corpse.

Harry's foot took one stride before a hooded shape crawled across the threshold, like some sort of wildcat hunting it's prey. The creature halted by the side of the unicorn, before diving it's head in to the wound and drinking. Closing my lips tight, I avoided vomiting as I saw the sickening sight.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" 

I looked over to the source of the scream, only to see Draco's horrified face twisted due to the sight he had witnessed. The coward soon turned and bolted as fast as he could away from the scene, Fang following him closely. The creature stood and walked closer to Harry, the silver liquid dripping from its mouth. I watched as Harry stood as still as a statue, a look of pure fear engulfing his features.

Slapping his lightning scar, he stumbled backwards, hissing in pain. The creature looked down at me, opening it's bloodied mouth,

"Elyssssia, I know you, and I will take you..." it hissed, another voice accentuating the 's' in my name.

The beating of hooves on the forest floor filled my ears, making the creature flee. I looked over to Harry; only to see him on his knee's rubbing his scar in petulant movements.

A centaur, similar to the one that I had seen talking to Hagrid earlier in our quest, entered the scene. His eyes immediately went to Harry, and her tended to him gently. His hair was a brilliant white-blond hair and equally white body. 

"Are you all right?" questioned the centaur, lifting Harry to his feet.

"Yes- thank you- what was that?" he replied, patting down his dirty clothes.

The centaur turned to me slowly; his brilliant sapphire blue eye's meeting my own blue eyes. His whispered in to my ear,

"You spoke parsel tongue, young one."

The statement sounded more like a warning than anything else, and without a second thought I fled in the same direction that Draco had. The running was brilliant, and my leg's gratefully received the exercise. I realised that perhaps i didn't run enough, not when I spent my time cooped up within the library.

I found myself standing within some unknown part of the woods, the mangled pathway far out my reach. Shivering, I tried to think of what Hagrid had said about the forest, but I realised that I had been trapped in my own thoughts.

Looking around, every shadow seemed to shape shift into something sinister under the moonlight, every noise was a new threat and every rumble in the earth was a new beast coming to kill me.

Looking through the foliage of the trees, I saw no convenient opening in the tree's or trail of smoke leading to Hagrid’s hut, just thick trees surrounding me. My mind couldn’t help but focus on the centaur’s words instead of my predicament. A pair of violet eye's seemed to shine through the tree trunks, watching me curiously. 

"Go away!" I shrieked, nervously ducking my head.

Parsel tongue, I had read of it in Hogwarts: A History. All I knew was that Salazar Slytherin was a parsel tongue, and that it was a unique ability to converse with snakes. A cold rush of blood surged through my head… it was a Slytherin trait.

What if, because of this one strange skill, I was to be placed in the house that I despised? Snape's bitter ramblings on Potter's awful personality had made me believe that he was rude, obnoxious and completely full of himself.