Harry knew in his heart that the unicorns were now safe, and for the first time in weeks, Harry went to sleep and didn't wake up until the next morning. He stopped thinking about his magical crests and worrying about Voldemort and Dumbledore's machinations. There was no screaming that night. Just silence.
The following morning, Harry woke up feeling much better. The burning from his stressed magical channels was fading and his body stopped aching. Madam Pomfrey had told him that she was going to dismiss him later that night, meaning that he will be sleeping in his dormitory today.
Unfortunately, he didn't have any of his books on him and was probably going to be bored out of his mind all day. Even the matron wasn't there for some reason, leaving the young Slytherin all alone in an empty room.
She did say that people were allowed to visit him now, so perhaps his friends would be coming to alleviate his boredom. With that said Harry decided to think back on the fight with the cloaked wraith, more specifically, on the unicorns themselves.
They were different from what he expected. They were different from any other magical beast, and Harry didn't need his Arcane Hearing to see it. Since the school year started, Harry was surrounded by magical creatures. He has seen a few magical creatures lessons when he was walking around the lake. He has seen mermen and mermaids from his common room, a Hippogryph herd, and a Niffler, he even saw a Kelpie once, and they were very rare to see in the lake. But they looked like beings of flesh and blood. The unicorns were simply not. It was like they were made of light. Even their blood was odd. It was silver and looked more like a potion than, well, something organic.
The only thing that even came close to it was the Cerberus in the forbidden corridor, oddly enough. There was just something otherworldly about them that he could feel. That they were in a class of their own, different from most of the other magical beasts in the world.
Other than the ministry classification, Harry hadn't seen some kind of recognized grouping of magical creatures. For some reason, people just didn't really care about them until Newt Scamander's book was published. Apparently, the Hogwarts dropout had been recognized as someone who was able to apprehend Grindelwald in America, and his popularity, especially in Europe, made people take a look at his book, and ended up getting hooked on his insights on magical creatures.
It's funny how a single book ended up changing the world a lot, and it was a book that no one would even look at if it wasn't for his involvement in Grindelwald's capture. He practically crippled the 'poacher movement' that was getting traction a few decades back. It involved hunting down and selling any magical creature they could get their hands on. Scamander's book practically spearheaded protection laws for endangered magical creatures and started an industry of magical reserves that care for and harvest the creatures without harming them.
It was why wand cores stopped being too varied. Most of the creatures that were used to make wands were hunted down for materials, making a lot of them endangered and sometimes even extinct. Now, Dragon reserves were very profitable since they have an endless demand for dragon heartstrings and dragon blood, which they collect from deceased dragons.
Alas, back to the subject at hand, research on magical creatures, other than how to use their ingredients in potions, enchantments, and rituals, wasn't really explored. Their very nature, their habits, were not explored. Instead, they simply have a threat rating. Harry shook his head in disappointment; he would find no answers on what made unicorns so different in the library. He would take a look, of course, but he wasn't really optimistic.
Any future thoughts were immediately interrupted by a yelling voice, "Harry!"
The Potter scion was immediately hugged by a blonde girl, which he recognized as his friend Daphne. Before he could say anything, Tracy ran and enveloped him in a hug, too, and so did Blaise.
Daphne while hugging him, murmured, "I'm so glad you're alright. No one would say anything other than you had gotten hurt in your detention. They wouldn't even tell us what happened."
"Don't worry, I'm fine. I just exhausted my magic a bit," Harry responded while breaking the hug.
"But why would you do that?" Blaise questioned.
"Well, it wasn't my idea to have my first detention in the forbidden forest of all things, looking for something that was hunting down unicorns, with no one else but other first years, a cowardly dog, and a gatekeeper that didn't even have a wand on him," Harry responded with a sarcastic tone.
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