Chapter 60: Two Wand Cores?

In the Forbidden Forest, the centaur was still urging Harry to leave at once; he said a great deal, including what use drinking unicorn blood had.

"Unicorn blood can prolong life, but the price is also terribly bitter — a life prolonged in such a way would be a half-dead, half-living creature, a cursed existence…"

The centaur pawed the ground with some agitation; he didn't know why, but from a moment ago he had felt that something was off somewhere around him, though he couldn't say exactly what.

The centaur trusted that this feeling was no illusion or accident, and his tone grew even more urgent.

"Unless you are only using it to delay death, so that you can drink something else — something that can fully restore your vigor and vitality, something that can make you immortal…"

"Mr. Harry Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school?"

"The Philosopher's Stone!" Harry blurted out. "Of course — the Elixir of Life! But I can't figure out who…"

"Can you really not think of who has been waiting in silence all these years, longing to make a comeback? Who clings to life and refuses to let go, waiting for the right moment?"

Harry's pupils contracted sharply, as if an iron claw had seized his heart; even the surroundings whipped up into a gale, dead leaves spiraling into the sky, branches creaking and groaning…

"No — something's wrong, there's danger!"

Before Harry could even register what was happening, he was seized by a pair of strong, powerful arms and dragged away.

The centaur planted himself in front of him, drew his bow and nocked an arrow, his gaze fixed dead ahead on the dead unicorn not far away — and on Silven, who had his back to them.

"What are you doing…" Harry poked his head out from behind, and then saw a sight that left him utterly dumbstruck.

The dead unicorn was vanishing rapidly, like a clay figure soaked in water.

"This… what happened?"

"I don't know!" the centaur's voice was both cold and grave.

"I know that after a unicorn dies, its body merges into the earth within a short time — but it can't be this fast!"

"Wait — Silven is still over there!" Only then did Harry notice Silven beside the unicorn, and he was about to charge straight out.

He had only taken a single step before he was seized again.

"Don't go over there!" the centaur hauled him back a big step.

His instinct told him the unicorn's change was connected to that boy, and the centaur trusted his own instinct.

In that single step backward, the unicorn had already vanished completely, leaving nothing behind — not even the horn on its head.

Then, in the dim Forbidden Forest, a wisp of silver-blue flowing light appeared, like a severed stream, like wind given color… the centaur had never seen such a wondrous sight.

Wondrous to the point of being somewhat eerie.

The silver-blue light hovered around the boy, and finally sank into a branch in his right hand.

Hum!

It was as if a ripple spread outward rapidly from the branch as its center.

Harry noticed then that several golden symbols had surfaced on the wrist Silven had exposed, glinting in the darkness one after another, like a gold bracelet with a unique pattern.

And that bracelet looked oddly familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

Oh, he remembered — the last time Silven was making a wand, his wrist had looked exactly like this.

According to Silven's explanation, this was a kind of auxiliary rune, used to keep the wrist steady while crafting a wand core.

Crafting a wand?

Harry was startled by this sudden thought that popped into his head, and immediately shook his head again and again.

It was impossible; he was quite sure Silven had not pulled out any unicorn tail hair just now — there wasn't even a wand core, so how could he be crafting a wand?

"Silven, wake up!" Because the centaur was holding him back, he could only shout loudly, trying to rouse Silven.

Only his voice was quickly carried away by the wind, which was growing fiercer and fiercer around them; Silven couldn't hear him at all, and even if he had, he probably wouldn't have had time to respond.

The Whomping Willow wand shaft's reaction was too violent; the only thing he could do now was to give his all to transform the unicorn soul that had just barged in into a wand core.

The process went very smoothly — or rather, a touch too smoothly, even easier than a single tail hair on its own.

But he had noticed something strange: the unicorn's body had also vanished along with his movements. So what had just barged in — the unicorn's soul, or the unicorn whole?

But it no longer mattered; either way, it was something unprecedented in the history of wands.

Silven's heart was stirred and excited; he had never expected the unicorn to bring him such a great surprise.

As the runes lit up one by one, the unicorn fully merged into the Whomping Willow, and Silven began to bring the two halves of the split shaft back together — once they were rejoined into a complete wand core, the wand would be finished.

Yet this step simply could not be completed.

Feeling the feedback transmitted from the Whomping Willow, Silven's brows knit tightly.

Missing a wand core?

What was going on — then what was that unicorn just now?

Crack…

No, there was no time to think that much.

Looking at the fine crack that had split open on the Whomping Willow shaft, Silven immediately thrust his hand into his pocket and rummaged around.

He had brought almost nothing with him on this outing; the only things on his person that could serve as a wand core were two teeth, each roughly five inches long.

The three-headed dog's teeth — Silven had never been willing to use them since getting his hands on them.

And right now he still didn't really want to use them.

If he could choose, Silven would actually have preferred to find another unicorn and pull out a tail hair to use as the core — not the same one, but at least the same kind.

Unfortunately, there was no longer any choice.

"Rooar!"

It was as if a wild beast had let out a roar, and creatures across half the Forbidden Forest were startled.

More centaurs appeared around them, whispering to one another about something.

Hagrid had also returned, and at once shielded Harry behind him.

He still wanted to pull Silven back, but the moment he reached out his hand, he was bumped by a silver-white creature.

At some unknown point, three more unicorns had appeared around them — the one that had just bumped Hagrid was one of them.

They surrounded Silven in the middle, forbidding anyone from approaching.

"How strange," the centaur murmured.

"Strange in what way?" Harry asked instinctively.

"Before this, unicorns never appeared in herds," the centaur said, staring in a daze at the wand-like branch of the Whomping Willow in the middle, which wizards seemed to call a wand.

The centaur could clearly sense two utterly different auras on it colliding violently — one was the pure magic unique to unicorns, and the other was the exact opposite, brimming with wild, rampaging force.

It's just that this violent aura was far weaker than the unicorn's, and was quickly squeezed to the very end.

The specific manifestation was that two small fangs poked out from the tail of the wand, one on the left and one on the right.

At the same time, the already-formed wand body changed once again, gaining a ring of spiraling golden patterns that looked exactly like the horn on a unicorn's head.

……

(End of this chapter)