Dumbledore's Departure.

The enemy would wait for the stone to be least protected, when the Headmaster was out or otherwise distracted. The only problem was that the Headmaster was not much for sharing his schedule with you, a first year. Dumbledore would come and go as he saw fit, and you wouldn't know when the enemy would move.

Then there was the matter of the Silver Blood. You were fairly confident that the 'Dream You' had been drinking unicorn blood, but that was completely absurd. There were many alchemical properties of Unicorn Blood, but it was notoriously cursed. It was hypothesized that the curse could be mitigated with the appropriate preparations, but definitely not when you drank it straight from the source!

"Marvolo?" you heard from the stacks. You turned to see Jennifer pacing back and forth along the bookshelves.

"Oh, hullo." you say, surprised.

"Couldn't sleep either?" she asks smiling nervously. You consider saying why, but just shake your head in agreement. "Yeah, I'm jus so excited. Its our intramural play-offs today!" Only then do you realize that she is already in her Quidditch uniform, her small frame covered in protective cloth and the leather safety equipment.

"I still don't know what gave my father the idea of giving me a broom for holiday." she says excitedly, "but its been wicked fun." You smile and turn to your book to hide the color rushing to your cheeks.

"Yeah I guess parents just know these things." you say, savoring the irony.

"I mean he doesn't usually," she says sitting down across the table from you. "He does alright, y'know on the money side, but like he doesn't really know how to handle being a single dad, ever since Mum left he usually gives me gift cards or just tries to buy whatever is in fashion. I had so many Cabbage Patch kids by the time I was 8 that we filled the guest room with them."

"What? You- Cabbage Patch?" you say confused.

"Oh my," Jennifer says rolling her eyes "They're dolls, don't you wizard-born folk have dolls?"

"Not ones made out of cabbage." you mutter, and she laughs.

After a moment a comfortable silence descends. The first rays of the sun begin to peek into the common room, and the moonlamps dim. You see Jennifer's grey eyes glint in the morning light.

"So.." she says after a while. "Are you going to make it to the game today?"

You smile, "If I can, I'm pretty busy. Got a lot of obligations." You stretch, "A guy like me is in pretty high demand."

She rolls her eyes and laughs. "So why couldn't you sleep? You weren't excited for the game, and finals aren't for another few weeks."

You grimace. "I uhh, I had a dream." She raises an eyebrow. "It wasn't like that, it felt like a premonition, something that I was watching, not just something I was making up." Jennifer looks more than a little skeptical but says nothing. "I dreamed that there was someone after the stone, someone who had probed the defenses and had made plans to get around the defenses the teachers had placed."

Jennifer smiles and says, "That doesn't mean there's anything bad going on, its probably just stress, Marvolo."

"It was *more real* than a dream," you protest. "Besides that doesn't explain the unicorn blood."

"Unicorn blood?" she asks confusedly.

"In my dream I was the Enemy, and I was hunting unicorns for their blood in the Forbidden Forest." you say softly.

Jennifer looked puzzled, "Why would the enemy need unicorn blood? Besides even if they needed it couldn't they just buy some from that Apothecary in Diagon Alley?"

You stare at Jennifer blankly. "You're serious."

She nods, not looking amused in the slightest.

"Unicorns are the closest thing to sacred in the Wizarding World. Its illegal to sell unicorn blood, and even if it wasn't no one in their right mind would. Its cursed! Any who use it are destined for misery, it can keep you alive when you are on the brink of ****, but it destroys your body, turning it slowly into something twisted and rotten."

She looks like she is still about to laugh it all off as a dream when the first few Ravenclaws come down into the Common Room. You grab your Reference Book and together the group of you make your way into the Great Hall for breakfast.

The Great Hall is abuzz with the usual gossip, and one new piece of gossip tearing through the student body like wildfire.

What's the Word?