A girl’s best friend.

Saturday afternoon, Taylor returned to her dorm room to find Luna ready for the Quidditch match. This time, she had a Ravenclaw eagle hat. The thing was enormous, bigger than Nap with its wings spread.

And it screeched like a real eagle.

Taylor was just a tiny-itsy-bit envious. Who cared if people were pointing and laughing. Luna seemed to be having a lot of fun and she wanted to join in. She cast a longing glance at Nap hoping the owl would understand, but the lazy bird had decided that today, of all days, she didn’t want to perch on Taylor’s head.

Meanwhile, Luna had approached and placed a hand on the eagle hat. “You can have it.”

Taylor shook her head. “It isn’t fun if you’re not wearing one either.”

Luna nodded, then took Taylor’s hand, guiding her out of the dormitories. “Who do you think will win?”

“I hope it is Ravenclaw,” Taylor answered truthfully. “They’ve been training a lot lately.”

“Because of Slytherin?”

“Yeah. Their brooms are really fast.”

It was something that made no sense to Taylor. Shouldn’t all players use the same brooms? It seemed unfair that some players had an advantage because some rich donor decided to pile them with the fastest broom in the market.

There were less students at the Quidditch stands. Gryffindor had shown up, but not in force like for their own game. Noticeably, there were fewer green faces mocking and jeering. It made some sort of demented sense. Slytherins were too stuck up to enjoy the game if it wasn’t their house team playing.

Ravenclaw had two new players this season: a chaser called Roger Davies (which somehow made Taylor think about pirates) and a new seeker, a pretty girl named Cho Chang.

As silly as it was to compare school teams, Taylor wanted to see how her own house team compared to Gryffindor and Slytherin. From what she understood, Harry was an exceptional player and had started playing in his first year, which supposedly is against school rules.

It seemed that being Magical Hero Harry had its own benefits.

The match started with a roar from the crowd and a screech from Luna’s hat. Taylor got pulled into watching and cheering with everyone else, screaming her head off when Ravenclaw scored, or booing when it was Hufflepuff.

The commenter, a Gryffindor boy did a passable job at commenting, but he seemed more interested in pointing out that the new Ravenclaw seeker was pretty than actually narrating how the game went.

Much to Taylor’s delight, the game had no stalker Bludger, no disappearing bones.

The Hufflepuff team, as it turned out, was more coherent and worked better than Ravenclaw. Maybe it was because they didn’t have any new members, or maybe because they were just better, but they scored first and kept the lead (not a huge one), no matter what Ravenclaw did.

But Cho turned things around.

Proving why she’d taken the seeker position, Cho danced and twirled and in an impressive feat of flying, dove up and out of a Bludger sent by a Beater and straight past the startled Hufflepuff Chaser to grab the golden ball that was hiding just behind him.

Ravenclaw had been twenty points behind Hufflepuff. Then Cho caught the Snitch, and suddenly they had won by a hundred and thirty points.

Taylor cheered even louder.

Taylor cast an inquisitive glance at her friend, but instead of saying anything, Luna pulled her wand, and in much Luna’s fashion, all but sung the spell incantation, twirling her wand. For all that Taylor knew about magic, that shouldn’t have worked.

A silvery panel materialized around Luna, who beamed a smile so brilliant that Taylor thought she was going to get blind.

“That’s brilli—” Taylor started, but then had to catch a cannonball Luna, who tackled her into a hug.

“Thank you,” Luna whispered into her shoulder.

Taylor hugged back, not sure what was happening. Luna had her eyes closed and a happy little smile on her face. At least she wasn’t crying. Taylor had no idea what she’d do if Luna started crying.

Perhaps a quarter hour later, though it had passed in what felt like a blink, Luna pulled away. “I’m ready to meet Aragog.”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Taylor said.

That night, before going to bed, Taylor composed another letter to her mum. She wrote about how she got so angry with Snape for bullying Luna, then she reassured her mum that she’d keep her promise and there were no incidents. Then she gushed about Quidditch, about how good the game had been, the plays, thinking they were going to lose, the victory, everything. She whined that the commentator had been more interested in talking about how pretty their Seeker was (and, okay, Cho was very pretty) than about how brilliantly she’d played, which was super annoying. Taylor ended the letter asking whether she could invite maybe two other friends (Ginny and Nneka) for holidays.

Sunday morning was a whirlwind of activities. Between finishing all their homework, and preparing for their afternoon excursion, Taylor had no free time.

“Should we bring food as a gift?” Taylor asked once she was alone with Luna. “What do giant spiders eat, anyway?” Based on movies and fantasy stories, Taylor could guess meat was their primary food source, but the nest had been huge, and she hadn’t ever heard about anyone just disappearing in the forest…

…Aside from all the rumors about people disappearing in the forest.

“Do you think they are responsible for all those rumors about people going missing inside the forest?”

Luna looked at her with those big, guileless eyes.

“I’ll keep us safe,” Taylor said, to which Luna nodded.

Taylor decided to not bring food as a gift. She was dealing with hundreds of giant spiders. No amount of food she carried would help. She also opted out of her other choice of gift. It seemed in bad taste to gift spiders with colourful spider silk.

Guiding Luna by the hand, Taylor made sure they snuck out of the castle unseen. It wasn’t that difficult given how cold was outside. Most people were huddled in their common rooms near the hearth.

Before they entered the forest, Taylor stopped and turned to Luna.

“You have to promise me that you won’t ever come here alone,” she said, trying to be as serious as possible.

“I promise,” Luna said with the same seriousness.

With one last glance at her friend, Taylor turned and marched into the forest. “And please, don’t ask questions,” she prayed low enough that she was sure Luna wouldn’t have heard.

Even during the day, the Forbidden forest was dark. The canopy above blocked most of the sunlight, the few rays that managed to sneak inside making the place look like some dark dryad grotto from a fantasy story. With wands in hand, she led Luna through the same path she’d taken the previous time she’d been here, except where she’d met the cat thing; there was no way Taylor wanted to risk her friend like that.

Maybe half an hour into their journey, Taylor stopped dead in her tracks. This time, instead of invisible winged horse-like creatures, she’d found something else. Horses with resplendent white fur and a horn in their forehead, three of them.

“What is it?” Luna asked beside her.

“Unicorns,” Taylor said, her voice awed. “They’re so pretty.”

Luna looked in the same direction, like she could see it too.

“Do you want to see them?”

The smile on Luna’s face was answer enough.

For the next while, Taylor guided them closer and closer to the small herd of unicorns. Now that she was paying better attention, this seemed to be a family. One of the unicorns was smaller, and their fur wasn’t wholly white, it had a few specks of gold here and there.

From around a bunch of trees, Taylor finally set eyes on the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

The unicorns were magnificent. Even from a distance, she felt a peace in their presence. She couldn’t imagine anything more pure or beautiful. The family looked so at ease and magical that for a moment, Taylor forgot even her bugs.

The unicorns seemed to have been waiting for them. The biggest one stepped into their path, hooves pawing at the ground as soon as they arrived. Taylor had the impression the father didn't want them closer to the foal.

“Hi there,” Luna said, waving at the stallion. “Your family is very pretty!”

The unicorn lowered his head, in what felt like an invitation. Luna certainly took it as one. She skipped forward and gently patted his mane, talking to the stallion like he was a person.

“Do you mind if I greet your mate and foal?” Luna asked.

The stallion lowered his head again, and Luna walked past him.

Taylor started to walk closer as well, but the stallion’s head snapped up. He neighed, pawing furiously at the ground.

She stopped.

Luna looked between the unicorn and Taylor.

“Why?” Luna asked in a small voice.

The unicorn tossed his head, nostrils flaring in Taylor’s direction. Even without words the message was very clear. He didn’t want Taylor approaching his family.

Why? Had she done something wrong? In fantasy literature, Unicorns were symbols of purity and really liked virgin girls. Taylor hadn’t even kissed anyone, it couldn’t be because of that. So why? Was it because she’d been punishing the bullies? She wasn’t going to lie and say she didn’t enjoy making them taste from the same water, but was it that bad?

Firenze’s words echoed in her mind again.

Was it because of the prophecy? Was she really a horror?

Luna looked longingly at the foal and the mother, before turning back and walking toward Taylor.

“It’s alright,” she said, taking Taylor’s hand.

It was Luna’s time to lead them away. Taylor was too busy trying to process the rejection and in no shape to say anything. For some reason, she felt guilty, like being rejected by those magnificent creatures was a stain on her soul and she should—

Taylor’s power reacted violently.

The bugs churned and buzzed. All around, but still far away that Luna wouldn’t notice, the forest came alive with insects. A strange calm washed over her. Immediately, she was hyper aware of everything: every bug, every gnat, every flyer. That sense of guilt washed away, like oil on water, leaving an uncomfortable feeling behind.

“I think,” she said in a voice that sounded monotone even to her, “that they might have been messing with my head.”

Luna turned around, inspecting Taylor’s eyes, then her hair and ears hidden beneath the layers of winter wool.

“You are better now,” Luna said after her inspection.

Taylor took a deep breath, feeling more like herself again. “Yes, but I don’t think I want to see them again. Not anytime soon.”

It scared Taylor that unicorns could mess with her head like that. Was that feeling of awe also magical in nature? Would she think they were so pure and pretty if there wasn’t magic involved?

Luna looked very sad, but nodded.

They walked in silence, hand in hand, for a while longer, until the first spider entered her range.

Yes! It was one of the kids, one of the cute, skittering ones. A very cute, cat-sized spider.

“Are you ready to meet the spiders?” Taylor asked, looking in the spider’s direction.

Spoiler

In which Taylor discovers that unicorns are low-key human masters and QA has a panic attack.

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