At the Gryffindor table, a scrawny boy with messy black hair poked at his steak-and-kidney pie, his green eyes distant. A broken horn—blackened and scarred—sat beside his plate, glinting in the torchlight.

A sound like rope creaking. A muffled thud.

Silence.

<Narrator>: Deep in the Blackwood, a net lay tangled in the roots of an ancient oak. Within it, a dark shape stirred—scales gleaming faintly in the moonlight. A torn wing membrane dripped black blood onto the leaf litter.

<Narrator>: A young man's voice—rough, broken—called out from the shadows near the edge of the glade, his boot pressing gingerly against the trapped creature's side.