Another Care of Magical Creatures class was nearing its end when Cornelia the Unicorn seemed to realize something. She rose nimbly to her feet, gently swished her tail, and paced toward the gathered students.
Seeing this, Hagrid judged that class was about over and immediately called the students over to him.
The students gathered one after another. Hagrid cleared his throat and said, "You all did very well!"
"After this lesson, I reckon you've all figured out some of the subtleties of how to win these little ones over."
"But you've got to remember! Just knowing how to please them won't get you through the O.W.L. Exam. You still need to use your heads a lot more."
Although Hagrid had mentioned the O.W.L. Exam, many students' attention was not on him, but on what Cornelia the Unicorn was doing.
Cornelia stood beside Vizet and very naturally pushed her head toward Vizet's palm, signaling for him to comb the mane on her head.
When many of the girls saw this, their eyes filled with envy.
After all, when they had previously studied Unicorns as a Magical creature, they had been able to stroke a Unicorn, but only its body.
No matter how they tried, they could not get as close to a Unicorn's head as Vizet could.
Yet Vizet had done it so easily. What was more, the Unicorn had not only come over of her own accord, she had even put on a contented expression.
The boys had a different reaction. After all, when they had been studying Unicorns, Hagrid had told them that Unicorns were naturally wary of boys.
Precisely because they remembered that point, they felt incomparably astonished now. How had Vizet become the exception?
"Could it be..." A guess popped into Michael Corner's mind. "This Unicorn is