It had taken the better part of the summer, a summer he was happy to be away from that...lot of people he was meant to call family but a long summer all the same. The maps led him in circles half the time and the bloody spiders insisted on getting in his way.

But he carried on.

There was only so much left of the forest to be searched, based on past accounts and calculations. This could be it and the promise of success was maddening, so much so that the man did not present himself for the feast despite the hour growing late. The children would arrive soon but that wouldn't matter so long as he had what he needed.

Where oh where could it be?

He was expecting visitors. This needed to be done tonight.

It was a thing of legend now, what lay buried deep within these dark woods and only the centaurs ever spoke its true name. The acromantula had created their own name for it, much more simplistic and literal in essence, and a story passed down for generations to keep all witch and wizard from reaching the glen and uncovering the Black Stone.

Bodies of the initial guard of arachnid lay strung about in disjointed positions beneath the trees and among the bramble, some with their bodies still smoking from the blast of magic from the man's malicious wand. Would the screech of the last of them have been loud enough for the colony to hear? Time would tell...

Deep...deep within the forest the man trudged...and ahead the very spot of a fateful meeting on the second of May over a century ago...

If he never saw another acromantula, it would be too soon. The limited patience the man held had been spent on the oversized arachnids and he was quite ready to be through with this little scavaneger hunt of sorts.

The Headmaster glanced down at the crudely drawn map he'd fashioned for himself. By now, it had several markings from past failed excursions. This one though...this one he had a good feeling about, as evidenced by the circle he had drawn about it.

Here. It had to be here.

He cast a revealing charm, hoping that anything containing magic might make itself known but that didn't stop him from also walking about in case it was easier to....stumble onto it, as it were.

If only it were as simply as casting a Revealing or Summoning Charm. If only.

Despite these efforts being futile, there were other clues in the glen. Parts of earth where no footprint touched and any trail of hoof and claw veered around...almost as though the patch of ground were protected by a magical barrier and nothing could pass through. This was not the case, however, though there was something that kept the Forest's creatures from treading...

Just then, to the man's dumb luck, a ferret happened to scamper by and with a bit of a screech leaped over a bit of dirt. The grey-brown creature curved its long body around to sniff the earth and suddenly froze, darting away in its next breath and vanishing into the darkness.

Something lay beneath the ground...

There.

That must have been it. Ignoring the disgusting creature that scurried off, the Headmaster set his sights on the ground it sniffed at. Rather than risk a misplaced spell destroying all his hard work, he transfigured himself a shovel and began digging.

In the distance, he thought he could hear the sound of children and it brought a grimace to the man's face. They were here then. He would have to speed this along. If all went according to plan, he wouldn't even need a visit to his office first.

Dig. Dig. Dig.

There was a twist of irony in that nothing grew above or around where it lay when three turns in hand could resurrect the dead.

Six feet under in the cold and damp soil, the small black stone would soon be touch by fresh air for the first time in over a century. All to easy to miss in hasty shoveling, it was the gleam of reflected light that gave away its presence.

All that was left was to pluck it from the soil...

Another dig and he really may have missed the black stone. In the dark, vision was poor enough. He could not have lights give away his position before he was through.

But there it was.

The sudden euphoria that flood his body caused the man to give off a near erratic laugh. There. After all this time. After careful planning. Wasting little time, he reached into the whole he'd dug and fished out the one and only Resurrection Stone.

"Finally.

On the high of his recent discovery, wand drawn, he stormed back to the castle. The funny feeling in the pit of his stomach warned his mask was wearing thin but it no longer mattered. The stone was HIS.