Luna Lovegood's Arc

Chapter 12 of 19

Luna set the six casts on the head table's dais the morning before the inspectors came. Hermione lined them up by size. Then Luna stopped and stared at the gray molds. A doubter would look at plaster and see plaster. Anyone could press a shaped hoof into wet clay. She needed someone who studied wild creatures to swear the tracks were real. She needed Hagrid. She found him at the edge of the grounds, kneeling in the mud, measuring a fresh print with his thick fingers. He had given her the ward stones once. He had signed the record in the forest. He looked up and grinned through his black beard. "Come to see my new mooncalf tracks?" he said. "I came for help," Luna said. "The Ministry sends inspectors today. They'll say I carved the casts myself. I need you to tell them the tracks are real." Hagrid stood. Mud dripped from his knees. His grin faded. "They'll not believe a groundskeeper over their own scholars," he said. "I signed once. They'll say I signed to please a friend." Luna's chest tightened. She had counted on him. "Then how do I prove it?" Hagrid rubbed his beard. He looked at the loyal llama grazing near the fence, the one her trap had caught by mistake. Then his eyes brightened. "Don't tell 'em," he said. "Show 'em. Bring a cast. I'll take a real print, right in front of 'em, and match the two. Same depth. Same claw drag. No one fakes a claw drag." Luna carried the chipped cast to the Great Hall that afternoon. The inspectors filled the long tables under the high stone ceiling. Scholars in dark robes leaned over the dais, sneering at the molds. One held a cast to the light and laughed. "Pressed by hand," he said. "Any child could do it." Hagrid pushed through the crowd. He set a fresh tray of wet clay on the dais. Then he laid the chipped cast beside it and pressed a preserved Snorkack print he had cast that morning into the soft clay. He turned both molds over for the scholars to see. "Look at the back claws," Hagrid said. His voice filled the hall. "See how the third toe drags? A carver makes clean edges. A living beast slips in the mud. You can't fake weight shifting on soft ground." The laughing scholar bent close. He measured the claw drag with his own quill. His face changed. He straightened and did not laugh again. "The tracks are authentic," he said, slow and stiff. "No forged mold shows this." A murmur ran through the tables. The inspectors began writing. Luna's knees felt weak. The casts were proven real. But she heard the whispers spreading. Tracks proved something walked the forest. They had not seen the creature itself. She had a family of footprints and no living Snorkack to stand beside them.