Luna Lovegood's Arc

Chapter 13 of 19

The inspectors filed out of the Great Hall at dusk. Luna followed them down the castle steps. She still carried the chipped cast under her arm. The tracks were proven real now, but the doubters kept whispering. Footprints were not a living beast. She needed the creature itself, and the herd had vanished into the forest days ago. Then the whispers stopped. A student near the front cried out and pointed at the tree line. A Snorkack stepped from the shadows. Not the young one. This was full grown, tall at the shoulder, its coat marked with swirling green and blue lines. Luna knew it at once. The mother. She had placed the young one back in this creature's care herself. Now the mother walked into the open, straight toward the crowd of wizards. The inspectors froze. One reached for his wand. Luna pushed past him and raised her own hand. "Don't," she said. "She isn't attacking." The mother stopped a few paces from Luna. Its blue eyes fixed on her. It lowered its head, slow and careful. Luna understood. She had given back its child unharmed. The creature had come to answer that kindness, to show these staring men that Snorkacks were not the beasts they feared. Luna reached into her pocket. She drew out a piece of sugared gurdyroot, the crystals catching the last light. She held it flat on her palm and stepped closer. The mother sniffed, then took the treat gently from her hand. A gasp ran through the wizards behind her. The scholar who had laughed that afternoon now stood with his quill dropped in the grass. "That's—" he said. "That's a live one. There's a live one." Luna kept her voice low so only the creature could hear. "They can see you now," she whispered. "They believe you." The mother let her rest a hand on its neck. The inspectors crowded forward, writing fast, muttering measurements. One tried to circle behind it. That was the mistake. The creature's ears flattened. It jerked away from the reaching hands. Luna spun, but the crowd had already closed too near. The mother wheeled, gave one sharp bark, and bolted back toward the trees. In three bounds it was gone into the dark. Silence held the grounds. Then the noise broke loose. Every inspector talked at once. They had seen it. Dozens of witnesses, scholars, Ministry men, all of them had watched a living Snorkack eat from Luna's hand. But it had run. Luna stood in the trampled grass, her palm still warm where its muzzle had touched her. She had her witnesses at last. She did not have the creature. It had shown itself and fled, and now the whole wizarding world knew Snorkacks were real and roamed free in the forest. They would want one caught and held. So would Luna. The mother trusted her. Catching it now would break that trust forever.