Luna Lovegood knelt in the wet grass and studied the paw prints no one else believed were real. They circled the clearing, pressed deep near a thornbush. A Crumple-Horned Snorkack had come here in the night. She was certain. If she caught one alive, the whole wizarding world would finally stop laughing. But her trap lay ruined at her feet, and that was the problem. She had built it from wire and rope. The wire had snapped shut too hard. She saw where it would have crushed a small creature the moment it stepped inside. A dead Snorkack proved nothing. A hurt one would run and never return. She needed a trap that held gently, and she had no idea how to make one. A branch cracked behind her. Hermione Granger stepped through the trees, arms crossed, a heavy book tucked under one elbow. She was the cleverest witch Luna knew, and she had never believed in Snorkacks once. Yet here she stood, breathing hard, having followed Luna out into the cold. "You left dinner three hours ago," Hermione said. "I thought you'd fallen in a ditch." She looked at the mangled wire and frowned. "Luna, this thing could take a person's hand off." "That's why it's no good," Luna said. "I don't want to hurt it. I only want to show everyone it's real." Hermione crouched beside her. She poked the sprung wire, then went quiet. Luna waited. She knew that face. It meant Hermione had stopped arguing and started thinking. "The problem is the force," Hermione said. "A trap that clamps will always injure. You need one that holds without pressure." She opened her book and flipped pages fast. "A cushioning charm on a soft enclosure. Something that closes slow." Luna's eyes widened. "Like a net that hugs instead of bites." "Exactly." Hermione almost smiled. "We'd need soft cloth, not wire. Wide mesh, so it can breathe." They worked through the night. Hermione cut the wire away and taught Luna the cushioning charm. Luna gathered fistfuls of moss for a soft floor. Hermione stitched a wide cloth net and wove the charm through every knot. When they tested it on a fallen apple, the net drifted closed and cradled the fruit without a bruise. By dawn they had it. A gentle enclosure that could hold a living creature unharmed. Luna held the finished net to her chest and laughed. Then a low bleat came from the trees. Both girls turned. A llama stepped into the clearing, cheerful and calm, its coat pale in the gray light. It walked straight into their fresh trap. The net closed and hugged it snugly. The llama chewed and looked pleased. "That's not a Snorkack," Hermione said flatly. "No," Luna agreed, staring. "But it works." She smiled. "Now I have to find where the real one hides before it moves on."

The gentle net worked. Now Luna needed the real creature to walk into it. But she still had no idea what a Snorkack would eat. No one had ever confirmed one existed, let alone fed one. She sat in her father's cluttered study, the finished net across her lap, and stared at the shelves of jars and papers. If anyone knew, it was him. Xenophilius Lovegood shuffled in wearing his purple cardigan, glasses sliding down his nose. He believed in Snorkacks more than anyone alive. He was the one who first told Luna they were real, back when she was small. He set down a chipped teacup and peered at her. "You've got that look," he said. "The one your mother had before she solved something." "I built a trap that won't hurt it," Luna said. "But it won't come out for an empty net. I need bait. What do they like?" Her father's smile faded. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed them slowly. "I never learned that," he admitted. "I chased them for thirty years. I saw prints. I heard calls at night. I never got one to come close." Luna's stomach dropped. If he didn't know, no book would tell her. But he crossed to a locked drawer and dug out a bundle of yellowed notes. "These are my old field journals," he said. "Read them. Maybe you'll see what I missed." Luna read for hours. Most pages held dead ends. Then one entry stopped her. Her father had written that every clearing with prints also held gurdyroot plants, chewed down to stubs. He had thought it a coincidence. Luna did not. "They eat gurdyroot," she whispered. "You wrote it yourself and never noticed." Her father leaned over the page. His eyes went wide. "By the stars. All those years." Gurdyroot grew sour and tough. A hungry creature might pass it by. Luna thought hard, then remembered the sweets jar in the kitchen. She fetched sugar and a fat gurdyroot. She boiled it, rolled it, and coated it in crackling sugar crystals until it sparkled. A treat no shy animal could resist. She held up the finished bait. It glittered in the lamplight. Her father clapped his hands like a boy. "That," he said, "is the smartest thing anyone in this family has done." Luna knew where to place it. Her father's notes pointed to one spot again and again. Deep in the tangled woods, past the shadowed trunks, where prints gathered thickest. The old forest was dark and easy to lose yourself in. But that was where the Snorkack hid. She wrapped the sugared root in cloth and tucked it beside the net. She had a trap that held gently. Now she had bait that tempted. The last thing she needed was to carry both into the deep forest and set them without getting lost.

Luna reached the deep forest spot from her father's notes by midafternoon. The trees grew close here. Thorns and vines choked the ground. She knelt with the net and the sugared bait, then stopped. There was no clear patch of dirt anywhere. A Snorkack needed open ground to step onto the trap. The tangle left nowhere to set it. Hermione arrived a moment later, breathing hard, a satchel of books over one shoulder. She had helped Luna rebuild the trap once already, turning a cruel design into a gentle one. She looked at the snarled undergrowth and frowned. "You can't set a net on top of brambles," she said. "It won't spring. And nothing will walk through this." "I know," Luna said. "But the prints are here. My father marked this exact place." Harry pushed through the vines behind them, sleeves torn, wand already out. Luna had asked him along for the hard part. He looked at the mess and grinned. "Then we make a path," he said. He didn't wait for a plan. He started clearing. Hermione stopped him. "Not with fire. Not with force. If you scorch it, the creature won't come near." She opened a book across her knees and read fast. "We cut it gently. Small charms. We shape one clear lane through the thorns and leave a bare patch at the end." They worked for two hours. Harry sliced vines low and dragged them aside. Hermione lifted bramble roots with careful flicks of her wand. Luna smoothed the freed soil with her hands until one clean stretch of ground opened through the tangle. It looked like a game trail now. A path an animal might trust. Luna set the net across the bare patch. She laid the cushioning charm beneath it, the way Hermione had taught her. Then she placed the sugared gurdyroot at the far end, where the cleared lane met the wall of trees. The sweet crust caught the last light. "That's a real trap," Hermione said quietly. "Set right, for once." Before they left, Luna raised her wand over the fresh dirt. The tip glowed pale blue. She had used it to read old prints before. Now it showed her something new. Faint marks lay along the very lane they had cut. Warm ones. Recent. Harry leaned close. "Are those—" "Fresh," Luna whispered. "Made today. While we were clearing." Her heart pounded. Something had been here. Something had watched them work and moved off into the dark trees just beyond the bait. The trap was ready. The creature was close. But it had already learned their scent and their sound. Now Luna had to catch a thing that knew she was hunting it.

The trap sat ready in the cleared lane. The creature stayed hidden in the trees, just past the bait. Luna, Hermione, and Harry crouched behind a fallen log and waited. An hour passed. The gurdyroot's sweet crust dulled in the fading light. Twice Luna saw the brush shift. Twice nothing came. The creature would not step onto the path while three people watched. "It smells us," Hermione whispered. "It won't come near while we're this close." She pulled her wand back into her sleeve. "We're the problem now. Not the trap." Luna knew she was right. Every minute they stayed, the creature learned more. Soon it would give up and drift deeper into the forest. She thought of her father, thirty years of searching, nothing to show. She would not lose this over her own breathing. "Then we leave," Luna said. "All of us. We go back to camp and let it think we're gone." Harry frowned. "And if it takes the bait and slips the net? We won't be here to spring it." He kept his voice low, but his hand stayed on his wand, ready to bolt forward. "The net springs itself," Luna said. "Hermione built it that way. We only need it to walk in." They backed out slow, careful of every twig. The three of them reached the pavilion under the cherry tree where they'd made camp. Blossoms drifted onto the roof. Luna sat facing the dark trees and would not look away. Dusk fell. Then, from the cleared lane, a soft sound carried. A snap. A rustle. The net's charm gave a low hum as it closed. Luna ran. Harry and Hermione crashed through the brush behind her. She skidded to the edge of the bare patch and stopped cold. The soft mesh had lifted and gathered. Inside it, something struggled. Something small, gray, with a curled horn on its snout and two dark eyes. It thrashed against the flowered net, but the cushioning charm held it gentle. It was not hurt. It was caught. "Luna," Hermione breathed. "Look at it." Luna could not speak. She reached out. The creature went still and stared back at her. Its horn was real. Its breath fogged the cool air. Everything her father had believed, everything the world called a lie, sat trapped in her woven net. "We did it," Harry said. "You did it." Then the creature opened its mouth and let out a cry. Not a squeal. A long, rising call that rolled through the trees like a horn blown at night. Luna's chest tightened. From the deep forest, far off, another call answered. Then a third, closer. Branches cracked. Heavy feet moved toward them through the dark. The Snorkack in the net was a young one. And its family had heard it scream.

The young Snorkack cried again. The sound rolled through the trees, high and desperate. Somewhere in the dark, its family answered. Branches snapped closer. Luna knelt by the net and knew the truth at once. Every cry brought the herd nearer. If she covered the creature's mouth, she might hurt it. If she freed it, she lost everything her father had spent thirty years chasing. "We have to move," Harry said. He stood between Luna and the trees, wand up, watching the dark. His green eyes flicked from shadow to shadow. He had helped her clear this path with gentle magic, not force. Now his voice was tight. "Luna. They're coming. Whatever you're going to do, do it fast." Luna looked at the little creature. It thrashed against the flowered net, chest heaving, horn scraping the mesh. It was not calling for help by accident. It was calling for its mother. And the answer was almost here. Then she remembered the harp. She had carried it into the forest for exactly this. Her father's notes said Snorkacks calmed to slow music, the way some creatures still for a low, steady sound. She had thought she would never need it. She pulled it from her pack and set it in the dirt beside the net. "Luna, there's no time," Harry hissed. "There's only this," she said. She drew her fingers across the strings. A soft note lifted into the night. She played slow, one note after another, the way her father hummed when she was small. The young Snorkack twitched. Its cry broke off. It went still and stared at her hands. The heavy feet in the forest slowed. The answering calls dropped to low rumbles, then to nothing. Luna kept playing. Sweat ran down her neck. Her fingers ached. But the little creature had stopped fighting. It lay quiet in the net, breathing soft, watching the strings shimmer in the dark. "It worked," Harry breathed. "The herd stopped." Luna did not stop the music. She gathered the net with one hand, cradling the calm creature against her chest, still plucking single notes with the other. "We walk," she whispered. "Slow. While it stays quiet." They backed out of the clearing together, Harry watching the trees, Luna playing the whole way. The forest stayed silent behind them. No feet followed. They reached the tent house at the edge of camp and ducked inside the sturdy canvas walls. Luna laid the netted Snorkack on a blanket and let the last note fade. The creature slept. She had it. Alive. Unhurt. Real. But the harp could not play forever. Her fingers were already stiff. And out in the dark, the herd had not gone home. They had only stopped. They knew exactly where their young one had been taken. The music had bought her the night. It had not bought her the morning.

Morning came gray through the canvas walls. The young Snorkack slept on the blanket, its striped flank rising slow. Luna's fingers throbbed. She had played the harp half the night to keep it calm, and still the herd waited somewhere in the trees. The music had bought the dark. It would not buy the day. The moment she stopped, the little one would cry, and its family would come for the tent. She knelt beside the sleeping creature and thought hard. She could not play forever. She could not silence a frightened animal without hurting it. But she remembered her father's journals, the neat lines of ink he had written for thirty years. Snorkacks ate gurdyroot. A fed creature was a calm creature. And a calm creature did not call for help. Luna dug the sugared gurdyroot from her pack. She had saved a handful of it. She broke off a piece and held it near the young one's nose. Its eyes opened. It sniffed, then took the food from her palm. It chewed. Its ears settled flat and easy. It did not cry. But one meal would not last. The herd would return by nightfall, and she had almost nothing left to give. Luna needed more gurdyroot, and she needed it fast. She could not leave the tent to dig for it. If she left, the creature would wake alone and call, and the herd would tear through the canvas. So she made a plan. She lifted her wand, the slender wood warm in her sore hand. She had learned to sense where a Snorkack had walked, the faint heat of fresh tracks. Now she turned that same magic outward, low to the ground, feeling for the pale roots that grew near water. The wand tip glowed green. It pulled her gaze toward the far corner of the tent, where a purple-black rose grew wild against the canvas. Gurdyroot liked the same damp soil as that flower. Luna could not reach it without leaving the Snorkack. So she chose the harder thing. She scooped the drowsy creature into her arms, wrapped it loose in the blanket, and carried it with her. It stayed quiet, still chewing the last of the sweet root. She dug at the base of the dark rose with her free hand. Roots came up thick and white. Enough for a day. Maybe two. By dusk she had a full basket and a sleeping creature that had not cried once. The herd rumbled at the tree line, then went still. They had heard nothing to call them in. Luna sat back against the canvas, exhausted. She had solved it. Food kept the young one quiet, and quiet kept the herd away. But her hands shook as she counted the roots. The wild gurdyroot near the tent was nearly gone. To keep the creature calm, she would have to go back into the forest for more. And the herd was waiting there.

Luna woke before dawn to a new sound. The herd had moved in the night. She heard heavy steps at the tree line, closer than before, and low rumbles that made the canvas shiver. She grabbed her father's harp and played. The slow notes rolled out. The steps paused. But her fingers ached, and the rumbles did not fade for long. This time the music only slowed them. It would not turn them back. By nightfall the herd would reach the tent, and she could not play through another day. She needed help. She thought of one person who worked with wild creatures at close range, who spoke to beasts most people ran from. She sent word at first light. By midday he came crashing up the path, too big for the trees, ducking branches that would have stopped anyone else. Hagrid dropped a heavy sack by the tent and grinned through his black beard. "Heard yeh caught a Snorkack," he said. "Real one. Xeno's own girl." He crouched and peered at the young creature on the blanket. His face went soft. "Beauty, isn' she. But her mum's out there, an' she's scared. Scared mums are the dangerous ones." "The music won't hold them anymore," Luna said. "They're too close." Hagrid nodded slowly. "Then we don' hold 'em with music. We keep 'em out." He opened the sack and pulled out three worn stones, each taller than her knee, cut with faint runes that glowed from inside. "Ward stones. Old magic. Set 'em round the camp an' nothin' wild crosses the line. Won' hurt 'em. Just stops 'em." They worked fast. Hagrid carried the stones like bread loaves and drove them into the soil around the tent. Luna spoke the words he taught her over each one. The runes brightened. A faint hum rose between the stones, then a thin wall of light that she could see only from the corner of her eye. As the last stone settled, the herd broke from the trees. Great striped shapes, huge and horned, thundered toward the tent. Luna's chest locked. Hagrid pulled her back. The lead beast hit the ward line and stopped dead, as if it had walked into a wall. It bellowed and pawed the ground. The others gathered behind it. None crossed. "There," Hagrid breathed. "Told yeh." Luna set down the harp for the first time in a day. Her hands stopped shaking. The camp was safe. The herd could not reach the young one now. But she watched the mother press against the light, again and again, calling for her child. The stones would hold the herd out. They would also hold Luna in. She could not leave the ring to gather gurdyroot, and she could not carry the young Snorkack out to the world with its whole family camped at her door, refusing to leave.

By morning the young Snorkack slept on the blanket, calm from the sugared gurdyroot. Its mother still pressed the ward line, calling. Luna had her proof now, alive and breathing at her feet. But proof meant nothing if no one believed it. She could send owls to the papers. They would print a laugh, not a report. She had learned that long ago and stopped arguing. This time she needed witnesses. She needed someone the wizarding world would trust to say the words: it is real. She wrote three letters and sent them at dawn. By afternoon her friends came up the path. Hermione arrived first, wand out, already studying the wall of light between the stones. She had helped Luna rebuild the trap from a killing thing into a gentle one. She trusted careful work, not luck. She knelt by the young creature and touched its side. Her breath caught. "Luna," she said quietly. "It's warm. It has a pulse. This is a living animal no one has ever recorded." She looked up, eyes wet. "They'll say we faked it." Harry came behind her, ducking a branch. He had cleared this forest path with them, two hours of gentle magic through the thorns. He looked past the tent to the herd beyond the light. "Then we make it so they can't," he said. "We bring people who can't be waved off." Hagrid stepped through the gap in the stones. He kept Hogwarts, he cared for beasts most wizards fled. His word on a creature carried weight no reporter could dismiss. He crouched by the young Snorkack and went soft again. "I've seen a hundred beasts folk swore didn' exist," he rumbled. "This one's real. I'll sign me name to it. So will the school, if they see her breathin'." So they made a record. Hermione cast the spell that fixed an image in glass, then wrote down the pulse, the horn, the striped hide. Harry stood witness beside her. Hagrid pressed his great hand to the parchment and named the creature living, healthy, unharmed. Three names the wizarding world could not laugh away. Luna held the letter to the light. Her father had searched thirty years and never had this. She had it now, sealed and signed. The proof would reach the world. But as Hermione lifted her wand from the glass image, the young Snorkack stirred. The last gurdyroot was gone. It opened its mouth and cried, a thin high sound that carried past the stones. Beyond the light the mother answered. The whole herd surged against the barrier at once, harder than before. A rune cracked. Thin light flickered where the stone had held. Hagrid stared at the failing ward. "That won' hold long now," he said. "They know she's callin'. An' we're out of root to quiet her." Luna had her proof. Now the wall around it was breaking.

The last root was gone. The young Snorkack cried again, and the cracked rune spat sparks. Beyond the light, the mother slammed the barrier. Another rune split. Luna knelt by the shaking creature and understood the truth she had been avoiding. She could not keep it. Every cry weakened the wall, and every hour drew the herd closer to breaking through. Proof did not need a prisoner. She had the record now, signed and sealed. The creature needed its mother. "I have to give it back," Luna said. Hermione stared at her. She had spent hours turning Luna's killing trap into a gentle one, and she hated waste. "You caught the only living Snorkack ever recorded," she said. "You want to open the wall and hand it away?" "The wall is failing anyway," Luna said. "If it breaks, the herd comes through angry. If I carry the young one out, they follow it, not us." Harry looked from the sparking runes to the pacing shapes in the trees. He had cleared this forest path once, thorn by thorn. He trusted a plan he could see. "Then we do it fast," he said. "Before the next stone goes." Luna lifted the young Snorkack into the soft flower-woven net, the same gentle mesh that had first caught it. It did not bruise the creature. It only cradled it. Then she took her wand and touched the ground. Faint marks glowed where the mother's feet had pressed the earth again and again, always at one place along the barrier. That was where she waited. "Open the gap there," Luna told Hermione. "Only there." Hermione's jaw tightened, but she raised her wand. Harry stood ready beside the stones. Luna carried the net to the marked spot and knelt just inside the light. "Now," she said. Hermione dropped a single length of the barrier. The mother lunged. Luna did not run. She set the net down in the open gap and drew the mesh away, freeing the young one onto the bare ground between them. Then she stepped back, hands empty. The young Snorkack ran to its mother. The huge creature curled its striped body around it and went still. The crying stopped. Behind them the whole herd went quiet at once. "Close it," Luna said, and Hermione sealed the light. The herd did not charge. The mother nosed her calf, then turned and led the others back into the dark trees. Within minutes the forest swallowed them. The runes stopped sparking. The wall held over an empty tent. Luna stood in the sudden silence. She had let the proof walk away on four legs. But the parchment in her hand still named it real, witnessed and signed. She had lost the creature and kept the truth. Then she looked at the sealed record and saw the flaw. The image showed a young Snorkack alone. No one had recorded the herd. The world would ask where the rest were, and she had just sent them into the trees.

The tent stood empty. Luna held the sealed record and read its flaw again. The parchment showed one young Snorkack alone. No herd. She had released the whole family into the trees, and now the picture proved only a single animal. The world would call it a runaway goat with paint. She had to fix the record before it left her hands. Hermione paced beside the cold ward stones. "I told you," she said. "We had proof. Now we have a drawing of one small creature." She stopped and rubbed her eyes. "Nobody will accept a species from one specimen." Harry crouched near the marked ground where the mother had waited. He pressed two fingers into the earth. "Look," he said. "They left tracks. Dozens of them." He traced a wide print, then a smaller one beside it. "The whole herd crossed here." Luna knelt beside him. Her father had shown her tracks once, in the dirt, and she had believed him because of his face. Now she had her own tracks, fresh and many. She touched the deepest print. "Prints aren't enough," she said. "He had prints for thirty years. They still called him mad." Heavy boots crushed the leaves behind them. Hagrid ducked under the branch, his black beard tangled with bramble. He had brought the ward stones that saved them, and he knew wild creatures better than anyone. He looked at the empty tent and the sparked-out runes. "Yeh let it go," he said. He didn't sound angry. He sounded proud. "Right thing." "The record shows only one," Luna said. "I have no picture of the herd." Hagrid crouched, and his knees cracked. He studied the tracks a long moment. Then he pulled a scrap of clean hide from his coat. "Casts," he said. "Yeh pour a settin' charm in a print, it hardens. Keeps the shape true. I done it for hippogriffs." He counted the prints with a thick finger. "Six different feet here. Six animals, at least. Can't fake six." Luna understood. One drawing could be a trick. Six molded tracks, each a different size, made a family. She raised her wand over the nearest print. Hermione knelt on her left and Harry on her right. Together they filled the prints with a hardening charm. The mud set gray and firm. They lifted six casts free. Luna laid them on the flattened grass in a row. Big feet, small feet, one with a chipped edge where a creature had stumbled. Hagrid pressed his signature into fresh wax beside each one. Hermione wrote the count and the place. Luna held the casts to the light. The record no longer showed one animal. It showed a herd that walked, fed, and fled as a group. "Now," Luna said, "we carry this to the castle." She looked toward Hogwarts, its towers gray against the trees. "They read tracks there. They'll read these." But casts could still be doubted. She needed someone at Hogwarts with the power to make the record official.

Luna carried the six casts to Hogwarts in a cloth sling. Hermione walked beside her with the sealed record and the wax seals. But when they reached the great doors, Luna stopped. She had proof now. She had no place to show it. A record locked in a drawer changed no one's mind. The wizarding world had laughed at her father for thirty years. They would not walk to a corner to look. "Where do we even put these?" Hermione asked. She held the parchment to her chest. "A shelf? A classroom nobody visits? They'll dismiss it before they read the first line." Luna knew she was right. She needed a place where doubters would gather and be forced to look. She needed someone with the power to make that happen. She turned toward the tower where the headmaster kept his office. They climbed to Dumbledore's study. He sat behind a wide desk in a purple robe stitched with stars. His half-moon glasses slid down his nose. He did not look surprised to see them. He looked as if he had been waiting. "Miss Lovegood," he said. "You have been busy in the forest." Luna set the casts on his desk in a row. Big feet. Small feet. One with a chipped edge. She laid the sealed record beside them. "Six animals," she said. "Different sizes. A family. Hagrid signed each cast. This is real." Dumbledore lifted the chipped cast and turned it in the light. He said nothing for a long moment. Hermione shifted her weight beside Luna. Luna held her breath the way she had held it in the forest, waiting for the herd. "My father found tracks once," Luna said. "He kept them thirty years. Nobody came to see. If you put these on a shelf, nobody will come to see mine either." Dumbledore set the cast down. He studied her face, then the row of gray molds. "You are asking me for a room," he said. "Not a drawer." "I am asking for the Great Hall," Luna said. "Everyone passes through it. They eat there. They cannot look away." Dumbledore stood. He walked to the window and looked toward the trees. "The Ministry sends inspectors this term," he said. "Scholars. Skeptics. They will all sit under that ceiling." He turned back. His eyes were bright. "I will display your casts in the Great Hall. On the head table's dais, where none can miss them. I will invite the doubters myself." Luna's chest loosened. Hermione let out a breath. "But understand," Dumbledore said. "When they gather, they will not gather to believe. They will gather to tear it apart. You must be there to answer them." Luna gathered the casts back into her sling. She had her place now. In two weeks the wizarding world would sit before her proof. And every skeptic in it would be looking for the flaw she had not yet found.

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.

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.

By morning the story had turned sour. One inspector stood on the castle steps and told the others the mother had been a fake. A trained beast, he said, painted to fool them. He pointed at the empty tree line. "Where is this herd she claims? Hidden, always hidden. Show me one more, or I write this down as a hoax." The other inspectors nodded. Luna's proof was slipping away again. Luna could not force the herd into the open. They stayed deep in the trees, past the field where the mother had fled. Music would only push them back, not draw them close. She had one creature that trusted her, and she had let it run to keep that trust. Now that choice looked like an empty hand. Dumbledore came down the steps behind her. His starred robe dragged on the stone. He did not argue with the inspectors. He looked at Luna over his glasses. "They want a live animal on a leash," he said quietly. "You will not give them that. So give them something they cannot dismiss." "I have nothing left," Luna said. "You have the treat it ate from your hand." He nodded toward her pocket. "A trained beast obeys a trainer. It does not choose. Let them watch it choose you." Luna understood. She drew the sugared gurdyroot from her pocket. The crystals still caught the light. She walked past the inspectors, out onto the trampled grass, alone. She stopped at the edge of the field and held the root flat on her palm. Then she waited, still, saying nothing. The inspectors muttered. Minutes passed. The accuser smirked. Luna kept her arm out until it ached. A branch moved. The mother stepped from the trees. It came slow, ears up, watching the crowd. It did not come for the men. It came for Luna. It crossed the whole open field with dozens of wands ready, and no one had called it, and no one held a rope. It lowered its head and took the root from her palm. Then it turned and walked back to the trees on its own. The accuser had stopped smirking. "No trainer," Dumbledore said, loud now. "No leash. It came when no one commanded it and left when no one held it. Write that down." The inspector said nothing. He could not. The whole field had seen a wild creature choose Luna over safety. His accusation was dead. But Luna watched the trees swallow the mother again. She had won the argument. She still had no Snorkack to hold. And now the Ministry had a new demand in their eyes. They believed. They wanted one caged in the Great Hall, proof anyone could visit. Luna felt the trap close. To finish this, she would have to tell them she can’t catch them that’s not fair to them. They are living animals.

The inspectors won the argument by losing it. They believed now. But belief bought Luna a new demand. The lead inspector stood on the castle steps and folded his arms. "A creature in the Great Hall," he said. "Caged, so any wizard can come and see. That is proof. Bring us one, or the file stays open." Luna felt the trap shut around her. She had spent the whole hunt keeping these animals free. Now they wanted her to lock one in a box. She looked at the plaster casts still laid out on the head table inside. Six sets of tracks. A whole family. She had made them free and left them free. She would not undo that for a leash. But she had no words yet to stop the inspectors. "Give me one hour," she said. "Then I will answer." She walked down toward her tent at the tree line. Her llama trotted out to meet her, ears bobbing, that silly cheerful face turned up at her. It bumped her shoulder and waited to be scratched. Luna had caught this animal by accident in her very first trap, long ago, when she was still learning to build one that would not hurt anything. She had kept it. Now she knelt beside it and thought. Her trap held the llama safely. Cushioning charm. Soft mesh. No injury. That was the answer, and it was also the problem. A cage could hold a Snorkack the same gentle way. She could catch one. She had the tools. That was never the true blocker. The blocker was that a caged Snorkack was not proof of a Snorkack. It was proof of a prisoner. Luna stood. She understood her argument at last. She walked back up to the steps. The inspectors waited. Dumbledore stood behind them, silent, watching her. "You want a creature caged so any wizard can visit it," Luna said. "But a caged animal proves nothing. Trained beasts sit in cages. You told me so yourselves. The whole field saw a wild Snorkack cross open ground and choose me. No rope. No command. That is the only proof that cannot be faked. A cage would erase it." The lead inspector opened his mouth. Luna went on. "Wizarding law forbids caging a beast that comes to a human freely and does no harm. You cannot demand I break your own rule to satisfy your record." He did not answer. He looked at Dumbledore. Dumbledore only nodded once. "She is correct," he said. "The statute is plain." The inspector's jaw worked. Then he lowered his arms. "The file records the herd as genuine," he said stiffly. "Uncaged." He turned and left with the others. Luna had won. The Snorkacks stayed free. But as the inspectors walked off, she heard one mutter that a record was not the same as the world seeing. The wizarding world still had not looked with its own eyes. That was the thing left to fix.

The Ministry file called the herd genuine. But a file was only ink. Now that ruling had spread, and wizards wanted to see for themselves. Luna stood at her tent by the tree line and watched them come. A dozen figures in bright robes crossed the field toward the forest, chattering, pointing, tramping without care. If they reached the trees like this, they would spook the herd. The Snorkacks would flee deep and never trust an open field again. Luna's proof would vanish before anyone saw it. She ran up the slope to meet them. "Stop," she called. "You'll frighten them." A few slowed. Most did not. One man laughed and kept walking, wand raised to light the shadows under the branches. Luna's stomach dropped. She could not hold back a crowd alone. So she called for help. Hagrid came down from the castle grounds at a heavy jog, the ground shaking under his boots. He had brought her the ward stones once, ancient rocks carved with runes that kept the herd safely back. He knew wild creatures better than any scholar. "Oi!" he roared, and the whole crowd froze. "Yeh don't charge a shy beast like a herd o' hippogriffs!" The wizards stared at him, unsure. Hagrid softened his voice. "They come out fer her," he said, nodding at Luna. "Only her. Yeh push, an' yeh'll never lay eyes on one." The crowd muttered but stood still. Luna saw her chance. She would not fence them out. She would show them the right way to look. Dumbledore arrived then, walking calm across the grass in his star-flecked robes. The muttering stopped. Even the loud man lowered his wand. "Luna knows these creatures," Dumbledore said. "Follow her rules, and you may witness something no wizard has seen in a lifetime. Break them, and you will see nothing." His quiet weight settled the crowd where Luna's shouting could not. Luna took charge. She lined the wizards along the tree line, well back, wands dark. "Sit," she said. "Be quiet. Let me go first." They obeyed. She walked out alone into the open field, sugared gurdyroot cupped in her palm, and waited. Minutes passed. Then the mother Snorkack stepped from the trees. Its striped coat caught the light. It crossed the grass, ignored the crowd, and ate from Luna's hand. A dozen wizards watched a wild creature choose her freely. No cage. No rope. Someone gasped. Another began to weep. The Snorkack turned and slipped back into the forest. The wizards stayed frozen, then broke into a low, awed hum. They had seen it with their own eyes. Word of this would not be ink now. It would be witness. Hagrid grinned at Luna. But she saw the loud man already scribbling notes, and heard him whisper to another about bringing more people, dozens more. She had shown one crowd safely. Tomorrow there would be a bigger one.

The next morning came, and so did the crowd Luna feared. Not a dozen this time. Wizards spilled across the field in bright robes, more arriving by the minute. They had come without warning, without asking, tramping toward the tree line. Luna stood at the forest edge and watched the grass fill with strangers. If they surged forward now, the mother Snorkack would flee and never return. Worse, the creature had already smelled them once. Luna felt its trust thinning like ice in spring. She knew the signs. Yesterday the mother had come slowly, ears flat, testing the air before every step. One reckless wizard could break the last thread. Luna could not turn crowds away forever by shouting. She needed a system. A way to let people watch without ruining the very thing they came to see. So she built one. Luna led the wizards deep into the trees, away from the open field, to a pavilion beneath a great cherry tree. Pink blossoms drifted over its curved roof. The spot sat far enough from the herd's nesting ground to keep the creatures calm, close enough that they might still come. "Here," Luna said. "You wait here. Not in the field. Here." She set the rules plainly. Only she would carry the sugared gurdyroot. Only she would step past the pavilion pillars. The rest would sit under the blossoms, wands dark, voices low. She placed her father's harp near the edge and taught two witnesses the slow tune that soothed distressed Snorkacks. "If the herd grows nervous, play this," she said. "It buys us time." Then she raised her wand, the one that sensed where the creatures had walked, and traced the fresh path they must not cross. The wizards grumbled at first. One man wanted to move closer. Luna held her ground. "You broke the rule, you leave," she said. He sat down. Then Luna walked out alone, gurdyroot cupped in her palm. She waited. The pavilion held its breath behind her. Minutes passed. At last the mother stepped from the shadow of the tangled trunks, striped coat bright against the dark. It crossed the grass, calm now, unhurried by the distant, seated crowd. It ate from Luna's hand. The wizards watched from beneath the blossoms and did not move. The creature turned and slipped back into the forest, unafraid. It worked. The pavilion had held. The Snorkack's trust survived a crowd because Luna had given the crowd a place and a rule. The mother would come again. But as the wizards filed out, whispering, Luna saw a woman in Ministry robes at the back. She had not come to watch. She held a scroll and studied the pavilion, the harp, the whole quiet system Luna had built. "This cannot stay a private show," the woman said. "The Ministry will want it managed. Officially." Luna's stomach tightened. She had tamed the crowd. Now the Ministry meant to take her field from her.

The next morning the Ministry official returned with three assistants. She unrolled her scroll on a folding table and read Luna the plan. The Ministry would post its own keepers at the tree line. They would carry the food. They would set the hours and cross the boundary. "You have done well," the woman said, not looking up. "Now trained handlers will take it from here." Luna felt her stomach drop. Strangers would feed the mother Snorkack. And the mother trusted only her hand. Luna tried to explain. The creature knew her scent. It had eaten from her palm because she returned its young. "It won't come for a stranger," she said. The official waved this away. "A Snorkack is a Snorkack. It eats gurdyroot. Anyone can hold out gurdyroot." She sent one assistant to the tree line with a fistful of the treat. The man walked out into the grass. He held the gurdyroot high and waited. The pavilion crowd watched from beneath the blossoms. Nothing came. Minutes passed. The man stepped closer to the trees. A branch cracked deep in the forest, then silence. The mother did not show. The herd smelled a stranger and stayed hidden. "Give it time," the official said, but her voice had thinned. That was when Hagrid pushed through the crowd. He had grown up minding beasts most wizards feared, and Luna had called on him before. He looked at the assistant in the field and shook his shaggy head. "Yeh can't force trust," he told the official. "That animal picks its person. Take Luna out o' this an' yeh get nothin'." The official's chin lifted, but she did not argue with the man who had signed the herd's record. Then the crowd went quiet. Dumbledore came down the pavilion steps, his starred robes bright against the dark trunks. He had backed Luna before every doubting official and enforced her rules with authority no keeper could match. He studied the empty field, then the woman with the scroll. "Send Miss Lovegood out," he said. "Then decide who owns this trust." The official hesitated, then nodded. Luna took the gurdyroot and walked out alone. She stood where the assistant had failed. She waited, palm open. The pavilion held its breath. At last the mother stepped from the shadows, striped coat bright, ears calm. It crossed the grass without fear and ate from Luna's hand while the whole crowd watched. Then it turned and slipped back into the trees. The official rolled up her scroll. "The Ministry cannot manage what only you can approach," she said. "The site stays under your charge. We will fund it and record it." Luna had kept her field. But the woman added one line before she left. "The wizarding world wants more than a hand feeding. Soon they will want the herd itself, in the open, counted." Luna understood. Feeding one mother was no longer enough.

The Ministry official came back within a week, and this time she brought a builder's plan. She wanted paying spectators, hundreds of them, seated under a grand new stand at the tree line. Luna read the drawing and felt cold. So many wizards, so much noise, would drive the herd deep into the forest for good. The mother would never come again. "People will pay to count Snorkacks," the official said. "The wizarding world wants the whole herd, in the open. Your little pavilion is finished." Luna knew arguing would fail. She needed a place that could hold crowds without frightening the creatures. She sent word to Hermione and Hagrid that night. Hermione arrived at dawn with rolled parchments under her arm. She had helped Luna rebuild a killing trap into a gentle one, and she solved problems the same careful way now. She spread her sketches on the grass. "Not a stand," she said. "A sound-dampening auditorium, built around a living tree, far from the herd's ground. The tree's own branches muffle voices. We charm the seats to swallow noise." Hagrid studied the drawing and rubbed his beard. He had raised beasts most wizards feared, and he trusted his gut over any Ministry scholar. "Move the crowd off the forest edge an' the herd stays calm," he agreed. "But they won't come to strangers in a big buildin'." He looked at Luna. "Yeh'll still be the one who feeds 'em." They built it in three days. The great open-air hall rose beneath a giant tree, its branches spreading like a roof over rows of quiet seats. Hagrid set his glowing ward stones in a wide ring, their runes keeping the herd's ground safe and separate. Luna cleared a feeding lane between the auditorium and the trees. The spectators would watch from a distance. Only she would cross to the herd. The official brought her paying crowd on opening day. Hundreds filed into the seats. Luna feared the noise, but the dampening charms held. Voices sank to a hush beneath the branches. She walked out alone with sugared gurdyroot in her palm and stood in the lane. The mother stepped from the trees first. Then, one by one, five more came behind her, striped coats bright in the sun. The whole herd. The crowd counted them in silence, six creatures grazing in plain view. The mother crossed to Luna and ate from her hand while every wizard watched. Luna had shown the world the herd itself, in the open, without breaking their trust. The official climbed down, pale and quiet. "You did it," she said. "The herd is counted. Now everyone will want their own turn." She held out a stack of letters. Wizards from far countries had written, each demanding Luna bring a Snorkack to them, to prove it lived beyond this one forest. Luna took the letters. She had proven the herd here. Now the world wanted her to prove it everywhere.