Love comes from the most unexpected places || zeenunew

6. Scars

Zee Pruk Panich considered himself a man of word.

He promised a shooting to NuNew and the shooting took place on a weekend, a few days before the end of October. They took advantage of a day when they didn't have lessons, nor they had to chaperone students to Hogsmeade.

They decided to meet in the morning after breakfast, NuNew invited to join him at his hut, which Zee realized, would have been the first time for him to visit his hut.

The last days had been rather eventful, with two of the pregnant Centaurs giving birth to their cubs, two very healthy males, one of them exactly the night before, through a rainstorm.

The little one had nerves.

Even with the lack of sleep, Zee was tending to his pumpkin patch, picking the biggest ones requested by prof. Concordia Rowle, the witch in charge of Muggle Studies after the tragic passing of prof. Burbage by the wand of You-Know-Who.

She absolutely needed them within the day, so that they could be ready for Halloween.

In the last few years, since she took her teaching role in Hogwarts, she put on herself to restore a constructive dialogue between wizards and muggle, based on understanding their respective cultures. One of the most appreciated things introduced by her, to the students' delight, was introduction of a muggle-style Halloween party. If Hogwarts always had a nice dinner party in the Great Hall, she upped the game, in the literal sense of the word, proposing for a night of muggle Halloween costumes and House games. Truth to be told, this whole initiative was also well welcomed in Hogsmeade, where Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, run by George Weasley's first son Fred, experienced a powerful surge of sales of joke objects in the weeks preceding that specific holiday.

While putting the last pumpkins on a cart carried by a thestral, on the edge of his view he saw a lone, very colourful figure walking down from the path leading to the castle.

He didn't need to turn his looks, for he already knew it was him.

An instant smile touched Zee's lips.

"Hia!" the young wizard waved at him. As he got closer, Zee could see he picked a very nice set of denims and a comfy green sweatshirt with a printed rainbow over it. "Oh, are these for the Halloween party?" he said, stopping next to the cart.

"They are...!" Zee said, successfully lifting the last one on it. "I was about to take them to the castle... you can wait me here, we just arrived..."

"Oh no, it's ok, I'll walk with you, so we can maybe take a pic near the entrance and in my office? I mean, we can take it now, instead of later... so you won't have to come back to the castle a second time."

"Sure, why not, then I'll just grab my camera!" said Zee

"Krub! I'll wait here with..." NuNew hesitated, pointing at the magic beast.

"She doesn't have a name." Zee said, caressing the beast's muzzle a bit. "But she's happy to meet you."

"How do you know she's happy to meet me?"

"I just know! You see, she wants to be petted!" Zee said, while securing the pumpkins with a rope. NuNew tried to pet the thestral and by any mean, she really closed her eyes in content, which made NuNew smile.

"Narak!"

Which was something you rarely hear about a thestral.

But NuNew was just like this... no preconceptions, no judging, just... able to see the beauty in the most unexpected things, in the most unexpected ways.