Lost and Found [Newt Scamander]

Interlude

The Dark Forest at the edge of Hogwarts acted as a natural border to substitute the bounds of Hogwarts.

Students flitted past, walking arm in arm with comrades as they talked or played but no one really ventured in too deep inside. The stories mostly kept them out.

Khelben Gideon Barnes found himself chasing those stories and then later, found himself chasing the solitude in doing so.

The little clearing deep into the forest was Kel's spot. He hadn't set up a sign of registering it publicly; he was simply just the one person to use the space.

He'd found it on his second venture into the forest. Ten minutes of wondering and keeping an eye on the sun gleam through the forest so as not to get lost, the little clearing had just been waiting for him, a long log wide enough to support him pushed to the corner of it, and the canopy of the trees hid anyone within from venturing eyes above (should any rumors prove true that there was some magical dragon that roamed the tops of the forests in London).

Here he could live in peace; escape from the bustling crowds of Hogwarts students and the life beyond the trees that always demanded something of him whether it be classes, homework, or spells. He could work out here in silence, sit out here, and stare at both nothing and everything for hours on end if he so pleased. And it had been wonderful, to have a place he could rely on, to know that only he knew about the spot and that it belonged to him. Until the day it wasn't.

"S-stop. Please... stay back."

A voice broke Kel's silence and he looked up, alarmed, to see a boy in Hufflepuff robes and curly golden hair. But that was the shocking part. People didn't alarm Kel. It was the animal beside that person, however, that rendered Kel utterly voiceless.

Whatever it was was small. A winged creature with what could only be described as paws or talons too large for its body. Still, it nearly matched Kel's already tall height when it stood up straight, beady eyes boring into Kel's own brown ones that were wide as he stared.

Slowly, Kel tore his eyes away from the creature and looked over to the boy who stood beside the thing, arms raised as he tried to soothe it.

Kel looked at him in question, looking for answers but the boy read him wrong and only offered his name.

"Um, hi. I'm Newt." He offered a small, lopsided smile as if he'd just learned the action that morning. It was nervous and forced and guilty, as if he'd been caught in the corridors after curfew.

"Kel." The other boy replied dumbly.

The two boys stared at each other, one frozen in his place and the other glancing nervously between the creature, the boy, and the shoes of said boy. Not one for eye contact, Kel noted.

Newt blinked and looked at the ground, smile withering away into something fainted. Kel knew what the boy just see. Tall ravenette, golden skin so deep in color he could blend in with the throes of the woods around him, nothing but a sliver of light darting around the trunks. A Ravenclaw with a book cliched under his arm, a burning gaze Kel couldn't help even on his best days.

Kel shifted and cleared his throat, trying to appear more friendly. He let his shoulders drop in turn with softening his eyes that still held more questions than he'd thought he could possess. In his seventh year at Hogwarts, he'd thought he'd figured it all out. The boy before him changed all of that.

"H-he's not dangerous," Newt said, breaking out of whatever trance he'd been caught in. He turned; finding it easier to turn his attention to the creature beside him instead of the stranger in front. Kel watched Newt's shoulders relax and smile liven as he did so and watched intently, curiously.