A Midsummer Hunt

A Midsummer Encampment

Harry Potter.

It had taken a better part of two hours to get through all of the questions from Daphnis, he wasn't kidding about wanting to know everything about Aragog and his kin. From rough estimates of how many there were, to the size of the largest, to the size of the smallest, if He had seen any egg clutches, did they come up from borrows or descend from the trees, if there was any Unktomi, and everything in between. He had Atalanta take notes on every question asked, and had Harry draw out a map of the Den from what he could remember that night. After Daphnis had wrung all the useful information out of Harry's brain, he had quickly snatched the notes, and with a thank you to both, He had left the compartment with a huge smile on his face.

The train began to slow down soon after, Harry could practically taste the excitement in the train as it came to a stop outside of Hogsmeade station. The hunt moves through the train with trunks and bags before emptying onto the platform, where the line of carriages sat waiting for them with the familiar form of the groundskeeper of Hogwarts.

"Hagrid!" Harry calls out to the man with a wave and a smile, the large man turns his head at the sound of his name and smiles when he sees who called to him.

" 'Arry, Atolanta, 'eard you two were gonna be 'ere,' ' Hagrid says as the two walk up to him.

"Why are you here? I was sure it was gonna be Dumbledore meeting us," Atalanta says with a smile to her drinking buddy while helping Harry with his trunk.

"Ay, the Headmaster was meaning to, but business at the Ministry is running a bit later than he had thought it would, so he asked me to be welcoming ya onto the grounds, now which one of these girl be being Miss Zoë Nightshade?" The friendly giant asks while looking over the crowd of girls with more than a little concern in his eyes.

Atalanta turns and looks over the crowd of girls, searching for a moment before pointing towards the front of the train, "See the tall girl with my color skin and looks like she had just stubbed her toe?" She asks

"Ay! I see her, Thanks Miss Atalanta," Hagrid says to the lioness before he starts over to Zoë as Harry and Atalanta load up his things on the back of the carriage, looking down the row he sees a few of the hunters doing something odd, pointing to the front of the carriages and extending their hands to pet something.

"What are they doing?" Harry asks out loud, looking at the girls as Atalanta peaks around the side.

"Oh, they're petting the Thestral's," Atalanta says as she walks over and opens the compartment to the carriage.

"The what?" Harry asks, confused.

"Thestral's, a breed of winged horses that are invisible to those who haven't seen death and accepted the reality of it, mostly harmless scavengers," Atalanta says with a shrug.

Harry walks to the front of the carriage, and as always seemed to be horseless, but as he gets to the front he feels something turn to him before a breath of cold air that smelt of sweetly rotted meat passes across his face and he takes a step back, before jumping a bit as Atalanta appears beside him with a raised brow.

"Here," she says as she takes his hand and guides it to something and places his hand on something hard, flat, ice cold. Harry lets out a laugh as he begins to stroke whatever it was, instead of fur he felt scales, which was an odd thing when he envisioned the horse in his head.