Chapter Two.

“I’m telling you, Mom, I saw it! I’m serious. Deadly serious!” 

Luna looked at her son with a hint of sadness in her eyes. Her radish earrings dipped in the wind, and she hugged her bright green and purple shawl tighter around her neck. 

“Oh, Lysander,” she sighed, brushing his cowlick down onto his head. It sprang up almost instantly, then weighted itself down with the light mist that sprayed against both of them. “You know that your father and I believe in things unproven, but we had hoped that you and Lorcan wouldn’t.”

“Why?” Lysander demanded, suddenly growing angry. Have they been lying to us all our life, when they tell us that things like the Crumple-Horned snorkack aren’t real? But they were real, he knew it. That creature… there couldn’t be anything else to explain it. 

There was a tremor as both the wind and rain grew stronger.

 
“Many kids where very cruel to me when I went to Hogwarts,” Luna said, a dreamy but sad smile on her face. “And when you and your brother start in…” she paused. 

“Five days,” Lysander said, trying to ignore the pit of dread that brewed inside of him. 
“We just want to best environment of learning for you and Lorcan, dear.” 

Lysander looked down at the wet ground, trying not to say any of the thoughts that were going through his mind. Luna looked at him for several more moments, than strode away, into the warm cottage where Lorcan and her husband were. 
I know I saw a Crumple-Horned Snorkack, Lysander thought, clenching his wet fists together. With a sly glance at the cottage, he walked to the very edge of the yard, and looked down at the forest once more. He glanced between the trees, and when nothing remotely looking purple appeared, Lysander bit his lip. 

With one more look at the cottage, Lysander let his body slide down the wet, well-worn trail that led down the side of the mountain. 

If no one was going to believe him, he would find the truth himself.