Birth and Rebirth

By Zelda

Harry stormed deeper into the Forbidden Forest. He didn’t know why he had chosen to go into the forest. All he knew was he needed to be away from everything and everyone. Cedric’s death had been hard on Harry, but not as hard as it was when Sirius died.

Harry moved further and further into the forest and wasn’t really paying attention to where he was going until he saw something ahead of him move. He froze. He raised his wand to shoulder height in case it was something like a werewolf. Harry inched closer to the small clearing, in which he had seen the creature move. As Harry leaned forward he saw dark blood on the ground. The creature seemed to be injured. Harry looked around and couldn’t help but yelp with surprise. A thestral was lying against a tree covered in blood. One look told Harry that it was already dead. He looked around to make sure there were no more thestrals, then moved slowly into the clearing.

As Harry moved towards the dead thestral he noticed a small yelping sound coming from the ground at his feet. When he looked down to see what was making the sound, he received another huge shock. Four baby thestrals lay on the ground still covered in blood.  A light in Harry’s brain seemed to click. The dead thestral was these babies’ mother and she had died giving birth. If this was so, then these baby thestrals were orphans. 

Harry quickly tore off a bit of his robes and knelt down beside them. He quickly cleaned the blood off of each of them in turn then, doing the only thing he could think of to keep these babies alive, scooped them up and darted back towards Hagrid’s hut.

Harry met Hagrid half way to his hut. It turned out that Hagrid had been going to have a visit with Grawp. Hagrid ran to his hut and brought back some blood-milk and blankets. He set each baby on a blanket and feed it the blood-milk. He told Harry that he had done the right thing, bringing the baby thestrals to him instead of leaving them in the forest to die. “You get to name them, Harry,” said Hagrid after they settled themselves and the babies down on the edge of the forest.

“What?” Harry asked blankly.

“You found em’, saved em’, and now you get to name the thestrals,” Hagrid replied.

“Well, all right,” said Harry reaching forward, picking up the nearest thestral and placing it in his lap. He stared at it a little trying to think up a good name for it. Then Harry noticed something. The small amount of hair this thestral had was jet-black, messy, and unkept. The name seemed to form itself in Harry’s mind. “Prongs,” he said. “Prongs, that’s its name.” Hagrid nodded and took Prongs from Harry and started to feed it again.

“And this one,” Harry picked up the runt of the litter, “This one is . . . Wormtail.” Yes, that was good, Harry thought. This thestral was the smallest in a group of four and would probably look up to his brothers for guidance later in life.

“Wormtail?” Hagrid questioned him. “Interesting name,” he said, taking Wormtail and feeding him too.

“And this one . . . Weren’t there four?” Harry asked. Hagrid had two, Harry had one, but one seemed to be missing. Then Harry saw it sitting a little ways to his left staring at the sky. Harry followed his gaze and saw that he was looking almost awed at the rising moon. “This one is Moony,” Harry patted Moony gently on the head. Hagrid then picked Moony up and redid the process.

Harry looked at the last thestral baby. It was attempting to get past Hagrid and dart into the forest. Harry chuckled as he picked p the thestral and placed it in his lap. Harry didn’t know why, but he felt a strange bond to this thestral. It was sort of like he had meet him before. The thestral cuddled up to Harry’s chest and the name sprung into Harry’s brain. “Padfoot . . .” he said quietly.

“What?” Hagrid asked leaning forward.

“His name is Padfoot,” Harry repeated.

“Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?” Hagrid pointed to each thestral in turn.

“Yes,” Harry replied. He leaned back against a tree as Padfoot fell asleep on his chest. “Padfoot.” Harry muttered under his breath, “Sirius.”  

                                                                                                THE END