DISCLAIMER: None of the characters involved belong to me.
"I've, ah, named 'im Tenebrus," Hagrid explained, staring curiously down at the tiny figure who was draped in a purple sweater and white dress, accentuating her paleness. In the past, few students have been able to see Thestrals. Those who have usually stared, saucer eyes like she did, but they stared in horror. Thestrals are friendly beasts, wouldn't hurt a thing unless provoked in a persistent way. Then they migh' take a chunk offa yer arm, Hagrid considered.
Luna wasn't a bothersome one anyway though. She approached with caution, warning Tenebrus she was approaching. He made a gurgling noise when her hand met her face. It was similar to the purring sound a cat makes when stroked. "What do they eat, Thestrals, I mean?" she pondered out loud, seeming to have forgotten Hagrid, stroking Tenebrus' scaly skin.
"They're carnivorous," Hagrid answered. "I feed 'em dragon meat, mos'ly."
Luna's wide eyes were pouring over the reptilian horse, Tenebrus soaking contentedly in the attention like freezing rain water, and appraising the great alabaster marbles that were surveying Tenebrus' surroundings undetectably for lack of irises for reference.
"Raw," Hagrid specified. "Bloody when I can manage it."
Luna smiled vaguely with her thin, ivory fingers running over the onyx scales wrapped tightly around the Thestral's bones. Tenebrus turned his head, sniffing at her wrist before angling his face in such a way that the side of his head was being stroked. "He's very nice," Luna observed. "Like Hermione's cat, Crookshanks."
Hagrid nodded. "Partly Kneazle, I think that one is," he considered Crookshanks' size and intelligence. His expression became bothered; he was curious, but would she be put off if he asked?
"Something wrong, Hagrid?" she asked, looking over to him, hands dropping from Tenebrus' face.
"I was jus' wonderin'," he began prudently. "how you can see 'im."
"My mum died," she began, recommencing her stroking of Tenebrus. "She was a talented witch, though she would experiment with magic. And one day, things went terribly wrong. It was when I was nine," she explained.
"Oh, well, I'm surry, Luna," Hagrid folded his hands.
"Dad told me about thestrals once. Even though I miss Mum terribly, I still have him," she was still watching Tenebrus intently, smiling widely at his allowance of her hand moving to his mane.
"I suppose you'll be wanting to go to dinner," Hagrid reminded her.
"Oh, yes," Luna said, turning from Tenebrus. "Bye, Hagrid, Tenebrus," she nodded in both directs before skipping off.
Hagrid tightened his coat before exiting the warmth of his hut to feed the animals on the grounds. He heard quiet giggles and followed the sounds into the trees. Slytherins thought it was especially funny to hurt the poor beasts since he was allowed a teaching position. Unless the Malfoy boy had begun wearing skirts, it was no Slytherin.
The tangled mess of wavy, unpigmented hair hung straight down her black and blue robes. The skin of her legs even paler than her face, she didn't seem to notice the cold on her bare skin nor muddy feet. "Luna? Aren' yeh cold?" he asked her.
"Not very," she reached down into her large blue bag, drawing from it a large chunk of red meat, still green-tinged from the fluid that dripped off of it onto her wrist. In offering, she tossed it into the air before one of Tenebrus' alert female counterparts. She caught it and tore it apart with the long teeth set into her jaws before swallowing quickly to wait for more. "My shoes all seem to have disappeared. I suspect Nargles," she sincerely explained.
"Nargles?" Hagrid knew she sometimes went on about creatures she had no proof existed. One of her quirks that he'd accepted since meeting her. It was far more likely some of the girls that she shared a room with had taken them, but he didn't want to point it out.
"Nargles infest mistletoe," Luna patiently explained, touching her necklace of butterbeer corks. "They are mischievous thieves. I wear this to repel them, you see, but they come to take my things when I'm not around," she sounded placid, not the least bit irritated. Mos' people'd be fuming, Hagrid thought. Luna was of a different sort, though. That's why her peers harassed her so enthusiastically. She didn't deserve it any more than Hermione should be called a—a… Hagrid didn't even like to think the word, but Hermione certainly didn't have dirty blood.
"Oh," he said as he watched her reach into her bag, gently throwing another piece of dripping meat to one Thestral who usually lingered at the back of the group, appearing to do little other than observe the others. Hagrid had taken to calling him Speculatio, after a cousin who behaved similarly.
"Misunderstood, Thestrals are," she remarked quietly.
Hagrid nodded vigorously in agreement, thinking Thestrals weren't the only ones who were misunderstood.