DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.
~ Goodbye Horses ~
"There have been sightings of a black unicorn around muggle London. It's all over the muggle news."
"But there's no such thing as a black unicorn! Unicorns are all white - except for the babies, of course, which are golden. That purity is part of their magic. A black unicorn simply can't exist."
"Precisely. And yet the muggles are seeing something, so it is our duty to investigate this 'black unicorn' sighting and find out if there is a magical explanation for it."
"Well, there's definitely some kind of creatures actually out there... but we're not sure what they are."
"Perhaps you should try get a closer look at them?"
"Well, sir, you see... the problem with that is that they are rather speedy little things and appear to be highly aggressive..."
"I see, I see. It seems a specialist is required. Luckily, I know just who to contact in such cases."
Minerva McGonagall, the headmistress of Hogwarts, was less than happy to find herself receiving a letter from the Ministry of Magic first thing in the morning. She was even less happy upon reviewing the contents of said letter, which was a strongly worded 'request' demanding that the school's magical creature specialist present himself at the Ministry as soon as possible in regards to 'an urgent matter'.
Minerva sighed heavily, wondering what trouble Hagrid had gotten himself into this time.
As it turned out, Hagrid was not in trouble at all. The Ministry merely wanted Hagrid to help them capture a dangerous creature which had been terrorizing a muggle neighborhood.
Minerva was a bit apprehensive about letting Hagrid be sent out on such a mission, but the half-giant seemed rather enthusiastic about doing it, and she didn't really have the authority to forbid him from following through on his own decision, since it wasn't directly related to his job at Hogwarts and therefore not something within her purview.
Minerva returned to her office and the day carried on much as any other. No less than seven students were sent to her office for reprehensible behavior and she had to deal with an uncountable number of other things involved in running a school... By the time evening rolled around, she had forgotten almost entirely about the meeting at the Ministry which had occurred that morning.
After personally overseeing several detentions from the worst of the current crop of troublemakers, she headed down to Hagrid's hut. His cooking had not improved over the years, but his tea-brewing skills were passable, and she did enjoy spending time with a friend who expecting nothing from her but a bit of conversation.
Minerva arrived at Hagrid's hut at the same time as the half-giant himself was just returning from his mission, the details of which suddenly resurfaced in Minvera's memory as she caught sight of what he was carrying.
Hagrid's arms were full of what looked like Thestral colts, although they seemed to have no wings and the largest (and presumably oldest) of them appeared to have the beginnings of a horn sprouting from its forehead.
"What exactly are those?" the headmistress asked.
"They're Thestracorns!" Hagrid replied enthusiastically. "It seems that a male unicorn found an all-female herd of wild Thestrals and, well..." He trailed off, blushing slightly. "And apparently the mother Thestrals rejected them because they were born without wings, so now all these baby Thestracorns are running around the outskirts of London, fully visible to anyone, including muggles. So the Ministry needed someone to gather them up and relocate them."
"They said nothing to me about relocating the animals here," Minerva replied archly.
"Oh, please say I can keep them! They're not really vicious," Hagrid pleaded, even as one of the smaller Thestracorns nipped at the half-giant's exposed fingers.
Minerva sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. It was times like these that she wished Dumbledore had adopted a stricter policy about Hagrid's pets, so that she would have an easier time telling him that he could not keep a small herd of Thestral/unicorn hybrids.
~end~