A/N: This one was written for Shira Lansys's Word Count Drabble Challenge. I was given a word count of exactly 198 and had to stick to it. This is the result! :)

Character: Thestrals

Prompt: Horrid

They know that they're terrible, horrid creatures. Everything about them screams misery and heartbreak and loss, their very existence drenched in death and bloodshed and fright. It's not something that they're proud of or something that they want, but it is a fact of their sad, lonely realities. That's why there are so many of them around Hogwarts; small children have never experienced these terrible things. They don't have to face the horror of being confronted with the truth of death every time they look upon a Thestral.

But that's all before the war. Before the battle and the smoke and the flashing light of curses. Before so many innocent lives were lost. The first term that Hogwarts is reopened is a sobering event. The professors watch sadly as so many of the students see the creatures for the first time, surprised gasps echoing around Hogsmeade station as they line up to clamber aboard carriages. Their hearts break a bit when they realise that even the youngest children's innocence, once so shining and joyful and filled with peals of delighted laughter, has been ripped away as mercilessly and as completely as if it had never existed at all