Closed A Portrait of Death

[Wisteria Lacewing]

The forbidden forest had become Wish's second home during her years at Hogwarts. The castle, being her first, of course. She didn't like to think of her actual house as home anymore. She didn't like who she was there, and how long it took to shake the mask of silence and obedience to avoid being a disappointment after she was back at school. Wish was always a little wobbly for a few weeks or months after breaks, and it was getting harder as she got older. Now that she was in her sixth year, her parents had started pushing harder about associating with the "right" sort of people. Wish had never understood it. There were all sorts of people who were perfectly fine, but her total lack of social ability ensured she rarely interacted with anybody. She preferred creatures, anyway, so it was only mildly heartbreaking.

Wish had taken up sketching after finding out that some creatures did not like to be photographed, and wanted to spend the afternoon observing a herd of thestrals she'd found a while back. She'd last seen them in the area of the forest she was familiar with, and was pleased to find they hadn't gone very far. After years of exploration, Wish had gotten decent at figuring out where the safer areas were for her to be. Sitting on a rock and opening her book to a half-finished drawing, Wish squinted at the page judgmentally. The wings were always so difficult to draw when they were tucked away and it irked her.

 

[Ethan Alexander]

When Professor Burleigh had mentioned the need for a student assistant Ethan had jumped at the chance to spend more one on one time with the creatures that lived on the school grounds. He already had a lot of experience with owls but he was excited to care or some that were a bit more...tricky. But he hadn't considered the fact that he couldn't see all of them. The professor had given him decent instructions on where to find the heard of thestrals and where he was supposed to leave food for them but Ethan hated feeling like he was doing something wrong, and putting a bucket of food in the middle of empty forest felt wrong. But it wasn't like he could fix that problem easily. Like usual he trudged out to the forest with his eyes on the uneven path. It wasn't until he heard some shuffling paper did he look up and see Wish sitting on a rock. "Oh, hey." he said as if they had run into each other in the great hall and not the forbidden forest. But for the two of them it was just as familiar of a place.