Lua tottered before a pumpkin, wellies toed in the dirt. “Naomi, do you think Hagrid would let us make pumpkin bread?” Placing her palms on the giant gourd, she leaned over it and looked into the dirt. Normal pumpkins could get huge, impossible to carry in one pair of skinny teenage arms. This pumpkin was the size of Lua’s brother, its girth easily four of the Gryffindor’s head. They were supposed to doing a Care of Magical Creatures assignment. “My mum makes it in the autumn-- maybe she’ll send you some-- and it’s perfect with cashew milk.” Unfortunately, Lua didn’t know anyone in Hogsmeade who sold cashew milk. Pressing it herself in the kitchens with the elves was an easy solution (or not so easy, considering Lua wasn’t supposed to be in the kitchens, but the adorable pear who always giggled when she tickled it never seemed to mind letting her past.) “Isn’t that weird? Wizards can make anything in a cauldron, and they don’t have cashew milk,” she mused, as if Naomi had read the rest in her head, clear as day.

Leaning over the pumpkin, Lua’s mass of dark hair made the orange monolith look wigged and ready for Halloween festivities. She didn’t think on it, but turned her head to the side and grinned in Noami’s direction. “I think he would,” she decided, though she had been the one to ask the question. A glimmer in her fern-colored eyes made it known that she intended to ask the professor, whose great bearded form she considered something of a dear friend.

Suddenly, a fuzzy thing, like Raggedy Anne covered in fur, came darting around a pumpkin and bounced at Lua. The Gryffindor’s lips parted in cheerful recognition. Laughing, she pushed up from the pumpkin and sank into the dirt obligingly. With gravity’s help, Lua rocked back from her knees as the-- admittedly-- weightless little ball collided with her. “Teacup,” she greeted, landing on her bum in a patch of leaves, her wellies kicked out before her, her arms folding over the sniffy, wriggly, waggy little thing. The niffler burrowed her neck, tickling her ears and hair with its curious, friendly nose. They had become fast friends, Teacup and Lua. It had happened two weeks ago when the thing came vacuuming excitedly for the bangles on her wrist as she did homework on the grounds. Unfortunately for Teacup, they were not real gold. Fortunately for Lua, this meant that she didn’t have to explain to any adults that she still wanted to be friends with the thing.

Teacup, like Lua, had friends who were slyer in their traipsing about the pumpkin patch. One such creature seemed to poke its way through the roots, pausing over bits of gold leaf, realizing without having to dig that it was not real gold. It seemed to slink (if nifflers could do such a thing) ever so subtly in Naomi’s direction. Lua bit her lip, hiding her amusement (though not very well), and averted her eyes so as not to catch Naomi catching her catching the niffler.

She sat up, clutching Teacup like a puppy, and finally looked back to Naomi (the other niffler had disappeared again). She gave the Teacup's head a scratch, and let him free. He roamed close, like a terrier (though there wasn’t much resemblance) with an anteater’s talent for sniffing through roots and soil. “My mum also makes a version soaked with rum,” she said, grinning. She looked from the girl, to the pumpkin, and then skyward.

The setting sun shone off the waters of the Hogwarts Lake and peeked through the swampy trees to dapple Professor Hagrid's new home in an orange glow. Two monstrous trunks grew out the sides of the tree and stretching and leaning into arches that encased a large slice of land, the professor's backyard, in patches of indigo shades. The trunks planted themselves into the ground before a row of tall trees that ushered the backyard into the lapping waters of the lake. Under one of the arching trunks was the entrance to the backyard, littered with various pumpkins, gourds, and jack-o-lanterns, pouring into the elegant colorful overgrowth that infested the yard and stopping before the other arching trunk that barred passage beneath it with thick twisting vines. Where the trunk rooted itself was where the vines ended their barrier only to rise out of the ground again into their own wreathed arch that led into the thick enclosed foliage that was Hagrid's garden where a raven-haired Slytherin appeared with a smiling jack-o-lantern head resting in her arms.

As the girl swung her braid off her shoulder and as her bare feet carried her into the pumpkin patch, she personally though the garden was filled with more creatures than plants--probably something that Professor Hagrid had been working on since before school started so he had a place to keep some creatures for class. And sure enough as Lua began talking away two nifflers had creeped out of the garden on Naomi's tail and into the pumpkin patch.

Naomi reached a large pumpkin and lowered her own orange gourd on top it as Lua kept rambling on without a word escaping Naomi's lips, so the Slytherin took her sweet time to respond to the Gryffindor; she slid on top of the large pumpkin, batted her long braid over her shoulder again, dangled her bare dirt-kissed feet in the vines around the pumpkin, adjusted the belt lopsidedly hanging off her waist, adjusted her long green hoodie and denim shorts, flicked her fingers against the jack-o-lantern head a few times, and then finally responded to the other girl.

"Lua, most people don't have cashew milk--wizard or not," it was either the pumpkin-flicking or the sound of Naomi's familiar criticism that awoke the residence of the jack-o-lantern that caused a spider to meticulously crawl from the dark recesses of the pumpkin's mouth  with legs nearly twice as long as Naomi's own slender fingers and the body the size of a softball.

The creature crawled to the top of the pumpkin carrying a large golden silk cocoon with spots of green glowing inside of it--a trick she taught it for the training assignment for their Care of Magical Creatures class. Naomi held her bare hand out for the creature to daintily climb into where it promptly dropped the cocoon and then climbed onto Naomi's shoulder as it watched the girl tear open the silk bag and release a small congregation of fireflies that haunted the jack-o-lantern in the night. "I t'ink rum's better as a glaze for pumpkin," came the girl's Caribbean lilt.

Then, Naomi's new and untrained project climbed on top of the large pumpkin and into the jack-o-lantern head's mouth, that then kicked out a few bones and black feather from within the pumpkin before it popped the top of the pumpkin to peer at Naomi and the spider and then went back into the carved gourd, "Suppose 'dat's what I get for picking a niffler 'dat bred wit' some sort of ferret."

Naomi reached out and picked up one of the black feathers, admiring for a minute before she looked back up at Lua, "You figure out what breed all your training project creatures have been--dunno 'bout di spider," Naomi's green gaze suspiciously fell on the spider who retreated onto her brain, "but I t'ink I figured out why the professor likes it in his scarecrow so much..." she let the feather catch in the evening breeze as she felt the spider tug and pull away at her braid, a bad habit encouraged by Lua, "Actually makes the scarecrow scary."

“I think most people would like it. Unless they have a nut allergy, then it's probably dangerous.” She looked up Naomi, who loitered meaningfully near the jack-o-lantern. Lua thought the spider would be a very nice (living!) addition to her braid, it's sleek, black quickness and masterful weaving skills admirable. But it seemed quite at home in the craved recess of the pumpkin, and Lua could hardly blame it. Hagrid knew how to make a cozy home (albeit one meant to fend off birds who loved pumpkin seeds and autumnal herbs).

She watched for a moment as the spider joined Naomi-- they were alike in temperament somehow-- before her own eyes returned to the orange globes and caked soil that looked sort of like chocolate cake. It was about then that teacup and his friend came sniffling around. “It's easy to cook out most of the alcohol,” she said agreeably. Not that Lua minded an extra dash of festiveness in her Halloween-themed treats.

“It looks like he could use some rum cake,” she laughed, finding no flaws with Naomi's friend. “I think mine is...” Hmmmm. She looked down at Teacup and gave his belly a rub. Part lots of things. She scrunched her nose, but her face softened and eyes went wide as she pressed it to the niffler’s just before he escaped. “A mystery,” she announced, apparently entirely unbothered by this. “He sort of looks like a dog sometimes, you know, the sort old ladies in London have, but other times he looks like an 80s music video, like a hair band. And he sometimes comes out of nowhere like Connor in the corridors between classes.” (It was an impressive gift.) Lua spoke of these things chattery ease, a pleasant guess, and yet, the list was entirely logical. Also, groundhog, meerkat, chipmunk, otter, anteater, and pygmy puff were strong guesses. “Yours is definitely very sly.” Teacup, on the other hand, was bouncy. “What’s its name?”

Standing up, she headed over to the scarecrow where her friend was escaping the spider’s clutches. “The birds do stay away... but it’s not really so scary, is it? Just surprising.” Like a living room remolded over night while one’s parents were sleeping, or another addition to the family in the form of a four-pawed thing. She leaned in toward the spider. “I bet she could weave a dreamcatcher.” Lua was planning to make a new one soon.

"You'd only need to ask th' house elves 'bout allergies," Naomi said as she began to click her tongue against the roof of her mouth, trying to call back her rogue niffler. A head peeped out from beneath the umbrella funnel leaves of the pumpkin vines, before it rustled back into the underbrush, contently ignoring being called for.

Naomi rolled her eyes and huffed a sigh as she felt the strong limbs of the spider tug and pull at her braid, then the girl  arched a tall eyebrow at Lua before quickly answering her proposition about rum cake, "No." The witch raised her chin and shrugged her shoulders together as she looked down at the overgrown pumpkin patch, "Treats before training is a big folly wit' dat one."
 
The Slytherin's own home was nothing short of a menagerie of creatures some days, and if you happened to let one of them sneak around and have their way for a minute--then they'd have a field day with it. From Snickers snapping food off the bank of the lake with its crocodillian jaws, to one of the big cats stalking through the house, looking for a quick treat--no creature was guiltless of taking advantage of easy opportunities.

"It's part Taylor, clearly," Naomi added with her light tone, "S'far as the little sneak goes, I haven't named it yet--though, when you're a creature Lua, getting knocked down di' food chain is a bit scary."

Then, as the spider continued to weave its golden thread through her hair and  Lua pondered another art project Naomi bobbed her head towards a shoulder she regarded Lua with her mossy green gaze, "Though you keep on teaching Lotti how to weave everyt'ing from a braid to a silk robe--then it might bring her ferocity into question."

Lua nodded. The elves were smart, had kinds of wisdom that many wizards seemed to overlook. Her eyes roamed back to the rogue niffler, who made its appearance at the click of Naomi’s tongue. “Oooh, maybe it’s worki--” Lua’s encouragement was short lived, and gave way to giggles as the niffler disappeared again. She was sure it would work eventually; Naomi had a personality that animals seemed to respect. And a common sense regarding treats that Lua sometimes ignored. “Just a little,” she corrected, promising her good intentions. “Maybe it’ll encourage him...” But she supposed Naomi was right, and didn’t argue the point. The niffler seemed sweet and friendly, but also sneaky.

While on the subject of food, Lua extracted a bit of leftover scone from her pockets (it was only mildly smooshy), and crumbled a trail of it around the pumpkin’s base. Teacup came sniffing back around with the immediacy of a dog chasing a squirrel, and found the scone crumbs without issue. A nose used for gold also seemed to appreciate the delicacies of the Hogwarts kitchens.

It sniffed over the backs of her hands, tickling her. Lua pushed up from the dirt and rubbed her palms over her legs to dust away caked earth. She grinned wide, pleased with the analysis. “He’d fit in brilliantly at home. My brother would make him a band mascot, probably, and Georgia would treat him just like a cat. Dad would have fun searching for gold at the beach. But I think the Ministry might visit if I brought him to London.” Only vaguely problematic. (Mostly given Lua’s father’s distaste for the government-- muggle or otherwise.)

“What do you think he looks like? He’s not really a Salazar or a McGonagall, is he?” Lua went over several names in her mind. Seashell. Charlie. Pumpkin Patch. She was generally likely to chatter away, speak her mind, but she didn’t think Naomi would choose any of those. Maybe something that matched Lotti...

Even if the elegant creature had a brand of slyness that was markedly different from the niffler’s. Food chains were part of the circle of life. Lua knew that as well as anyone. But thinking about cute, sing-songy birds as food wasn’t exactly pleasant. A spider who could braid hair and weave dream catchers was much more fun to ponder. She smiled again. “I’ve seen some very brave Gryffindors knitting away in the common room. You could have a ferocious scarf!” Ferocity, to Lua, came in many packages. She stared back, her lips tinged with humor, eyes bright. “If we start now, we could have a dreamcatcher for Hagrid’s tree by Halloween. And one for the Astronomy Tower, and one for Kelvin, and maybe one for the library...” Lua’s face went slightly pensive again as she contemplated asking the austere librarian. “Mr. Morgan looks like he could use some happy dreams.”

Naomi mostly attempted to get the attention of her niffler now by clicking her tongue, tapping the pumpkin, and beating the vines as she let Lua rattle of a list of names--none of which interested her. Naomi then sight back and sighed, letting herself relax as she felt Lotti travel down and tug farther down the length of her dark curls. At the mention of  taking the niffler home Naomi closed her eyes and sighed, "'And 'dat's why my family lives in th' middle of nowhere."

The witch then opened her eyes again, focusing her stare on a shuffle of leaves sheltered by the shade of a pumpkin and its mammoth vines, "I'm going to start calling him deaf if he doesn't start listening anytime soon," her hair glinted with gold spider silk as Naomi's niffler seemed to creep close to them. Naomi could easily jump up and just go and catch the niffler, but then it would think she wanted to play, and wouldn't learn anything. It was hard to strike any sort of balance of obedience when it came to hard-headed creatures.

Despite Naomi's complaining, Lua continued to go on about Lotti sewing more things. The thought of a dreamcatcher didn't bother Naomi as much as the thought of the spider sewing several dreamcatches, "She needs her web for food too, Lua..." finally, probably at the mention of food, Naomi's niffler slinked back on top of the pumpkin and by Naomi's thigh.

She let a hand fall to scratch the creature on the belly as she added, "Dreamcatcher?" Naomi looked towards Lua with a tall arched brow, "Will it steal away their bad ideas too?"