It was only a few days before exams would begin, and Naomi was satisfied that she had studied for them as much as one could. Some were specific projects that could be mastered with some time and effort, and others were much more reliant on accumulated skills. Of course, others relied on something else entirely.

For the Creatures’ exam, Naomi hadn’t figured out what that was yet, but to pass it, she knew her overly curious feline Saberfur needed to learn a few more lessons in patience.

So, with some thick gloves guarding her hands against the cold, the witch threw on one of her long and heavy hooded coats and warm pair of boots, before she went out to Hagrid’s garden to hunt down Sherlock.

They practiced camouflaging with the snow, mud, and trees, and staying still long enough to catch some prey in a deep bank of snow. The large young cat would tunnel through the snow and catch the prey, release it, and then catch it again. But, suddenly, the prey seemed to poke its head out of the snow, hopped around for a bit, and then it ran off. Obviously Sherlock got bored of it, or…

Naomi rubbed the heel of her boot on the surface of some snow, making sure it was sturdy before she sunk her foot into it, and then she repeated the routine with every step she took. Eventually, one of her probing footsteps disturbed a patch of snow that collapsed into a tunnel large enough for her companion to escape in—and the evidence showed the creature scurried some distance away from her.

She followed its snowy tunnel until she found herself somewhere near where the thestrals were kept and where there was a disturbed mound of snow, hoove-prints, tunnels, and—unfortunately—Amara Báthory. It didn’t take Naomi long to figure out that Sherlock decided to be an absolute troll and spooked whatever thestral Amara was working with.

A very unsympathetic, “Oops,” escaped Naomi’s lips as she studied the tracks again, and saw that they had made their way towards the castle. Hopefully, they'd both stand out like a sore thumb, but with Hogwarts, who could really be sure?

---
Soft sounds of clopping and scuffling echoed outside the door to Professor Reid’s office. The sound would come and go, and then suddenly a shadow appeared beneath the door of the professor’s office, followed by some scratching.

When the door finally opened, one would easily noticed dirt was scattered across the floor, but with paws and hooves having long dried or been wiped off, there weren’t any footprints in sight.

But, for those who had witnessed a death, the thestral would have been easily spotted sniffing a nearby portrait; and for those who had a quick eye would see a strange scaly black large-pawed cat perched atop the door before it immediately blended into its surroundings. Either way, clearly something was afoot!

Aileen had been diligently grading the last batch of assignments and papers from her students, their last hope before midterms, when the strange noises began. At first, she tried to ignore it. After a few minutes had passed, she slowly set her quill down, crept to the door, and flung it open.

Nothing. She narrowed her eyes, glancing around at the traces of dirt on the floor, the fluttering of the lights, the way the squire in the wall portrait brandished his shield at the open air. And the sounds continued: clopping, scraping, even the whisper quiet flutter of wings.

"Someone is going to get detention," she warned, drawing her wand.

"Homenum Revelio!"

Still nothing. But something clomped closer. Hooves? Were those hooves? It didn't sound human. Aileen stepped back against the wall as hot breath snorted right into her face. 

Stifling a gasp, Aileen pushed out instinctively. Touched something warm and leathery, and quickly flung her hand away. A thestral! Vile creature, sneaking up on her like that! At least she hoped it was a thestral and nothing stranger.

"MROW!" A thud sounded at her feet. Then the stone and brick of the castle began to shift into scales before her eyes.

"Hagrid! Remove your projects now!" She complained sharply, glancing down the corridor. He had to be around here, lumbering through the corridors looking for the missing pests.

All of her afternoons were now spent with Layla on their groundwork training. She was overly excited at the prospect of being able to ride her in a year or so. The thestral was very responsive to Amara, and she was a very quick study. They had been working on Layla's trot when a... Saberfur -what in the...?!- came out of one of the tunnels nearby, before it disappeared from view. Merely moments after Layla neighed scared, jumped on it's rear legs and completely lost control. Layla was still just a baby, and thestrals in general were quite shy even as adults, so it wasn't unusual for them to get spooked,  but something made Layla go completely nuts as the skeletal winged horse panicked and started running aimlessly, closely followed by what looked like the saberfur she saw earlier. The entire thing happened so suddenly that Amara hadn't even registered it completely, she cursed her decision of not using a lead rope before she set out following the horse.

"Layla!" she yelled after the thestral. "Lay-" she suddenly noticed none other than Miss Foley running alongside on the same tracks. The momentary distraction and her overly long coat had made her not notice the tree stump in front and she stumbled violently landing face-first in the snow. She silently growled and gathered herself off the ground with obvious contempt on her face. "Lovely" she said in an exasperated tone as she shook the snow off of her, before giving the other witch a deadly glare.

The hooves and paws tracks seemed to lead into the castle and she noticed the big iron enforced door left ajar. Her eyes opened in shock and she looked at the other girl in panic, suddenly realizing the possible catastrophe of a thestral and a saberfur inside the castle. Without even sparing a second look at the Jamaican, she gathered her train and ran for dear life towards the door.

---

She had followed the tracks through the castle to the second floor, before they melted or disappeared completely. She was at a loss as to where to go before she heard the shrill panicked voice of... Professor Reid. Out of all the staff and prefects of the castle, of course it had to be her, it was just Amara's luck. She quickly hurried to the location from where the sounds came and couldn't help but slip a loud snort at the image before her: Layla was completely fascinated by Professor Reid and was sniffing her curiously while that vile saberfur was taunting the professor.

She took a few steps further and made her presence known with a small cough. "Layla! To me" she said to the thestral while motioning with her hand to come near her. Thestrals where highly intelligent and she did not want to make use of crop or whip, while still in the groundwork training where natural aids such as the leg, hands or seat were of no use, so she had taught the horse to respond mainly to vocal commands. Layla walked to her and nuzzled her face happily, while Amara patted her back and whispered a praise to her ear.

"Professor Reid" she said a in a glacial tone full of contempt, acknowledging her presence.

Naomi's gaze immediately fell on the thestral and her color-changing saberfur disappearing in the distance, and she began to move towards the castle when she heard a thump fluff against the snow. Naomi took a few more steps before she stopped and turned to face other Slytherin, who had just gotten very intimate with a plot of snow.

The raven-haired witch breathed a chuckle and continued to smile, despite the pointed glare she got from Báthory.

Unlike her roommate, Naomi wasn't in as big a rush. If Sherlock had run into the Forbidden Forest--that was one thing, but he had gone into the castle. Even if both creature's trail ran dry they were bound to be spotted or leave some confusion in their wake. So Naomi jogged and hopped through the snow up towards the castle, and continued to move past Amara with a shrug as the other witch gave her a panicked expression. The Slytherin kept her lovat eyes trained on melted patches of snow, bits of dirt, and any shed hair or suspicious looking portraits, until she got to the second floor and spotted the thestral just as Aileen cast a revealing charm!

Of course it failed!

Naomi leaned into a column by one of large windows in the corridor, hiding herself from view as she tried to muffle her giggling into quiet snickers.

The younger witch then leaned around the column and watched as the young thestral snorted at Aileen and then as Sherlock jumped down from his perch and caused the professor to chide another professor--who wasn't at fault at all. Naomi wondered how many times that had been said in the past month.

At the accusation Naomi finally stood upright and away from the column as Amara, Amara even, snorted in amusement. Perhaps irritating Aileen should become a sport!

After the silver-haired witch took command of her project Naomi walked towards the Runes professor, as she hugged her shoulder against her chin, "Sorry--" a hint of hesitation was in her voice as she eyed Amara and made sure she didn't accidentally speak the dreaded first name, "...professor," it sounded forced, but at least she said it!

"'Dey're our projects," Naomi cast a stern look down on her scaly cat and its features were immediately washed with calmness (and fake innocence), "and 'dey... got out of hand." Sherlock then looked up at Aileen with wide eyes as its reptilian purr reverberated through its body. The thing was still only a cub, but was large enough to make enough noise for a few cats.

A thestral named Layla. Aileen had thought she’d heard it all.

Aileen let out a cross sigh at the two girls, smoothing her robes and running a hand through her hair. "Yes, they did,” she answered Miss Foley. “I was in the middle of grading your last assignments for the fall," she glanced at Miss Bathory, acknowledging her in turn. "So you could say it is unfortunate timing."

That should cause the snickers to cease! Should being the operative word.

There was a time when Naomi Foley's mere presence would have caused her to launch into a lengthy lecture, but by this point Aileen knew it was futile and did not think she had let the creatures loose on purpose anyway. Aileen caught the icy attitude from Miss Bathory, and remembered the girl’s total focus on Maras during her presentation. She chose to ignore it. Whatever her issue, the sullenness of a teenager did not much concern her unless she was acting blatantly offensive.

"How in the world did they escape their pens?” She looked at the students for a better explanation. With Hagrid, you never knew where he was keeping his creatures.

“A thestral and a," Aileen gestured at the cat, unsure what it actually was, but loathe to admit it. "A nuisance!”

The cat meowed forlornly.

Putting her hands on her hips, the Runes professor arched an eyebrow at the reptile-feline.

"Saberfur" the silver-haired witch added quickly. "A reptilian-feline hybrid, more than possibly, man-bred and quite illegally so" she said in a bored tone, trying very hard not to roll her piercing blue-violet eyes at the woman's ignorance. She turned to look at her thestral and patted her bony chest. "I was working with her on her groundwork, when that troublemaker came out of nowhere and spooked Layla. I haven't yet harnessed her, as she is too young and thought a lead rope would be unnecessary as we were supposed to be alone, so I lost control of her" she said matter of factly. She supposed Miss Foley had a similar story, but she wasn't about to go speak for the other girl, her pet got her in this mess after all.

"I am sorry, for the incident" she said without the least bit of regret while looking through the woman rather than at her directly. "It was an accident, however, but I will make sure to take this little -debacle into consideration, and use a lead rope in the future... Professor" she said the last word with a bit of reluctance, as she could not, for the love of Merlin, ever see the woman as a figure of authority. The Slytherin thought respect ought to be earned, and neither her teaching methods nor she as a person overall, had given Amara any reason for respect yet. The girl thought the woman ordinary and lacking, but most of all...sketchy. She could always identify people that were hiding something, and Professor Reid was definitely hiding something. Amara had her suspicions, that it was probably something frivolous or some sort of insecurity. Either way, she did not like the woman.

"Well, I'd best be on my way" she said calmly, hoping to get herself out of any sort of situation as soon as possible. "Sorry to have caused you any distress, professor, but Layla needs to get back to the paddock" she inclined her head towards the woman and her housemate. "Come along" she said as she patted Layla's back and took off to where they had come from.

Amara's exit

Naomi rolled her lips together and let her smile disappear as Aileen made absolutely no effort to give both the girls a subtle threat. The dark-haired witch knew she had still managed an O in the professor's class despite trying to steal a magical and cursed dagger from her home a while back, but irritating her for absolutely no reason at all was obviously much different than breaking into her house to help her and Abby. Priorities!

Amara's obvious abhorrence towards her creature earned recognition from Naomi; her eyelids cautiously fell and shaded her lovat gaze as the narrow green gleam in her eyes slid away from the professor to catch the other witch in a stare. Then there was the way she talked to Aileen.

A raven eyebrow harshly cut Naomi's gaze while the other hopped into an arch as Naomi looked back at the professor. Didn't Amara act a little like this while they presented their projects? Naomi couldn't really remember much of who did what after her presentation, she was too distracted by being featherweight charmed down towards Blake by a certain someone. Either way, Amara clearly liked getting into trouble.

Naomi tilted her narrowed stare back towards Amara, "His name is Sherlock," she gave a light nod, "He was rescued," then both eyebrows rose above her gaze, "And his traits were probably tampered wit', not bred." Satisfied she had dealt with that annoying part of Amara's spiel, Naomi looked back up at Aileen.

"It's important to gradually give a creature more freedom as you train 'dem, so 'dey learn how to listen to you despite other things going on," She looked down at Sherlock who was now pawing and walking around Aileen's feet, hopefully not contemplating trying to scale the woman's robes like a tree (even though it was something Naomi taught him to do...) "It's part of growing up."

Naomi clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and the creature's ears perked up and it attentively turned to face Naomi, "Not sure about a leash on him, though," she gave a helpless shrug towards Aileen. She really couldn't offer the professor any guarantees. Amara thought he was a troublemaker, Aileen thought him a nuisance, Naomi doubted there could be any way to really win this.