Where the Willow Roams (Hunter & Willow)

Aoife wasn't feeling too good in the morning, so she didn't think it was worth going down to Hogsmeade because she didn't have work and she had plenty of butterbeer to last until she could go and get more. Instead, she slept in for a long, long time and by the time she got up, she felt much better. But hungry, And conveniently, it was lunchtime. She wandered down to the Great Hall, only to find that hardly anyone was there. Just younger students who couldn't go to Hogsmeade yet. Phin wasn't there. Little git must have forgotten about her, all alone eating lunch, and gone himself. Okay, that was unfair, but she was still annoyed with him. So she picked up a bacon sandwich and walked out to the grounds.

Like a lot of the time, she ended up sitting by the lake, legs crossed, all alone, chewing on her bacon sandwich and wishing it had more bacon in it. She decided to work on the secret research project she was doing at the minute, about the behavioral patterns of sheep of different ages. She'd done all the actual research over summer - now it was drawing up her conclusions, making a graph, that sort of stuff. Everyone thought she was really dumb, and sometimes she was at stuff like Potions, but when it came to research on the behavioral patterns of sheep and all the factors which could have an effect on the results and how to work that in mathematically, she was in the zone. Could she do this for a job? Maybe this would be a part of her charity work?! That would be awesome! Nobody could say she wasn't super smart then, when she was winning awards for being the cleverest person in the universe at the same time as winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Her bacon sandwich was gone now, but she was still hungry. And she had no food in her bag, so she would just have to starve. Sadly, in the corner of her neat scatter graph, she drew a tiny bacon sandwich, surrounded by haribo gummy bears. If all else failed, she could be an artist. Feeling too starved to carry on, she slammed the notebook shut and lay back on the grass, sighing heavily. She was going to die now, and who's fault was it? Phin's. For not being there at lunch to tell her to eat more than a bacon sandwich. What a complete git. It was boring, lying on the grass, and waiting to die of starvation. So she sat up again. And opened her notebook to doodle some sheep on the back page. Maybe, just maybe, she might be able to stay alive if she could sit here long enough for someone to come along and give her more food.

If Hunter had thought that the lamb was annoying when he found it in Hogsmeade, it was no comparison to how annoying the stupid thing was now. First of all, it was a pain in the ass to keep a secret lamb in your dorm and not let anyone know. It was loud and made annoying lamb sounds all the time, and had this terrible habit of waking Hunter up in the middle of the night and not leaving him alone until he found more grass bertie botts beans for it. Which wasn't as easy as it sounded, because really, how many grass beans came in one box? Sometimes there weren't any at all, and his choices ended up limited to trying and failing to sleep through the lamb's incessant whining or making a middle-of-the-night trip to the kitchens to get it some lettuce or something that it could eat. Really, if it was some other animal, like a cat o a lizard or something, Hunter would have thrown it out of the window long ago. But despite it's irritating qualities, the thing was so damn adorable that Hunter couldn't even really get mad at it. He even found himself sitting on the ground to do his homework so that it could curl up beside him. He'd taken to calling it little shit, just to be sure he kept his priorities straight. Stupid sheep.

It had been a few days since Hunter had brought it back with him, and so far its diet consisted entirely of jelly beans and lettuce. Which wasn't exactly the correct diet for a sheep. But it wasn't like he could just put it on a leash and walk it around the grounds with him. Sheep weren't really on the list of approved pets. But it probably couldn't survive on grass flavored sugar forever, so Hunter decided to take advantage of his day off that weekend and finally take it outside. There would hardly be anyone there, since they'd all be in Hogsmeade, so it was less likely that they would get caught. Yeah, that's right. Hunter was giving up a weekend at Hogsmeade with his friends so that he could graze his lamb. Who the fuck did that?

After struggling to get it to stand still long enough for Hunter to put a disillusionment charm on it, he headed out of the castle. He didn't bother putting a lead on it or anything, because the stupid thing never left his side. It glued itself to his leg at all times. Once they'd cleared the doors and made it halfway to the lake, Hunter let the charm drop. There wasn't anyone there, and the teachers never came down to the lake. "Alright, go on, eat," he told it, pointing down at the grass and resisting the urge to kick it out from under his feet. At first, he headed toward his tree, figuring he could just sit there and get some of his moodiness out of the way while the thing ate. But halfway there, his eyes were drawn by a flash of red among the green.

Holy shit was he an idiot. Aoife! How had he even looked at a sheep and not thought of her? In all fairness, it had been a busy few days and he hadn't had the chance to talk to her. Aoife would take the thing off of his hands in a heartbeat. After all, it was a real, live sheep. And then Hunter could get some sleep at night and she could have a sheep at Hogwarts. Everyone won. Though, for some stupid reason, deep deep deep down, Hunter felt a small pang of unwillingness to give it up. Because it wasn't so bad, really. But he had things to do and he couldn't have a lamb knocking over his potions and getting in the way and bothering him all the time. "Alright, come on you little shit," he muttered to it, changing course and taking off in Aoife's direction.

She wasn't facing him, and was oblivious, so she probably didn't even hear him approaching. Without bothering to announce himself, he reached her and plopped down beside her on the grass, not paying attention to where the lamb was. Before he was even completely sitting, he started talking. "Why aren't you in Hogsmeade?" he asked her, but then flashed her a huge grin. "Actually, nevermind, that doesn't matter. You'll never guess what I found!" And then he waited. Because it was only a matter of moments before Aoife noticed Little Shit, and no explanation would be needed.

Apparently he was called "little shit." Which was cool with him, as back at the farm he wasn't called anything except Edward by the little human child that owned him. The little human had told him that he was called Edward after some vampire thing, which he fully didn't understand, but went along with it anyways. "Little shit" was wayyyyy better than Edward. In all truth, the name Edward freaked him out. So when the bigger human names him "little shit" he felt like one of the heard.

They had made it into the castle, and he was placed in a much to small of a room, and it was Sooo uncomfortable. And he could tell the bigger human was getting annoyed with him begging for food. Well what did it expect? He was an animal! And much like humans, animals needed to be fed, and watered. And most importantly taken out to poo. So, when the big human had been gone a while, he accidentally pooed in his bed, just to remind him that he was there. Occationally, his nights in the little room weren't all that bad. He had heard a song on his travels and knew the tune of it, so he got to sing that, which also annoyed the human.

And finally, after what seemed like eternity, little shit was let out! They where walking to get some excessive, and little shit saw something that he never thought he would ever see again! It was a lake! A giant lake filled with delicious water! Little shit was excited! He trotted over to the edge, and stuck his tongue into the murky debts of the black looking water. Besides how disgusting it looked, it tastes pretty good. So he ignores the looks, and dived in head first for a swim after rehydrating itself.

But what he didn't notice before, was that there was another large human. This one was much prettier than the human he was stuck with now. He walked out of the water, shook his wool, and went over to it. She seemed more calm in nature, and didn't seem like the type that would lock him in a small room. She seemed sweet and innocent, and hoped that she would take him home instead of the other human.

Aoife had just started to think about how maybe she wasn't actually that hungry at all when someone sat down next to her. Awesome, Phin had turned up! It was a fairly big disappointment when she saw that it wasn't her best friend, but her ex-best friend. Oh well. "Hey, do you have food because-" She didn't have time to finish her sentence because he launched straight into conversation immediately. "I didn't feel that well this-" she began, but was interrupted again. Rude git needed to learn some manners. Whatever he was so excited about obviously couldn't be as exciting as all the stuff she had to say, because she was just naturally a much more interesting person. What was he so excited about, anyway? He was smiling a bit creepily, and he wasn't as placid and calm as he usually seemed to be.

"What did you find?" she asked, a little bit sarcastically, because she really didn't care, she just wanted food. But then she saw it. Him. Her. Whatever it was. And she screamed. Really loudly, really girlishly and really high-pitched. Then she paused for a moment, surprised that a sound like that had come out of her mouth. So she screamed again, but in a more manly sort of way. A sheep, casually walking out of the lake! A sheep a sheep a sheep a sheep a sheep! She didn't know why, or how it was here, but she didn't really care. All that mattered was that Hunter had brought a SHEEP to Hogwarts! Suddenly he was a much better person in her eyes. Hey... was the sheep for her? She hoped so. If not, Hunter was just asking for a slap. He had no right to look after this precious little baby.

The sheep had started coming over towards her. Obviously it saw immediately what a wonderful sheep friend she was. Or maybe it was just so sick of that ugly oaf Hunter keeping it captive. It was okay. It had Aoife now. To look after it, to care for and cherish it like one of her own. She went straight out to give it a big cuddle, almost as an apology for the cruelty and unfortunate circumstances it must have had to endure after being found/bought/stolen by Hunter. Although its wool was soaked from the lake, it was so soft and fluffy and cloud-like and perfect. Suddenly she felt overwhelmed with a sense of responsibility for this sheep. She was like a mother. She would be its mother. Since it didn't seem to have its real mother around anywhere. Just like Hunter, to split up a happy family of sheep.

But despite being a little bit annoyed at Hunter, because she didn't know the circumstances in which he'd acquired a lamb in this secluded, isolated part of Scotland, she definitely found herself holding a lot more respect for Hunter. One might even call it compassion. And after a while of just clutching the sheep, dying from happiness, she let go, worrying she was suffocating the creature. And instead went to hug Hunter. Another big squishy hug so she didn't even need to say anything to explain how incredibly excited and surprised and amazed she was. But she did. "THANK YOU, YOU UGLY GIT," she yelled, grinning widely. He should be proud of himself. This was the best thing he'd ever done. And for a split second, she thought she liked Hunter almost as much as his sheep.

But she really needed to stop referring to the animal as "it" or "sheep". "What's its name?!" she asked. "And is it a girl or a boy?" It didn't take long for her to turn back around and hug the little sheep again. Her baby was more cuddly. Only at this point did she think about facts and stuff. "Where the FUCK did you get a sheep at Hogwarts? There are no magical sheep!" If there were, and if it was possible to find sheep here at Hogwarts, Aoife would have a long time ago. Maybe Hunter had got the thing here by plane. Or ship. A big pirate sheep, illegally shipping sheep to Hogwarts. "And why are you suddenly such a WONDERFUL PERSON?" He was clearly under the influence of either firewhiskey or some magical kindness potion, which he needed to take more often. She liked him a lot more this way. Must be the potion, because the firewhiskey was more likely to make him dizzy, not eager to gift her with a beautiful baby sheep.

The sheep was too perfect to keep her eyes off for long, so Aoife couldn't focus on Hunter after a second or two. "Awwww, precious," she murmured, patting the sheep gently on the head. Oh no, how was this going to work? Sure, nobody was going to stop her keeping the sheep when she was at school, but what happened in the holidays? Would she have to leave the sheep in the Forbidden Forest in the hope Mustachio would care for it, or could she take it on the train and the plane with her all the way home? Oh, who cared? It was only the start of term, there was no need to worry about all the practical shit now. She was just happy about HAVING the sheep, at the moment, and she couldn't lose sight of the fact that this was the most wonderful thing ever.

Unpredictably, Hunter didn't have to wait very long for a reaction. But the shriek that came out of her mouth, which made Hunter jump violently in surprise, was anything but predictable. "Jeez, can you scream in the other direction?" he asked, raising a hand to rub the ear that was still ringing from the shrill sound slicing through it. But he didn't even attempt to hide the huge grin on his face as she shrieked again and wrapped her arms around Little Shit like it wasn't the most annoying thing that had ever stepped foot on Hogwarts' grounds. Hunter quickly decided that he was one hundred and twenty percent sure that he'd never seen Aoife this excited before. It was quite possible that she'd never been this excited before, actually. The stupid thing went right up to her, too, like it somehow knew that she had created her own sheep charity and spent most of her time reading and talking and thinking about sheep. "Told you that you should be a sheep whisperer," he chimed in, laughing.

Before he could say anything else, Aoife took unpredictable a step further, and threw her arms around him. For a moment, Hunter didn't react, a look of shock crossing his face. Because honestly, he couldn't even remember the last time Aoife had hugged him. But his arms reacted without him really telling them to, sliding around her shoulders as easily as they would have four years ago. An amused smile played back onto his lips as she gave him probably the most enthusiastic hug he'd ever received and thanked him by screaming right into the ear that she'd already ruined. He didn't respond, because she instantly went off into a rush of questions. He let her talk without interrupting her until she seemed to be done, which was marked by her pulling away and returning her attention to Little Shit.

He loosened his arms, releasing her somewhat unwillingly, and responded."It's a boy. And I've been calling him - well, no, actually scratch that. He doesn't have a name." Telling Aoife what he really called the lamb was probably a death wish. Sure, she seemed happy and shit, but this was Aoife. She could turn on him at any moment if he said the wrong thing. Then, finally, common sense seemed to kick in a bit, and Aoife asked him where he obtained the sheep. "Uh, there's a whole flock of them in the east side of the forest," he told her, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I thought for sure that you of all people would know that." But even Hunter, who was probably the world's best liar at this point, couldn't keep from cracking a smile and laughing.

"Nah, I found him in Hogsmeade. Or, he found me," he admitted easily, leaning back onto his elbows and glancing over at her. "I was heading back to the castle after work and it followed me." Hunter made sure that his voice was devoid of the irritation that he had felt at the time as he continued. "I have no idea where it came from. Didn't look like it belonged to anyone, and it looked like it hadn't eaten in days. So I snuck him into the castle. Which was not easy, might I add," he said dramatically. "But as it turns out, my disillusionment charm isn't complete shit after all!" Which was lucky, because Hunter would have never got the little shit into the castle without it. "I mean, I didn't know what else to do with him. I couldn't just leave him there, he'd probably die." Which shouldn't matter. Because it was a sheep. But even Hunter, the heartless git, couldn't let some innocent baby sheep starve to death on the streets of Hogsmeade.



"I'm always a wonderful person. You just choose to ignore it," he said. "What are you thanking me for, anyway?" he asked suddenly, pretending that he had no idea what he'd done to make her so happy. "Are you just glad that I let you see my sheep?" he continued, stressing the word my because Aoife was oblivious and wouldn't get it otherwise. "Though, I'm not really equipped to take care of a lamb right now, to be honest. And by that I mean, I don't really want to. But I mean, look at him. Somebody has to take care of him." Hunter was able to keep a grin from breaking onto his face, but couldn't stop the small, amused smile that played onto his lips. "It's too bad that I don't have any friends that know anything about sheep, who would be willing to take him off of my hands, isn't it?" he finished, his smile broadening once more into a full-out grin. "So, where are you going to keep him?" Hunter asked, now nearly beaming.

Wait... What was happening? Was the big human giving little shit to the much prettier human? It would've been awesome if little shit could read minds right about now, because he didn't fully understand human speak and was a tad confused on what was happening. But, if he had to, he would go and live with the prettier human. It sounded more delightful. After all, there was a crap tone of space in this castle, surly these dense humans would be able to find him a better place than the tiny room he was in before. If not, he would poo on her bed too.

Little shit nuzzled in to the other human when she hugged him. It felt good and warm and fuzzy. Yes, he liked her a lot. But not so my after she permanently damaged  his ear drums when he showed himself after the nice swim. And not once, but TWICE did she scream am unfortunate amount, and little shit just didn't understand why, but felt the need to attack the bigger human for protection. If he touched the prettier human in a way that seemed threatening, he would surly inflict pain upon him that would be rather unpleasant. Humans underestimated sheep a lot. They had razor sharp teeth that would bruise any skin. It was a feature he was proud of.

Little shit suddenly felt very over protective of the prettier human. Did that happen much? Were sheep supposed to be over protective of humans or was it the other way around? He was unsure of the laws of nature. But, he sunk into the other human more and tried to avoid being out into the bigger humans hands because honestly, that was almost just as bad as getting separated from the flock, and being forced to live on his own.

Aoife's scream had even surprised herself. Much shriller and more teenage-girl-like than usual. Incidentally, in Hunter's ear. Oh well. He didn't LOOK completely deafened, as far as she could tell. "I'm done screaming," she said solemnly before she turned around to the sheep, not screaming but grinning like the happiest girl in the world. Because maybe, right then, she was the happiest girl in the world. The sheep was a very intelligent one, coming straight up to her, obviously enticed by the natural aura of sheep friendliness and inner beauty which surrounded her. "I'm already a sheep whisperer, duh, I'm so amazing and stuff," she replied, not really paying much attention to Hunter or herself and whatever it was she was saying. That happened a lot, her just talking, without even realising, and ending up spouting a load of random rubbish. She was too fixated on the sheep to really care about other shit.

A boy! Okay! Her baby boy. Name. Name name name. Because apparently he didn't have one yet, since Hunter was so dumb. But she could have been sure he was about to say a name. Oh well. Didn't matter. What mattered was that the poor thing didn't have a name, so it was vital that he got one. Only, she wasn't sure what it could be. She'd used all the obvious ones, Fluffy, Cloudy, Snowy, Shaun, on her sheep at home. She decided to just forget about that for a minute, because she wasn't paying attention to whatever Hunter was saying, and it could be important. A whole flock on- wait, no, he wasn't serious. Why did he always have to try and trick her to make her look dumb? She rolled her eyes, trying not to let on that for a split second she'd been fooled.

A sheep in Hogsmeade?! Why on earth was that? And why couldn't she have been the one to find him, so he wouldn't have to put up with Hunter? Didn't matter now, the sheep had her to care for him, the lucky little thing. Although it was rather unlucky how he would have had to be separated from his flock. And he was very skinny, needed to be fattened up because he didn't look entirely healthy. Had Hunter been feeding him an appropriate sheep diet? "Oh." Did that mean the sheep would have had to walk miles and miles, since the nearest muggle farms would have to be really far away? Or had he been part of an independent flock in a fairly nearby field, but got lost? For once, Aoife didn't have a lot to say. "Is a disillusionment charm an invisible making one?" That would make sense. Would she have to be working on her own magic, to keep the sheep hidden? So many questions. Aw. She couldn't hold back a little smile when Hunter said he couldn't just leave the sheep there. "That makes you sound like such a nice, charitable person," she said. "Sucks that you aren't."

"Yeah, right," she snorted. Wonderful? Hunter? No. Very few people were WONDERFUL. Plenty were nice, even very nice, but only Phineas and sheep were actually wonderful. Suddenly, she was back to the confused and bewildered state she was usually in. Why was she thanking him? That was obvious. Oh. He was being an annoying shit again and trying to fool her. "Yeah, well, it's good you have me," she said loudly as soon as he shut up. "I bet you're a terrible sheep keeper. I mean, what have you been feeding him? How often have you been walking him? Wait, no, don't answer, I don't want to know." Hopefully, this conversation would be over soon so she could take the sheep and feed him and look after him and take him to his new home... where?

Where on earth in Hogwarts could she hide a sheep? It would have to be a big space, not a small cramped dormitory. It would have to be fairly discreet, somewhere either that nobody would know about, or nobody would want to go to. "Uh... the trophy room? One of the empty classrooms that nobody goes to?" It was harder than she thought. Hogwarts seemed like it should have a lot of good hiding places, but it seemed that Aoife knew hardly any of them. She didn't want to ask Hunter for ideas - he was probably too dumb to have any. But she wasn't sure. Er... maybe she should just think about the name? Bob? Patrick? HEY BRAINWAVE. Willow! Like her old best friend Willow! "His name is WILLOW!" she exclaimed excitedly. Gosh, she was so creative.

She glanced at the sheep. Yes, he definitely looked like a Willow. Perfect. It was a bit sad, though, that, Willow would now be forced to be around humans, all the time, but with absolutely no sheep to keep him company. Sheep were supposed to be part of flocks, not alone. Hopefully, Aoife could be a good substitute for the flock. Unless, by any chance, she could manage to obtain another sheep? She would have to go search for that flock in the east of the forest, just in case.

"Good," Hunter muttered, pressing his palm to his ear. His now-bad ear. Which was ringing, and would probably never register sound right again. That would be a hell of a story to tell later on. Once, I gave this girl a sheep, and she screamed so loud that I went deaf in one ear. Nobody would even believe it. Luckily, he seemed to already be getting his hearing back in it, so maybe he hadn't just suffered such a tragedy after all. He didn't answer her when she said she was already a sheep whisperer, because Aoife didn't seem to even be focusing on what she was saying. She was just paying attention to the sheep with the biggest grin on her face.

It was strange, kind of, watching Aoife with Little Shit. Sort of like watching a wild animal in it's natural habitat or some shit like that. Like, for his entire life, Hunter had known Aoife, yet she had never made any sense to him. But in this moment, she did. And he couldn't help but smile, because for once, Hunter had managed to make her happy. Normally, all he got from Aoife was sarcasm and disinterest - unless he had food. And he'd gotten used to it, after so many years of the same thing. Even decided that it didn't bother him. He and Aoife just weren't meant to be friends. But he hadn't realized until this moment how much he'd missed being able to make her happy. Truly happy, not the temporary happiness that came from mooching a free butterbeer.

It was almost frustrating, because he knew that it would probably never happen again. After all, this was pretty much the epitome of anything he could ever do for Aoife. He would never top it, and once she'd gotten over being nice to him for it, he'd never be able to evoke this response from her again. Ever. And though he tried to tell himself that it didn't matter - that Aoife didn't matter, really - he knew that it was useless. Six years later, and it still made absolutely no sense that of all the people - all the normal, pretty, nice girls that he knew - he kept getting stuck on the girl sitting next to him. Sure, he'd distanced himself plenty of times, but he always ended up right back where he was at. Next to some crazy redhead who would never really care that he existed. And the only thing that really mattered was that last bit - that Aoife would never care, no matter how much Hunter did. So, with that lingering on his mind, he pushed whatever feelings he had for her from his mind and gave her his attention she finally chose to acknowledge him again.

"Sort of," he replied, shrugging. "Remember when Aylee and Kynan snuck us into Hogsmeade during first year?" he reminded her. "And Aylee put that charm on us that made us hard to see because we blended in with whatever was around us? Same thing." Truthfully, if Aoife couldn't even do a disillusionment charm, there was no way that she'd be able to keep Little Shit without getting caught. "As it turns out, I'm actually not shit at magic anymore, so I can show you how to do it if you need me to. Just takes some practice to get it right, so if you haven't done it before I might need to do it for the first few days when you want to take him outside." He snorted in amusement when she said he sounded nice and charitable. "Those are the last things I would ever describe myself as. Awesome, talented and ruggedly handsome, sure. But nice and charitable? Not so much," he replied jokingly, grinning.

"He loves Bertie Bott's," Hunter replied, rolling his eyes and looking over at Little Shit. "But I've been getting lettuce and some other vegetables from the kitchens for him when I can't let him outside to get grass." Hunter didn't even bother telling her how often he'd been letting the sheep outside, because he was pretty sure she would hit him. "Keeping him inside is a pain," he told her. "And you've got to watch that nobody finds it by accident." That was why Hunter had just kept the thing in the empty boy's dorm. "The gamekeeper's hut would have been perfect, but there's apparently an actual groundskeeper this year," he told her. "I think there's a pen off the back of that place, isn't there? Maybe you could ask him to keep it," Hunter suggested.

"Willow," Hunter repeated, looking at the sheep again. Little Shit was definitely more accurate, but he wasn't going to tell Aoife that. "I like it," he told her, though he didn't really care what it's name was to be honest. "You know, you owe me for this," he added as an afterthought. "Anyway, I'm hungry," he announced, standing up. "You want anything from the kitchens?" he asked. "I'll have to come back anyway to show you how to do the charm." Then, shooting her a grin, he took off toward the castle to get food.

Sometimes, just for a moment, Aoife felt a sense of what could only be described as compassion for Hunter. Because they weren’t best friends, like they used to be, but she managed to look past his many, many flaws for a second to see that he actually was okayish. However, right then, it was more than just a strange moment of delusion, it was genuine, lasting affection which made her feel like giving him another hug. But she didn’t, because she was actually worried that all this excitement about having a sheep here at Hogwarts was messing with her head and making her think too deeply about whether or not she thought Hunter was a git. Obviously he was a git, and it wasn’t good that she was doubting her own decisions.

Was this bribery? Giving her a sheep? Did he want something? She couldn’t for the life of her think what it was he would want, though. She was the one that copied HIS homework, and drank HIS butterbeer, not the other way round. So no, maybe he’d just had a quick burst of motivation to do something nice. Or maybe somehow, his motive for this was entirely selfish. Maybe he was dumb enough to not want the sheep? Oh well, didn’t matter now.

“Oh, yeah I remember!” First-year had been the funnest year at Hogwarts ever. “Wow, that’s how she did it?!” Aoife had always thought Aylee was some sort of genius, but it turned out that the spell she used couldn’t be at all difficult, if Hunter could manage to do it himself. Unless, like he said, Hunter wasn’t shit at magic anymore. “Yeah, I guess,” she shrugged. Most likely, she would immediately pick up the spell, first try, and not need his help, because she was so amazing at magic herself. “Handsome? Talented? Whatever you say,” she snorted. Hunter was probably the second ugliest boy in the entire school. That was after Blake.

Bertie Botts?! She pulled a face. “Do you know how stupid that is?! Those beans aren’t manufactured for sheep, especially not muggle sheep! Willow could have been poisoned, or choked!” There would be no more Bertie Botts for the poor sheep. She was going to be a responsible and mature sheep carer, unlike Hunter. “But yes, lettuce and stuff is good.” She would certainly need to keep him somewhere outside then, where there was no way he could be discovered by accident. A gameskeeper? Wow, that sucked. She’d quite liked the unoccupied hut, and it would have been perfect. “Have you met this guy? What if he goes off and tells the headmaster about Willow?” If the random stranger was trustworthy, then yes, it could work, but if he wasn’t, then she needed a different option.

She didn’t need Hunter’s approval because he was dumb, but he was right in liking the name Willow, because it was awesome. “Yeah, I do, maybe one day you can copy my homework or something,” Aoife said jokingly, because that was never going to happen. She’d make it up to him eventually, by sharing a large amount of haribos. “Grand, get me some pizza or something!” she called to him as he went, before turning back around towards Willow to ruffle his fur affectionately. Damn. She had her own sheep. At school.