Just as paints in a palette moistened with water would always pick up traces of other colors, beautiful scenes were always spoiled by elements that appeared out of nowhere. Brian's gaze swept past the pure, majestic unicorns and moved to their hooves-and the mossy ground beneath them.
On the carpet woven from moss lay a spot-the-difference puzzle: among over a hundred unicorn hoofprints, there were unmistakably several human shoe prints. They were fresh; a few blades of grass were still struggling to straighten their bent backs.
It was not just unicorns. Someone had been here-and that person might even still be here now.
It looked as though his plan to cuddle the unicorns would have to wait. Brian raised his guard while chatting with Hagrid as usual. "Ah, this really is a perfect place to camp out in the wild." He stole a glance at Fang, who was still playing. Apparently, Fang's nose had failed to detect the scent of an unfamiliar human.
Could it be a poacher?
Brian and Hagrid drew closer and closer to the unicorn herd. When the two unicorns on lookout duty saw that it was them,
they lowered their heads and went back to their business. One was trimming a bush with its teeth; the other was stamping in the stream, sending up fluorescent water lilies.
No, it wouldn't be a poacher. At that thought, Brian relaxed considerably.
If a stranger had come here, the unicorns should have reacted-either by driving them away or moving away as a herd. In any case, they should have done something, rather than lounging about as though nothing had happened...
Unless the unicorns trusted that stranger a great deal and knew them at least as well as they knew him or Hagrid. That was difficult to achieve. Even Dumbledore,