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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry 0
An Introduction
Date: 29th October, 1895
Location: On the train to France

To whoever may one day stumble across these pages, perhaps another Magizoologist, or perhaps some curious soul rifling through my effects long after I’ve been swallowed by the earth. Permit me this indulgence: an introduction.

My name is Oliver Chatel. Twenty years old, fresh out of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hufflepuff, if that sort of thing matters to you. It matters to me. That house taught me that patience is as valuable as power, that curiosity without kindness is just cruelty in disguise, and that loyalty to creatures, be they human or otherwise, is a virtue as rare as a phoenix’s tear.

Though my education was British, my blood and heart are French. I grew up near Lyon, at the edge of the Rhône River, where mist clings to the water like secrets. My childhood was full of stories: of dragons in the Alps, selkies off the coast, lights dancing in the marshes. Some children grow out of fairy tales. I decided to chase them instead.

And so I write. This journal will be the chronicle of my journeys as a Magizoologist in training: my encounters with creatures others call myths, my attempts to study them with respect, my inevitable bruises and humiliations along the way. I make no promise to be objective; wonder deserves poetry more than statistics. I also make no promise of heroics; I am no legend, not yet. Perhaps never. But I will be honest. And honesty, I think, is as precious as unicorns.

Why start in France? Because home is where the whispers began. The Ministry’s Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures received reports of strange lights luring travelers into the marshes near Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer. Most dismissed them as peasant superstition. I hear opportunity. I hear the laughter of the unknown, beckoning me.

Also, I have a dream, and I'll write it here so I cannot lie to myself later:
I want to catalogue every misunderstood creature I can find and prove to the wizarding world that fear is not the same as respect. If I succeed, maybe one day there will be sanctuaries instead of cages, Nab-Sacks instead of poachers’ traps. If I fail… well, you’ll at least have an amusing account of my failures.

The next entry will be about the first true creature I encounter on this journey. Rumor names it a Will'o’Wisp. Folklore calls it a Feux Follet. Whatever it is, I intend to find out.

If you’re reading this, consider yourself invited to follow me into the marsh, into the fog, into the liminal spaces where magic dances. Keep close. Don’t wander off.

I’d hate to lose you before the fun begins.

Goodnight, Oliver.

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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No.1

Will'o’Wisp (Local Name: “Feux Follets”)
Date: 3rd November, 1895
Location: Marshes of Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, Southern France

Tonight, I write by borrowed moonlight and the faintest shimmer of ghostly blue twirling around me with energy. If my handwriting shakes, it is not fear, my dear reader, but the thrill that still dances in my bones. For the first time in my young career, I have with me, in my Nab-Sack, a Will'o’Wisp, one of the elusive Feux Follets of Provençal folklore.

The marshes of Saint-Cyr are treacherous even in daylight. By night, cloaked in fog and the scent of brine and rot, they are another world entirely, a liminal place where the veil between the living and the beyond feels dangerously thin. I had heard whispers from the villagers of a “blue devil’s lantern” that flickered near the old chapel ruins, appearing on moonless nights. They spoke of travelers lured astray, of drowned men with smiles frozen on their lips. Most tales are exaggeration. Still, I went armed with caution, my Nab-Sack, and the foolish determination only a Magizoologist possesses.

At first, there was nothing but mist and the creaking of frogs. Then, like a match struck in a dream, it appeared. A flicker of pale blue, no larger than a candle flame, dancing just above the stagnant water. Its movements were erratic, playful. It would dart forward, stop suddenly, then bob sideways like it was daring me to follow. And I did. Merlin help me, I followed.

They say Will'o’Wisps lead you astray. I don’t think that’s true. This one was not malevolent; it simply wanted to play. Every time I got close enough to touch, it darted away with what I swear was mischief in its glow. Nets passed straight through. Containment spells fizzled. I began to suspect the stories were true: catching a Wisp is an exercise in futility.

What finally worked was… embarrassing. I stopped chasing. Instead, I waved, yes, waved to the little light and asked if it wished to play tag. To my astonishment, it circled me twice, then darted away, jumbing in place and hid behind a dead tree, like it understood the rules. So, I jumped in my Nab-Sack, leaving it open. One feint, one dart, and with a laugh (do Wisps laugh? It felt like laughter), it zipped inside, chasing me. The Nab-Sack snapped shut on its own, glowing now faintly from within.

I almost feel guilty keeping it, even temporarily. Wisps have no physical needs, no hunger or thirst. They feed on the strange energies of decay and liminality. If one insists on housing them, one must respect that autonomy. My enchanted vessel now contains a handful of grave soil from the chapel ruins, stagnant marsh water, and a low-level Mistral Charm to keep the fog swirling within. I hope it won't grow restless, I’ll release it back to safest marshes soon, far from any village or town. Some creatures should never truly be tamed.

Why catch it at all, then? Because the world misunderstands these little lights. They are not omens of death, nor guides to the afterlife, they are the marsh’s laughter, the playful soul of the in-between. Necromancers claim they pierce the veil. Perhaps that is true. But for me, tonight, this Will'o’Wisp was a reminder: not all that lives in darkness wishes to harm you. Some just want you to chase them, get lost for a while, and remember that wonder is worth the risk.

Soon, I’ll begin the journey north toward the Black Forest. Rumors speak of Mooncalves dancing under the full moon. But that is another tale. For now, I watch the glow in my Nab-Sack and smile. The marsh’s laughter is mine to guard, for a little while.

Goodnight, Oliver.

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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 2

The Lost Foal
Date: 10th November, 1895
Location: Outskirts of the Vosges Forest, France

I had intended to write today about the Mooncalves said to dance under the full moon near the Black Forest. That will have to wait. Magic, like life, rarely obeys an itinerary.

On the road north, just past the misty Vosges woodlands, I stumbled upon whispers in the nearby village: “un démon squelette,” they called it. A gaunt shadow with leathery wings and empty eyes haunting their barns and roads after dark. Most dismissed it as drunken nonsense. But I’ve learned that the tales people fear most often have a grain of truth.

I found it near dusk, more precisely, it found me. A shape moved through the tree line, silent except for the faint rustle of wings. The first thing I saw were those pale, reflective eyes and the skeletal outline of a creature that shouldn’t be seen except by those who have faced death. I wish I could say I was brave. The truth? My heart pounded. You never forget your first sight of a wild Thestral, even a foal.

The poor thing was young, still unsteady on its spindly legs. Its ribs showed through its dark hide; its wings drooped. It wasn’t hunting or haunting. It was searching. And, if you’ve ever heard the sound of a Thestral crying for its dam, you know it’s a sound that threads straight through your bones.

I followed it into the woods expecting shadows. I found a tragedy. There, by the riverbank, I found its mother. She was alive. Barely. Her leg twisted at an impossible angle, likely broken from a fall in the slick mud. The bones in her side rose sharply under her hide, every breath shallow and rattling. I’ve never seen death coming and been so powerless to stop it.

The foal pressed against her bony neck, nudging, pleading in its way. She lifted her head weakly when I approached, eyes locking with mine. There is a terrible empathy in Thestrals, they see the truth of things, even when we look away. I knelt beside her and whispered every spell I knew. Tried healing charms. Tried pain charms. Nothing mended bone that far gone. Nothing stopped the way her breath caught like a lantern sputtering.

She wasn’t afraid of me. That’s the part I’ll never forget. She let me stroke the ridge of her jaw as she exhaled one last time. Her wings twitched once, then stilled. In the end, she died there, her head in my lap, under a sky already paling toward moonrise.
I’ve seen death before; otherwise, I wouldn’t see her kind at all. But there is a difference between witnessing death from afar and feeling it fade in your arms. And the foal’s cry, Merlin, I’ll hear that sound in my dreams.
What could I do except stay? I stayed until the stars came out, until the foal stopped crying and simply pressed against me, cold and trembling. I gave it water. Dried apples. My own cloak. Useless comforts, but something.

I sent Jonah, my Owl, to Beauxbatons’ groundskeeper, a man with ties to a Thestral herd near the Pyrenees. Telling them I will be bringing the foal tomorrow, to give it a family. But tonight, it has only me.

The villagers were wrong: the “skeleton demon” wasn’t a monster. It was a child seeking help for its dying mother. And every scream and fleeing lantern just made it more lost.
If you’re reading this, remember: most monsters aren’t born, they’re made, by our fear and neglect.

For my own record:
- Age of foal: Less than a year.
- Mother’s injuries: Compound fracture, extensive starvation, likely unable to feed.
- Behavioral note: Foal imprinted quickly after mother’s death; suggests Thestrals recognize compassion.
- Care:Do not attempt to herd alone. Thestrals require companionship of their kind. They feed on raw meat; don’t offer sweet treats like I did unless you want a very confused foal.

I’ll see the Mooncalves an other Full Moon, perhaps even write something bright again at that time. But tonight, I’m sitting by a cooling body under the stars, the foal asleep against me, and I wonder if this work will break me long before it makes me.

If so… perhaps that’s the price worth paying to tell their stories.

Goodnight, Oliver.

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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 3

The Captive Zouwu

Date: 15th November, 1895

Location: Outskirts of Dijon, Burgundy, France

When I delivered the Thestral foal to the Beauxbatons groundskeeper, he embraced me as if I were family. His eyes, however, carried another burden. Over mulled cider by his fire, he told me of whispers reaching the school: poachers had captured a Zouwu.

For those unfamiliar, a Zouwu is a wonder most never see: a massive feline beast from the Far East, its coat iridescent with shifting colors, its tail long as a river, its gait able to cross a thousand miles in a single bound. Rare, proud, and terrifyingly powerful.

That such a creature was here in France, and in chains? The thought made my stomach twist.

I should have written for help immediately. But I am only twenty, and thought myself capable of more than my quill proves here.

I tracked the rumors north, through vineyards and frost-bitten fields, until I found the poachers’ camp outside Dijon. It was worse than I imagined. The Zouwu was caged in iron lattices bound with enchantments, its flank torn where chains had bitten deep. Its eyes blazed with fury and fear, rolling wildly as it hurled itself against the bars. Each crash shook the earth.

And yet, the poachers laughed, tossing scraps of meat and jabbing with wands when it slowed. A magnificent creature, reduced to a spectacle.

My quill hesitates, even now. There are moments you wish you could unsee.

I tried. Merlin forgive me, I tried. I casted distraction charms, even attempted to slip close to break the enchantments. But the wards were layered with runes I've had never seen before, far beyond my skills.

Worse, the poachers spotted me. I barely escaped with my life, a curse searing the ground where I’d stood. Had the Zouwu not roared, distracting them with a fury that shook their camp, I might have ended as carrion.

I write this with a bruise on my ribs and humiliation burning in my chest. I could not save it. Not alone. So I did the only thing left: I sent an owl to the Ministry’s French Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, marked urgent. It feels like cowardice, to walk away and leave it in their hands. But one boy cannot break such chains. It will take trained curse-breakers Aurors to bring that beast back to freedom.

What haunts me most is not the danger, but the Zouwu’s eyes. When our gazes met through the bars, there was no fear, no trust, but something close to despair. As if it knew I had come to save it, and failed.

If this journal survives me, let it record this truth: to love magical creatures is not enough. One must also know one’s limits. And sometimes, saving them means admitting you cannot do it alone.

Goodnight...

Oliver

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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 4

Rescue and Reunion

Date: 22nd November, 1891

Location: Poachers’ Camp, near Dijon

The Ministry replied to my urgent owl today... A week later... I had prayed for swift action. Instead, I received a form letter:

“Your message has been received and filed. Processing will take several days. Please refrain from independent intervention.”

Several days. For a Zouwu in chains. For laughter from the poachers at its expense. For bleeding wounds that already festered. By the time their bureaucrats lift a quill, the beast would be dead, or worse.

I could not stand idle. So I sent another letter, not to the Ministry, but to someone I trust far more: Poppy Sweeting. We studied side by side at Hogwarts, bonded over the stubborn refusal to let creatures suffer. If anyone could understand the urgency, it was her. I begged her to come and help me, even if it meant abandoning my pride and admitting I had failed alone. Her answer came within the day. And she did not waste time. When I got out of my tent that evening to monitor the camp as I had done for the past six days, I stumbled straight into her arms.

Poppy, fierce and sweet as ever, with her hair in wild disarray and her smile sharp enough to break my despair. But she was not alone.

Standing just behind her was a man I had not spoken to in years. Sebastian Sallow. Once my friend, my rival, my shadow at Hogwarts. We had parted with more silence than words after graduation. Now he stood before me in Auror robes, wand in hand, expression unreadable. Time had carved sharpness into his face, but his eyes… they still burned.

Poppy said she would not risk the Zouwu’s life, or mine, without proper protection. And Sebastian was her protection. My heart stuttered like a snared bird when he nodded to me, curt, as if we had never once laughed in the library together at midnight.

So, we did not waste words. We went.

The camp had grown bolder since I last fled. The poachers drank and boasted around their fire, confident in their wards. But they had not counted on three determined fools storming their den.

The battle was chaos: Poppy’s Stunners flashing like lightning, Sebastian’s curses cutting through wards I had thought impenetrable, my own charms weaving around them both to shield and distract. The Zouwu roared, its fury shaking the air as spells cracked against each other like storms. One poacher nearly hit me square in the chest, Sebastian pulled me out of the way with an Accio spell so sharp it left my ribs aching. He didn’t even glance at me as he did it, but I felt the unspoken tether stretch between us again.

When the wards finally broke, the Zouwu surged free, wild and uncontrollable. It could have torn us apart. Instead, it thrashed toward me, eyes blazing. In that moment, I did the only thing I could: I opened my Nab-Sack and prayed. The creature lunged straight inside, vanishing in a swirl of enchanted fabric. Silence fell, broken only by my ragged breath. We had done it. Together. There was no celebration though. The poachers fled, Poppy kept her wand raised until the last one Disapparated, and Sebastian stood apart, dust and ash clinging to his robes.

Our eyes met only once. I wanted to thank him. Instead, I said nothing. The words caught in my throat. When we parted, Poppy squeezed my hand and promised we would write. Sebastian only nodded, turning away before I could speak.

The Zouwu is safe now, resting within the enchanted expanse of my Nab-Sack, until we find a sanctuary vast enough for its stride. That victory should fill me with triumph. Instead, I don't know why but I feel hollow, aching with questions I do not yet dare ask. Seems like Creatures are not the only things that return to you when you least expect it.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 5

The Chinese Fireball
Date: 17th December, 1895
Location: Yunnan Province, China

The Zouwu has gone home.

I still see the way it bolted into the forest, a streak of fur and muscle, tail swishing through the bamboo until it vanished into green shadow. For weeks it tolerated my presence, permitted me to bind its wounds and ease its temper with toys and charms. It would rest near me, though never too near, always on its own terms. I let it go with pride, but also a strange pang, as though I had given away a piece of myself.

Perhaps that is why I did not leave China immediately. I wanted to breathe the same air, walk the same ground that creature now calls home. And perhaps, deep down, I wanted to prove myself again.

So I turned my attention to another legend: the Chinese Fireball. A dragon. Not ink on parchment, not whispered stories, but a living, breathing flame upon the world.

I did the courteous thing first. I went to the Wizarding Embassy in Kunming, robes cleaned, hair tied back, my best manners on display. I asked, very politely, if there was a way for a licensed Magizoologist to observe a Fireball. Only to be met with polite dismissal.

“Fireballs are not for tourists, Monsieur Chatel,” the attaché told me, lips tight with disapproval. “They are lethal, unpredictable, and guarded. If you value your life, stay away.”

As if I were some naïve boy with a pair of binoculars.

I left smiling, but inside I seethed. If I have learned anything since my 5th Year, it is this: doors closed to me will never remain so for long.

For days I wandered the province. I bartered for scraps of rumor in village squares, leaned in over tea to hear stories from weathered farmers, studied maps until my eyes blurred. Most of what I gathered was useless, superstitions, hearsay, a dozen tales of fire that could just as easily have been a burning kiln. But one old farmer, whose voice rasped like stone on stone, spoke of a ridge where the land was black and barren, where trees stood dead and no animal lingered. "There, he said, tapping the map with a crooked finger. There you will find what you seek, if you are bold or foolish enough to look."

I went.

The climb was punishing: air thinner, wind sharper. The scent reached me before the sight did: sulfur, smoke, the bite of ash that stung the back of my throat. Then the earth beneath my boots turned to char, brittle and cracked. Trees rose like blackened skeletons, their branches clawing the sky. And at last, across a jagged valley, I saw it.

The nest.

A hollow cavern carved into the mountainside, vast enough to swallow a carriage whole. The ground outside was littered with bones, white against the ash, and the faint white of skulls that must have belonged to prey far less fortunate than myself.

And there, within, was the Fireball.

Its body sprawled like a mountain come alive, scales glowing bronze and crimson, as if the beast itself had been forged in a furnace. Every slow breath sent smoke curling into the air, the exhale crackling faintly like the hiss of banked coals. When its eyes opened like two golden suns in the dark, my skin prickled even though the beast didn't see me, or I think it didn't. Fireball are know for their hatred towards humankind, so I stayed hidden.

I did not move closer. I dared not. Every instinct screamed that one step further would end me, my body nothing but ash scattered on that blackened ground. So I crouched on the ridge, heart pounding so violently I thought the creature might hear it, and I wrote.

I sketched the outline of its body, the flare of its nostrils, the curve of its talons digging into stone. My hand shakes so badly the ink smears across the page. Not from fear, though I will not deny I was afraid, but from awe. From the sheer, impossible truth of it. I have seen dragons before, even had a close encounter with one at Hogwarts. But that doesn't change how impressive it is to face one, even from afar. 

It is not a beast to be tamed, nor captured, nor even studied too closely. It is a force, raw and eternal, a reminder that the world holds powers far greater than any wand. I am glad I disobeyed the Ambassy.

I stayed for hours, watching from afar as the dragon shifted, stretched, sent up a plume of fire that lit the mist in hues of gold. My quill could not keep pace with my eyes, and I fear no words of mine will ever capture it truly. Yet here I try, because to remain silent would feel like blasphemy.

When I turned back, night had fallen. The air was cold, sharp in my lungs. Yet I walked as though I carried fire within me.

The Zouwu had taught me humility.
The Fireball has taught me reverence.
Perhaps, one day, I will learn patience.

…Though, if I am honest with myself, I wished, just once, that someone else had been there to see it with me. To share in the impossible beauty of it. Someone who... Nevermind.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 6

Winter Solstice, 1895
Somewhere in Shanghai

Snow drifts against the carriage window tonight, fine as sifted ash. The lantern light flickers, catching in the glass like ghost-stars. I should be charting routes to Japan or cataloguing the Fireball sketches in a proper ledger, but Poppy’s letter lies open on my lap and refuses to let me go.

Her words carry the scent of hay and frost, and suddenly I am seventeen again, boots crunching across the frost-slick lawn toward the Great Hall. I can almost hear the music of Christmas at Hogwarts: choirs threading carols through the vaulted rafters, the enchanted snow falling in gentle spirals that never melted when it touched your skin. I remember the crackle of the common-room fire, the clatter of chess pieces, the warmth of a mug pressed into my hands.

I did not know then how fierce a memory could become when you have no one beside you to share it.

Poppy writes of loneliness, of the quiet heartbeat of a Puffskein as her only company. It comforts me and wounds me in the same breath. I chose this life of movement and creatures; still, I find myself aching for laughter that is human, for a voice calling my name in a corridor, for the simple gravity of friendship that Hogwarts wrapped around us without effort.

And Sebastian.

Merlin, how easily his name steals my breath even after three years of silence. I have tried to tell myself that our distance is natural, that school ties loosen, that people grow and turn their faces toward other suns. Yet Poppy’s letter opens an old door. He was smiling when we parted, she wrote. I keep reading that line until the parchment blurs.

I remember nights in the Undercroft, when the castle slept and the world shrank to the glow of our wands. The way he would lean too close when he whispered a plan, his voice a low dare in the dark. We shared secrets there that no one else would ever hear. We made promises, not in words, but in the fierce way we looked at each other, as though the rest of life could wait.

Then graduation came, and I let the silence grow between us. Perhaps he did the same. Pride is a stubborn thing.

Now I wonder what might have been if I had written first. If I had followed him down the station platform that last morning and said the things that burned unsaid in my throat. Would we have traveled together? Would he be sitting here now, watching the snow, teasing me for my sentimental heart?

I do not know.

What I do know is that when the Zouwu roared in its cage and the poachers closed in, it was Sebastian who fought with me beside Poppy. He did not have to come. And when the beast was freed and the night was ours again, he looked at me once, just once, with that same unguarded warmth I thought I’d imagined.

I miss Hogwarts.
I miss him.

The quill shakes as I write this, as though it too waits for an answer I cannot yet give. Perhaps when this journey bends me back toward Europe, I will find the courage to close the distance I created. Perhaps.

For now, I let the snow fall, and let the memory of Christmas at Hogwarts burn quietly in my chest like a hearth no storm can reach.

Good Night, and Merry Christmas,

Oliver.

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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 7

15 March, 1896
Ōmine Mountains, Japan

The cherry blossoms fall like soft snow tonight, a hush of pink drifting through the dark pines. Each petal lands without a sound, and still I hear them, small heartbeats against the stone. I came here chasing a creature of silver and sky, but I find myself listening instead to the quiet.

After the Fireball and the long, cold journey home from China, I thought only of stillness. So instead I chose pursuit. I told myself it was scientific: to witness an Occamy hatch, to watch a living being unfurl from its shell into air. But beneath that neat reasoning lay something messier, a hope that the relentless noise in my head might finally fade. And the noise has a name I hardly dare write.

The trail was a labyrinth. In Calcutta I followed a scrap of rumor through spice markets thick with cardamom and heat. An apothecary claimed to have seen “silver serpents coiling like moonlight” along the Ganges at dusk. I boarded a riverboat and watched the reeds for nights, the water black and star-shot, and found nothing but the hush of oars.

Indonesia was next: volcanic islands where fishermen swore of eggs that glowed on cliff ledges, “pearls of the wind,” they called them. I climbed jagged rocks slick with salt spray until my hands bled, slept on beaches where the tide licked my boots. Again, the stories dissolved like morning mist. Each failure only pulled me onward, as if distance itself might drown memory.

Weeks blurred into months. I woke one morning to find winter loosening into spring and myself standing before Japan’s mountain gates. I could not have said when I chose this direction. Perhaps the Occamy led me by some invisible tether. Perhaps my own restlessness did.

The climb into the Ōmine range was an ascent into another world. The air thinned until every breath felt stolen. Cedar and cypress scented the wind, old and resinous, like incense in a forgotten shrine. Snow still clung to the highest ridges, but below them the first cherry trees had burst open, their petals scattering in gusts of rose-coloured light.

That is where they found me.

At first, only movement, a flicker of crimson among the branches, a shadow slicing the sky. Then the Tengu revealed themselves: tall as men, draped in feathers black as midnight and tipped in scarlet. Faces sharp, beaks gleaming, eyes like polished garnet. The stories call them mountain demons, guardians of sacred peaks, tricksters who punish arrogance.

I froze, heart thundering. One stepped forward, silent but sure, talons biting the stone. It studied me with a soldier’s patience. Another dropped soundlessly to a branch overhead, wings folding like blades. The wind itself seemed to pause, the mountain holding its breath.

I bowed. Instinct more than thought, respect for something older and stronger than the magic in my wand. The lead Tengu tilted its head, unreadable. Then it traced a slow circle in the air with one clawed hand. The gesture was deliberate, almost ritual. A question? A warning? I could not tell. I offered no spell, no words, only stillness.

A hush passed between us that felt like understanding. And then, with a single beat of wings, they were gone, vanishing into a whirl of blossoms, leaving only the rustle of petals as proof they had ever been there.

I never found the Occamy. Perhaps that was never the true purpose of this journey. Standing beneath those ancient trees, I felt the tight coil of longing loosen for the first time in months.

He lingers at the edge of every thought, yet here, among the cherry blossoms and the watchful Tengus, the ache softens. The loneliness remains, but it is no longer a wound; it is a companionable silence, like the mountain itself.

Maybe that is enough for now.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 8

27 March 1896
Kyoto Prefecture, Japan

The cherry-blossom rains have slowed, but the air is still heavy with their perfume. Petals cling to my sleeves like small, damp stars as I descend from the mountain path. Two weeks of wandering these ridges should have worn me down, yet something in Japan keeps sharpening my senses.

This morning an elderly innkeeper traced a finger across a hand-drawn map and murmured a single word: Kappa. Her voice carried equal parts mischief and caution. “Stay away from the deep pools,” she warned, “and if you must meet one, bow lower than pride allows.”

I followed the Katsura River until the hills gave way to a lowland marsh. Bamboo rose in pale, jointed columns; the mist clung so thickly it seemed the world ended three paces ahead. Each step into the mud felt like a trespass.

A sudden plop broke the hush, followed by a chuckle that wasn’t quite human. I stilled. Through a break in the reeds, a figure hunched in the shallows: child-sized, skin the green of wet moss, a beak catching the dim light. Across its skull sat the fabled dish of water, shimmering like a moon held captive. Eyes bright as polished stones fixed on me, weighing and measuring.

The Kappa raised a long, web-fingered hand and crooked one claw, an unmistakable invitation. I remembered the innkeeper's every words about these river spirits: never fight them in their element; never lose your wits; show respect and they must answer it.

I stepped into the open and bowed as low as the muddy bank would allow, forehead nearly touching the slick stones. The Kappa’s eyes narrowed, then it bent forward in a jerky mirror of my motion. Water spilled from its cranial bowl in a silver arc and hissed as it struck the river. For a heartbeat the creature froze, suddenly vulnerable.

When it straightened, a new expression lingered, something like reluctant amusement. With a deft flick it splashed a spray toward my boots, a gesture that felt half challenge, half benediction, before sliding beneath the surface without a sound. Only a widening ripple remained, a perfect circle vanishing into the current.

I stayed long after, the bamboo whispering overhead, petals drifting onto the dark water. The encounter left me oddly weightless, as if I’d shared a secret no one else could name.

Now, lantern lit in my small room, the smell of river moss still clings to my clothes. I think of the Black Lake at dawn, of a boy with a crooked grin daring me closer, his memory surfaces like a restless fish. Distance hasn’t dimmed it. Perhaps it never will.

But tonight I also carry the quiet knowledge the Kappa offered: that some bonds can’t be chased or possessed. They must be met with respect, honored, and allowed to slip back into the current, leaving only the ripple and the echo.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

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Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 9

12 May 1896
Eastern Himalayas, Tibet

The Himalayas do not welcome visitors; they test them.
Even now, days into this climb, the cold has become a living thing that sinks its claws beneath the skin. Each breath burns like smoke. My wand hand is numb despite every warming charm I know. The sky itself seems carved from stone, an endless, hard blue that mocks the tiny warmth of the sun.

I came here on a rumor: whispers of a migoi, a white giant that the villagers describe with a mixture of reverence and dread. In the tea houses, they lower their voices when they speak the name, eyes sliding toward the mountains as if the creature might be listening. No one will guide me higher. They say the peaks belong to spirits, not men.

Yesterday, while trading for dried yak meat and lamp oil, I overheard three American muggles boasting in loud, careless English. They carried cameras and rifles, laughing about “bagging an Abominable Snowman” as if it were a trophy elk. Their arrogance clanged through the market like a cracked bell.

I could not leave them to their hunt. So I played the helpful stranger. I sketched false trails with words, fresh prints to the west, a narrow pass they simply had to see. They swallowed the bait eagerly, trudging into a maze of switchbacks while I guided them with cheerful misdirection. By the time I slipped away, the mountain had already begun to swallow their laughter.

Night fell quickly as I doubled back toward the true high pass. The wind sharpened into knives. Snow drifted in dry, whispering flakes, so light they barely touched the ground before the air stole them again.

Then I saw it: a single print in the fresh powder. Enormous. Toes splayed wide, the edges sharp with cold. One stride would outpace three of mine. My heartbeat became the only sound.

The trail climbed to a ledge where moonlight poured like liquid silver over the glacier. I crouched low, and listened. At first there was only the hiss of snow over rock. Then, a shadow peeled itself from the ice.

It was there.

Broad-shouldered, impossibly tall, the Yeti moved with a silence that defied its size. The moon caught in its fur, each strand white as the mountain itself, so that it seemed carved from the glacier and only now decided to move. I could see the slow rise and fall of its chest, the breath steaming in the brittle air.

A sudden crunch behind me made me whip around. Nothing, only the yawning black of the valley. When I turned back, the Yeti had closed the distance between us.

Its eyes, dark, fathomless, locked on mine. The world narrowed to that gaze. My pulse hammered in my throat; a drop of cold sweat running down my nape.

It exhaled a low, resonant growl, more vibration than sound. The snow beneath my boots trembled. It was no mere threat, it was a command: leave.

Every instinct screamed to run, yet I held my ground, palms open in the moonlight, the way I might soothe a restless Hippogriff. For a breathless moment we simply stared at one another: two creatures out of place in this frozen world.

Then the Yeti tilted its head, as if weighing me. Slowly, it turned. With a grace I would have thought impossible, it strode back into the blizzard. The mountain closed behind it, the white curtain of snow swallowing every trace until I could almost believe I had imagined it.

I remained long after the silence returned, the stars burning cruel and sharp above. My body shook, not from cold, but from awe.

I have catalogued many beasts, but this was different. The Yeti is not merely another magical creature. It is the mountain’s own will given form, a guardian carved from storm and stone. No spell could bind it, no trap contain it.

As I write, the echo of that growl still hums through my ribs, a reminder that some mysteries are meant to remain wild.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 10
27 May 1896
Wind-carved Steppe, Mongolia

The plains here are endless. Grass bends like an ocean under the sky, and the horizon swallows every thought until it feels small enough to breathe again. Perhaps that is why I came, because the guilt grows quiet when the world is this wide.

Ominis’s letter still rides in the inside pocket of my coat. I have read it so often the folds have begun to fray. His handwriting is a marvel, precise, steady, elegant loops that defy the fact that he has never seen a single line. Each stroke feels deliberate, as though he shapes words by sound alone. I run a thumb over the ink and almost hear his voice.

And yet even his kindness cannot dislodge what sits in my chest.
The memory waits behind every campfire, every long ride beneath a moon too bright to ignore. I tell myself I could not have changed it, that what happened was beyond reach, but the lie frays whenever I close my eyes.
There was a moment, a heartbeat, when I might have done more.
A power I did not claim.
A choice I did not make.
Because of that silence, someone is gone.

Sebastian has every right to hate me for it.
Perhaps I hate me for it too, though the word feels too simple for a wound so deep.

So I keep moving. Across borders, across seasons, from jungle to desert to these endless Mongolian winds. If I stay in one place, the past will catch me. If I move fast enough, the sound of hooves and the hiss of grass might drown it out for another night.

And yet, Ominis writes of marriage, and in that there is a light I cannot begrudge. I am glad, truly glad, for his happiness. Some lives deserve beginnings untouched by ghosts.

Tomorrow I ride east, where the dawn comes first. Perhaps the horizon will keep stretching, and perhaps, for a little while longer, that will be enough.

Goodnight,

Oliver

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 11

14 June 1896
Altai Mountains, Mongolia

The mountains here are relentless, sculpted by wind and time into jagged spires and sheer cliffs that leave no room for pride. I had been hiking a narrow ridge when a sound cut through the usual howl of the wind, a long, keening cry that carried both terror , fatigue and pain. Not human, not quite any animal I knew. I froze, listening, every muscle taut, until the sound came again, closer, more desperate.

I followed it carefully, moving between boulders and pine, each step chosen to make as little noise as possible. Then I saw it.

A Re’em, larger than any horse I had ever seen, its chest broad and hooves planted like tree stumps, yet trembling with agony. Its left leg was caught in a poacher’s trap, ancient iron biting deep into flesh. The creature’s dark, intelligent eyes met mine, wide with fear and disbelief, and I felt my own heart tighten at the rawness of its suffering.

The Re’em tried to pull free. Each movement caused a shuddering snort, sending vibrations through the ground, and I had to resist flinching at the sheer force it could wield. I approached slowly, knelt in the grass and whispered words of comfort, soft and careful, though I doubted it would understand me. My wand stayed ready at my side, yet I knew no charm could ease the panic and pain it carried.

The trap was old, rusted in parts, cruelly designed. I worked slowly, checking the mechanism with trembling fingers. Every snap, every creak, made my stomach lurch. One wrong move could shatter bone, or worse, send the Re’em into a panic I could not contain. Its breathing was ragged, nostrils flaring, muscles trembling like steel cables under strain.

Finally, the iron gave way with a reluctant click. The Re’em pulled back sharply, trembling, shaking with fear and relief. I knew it would not survive if left here, far from it's herd and wounded. Its gaze followed mine, wary but desperate, and I realized the only way to ensure it lived was to carry it myself.

With a careful push, I coaxed the beast into the Nab-Sack. Inside, it settled with a shuddering sigh, as if understanding that for now, it was safe. The weight pressed against me, a tangible pulse of life, power, and trust. I murmured soft reassurances, stroking its coarse fur where I could reach, careful not to startle it.

Once we were secure, I prepared salves and poultices, tending each wound with meticulous care. I could feel its warmth and its tension, the constant tremor beneath my hands that reminded me of how fragile even the strongest creatures could be. Each breath it took was a lesson: patience, respect, and the responsibility of power.

By the time the sun bled behind the jagged peaks, the Re’em’s breathing had slowed. Its eyes, still wary, now carried a spark of recognition and a fragile, cautious trust. I allowed myself a small measure of hope. I whispered that tomorrow would be easier, that it would heal, and that I would not abandon it to the cruelty of the world.

Moments like this, caught between fear and awe, pain and care, remind me why I chase creatures across the globe. It is not glory or fame I seek, but these fragile intersections where life hangs on the edge, where trust is earned with patience, and where mercy is an act as vital as any magic.

Goodnight,

Oliver

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 12

7 July 1896
Persian Plateau, near the Zagros Mountains

The plateau rolls like an endless ocean of ochre and gold. Heat wavers over the salt flats until the distant hills shimmer as if half-dreamed. For days I followed the faint tracks of a Re’em herd, broad, heart-shaped prints pressed into dry earth and sweet clumps of blue fescue cropped low by heavy mouths.

Today I finally found them. From a rocky rise I watched a dozen magnificent shapes moving through the haze: golden coats catching the first light, horns glinting like new moon crescents. My own Re’em stirred inside the Nab-Sack, a soft vibration I could feel through the fabric, as if recognising the low calls of its kin.

I released it slowly, kneeling in the brittle grass. For a moment it stood beside me, muscles still tensed but strong, breath steaming in the already warm air. Then a single deep note carried across the plain, a welcome from the herd, and it bounded toward them with a power that shook the ground. Not once did it look back. I told myself that was as it should be, though the sudden emptiness at my side ached more than I expected.

I turned west, already thinking of ports and trains and the long road home, when a sudden sweep of darkness crossed the ground before me. A shadow, vast, silent, glided over the baked earth like a cloud untethered from the sky. Instinctively I looked up, expecting a hawk or perhaps one of the great desert eagles.

What I saw stole the breath from my lungs.

High above the plateau, a shape emerged against the hard white glare of midday: immense wings stretched wider than the sails of any ship, each beat slow and deliberate, as if time itself bent to their rhythm. The creature’s silhouette shimmered where sun struck it, feathers catching light in impossible hues, silver so bright it seemed to spark, deep sapphire that drank the sky. The thin mountain wind seemed to still, as though the world were holding its breath.

It began to circle. Once. Twice. Each arc carved across the heavens with an elegance that dwarfed every bird I have ever known. Then, with a grace that defied its size, it tilted one wing and descended. The air thickened around me, carrying the faint scent of rain on stone as it spiraled lower and lower.

When it touched the ground, the earth gave a muted tremor, like a heartbeat. It was a Simurgh. No legend, no tapestry, no whispered traveller’s tale could have prepared me for the reality of it. Taller than a house, feathers layered like hammered moonlight, eyes radiant with a calm that felt older than the mountains themselves, it stood in utter silence.

I found myself rooted to the spot. My wand was useless at my side; every spell, every practiced word of greeting or protection fled from memory. The creature’s gaze held me, not predatory, not cautious, but piercingly aware, as if it were reading the shape of my life.

After a span of heartbeats that might have been seconds or centuries, the Simurgh inclined its great head. Slowly, deliberately, it reached its beak to its own breast and drew forth a single feather. The motion was careful, almost ceremonial. The plume shimmered as it left the body, light rippling across it in waves of liquid silver and deep twilight blue, like moonlight poured over deep water.

It stepped forward, talons leaving impressions as deep as a man’s arm, and lowered the feather until it lay in the dust at my feet. The gesture needed no translation: a gift, a recognition.

I bowed without thinking, heart hammering so hard I could hear the blood in my ears. The Simurgh regarded me a moment longer, eyes steady and unreadable. Then it spread its colossal wings.

The first downbeat was a storm in itself, a roar of air that tore at my cloak and sent pebbles skittering across the plateau. The second lifted it clear of the ground; the third carried it back toward the sun. Higher and higher it rose, until its silver glow became no more than a spark against the endless sky, and then even that spark was gone.

When I finally moved, the feather lay across my pack, long as my arm, warm to the touch despite the wind. Tilted one way it shimmered silver; another and it darkened to a blue so deep it seemed to hold the stars themselves.

Scholars would call it priceless. Merchants would call it fortune. But as I hold it now, I know it is something rarer: a wordless assurance that what we do for others, every small act of mercy, will be seen.

I turned west once more, carrying a single feather and a silence that feels like blessing.

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 13

3 September 1896
Wiltshire, England

I arrived at the Gaunt's countryside estate just as the morning mist lifted, rolling off the hills like gauze over green stone. My second-hand costume, purchased from a shop tucked behind a narrow street in Paris, carried the faint smell of mothballs and lavender. It was ill-fitting in some places, loose in others, but somehow it felt like armor, a thin layer between the world and the knot of nerves I had carried for the last three years. I had not spoken to Ominis since the silence fell, and I half-feared that this visit would be awkward, stiff, or worse, entirely unwelcoming.

It was none of those things.

Ominis and Jamie met me at the door as if no time had passed at all. Their smiles were warm, unguarded, and genuine. Ominis’s hand rested briefly on my shoulder, Jamie’s eyes crinkled in laughter as though I had simply been late to tea, not absent for years. The house itself smelled of fresh flowers, bread baking in the kitchens, and autumn grass pressed between the panes of open windows. There was a calm joy in the air that seemed to smooth the tight edges of my anxiety.

And then I saw him.

Sebastian.

He stood at the front of the house, impeccable in black, the best man. The sunlight caught the sharp lines of his face, the burnished amber of his eyes, and for a moment I felt entirely unmoored. Handsome, composed, infuriatingly perfect and yet, undeniably him. My instinct was to stay at the edge, to disappear into the background and let the day pass without adding the weight of my presence. After all, I had not written. I had not reached out. Perhaps he had forgotten me or worse, perhaps he had forgiven nothing. But eventually, our eyes met.

He did not look away.

Every time my eyes flicked toward him, his gaze caught mine, patient and searching, as though it remembered every word we had whispered in the quiet corridors of Hogwarts. My chest tightened at the thought of how easily he could still unravel me, and I had to remind myself to breathe, to keep my hands from trembling.

The ceremony passed in a blur of petals, vows, and quiet laughter. The estate smelled of roses and incense, sunlight spilling in through the tall windows in golden columns. There was music, the soft scrape of chairs, the distant chatter of family. Every now and then I caught sight of Sebastian, standing near the arch with practiced grace, and a pang hit me: how long it had been, how far apart we had drifted, how heavy silence can become.

Later, at the reception, I wandered into a group of Hogwarts alumni, hoping to ground myself in familiar faces. It was there that I met Miles. Red hair like fire, eyes that caught every flicker of light, and a boundless energy that made it impossible to ignore him. A Gryffindor, a few years my senior, and hopelessly devoted to dragons in a way that reminded me why I had chosen this life. We fell into conversation immediately, trading stories of impossible beasts, firebreathing, and narrow escapes from enchanted forests. Hours slipped by unnoticed. Laughter spilled across tables, intertwining with the clink of glasses and the soft murmur of other guests. He had a way of making the world feel smaller, warmer, as though conversation could stitch the distance between strangers in a single night.

As the evening wound down, Miles insisted on walking me back to my lodgings. The stars were sharp and cold above, cutting through the night like scattered jewels. The air smelled of damp grass and the distant smoke of hearth fires. At the door of my temporary room, he pressed a scrap of paper into my hand, scribbled with his address. “Write,” he said with a grin. “Or I’ll come hunting you down myself.” I laughed, but the warmth of this connection lingered longer than the echo of his words.

Back in my room, I sat by the open window, listening to the party’s laughter fade into the night. Ominis and Jamie had welcomed me as though I were always meant to be there. Miles had been a spark of energy and warmth, a reminder of the joy that can be found unexpectedly. And Sebastian… he had been impossible, a constant shadow across my thoughts. His gaze had lingered far longer than politeness demanded, and I knew, deep in the marrow of my bones, that the past I carried with him was far from settled.

I do not know what the coming days will bring, but tonight I am reminded that the world I left behind, the one filled with laughter, bonds, and shared secrets, still exists. And perhaps, just perhaps, it is not lost.

Goodnight;

Oliver.

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 14

3 September 1896
Wiltshire, England

The clock in the square had just struck four when I finally set my quill down on the last page of last night’s entry. The streets outside my window were hushed, the air damp with the faint sweetness of spent roses from the wedding. A thin fog hung low, the sort that softens every sound until the world feels half-dream.

I had barely kicked off my shoes when a knock came at the door. Soft, deliberate. Too late an hour for innkeepers, too careful for drunken guests. My first thought, ridiculous in hindsight, was that Miles had returned, eager to continue our endless conversation about dragons and distant mountains.

It wasn’t Miles.

When I opened the door, Sebastian stood there.

For a long heartbeat neither of us spoke. He looked… undecided, as though the words he’d rehearsed had slipped away the moment our eyes met. His hair was slightly disheveled from the night air, his black suit still immaculate.

“Oliver…” he said finally, voice low, roughened by something I couldn’t name.

The name settled between us, heavy as stone. I tried to answer but my own throat betrayed me; every thought scattered like startled birds.

His jaw tightened, a flicker of frustration, or maybe hurting, passing across his face. “Forget it,” he muttered, turning as if to vanish into the street’s silence.

Before I could think, I reached out and caught his wrist.

“Sebastian, wait..”

And just like that the years collapsed.

The memory slammed into me: sixth year, the Undercroft. The two of us bent over a battered book, candlelight pooling in the quiet. Our shoulders had brushed, once, then again. Too close. I’d felt the air shift, charged and unsteady. Our breath miggled and our lips parted. Then I panicked, I’d snapped the book shut and mumbled an excuse, rising to flee before anything could happen.

“Oliver, wait !” he’d said then, just as I did tonight. I remember the sudden warmth of his hand around my wrist, the tug that turned me back toward him, the way he pulled me close. His breath, his heartbeat, the shock of his mouth on mine...

The memory shattered like glass.

I realized my fingers were still around his wrist, sweaty and trembling.

I let go at once. “Sorry,” I whispered.

He didn’t speak. For a moment we simply stood there, the street quiet and humid. Then he stepped back, eyes unreadable, and walked away without another word.

The fog swallowed him, leaving only the soft echo of his footsteps fading into the early-morning. I stood there for a long time, the ghost of our first kiss still burning in my mind, wondering if I had dreamed the interaction at all.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 15

8 September 1896
On the train from Wiltshire to Edinburgh

The innkeeper slid my bill beneath the door at dawn, a polite reminder that my borrowed corner of Wiltshire was no longer mine. I had just begun to fold my few possessions when another knock came, brisk and unashamed of the hour.

THis time, it was really Miles.

His hair was a copper riot against the morning grey, his grin already wider than the doorway. “I hoped I’d catch you before you vanished,” he said, stepping in without waiting for an invitation. “I’ve been thinking: you spend your life chasing wonders, and I spend mine chasing dragons. Why don’t we chase them together for a while?”

I must have looked startled, because he laughed, a bright, reckless sound. “Come north with me,” he continued. “The Hebridean Blacks are restless this season. I have maps, contacts, a few questionable cousins who know the islands better than the Ministry does. We can start there.”

I tried to protest. I had no plan, no schedule beyond a vague pull toward France, perhaps the next quiet marsh or mountain. But he only waved my objections aside, speaking of volcanic cliffs and skies split by black wings, of the thunder of dragons above the sea.

And I found, to my own surprise, that I wanted to say yes.

Perhaps it was the way he spoke, every sentence alive with salt wind and possibility. Perhaps it was simply that the thought of another solitary journey suddenly felt heavier than my packed bag. The silence after Sebastian’s visit has been a hollow thing, echoing louder with each passing day.

So I told him I would come.

We leaved for Scotland at first light: train to Edinburgh, boat to the outer isles, then the long trek across dark rock where the Hebridean Blacks make their eyries. Miles promises we will see at least one, eyes alight.

I do not know what waits on those cliffs, only that the idea of another voice beside me, another heartbeat matching my own as the sea roars below, feels like a kind of relief.

For the first time in months, I am not traveling alone.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 16

12 September 1896
Outer Hebrides, Scotland

I had almost forgotten what it is to walk in step with another person.

For years the only rhythm to my days has been my own: the soft drag of boots across marsh or desert, the lonely whisper of quill on parchment. Miles has shattered that quiet in the best possible way. He fills the empty spaces with an energy that refuses to be dampened by rain, by wind, by the sullen grey of the Atlantic. Even the Hebridean drizzle, which can soak a man to the marrow, feels warmer when he is beside me, laughing as if the weather is part of the adventure.

His laughter is a kind of music. It carries through the mist, bright as a charm, and I catch myself listening for it the way one listens for birdsong after winter. He talks almost constantly, not to fill silence but because every stone, every gust of sea-spray reminds him of dragons. He recounts the first time he glimpsed a Welsh Green, the theories of migration patterns he’s been mapping, the rumors of hidden nesting sites his “questionable cousins” have whispered to him. He speaks of dragons the way a painter speaks of light: half reverence, half hunger.

And it is contagious. Each time he sketches a wingspan in the air, his hands carving invisible arcs through the rain, I feel that old, bright eagerness rise in me. The one I thought solitude had dulled.

Two nights ago we climbed a cliff that plunged straight into a black, boiling sea. The wind there tasted of rain and salt. Miles insisted we keep our lanterns dark; the moon was thin but enough to see the jagged horizon. We lay against the rock, shoulder to shoulder, and waited.

At first there was only the crash of waves. Then a vibration, low, subterranean, rolled through the stone beneath us, so deep I felt it in my teeth. Miles’ hand tightened on my sleeve. Out of the roiling clouds a shape emerged, vast and deliberate: a single Hebridean Black, wings stretched wider than the cliff itself, scales glinting like wet obsidian each time lightning flickered behind it.

Another followed, and another, until the sky itself seemed alive. They did not dive or shriek as I expected; they moved with slow, powerful grace, circling high above in what Miles whispered was a mating dance. Their roars were not cries of battle but a kind of thunderous courtship, a sound older than language and deeper than the sea.

We watched as they spiraled higher, bodies weaving patterns in the storm. Rain lashed our faces, mingling with the warm spray from their wing-beats. I could smell the musk of them even at that distance, a metallic tang of smoke and stone.

When at last the last echo faded and the clouds closed, Miles exhaled a shaky laugh, the kind that belongs only to those who have witnessed something sacred. I realized I was smiling too, rain streaking down my cheeks, heart hammering with a wonder I had almost forgotten.

We stayed long after, neither of us speaking. The world felt sharpened and quiet, as if the dragons had taken the noise of the sea with them. Miles leaned back on the rock, eyes still lifted to the storm. And for the first time in months, perhaps years, I did not feel the weight of my own solitude.

Perhaps that is what I have been missing all along: not merely the creatures, but the company with whom to see them.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 17

15 September 1896
Isle of Skye, Scotland

The rain was beautiful on the cliffs, silver sheets against the dark sky, but I underestimated its bite.
Days later the bill has come due.
My chest burns as if I’ve inhaled the sea itself, each breath a scrape of salt and stone.
Fever comes and goes in waves: one hour I shiver until my teeth ache, the next I’m sweating as though I’ve swallowed fire.

Miles refused to let me limp back to the mainland alone. He bundled me onto the small ferry, his arm a steady anchor as the deck pitched, and brought me straight to his family’s house on the Isle of Skye. The place is built of thick grey stone and smells faintly of peat smoke and dried herbs. Storms lash the windows, but inside it is warm enough to soften even the sharp edges of fever.

His sister pressed a Puffskein into my arms the first night, a plump little creature the color of ripe apricots. It settled immediately on my chest and began to hum, a low thrumming vibration that seeps through my ribs. I can feel its tiny heartbeat when I stroke the silky fur. Somehow it steadies me when the coughing fits come. I have not felt such simple comfort in years.

Miles is… relentless. He carries guilt like a pack and will not be dissuaded.
“I should have dragged you down from that cliff sooner,” he mutters each time he brings another mug of tea or bowl of broth.
He blames the weather, the dragons, himself but never my own foolishness.

He tends to me with a devotion I scarcely remember anyone offering.
Hot ginger tea, laced with honey.
Endless bowls of fish soup, fragrant with seaweed and pepper.
Pepperup potion that sends thin curls of steam through my hair, leaving my skin flushed and damp.
When the fever spikes, he cools my forehead with cloths soaked in rainwater, his brow drawn tight as though he could will the illness out of me.
I tease him, call him a worrier, a would-be Healer, but the truth is his attention stirs something deep and unguarded in me.

It is dangerous, that warmth.
I have lived too long among creatures who ask nothing and give only their presence. To be cared for so completely, without bargain, without hesitation, makes the walls I’ve built feel suddenly fragile. Each time he tucks the blankets closer, or checks the pulse at my wrist, the loneliness I’ve carried for years loosens a little more.

And yet Sebastian lingers like a shadow at the edge of the fever-dream.
Even as Miles’s kindness pulls me toward the present, memories slide in:
the knock on a quiet door,
the sound of my name spoken low,
the stolen warmth of a kiss long ago in the Undercroft.
I tell myself it is only the fever, only the past pressing its thumb against an old bruise, but his presence clings, a ghost between each heartbeat.

The Puffskein shifts, humming softly, its round body radiating warmth.
Downstairs I hear the familiar creak of the stair as Miles climbs again, no doubt with another pot of tea and another soft scolding.
For the first time in many months, perhaps years, I do not dread the sound of footsteps approaching.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 18

28 September 1896
Loch Ness, Scotland

For the first time since my illness, I feel something like myself again. The fever has finally left my bones, and the air feels sharp and clean, carrying the faint scent of peat and rain-soaked pine. To thank Miles for the weeks he spent tending to me, bringing tea, soup, blankets, and his relentless care, I insisted on showing him a fragment of my world.

We began along the rugged villages of the Great Glen, chasing whispers of a creature said to haunt the loch: a horse, dark as night, with eyes that glimmered like deep pools, dragging unwary travelers beneath the water. Fishermen and innkeepers shared half-believed stories with exaggerated hands, children whispered of hoofbeats echoing across the water at dusk, and old women muttered of kelp found tangled in hair on shores where no one had drowned. Every tale was stitched with both caution and delight, the kind of story that lures the curious into impossible truths.

Eventually, all paths pointed to Loch Ness. We arrived at its stony shore just as the moon began to climb, silver and cold. The loch stretched before us, dark and still, the water reflecting the distant stars like scattered jewels on black velvet. We built a small fire near the water’s edge, the flames a soft heartbeat against the quiet of the night. Miles draped a thick wool blanket around both of us, his arm a warm weight pressing against mine.

The hours passed gently, almost suspended. We spoke of dragons and Hebridean rain, of dreams both grand and quietly foolish. At some point, a stray strand of my hair tumbled across my eyes. Miles reached over and brushed it aside, fingers lingering just long enough to make me acutely aware of the closeness between us. The warmth of his hand, the brush of his sleeve against mine, the gentle rise and fall of his breath, it was intoxicating, a quiet spell stronger than any potion or incantation I have known.

For a heartbeat, the world contracted. Only he existed, and I felt the tension in the night thrum like a living thing between us. Our faces were so close that I could count the faint freckles on his cheek in the firelight, smell the hint of pine and woodsmoke clinging to him. My heart thundered in a way that seemed too loud for the silence.

Then came the splash.

Water erupted from the center of the loch in a cascade of silver droplets, catching the moonlight like stars cast across the water. Startled, we both twisted, and there it was: the Kelpie. Its massive form rose from the water, sinewy and entirely woven from flowing seaweed. Long, dark-green weeds trailed from its mane and hooves, glistening like strands of living silk. Its eyes were deep and green, glowing with a strange, intelligent light that made my stomach twist with awe and fear.

The Kelpie leapt again, arching in midair as though performing some ritual dance, and the water that splashed from its body scattered across the loch like liquid starlight. Foam and droplets sparkled against the black surface, glinting in the moonlight. The creature’s movements were at once terrifying and breathtaking, a perfect combination of elegance and raw power.

Miles whispered, almost reverently, “A Kelpie.” His hand found mine under the blanket, and I squeezed it back, as if sharing the wonder would make it tangible. We stayed motionless, hearts racing, eyes locked on the creature as it dove and re-emerged, dancing in the water with impossible grace.

Eventually, the Kelpie sank beneath the waves for the last time, leaving only the gentle ripple of water against rock. The night returned to its quiet rhythm, but the magic lingered. Miles shifted closer, warmth radiating into my side, and I felt something unspoken settle between us, an intimacy born of shared awe, quiet trust, and the lingering thrill of a creature too wild to be tamed.

We sat in silence for hours, letting the fire burn low and the loch breathe around us. I could feel the faint tremor of his shoulder against mine, the subtle touch of his hand as he adjusted the blanket. Each small motion stirred something deeper in me, a longing that neither dragons nor kelp nor distance could quiet.

Yet even in this perfect closeness, a shadow lingers in the back of my mind. His name, his presence, a memory, rises quietly, unbidden. But tonight, the warmth beside me, the hum of the fire, the magic of the loch and the creature dancing within it, these things anchor me to the present.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring, but tonight, under the stars and beside Miles, I feel a rare kind of peace.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 19

8 October 1896
Isle of Drear, off the Scottish coast

The sea was slate-grey when we set out at dawn, the horizon a ragged line of cloud that promised neither kindness nor warning. Miles had coaxed an old fisherman into ferrying us to the Isle of Drear, that notorious speck of rock whispered about in taverns. I had told him I only wanted to see the Quintapeds, to watch them from afar, never to provoke, never to harm. He grinned and said, “We’ll keep our distance,” though the mischief in his eyes told me he welcomed the risk.

The crossing was harsh. Salt spray stung my face as the little boat bucked and slapped against the swells. Miles stood at the bow like some restless figurehead, red hair snapping in the wind, excitement bright as the morning sun. I envied his steadiness; my stomach knotted with a quiet dread I could not name.

The island itself is a wound of stone, no trees, only slick black rock and a stench of brine and rot. Even the gulls kept their distance. We had taken barely a dozen steps inland when the first low growl curled through the mist.

It came from everywhere at once.

Five-legged shapes, hunched and powerful, emerged from the fog like nightmares given flesh. Their eyes glowed a sickly yellow, their jaws full of teeth too many and too sharp. Quintapeds. The legends had not lied: they moved with a terrible, loping grace, each extra limb giving them a grotesque speed.

I raised a hand in a futile gesture of peace. “We’re only here to observe,” I said, my voice almost lost to the wind. But the creatures only closed in, their snarls vibrating through the wet air.

One lunged. Instinct shattered my hesitation.

“Protego!” My shield charm flared just as the beast’s claws raked the air where my chest had been. The impact reverberated through my arm like striking iron.

Miles was beside me in an instant, wand flashing. “Diffindo!” A slicing arc of light cut across another Quintaped’s flank, buying us a breath of space.

They kept coming. Five, six, too many. The narrow path toward the shore was already cut off.

“Bombarda!” Miles shouted. The spell cracked like thunder, showering us with shards of rock and the acrid scent of burned air. One creature yelped, rearing back, but another darted in from the side.

I hated every spell that left my wand. Each jinx felt like a betrayal of everything I believe, that wild things deserve reverence, not violence. But survival gave no room for mercy. We fought in a storm of teeth and claws and magic, until at last the creatures recoiled, melting back into the fog with low, furious growls.

Only when the silence returned did I see Miles on his knees. Blood streaked the sleeve of his coat, dark and wet. A Quintaped’s claw had torn deep across his upper arm.

The world narrowed to that wound.

I dropped beside him, hands trembling as I tore a strip from my cloak. “Merlin, Miles, why, why didn’t you...” My voice broke. The cloth darkened almost instantly as I pressed it to the gash. He hissed but didn’t pull away.

“It’s nothing,” he tried to say, but his face was grey beneath the freckles, and the stubborn grin faltered.

Tears blurred my vision, hot and unwelcome. “This is not nothing.” I whispered as I gae him a Wiggenweld Potion, my hands trembling. The bleeding slowed but would not stop completely. The fisherman’s boat felt impossibly far away.

Miles lifted his uninjured hand, brushed a damp curl from my forehead, the smallest gesture of comfort even as his own blood slicked my fingers. “Hey,” he murmured, voice rough. “We’re alive, Oliver. You kept us alive.”

I couldn’t answer. The salt on my lips was part sea, part tears.

We staggered back to the shore together, the fog closing behind us like a curtain. The fisherman’s eyes widened when he saw us, but he said nothing, only hoisted the sails of the boat toward the mainland with grim urgency.

Now, hours later, Miles sleeps fitfully in the cot beside me, his arm bandaged and resting in a sling. I sit awake, listening to the soft rasp of his breathing, my own heart still hammering with the echo of claws on stone.

I wanted to witness wonder. Instead I brought harm and nearly lost someone who has become far more than a traveling companion. My hands still smell of iron and salt and I do not know when that scent will fade.

Goodnight..

Oliver.

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 20

9 October 1892
North Sea, aboard the Firth’s Grace

The sea was a sheet of molten silver when I stepped onto the deck. Dawn bled slowly across the horizon, soft and pink, and the air still carried the night’s chill. Miles slept below, his wounded arm swaddled and his breathing steady, but my mind refused the same calm. I had hoped the salt wind might scrub away the memory of snarling Quintapeds and the smell of blood.

Instead it brought a sound.

At first I thought it a seal’s cry, a thin, rising note that trembled like glass, but there was something pleading in it, a rhythm that pulled at the marrow. I leaned over the rail, scanning the silver waves. The call came again, mournful and insistent.

There, just beyond the boat’s wake, something thrashed. Nets, thick and weighted, floated half-submerged, and in their cruel weave a pale shape twisted: sleek grey skin, long hair like strands of kelp. Not a seal. A Selkie.

I didn’t think. I only shouted for the helmsman to slow, kicked off my boots, and dove.

The cold hit like a spell, a knife of winter driving into my chest. Salt burned my throat as I surfaced, gulping air, then struck for the nets. The Selkie’s dark eyes met mine, wide, almost human in their terror. I drew my knife from my belt and slashed. The ropes were thick, swollen with seawater, but they parted under enough fury. The creature slipped free in a whirl of foam and was gone, a ghost through the waves.

Only when I turned back toward the ship did the weight of what I’d done crash in: the distance, the cold, the strength draining from my limbs. My strokes grew ragged. I surfaced coughing, lungs screaming. Strong hands seized my coat and hauled me over the rail.

Miles.

“Merlin’s beard, Oliver!” His face was ashen, eyes wide with a fear that made my own chest tighten. “Are you trying to drown yourself?”

“I... Selkie... trap...” I stammered, teeth already chattering.

“Bloody reckless,” he snapped, voice breaking with relief. He stripped off my soaked coat, swearing under his breath, then half-dragged me below deck. In moments he had me undressed on the bed, blankets piled high.

“You’re freezing,” he muttered. When my shivering only worsened, he cursed softly, climbed onto the narrow bunk, and pulled me against him beneath the blankets. Heat radiated from him like a living hearth, his heartbeat steady against my back. “Stay still. Just breathe. I’ve got you.”

Outside, the ship slowed, the morning quiet but for the gulls. Then a sound rose, a soft chorus of trills and clicks. Miles lifted his head. Through the porthole a dozen sleek forms danced alongside the hull. The Selkie I’d freed leapt in a silver arc, spray scattering like diamonds, and another followed, and another. They swam with us for miles, a magical escort beneath the rising sun.

I lay there, the damp still clinging to my hair, listening to their voices. Wonder and unease mingled in my chest.

Because this is not the first trap I’ve seen. Nets and snares, cursed iron and poisoned bait, more and more with every place I visit. Something is stirring in the underworld of poachers, a pattern I cannot yet name. And if it reaches even these northern waters, what hope do the gentle creatures of the world have ?

Miles tightened his arm around me, his warmth a wordless anchor. For a little while, I let myself rest.

Goodnight,

Oliver.

Chapter Text

Field Journal of Oliver Chatel – Entry No. 21

1 November 1892
Snowdonia Foothills, Wales

I thought I knew what cruelty was.
Tonight taught me otherwise.

The rumours had been constant for weeks: great wagons rolling through the valleys, night skies flashing green, the mournful cry of creatures dragged from the mountains. Miles and I followed those whispers into the slate-grey heart of Snowdonia. A wet wind howled through the heather as we climbed, but even the storm could not hide the stench of smoke.

And then we saw it.

A camp sprawled across the moor like a battlefield after the war had fled. Dozens of iron cages, each inscribed with dark sigils that hummed with containment charms. Inside: everything. Hippogriffs with clipped wings. A Griffin whose proud neck bore a collar of cursed steel. Nifflers, Bowtruckles, even a trembling Cerberus pup. All silent under enchantments that stifled their cries.

At the far edge loomed the largest prison of all. Chains thick as ship’s mooring stretched across a pit of ash, and within, a Common Welsh Green. Her scales, emerald dulled to slate, shuddered as she tried to spread her pinioned wings. The sound of it, a deep bass groan of fury and pain, made my chest ache.

Miles stood rooted, rain sliding down his face.
“They chained a dragon,” he whispered. His voice trembled, not with fear, but with fury. “They chained her.”

I reached for his arm. “Miles... don’t...”

He was already moving.

“Miles, please...”

But rage outpaced reason. He stepped into the clearing, wand drawn, and bellowed a spell that split the night in a streak of orange flame. The camp erupted. Curses cracked like thunder. Shadows surged from every side, wands flashing with sickly green and red. I fired a Protego, too slow. A Stunner hit me squarely in the chest and the world fell into black.

I woke to stone and cold iron. A cage smelling like wet earth and rot. Across a narrow aisle Miles slumped in another cell, wrists shackled, blood dark against his temple. When he stirred and met my eyes, there was apology there, raw, wordless.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped.

Hours bled together in the damp. The creatures moaned softly in their prisons. Torches hissed. Then came the footsteps.

They opened his cage.

Two men dragged him into the torchlight, his boots scraping the stone. Their leader followed, a wand held almost casually. “What were you thinking, hero?” he asked, his voice bored and cold.
Miles lifted his chin. “Let the dragon go.”

The leader smiled, a thin, cruel curve. “Tell me who sent you. How many more of you wait in the hills?”

Miles spat blood onto the floor.

The man grimaced, visibly displeased by the red-head refusal. The curse hit like a thunderclap.
“Crucio.”

I had heard the incantation only once before, years ago in the Scriptorium’s choking dark. Sebastian’s wand, my own whispered consent, the agony that followed, it had etched itself into my bones. Pain beyond pain, every nerve flayed alive. I knew. I knew what was coming for Miles.

His scream ripped through the camp, through me. His back bowed until I thought his spine would snap, fingers clawing the air as if he could tear the torment free. The smell of singed cloth and sweat filled the night.

“Who sent you?” the poacher demanded.

Miles could only gasp.

Again. Crucio.

The sound that left him was no longer human. I gripped the bars until my palms bled, every memory of the Scriptorium rushing back, the helplessness, the certainty that death would be kinder. My chest heaved with rage and terror. I shouted until my voice cracked, but the guards only laughed.

A third time the curse struck. Miles collapsed, twitching, his breath a thin rattle. The leader knelt, sneered, and whispered something I could not hear. Then, with a careless flick, he signaled the others. They dumped Miles back into his cage like a broken puppet.

I pressed myself to the bars, whispering his name, over and over. He did not answer.

Night dragged its black cloak across the camp. Poachers drank and sang around their fires while the creatures whimpered. Miles lay motionless, skin clammy, eyes half-closed but alive. I forced myself to breathe, to think. Panic would save no one.

And then, a name crossed my mind. Jonah.

My steadfast owl, clever as any witch, should be near. I pressed my lips to my thumbs and gave our signal: three low whistles, barely a breath.

Minutes later a shadow swept across the moonlight. Silent wings. A glint of gold eyes. She landed just long enough for my whispered plea.
“Find help. Find someone. Anyone. Hurry.”

She vanished into the endless dark.

So I sat by the faint glow of a smuggled ember, the air heavy with smoke and fear. Miles’ breathing was a fragile thread behind me. The dragon groaned in her pit, chains clanking like distant thunder.

I know the taste of that curse. I know the scars it leaves, ones that never fade, no matter how the skin heals. To hear it again, to watch it break someone I… care for, it splited something in me I did not know could break again.

All I could do was hope Jonah flies faster than the dawn...