Harry Potter X Reader {1}

~9 - The Trouble With Newton~

 A shorter, bubblier filler.

December in Scotland is absolutely beautiful.

Imagine the quilts of silvery-white-glisten snow draped across it's fields, forests, mountains, and more. Snow flurries dripping from trees in small clumps of congealed ice and wind. Grey, vast, covering callus-clouds conjured to accumulate and hide the sun away. The calming, reaching frosts climbing glass and leaves. Thick, glass-ice locking those living within the Black Lake beneath it's surface until the weather deems they're once again able to breach.

Yes. December in Scotland is absolutely beautiful.

This morning I woke to find the grounds completely covered with the snow from the storm that passed last night. I expected it to begin soon, as we're maybe half-way through December, meaning both the snow and Christmas was soon to come, and I noticed, upon waking particularly early, that one has come today, and so now, an hour before I'm supposed to be within the Great Hall for breakfast, I'm stood outside and looking about.

My shoes crunch satisfyingly through the icy-crystal accumulation, the sounds of early-rising birds calling off in the cold distance. I wonder if they're as cold as I am? I'm freezing! But I can't convince myself to leave the sight just yet.

We used to get snow back home during the Christmas season and through the first few months of the new year, but it was never as beautiful as this. I've always loved the cold. Loved the snow. I've never really thought why, but I know that I don't much mind not understanding, I just enjoy, well, enjoying it.

Mum never liked the cold, however, and she'd refuse to let me out within the snow when I was younger through fear of me getting sick. I used to find myself mad at her for not letting me, but as the years grew in number, and my willingness to understand progressed, I came to understand that she was simply looking out for me, and that she had every right to be frightened by my falling ill. She had, after all, already lost my sister.

The horrible side of our Amethyst Healing Gift, is that we cannot use it on those of us with said gift. That's why mum never taught it too me even when I begged and begged her too when she was once ill herself. 'It doesn't work like that, sweetheart," she'd said. 'If it did... we'd be much better off.'

It wasn't until a few years later that I realised she was speaking about my sister at that time.

From the corner of my eye, I see something dash from one area to another. I glance that way hoping to see it again, but I don't, and so I move over to investigate further. The snow crunches beneath me as I approach the area I saw whatever it was, to find a small trail through the snow no deeper than that left by a house cat, though I'm sure all of our cats are staying warm in the castle, so it can't be that.

I hear shuffling from my right and turn just in time to see the body of a dark-brownish to black creature dashing underneath a nearby bush. Definitely not a house cat. I move cautiously over to the bush and crouch down in the snow, the small grunt of the animal hidden murmuring from the shrub. I move the branches back to find a plump creature with very dark, short fur, a small tail, four, little legs, black eyes, and a long snout reminiscent to a ducks bill.

"A Niffler?" I ask aloud after recognising it's species. "What on earth are you doing out here in the cold?"

I reach towards the creature, recognising it from one of my favourite books, and a couple others, knowing that the beast, although generally wild, should most definitely be within it's burrow this time of the year. It's much to cold for the poor thing. He'll catch his death out here.