Jen stepped from the castle's stone walls into the wide-open moor. Sweeping arcs of tall grasses rippled through the hills, dancing to the lull and flow of the whispering breeze. As she stepped onto them, her shoes sank softly into the springy grass. She padded along the grassy slopes.
White oxeye daisies and bluebells twinkled between the blades, and bushes lined the path, trembling beneath the weight of berries and leaves. Pine, oak, and spruce trees stood scattered across the hillside, their branches stretching like fingers reaching out to the sky.
The wind caught her long dark hair and sent it waving behind her like a cape around her billowing Hogwarts robes. Jen had been eyeing a pale jade willow tree on the other side of the lake, whose branches brushed the ground like a tent, when a furry black tail flashed in her peripheral vision. In alarm, she whipped her head, eyes searching. Her black cat had gone missing in the week past. Making a decision, Jen marched off the path toward the distant green.
Deeper into the grounds, twigs and branches dotted the fields. The pines became more frequent, and the grass was peppered with white clover, yarrow, purple harebells, pink heather, yellow autumn hawkbits, and the blue pompom heads of devil’s bit scabious.
Further on, Jen came upon a huge black willow blotting the horizon, twisting outward, thick and carpeted in lichen. Its trunk was gnarled with ridges and bumps. Its tangled, drooping branches scraped the bottoms of the clouds, yet they swayed with an unsettling violence for something so large.
The sprawling roots dwarfed Jen. She stared up at it, recalling something her grandmother had said to her as she tended her night flower garden. She had been bent by the soil with a shovel while Jen lay on the tire swing. Jen remembered the weight to her eyes as she straightened and remarked,
"We should take care of the land. Someday we'll be part of it."
She shook off the memory, gave the tree a wide berth, and resumed stomping around, hoping to catch another tuft of black. Not a moment later, Jen spotted not one, but four tufts of black bobbing through the grass. The last three were much shorter than the first. Jen crouched, following closely.
In the low foliage, Jen could see that one of the cats was clearly Jelly, but the other three cats were only half his height and trailed Jelly like he was Mother Goose.
The babies couldn’t be his, however, and he would be a terrible mother goose, reasoned Jen, as Jen's mum had outfitted him in a ruffled rainbow collar lined with little bells right after he'd been neutered.
But as Jen crept closer, she realised they weren't quite following Jelly alone. Tiny shapes clung to their backs, half-hidden amongst their black fur. Shimmery pollen dusted the cats' coats, and from behind the little riders Jen thought she could see delicate glass wings sticking out.
'Hmm...suspicious.' thought Jen as she squinted 'Very suspicious.'
On they went towards the edge of the grassy fields, where moss-eaten ruins sat beneath a covering of English ivy. A sparse scattering of beech, sycamore, pine and yew marked the back of the grounds. Suncatchers and bottles hung from the lower branches, while the trunks bore carvings left by generations of visitors. Nettles, red campion and dusky purple-blue columbines filled the bushy undergrowth that Jen carefully navigated.
The cats ducked through a hole in the tall brambles bordering the forest. Jen hesitated, considering the oak sign reading 'Turn Back Now' in large lettering. Well, it wasn't like she could even fit herself through the cat sized hole to get in.
She got down on her knees and stuck her head as far into the opening as she could. Beyond it lay a sheltered grove beneath a thick canopy of trees, its floor carpeted with dead leaves and a brook winding through the shadows. She grabbed her omnoculars while she was at it, just in time to see the cats stop at the hollowed opening at the base of a tree trunk.
One by one, the little glass-winged creatures hopped from the cats' backs. They left trails of shimmery pollen behind them as they landed, then gathered at the mouth of the hollow.
‘Fairies!’ thought Jen.
One of the fairies was a little buff-tailed bumblebee. It stood on two little legs, facing a white ermine moth fairy. A common green grasshopper with iridescent wings stood before them like an officiant. The fourth fairy was a tiny human girl with downy brown hair drifting around her face. She was wrapped in a leafy gown, twinkling as she flew to the ground.
Jen’s jaw dropped, and a little green frog promptly jumped in, settling comfortably on her lower lip. Now she was terrified for an entirely different reason, leaving her jaw unhinged as far as possible.
An ethereal horse had materialised in the distant green mist.
Its mane floated like silk, trailing majestically around it in a symphony of pastels. Its smooth coat was glaucous and luminous, looking almost translucent as it trotted delicately forward under the mogshade.
Hogwarts: A History had mentioned that they occupied the Forbidden Forest. White, silver-maned, magical unicorns, wandering somewhere among the trees as though that were the most ordinary thing in the world. According to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, unicorns were XXXX-rated beasts. Jen never quite understood why. They weren't described as particularly vicious, and besides, this elysian creature was the loveliest thing she’d ever seen.
It approached a hollowed tree stump pooled with still water and touched the long, spiralling pearl horn upon its crown to the silvery surface, where the faint daytime moon was reflected through a gap in the canopy. The pool rippled. Drop after drop, inky blackness spilled from the horn's tip, engulfing the unicorn’s reflection.
The snowy unicorn stepped away from the stump.
An obsidian horn pierced the water's surface, followed by a head and a body of fluffy black curls. The dark reflection rose from the pool adorned in glistening rivulets of streaming water, which it shook off with every step. It was like a cosmic twin to the cloud-like unicorn, its floating mane painted in a galaxy of blues and purples and dotted with twinkling stars. Its eyes were black all the way through, and its long grey eyelashes were crusted with crystal dewdrops. In her head, she decided to call the light one Nebu and the dark one Boba.
Jen had little time to dwell on them, however, as a tall, thin spotted deer pranced down the winding brook. Its brown coat was dappled with white, and its legs were impossibly long. Two great antlers emerged between its floppy ears, twisting upward to meet in a circular arch above its head. Within the circle, a spider's web glistened. At its centre sat a tiny black spider with eight milky eyes.
The deer’s eyes were similarly milky, framed by long dark lashes. It trotted up to the hollow, crouching to let a garden snail down from its back before turning to greet the unicorns, who huffed and stomped in return.
Oddly, it then scuffed its hoof against a mossy mound above a small, rough boulder sunken into the ground. The earth seemed to sigh at this, and the very ground rumbled, shifting and crackling as the dappled grey figure of a unicorn slowly rose from the crumbling dirt. It was matted with earth and pebbles and blanketed in dangling plants and moss, from its rocky horn to its hanging green tail.
Jen could hardly believe what she was seeing. More insects had begun arriving alongside the unicorns.
The grasshopper fairy jingled, as if saying something. Led by the grasshopper fairy at the front, with the bee fairy and the ermine moth fairy second, a little procession began. A chorus of jingles and chimes filled the air as the procession made its way towards a circle of spotted red mushrooms. The four cats followed behind them.
One by one, the fairies and unicorns disappeared into the ring. The frog jumped out of her mouth to join them. When the last unicorn had stepped through, Jen found her voice again.
“Psst... Jelly,” she hissed.
The cat turned to her, holding eye contact, then jumped into the fairy circle after the others. The ring of mushrooms disappeared behind him, leaving nothing but empty forest.
In resignation, Jen crawled back from the bramble, putting some distance between herself and the forest before she was spotted. She trudged away, struggling to process what she’d just witnessed.
She twirled her wand thoughtfully as she trudged down the hill, watching the little trail of sparkles that followed its movement. The wand contained unicorn hair. She wondered whether any of those unicorns had supplied it.
As she approached the far end of the grounds, the trees gathered and bushes knitted together into an impenetrable mass. Sunlight slipped between the branches in thin golden shafts, illuminating drifting leaves and patches of moss.
Jen slowed. Something rustled in the undergrowth. She continued walking. A pair of eyes, or perhaps merely two flecks of reflected sunlight, glimmered in the shadows before disappearing behind a tree. She wondered what they were.
A bird called somewhere overhead. Beyond the forest edge, branches creaked and leaves whispered to one another, and every now and then another indistinct shape passed behind the green wall of trees. It was as though the place was breathing. Jen followed along.
The trees closed around her until the open hillside disappeared behind dense foliage. She had the vague thought that perhaps she ought to turn back before she truly wandered into the Forbidden Forest.
Then she saw the clearing. It opened before her like a secret garden, half shadowed beneath the broken canopy. Sunlight split into beams over a carpet of green moss, while vines hung in leafy curtains from the surrounding branches. Pale flowers of hedge bedstraw and eyebright clustered beneath the trees, and shafts of gold illuminated floating motes of pollen. The whole place seemed impossibly rich, impossibly quiet, and -
Somewhere among the leaves, a scream erupted...
Jen startled, creeping toward the sound.
She froze, her heart pounding. From the darkness, a leathery, skeletal beak emerged, followed by hollow eyes and two spiky horns atop its head. A long, snaking neck came after it, then a dark, scaled body. Huge, sinewy bat wings extended behind it.
'A Dragon!' thought Jen breathlessly, but no. As it emerged further from the darkness, Jen realised it was more equine than draconian. It had four tall, spindly legs ending in hooves, but with a thin, spine-like tail trailing behind. It screeched piercingly before trotting off to gently nose at the ground.
'Well, that solves that' thought Jen nervously, recalling descriptions in Hogwarts: A History of domesticated thestrals. Like unicorns, they were classified as XXXX creatures in Fantastic Beasts and where to find them.
More thestrals milled about behind it, Jen noticed. She recalled that they lived in herds. Hesitantly, she approached, extending her palm. It sniffed at her fingers before allowing her to stroke its gaunt snout.
"Hey there" said Jen.
It chuffed slightly. Jen wondered where she could find some raw meat as she petted it.
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