It was another Hogsmeade weekend, which meant that I got to go see my father and help him with whatever cases he was working on at the time. We were already in the middle of a big case involving wizards who were presenting themselves as magizoologist. They would claim that they were going in to find dangerous creatures, but would come out with stolen artifacts. Before leaving, they would put a memory obliterating charm on the homeowners so it was like they were never there. That is, until the homeowners noticed the item was gone, of course. 

Today I was meeting with Zachary Nelson, a victim of these thefts. He’d had his Pensieve stolen, which was a glass ball containing a wizard’s memories from their whole life. My father and I met Mr. Nelson at his farm, out in the countryside near Hogsmeade. 

Mr. Nelson was an old classmate of my father’s, meaning he was in his late-forties. His mostly-bald head had greyish hair and he wore round spectacle glasses. He lived on an expansive farmland, surrounded by fields of pure white snow. There wasn’t a single footprint tto be seen for miles. It took all my willpower not to go running across the field! 

When we arrived, Mr. Nelson informed me that his wife needed my help finding something that had been misplaced, well… someone. My father promised he would be fine talking about the stolen pensieve alone, so I went over to the barn which had the sign “Cat Chalet” above the big wooden barn doors. 

You’ve heard the expression ‘cat lady’, right? Well, Mrs. Nelson takes it to a whole new level. The barn was an old horse stable, with five individual stalls down each side with an aisle down the middle. Each stall had a plaque like the one above the stall’s opening, with a name on it. Inside each stall was a cat bed, food and water bowls, and a toy or two. At the end of the center aisle was a litter box. With a sign above it that read “The Throne”. I had to look twice, to make sure I wasn’t Alice, falling down the rabbit hole. 

I called for the woman and she came out of one of the stalls, greeting me enthusiastically. She asked me to look for her little black cat, Mogli, who had gone missing. It wasn’t even just the cat that was missing… his favourite toy was missing as well, the Aviatomobile. The toy was a magical flying car, sold at Zonko’s Joke Shop. I promised her I would do my best and stepped outside. 

Walking out with my wand, I said the incantation, “Appare Vestigium!” I waved my wand in a circle around myself and waited. Sure enough, several cat paw prints appeared. At the end of one trail, I saw the little blue car flying above a pile of wood. Mogli appeared, jumping at the car without a care in the world. If only all cases were this easy!

* Don't forget... if you want to be a part of this story about the Magizoologists, send me an owl!* 

~Natalie Paige~