Just as Nifflers can silently snatch shiny objects, owls seem to possess the same ability.
On Christmas Day, Kyle opened his eyes to find gifts piled like a small mountain beside his bed. Despite all these presents being delivered, he hadn't noticed a thing.
Kyle rubbed his eyes and asked, "Stella, do owls have some kind of special stealth ability?"
Perched on its wooden stand with eyes closed, Stella weakly lifted a wing and gave a single hoot.
Kyle had entrusted most of his Christmas gifts to the owl post office, but still had Stella deliver those meant for family, friends, and professors. The challenge was that he had quite a few friends.
To meet the deadline, Stella had flown at full speed throughout the night and had just returned. Now exhausted and barely able to lift its wings, the owl had no interest in Kyle's trivial question.
"Sorry, and thank you for your hard work." Kyle walked over apologetically, poured a bottle of owl tonic into its bowl, and added a small piece of braised dragon liver.
Dragon liver made better pet treats than dried Murtlap meat, but it was terribly expensive — a portion the size of a Felix Felicis bottle cost sixteen Sickles. Practically highway robbery.
The dragon liver Kyle had prepared as Stella's Christmas gift had cost him ten Galleons. He'd never eaten anything so luxurious himself.
After consuming the dragon liver and drinking the tonic, Stella perked up considerably.
Kyle returned to his bed and began unwrapping his gifts, finding mostly candies and chocolates — more than he'd received last year.
"Kyle, something terrible's happened!"
A scream came from the common room. It was Kanna's voice.
Kyle quickly put down his half-unwrapped chocolate and rushed out of the dormitory.
In the common room, Kanna stood anxiously holding a freshly opened box.
"What happened?" Kyle asked urgently.
Biting her lip nervously, Kanna said, "I've lost some Galleons again. It couldn't be Porgy..."
Because of what happened last year when her Galleons went missing, she immediately thought of the witch who had transformed into a rat.
"What are you thinking? That's impossible." Kyle waved his hand reassuringly, "She's probably busy making breakfast for the Dementors right now. She doesn't have time to come to Hogwarts. Maybe you just forgot where you put your Galleons."
"I suppose..." Hearing his explanation, Kanna sighed with relief and patted her chest, "I'll keep looking then. The Galleons aren't important, but I really liked that crystal hairpin."
"Wait... crystal hairpin?" Kyle suddenly froze, frowning, "Is anything else missing?"
"Not much else..." Kanna tilted her head thoughtfully, "Some Galleons, a crystal hairpin... oh, and a silver brooch. It was a gift I'd just unwrapped, but it disappeared in the blink of an eye."
Galleons... crystal... silver brooch...
Kyle's eye twitched as realization dawned on him.
"Hold on a second." He took a deep breath and pulled out the "magical stone".
The next moment, a black furball shot straight toward him from the corner of the common room.
Kyle seized the opportunity, grabbing it by the scruff of its neck, then quickly tickled its belly.
Accompanied by jingling sounds, Galleons, hairpins, brooches, stones, flowerpots — a pile of objects rained down from Jerry's pouch, making it squeal in distress.
"Is that a Niffler?" Kanna asked in surprise.
She had seen this magical creature a few times before — covered in black fluffy fur, with a duck-like flat snout, plus that pouch... It was definitely a Niffler.
"But wait…" Kanna asked in confusion, "Aren't Nifflers supposed to live in the Forbidden Forest? Why is one in our common room?"
"Uh... his name is Jerry. He's my pet." Kyle gathered up the scattered items, saying sheepishly, "I probably didn't watch him carefully enough last night, and he snuck out of the dormitory on his own."
Merlin's beard, he distinctly remembered putting the little creature back in its box before going to bed. How did it escape? Perhaps the box hadn't been closed properly?
Thankfully they caught it early. If they'd discovered it any later, many more items would have vanished.
This was Kanna's first close encounter with a Niffler. She approached eagerly and asked, "Can I pet it?"
"Of course." Kyle casually handed Jerry to her with a warning, "But watch anything shiny you're wearing. Be careful it doesn't steal from you."
"Yes, yes." Kanna replied dismissively before carefully stroking the Niffler's head.
The fluffy, soft sensation made her eyes narrow with delight.
Seeing this, Kyle returned to the dormitory to continue unwrapping his presents.
Beyond candies, books made up most of his gifts this year. The collection included professional magical theory texts, Quidditch technique guides, and biographies — a truly rich variety.
Among them was even a copy of "Postpartum Care for Nifflers", which Kyle discovered upon closer inspection was from Newt.
Dumbledore had sent him a pair of hand-knitted wool socks with beautiful gold and red patterns and KC initials. Kyle squinted at them for a long time before confirming the patterns were made from Fawkes' feathers — tail feathers, no less.
Using precious phoenix tail feathers to knit socks... who knew what that old man was thinking?
Gloves would have been so much better — at least people could see them.
As for his gift to Dumbledore, it was much more practical: "Three Hundred Ways to Knit Wool Socks". This advanced version of last year's gift contained two hundred additional methods — enough to keep the headmaster learning for quite a while.
What surprised Kyle most, however, was receiving a Christmas gift from Snape: a moldy piece of parchment.
He understood Snape was surely trying to teach him a lesson about paying attention in class and taking good notes. After all, if one's head remained empty of knowledge, over time it would become as useless as this moldy parchment.
Kyle couldn't help but admire Professor Snape's good intentions... Such an excellent professor deserved two gifts from him.
Besides the customary shampoo, he had carefully selected a book that had once been extremely popular among wizards and had topped the bestseller list multiple times... "Travels with Trolls".
✭✭✭
T/N: Hey! Liked what you read? Support your friendly neighborhood translator on Patreon! Think of it as buying me a coffee... or ten!
For just $1.50 (that's less than your daily meme budget), get extra chapters! Want more? $2 gets you bonus content, $5 unlocks premium stories, and $10 makes you my hero (and gets you everything I have, including earlier acess to new books)! You can have access to almost 15 books!
That's it and happy reading! (-‿◦)
https://www.patreon.com/collection/1305453