Disappointed!

"So, Remus, what's so important that you'd visit my neighbour almost every day?" she questions innocently.

"I'm part of the faculty in the school his charge attends. It's rather important I get a moment to speak with him.

"Hm? Oh, you must mean young Harry!" she concludes, dropping a fist into her palm which notably causes her breasts to jiggle...

"Y-yes, Harry Potter..." he pauses, trying to spot any familiarity with the full name. Thankfully, she doesn't seem to be acquainted with the magical world. "C-could we perhaps discuss him? If Mister Hashbury is too busy hearing your thoughts would also help. A neighbour's impression is sometimes more valuable than the actual household's."

Sofia slowly nods, "I do believe there's a coffee shop nearby? I-I seem to have forgotten my purse though-"

"No need!" he blurts, "Consider it my thanks for your time."

--------------------

"Massster, why do you feel the need to sssleep like thisss..." Nanthisk hisses as he circles around Harry, who was doing his best to meditate.

"I told you... It isn't sleeping, I'm trying to attune myself to nature like the Druids of old. You're not helping..." he grumbles. Unlike in Africa, Hogwarts was a very 'loud' place. Incredibly high ambient magic and magical flora and fauna.

Just dropping into meditation here was like having someone scream in his ear, as opposed to the whispers he was used to. Regardless, he continued to follow the techniques and principles detailed in the Druidic Compendium.

"Why do we not eat sssomething... That foressst is teeming with food." Nanthisk raises his head towards the 'Forbidden Forest' nearby.

Harry chews his lip and sighs, "Fine, it's not like I was making any progress anyway." he gets up and allows Nanthisk to slither up to his shoulders before making his way to the tree line.

Almost immediately as they enter sunlight peters out, as if the trees themselves were devouring it, which they technically are if you think about it? Jokes aside, Harry was taken off-guard by the sheer variety of magical things he saw.

Most trees in sight were somewhat magical if not an innately magical species then possessing some amount of magic. Even the insects roaming the underbrush were quite rare, things he'd be lucky to see in any other part of the world. This wasn't surprising if you consider the many leylines running through the place. It'd be more shocking if mundane things ruled.

Nanthisk turns in one direction with his tongue tasting the air, "Blood."

Raising a brow, Harry wanders in that direction and eventually stumbles across a clearing filled with large, black, skeletal winged beasts. Two were playing tug of war with a squirming giant spider, an Acromentula if Harry recalled.

"What isss thisss...?" Nanthisk questions, unsure what the creatures were.

"Err..." Harry hums, searching his memory for any mention of them... "Thestrals? I think? Creatures of death, allegedly..." he pulls out the Necronomicon from his bag of holding and flips through the pages, reaching the creature's section and finding an illustration of Thestrals.

He coughs into his fist and begins quoting, "Cursed creatures of undeath, spawned from an unholy ritual. Their very stride kills, sucking the earth of vitality and leaving nought by fallow land. They subsist on life but eat for pleasure, finding the act of death euphoric."

"Sssoundsss tasssty..."

Harry shrugs, "The illustration doesn't exactly line up, and they aren't sucking the life out of nearby plants. A subspecies?" the depiction in the book made them out as far more skeletal, with lone grey-black manes and tails. They had pitch-black eyes and a visible aura of 'death '. whatever that meant.

"Apparently a single bite would cripple a man for the rest of his life, 'Should one find themselves in the beast's maw, relinquish hope for a clean survival, as whatever bitten will never recover'." he quotes.

"Perhapsss we should research before acting, masster?" Nanthisk cautions after hearing about the many abilities of these creatures. He'd rather not be punished by Kali again...

Harry nods, besides, dinner would be served soon. He could always come back later.

------------------------

"It's like the creatures from myth never existed!" Harry angrily exclaims while shutting a book. He'd found many books detailing Threstals in the library, but the accounts were unlike what was written in the Necronomicon.

The creatures he'd encountered in the forest weren't Thestrals, they were what Wyverns were to Dragons, lesser creatures that dishonoured their distant, stronger kin. Wizards nowadays only used them for Foci, mostly in attempts to recreate the legendary Elder Wand.

Their only real abilities were their shockingly fast flight speed, and the fact they were invisible to all who hadn't witnessed death. Strangely, only the observation of another human dying counted, so you couldn't just murder a rat.

After skimming the library for any information, he did come across some theories. Apparently, older samples of Thestral hair were far more powerful than what we available in the present day, likely meaning the Thestrals had devolved to some extent.

The biggest theory was that the spread of muggles and wizards had sent Thestrals down a path of fleeing and hiding, which forced their development to align with it. Essentially, they'd become weaker to avoid detection, smaller and skinnier to fly faster, and altered their abilities involving death to a sort of pseudo invisibility.

"Now they're just pathetic, flesh-eating horses..." Harry mutters, feeling some sense of grief at the loss of 'real Thestrels'.

"Masster, did your book not ssspeak of a ritual to create them...?" Nanthisk inquires from the table where he'd been sleeping.

Harry blinks, "Oh, right..." he pulls out the Necronomicon after scanning his surroundings and flips through it, quickly locating the 'unholy ritual' that first created Thestrals.

"The reagents are a bit difficult to find, and it must be performed on Samhain the darkest night and time where death is closest... Halloween is coming up though, maybe it's doable?"

"... Why are we doing thisss again...?" the snake queries.

"Because I want a cool undead horse and those horse-shaped lizard things are completely unacceptable!" Harry states, clapping the book closed. "Come on, we need to start preparing.