Hogwarts: This professor is too Muggle.

Chapter 114 Hatching Method

Mount Greylock, midsummer June, early 17th century.

The horned water snake was lurking in the stream. The wizard family that moved in half a year ago had built a small granite house. For the past two months, it had been watching from afar.

It has been hesitant in its heart about whether to contact human wizards.

It wasn't until this morning when I saw the future scene that I realized the crisis was about to come and I couldn't delay any longer, so I came here to wait.

When the witch came closer, she shook her snake tail and floated out of the stream:

"Aesop Searle...

"Fate has led you to Greylock. I know you have Slytherin's blood in you. You stole his wand, and his descendants are unwilling to let you go.

"Go back quickly and pay attention, the crisis is coming."

"..."

Two weeks later, the prophecy came true.

Gormlaith Gaunt followed her niece's trail and found this magic school. Slytherin's snakewood wand was useless against Parseltongue, and the curse caused Isolt and her husband to fall into a deep sleep.

Just as Gormlaith was about to kill them in their sleep, the horned water snake sent a warning to their adopted son through the magic wand. With the help of their animal friends and Pukki, the Aesops shot Gormlaith through the heart with a poisoned arrow.

From then on, Ilvermorny had four major houses: Pukki, Panther, Thunderbird and Horned Serpent.

The Slytherin wand was buried at the top of the mountain, where it soon sprouted branches and grew into a green snake tree.

The horned water snake hid in the stream, watching the magic school grow and develop. The original granite cottage was replaced by a magnificent castle. Its statue was set up at the gate of the castle, with beautiful gems inlaid in its eyes.

Decades later, an old witch came to the stream with a cane.

The long-horned water snake surfaced again, its silver pupils gleaming faintly, looking quite intelligent. "Are you going to die?"

The old witch's kind smile froze, but she nodded stiffly.

"Is there anything you can ask of me? Protect this school and the teachers and students in the castle?"

"..."

The old witch looked at the water snake in front of her, nodded, and then shook her head.

As more and more wizards come to the New World, Ilvermorny will become more and more powerful. It will stand for a thousand years like Hogwarts. If this school really perishes, it will only be due to internal reasons.

However, this water snake has been hiding alone in the stream all these years.

"I know you like to be alone and rarely show up in front of students, but I still want to say, if you meet a student you think is good again, make friends with him, just like when we first met."

"..."

The stream gurgled, and before we knew it, it was Christmas 1990.

Mount Greylock seemed to have not changed at all. The trees and clouds were still the same. Animals were constantly being born and dying, just as they had been three hundred years ago, and seven hundred years ago.

The long-horned water snake lurks in the stream and floats slowly.

The student who dropped out early had come to say his final goodbye, and asked it in a roundabout way if he had seen any prophecy, and where he should go and what he should do after dropping out?
But the water snake did not give a clear answer. It was no longer the water snake that could foresee the future three hundred years ago.

The body ages and the magic fades.

The stream washed over the snake's scales as it did in the past. Feeling the cold temperature, the snake's pupils couldn't help but feel dazed. It couldn't help but think of the student practicing magic in front of the stream. As it thought about it, it thought of the founding witch.

Back then, his celestial eye was still clear, and he could see the crisis a few weeks later and the witch's impending death. But even when his celestial eye was at its strongest, he could not foresee his own death. On the contrary, now that his celestial eye has weakened and he can't see clearly, he has a clear premonition that death is approaching.

When saying goodbye to the old witch three hundred years ago, the horned water snake never thought that it would also have to say goodbye to others before dying. Suddenly, it understood Aesop's feelings at that time. It was not panicked or uneasy, but rather felt a little strange.

"..."

But Melvin is still too young and probably cannot accept this kind of farewell that is based on life and death.

Then don't tell him for now.

Whether it's Slytherin's relics or the magic of magical beasts, let him explore them slowly on his own.

He still has a long life ahead of him anyway.

The long-horned water snake thought so and sank into the icy stream again, exhaling a string of fine bubbles from its mouth and nose. The temperature made its body feel more sleepy than ever before. It hoped to fall into a deep sleep and never wake up.

……

Late at night, Melvin suddenly opened his eyes.

"It turned out to be a dream..."

Melvin sat up and found that the magic power in his body had changed again. It felt different from the previous times. He subconsciously wanted to release a few spells, but he suppressed the impulse and reached out to hold the wand. The magic power flowed lightly.

"Om..."

The wand seemed to vibrate with joy.

A ray of bright silver light bloomed at the tip of the staff, silently, clear and ethereal, like frost mist and silk. It was obviously cold, but gave people a calm and gentle feeling, exactly the same as the moonlight outside.

Melvin lowered his head and stared at the silver light.

This isn't some kind of lighting spell; it's just the wand's core and material responding to the magic, naturally radiating light.

This wand was not the first one he used. Instead, he made it himself using the fallen horns of a horned water snake and a snake tree after he met one. He remembered that he had a sudden inspiration at that time and decided to make his own wand after just flipping through a few superficial books in the library.

The craftsmanship of wand makers has been passed down for thousands of years. If children could replicate it by reading a few books, Ollivander's and Gregorovitch's shops would have closed long ago.

The wand's core was the horn of a horned water snake, and the material was the same snakewood used by Slytherin. As a result, the wand always backfired, and its miserable appearance when practicing spells was almost as miserable as Seamus and Ron.

In the end, it was the water snake that helped to deal with it. After taking it back and adjusting and nurturing it for a few months, it was transformed into this wand that fits perfectly.

Melvin put away the silver light and looked at the wand.

When the magic wand obtained the magic power of unicorns and fire dragons in the past, it did not have this kind of natural response. This change occurred because this time the magic power was not a gift from other wizards or animals, but an awakening of magic that occurred to him himself.

The soul is the source of magic. Emotions and thoughts touch the soul and influence magic.

When a wizard experiences major changes in his life and experiences severe emotional fluctuations, his magic power will also change. This is what Principal Fontana said yesterday. It is more likely that top wizards will be born after experiencing turbulence. This process is called magic awakening.

"..."

Melvin was no longer sleepy, so he got up and sat down in front of the bedroom window.

The room is in an elegant European style, with solid wood window frames and patterned wallpaper covering the surrounding walls. The green branches and vines are spread out on the wallpaper, like the branches of a snake tree.

The students of the same grade have all graduated and left, and the original dormitory has been occupied by freshmen. Melvin was assigned to a room next to the founder's cabin, a guest room that Pukchi waiter had temporarily cleaned up, and a teacher's dormitory.

Returning to Ifamoni after two years, his status had changed from student to professor. In the past, Melvin might have found this interesting, but now he felt nothing. The moonlight was bright and clear; he could see the trees outside without any artificial light, and occasionally he could spot an owl.

The young wizard looked out the window quietly. After an unknown amount of time, he took the snake eggs from the bedside table and looked at them carefully.

The shell of the snake egg is grayish white, and it is larger than a regular goose egg. It cannot be held in one hand. There seems to be a dim fluorescent light flowing on the surface. It does not look like an eggshell but more like jade. The inside is not ordinary egg liquid. It seems to have signs of life and is very lively.

The creature inside that hadn't yet hatched could vaguely sense his emotions. Although it couldn't respond, through magical perception, it could observe that the rhythm of the faint fluorescent light flowing from the case had changed, as if expressing comfort.

Melvin frowned slightly, lost in thought.

Now the question is, how to hatch this little thing?
……

Finally, the sun slowly emerged from the ground, the deep blue night sky faded little by little, and purple and red morning glow appeared in the sky. The sunlight penetrated the clouds and mist and shone in obliquely, one by one, as if it had shape, shining on the outer wall of the castle and slowly warming up.

Birds were singing one after another, and Ilvermorny became lively for a moment. The castle and the forest exuded a magnificent vitality.

Today is a good day for hatching eggs.

"Restricted Books Section..."

Melvin pushed open the door of the library, muttered something under his breath, walked into the bookshelf area related to magical beasts, and began to look for information.

Although it is not as good as Hogwarts, the collection of books here is rich enough.

Wandering between the bookshelves, he occasionally met Pukchi who was cleaning the shelves and organizing the books. Neither of them said anything, but nodded and walked away, with an unspoken understanding.

In order to avoid the embarrassment of someone else mopping the floor and Melvin stepping on it, he simply picked out the materials and went to the snake tree next to the founder's cabin, choosing a spot where the sun could get in but not be glaring.

Reach out and touch the branches, the branches hang down and intertwine, and a vine swing hangs in front of you.

Melvin sat on the swing and began to look through the information.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: A Unique North American Journey

Hatching and Raising Snakes

How to Get Close to Venomous Snakes

These are all materials about magical snakes compiled and edited by wizards in the past few hundred years. They are all works by famous authors, and the author of the first one is Scamander.

They are basically common snakes, and there are no 5X-level dangerous animals. Even with Melvin's limited knowledge of magical beasts, he can find many omissions. Things like basilisks and runes are only briefly introduced.

Even Newt Scamander, the greatest expert on magical creatures of this century, could only summarize the basilisk and the alien horned water snake based on the existing information, even though he had never seen them with his own eyes. He could only briefly mention details such as hatching.

"The horned water snake has a horn on its head, which is where its name comes from."

Melvin: ...

It can be seen that Mr. Scamander has a rigorous attitude towards academic research and is very cautious in his wording when it comes to uncertain and difficult-to-evidence parts.

Melvin sighed. It seemed that there was little hope of finding information about hatching horned water snakes in books. He could only look at the hatching methods of other snakes to see if there was anything he could learn from them.

There is little information on the hatching of the exotic horned water snake, but there are many records of the hatching of the basilisk, but they are basically hearsay.

According to anonymous historical records, the despicable Herpo was the first person to breed a basilisk. He placed a rooster egg under the body of a toad to hatch it, and bred this giant venomous snake, which he named the basilisk.

"Creating basilisks has been illegal since the Middle Ages, but it's easy to conceal because one simply needs to remove the eggs from under the toad before the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures arrives..."

Melvin once again felt a sense of absurdity and helplessness.

At first glance, it doesn't seem difficult, but if the method of breeding basilisks is really that simple, there would not have been no basilisks appearing in the world for four hundred years.

It sounds like you can just find a random country farmer and wave a magic wand to conjure up a basilisk, but if you think about it carefully, you have to induce a rooster to lay eggs, induce a toad to hatch the eggs, choose the right astrological time, and consider whether to feed the potion...

The detailed process is probably more complicated than making a Horcrux.

"..."

If you think about it, the rough process of making a Horcrux seems pretty simple.

Melvin looked through the information he found, but still had no clue.

He casually threw the information on the grass, stepped on it, and the swing began to swing. He looked at the crystal dewdrops illuminated by the sunlight, thinking about the possibility of hatching snake eggs.

Since there is little hope of hatching it yourself, what about seeking help from a magical animal expert?

"Hagrid?"

Melvin shook his head and was the first to rule out this unreliable one.

"Professor Kettleburn?"

I went back to school to ask, but it seemed like there was no hope.

"Mr. Scamander?"

We should be able to get in touch with the principal through the school, but even experts probably can't do anything about this completely new animal.

In fact, in terms of being knowledgeable and experienced, Nicolas Flamel might be the best choice. In his long life of 600 years, he might have seen a horned water snake before, and perhaps he could provide a hatching solution from the perspective of alchemy.

"Six hundred years...breeding snakes...considering the professional focus, the most professional seems to be..."

Melvin suddenly stopped swinging, looked up at the lush snake tree in front of him, and murmured softly, "Salazar Slytherin?"

Slytherin had been dead for almost a thousand years, so it was certainly unrealistic to consult him, but Slytherin's heirs were still around, and they weren't rare, at least not as rare as the horned water snakes of the Xenomorph.

Melvin had a strange expression on his face.

……

Thousands of miles away at Malfoy Manor, Lucius Malfoy stood in the attic, looking at the diary in the old wooden box, frowning, worrying about what to do with it.

The Ministry of Magic has recently started another round of investigations into Dark Arts items.

If it were any other sane wizard, they would sit down and have a couple of drinks, and the major families would pool some Galleons and some insignificant dark magic items, give one to the staff, and take one back to the ministry for report.

Wealth and achievements are achieved.

It's good for everyone if you just pretend.

The person in charge of this task is the shame of pure-bloods, Weasley, who has a tough and unreasonable attitude, especially targeting those Death Eaters who were once controlled by the Dark Lord. Two days ago, he even broke into the homes of old Crabbe and old Goyle to search.

Lucius stared at the diary silently, and a hint of coldness flashed in his eyes as he thought of the Easter egg at the end of the movie.

He doesn't dare to destroy it, so let someone who has the courage to deal with it!

(End of this chapter)