"Blimey! It's a Swooping Evil!" When Hagrid saw Helena, he immediately grabbed a large iron bucket and put it on his head, gripping a pair of fire tongs in his hand.
"Don't be nervous, Hagrid!" Victor laughed, gently stroking Helena's silky wings. "She's my pet, Helena. She won't hurt anyone without my command."
Hagrid cautiously stared at Helena for a moment and, seeing that she really didn't seem to be dangerous, he slowly let out a sigh of relief. He rubbed his chest, and the look in his eyes, which had been anxious and fearful, slowly turned into one of fascination.
"Oh, she's so beautiful!" Hagrid slowly leaned closer to Helena to examine her, exclaiming in awe.
"Huh? What's wrong?!" Victor suddenly saw that the expression on Hagrid's face was a bit off and quickly looked up at Helena. Her two wings were regularly emitting a dazzling blue-green light, giving off a rather dreamy feeling.
"Whoa! You have a hypnotic ability, too?" Victor was shocked. The rhythmic blue-green flashes from Helena's wings clearly had the ability to visually interfere with a person's mind. Victor quickly stepped forward, grabbed Hagrid's hand, and shouted, "Hagrid! Hagrid! Wake up!"
"Oh… huh? What just happened?" Hagrid instantly snapped back to reality, looking completely confused.
"You were about to put your brain in Helena's mouth!" Victor quipped.
Hagrid was stunned by Victor's words for a moment, then he remembered what had just happened. But instead of looking scared, his eyes were shining as he stared at Helena.
"Victor, I have to say, your pet is truly special!" Hagrid said excitedly. "I've never seen a Swooping Evil mutate to this extent."
"So, Helena is a genuine mutation? She's not a hybrid of a Swooping Evil and another magical creature?" This question had been on Victor's mind ever since he had tamed Helena last night. He had even thought that Helena was a combination of a Swooping Evil and an Occamy since she could expand her body to more than ten times its original size without any external help, and of all the magical creatures on record, only the Occamy had that ability.
After hearing Victor's question, Hagrid, who was an expert in magical creatures, shook his head confidently. He said, "Of course not, because you can see that Helena is in the form of a Swooping Evil, she's just a bit special. If she were a combination of two different magical creatures, she would definitely have the physical characteristics of both. Besides, so far, no one has ever found a successful case of two different magical creatures combining in the wild."
"Then how did Helena mutate to this extent?" Victor asked, holding Helena in his arms.
"I'm not sure. Maybe during her infancy, she ate a lot of fireflies."
"Fireflies?!" Victor was dumbfounded by the answer. "Don't Swooping Evils eat brain matter?"
"They can't eat that as soon as they're born, can they?" Hagrid answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Actually, it's not just Swooping Evils or Acromantulas; magical creatures themselves are very wondrous. They can often evolve into different forms depending on their living environment. I remember a long time ago, a mutated Nundu was found in South America. Because it had lived in a dense, miasma-filled rainforest for a long time, the poisonous fog it emitted killed everyone in a village."
"Magical creatures have existed in this world for much longer than we humans have. Sometimes I wonder if this kind of mutation in magical creatures is them regaining the abilities they were originally meant to have but were lost to history…"
After listening to Hagrid's long speech about magical creatures, Victor walked out of the hut thoughtfully. Before he left, Hagrid gave Victor some sheep brains. He said that Helena's food could be ordinary sheep or cow brains; human brains were just the most delicious food for a Swooping Evil.
Hagrid also mentioned that Helena was not yet an adult and might have undeveloped potential abilities. Therefore, Victor could sometimes feed Helena the blood or brains of other magical creatures to promote her growth or evolution.
Of course, Hagrid also pleaded with him not to use Aragog's brains, and Victor agreed. For a long time after that, the Acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest, except for Aragog, were completely devastated.
After leaving Hagrid's hut, Victor received a letter from his aunt, Julie, who was constantly urging him to come home for Christmas.
So, thinking that the Christmas holiday was a full twenty days and that there was nothing to do at school, Victor finally decided to be obedient. He packed his bags in his dorm and went home!
However, after the holiday began, Victor suddenly became a slacker at home. He felt that since he had started Hogwarts, he had done too many major things. Things like promoting curriculum reform at Hogwarts, searching for the founders' legacies, and developing Soul magic. It felt like he hadn't stopped at all!
So Victor said, I've been doing big things all semester, can't I enjoy myself a little?!
On Sunday, after eating lunch, Victor went back to his bed and fell asleep again. He had been living this pig-like life of eating and sleeping, sleeping and eating for a week, and he didn't look anything like the serious student he was at school.
But just as Victor was in a deep sleep, there was a knock on the door outside his room, which woke him up.
"Victor! Wake up! Your classmate is here to see you!" Mr. Wilson shouted from outside the door. At the same time, he was cursing in his heart, 'This brat, leaving a female classmate sitting outside while he sleeps soundly inside?!'
It turned out that Mr. Wilson had just returned from the police station and saw a cute little girl sitting in front of his house. He went up and asked her out of curiosity, and it turned out she was Victor's classmate from Hogwarts.
She said she had been there for over half an hour but no one had answered the door. This instantly made Wilson furious!
His wife, eldest daughter, and youngest son were all out for the day. Only Victor was home, and he was definitely sleeping in his room at this time and wouldn't have heard the knock on the door.
So, Wilson first invited the little girl into the house, then rushed upstairs to Victor's room and woke him up.
"Huh?! A classmate?" Victor, with his bedhead, climbed out of bed, rubbing his eyes. "Could it be George and Fred?" After all, besides the professors at school, it seemed only the Weasley family knew his home address.
Victor yawned and stumbled down the stairs, but before he even reached the living room, he heard an angry shout.
"Victor Dreyar!!!" Hermione stared furiously at Victor, who was standing on the landing. "Since you were home, why didn't you open the door?!"
"Hermione?! Why are you here?" Victor looked at Hermione, who was standing in the middle of the living room, in complete surprise. He didn't remember ever telling her his home address; how did she find this place?
"And you have the nerve to ask!" Hermione got up aggressively, ran to Victor, and grabbed the collar of his shirt. "Why haven't you replied to any of the several letters I sent you by owl?"
"Letters?!" A question mark appeared over Victor's head, and he scratched his head. "I didn't receive any!"
"That's impossible!" Hermione said with certainty. "I sent four letters back to Hogwarts by owl!"
"What, are you crazy?" Victor immediately quipped. "I went home on Christmas Day. What good would it do to send letters to the school?"
"How is that possible? A few days ago, I heard Hagrid say in Diagon Alley that you were still at Hogwarts on Christmas afternoon, and the last express train home was at noon that day!"
"Then how many times do you think I can travel between Hogwarts and home in a single day with my abilities?" Victor rolled his eyes.
"How would… I know…" Hermione argued, her face red.
"Alright, don't be angry!" Victor said with a smile, then put his hand on Hermione's head. "There, there."
"Get lost!!!" Hermione's face flushed as she slapped Victor's hand away. "I haven't even settled with you for not talking to me for over a month!"
"Whoa, don't be slandering me. Who was the one who turned their head and walked away when they saw me during that time…" Victor grumbled.
"Shut up!!!"
"Okay, okay, okay!!!"
Victor quickly put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, then went to the cabinet. As he took out some red tea leaves and milk, he asked, "By the way, how did you find my address? I don't remember telling you."
"Yesterday, I ran into the Weasleys in Diagon Alley. They were buying presents to visit Ron's brother, Charlie, in Romania. Mrs. Weasley gave me your address," Hermione replied.
"I see…" Victor nodded, then made a cup of milk tea and handed it to Hermione. "So, tell me. Why did you go to the trouble of sending letters and coming all the way here? What's so important?"
"I just wanted to tell you that I've finished studying The Basic Principles of Magic Circles and Rune Carving." Hermione took a sip of the milk tea, and her eyes instantly narrowed into crescents. It's so sweet!
"Not bad, exactly two months!" Victor gave her a small compliment, then said, "Then I know why you came to see me. Follow me!"
With that, he turned and walked upstairs. Seeing this, Hermione quickly finished the milk tea in her cup and hurried after him.
Victor led Hermione to his room, closed the door, then turned and stared at her without expression.
The room was suddenly filled with a strange atmosphere.
Hermione felt a little uncomfortable under his gaze. She took a few steps back, wrapped her arms around herself, and asked with a stutter, "Wha… what are you going to do?"
"Have you ever tried carving basic runes?" Victor asked.
"No, I just learned it not long ago, and with the Trace on my wand, I didn't dare to practice at home," Hermione replied, shaking her head.
"You don't have to worry about the Trace here," Victor said, taking out his wand. "But since you haven't tried, I'll start from the beginning."
With that, he began to teach using light projections. Hermione was caught off guard by Victor's sudden transition into a teacher. She was stunned for a few seconds before she reacted, quickly straightening her posture and listening carefully.
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