Newt carefully took the three dragon eggs, feeling the faint pulses inside the shells.
*Good.
They’re still alive.*
“Dragon eggs need to be kept at a high temperature. The current environment is too cold for them.” He turned to the old chieftain.
“May I handle this dragon and these three troubles on your behalf?”
The chieftain sighed.
“This is all Banco’s doing. He is a good hunter, but his wife contracted a strange disease. The medical fees to treat her in America are exorbitant, so he had no choice but to take such a desperate risk. It is a blessing from the ancestral spirits that our village was not reduced to ashes by the dragon fire. That dragon is a menace here; she often eats lone travelers. It is for the best if you take her away.”
Frey kicked a stone away.
“If he wanted to save his wife, he could have robbed a bank or sold a kidney on the black market. But choosing to unleash a dragon onto his defenseless neighbors… This kind of ‘devotion’ smells worse than rotting snake meat.”
“Dick, my friend, I’m a bit hungry. Could I trouble you to prepare some food?”
Newt began handing out tasks methodically:
“Hermione, please retrieve the scattered Devil’s Snare. And… when a certain someone was putting on his display of overwhelming magic just now, I saw a few Bowtruckles scurry out in a panic. Please go move them to some healthy trees.”
With that, Newt grabbed the pretending-to-be-innocent Frey by the collar and dragged him straight into the backpack.
Inside the backpack, the Peruvian Vipertooth was writhing in agitation.
Only when she saw the three familiar dragon eggs in Newt’s arms did she quiet down, letting out a low whimper from her throat.
Newt placed the eggs on a patch of dry ground and gestured.
“Frey, spark some fire.”
“*Incendio!*”
A huge, fan-shaped wave of yellow fire erupted from the tip of Frey’s wand.
“Control, Frey! Control!”
Newt frowned and said:
“You shouldn’t waste magic like this. You need to maintain a constant, steady temperature, not turn this place into a crematorium. Ideally, you should produce a thin line of fire, not a massive blaze.”
Frey nodded sheepishly.
“I got it, Grandpa. Can we keep this dragon forever? I think she looks pretty badass.”
Newt explained as he busied himself building an insulated nest for the dragon eggs:
“It’s highly unlikely. The Undetectable Extension Charm can expand space, but energy and resources don’t appear out of thin air. All the meat she needs daily has to be brought in from the outside. Not to mention the magic consumption required to mask her scent—only a magical monster like you or a wizard of Dumbledore’s caliber could sustain it.”
Newt stood up and continued:
“However, she is blacklisted by the International Confederation of Wizards, and that egg thief is still lurking around. For the short term, keeping her here is our only option. You’ll have to work a bit harder these next few weeks. Once we return to Britain, I’ll have to contact Charlie Weasley in Romania to see if she can be sent to the reserve.”
“Send her to a reserve? Where’s the fun in that?” Frey stared at the mother dragon.
“In two years, the baby dragons will be fully grown. I was planning to bring four dragons with me when I take up my post at Hogwarts. How cool would that be? Besides, drawing a little blood and picking up shed scales every day is worth much more than a few sheep, right? How about… I transform, beat her up, and make her acknowledge me as her master?”
“Don’t even think about it!” Newt interrupted sternly.
“You can kill a dragon, and you can terrify a dragon, but it is nearly impossible to truly own a dragon’s will. Frey, use your Animagus form less. The Icelandic Blue-Ridge is the most violent of all known dragon breeds. I’ve seen several Animagi who eventually forgot they were even wizards. You must remember at all times that you are a wizard. Don’t let those golden pupils replace your own eyes.” Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
Frey shrugged noncommittally and waved his wand to release the Vipertooth from her bonds.
The mother dragon quickly crawled to her eggs, shielding them beneath her belly while baring her fangs threateningly at the two of them.
“Not bad, at least she knows to be afraid. At least she didn’t try to obliterate us right away.”
Frey waved his wand to isolate this habitat into the distance:
“Behave yourself. I’ll send you a grand feast in a bit.”
Back in the real world, Newt easily repaired Dick’s house with a simple “*Reparo*.”
The four walls were covered in blowdarts, blowpipes, spears, bows, and beautiful tiger and leopard skins.
Dick and his wife served the three of them a peculiar late-night snack.
“Professor, the Devil’s Snare has been gathered. The Bowtruckles have been settled as well.”
Hermione handed a glass jar to Newt, sat down, and speared a piece of pale yellow meat with her fork:
“This chicken tastes really good. It’s prepared differently than in Britain. Though, I didn’t see any chicken coops in the village.”
Hearing this, Dick burst into laughter, baring his white teeth.
“The ‘chicken’ you’re talking about is nearly ten meters long, has a mouth full of teeth, and is covered in thick scales.”
“That’s alligator meat, Hermione,” Newt said calmly as he chewed.
Frey chewed on a dark piece of meat from another dish that tasted like beef.
“And this?”
“Cougar,” Dick said with a sweeping gesture.
“In this rainforest, there aren’t just magical creatures; there are even more beasts that want to eat us. But we treat them as food.”
He pointed at a white, oval slice of meat on Hermione’s fork.
There was only a thin bone running through the center of it.
“Guess what that is?”
Hermione asked tentatively, “Fish?”
“Anaconda,” Dick grinned.
“It tried to ambush my child a few days ago, so I killed it first.”
Hermione’s face went pale, and she gagged slightly.
“Nobody eats snakes… that’s too disgusting.”
“It’s only disgusting to the people you know,” Newt said gently, looking at her.
“The world is vast. Every place has customs that exist for a reason, and they are just as valid as our own habits. Trying it is also a way of understanding this wilderness.” Get faster updates on g.com.
Hermione hesitated for a moment, swallowed hard, and her eyes grew determined once more.
“Could you pass me another piece, please?”
Frey smiled and speared a large piece for her:
“Actually, snake meat is much tenderer than chicken. And when it comes to flavor, our British cuisine is easily one of the best in the world—from the bottom up, that is. You have to trust a professional on this.”
A knock came at the door.
It was the old chieftain.
He expressed his gratitude for saving the village by offering them a brand-new dugout canoe and a special navigator.
“A navigator?” Frey accepted an exquisite little wooden box.
Inside lay a shrunken head, exactly what he had been hoping for.
The head had dark skin, its facial features neatly stitched shut, emitting a strange herbal scent.
“Place him on the bow of the canoe. He will warn you of hidden reefs, water monsters, and Third Salem patrols,” the chieftain said seriously.
“But take note—he will only work when the stick underneath him touches the water.”
Hermione asked uneasily, “We’re going by boat?”
“You need to survey the river channels, so traveling by water is definitely the most suitable option.”
Dick explained:
“If you fly too high, you won’t gather any useful information. If you fly low, there are Winged Leopards and Phantasmal Pythons in the skies above the rainforest, which specialize in attacking flying targets at the canopy level. Plus, traveling by water makes it easier to avoid the gaze of those anti-magic extremists.”
Feeling completely full, Newt patted his stomach and asked, “Has anyone found that guy… Banco?”
“No. That fellow is slicker than an eel in the river.”
“He won’t get far. Dragon eggs can’t survive low temperatures for long, so his contact must be waiting nearby to receive them. If I’m not mistaken, they’re waiting for us downstream.”
Frey asked Dick for a large bucket of alligator meat, then pulled Hermione into the backpack to rest in the two-bedroom flat and feed their ill-tempered tenant while they were at it.
“You can’t sleep in the bag tomorrow!”
Newt shouted from behind.
Hermione turned to Frey.
“Why is that?”
“Trust me, you definitely don’t want to step out of the backpack one morning only to find yourself inside the belly of some giant beast.”
“Then why did you go to all the trouble of transferring this entire space into your backpack?”
“Because it has a potions bench, an alchemy workbench, a writing desk, and lots of tools. Besides, making this space didn’t take any effort at all.”
Hermione rolled her eyes.
“Frey, what you do isn’t alchemy—you’re pinning the laws of alchemy to the ground and slapping them across the face. But I have to admit… it really is practical.”
Frey patted her shoulder.
“Who cares how I did it? A backpack that can fit an entire home is a good backpack.”