Early the next morning, Charlen went to see Albus Dumbledore to discuss setting up the daycare, and Dumbledore readily agreed.
However, instead of placing it on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Dumbledore suggested building it directly inside Xia Lin’s office.
Creating such a space with an Undetectable Extension Charm was simple enough.
“Unless you’re willing to use the Elder Wand to help me build a space like Newt Scamander’s suitcase, I still think the Forbidden Forest would be better,” Charlen said, clearly unwilling to pass up an opportunity to enlist Dumbledore’s help.
In truth, Charlen’s Rainbow Wand possessed immense magical power—scarcely inferior to the Elder Wand itself—but his personal prowess still lagged behind Dumbledore’s.
Working together would yield far better results.
“I would be delighted to help,” Dumbledore replied cheerfully.
His main concern was whether Charlen’s Pokémon might disrupt the ecosystem of the Forbidden Forest.
After all, back when he had visited Newt, relations between conventional magical beasts and Pokémon had not been particularly harmonious.
Most Pokémon loved to battle, while larger magical beasts were easily provoked into causing massive destruction.
For instance, Charlen’s Charizard had once challenged Newt’s Thunderbird.
To Charizard, it had merely been a friendly sparring match, but the Thunderbird had clearly viewed Charizard as a threat to its life.
In the end, Dumbledore proposed modifying Charlen’s office directly into the daycare.
He fetched his wand and walked back with Xia Lin.
Thus, through their combined efforts—though mostly Dumbledore’s, as he handled at least sixty percent of the work—Charlen’s office was divided into an outer and inner layer.
The outer room looked like an ordinary office.
However, opening the inner door revealed a completely different world.
During construction, Charlen took full advantage of Dumbledore’s free labor, expanding the space to many times its original size.
Charlen had no doubt that the expanded space was already more than ten times larger than the entire grounds of Hogwarts, even taking into account the Black Lake and the Forbidden Forest.
Calling it a daycare felt like an understatement; anyone walking in would believe it was a full-fledged nature reserve.
“Now all that’s left is to construct various environments,” Dumbledore said merrily.
He thought it would be wonderful if students could take classes in such a place.
“What a pity this course wasn’t available when I was a student.
If you don’t mind, may I drop in to sit in on your classes?” To Dumbledore, creatures like Pokémon remained a fascinating mystery, and he was deeply intrigued by them.
He had learned a bit through his previous chats with Charlen, but only on a superficial level.
“Of course,” Charlen welcomed the idea.
Examining Pokémon through the lens of magic was a unique perspective.
He had spent the past few years experimenting with this approach, and his Rainbow Wand was one of the results.
If a master of magic like Dumbledore was willing to offer guidance and insights, the research would progress much faster.
If he could discover something equivalent to the twelve uses of dragon blood, he might even get his face printed on a Chocolate Frog card.
Dumbledore left the remaining finishing touches to Charlen, pocketed his wand, and departed.
Once he was gone, Charlen claimed his reward for the daycare.
Instantly, the door leading to the inner room of his office transformed into the entrance of a small wooden cabin.
Although it was a cabin, it looked far cleaner and neater than Hagrid’s hut.
Charlen pushed the door open and stepped inside, finding an interior that resembled a shop.
Shelves lined the surrounding walls, filled not with merchandise but with all kinds of eggs, though none were labeled.
Beside the eggs were various types of Pokémon food, such as Berries and Pokéblocks.
Charlen felt as though a Poké Mart had been summoned out of thin air.
Further inside was a long counter, flanked by a massive incubating machine and a healing machine.
Both devices seemed to ignore Hogwarts’ magical interference and operated normally.
Behind the counter was another door leading to the vast space he and Dumbledore had expanded together.
In short, Charlen’s office now consisted of three distinct sections: the outermost layer was his office; the middle layer was a daycare that combined a Poké Mart and a Pokémon Center; and the innermost layer was an enormous expanse of land.
Charlen intended to transform that inner space into a nature reserve over the summer so that hatched Pokémon would have room to move around.
For now, however, that area remained completely empty.
He decided to hatch a few helper Pokémon first—such as Mr.
Mime or Audino—to assist in taking care of the facility and the other Pokémon.
The digital panel on the incubator displayed the Pokémon species currently available for hatching.
So far, he had unlocked ninety Pokédex entries, but the actual number of distinct species was much lower.
Roughly two-thirds of those entries were evolved forms.
Strictly speaking, he could only hatch thirty distinct species.
Furthermore, the rarer the Pokémon, the fewer times it could be hatched.
Pokémon like Rattata could be hatched almost without limit, whereas rare starter Pokémon like Charmander could only be hatched a handful of times.
This made him think of Hagrid’s knack for breeding odd creatures.
However, Pokémon belonged to specific Egg Groups and rarely produced entirely new species through interbreeding, making them fundamentally different from magical beasts.
“So the only helper Pokémon I can hatch right now are Mime Jr., Mr.
Mime, Miltank, and Audino?” Charlen pulled out the corresponding eggs and placed them inside the incubator.
Although Mr.
Mime was the evolved form of Mime Jr., it could also be hatched directly.
The incubator’s screen immediately displayed the remaining time: [3 Days].
That gave Charlen enough time to reshape the reserve’s terrain, which was currently a blank slate.
“None of these species are overly demanding about their habitat.
A basic grassland should be enough,” Charlen mused, deciding to set up a plain first.
However, he couldn’t start just yet.
It was almost five in the afternoon, the time he had agreed to meet Hagrid.
Expanding such a massive space had taken a considerable chunk of time, even with Dumbledore’s help.
“First, dinner.
Then I’ll go find Hagrid.” Charlen headed toward the Hogwarts kitchens.
*** At five in the afternoon, Charlen found Hagrid outside his hut by the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Hagrid was wheeling out a heavy motorbike with a sidecar.
Given Hagrid’s massive frame, there was no way Xia Lin was going to fit comfortably into that tiny sidecar.