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Noir spent a long time flapping, ruffling, and jabbing its beak until the message got through.
The two of them could not hold a real conversation, but the crow made its point clear enough.
The problem was how to catch the thing.
Whatever it was—Cedric still had no name for it—had clearly decided Noir was prey.
Every feather on the crow stood straight out.
It looked like a round, angry ball of black fluff.
Almost cute, if you ignored the panic.
Cedric led it out of the kitchen and upstairs to his room.
Noir stayed rigid the entire way, head whipping left and right, certain something would explode out of the walls and swallow it whole.
Inside the room he set the shaking crow beside its cage and deliberately left the door open.
Noir’s soul nearly left its body.
It shrieked, hopped forward, and slammed the door shut with one claw.
Cedric ignored the protest.
He worked at the cage for a moment, set a small button on the floor beside it, then walked over to the window as if he had lost interest.
A pure-white head eased up through a crack between the floorboards.
The Murtlap lay flat, round eyes rolling once toward Cedric at the window, then locking onto the crow inside the cage.
It slid forward along the floor without a sound.
White fur against dark wood should have been obvious.
Somehow it was not.
Noir felt the danger closing in.
It strained its eyes and still saw nothing.
Under the table the Murtlap dropped the act.
It bunched and sprang, landing right in front of the cage, ready to force the door and drag the crow out.
Noir’s scream could have cracked glass.
The button beside the cage twisted, expanded, and became a Biting Cabbage in the space of a heartbeat.
The plant was born to bite.
The instant living flesh brushed it, instinct took over.
Jaws clamped hard around the Murtlap’s hind leg.
The creature was fast and clever, but it had never expected a cabbage under its feet.
The bite locked.
It tried to phase back into the floorboards.
The Biting Cabbage refused to let go.
Matter Transmigration could not drag a living, stubborn plant with it.
That single second of delay was enough.
A hand closed on the scruff of its neck with practiced ease.
“A ferret?” was Cedric’s first thought as he lifted the thrashing white shape.
Eye of Insight corrected him at once.
[Murtlap]
Hunting Level: 12
Special Abilities: Aura Concealment C · Matter Transmigration B
Ingredient Traits: Tender meat · Pungent odor · Magic enrichment E-
Hunting Level tracked combat power more often than not, but sometimes it simply measured overall foundation.
Cedric himself sat at 14 after learning the first-year spells.
Almost none of that number came from offensive magic; it was raw control and capacity.
A Level 12 creature whose entire kit focused on hiding would naturally fold under direct physical force.
As an ingredient, fighting ability did not matter.
Higher level meant more enhancement points.
That was the only number that counted.
“Murtlap.” Cedric tasted the word.
Nothing surfaced in memory.
He set the struggling animal down long enough to pull Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them from the stack of first-year books.
Care of Magical Creatures did not start until third year, but the book was required reading from day one.
He found the entry quickly.
The illustration matched the creature in his hand.
“Banned from open trade,” he said, almost smiling.
“Interesting.
How did something illegal end up wandering the Leaky Cauldron?”
Whoever owned it would not dare report the loss.
Cedric had no idea who that owner was, and hunting them down would waste time he did not care to spend.
So…
He looked down at the Murtlap still thrashing in his grip.
His hand was stronger than most adults’.
The little body, built like a large ferret, had no chance of breaking free.
The creature sensed the shift in attention.
It tilted its head back and arranged its face into something pitiful.
“Let go of me, you idiot!”
The voice that came out of that soft white face could have stripped varnish.
Cedric’s expression flattened.
He checked the book again.
“Talks.
And chooses not to talk nicely.” He smiled without warmth.
“Got it.”
“What are you staring at, you stinking idiot!”
The Murtlap kept dancing on the edge of a short life.
Cedric’s smile turned colder.
He had no idea who the original owner was.
The animal had tried to take his crow.
That made it fair game.
Returning the favor felt reasonable.
It had nothing to do with the constant stream of curses.
Whoever was hiding somewhere in the building would not come looking.
Cedric would simply remove the problem for them.
Courtesy demanded reciprocity.