Mysterious Journey

Chapter 949 Demonic Demonic Pet (Part 1)

"… This isn't a question of whether it's reasonable, it's a matter of principle."

Newt Scamander took the aged file, his fingers tracing the edges of the yellowed parchment.

Unlike the naivety of decades past, after so many years of wandering and experience, the nearly-centenarian Scamander now held a more comprehensive view of magical creatures. He was well aware of the potential for accidental injuries caused by improper domestication methods and unsuitable subjects.

In fact, as the former primary spokesperson for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, he had personally signed no fewer than a hundred decrees on this very topic.

"Domesticating magical creatures in Hogwarts Castle involves too many issues. The destructiveness and threat posed by magical creatures are not comparable to ordinary owls, cats, or toads. Their magic can harm wizards... That's why the Hogwarts New Student Guide explicitly limits the types of pets first-year students can bring. School education cannot be built upon the risk to students."

"Eh? Excuse me... Are you really Mr. Newt Scamander? This doesn't seem like you."

Aileen cast a peculiar glance at the old freckled man. She had initially thought her proposal would receive Newt's immediate support.

Could it be that, as time passed, the dragon slayers all eventually turned into dragons themselves?

"I may not quite understand what you mean. You seem to be suggesting that magical creatures are very dangerous. If Hogwarts were to promote a school-wide magical creature domestication program, it would place students in a high-risk environment—like now?"

She tilted her head slightly toward her surroundings, signaling Newt to look at the students who were curiously and cautiously observing the magical creatures.

Picnics, nature, wizards, and magical creatures, all intertwined harmoniously.

Hagrid grinned, happily waving raw meat to feed the Thestrals. As the raw meat gradually disappeared in the air, the young wizards let out surprised murmurs. Older students seized the opportunity to show off their knowledge, educating the younger ones about Thestrals.

Fear stems from the mysterious and unknown. When something becomes common knowledge to a portion of the population, it is replaced by a curious thirst for knowledge.

"The danger isn't the animals, it never has been…"

Newt shook his head, saying calmly and solemnly, "The most dangerous thing is the human heart. The vast majority of magical creature-related injury incidents involving creatures of XXX-level or below are caused by stupidity, selfishness, and arrogance. Of course, some of the reasons are even more heartbreaking, as they are used as weapons—"

"This is Hogwarts. The students are all under seventeen years old. Do you know what that means, Miss Kaslana?"

"They lack basic self-control and a threshold for right and wrong?"

Aileen said softly, a glint of realization flashing in her eyes.

She somewhat understood Newt's concerns now. Conflicts between Hogwarts students were not simple fistfights.

Even with various school rules and restrictions, magical ambushes and magical duels remained the most common ways to resolve disputes. In this unavoidable magical campus environment, the emergence of magical creatures would inevitably be incorporated into student conflicts, which was also Newt's biggest dilemma.

"Exactly. Most students can't even control their own magical powers. You can hardly expect them to learn how to control magical creatures."

Newt nodded, continuing, "Moreover, aside from the fact that the castle is not suitable for many magical creatures to live in, domesticating magical creatures is not like crafting alchemical items. They are not cold, lifeless objects without joy or sorrow. They need time to be with..."

"That's quite simple. I've considered it before."

Aileen gently stroked the small unicorn in her arms, answering easily.

"Helga's underground city can serve as a breeding and recreational area for magical creatures. The Black Lake and the Forbidden Forest, these areas outside the castle, can serve as activity areas for some adults. As for companionship... carrying them around should be no problem."

She could say she had quite a bit of experience in this area. Whether it was her emergency ration or Little Spiced Food, she usually carried them on her.

And as today's magical world's Magical Creature (Training) Master, Newt Scamander was also the same. Aileen glanced at the quivering green sprig at the edge of Newt's chest pocket. Although she had not delved into the related habits, she could still recognize a Bowtruckle.

Noticing Aileen's gaze, Newt shrugged helplessly, carefully tucking the sprig back into his pocket.

"Alright, let's skip the carry-around issue for now, but how do you solve the points I mentioned earlier?"

"Hmm, thinking about it carefully, it's not entirely without solutions—"

Aileen pondered for a few seconds, lightly tapping her lips with her finger, slowly saying.

"First is the dangerousness of magical creatures that you are most worried about. I've seriously considered this before, we only need to open up a limited selection of magical creatures—unifying the breeding and selection on the Hufflepuff side. This way, the admission regulations don't need to be changed too much."

"Besides, there's no need for us to fully promote it from the beginning. A pilot process is clearly essential..."

"Pilot?" Newt frowned.

"Yes, we will temporarily select several initial magical creatures as the starting point for the Hogwarts Magical Creature Program, uniformly cultivated. On the other hand, we will select a group of little wizards who meet the requirements based on the comprehensive situation of Hogwarts students, as the pilot program—these 'chosen children' can choose their favorite from those initial magical creatures as their magical little pets."

"Select a part of the students first…"

Newt pondered for a moment, then his brow relaxed, nodding thoughtfully.

This way, the controllability was guaranteed, and they could also track and check the interactions between the little wizards and the magical creatures at any time, so as to adjust at any time. Compared to the previous sneaky free-range raising, this method sounded significantly more feasible.

It had to be admitted, if he thought about the future in which Aileen was able to portray that kind of scene, Newt did have some heartstrings.

"However, the initial animal aspect should be carefully considered. Do you have any recommendations, Aileen?"

"How about a Swooping Evil!?"

Aileen asked quickly, her eyes shining.

She had been envious of that charming little animal for a long time, fast and highly concealed.

And from the current record, this was one of the few magical creatures that had defeated the Dark Lord. If she remembered correctly, Swooping Evils, Nifflers, and Bowtruckles were Newt Scamander's three main followers, of course, it was the first choice.

"Don't even think about it. The Swooping Evil is a XXXXX-level magical creature!"

Newt Scamander said irritably, he knew this little guy wouldn't choose any docile magical creatures.

The Swooping Evil was a high-risk species of the same danger level as dragons, Cerberus, and Acromantulas.

It was a bat-like creature with blue-green spiked wings, its venom diluted was equivalent to half a Memory Charm, which could dispel people's bad memories, but the main reason it was classified as a high-risk area was its favorite food – human brains.

"But you raised one before, and you still carry it around all day..."

Aileen muttered unconvinced, condemning the old freckled man's double standard of "banning the people from doing what the officials are allowed to do".

It should be known that Newt's number of violations in raising high-risk magical creatures was definitely the highest in the entire magical world. If it weren't for his repeated merits in arresting the Dark Lord or playing a major role in resisting the Dark Lord, he would have been sentenced to life imprisonment long ago.

"That was decades ago. The regulations weren't that perfect at the time—and that was during wartime."

Newt Scamander touched his nose, explaining softly, his tone gradually becoming firmer, "Anyway, it's definitely not possible now. Swooping Evils are not magical creatures that ordinary students can control, and its rarity makes it impossible to breed it on a large scale in schools..."

"Then how about…"

"It can't be above XXX-level, it can't be a large creature, it can't be an exotic species—"

Before Aileen could speak, Newt Scamander said quickly, listing seven or eight restrictions in one breath.

As a senior Magical Creature Master, in his most proficient field of magical creatures, Newt still had a way to block Aileen's selection space from various dimensions, which was also the only breakthrough he could now control the overall situation—crushing this mixed-blood little Veela in the theoretical field.

As expected, under Newt's barrage of attacks, Aileen opened her small mouth, rarely revealing a confused expression of being stuck.

This touched her blind spot of knowledge.

Most of her knowledge about magical creatures came from textbooks, movies, and Grindelwald's remedial classes at Nurmengard Castle last semester.

Perhaps Hermione, the "Calculation Machine", could barely do it, but for Aileen, this kind of precise conditional indexing obviously exceeded her computing ability, and the most important thing was that the restrictions proposed by Newt Scamander were mostly reasonable.

"… Then you choose, with so many restrictions, can you really find a suitable one?"

Aileen tried hard to search in her mind, helplessly chose to give up, and looked at Newt with a pout.

Of course, she knew what this old freckled man meant, but that didn't mean she gave up the topic's dominance. Since she couldn't cope with the moves, then she had another way to deal with it—increase the difficulty of this problem and then throw it back.

"Since we have a total of four houses, in my vision, we must prepare at least four kinds of initial magical creatures."

"If possible, it's best to fit the categories of the four houses..."

Aileen began to seriously count her fingers, anyway, she was just raising various demands. She had prepared for this carefully before.

Anyway, her purpose was not in the type of magical creatures, but in the specific feasibility of the problem—if Newt could be made to actively propose some alternative magic pet categories, that would naturally be a better thing. Of course, she would not fight for any dominance in this place.

Newt's personality was to like reconciliation and compromise, which was the counter-technique that Grindelwald summed up.

For example, if she directly said to let Newt help choose some magical creatures as Hogwarts' future initial magic pets, Newt probably wouldn't agree. But if she first proposed to raise a Swooping Evil, Newt would be willing to cooperate in finding alternative solutions.

As for what the final result was, it didn't matter, after all, Aileen already had top magic pets...

Now it was just a matter of re-doing the procedures, by the way, making the puddle of Hogwarts more chaotic and surging.

————

————

Yay!