great-warnovel Chapter 104 Ghost Owl
Chapter 104 Ghost Owl
Chapter 104 Ghost Owl
Even though he had shrunk his size with a Transfiguration Charm, Hagrid still looked very imposing. If he didn't use magic, with Aragog, he would be nearly four meters tall when he stood up. The two of them could block the entire fourth-floor lobby, which is why he was chosen to guard the Shining Stone in the first place.
In that confined space, if Lucius hadn't recorded the basilisk's roar beforehand, he wouldn't have been able to dodge Hagrid's attack at all.
No matter how many layers of turtle shells there are, it won't help.
Currently, in addition to being transformed into Hagrid's home, this front hall has been expanded to include a small swamp-like environment created using rotten wood, some seemingly terrible soil, and black puddles. A small magical moon hangs inside, like a large light bulb, continuously illuminating the space.
Hagrid was facing away from Hermione, busy with something.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a nest of bluish eggs, emitting a faint glow.
"What kind of creature's egg is this?" Hermione asked.
"Oh! Kid, you scared me!" Hagrid nearly jumped up and smashed through the ceiling. He could have warned Toothbaenie.
But the big black dog was lying in its kennel, covering its nose with its two front paws, completely ignoring Hagrid; it just smelled too bad.
Hagrid patted his huge chest and cheerfully took a rock cake from the table next to him with his muddy hands, handing it to Hermione.
Looking at Hagrid's stinking hands and the biscuit stained with some unknown foul-smelling water, the girl thought for a moment and, for the first time, refused the food offered to her: "Thank you, but I'm not hungry. Long time no see, Hagrid. How was your vacation? Where did you get this egg? Are you going to live in this stinking water?"
The small swamp and the burrows made of rotting matter within it emitted a nauseating stench, but it was probably unbearable for the other professors as well, so they used magic to lock the smell in this small area and prevent it from spreading. Hermione only smelled it when she got close.
"Ah, these are treasures that Mr. Scamander went to great lengths to find. The restoration of communications in the magical world depends on them." Hagrid tossed the rock bread back onto the plate on the table, rendering the entire plate of food inedible.
"The Ghost Owl, a bird that can adapt to various extreme environments and radiation, penetrate magical barriers, and is not difficult to tame." Hagrid stroked the eggs with fascination, but Aragog beneath him seemed to be drooling.
"Newt found them near Auschwitz, and Professor Kettleburn and I spent the whole summer wandering around that stinky wood."
Professor Kettleburn teaches Mutant Beasts, but the course isn't offered until the third year, so Hermione doesn't know him.
It is said that this old man is keen on capturing mutant beasts all over the world. Most of the teaching materials needed for the course were captured by him personally. However, he is not very strong. Over the years, he has only one and a half limbs left. Only one arm and half a leg are original. The rest of the parts have been replaced by magically enchanted prosthetics.
"As you know, since the cataclysmic changes in the world, the original magical owls have died in large numbers and are nearly extinct because they could not adapt to the goblin curse and radioactive dust that permeated the atmosphere. The wizarding world's communication and postal services have also been severely impacted. Hogwarts had to change its previous acceptance letter model and start sending letters directly to students' homes."
"These birds, which Newt named Ghost Owls, reach adulthood after 10 months of growth. Their bodies transform into an intermediate state between physical and ghostly forms, enabling them to pass through most walls and barriers and become immune to melee weapons. However, excessive flames and heat can completely destroy them."
Some eight-eyed giant spider larvae pushed open the trapdoor on the ground, carried various materials over, and piled them up in this rotting swamp.
Clearly, they collected these from outside.
Hermione reached out and, seeing that Hagrid didn't stop her, tentatively touched the bird eggs lightly. They felt cool and slightly bouncy, unlike normal eggs which are hard.
She thought of the golden bird claws at the border, wondering if those smelly birds were edible.
"Professor Sprout is over in the West Tower, renovating the owl huts. They've been abandoned for too many years and aren't suitable for the ghost owls to live in," Hagrid said.
"These magical birds prefer damp, rotten environments. They will nest on dead tree trunks, but they will refuse to breed if the surroundings are not smelly enough. Therefore, Professor Sprout will have to make some improvements to the area. In the meantime, I will take care of these eggs."
Hagrid's eyes would light up whenever the topic turned to magical creatures and deformed beasts, and he would talk at length about what he knew to Hermione.
"We suspect that these birds are connected to the souls of Muggles. Their mass deaths during the war, as well as the effects of radiation, mutated the wild magical owls near Auschwitz. These birds, deprived of their normal food, probably survived by eating the corpses of Muggles for a long time. This made them more intelligent and cunning, and they knew how to survive in the brutal wasteland."
"But I don't understand why they would love the smell so much that they would even defecate in their own dens." He scratched his head.
"Why are they all eggs? Where are their parents?" Hermione leaned closer to observe and could see tiny lives curled up like chicks under the translucent blue eggshells.
"The adult birds have been taken away by Master Scamander and Professor Kettleburn for domestication. Perhaps in a few months, you will be able to order the Diviner's Daily in the auditorium."
Hermione didn't want to read the Daily Marsh, but ordering Malfoy products from the school would be beneficial for her perfumery research.
"Will we have a chance to raise one someday?" It would definitely be more convenient to have our own owl than to use the one at school.
However, these ghost owls have only just been discovered, and it's unclear how long it will take for them to become widespread.
"Haha, before the war, it was perfectly normal to bring an owl to school," Hagrid laughed. "Back then, acceptance letters would specify which pets you could bring to school, like owls, cats, or toads."
"But later, students couldn't even afford the necessary textbooks and school uniforms, so fewer and fewer students were able to bring their pets to school."
Hagrid thought for a moment: "Can you tell me what day your birthday is? If the ghost owl hatches by then, I might be able to give you one as a birthday present, but you'll have to raise it yourself. I mean, it'll make your dorm room stink."
Hermione was taken aback by the question, not because she was surprised that Hagrid had the right to deal with these obviously rare treasures, or that she would have to build a latrine in her dormitory, but because she couldn't remember her birthday for a moment.
The world's civilization has been destroyed too much. In the settlement where she grew up, only a few old people possessed a calendar and could calculate dates. They held the secret knowledge of when to plant and when to dig holes, because the suitable planting time in a year was too short. Their knowledge was enough to allow them to enjoy the treatment of superior people in any Muggle settlement.
However, according to Lockhart's knowledge, civilization was better preserved in the larger Muggle regime to the east. Only the wild Muggles in the wizarding-controlled areas were almost back to being savages, all thanks to Grindelwald.
During the summer holidays, many people came to Harry's birthday party, but because they were staying at the Potters' house, they didn't have a chance to go out. Therefore, Hermione and the others' birthday gifts were just some trinkets they found in Cliffs and the Valley, which were not worth mentioning. As for herself, her birthday last year was completely forgotten in the midst of her busy schedule.
"It should be in September," she recalled, remembering once seeing that tattered, handmade calendar that had been flipped through countless times, with crooked tables and numbers written in charcoal, and her parents pointing to a circled spot...
"It's September 19th!"
Hermione suddenly realized that she was actually going to be 13 years old soon.