Meanwhile, Felix is creating a house in the icy Arctic and Valen is hiding under his thick dragon hide hat, feeling uncomfortable from only seeing endless glaciers.
Felix has had a pretty productive week. After Christmas dinner, he spent the day focussing on company matters before popping over to Newt's country house, where he was greeted by the Scamander Couple, Newt's wife - Tina Scamander, a kind and earnest old woman who after knowing he was planning a short trip, had thoughtfully prepared Felix a box with Twelve varieties of hot dogs.
"Honey, you might as well make some apple pie as a dessert," Newt said.
"I always have trouble grasping the heat." Tina said as she glanced at him.
For the next three days, Felix followed Newt's instructions, travelling to and from all the magical creature sanctuaries around the world, collecting the magical creatures' data he had in his mind, and as the final week of the holidays approached, he reached the North Pole, a place he knew the least about.
"A magical creature that can split itself?" Newt asked, "Did my memory body tell you that? Frankly, I don't know if it was an illusion, but I saw one once in the far north of the world, which is a combination of a snow ferret, fox, and a wolf... They split themselves when hunting somewhat like the Matagots that guard the important places of the French Ministry of Magic. Though they are totally different because the Matagots is not a creature, but a spirit being..."
Felix was very curious about this magical creature.
He must admit that he was intrigued when he first heard about it in classroom seven. Despite knowing that the Liquid luck Potion is useless, he still used up the last bit of his stock and began his endless search.
His advantages lie in his superb mobility due to the Apparition and his eyes that can discern magic.
But the Arctic is too vast, so hopelessly vast that he can only trace a circle outwards based on the general location provided by Newt. Luckily, he had found a rather precious jewel on the black market in the Americas, a jewel from a Horned Serpent that is endemic to that region, and the jewel on its forehead grants both invisibility and the ability to fly, which Felix had woven into a carpet, thus allowing him to float without any burden.
Felix himself can fly, but it requires a lot of magical power, and he rarely uses it unless it is for battle. In comparison, Voldemort made it look easy, and Felix wondered if he had dissected a Horned Serpent and transplanted its bloodline into his own body, or of course, it could have been a Lethifold?
"Two days to go, if we can't find it by then we'll return." Felix said, and soon the house made of ice was built, after entering it he enlarged the interior by casting the Undetectable Extension Charm and created a fireplace inside, which was when Valen jumped out of his hat.
"Didn't you have a good time with those otters yesterday?"
"Kiki!"
"The thermostatic pendant not working? Well, you've been using it for a long time. When we get back, I'll make you one, never mind, let's buy one." Felix pulled out the thick blanket, and iron pot from the ring, as he turned his head to look at Valen and said hesitantly, "Do you prefer to grill fish or soup, plus we have plenty of hot dogs, too ..."
Valen gagged twice.
"A bit greasy? How fussy." Felix smacked his lips. In the end, he didn't touch the hot dogs either - he'd had enough of them in those two days in the Brazilian rainforest.
The next day, Felix was sitting on his flying carpet, looking down from several thousand feet above, with endless, undulating icebergs below him; the carpet could actually fly even higher, but Felix's magical perspective couldn't keep up if they go any higher.
Valen leaned against his back, happily playing a mini-game. The game came from the magic painting club at school. When the club was considering what theme to use as material for an interactive magic painting, Valen showed up at a crucial moment. She not only provided the core inspiration but also included a substantial amount of funding.
The result was a magical painting mini-game called 'Brave Warrior', with Niffler as the lead role.
After spending some time 'slaying', Valen took a new magic painting out of her pocket, and Niffler in the middle of the painting which was anxiously waiting at the edge of the level jumped onto another one, armed with a deluxe version of her exclusive wand, and set off to challenge the new level.
On the other side, Felix had made a new discovery.
A creature with snow-white fur nimbly moving across the white earth, and by following its path, Felix found a nest of frantically fleeing Arctic rabbits. The creature indeed looks like a combination of Arctic fox and Arctic wolf, as described by Newt, albeit a lot smaller, looking about the size of a ferret.
The key thing is that Felix saw rapidly flowing magic on this creature.
Having magic meant that this is a magical creature.
As Felix floated two or three hundred feet above the air, the snow-white magical creature, which was oblivious to the eyes of the mysterious man overhead, moved as fast as it could, but the arctic rabbit was no slower and steered quite nimbly. This magical creature leaped high as it approached the Arctic rabbit, and splitting an identical entity from its body as it reached the peak high it could reach from the jump, the two white shadows crisscrossed through the snow, with their mind connected as they cooperated seamlessly and caught an unlucky rabbit in the blink of an eye.
Felix watched as he descended, mentally tsked in amazement as he couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary if he didn't look closely.
The magical creature with the snowy white fur picked up the rabbit and turned its head to see a strange creature descending from the sky, it had never seen a human before, so it stayed where it was to examine Felix.
Felix smiled kindly.
"Little fox? maybe a Little wolf? Or a Little ferret? Whatever, I got delicious hot dogs for you..."
Two days later, Felix released it.
"Full harvest, let's go, Valen." Valen waved goodbye to her newfound friend.
"Kee! (Bye!)"
"Kiki! (Watch your weight!)"
"Kikii! (Otherwise you can't catch any food!)"
Felix patted Valen lightly, " He is much more in shape than you are ..." Exasperated, Valen wanted to hit him.
...
The Hogwarts train had stopped at Hogsmeade and the young wizards who had gone home for the holidays returned to school by carriage.
Ron and Hermione, as the Prefect, had organized the young wizards into the carriage and entered the carriage in time with the last group. As soon as they got in, the Night Thestral carriage moved.
"What, all about dark magic? Snape?" Hermione looked at Harry and Ron in surprise, her mind still not switched back after spending the last two weeks travelling around with her parents. "Well ... it's normal if you think about it, isn't it? We all know he's interested in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, maybe he's preparing for it ..."
Harry said dismissively, "If that's the case that's fine, it means we only have to put up with him for one more year ..."
"The point is, he's still sneaking around the house in the middle of the night, as Ginny can testify." Ron added.
"Oh, ugh, I don't know, but it's his personal business." Hermione stroked her hair, "Did you guys finish your assignments, I think there are a few things that could be changed."
Harry and Ron looked at each other, they had obviously spent more time guessing Snape's motives.
"I'm still- a little.. short," Ron glanced uneasily at Harry, who didn't say anything.
"Well, if you guys don't turn in your assignments tomorrow, will you give that reason to the professors?" Hermione asked pointedly. Harry sighed. When they got back to school, they hurriedly finished their dinner and went to the library. A number of students were already sitting inside, and they found a random empty table and sat down, Hermione looking around thoughtfully.
"What's wrong?"
"Well, the Muffliato Charm became popular."
Harry looked around, he did notice some students' mouths opening and closing rapidly without making a sound, and the gloomy face of Mrs. Pince, the librarian, repeatedly showed up through the gaps in the bookshelves, like a vulture that has failed to find its prey circling high in the sky for a while before regretfully leaving.
Harry tapped his wand on the table and the surrounding sounds became muffled, sounding like a low, noisy buzz.
Harry flipped out his assignment, his History of the Magic essay short of one more paper to finish. He swirled open his ink bottle, the tip of his quill drenched in ink, as he scribbled away on his parchment. In the interval of looking up, he saw Snape's silhouette flicker in the middle of the bookshelf.
Harry's heart thumped and his eyes strained to catch Snape's movement, surprised to find him lingering in the restricted section for a short time before finally sitting at a table, reading a book. It was only when the library was about to close that Snape stood up and left with the book.
"Wait for me." Harry said to Ron and Hermione as he stood up. "What?" But he was already stood up and walked out of their table.
He returned after a long while with his heart in his throat.
"What's wrong?" Ron asked, "You look like you've just been hit by Mrs. Pince with a chicken feather duster ..."
"Snape, the book Snape was reading ..." Harry swallowed hard, "Magick Moste Evile."
"So?" Hermione asked with annoyance, not taking her eyes off her own paper, "Harry, he is a professor, even if he studies dark magic, he must have a legitimate reason, he's probably thinking about how to crack them ... you probably would have found out more if you could check his book borrowing records. "
"Good idea." Ron said, "Hey, I'm serious, we could really try that!"
"Now you're wrong about that, Hermione." Harry said lowering his voice, "I haven't read as many books as you have, I've only heard that name once ..."
Hermione looked up and froze as she stared at Harry's face.
In a dry voice she said, "I remember ... a passage in the preface of this book, 'No discussion or instruction regarding the evilest magical creation, the Horcrux, will be given here'... ... Harry, you think he's investigating ..."
She didn't continue, but both Harry and Ron knew what she meant - Snape might be secretly investigating about the Horcrux.
------------
Thanks for all your love and support.
Read 50 days or 100 chapters in advance on P@treon. If you have some extra pocket money, Support me at P@treon: www.p@treon.com/Crazy_Cat.
Happy Reading!!!