Grindelwald followed behind Mr. Ogg as they entered the Forbidden Forest along a narrow path.
As they went deeper, the dense canopy overhead gradually blotted out the light, and the surroundings grew increasingly dim.
Mr. Ogg walked to the end of the path, then turned sharply to the right.
The view ahead suddenly felt wide open.
What had been a gloomy scene filled with towering trees became spacious and brightly lit the moment they turned the corner.
At some point, a vast clearing had appeared within the Forbidden Forest.
The once tightly packed trees and layers of fallen leaves accumulated over many years had been completely cleared away.
In their place lay a lush, expansive lawn.
Many unfamiliar wizards were hard at work across the grass.
These strangers carried an inherent ferocity in their expressions, making Mr. Ogg feel a chill rise in his chest.
At the very centre of the lawn stood an enormous tent.
By Mr. Ogg's estimation, the tent could easily accommodate over a hundred people.
Of course, he knew that this was only the outward appearance.
With the Undetectable Extension Charm applied, it was impossible to imagine just how vast the interior of the tent truly was.
Beside the tent stood more than a dozen Thestral-drawn carriages.
Each carriage was hauling an enormous crate.
From time to time, all manner of strange noises would echo from within the crates, enough to make one's skin crawl.
However, to Mr. Ogg, no matter how bizarre those dark creatures might be, none of them were as frightening as Grindelwald and his followers.
Mr. Ogg swallowed with difficulty, then turned his head and said, "This is the place. If there is nothing else, I will be leaving now."
"Go on," Grindelwald said, gazing at the scene before him with satisfaction as he waved a hand indifferently.
Mr. Ogg turned and left as if granted a reprieve.
Just as he reached the junction, he ran straight into an approaching group.
This group was not composed of humans. Their upper bodies were human, but their lower halves were those of horses.
Each of them held a sturdy bow in hand.
They were centaurs who lived deep within the Forbidden Forest.
At that moment, a powerfully built centaur stepped forward with heavy hooves.
"Ogg, you wizards have destroyed far too much of the forest!" the centaur said angrily.
"Fernandis, did we not already come to an agreement?" Ogg's heart skipped as he frowned.
Centaur Fernandis replied coldly, "This is not what we agreed upon. You never said you would destroy such a vast stretch of forest!"
"If you think this is something I can decide, or that Hogwarts can decide," Ogg said grimly, "then you are gravely mistaken. Do you truly not recognise that man?"
Ogg glanced behind him, toward Grindelwald, who was walking toward the tent.
Fernandis tightened his grip on his bow, but Ogg seized his arm.
"Fernandis… even Professor Dumbledore and Headmaster Dippet have temporarily acquiesced to his actions. Do not act rashly."
Fernandis finally loosened his grip, his tone turning sorrowful. "I hear the trees singing songs of grief… Even if the forest will eventually regrow, those dark creatures… he has brought far too many dark creatures. Such actions may taint the Forbidden Forest."
Ogg understood Fernandis's meaning. The so-called taint referred to the risk that introducing too many powerful foreign dark creatures into the forest could disrupt its natural balance.
Many of the Forbidden Forest's plants and animals might vanish as a result.
"Fernandis, do not act impulsively, and do not entangle yourselves with them," Ogg said with concern. "I will report your worries to Professor Dumbledore and Headmaster Dippet. I trust you will receive a satisfactory response."
He knew Grindelwald's temperament very well. When dealing with wizards like Dumbledore, Grindelwald was still relatively reasonable, but if centaurs went to pester him, they might be killed outright by the Grindelwald faction before ever meeting him.
In the eyes of Grindelwald and his followers, centaurs were no different from beasts. Precisely because he could not bear to see the centaurs come to harm, Mr. Ogg was doing his utmost to dissuade them from marching toward destruction.
Fernandis seemed to be weighing the matter. After a long while, he finally said, "Ogg, I will return for now. But I hope to see Hogwarts' response soon. Otherwise, we will go and negotiate ourselves."
The rhythmic sound of hooves gradually faded into the distance, and Mr. Ogg could not help letting out a sigh.
Those centaurs were proud and arrogant, and because of that, they often failed to see the vast gap in strength between themselves and others.
Mr. Ogg did not dare waste any time and hurried back toward the castle once more.
…
Inside the Chamber of Secrets.
Slytherin was watching Wade feed the chickens in front of him.
"There is something very wrong with these chickens of yours," Slytherin finally said after a long pause.
"What is wrong with them?" Wade asked as he scattered his specially prepared feed.
"With magical growth acceleration, how can these chickens be growing so slowly?" Slytherin asked in confusion.
When Muggles raised chickens, it usually took several months for them to mature. But for a wizard like Slytherin, a chicken could be fully grown within a week without any side effects. After all, chickens were not magical creatures and possessed no magic of their own, so the effects of magic on them should have been extremely pronounced.
Now, Slytherin had clearly taught Wade his growth-accelerating magic, yet the chickens Wade was raising were growing even more slowly than those raised by Muggles.
At first, Slytherin had thought it was due to malnutrition and suspected there was something wrong with Wade's feed.
But he quickly dismissed that idea, because those young roosters were brimming with vitality and showed no signs of malnourishment at all.
That was why he said there was something wrong with the way Wade was raising his chickens.
"I modified your growth-acceleration spell, and then paired it with this special feed," Wade said. "I want to raise a batch of roosters in peak condition first, and only then begin basilisk breeding."
Upon hearing this, Slytherin looked at Wade as if he were staring at an idiot.
"I admit that raising chickens this way will indeed produce excellent chickens, but… has your head been caught in a door?!"
Slytherin floated above Wade's head and launched into a furious tirade.
His booming roar startled the young roosters, sending them flapping and scattering in all directions.
In an instant, the once-quiet Chamber was thrown into utter chaos.
In Slytherin's eyes, the chickens were the roosters, and as for the dog… that was, of course, Wade, the foolish dog himself.
"Is your ultimate goal really to raise good chickens? Your ultimate goal should be to breed a basilisk! Should you not be raising chickens in massive numbers and seeing whether an egg-laying rooster might emerge from a huge population? You are spending so much time and effort on this, and you can only raise a few dozen at a time. At this rate, when are you ever going to get a rooster that lays eggs?"
If Slytherin were still alive, Wade would already have been sprayed full in the face with spit.
Back then, in order to obtain a qualifying rooster, Slytherin had raised each batch of chickens in the thousands.
Now Wade was raising only a few dozen at a time, and doing so with such time and effort. If that was not having his head caught in a door, then what was?
Wade dug a finger into his ears to clear the ringing, then said unhurriedly, "You are mistaken. My ultimate goal is not to breed a single basilisk, but… many of them. If I only bred one basilisk, how could this be called a basilisk breeding industry? Since basilisks cannot reproduce with one another, I have no choice but to raise more roosters…"
"Are you saying you have mastered a method to reliably turn roosters into egg-laying roosters?" Slytherin asked in shock.
"I am not a hundred percent certain yet. That is why we need experiments," Wade said, stroking his chin. "By the way, there is another question I forgot to ask you."
"What question?"
"The egg laid by that egg-laying rooster you found back then… had it been fertilised?"
Slytherin fell silent for a long while before answering hesitantly, "I did not pay attention…"
Wade's eyes widened. "Something with such immense research value, and you did not pay attention?"
"I spent ten years raising chickens just to find a single qualifying egg!" Slytherin frowned. "I was overjoyed. Why would I have thought to pay attention to that?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk…" Wade clicked his tongue and shook his head regretfully. "Your experimental rigor was far too sloppy…"
Slytherin was furious inside, yet had nothing to say in response, because it was indeed his oversight.
"Carry on with it yourself. I cannot be bothered anymore!" Slytherin threw out those final words, then passed through the forehead of his own statue and vanished from the Chamber.
Being constantly needled by a junior student, having his mistakes pointed out, and worse still, with the other party being entirely correct. For the ever-proud Slytherin, this was more unbearable than torture itself. How could he possibly have the face to remain?
Wade did not mind. He quietly herded the scattered young roosters back into their enclosure.
Then he silently made a mental note to pay attention to whether the rooster eggs were fertilised.
Once he was done, Wade returned to the long table at the centre of the Chamber.
The Obscurus continued to float in midair as usual.
Using the magic he had learned from Slytherin, Wade carefully preserved the Obscurus.
Otherwise, it would have dissipated long ago.
Suddenly, Wade noticed that the spot where he had previously cut away a small portion had actually grown back.
At the same time, the magic originally used to preserve the Obscurus began to weaken slightly.
Wade stroked his chin. "Could it be that this thing can absorb magic and restore itself? If that is the case, then this becomes interesting…"
He then dispelled the preservation magic around the Obscurus and drew it down directly to examine it more closely.
Frowning in thought, he reached into his robe and took out a goblin metal container.
Inside it was a small amount of freshly converted, pure "residue."
Wade opened the container, and the pure residue spilled out.
He guided this residue toward the Obscurus.
In the next instant, the Obscurus suddenly moved and devoured a small portion of the residue in front of it.
At the same time, the Obscurus became dense and solid once more.
Wade quickly stored away the majority of the residue that had not been consumed.
Only then did he realise something.
Why an Obscurus that had lost its host would disappear after a period of time.
Because he had overlooked the most crucial point. An Obscurus is a living creature. A Dark creature. Even without consciousness, it is still alive. And all living beings need to feed.
Without a host, there was no one left to feed it. Starving to death, it would naturally dissipate. That was why an Obscurus without an owner would vanish after some time.
As for the magic used to preserve the Obscurus, it was not entirely due to the spell itself.
Rather, the presence of magic provided the Obscurus with a meagre ration, just enough to keep it from "starving." As long as it did not starve, it would not disappear.
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