Chapter 163: Poachers Wiped Out – Since When Could Transfiguration Do This?
Crack. Crack.
The sound of shattering did not stop.
Countless fissures spread across the black barrier raised by the Earth‑Rending Boundary.
Newt jabbed his wand into the ward once more. Large chunks broke away and crumbled.
He stepped through, wand and case in hand, into Leo's section of the clearing.
"Leonardo, do not be afraid, I am—"
The rest of the sentence died in his throat.
Bodies lay strewn all over the ground, limbs at odd angles. Every one of the poachers was injured to some degree, unconscious, and pinned under stone fetters that had grown up from the earth. None of them could so much as twitch.
A few unfamiliar magical creatures still prowled around them. Unfamiliar, yes.
Newt stared at the fire dragon, the Occamy, the Wampus cat, the Acromantula…
Apart from the Occamy, he could not remember releasing any of the others.
He looked to the edge of the battlefield. Leo was just tucking a brass pocket watch back into his robes. His face was calm, his clothes as neat as if nothing at all had happened.
A chilling thought crept over Newt.
Had Leo subdued the poachers?
Then these magical creatures…
"I–I've already surrendered," a weak voice stammered. "You've already beaten up my mates. Could you stop hitting me?"
The voice came from under the dragon.
Newt turned. The fire dragon was a Norwegian Ridgeback. Its black scales were laced with strange gold markings, making it look even more regal and mysterious.
The source of the voice lay under its claws.
A blond man was pinned flat beneath one massive foot. For all his muscle, his body looked very slight compared to the dragon's talons.
"Cough… If you must hit me, at least let me breathe a bit," he gasped. "I—I cannot get any air…"
"Norbert," Leo called.
Norbert eased his grip a little, but his molten orange eyes never left the prey under his claws.
"Mr Scamander, are you all right?" Leo asked.
The question brought Newt back to himself.
"I am fine," he said. "The little ones took care of things for me."
He glanced around the devastated clearing again. "Are you hurt, Leonardo? I see, ah…"
Words failed him.
Leo walked over to join him. "My first‑year Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was excellent," he said. "He taught me a lot of very practical techniques."
The Dark Lord himself, teaching how to fight Dark Magic, how to duel, how to wield spells.
There were perhaps two other teachers in the world who could match that. One was pacing his office at Hogwarts. The other was sitting in a tower in Nurmengard.
It was an honest answer. It still did not sit quite right with Newt. No matter how dedicated the teacher or how eager the pupil, this was still a boy who had not yet started his second year.
"Mr Scamander, we are done here," Leo said. "We should go and help Professor Stanley."
Newt nodded at once and turned his wand back on the barrier. This time, without distraction, he tore it down much faster, at the simple cost of a great deal of magic.
"Do not worry too much about Stanley," he said as he worked. "He used to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at Ilvermorny. He is very strong in a fight."
He used to teach Defence, and now he teaches Potions.
Quite the career shift.
Seeing Leo's flicker of confusion, Newt smiled faintly. "Stanley spent a few years on Defence, then decided he preferred Potions. There happened to be a vacancy, so he changed posts."
Leo nodded. A man who did as he pleased. One casual decision, and another wizard's lifelong dream.
Hopefully, a certain Potions professor who had always coveted the Defence job would never hear that story.
"Oh, Leonardo. These magical creatures…?" Newt asked, waving his wand toward the beasts on the field.
"Except for the Norwegian Ridgeback, they are all Transfigurations," Leo said frankly. "Not real."
He was going to go on using magical‑creature Transfiguration. There was no point hiding it.
Newt's wand faltered. For a moment, he thought he had misheard.
Transfigured magical creatures?
Had Transfiguration really advanced that far while he was off in his case?
He knew creatures better than anyone. He had not spotted anything odd about those forms at first glance. They were almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
And what did he mean by "except for the Norwegian Ridgeback"? That dragon, the one that looked nothing like a standard specimen, was real?
Crack.
Someone else was breaking a barrier. The black wall in front of Newt shattered faster than he had expected, and a voice rang out from the other side.
"Do not be afraid, child, I will—"
Stanley cut off mid‑promise when he saw Newt step through.
"Oh. Newt. You are quick," he said.
He peered past him, spotting Leo unhurt in the background, and let out a long breath. He dumped the wizard he was holding by the collar onto the ground.
"I questioned this fellow while I was unpicking the ward," Stanley said. "He has told us most of it.
"They are part of a notorious international poaching ring. Jobs on every continent. They are wanted by Ministries all over the world…"
His voice grew colder with each word.
"Their original target was the Thunderbirds. They had their eyes on this weak period. Then they stumbled into you, Newt, and decided to add a little side job—ambush you and steal your case."
He broke off and looked at Leo, eyes full of relief and gratitude.
If not for the boy catching that assassin who had somehow crept so close, there was every chance Newt would be dead.
When the Killing Curse had flared to life behind them, even with all his experience, Stanley had not had time to do a thing.
If Newt had fallen here… Stanley did not dare imagine the consequences.
While he was wondering how to thank Leo, Leo was quietly looking over the poacher Stanley had dropped.
Stanley must have needed his wand for dismantling the ward. Using magic to "persuade" a prisoner under those conditions was awkward. So his methods…
The man's face was a swollen mess, barely recognisable as human.
Leo's eyes flicked to Stanley's left hand. There was dried blood on his knuckles.
So. No Veritaserum, then.
Professor Stanley, clearly a master of both spell and fist.
"Newt, the creatures you brought are dangerous, yes," Stanley said with a grin, nodding toward the fire dragon and the Wampus cat, "but they saved us no end of trouble. Do not worry. I will keep your secret."
As he spoke, the Wampus cat he had just pointed at shimmered and collapsed into a large boulder.
An instant later, the Acromantula, the Graphorn, and the fire dragon dissolved as well, turning back into trees and rocks.
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