Newt walked into the case with practiced ease, landing in the room.
He looked around and was a bit surprised to find that Kael had arranged things here quite nicely.
All the furniture was placed neatly and orderly—it was so much tidier than his own messy room.
And those two big bookshelves in the corner were actually filled with volumes bound in parchment.
As soon as Newt got closer, he immediately sensed traces of the Undetectable Extension Charm on them. That meant there were way more booklets inside than met the eye.
"What's this…" he asked curiously.
Kael's heart skipped a beat… How did he forget about this?
Maybe Newt would help him hide the illegal Fantastic Beasts, but the things he'd copied from the Restricted Area—who knows about those.
"It's nothing." Kael forced himself to sound calm: "Just some notes I took in class, stored here for easy reference."
"Class notes? This many!"
"Oh, a lot of them I jotted down in the library as well."
Newt stroked a few of the booklets and said softly, "No wonder you won the Merlin Medal… I'm not surprised at all now."
Newt might have dropped out, but even when he wasn't expelled, the only knowledge he'd ever bothered with was about Fantastic Beasts.
If you left out all the "extracurricular knowledge," all his notes combined probably didn't even fill up a single booklet like this.
"It's nothing, really—it's all thanks to the Speedwriting Quill… Let me show you the rest."
Kael opened a small door and stepped through it in one quick stride.
Newt nodded and followed out of the room, and then was surprised to discover that the interior was a lot bigger than when he'd handed the case to Kael.
And those rowan trees—those hadn't been there before. They were thriving; Newt didn't even have to look to know they must be crawling with Bowtruckles.
Wait a minute, what's that…
Newt suddenly noticed, right next to the rowan trees, there was a big, black lump—a "rock" with three heads.
"Th—Three-Headed Dog?" Newt's eyelid twitched.
Before he could finish being shocked, a giant shadow soared right over his head.
Newt looked up, his expression going blank.
A Fire Dragon?… And a rare Norwegian Ridgeback!
Newt suddenly felt a sense of absurdity.
It's only been one school year, and this is Hogwarts—where on earth did Kael get his hands on all these dangerous creatures?
Suppressing his shock, he kept surveying the place.
Oh, and there's a Mountain Troll over there… but compared to the Three-Headed Dog and the Norwegian Ridgeback, it just seems almost unremarkable.
"These are the… 'little animals' you mentioned?"
Newt asked with a funny look on his face. If Kael were expelled from school, he wouldn't be surprised at all.
He himself had been expelled for illegally keeping a Magic Mink at Hogwarts with a friend, and that was only rated 3X.
But look at what Kael's got… Fire Dragon, Three-Headed Dog—absolutely top-tier 5X danger level Fantastic Beasts. Any one of them would get you expelled ten times over.
What is this, the apprentice outshining the master?
Starting off straight out with the most dangerous 5X-level creatures—is this how bold kids are nowadays?
Kael's eyes darted: "Er… The Three-Headed Dog is about two years old, and the Fire Dragon's not even a year yet—from their age, they really are still little."
"And the Troll…"
"Its brain's tiny."
"…"
"Like I said earlier, they were all smuggled in…"
Faced with Newt's "you're definitely getting expelled" expression, Kael hurried to explain where they'd all come from.
It wasn't a big deal—just told it like it was.
…
"They're all connected to the Philosopher's Stone?"
After learning how things had happened, Newt frowned: "But you can forget about the Fire Dragon—the Three-Headed Dog was borrowed from Dumbledore, right? Why not just return it to Hagrid, let it stay in the Forbidden Forest?"
"There was a little accident—it ended up becoming… friends with Norbert."
Kael spread his hands: "I did send Fluffy back before, but a couple times it almost ran out of the Forbidden Forest. If Hagrid hadn't found it in time, it might have charged right into the castle looking for me.
So in the end, to avoid scaring everyone else, I had to put it back in here."
Newt smacked his lips—even with all his experience, he was momentarily at a loss for words.
Truly, the apprentice surpasses the master…
Ten minutes later, Newt left the case, taking the Norwegian Ridgeback Norbert and the troll with him.
As for Fluffy… he was just a temporary guest here. In the end, he still had to go back to the Forbidden Forest.
Even if Fluffy was very displeased—rolling around, pouting and trying to beg to be taken away—Kael still didn't give in.
Not that he didn't want to, but he couldn't—Fluffy was Hagrid's precious darling. If Kael took him away, Hagrid would go crazy.
Finally, when he'd managed to calm Fluffy's indignance, Kael left the case together with Newt.
On the way back, Newt suddenly said, "Kael, I can help you look after them for a while—but you can't keep them like this forever."
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I know." Kael said quietly. "I'll send the troll back to the Forbidden Forest next year. After I graduate, I'll go to Norway to send Norbert home."
"You're planning to go yourself?" Newt asked.
"Yes." Kael nodded. "I want to try. Since I was the one who brought him into the case, I suppose I should be the one to send him back."
Newt fell silent for a moment, then didn't say anything more.
Kael was only in second year—five years left till graduation. That wasn't terribly long, and with the case, he could hide the Fire Dragon perfectly—no need to worry about anyone finding out.
After that, the two started chatting about lighter things.
"It's a female dragon, right? So why is she called 'Norbert'?" Newt asked curiously.
"Hagrid named her." Kael replied. "But I found she really likes that name, so I didn't bother changing it."
"I see. No wonder…"
…
Once they left the castle, they followed a little path to near the school gates. Hogsmeade Platform wasn't far ahead.
That was where they stopped.
Of course, Newt wouldn't take the train away from here—that'd be far too slow. It was only after he left the school boundaries that he could use Apparition.
The boundary was marked by those two winged boar statues.
Crossing the gate, Newt turned and gave a last reminder: "Don't let them out of the case while you're at school—this is really important.
Oh, and when you come to pick them up, remember to bring the Merlin Medal. Tina's been dying to see it since she heard you'd won it."
"I will," Kael replied with a grin,
…