Hogwarts: Bourne Returns from Warhammer

"Professor Scamander! Professor Sprout!"

Taking Bourne and the others to the greenhouse door of Professor Sprout, the Head of Hufflepuff, Hagrid shouted at the top of his lungs before pushing the door open and entering.

In the past two days, a color-changing giant snail has somehow appeared in a field in the greenhouse. Professor Scamander always comes to the greenhouse during the day to help eliminate insects.

"Is it Hagrid?"

Hearing someone calling him, Professor Sprout inside agreed: "Come in, just be careful about the glass box at the door."

Professor Scamander remained silent.

When Bourne and the others walked in, they found that the teacher of the Care of Magical Creatures class was squatting at the door, guarding the glass box in front of them attentively.

Inside this glass box, there are more than a dozen mature, color-changing giant snails. The largest one is about the size of a volleyball, and the smallest one is about the size of an adult's fist. They are densely packed together. The mucus secreted from their abdominal and foot parts, About an inch thick has accumulated at the bottom of the box.

"professor?"

Hagrid noticed the behavior of his second idol (the first one must be Dumbledore), so he lowered his voice as much as possible and greeted softly.

"Ok?"

Hagrid was almost behind Scamander. No matter how hard he concentrated, the old wizard found himself blocked by a shadow blocking the sunlight.

"It's Hagrid. You brought a few little wizards with you. What do you want?"

"What are you doing?"

Hagrid curiously ignored the old professor's question for a moment and asked instead: "What's so interesting about the color-changing giant snail? What did you discover?"

The color-changing giant snail is a magical animal whose shell changes color once an hour, and wherever it crawls it always leaves a highly toxic trail behind it. Plants that come into contact with it will turn yellow, become dehydrated, and even burn.

However, this magical animal basically poses no threat to wizards. At most, it will cause a loss of harvests in vegetable gardens and medicinal gardens.

Wizards usually do not eat them because they may carry parasites - however, it is said that wizards in France will use the meat of the discolored giant snails for cooking - the only valuable magical material on them is the mucus secreted from the abdomen and feet.

This slime is acidic and corrosive, and is one of the few substances known to be capable of killing Horklap. At the same time, after dilution, this mucus is also the main raw material of many household cleaners, which is very effective in dealing with spotted mango.

"Oh, yes, Hagrid. Well, yes, I did find something."

Although the situation of autism is much better than when he was young because he has gone through many storms in recent years, Scamander still seems a little "disconnected" from time to time when talking to others.

Only when talking about content related to magical animals, this old man will show his professionalism and rigor as the No. 1 in the industry.

“Although there are currently populations of color-changing giant snails in Asia, Europe and the Americas, they are generally farmed by wizard cleaner factories.

These farmed color-changing giant snails will be cast with confusion curses and variant spells such as the 'Sex Transformation Suppression Curse' and the 'Reproduction Suppression Curse' when they are born.

The purpose of this is to prevent them from hybridizing with common local snails and snails if they escape from the breeding farm.

Because the emergence of hybrid species may violate the "Secrecy Act", causing No-Majs to become aware of the existence of magical animals. "

Perhaps because he has lived in North America for a long time, Scamander's name for ordinary people who do not know magic has unconsciously become "No-Maj", which is commonly used in the magic world there, instead of "No-Maj" in Europe. Muggle".

"But I just observed that after these color-changing giant snails got together, they unconsciously changed their genders, and some even began to mate and reproduce uncontrollably - this is what happens to wild color-changing giant snails. Characteristics - and wild color-changing giant snails now only exist in their native Africa.

In the past 100 years, in order to maintain the diversity of its wild population, this native color-changing giant snail has been classified as a non-trade item by the Ministry of Magic of various countries, and individuals or companies are not allowed to conduct any form of private sales. This kind of restriction is very strict, even I have never raised it..."

Realizing some of the problems in his words, Scamander quickly said seriously: "...the color-changing giant snail that appears here must be contraband that someone secretly captured and brought back when they went to Africa, and then was put in somehow. This greenhouse.

Fortunately, it was discovered early. Professor Sprout and I had already dug deep into the ground to clean up the place. Otherwise, allowing these wild color-changing giant snails to multiply uncontrollably would have caused some very bad consequences. After escaping, they may even cause an ecological disaster in the Forbidden Forest. "

"It's so bad. Which little wizard put them in the greenhouse? We have to look back and find out who is so naughty!"

Hearing that the Forbidden Forest was almost affected, and thinking that those cute little guys had not lost their homes, a good old man like Hagrid also showed a rare hint of anger on his face. He turned around and glared at the Weasley twins who were following behind him.

George: "..."

Fred: "..."

At this time, Professor Sprout also walked over, with some mud on his body, and his hands wearing thick dragon leather gloves tightly grasping a wild color-changing giant snail that was constantly twisting its carapace.

"This should be the last one, Senior Newt," she threw the color-changing giant snail into the glass box. “This year’s biting kale is all ruined.”

"I have to talk to Minerva later and ask her to find out who did this. Last time, dozens of biting cabbages that were about to mature ran away together and almost injured a flying lesson student. The little wizard is actually because of the color-changing giant snails that lay eggs and reproduce underground.

Even though I clearly spread enough nutritious ointment made from foxtail eggs when sowing, the highly toxic mucus they secreted still made the biting cabbage uncontrollable, so I took the initiative. Cut off the roots and ran out of the greenhouse. "

The Head of Hufflepuff, who was also known for his good temper, was as angry as Hagrid at this time.

"I suggest you lay some devil's nets underground. The scaly skin of this magical plant is very thick and can resist the acidic mucus of the color-changing giant snails. Moreover, in addition to the color-changing giant snails, devil's nets can also prey on many other species underground. Pests, that’s what a lot of the for-profit magic plant plantations over there in North America do.”

Scamander gave a professional meaning, and Professor Sprout followed suit and said that he would go back to other greenhouses to collect some devil's net spores.

Seeing that the two big guys were having a lively conversation and were about to continue discussing related academic issues, Byrne quickly put his fist to his mouth and coughed lightly.

Only then did Hagrid remember what he came to the greenhouse for. "Sorry, Professor Scamander," he quickly got to the point and quickly told the story of the Bourne and Weasley brothers who wanted to apply for the "Forbidden Forest Wardens".

Like him before, Professor Scamander was naturally stunned for a moment, and even Professor Sprout, who was observing, was surprised.

You know, Professor Sprout has been teaching at Hogwarts for more than 20 years, and is also the dean of Hufflepuff, one of the four major colleges, but even she has never heard of this hidden student position in Hogwarts. .