章 8: A new friend with scales
The next morning, my mother wakes me up early and takes the car without telling me where we're going.
During these almost ten years since I was reincarnated, I have learned everything that Hogwarts could teach me and I can use the spells that one learns in first, second, and third year. It's not that easy to learn new spells without a wand, I'm beginning to understand how sorcerers have become so dependent on them.
My Occlumency is now at a high enough level to completely block my parents and I can perfectly control my emotions and clear my mind if necessary.
It's now been about 20 minutes since the car left town. Curiosity is beginning to give way to worry.
"You really don't want to tell me where we're going?"
"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you."
We drive for another 20 minutes. The suspense is becoming unbearable as I imagine the most unlikely scenarios in my head. I'm just imagining my mother cutting me off to pieces with a chainsaw when we drive into a farm. My mom parks in front of the barn and I can see the farmer heading towards us.
"Hello, was it you who called me about the eggs?"
"Yes, hello. Can we go see them right away? We're in a bit of a hurry."
"Sure, let me take you to the chicken"
We follow the man in a large hen house. It opens a small door and on the side that is just my size, but my mother and the farmer have to bend to enter.
"It's up to you now, Sean. I'd like you to go look at the eggs here, and when you find one that you think is more special than the others, you can take it with you."
"But why do you want me to get an egg? We already have plenty at home."
"That's the question I'm asking myself, too, little guy."
"Don't worry about it now. Just do what I ask you to do, please."
I nod my head and start walking along the nests. I try to touch the eggs to find something special about them, but an egg is still an egg. The chickens that thought I was coming to steal their eggs start getting closer to me when they notice I'm not taking any.
I suddenly feel my attention being drawn to something on the other side of the room. As if there was a very slight whistle coming from this place. I approached to find a nest with the biggest egg I've ever seen in my life. I grab it and it's bigger than my hand.
I go back to my mother with the egg and give it to her. "This one".
"What the hell is this. Did one of my chickens made this?" The farmer is as shocked as I was by the size of the egg.
"You did great Sean." She turns her attention to the farmer "How much do I owe you?"
"The price is always the same here, three dollars a dozen."
My mom hands him a ten-dollar bill and while the man is pulling out his wallet to give her change, my mom stops him. "You can keep the rest."
"Are you sure? And you don't want to take your remaining eleven eggs?"
"No, we have everything we need, that's fine."
"As you wish, ma'am. Feel free to come back if you need anything." He winks at her before turning around.
We're on our way back to Mystic Falls. I still don't understand why my mother wanted that egg. What could she possibly want to do with it?
Finally, we're not going home as I thought we were, but we're going to a river that runs along the Lockwood property. I think that's where they're having a party in the series.
"What are we doing here? I thought we were going home?"
"Not yet there's one last thing you need to do. You need to catch the biggest toad possible and bring it back to me." She's handing me some kind of net.
"Why do you want me to do all this?"
"Don't worry, you'll understand when we get home."
I wonder what she wants with me. But anyway, I'm still on my way to the river. The problem is not really to find a toad. By returning leaves near the river, I manage to find one without too many problems. The problem is to catch them. These little bastards start jumping around when I scare them.
After two hours, I finally found a huge one sitting on a rock a little further upstream that was as big as my head. This time, I don't intend to let him escape. I cast a levitation spell and place it directly inside my net. The toad starts coaxing furiously when he realized he is trapped.
When I get back to the car, I find my mother reading a book while waiting for me to come back. She raises her head when I knock on the door window. "Did you find one?"
I show her my net with the huge toad. "Yes. Can we go home now?"
"Yes, you did a good job, we have everything we need." She put her hand on my head before ruffling my hair.
About ten minutes later, we are back home. Elenea takes all my finds and heads for the basement. I think that's the only part of the house I've never been to. As far as I know, this is where my parents store everything that has to do with magic that is not a book or a plant. That's also where my broom is when my dad and I don't practice flying on the weekends.
"What are we doing in the basement?"
"We are going to practice an old family tradition that comes from your grandfather's side." She takes out a potion containing a blackish liquid from one of the shelves and begins to draw runes on the concrete floor of the cellar. I recognize most of the symbols, but some of them don't seem to come from the usual runic alphabet. "In our family, when a child is about to go to Hogwarts, the tradition is that he goes to get a chicken egg and capture a toad to create his own basilisk as Salazar Slytherin did when he was younger."
"Mom, why don't you have a basilisk in that case?" She stops in her drawing and an imperceptible shiver runs through her.
"I had one before, it was called Gadomemma. She was unfortunately killed when our cousin attacked our house."
"And Grandpa had one too?"
"Yes, but his father, your great-grandfather, forced him to kill him when he lost his own. My mother told me that it made a lot of noise and that magizoologists from all over the world had written to tell them how irresponsible their decisions were. That month the price of basilisk's venom exploded. But our family members are only allowed to create one basilisk per person."
She continues to trace the runes on the ground. The circle that was only a small drawing became a large magic circle. She places the egg in the center of the circle and takes a small knife placed on a shelf next to her.
"I'm going to have to make a little cut on your finger. It's going to hurt a little bit, but you must be strong. Then all you have to do is put a little bit of your blood on the egg to bind it to you."
I follow her instructions and prick my finger before dropping a drop of blood on the egg that seems to drink the vermilion liquid that disappears after a few seconds. My mother takes the toad and places it on the egg. It tries to escape, but he does not seem to be able to detach himself from the egg which does not seem to want to move.
I had to wait a few hours, around midnight, when my eyes began to close in weariness, to see the toad retreat and the egg hatch to give birth to a small snake. It was deep green like pine trees with small red feathers at the top of its head. He looks at me right in the eye and I reach out my hand so he can come to curl up and sleep on it.
~Your name is Styx. ~ He looks at me and nods his head before going back to sleep.
"It's a very nice name. It's time for you to go to sleep too. Tomorrow we'll pick up a terrarium and put it on the Dangerous Magical Creatures Registry."
Once in bed, I fell deep asleep almost instantly. When I wake up the next morning, I hurry down to go see Styx. When I walk into the room, he's already eating a mouse. I can only see the end of the legs of the rodent while the rest has been already deep in its belly.
"Oh, you're already awake, I was about to wake you up." My mom's eating a slice of toast. Oddly, my father doesn't seem happy about Styx. Did my mother create it without telling him before? " Eat fast, we have to go to New York today."
I quickly eat my meal, as soon as I'm done, we use the floo network to go to the MACUSA headquarter. Once we get out of the chimney, we head for the reception. Styx is wrapped around my neck, and the little feathers on his head tickle my chin.
"Hello, welcome to the MACUSA office. What can I do for you today?"
"Hello, we've come to record a dangerous magical creature."
"A dangerous magical creature? Okay, I'll let one of our magizoologist know. Make yourself comfortable, he'll be here soon."
The receptionist steps back and writes on a small piece of paper that folds to make a small plane and flies away. It takes more than an hour for a little man who must not be taller than me to finally approach. I have a feeling he's not completely human, maybe a half-goblin?
"Hello, are you the one declaring a dangerous magical creature?"
"Hello, yes, this is us."
"All right, can you lead me to the specimen's cage?"
"The cage? It's not in a cage."
"What do you mean? You're telling me you didn't lock it up? What kind of creature is it that you have enough trust not to lock it up?"
"Well, it's right here with us." She points to Styx who's still wrapped around my neck. " We have come to declare my son's basilisk."
Seeing Styx wrap around my neck, the little man becomes pale and takes out his wand to point it at me. "Please place the creature and your wands on the ground and stand back, I am arresting you both for possession of a forbidden creature."
Men who I think are aurors notice the situation and come to us with wands raised. My mother frowns and taps her foot on the ground. In the ten years I've been with her, I have come to learn the signs that say she's really pissed off.
"Poor fool, do you seriously think that I would have come to declare a basilisk without being authorized to possess one? Do I look like an idiot to you?"
The wizard seems to be thinking for a minute. "All right, then I guess you have the documents to prove your claims."
"Here they are, the ancient treaties that give my family permission to own a basilisk for all descendants who speak Parseltongue. If you have any doubt, there is a copy at the Ministry of Magic in London. And here is the document that allows me to take it abroad provided I take responsibility of all the problems it could cause." She hands two rolls to the magizoologist who grabs them before going through them quickly.
"I'm going to have to send someone to the Ministry urgently to verify your claims. However, you will have to wait in a cell until we check your story. "
"Of course. We will cooperate."
"Well, I'm going to ask you to leave your wands and the basilisk with us. If everything is confirmed, you can take them back when you leave." Two aurors approach me to remove Styx from my neck, and I am a little tense when I see the men coming upon me. Styx seems to feel my anguish and comes out of his sleep to whistle at the two newcomers who seem hesitant to come closer.
"I agree to leave you my wand, my son doesn't have one yet. However, it's better if the basil stays with us. It's still a newborn baby, and it acts more by instinct than by reason, so we have to control it all the time so it doesn't attack."
The two men look at the magizoologist to find out what to do.
"Fine. But you better control it, otherwise I would be obliged to have it executed and I confess that I would not like to lose such a specimen."
The aurors are escorting us into a cell while they send someone to the ministry through the first portkey. After four hours of waiting, we are finally released by the magizoologist who gives us the documents for Styx.
Once I get home, there's a big surprise waiting for me in the mailbox. A pink letter inviting me to Harry Potter's birthday party.
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