Newt excitedly stroked the scales on the Basilisk's body, and began to exclaim to himself, "Oh, Merlin! This is absolutely beautiful! Look at these black scales, they have a colorful sheen when you look closely! And this… are these wings? Can it fly?"
He then ran to the Basilisk's retractable fin-like wings and spread them out. After studying them, he shook his head and continued, "Oh no, it can't! The shape and size of these wings would only allow it to glide for a short distance. This is its venom sac, it's softer than I imagined. The scales are small, but they are arranged more densely than on the rest of its body. This must be to prevent the scales from being too hard and hindering muscle contractions when it injects venom. The fangs can retract, and the other teeth are blunt. It has no chewing ability, so its food must be things like fish or Acromantulas that don't have thick bones."
Newt touched the Basilisk from head to tail, completely lost in his own world. Dumbledore couldn't stand it anymore, so he walked over and called out, "Newt!"
No response…
"Newt!!"
"Oh, I'm sorry! Professor Dumbledore, I was just a little…"
This time, Newt finally came back to his senses. He looked at his former professor, awkwardly and nervously rubbing his hands together.
Dumbledore looked at Newt's actions and suddenly remembered what he was like when he was young, and burst out laughing. "Hahaha~ Newt, it's been so many years, and you're still the same!"
"It's been a long time, Professor Dumbledore!" The teacher and student hugged each other happily. Indeed, since they had worked together to defeat Grindelwald decades ago, they had seen each other less than a handful of times.
Meanwhile, the members of Fairy Tail were all looking at each other, completely baffled by the reunion.
"Who is that, do you know?" Neville asked curiously.
"I don't know. He seems to be a former student of Professor Dumbledore, and from the way he was acting just now, he's probably a fanatical magical creature enthusiast," Justin chimed in.
"Then he and Hagrid would get along great, it's just a shame Hagrid is lying in the hospital wing right now," Harry said with a hint of regret in his voice.
"But why does the name 'Newt' sound so familiar to me?" Hermione said, frowning in thought.
"Think about it, who wrote Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?" With Victor's reminder, everyone suddenly understood.
At the same time, after Newt and Dumbledore had expressed their feelings for each other, Newt immediately pointed at the Basilisk's bleeding eyes and began to complain, "Professor, you hit it too hard!"
"Oh, don't blame me for that, I didn't do it," Dumbledore immediately waved his hand in denial and pointed at Victor, who was not far away. "He was the one who went into the Black Lake to capture the Basilisk. If you want to complain, don't look for me, look for him!"
"He's who?"
"Victor Dreyar, you must have heard that name in the newspaper!"
"Is that him? The heir of Ravenclaw? I didn't expect him to be so young!" Newt said in shock.
It was at this moment that Victor walked over as well. He walked up to Newt, extended his hand, and said with a smile, "Hello, Professor Scamander. Welcome back to Hogwarts! I really didn't expect Professor Dumbledore to invite you back to be the Care of Magical Creatures professor!"
"Oh! It's an honor to be back at my alma mater, Mr. Dreyar!" Newt awkwardly shook Victor's hand and replied.
"Is there anything special about this big guy?" Victor glanced at the Basilisk with a thoughtful expression. "To be honest, when I found it in the Black Lake, I even wondered if it was a Basilisk!"
"How to put it… in my personal experience, it is without a doubt a Basilisk!" Newt replied, his hand couldn't help but caress the Basilisk's scales, feeling the coolness. "However, the reason it grew into this shape could be that it wasn't hatched from a rooster's egg, or perhaps it lived for too long and underwent some unexpected mutation or evolution, or it could be for a variety of other reasons. I can't be sure, after all, this is the first time I've seen a magical creature like this in real life! Also, is that girl your friend? She should be more careful…"
As he spoke, Newt suddenly pointed to the blonde girl who had climbed onto the Basilisk's head not far away, and was curiously pulling at its eyelid.
"Holy..." Victor exclaimed in surprise and quickly ran over, shouting, "Luna, get down!"
He hadn't even noticed that the girl had climbed onto the Basilisk's head by herself. The Basilisk was in a coma, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn't wake up. Its eyes were severely injured, which could very well cause it to go berserk upon waking and attack everything around it. If that happened, and Luna was right next to the Basilisk's mouth, Victor was worried he wouldn't be able to react in time to save her.
Luna, hearing Victor's call, also took her attention away from the Basilisk's eyes. She turned and jumped off the Basilisk's head, and Victor caught her.
"Don't do such dangerous things again. If you like, I'll make a contract between you and it!" Victor said reproachfully as he put the girl down. At the same time, he lovingly cast a spell to clean the snake blood off her hands.
"I can feel its confusion, and I think you can heal its eyes," Luna began to speak in her usual non sequitur manner.
But Victor nodded without any hesitation and said with a smile, "Okay, I'll heal it right now!"
With that, he gently patted her head. At the same time, the members of Fairy Tail, led by Harry, were all wary of the figure who was becoming jealous again, and slowly moved away from him, so they wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.
After agreeing to Luna's request, Victor immediately began to cast a healing spell on the Basilisk. A blue and white magic circle instantly appeared, and in less than ten seconds, the Basilisk's eyes, which had been completely turned to mush, quickly returned to their original state. At the same time, just in case, Victor also placed a sealing spell on the Basilisk's eyes.
Newt ran over when he saw this. He looked at the Basilisk's completely healed wounds and was so shocked that he wanted to ask Victor, "Mr. Dreyar, how did you do that?"
"I just reversed time a little," Victor said with a mysterious wave of his wand.
He hadn't used Sky Magic, but rather, Arc of Time, a Lost Magic that could manipulate time. In truth, even with Origin, a magic as powerful as a bug, Victor still couldn't use Sky Magic to heal flesh and bone. But Arc of Time was different.
In essence, the power of Arc of Time couldn't be used on living things other than plants. But since it could be used on plant life, that meant it was possible to use it on animal life. So, after Victor's long period of research, the limitation that Arc of Time "could not be used on living things other than plants" no longer existed.
However, the power could only turn back time for a maximum of one hour on living things other than plants, and it could not be used to resurrect a living thing if it had died.
Victor didn't continue the topic of how he healed the Basilisk's eyes, and instead, he changed the subject and continued talking about the Basilisk. "Professor Scamander, can you determine the age of this Basilisk?"
"Oh, of course!" Newt nodded and replied, then he pointed to the colorful feathers on the Basilisk's head. "You see, only male Basilisks grow these crests. It sheds its skin about every fifty to a hundred years, and a new crest feather grows every time it sheds its skin. From what I can see, this one is about 1,500 to 2,000 years old."
"Then why is it so big? I remember you wrote in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that a Basilisk's length is at most sixteen to eighteen meters."
"Yes, but that data is not absolute," Newt replied honestly. "It's been at least two thousand years since Herpo the Foul discovered the method of hatching Basilisks. But there are very few records of Basilisks over the years. I collected all the information I could find a long time ago and came up with the sixteen to eighteen-meter data after my research. But this one is completely out of the ordinary, because the oldest recorded Basilisk was only 156 years old! So, I was even thinking that all the previous Basilisks were killed before they grew to their mature size, which is why we didn't know that a Basilisk's final form could grow to be this big."
"Oh? Then what about this Basilisk?" Victor waved his hand and brought the Basilisk from the guild over.
"Oh, my goodness! How did you do that?!" Newt said with a look of surprise, and subconsciously looked at Victor's hands. He thought that Victor also had a suitcase like his, which could hold a large number of magical creatures.
"Just think of it as a kind of Apparition-like magic," Victor gave a vague reason and then asked, "Professor Scamander, how old is this Basilisk?"
"Oh~ this Basilisk is a female, and in terms of size, it's a little smaller than a male. It's about 360 years old."
"How do you calculate that?"
"Female Basilisks shed their skin about every twenty to thirty years. The rings on its rattlesnake-like tail represent every time it sheds its skin."
"Then that means my guess was right," Victor nodded. "This Basilisk was indeed not left behind by Salazar Slytherin."
This was an idea he had when he discovered the Chamber of Secrets' dark pool, but he had no clear thoughts on it, which is why he hadn't thought about it further.
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