"Looks familiar..."
Standing on a dark green dragon head, William weighed the two golden long horns in his hand—horns of an adult Romanian Longhorn, B-class trade goods, which can be ground into powder to make magic potions. They feel reasonably heavy, and he should be able to extract quite a few Galleons from Snape's pocket.
After all, Longhorns have become increasingly rare in recent years, and the International Confederation of Wizards has classified most items from fire dragons as prohibited trade goods.
Were it not for these horns being able to regenerate, the leader of the conservation organization behind William would probably be heartbroken.
"Familiar?"
Newt forced himself not to look at the bloody broken horns in William's hands, but instead asked with confusion.
"Yes, like I've seen them somewhere before—"
William first used a Repairing Charm and a Scouring Charm to treat the fire dragon's wound, then stuffed the shiny long horn into Kabuda's arms, who had been impatiently waiting for something sparkling. "Seems like it was during the... g-g-g-cough, cough... cleaning up that Quintaped incident?"
"..."
Although Newt couldn't quite understand why, he had a strange feeling that William's coughing a moment ago seemed to skip over some rather important information. Yet after brief consideration, Newt didn't pay much attention to it, instead focusing on the unusual creature William mentioned, "Quintaped?"
"Ah, some creatures covered in red hair that look like a stool—"
"No, I know what those are, but aren't they supposed to live on Derya Island?"
As a Master of Magical Creatures... oops, protector of magical creatures, Newt of course knew what Quintapeds were (he even secretly cared for two), but he still couldn't figure out how a frenzied fire dragon was connected with those malformed creatures.
"...Words don't describe it precisely. I still need to confirm something."
"How do you confirm?"
William didn't answer but instead pulled out a silver chain from his chest. He woke up the Little Fire Dragon who was sleeping with its tail hooked around the chain—Norbert, disturbed from slumber, spit a little flame in annoyance, giving Kabuda a curly hairdo as Kabuda was pocketing the dragon horn sitting on William's shoulder.
"Smell it."
William placed Norbert near the broken collar, and the fire dragon obediently lowered its head, sniffing vigorously.
"What's this going to... "
"Roar, roar!!"
Norbert stood upright, wings folded behind, waving its front paws energetically as if trying to convey some message.
"..."
Newt wisely shut his mouth.
"Yes, yes, Norbert says I didn't remember wrong. This potion is the one we encountered that night (see chapter 165 for details)."
The man and the dragon communicated for a while, the conversation ended with Norbert giving a thumbs-up with its right paw, as William turned around to share the information with the bewildered Uncle Newt.
"Potion?"
Unfortunately, the plot scenes Uncle Newt didn't "participate" in weren't just one or two.
"Look at this—"
William stretched his leg, kicking the already battered metal collar on the Romanian Longhorn's neck, breaking it in two. The collar flipped over, revealing a thick syringe hidden inside. Newt bent down to take a closer look, noticing that there was still a trace of reddish-brown liquid left at the tip of the syringe—
"So this is the culprit behind the fire dragon's madness?"
"Exactly... Morning, Charlie, have you eaten?"
"No, the commotion here was so big, I rushed over as soon as I got the news."
Having just received William's message, a hurried Charlie Weasley jumped off his broom and walked to the other side of the dragon's head, looking at the two large wounds on the dragon's head where blood had just been stopped. "This too was done by those guys? Darn it! People like this should be... "
"No, I sawed the horns off, otherwise it was going to try to poke me in the stomach while lying there."
William calmly added in.
"Doesn't sound as bad?"
Charlie promptly changed his tone, but back to the matter at hand.
"I plan on checking out that... uh, cavern? Do you guys want to come along?"
William didn't continue teasing the sweating Charlie, but instead extended an invitation to form a team.
"Together, oh, is this little fellow safe here? If not... "
Newt didn't continue his sentence, but from the motion to open his suitcase, it was evident—his suitcase was quite spacious within.
"My colleagues will be arriving soon."
Charlie waved his hand quickly; he had heard of Newt's suitcase's "infamy." It's said that any magical creatures that enter his suitcase, whether fire dragon, Thunderbird, or such creatures as Niffler and Bird Snake, would ultimately become minions of this old fellow—
Of course, this rumor was entirely exaggerated, as Newt was always dedicated to treating animals and then releasing them back into the wild—
Some creatures wished to be brainwashed and dive into William Richard's suitcase.
Newt and William mounted Lina, who had woken up after a nap, and Charlie got back on his broomstick, the trio flying towards the mountain cave Newt had blown open not far away. Before long, they landed at the base of the cavern, encountering several shadows that had just regained consciousness amidst the "battlefield."
"I'll handle this..."
Charlie had long since prepared for battle. He deftly leapt off his broom, but as he set himself up in a fighting stance, he found that those figures seemed to be bewitched, not reacting at all, dumbfoundedly staring at the trio—no, staring at William.
"You know me."
William smiled, his magic wand already jumping into his hand, he stepped forward, his fair countenance growing clearer in the morning light.
"Man... Slaughter..."
This was the last sentence the man uttered in his lifetime.
"Nice nickname, I quite like it."
William flicked his magic wand, simply appraising it, then ignored the confused Charlie and Newt, stepping toward the "altar," squinting at the red device.
Charlie cautiously poked all the surrounding bodies with his magic wand, ensuring there were no stragglers left, before standing behind William, joining Newt in observing the mechanism being fiddled with—at this moment, William was crouched, his palm stroking the surface of the altar, which bore seemingly coarse engravings.
"How's it going?"
After a brief silence, Newt subconsciously urged.
"Just about found it."
William grasped his magic wand firmly, its tip flowing with dense blue magic runes, he carefully placed his wand on a recessed spot.
In an instant, the dim patterns on the altar began to flow with magma-like light, and then, as the light grew more intense, the runes started pulsating and twisting within the glow, emitting unsettling energy waves.
"Is it... activated?"
Charlie nervously tightened his grip on the magic wand.
"Seems like... a Portkey, cough, cough, I forced it open, hold onto your arms and legs, don't get split apart—"
At the moment William's words fell, without waiting for the other two to react, red light surged, instantly engulfing the entire cave, accompanied by a violent spatial pull sensation, Charlie felt as if he was thrown into a high-speed spinning Muggle washing machine, feeling his stomach churn, and seeing blinding red light across his vision.
Finally, maybe only a few seconds had passed, or perhaps they had spun for a whole day, that dizzying feeling suddenly vanished, and they landed on solid ground.
The red light receded, ear-piercing noise surged like a tide, instantly hitting the three's eardrums.
They were still standing in a huge, deep underground cavern.
But regardless, this was definitely not the cave from before...