Chapter 154 - 154 Dracula finally remembers the snake monster
Chapter 154: Chapter 154 Dracula finally remembers the snake monster
"Of course," Newt smiled and nodded, "I've long wanted to meet those blood-sucking bats, ghostly blood vines, bloody crows, and other endemic magical creatures of the legendary Castle Brown."
"Won't disappoint you, Mr. Scamander." Dracula quirked the corner of his mouth and started the car again, "Greece isn't too far from Romania, it won't take long to get there."
Dracula was now quite impressed with Newt.
Instead of being offended that Newt had recognized his vampiric identity, he used it to gain a deeper understanding of the magical zoologist's image.
It was clear from Newt's statement that he had been skeptical of Dracula's identity as early as the first time he initially met him because of the details of his appearance.
When he saw the way Dracula and the legendary invincible Andros got along, this suspicion basically turned into certainty.
Yet Newt didn't easily reveal Dracula's identity as a vampire, instead he kept holding back the curiosity in his heart.
It was only when Dracula opened his mouth and invited him to visit his private castle, ready to take the initiative to reveal his identity to Newt, that the magical zoologist finally revealed his suspicions.
What's more, Newt didn't reveal Dracula's identity in front of the others.
Instead, it was only when Dracula and Newt were alone after Abbottel left that Newt was willing to inform Dracula of his suspicions.
There is no lack of reminding Dracula, so that he can carry out a more perfect disguise meaning.
It was evident through all of Newt's behavior that the gentle magical zoologist did not have the prejudice against dark creatures such as vampires that was common among wizards, and would instead be considerate enough to take care of other people's emotions, regardless of whether those people were wizards or any other race.
"You seem to be very good at taking care of other people's emotions, Mr. Scamander."
Dracula, with one hand on the steering wheel in front of him and the other elbow propped up on the side of the window, leaning over the side of his face, chuckled softly at Newt, who was sitting in the passenger seat.
It seemed that the Olympus side had absorbed too much of the fog, and after the fog cleared, the Greek sky became very clean, like blue velvet, with the sunlight hidden behind the clouds, haloing the sky in layers.
Dracula did not like this sunny weather.
Fortunately, after being guessed by Newt, he didn't need to do any more disguises, and directly turned on the additional UV protection on the car glass to the maximum.
Every piece of glass now turned as colorful as Dracula's special sunglasses, shutting out all sunlight from the windows and not letting a single UV ray hit Dracula's body.
"And there isn't, is there?" Newt, still cradling his old suitcase, sat somewhat constrainedly in the plush seat, his expression looking slightly embarrassed, "It's not often that I'm judged that way, and I've always been prone to being slow about sensing other people's emotions."
"I remember ... Tina, Jacob and the others preferred to call me an elf."
As he said that, he smiled to himself.
Dracula gave Newt an interested look and asked curiously, "I do know that Tina is your wife, so Jacob is ...?"
"Jacob Kowalski, a Muggle." Newt gave a guffawing smile, "He's a friend I met in Amerika back in the day, a very nice guy."
"Oh, that's right, I remember the stories Nicole told me about there being a global wizarding war, and there was indeed a rather important Muggle in it." Dracula nodded knowingly, "Mr. Kowalski was that Chosen Muggle, wasn't he?"
"The Chosen Muggle? You could say that." Newt smiled knowingly.
"In case you didn't know, when Tina and I weren't together yet, Jacob once told me very seriously never to describe her eyes as fire lizards."
Newt couldn't help but reminisce about his past experiences, and a light seemed to shine in his eyes.
"But I couldn't resist ... in the end because I just couldn't think of a more beautiful image than a fire lizard as it peeked out of the water."
"Then you are indeed an elm, Mr. Scamander." Dracula said pleasantly, "So how did it turn out in the end, Ms. Goldstein didn't throw you a blank stare?"
"No, she didn't." Newt laughed a little coyly, "I never would have guessed that Tina actually read my book ... She brought up the fire lizard herself before I even finished that scene."
Dracula's expression, which had been waiting for a joke, froze on his face.
'So this magical zoologist is showing his love ...'
Dracula glanced back at Newt breathlessly and saw that he was lost in memories of the good old days of that year, and couldn't help but bristle.
The car sped through the air at high speeds, a mountain range stretching out like ocean waves under the blue sky, the white clouds being left behind in strands as if blown away by the refreshing wind.
Dracula's eyes followed the open, spreading plains ahead and saw a dense forest.
"Wait, I remember that there shouldn't be a forest this big on the route I planned ahead to Romania." He said with some confusion.
Dracula gently stepped on the brakes and slowed down the speed of the vehicle's flight.
Newt had also recovered from his past memories at that moment, and his eyes looked through the ink-colored windows of the vehicle to the forest in the distance that was almost impossible to see the end of.
After thinking about it, he casually took out a compass from his pocket and skillfully flattened it in front of his eyes, observing the direction in which the car was traveling.
"Do you even carry a compass with you, Mr. Scamander?" Dracula glanced his way curiously.
"Spending long hours searching for magical creatures in all sorts of places can get me in trouble if I don't bring something practical with me." Newt explained, "A lot of little things made by muggles work quite well, like this little compass."
"As long as you don't run into one of those places where the magical reaction is particularly strong and you can determine the magnetic field properly, then this little thing will work quite well."
He looked at the direction on the compass, in which the "N" for north was slightly to the right of the two.
"If we're traveling from Mount Olympus, we should be traveling due north, that's the correct direction to Romania through Bulgaria." Newt said, "Now we're traveling a little to the west."
Dracula glanced toward the compass and had to admit that he had been talking too much with Newt to notice the exact direction of travel.
"I don't know when it started veering off, or I could have used it to determine where we are now." He sighed slightly, "Now I don't know how far east we should go to get our direction right."
"Is it really hard to just phantom shift to Romania?"
Dracula was a bit reluctant about the matter of going off course.
This was at least the first time he had used his remodeled automobile to carry a passenger, and it was also an official invitation for a guest to Dracula's castle.
What was the difference between this and the nobles in the past who arranged for a carriage to receive their honored guests, only for the carriage to get lost halfway? No invitee could accept such a thing happening!
If just because of the wrong direction, it caused the two of them to only be able to go to Dracula's castle through a sorcerer's way like Phantom Shift, then wouldn't he be rather disgraced?
So Dracula thought of a way.
He quietly illuminated a small bat and directly threw this small bat into the middle of the dark moon, teleporting to his room in Dracula's castle.
Afterward, Dracula immediately determined the exact direction of Dracula's castle.
"It's just a little bit off course, it's not hard for me." The corner of his mouth curled into a confident smile, "Mr. Scamander, I've already found the correct direction, we'll head to Romania right away!"
"This should be Albania." Newt suddenly spoke up.
"How did you determine this?" Dracula froze for a moment.
Judging by the positioning of the small bat that had just been sent out, Albania was really in this direction.
"Actually, we can determine the local geography and climate through the species of trees, and then use the climate to speculate which country is here." Newt explained, "Looking closely one can see that most of these trees in front of them have rigid leaves and are distributed more around the Mediterranean Sea."
"Climates around the Mediterranean usually have a bit more rainfall in the winter and hotter summers, and to minimize evaporation, the leaves in these climates are usually evergreen and rigid, and even mostly shaggy or degraded into thorns."
"We weren't really off course long enough to reach a country too far from Greece." Newt said, "So in that case, it does seem that Albania is the most likely."
Dracula looked at Newt in silence for a long time before speaking up and sputtering:
"So these days magical zoologists have to moonlight as geographers?"
"I've just been exploring around the world for a long time, and I unknowingly have some knowledge of the geography of various regions." Newt said very modestly, "Actually I'm still far from it."
"There's no need to be modest about such things, Mr. Scamander." Dracula shook his head helplessly, "I've lived for so many years, and I've learned a lot of all sorts of strange knowledge, but I haven't learned about this kind of geography either."
"You just don't care to learn it, Professor Dracula." Newt laughed.
Dracula shrugged, deciding not to dwell on it with the humble magical zoologist.
"Speaking of Albania, it always feels like I'm forgetting something ..." He rubbed his brow, his gaze drifting to a forest below.
"I so thought I heard Dumbledore mention that the Mysterons were hiding out in an Albanian forest for the decade or so that they were gone." Newt echoed thoughtfully, "I've been here before to explore the phenomenon of strange animal deaths, but nothing definitive."
"So this is where Voldemort was hiding before?" Dracula mused.
His eyes flashed back to the few times he had crossed paths with Voldemort - the
The last time was inside a bunker that a pureblood family had gone to great lengths to build, and the time before that was on the island of Azkaban ... As for the first time he had fought Voldemort, it was in the forbidden area of Hogwarts that protected the magical stone.
Dracula also vaguely remembers that Voldemort was merely a weak remnant of a soul that could only inhabit the body of Assistant Professor Chilo, and even tried to pull off a sneak attack by relying on Saracha Slytherin's snake monster ...
Wait, snake monster!
Dracula finally remembered that he had once sent the snake monster bred by Slytherin to the forests of Albania with the main purpose of having it help Helena find the Ravenclaw crown.
However that crown had actually been hidden in the Hogwarts Room of Requirement all along, and after taking in Tom Riddle's Horcrux journal, the crown had been pulled out of the Room of Requirement by Riddle and used to ingratiate himself ...
Since then, Dracula had gradually forgotten about the snake monster that he had thrown into the Albanian forest, and it wasn't until he happened to pass through Albania today that he finally remembered.
"Ahem, Mr. Scamander." Dracula suddenly coughed dryly twice and looked at Newt, "I suddenly remembered some other interesting magical animals, I wonder if they interest you?"
...
"So there really is a snake monster inside this forest?"
Newt asked Dracula at his side as he opened his mouth, holding up his wand lighting spell as he trudged through the middle of the jungle that covered the sky.
The forest was too dense for even a modified car to navigate, so Dracula and Newt both got out of the car and prepared to walk in search of the snake monster.
Dracula put the Rolls Royce away in his pocket, while secretly deciding that he would take the time to add some more features to the car in the future, such as jungle driving, walking in water, and so on, in order to cope with a wide variety of terrains, so that he wouldn't have to get out of the car and walk, as he was doing now.
"As I recall the snake monster went extinct over a thousand years ago." Newt said, "No one other than Slytherin has ever been able to replicate this creation of the vile Helpo again."
He sighed a little regretfully, "I actually did try, by placing an egg under the body of a toad to hatch it, but in the end nothing hatched."
"So you actually dared to try and hatch a snake monster ...," Dracula glanced at Newt, but didn't feel any surprise, and even felt that it would be bizarre for an avid magical animal enthusiast like Newt not to have tried to hatch a snake monster.
"It's true that no one has been able to replicate serpent monsters since Salazar's old age." He explained to Newt, "But serpent monsters can survive for thousands of years."
"Do you mean that the serpent monsters hatched by Slytherin a thousand years ago are still alive?" Newt asked with some surprise.
"That's right, the serpent monster I'm going to show you is the one that was born a thousand years ago." Dracula nodded.
Walking to a more open spot in the forest, Dracula stopped.
"Pretty much right here."
With that, he raised his wand and pointed it at the dense canopy of trees above -
First, a green serpentine mark emerged over the forest, followed by a blood-red mark consisting of demonic wings blossoming out side by side with it.
"This is ...," Newt asked curiously.
"The green one is Slytherin's mark, the red one is mine." Dracula explained simply, "Feel the scent of these two markings and the aged snake monster will come looking for us."
Newt nodded softly, then self-consciously closed his eyes.
As a good magical zoologist, he was of course aware of the serpent monster's arguably cruel magical gifts - its gaze was deadly to the touch!
Dracula also saw Newt's cautious movements and shook his head with a lost smile.
"Mr. Scamander, you don't actually need to close your eyes." He said to Newt.
"Could it be that the books are wrong about the magical talents of snake monsters?" Newt opened his eyes to look at Dracula in surprise and spoke, "I remember that the eyes of a snake monster can kill any person or animal whose eyes make contact with it in an instant."
"Indeed, but this snake monster will close its eyes on its own." Dracula quirked the corner of his mouth pleasantly, "Since it knows it's here to see me, then I guess it won't even open its eyes even if someone else forces it to do so."
The poor snake monster had been tortured too hard by Dracula over a thousand years ago, not only did it evolve its own eyelids, but it also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder towards Dracula, and it couldn't help but close its eyes at the thought of Dracula.
Newt: "?"
So what the hell did this vampire count do to poor little snake monster cutie back in the day ...
Not long after, sure enough, a large snake with a green body crawled out from the depths of the forest, its body as thick as an oak tree trunk, reaching a staggering 50 feet in length, with a bright red feather growing from its head.
As Dracula expected, because he knew he was coming to see the Count, the snake monster had already closed its eyes tightly long before it arrived, not letting its large yellow eyes expose a single bit.
With the help of its sense of smell and its sense of heat, the snake monster arrived in front of Dracula and tamely dropped its large head down to lie in front of Dracula.
"Very good, it came quite fast." Dracula patted the serpent monster's big green head with satisfaction.
Newt looked over curiously, especially focusing on the red feathers on the snake monster's head.
"Is this a male snake monster?" He tentatively touched the bright red feather and opened his mouth to ask, "Female snake monsters aren't supposed to have this feather."
The snake monster shook its head in a slightly disgruntled manner.
It was not known whether it was because Newt's affinity for magical animals was really too high, or because it felt the pressure Dracula was giving it by standing next to it, the snake monster surprisingly did not react too much, and let Newt grab the feather on its head and study it.
"I think it's a male?" Dracula said with less certainty.
After knowing the snake monster for so long, he hadn't really cared about the big guy's gender.
Newt also saw that asking Dracula wasn't too reliable and didn't ask any other questions, but instead got a little emotional and took out a notebook and a quill and started to record the snake monster's form.
Dracula watched as the magical quill pen automatically scribbled on the book, and in the blink of an eye, it sketched out a lifelike image of the snake monster.
The next moment, the picture on the book moved.
"Are all the animals on Where the Fantastic Beasts Are drawn like this?" He asked curiously.