Chapter 30: Snape is looking for me?
Hagrid crunched on a Rock Cake as he spoke, leaving crumbs scattered all over the ground.
"You don't need to worry about it. This sort of mutation has happened before in salamanders, but it's rare, so not many people know about it, and there aren't many records."
This mutation usually occurs after salamanders consume some special magical fire. In the past, some wizards fed salamanders green magical fire, which turned them green and gave their blood healing properties, unlike ordinary salamanders.
However, such cases are extremely rare, and most wizards who possess mutated salamanders keep them secret to avoid attention. As a result, those green salamanders eventually disappeared, and no one has seen them since.
"Well, that's good. On the way here, it kept wriggling and bumping against the jar with its tail, which scared me," he thought.
Seeing the salamander in the fireplace flames, which seemed to have regained some vitality, and hearing Hagrid's words, he felt relieved for now.
Following Ethan's gaze, Hagrid also looked at the fireplace and hazarded a guess.
"Look, it's starting to move, which means it hasn't actually been hurt. Its wriggling is probably a natural reaction to the discomfort its body feels during the change."
Hagrid suddenly spoke up, a bit hesitantly. "Ethan, there's something I'd like to discuss with you, if that's alright?"
"What is it?" Ethan wasn't sure what Hagrid was getting at.
"I'd like to ask if I could have one of this salamander's offspring. I don't know if they'll be ordinary lizards or this black mutant, but based on previous experience, there's a good chance they'll be mutants," Hagrid said, a bit embarrassed.
"Well, let me think about it." Ethan carefully considered the request, weighing the pros and cons, before agreeing.
"Okay, but I have one condition: you can't give its offspring to anyone else, and you need to take care of it for me temporarily."
He had originally planned to keep it in the Slytherin Common Room, but given its current state, he didn't want to attract attention, so he decided to leave it with Hagrid, who rarely had visitors, for the time being. He would take it back once he found a way to build a habitat with a constant flame in his dormitory.
"Of course, of course, I completely agree!" Hagrid was overjoyed; he had never expected such good fortune.
"Then it's a deal." Ethan smiled and extended his hand to Hagrid's large one.
After the two reached an agreement, Ethan quickly took his leave. He couldn't stomach another helping of Hagrid's Rock Cakes and made an excuse about having other appointments, thus managing to escape the cabin.
But Hagrid still managed to slip two rock cakes into his hand. "You've made plans to meet someone, haven't you?" Hagrid said. "Take two rock cakes with you and share them with your friend. She'll love them!"
With no other choice, he put the cakes in his bag, said goodbye to Hagrid and the reluctant Fang, and headed back to the castle.
Unlike on the way there, he now had time to appreciate the scenery.
Then, as he approached the castle, he spotted Harry and Ron.
Ethan nodded to the two boys and walked past them, still in a good mood.
After Ethan walked away, Ron turned back to watch him go and whispered to Harry, "Isn't that the Slytherin who sits with Hermione? What's he doing here? If he's coming from that direction, is he going to see Hagrid too?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't know, but he doesn't seem like an unreasonable Slytherin like Malfoy."
"Don't be fooled by appearances," Ron disagreed. "There isn't a single good person in all of Slytherin. Even if he doesn't show it now, he'll turn bad sooner or later."
Harry fell silent. He knew that as someone raised in the Muggle world, he didn't know enough about the wizarding world to change Ron's deeply ingrained prejudices.
"Let's hurry," he urged. "Hagrid will be worried soon."
"Wait for me!" Ron abandoned his thoughts about Ethan and hurried to catch up with Harry.
Classes were over for the week, and his homework was finished. All that remained was to enjoy this hard-won weekend.
Ethan had also received a letter from his parents that morning, which he still hadn't opened. He planned to read it later.
After returning to the castle, he first went back to his dormitory to drop off his other books before taking the ones he had just borrowed to the library. He also left behind that terrifying rock cake.
He and Hermione had agreed to meet at the library whenever they had free time.
"Where have you been? Why are you so late?" Hermione whispered.
"I'll tell you later. Something unexpected happened," he whispered back. He pulled out a roll of parchment and a quill, opened a book, and began copying down passages that could be useful.
The quill scratched softly across the parchment, mingling with the rustle of turning pages as the two of them worked in companionable silence.
Time flew by, and dinner arrived. The two left the library, and Ethan explained everything that had happened since class began.
"You mean you bred a mutated salamander? That's amazing!" Hermione turned to look at him in surprise.
"It was a lucky accident. I never expected my talent to have such an effect." He was being modest.
"That's still amazing. Also, you're the last House to take Care of Magical Creatures this week, which is a real advantage. None of us got a salamander as a reward, but you were the only one who got to keep the teaching aid as a gift from the professor after you finished using it," Hermione said, envy clear in her eyes.
"Once I find a way to house the salamanders properly, I'll let you experience one firsthand. If we can breed a few, I can even give you one." Ethan wasn't too concerned about the salamanders' special properties, and since he hadn't figured them out yet, he felt comfortable giving one to Hermione.
"Thank you in advance, then." Hermione was very happy.
The two chatted and laughed as they arrived at the Great Hall.
"Ethan, Professor Snape wants to see you. He wants you to go to his office." Draco approached him before he had even finished his meal.
Ethan frowned, somewhat annoyed. Only a few hours had passed since the incident that morning; it was far too early for anyone to forget.
"Okay. I'll go once I'm finished eating." He dismissed Draco with a simple reply.
"You go to the library first. I'm not sure if I can make it tonight."
Hermione looked at him with some concern, knowing that he had just had a minor disagreement with Snape that morning. "He probably doesn't have anything important to say to you, right? Can't you skip it?"
"I don't know what it's about, but I hope it's not something bad. I can't skip it; besides being the Potions professor, he's also our Head of House." Ethan shook his head and quickly finished the food on his plate.
"I'm going now. Bye-bye."
"Okay, bye-bye." Hermione's eyes showed worry she couldn't conceal.
//=================//