Chapter 56 Exploring the Forbidden Forest

The first week of school passed, and Hogwarts welcomed its first weekend.

Sherin had already studied the map of the Forbidden Forest thoroughly, planned various routes, and prepared for various situations, such as refining a lot of potions and poisons that might be used.

Early in the morning, Sherin cast an invisible phantom spell on himself and sneaked into the Forbidden Forest alone.

The Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts is a vast forest with many kinds of creatures living in it, and even some species that have become extinct in the outside world. It is simply a wild place. No wizard has ever been able to explore the entire forest because it is too big and too dangerous. There are many students who have disappeared in the Forbidden Forest in history.

The trees here are very tall, all over dozens of meters, so the sky is dark. Only creatures living in the Forbidden Forest can adapt to this environment. They either have vision that can see things in the dark, or have extraordinary hearing, or keen observation.

There is not much danger outside the Forbidden Forest. It can be seen that Hagrid, the gamekeeper, often cleans up this area. Xie Lin, who was well prepared, easily crossed the perimeter, passed the activity area of ​​​​the 12 hippogriffs raised by Hagrid, and continued to walk deep into the Forbidden Forest. Xie Lin had already explored the two most dangerous areas in the Forbidden Forest, namely the eight-eyed spider nest and the centaur tribe area.

Xie Lin walked forward very cautiously, constantly checking the map on the way to make sure that he had avoided these two areas. Strange roars came from the darkness, and occasionally some malicious eyes could be seen shining in the darkness. When passing a certain place, it should be a gathering place for some social animals, and a disgusting smell came to his face.

Xie Lin held the wand tightly, carefully looked around, suddenly stopped, and looked down at the footprints on the ground. He recognized that these were wolf footprints, which were several times larger than ordinary wolves. I'm afraid it was a giant wolf, about the same size as the three-headed dog Fluffy. Xie Lin knew that there were no real werewolves in the Forbidden Forest in the strict sense, but there was a group of wolves with wisdom close to that of humans.

There is an interesting story behind the origin of this wolf pack. Legend has it that on a full moon day, two wolf-shaped werewolves mate under the moon, and the pregnant female wolf will give birth to pure wolf cubs instead of werewolves. This rare example has only happened twice in history.

One of them happened in the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts. At that time, the headmaster of Hogwarts was Dumbledore. He was broad-minded and allowed the two werewolves to raise the cubs in the Forbidden Forest. The cubs grew up slowly over time and turned into a group of silver wolves with beautiful silver-white fur and high intelligence. These silver wolves are no different from ordinary wild wolves except that they are smart and spiritual. They do not have the werewolf's bloodlust and desire for the taste of human flesh, so they are not much more dangerous than ordinary wild wolves.

Under Dumbledore's deliberate arrangement, rumors that there were werewolves in the Forbidden Forest began to spread among students, with the purpose of deterring students from sneaking into the Forbidden Forest. This rumor is still circulating among students today. Schelling has heard this rumor from more than one person, including Draco.

Schelling is not afraid of a giant wolf, but wolves are social animals, and he is not sure if he can handle a large number of wolves. For safety reasons, he slightly deviated from the planned route and continued to walk deeper into the Forbidden Forest.

Schelling first met three red hats, which are ugly and short monsters similar to goblins. They are bloodthirsty and murderous by nature. After killing prey, they will smear blood on their skulls. They are also named red hats because of their blood-red skulls.

Red hats have no magical abilities, but they are strong and fast, so they are quite dangerous to Muggles and young wizards who have just learned magic, but Schelling can easily deal with them with his strength. Schelling used Transfiguration to create dense and winding vines to capture the red hats, and then used the cutting spell to cut off their skulls. The blood-stained skulls are good materials for making cursed black magic items, and Schelling will certainly not let them go.

[Red Hat Skull Obtained! ]

Then Schelling encountered another vampire bear spirit. The bear spirit is a variant of the Boggart, a collection of fear emotions, good at transformation, usually appearing in the image of an Australian koala, but with sharp fangs and slender claws.

The vampire bear spirit is the most ferocious variant and often attacks poultry. Hagrid's chickens are often attacked by vampire bear spirits, so he has a lot of headaches because of them. Of course, in front of Schelling who knows the brain occlusion technique, the vampire bear spirit is not a threat at all, and Schelling uses "funny funny" to repel it.

(Note: Blood Sucking Bugbear, originally translated as blood sucking monster, from the Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid suspected that the fox or blood sucking bugbear in the Forbidden Forest was responsible for killing his chickens; in Dungeons & Dragons, it is translated as the violent bugbear, a type of giant goblin; but in fact, in Scottish folklore, it is another type of boggart. Bug here means Bogey, and Bugbear literally means bogg bear, or bear-shaped boggart. Here, the author follows Rowling's usual practice and chooses to use the second statement)

Continuing forward, Sherin finally encountered the big boss of this adventure - an eight-eyed spider that is as tall as two adult wizards.

Fortunately, Xie Lin always ensured that he was in a state of invisibility, otherwise he would have ended badly if he was attacked by such a huge spider. Xie Lin knew that creatures living in such dark places were generally afraid of fire, so he did not hesitate to use the flame spell to shoot the downward surface of the Eight-Eyed Spider's abdomen. This was the weakness of the Eight-Eyed Spider that Xie Lin had already studied.

After the Eight-Eyed Spider's abdomen was ignited, it let out a sharp scream, and its whole body was jolted by pain. In order to avoid being affected, Xie Lin released the leg-locking spell on the two rearmost legs of the Eight-Eyed Spider. The eye spider fell forward as if someone was pulling its legs from behind, and died soon after.

Xie Lin quickly took out a medicine bottle and began to collect the venom of the eight-eyed spider. A pint of venom is worth 100 gold galleons. Schelling collected 3 pints from the spider's corpse before leaving with satisfaction. Worried about encountering a larger number of eight-eyed spiders again, Xie Lin decided to leave the Forbidden Forest and retraced his steps.

【Eight-eyed spider venom obtained! 】

Fortunately, he also collected a lot of jumping toadstools on the way. The jumping toadstool is a rare ingredient for potions. The cap is bright red with many white spots on it. It has a keen sense of its surroundings. Once it senses someone trying to pick it, it will jump and escape quickly.

Xie Lin first used the transformation technique to create a cover to cover them all, and then grabbed them one by one and put them into a special container. Each toadstool is worth 3 gold galleons, and Xie Lin collected 20 at once, which means that this morning's harvest has reached 360 gold galleons. You know, except for employees of the Ministry of Magic, the monthly salary of most people in the wizarding world is only between 25 and 50 Galleons!

【Get the jumping toadstool! 】

The Forbidden Forest is indeed a good place to make money. Although it took up a lot of his time, it still made him enjoy it.

Suddenly, Xie Lin stopped in his tracks, and an unexpected scene appeared in front of him. A super giant eight-eyed spider and a giant wolf fell to the ground like corpses, completely motionless.

Xie Lin carefully stepped forward to check. The venom of the eight-eyed spider had completely dried up and could not be collected. It should have been some time since it died. Although the giant wolf was motionless, Xie Lin could still feel the subtle body temperature on its body. He was considering whether to peel off its fur. After all, such a beautiful fur had no medicinal or alchemical value. It should be able to be sold at a good price as a decoration.

Xie Lin took out a sterling silver dagger and was about to peel off the skin on his belly when the hand on his belly suddenly felt a strange movement. Xie Lin frowned at first and suddenly realized, could it be...

Xie Lin's guess was correct. He carefully opened the belly and put his hands through the cut without being too dirty. He actually took out three wolf cubs!

According to Schelling's estimation, the pregnant female wolf was supposed to wait quietly among the wolves, but unfortunately the pack was attacked by an unknown number of eight-eyed spiders. As a result, the female wolf got separated from the pack and got into a fight with one of the eight-eyed spiders. Here we end up dying together. Unfortunately, because she had been dead for a while, the remaining vitality of the mother wolf was not enough to sustain the lives of the cubs. Two of the wolf cubs died not long after they were taken out.

Xie Lin felt compassion and took out several bottles of expensive nutritional medicine from his pocket. He fed the last wolf pup one after another, and wrapped the little wolf pup in a night star cloak to keep it warm. After careful care, he opened his eyes and howled for the first time since birth.

Although the howling was so weak, Xie Lin witnessed the birth of a life with his own eyes, and a tender corner deep in his heart was touched. An indescribable emotion arose spontaneously, making the corners of his eyes appear. I got wet unconsciously.

Hogwarts allows students to bring their own pets. Except for the rule that first-year students can only bring owls, toads, and cats as pets, students in other grades have no restrictions on pet types. For example, Ron’s pet is Hamster Scabbers, Gryffindor's Lee Jordan also once brought a pet wolf spider - of course, there are exceptions for highly dangerous creatures such as eight-eyed spiders or three-headed dogs, but other than Hagrid, no other students would take it. These scary creatures are kept as pets.

Sherrin has decided to take the wolf cub back to Hogwarts as his own pet. The moment he witnessed the birth of the little wolf, he and the little wolf had already established an emotional bond that transcended ordinary owners and pets.

Plus, he had Newt's suitcase, which meant he could take the wolf pup with him to class and home without fear of being discovered.

Because Dobby was not in the UK at the moment, Sherrin had to go to the Owl Cottage in person, borrow the school's owl and place a lot of orders for pet food through mail order at the pet store in Diagon Alley, and then personally take care of the still very weak little wolf. He named the little wolf "Silver Fang".

Time passed day by day, and the pet food in Diagon Alley had been delivered. Xie Lin couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief. Otherwise, if Little Silver Ya continued to drink his nutritional potion, he would be impoverished.

Xie Lin, who was busy taking care of Silver Fang, had little time to pay attention to the big and small things happening with Harry. Even the Patronus Charm exchange event was postponed until next month.

Slytherin students also already know that Xelling has a beloved pet wolf, and Xelling and it can always be seen everywhere on campus.

Daphne, Meredith and Astoria were also very excited and often came to find Sherin, trying to find a chance to tease Little Silver Fang. Although Little Silver Fang was weak, he was very smart and knew how to please people. He always made the girls giggle, which made the girls love this cute little wolf cub even more.

The setting of the red hat and the vampire bear spirit was not official, but was taken from English folklore; the highly intelligent wolf pack was taken from the chapter about the forbidden forest in Pottermore, which was an official setting.