Hogwarts seemed particularly quiet late at night. There were twinkling lights in the castle, which was the location of the college common room.

Some energetic students always have to wait until the early morning before reluctantly putting down the crackling exploding cards or wizard chess in their hands and returning to the dormitory.

There is a bright moon outside the castle.

Under the moonlight, two figures, one big and one small, were quietly passing through the Whomping Willow without making even the slightest sound.

"Kyle, it's not too late to turn back..."

Newt Scamander, who was walking in the front, couldn't help but say, "You are a student, you can't go out at night. If the professors find out later, they will expel you."

"Don't you feel guilty saying that..." Kyle, who was standing far behind, said unhappily.

He just wrote a letter to Newt, asking how to deal with the man-headed lion-body manticore. Who knew he would come over at night and sneak into the Hufflepuff dormitory at night using the Disillusionment Charm.

Kyle was getting ready to go to bed when he suddenly heard Newt's voice. He thought it was his illusion.

I didn't expect it to be true.

Kyle wanted to report those Dementors... putting anyone in there, how unprofessional! "I just came to ask you if there are any manticores in the Forbidden Forest... I didn't ask you to go out at night." Newt said, "You came here on your own initiative. It's none of my business if you get expelled."

"Anyone would follow me if they encountered something like this..." Kyle pouted and said, "Besides, it's just a night tour. Even if you get caught, you won't be expelled."

The two of them made their way to Hagrid's hut.

"Shall we go around?" Kyle said, "There's a hound here with a keen nose. If we go any further it will definitely be able to smell us."

"unnecessary."

Newt pulled out a small bottle, opened it, and shook it over himself a few times before handing the bottle to Kyle.

"This is pollen from the Patok butterfly flower. It masks its own scent very well."

Kyle took it, shook it a few times like Newt did, and then naturally put the bottle in his pocket.

He went to the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night, so he must have charged a tour guide fee... This pollen happened to be good. Newt waited for a long time but Kyle didn't return the bottle. He turned around and said, "You..."

"Shh, keep your voice down. Fang has very sharp ears." Kyle lowered his voice and said, "Go a little further and you will find the road Hagrid often takes to the Forbidden Forest. It's a lot flatter there than other places."

Looking at Kyle's appearance, Newt knew that his pollen was unlikely to come back, so he could only sigh helplessly.

Never mind, even though there wasn’t much of that stuff, there was still a small bottle in his box, which was enough.

The two men tiptoed through Hagrid's cabin. It was dark inside and they could clearly hear Hagrid's snoring.

After arriving at the forbidden forest, they walked a little further...

After Hagrid's cabin was out of sight, Kyle finally felt relieved. He looked at Newt curiously and asked the question that had been bothering him all the way: "Why did you come to Hogwarts? Just for the Manticore?"

"I guess so," Newt said, "and the three-headed dog...

In fact, since Dobby came, my work has become a lot easier. Things that usually take a day to complete can now be completed in a few hours.

So I was going to rewrite Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but the basilisk alone was too monotonous... Just at this time, I received your letter."

"But..." Kyle asked doubtfully, "I remember there was an introduction about them in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."

"Yes, but not much."

Newt smiled and continued, "Whether it's the three-headed dog or the human-headed lion-body scorpion-tailed beast, they are all rare magical animals. I only saw them once in Greece 20 years ago.

Later, due to some special reasons, I was banned from entering by the Ministry of Magic over there, and my research on them had to be suspended.

Now there is this opportunity, so I came.”

Special reason?

Kyle understood.

Newt continued walking forward, and Kyle followed him, unable to resist asking, "Where are we going?

"I don't know where the Manticore is. Hagrid never told me."

"It's okay, we can look for it." Newt said directly: "The Manticore likes to build nests by the lake, and there are three lakes in the Forbidden Forest. I happen to know where they are all."

"So we have to search everywhere?" Kyle asked, "How long will it take to find it?"

"One night is enough," Newt said. "If that doesn't work, we can always ride on brooms... You're holding a broom, right?"

Kyle nodded.

But the problem is that if you ride a broom, you will be too conspicuous and can be easily discovered by other creatures in the Forbidden Forest... such as centaurs, or the wandering Dementors.

Now everyone is trying to catch Sirius Black, and it will be troublesome if he is misunderstood.

"Wait..." Kyle thought for a moment and suddenly said, "I remember Hagrid said that he encountered a man-headed lion-body manticore when he was looking for Aragog."

"Aragog?"

"A giant acromantula," Kyle explained.

“Oh, that’s easy.” Newt clapped his hands and closed his eyes to smell something carefully.

He walked slowly forward and soon found a piece of white spider silk on a tree branch.

“The silk of the Acromantula,” Newt said. “It has a very special sweet smell that can help them attract enough prey. You see…”

There just happened to be a big bulging white cocoon on the spider web between the tree branches. It was probably some greedy creature that got stuck on it and couldn't escape.

There were a few small spiders nearby, crawling in one direction.

"We are so lucky."

Newt said happily: "This prey is too big for them to move, so they can only go back to the nest to inform more spiders.

"Hurry, follow them..."

So, the two followed the spider into a bush. They had strayed from the forest path and there were tree roots and stumps everywhere. This was nothing for the spider, but it was different for Kyle and Newt.

They had to carefully bypass those obstacles and make as little noise as possible to avoid being discovered by the spiders in front of them.

After about twenty minutes, Kyle noticed that the ground seemed to be sloping down, but the trees were still as dense as before.

At this moment, Newt, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped and stopped Kyle.

"That's enough for here." He looked around cautiously. "There are more and more spider silks. If we go any further, we will definitely be discovered."

Kyle noticed that less than a foot away from Newt, there was a thin strand of spider silk, so thin that it was almost invisible in the moonlight.

Newt slowly took two steps back and looked up at the sky, as if trying to identify the direction.

"I think I know where the Manticore is..."

He turned and went into the bushes on the left, walking very quickly. Kyle pushed aside the branches and thorny vines and followed closely behind.

Five minutes later, the dense bushes had turned into a flat open space. The lake Newt had mentioned earlier was in the middle of the open space, as big as a Quidditch pitch.

Under the moonlight, the calm lake looks like a huge mirror, mysterious and beautiful.

…

(End of this chapter)