Call You Clown

A bat-like creature slowly crawled out from the crack in the eggshell. Its body was pitch-black, and two dark green eyes on its pale little face stared straight at Lyon.

Though the egg was large, the Billywig that emerged was only as big as Lyon's outstretched palm.

Lyon cautiously stepped forward and looked at the Mutated Billywig on the table.

If this thing showed any intention of attacking him, Lyon was confident that an Avada Kedavra would hit it with perfect accuracy.

When the Billywig on the table saw Lyon approach, its mung-bean-sized pupils flashed. It spread its wings and flew toward him.

The moment it spread its wings, Lyon felt that ominous sense of danger from earlier vanish. He did not stop the Billywig.

The Billywig pounced onto Lyon's chest, its sharp wings gripping his collar tightly.

Lyon stretched out a hand and waved it in front of the Billywig. Seeing this, the Billywig hugged his hand and let out a series of squeaks.

A warm sensation came from his hand. Lyon cautiously brought over his left hand and stroked the Billywig's head.

[Ding, Mutated Billywig panel activated.]

[Mutated Billywig]

[Stage: Juvenile (1/10)]

[Magic Power Level: 15]

The system's voice suddenly sounded beside his ear, and the Billywig's panel appeared before him.

Lyon looked at the Billywig's magic power level and found it somewhat unreal.

"System, why is its magic power level 15?"

He remembered that by normal standards, level 15 should have been Auror level, right?

[Ding, I don't know.]

Lyon: ...

Sure enough, the system still had its own peculiar style.

But the fact that the Billywig had a magic power level of 15 even in its juvenile stage only proved that it had enormous room to grow.

Lyon picked up the Billywig before him and placed it on the table, but the little Billywig seemed dissatisfied. With a flap of its wings, it swiftly flew back into Lyon's arms, as if telling him that this was its territory.

The Billywig's body was incredibly light. Lyon could barely feel its weight at all.

He just did not know how to feed this thing. He could not possibly feed it human brains, could he?

As that thought crossed his mind, the system's voice suddenly rang out again.

[Ding, the Mutated Billywig can be fed with blood. Once it reaches adulthood, it can summon more Billywig clones as an attack method. Each clone possesses 50% of the original's strength and will not reduce the original's power.]

Well, that was rare. The system had actually given him an answer this time.

And judging by the effect, this was truly powerful. It could summon clones to fight without affecting the original at all.

The Billywig already had a magic power level of 15. Wouldn't it be unstoppable once it reached adulthood?

With clones possessing 50% of its original strength, Lyon felt that this thing might be even fiercer than a dragon.

"You're pretty ugly, so I'll call you Clown."

Lyon had only been thinking of casually giving it a name, but the Billywig nestled in his arms, which had been dozing with its eyes half-closed, seemed to understand him. It immediately flapped its wings and squeaked in dissatisfaction, as though unhappy with its new name.

"You don't like it?"

Lyon frowned. In his previous life, plenty of people named their pets things like Little White or Little Green. Clown had been based on the pet's features too, so why did it dislike it...?

"Fine, fine. If Clown won't do, then I'll call you Old Clown."

As soon as he finished speaking, Lyon felt the little Billywig in his arms tug at his clothes even more unhappily.

Still, the little fellow clearly knew its limits. It only scratched lightly and did not make any excessive moves.

"Old Clown doesn't work either? Then I'll think of a proper name for you." Lyon examined the Billywig from head to toe and pondered for a long time.

Seeing its master lost in thought, the little Billywig opened its tiny eyes wide, a humanlike look of anticipation appearing in them.

At last, Lyon broke the silence. He smiled in satisfaction, as though he had come up with a brilliant name.

"I've got it. I'll call you Little Black."

The little Billywig: ...

Once the naming was done, the little Billywig seemed sleepy as well. It flapped its wings twice, and in the blink of an eye, its body curled up and shrank from the size of a human head to the size of a pendant, lightly hanging from Lyon's hand.

Was this the egg sac mentioned in the original story?

He had just been worrying about how to take this thing out of Hogwarts. Now it would be much more convenient.

After tidying everything up, Lyon realized it was already very late and fell into a deep sleep.

The first few days after term began were very busy, and Lyon quickly adapted to the rhythm of life here.

Time passed swiftly as Lyon studied. That afternoon, he received a letter from an owl.

Who would send him a letter?

"Lyon, who sent you that?" Little Hermione curiously leaned her head toward him and examined the letter in his hand.

Lyon was puzzled as well. Out of habit, he patted Little Hermione on the head and opened the letter.

The moment he saw the sender's name, Lyon's relaxed expression vanished.

It was from Mike.

If Mike had sent him a letter, that meant something had happened with the Razor Gang.

Lyon quickly scanned the handwriting in the letter and narrowed his eyes.

Mike's efforts to purchase shops in Knockturn Alley had made progress. Yesterday, he had secured several shops, all of them adjacent to one another.

But during the process, Mike had discovered another force buying up shops as well.

Mike had been unable to uncover any concrete information about them. He only knew that they appeared to be very influential.

None of the Razor Gang members Mike had sent out to gather information yesterday had returned. They were most likely dead.

Lyon frowned. He could not leave Hogwarts at the moment, so getting involved in matters outside was rather troublesome.

With a quick wave of his wand, a fresh sheet of parchment appeared on the table. Another wave, and rows of writing soon appeared across it.

He instructed Mike to stop purchasing shops and avoid provoking members of other forces as much as possible. After also arranging compensation for the dead Razor Gang members, he tied the letter back onto the owl's leg.

In fact, Lucius Malfoy had sent him a letter a few days ago.

The letter had not blamed Lyon for teaching Draco Malfoy a lesson. Instead, Lucius Malfoy had strongly approved of what Lyon had done, though that was not the important part. Lucius Malfoy had told him something else.

Lucius Malfoy had discovered that someone was purchasing shops in nearly every pure-blood wizarding village across Britain.

This even included Hogsmeade.

Could it really be that Grindelwald, as he had suspected before, was about to return?

But if Grindelwald still had any power, he would not be secretly buying up shops like this. Given his nature, he would probably have already led the Saints in starting the Third Wizarding War.

"Lyon, what's wrong?"

Little Hermione's voice snapped Lyon out of his thoughts. He shook his head, casting them aside. "Nothing. I need to go back to the common room."

"I'm coming too. Wait for me."

Classes were already over for the day, and tomorrow was the weekend. Hermione had originally wanted to take Lyon to the library, but he had suddenly changed his mind, leaving her somewhat disappointed.

Lyon had just passed through the long corridor and arrived outside the entrance to the Slytherin House common room.

More than a dozen first-year students, both boys and girls, were standing outside the common room door. When they saw Lyon, they all looked at him with hesitant expressions.

"Good afternoon, Prefect Lyon."

"What's going on? Why aren't you going inside?" Lyon frowned.

The dozen or so students stammered for a long time without managing to say anything. Finally, Pansy, who stood in the middle, spoke up.

"Prefect Lyon, you should see for yourself."

"Hm?"

Lyon frowned. Seeing that he could get nothing out of them, he pushed open the common room door.

The moment the door opened and Lyon saw the scene inside the common room, he instinctively grabbed Little Hermione's hand and pulled her behind him, his gaze turning cold.