Chapter 269: Capturing Nagini
Newt moved quickly through the winter forest of Albania.
His steps were light, and only the crunch of thin ice breaking underfoot made any sound.
The pure black Niffler perched steadily on his shoulder, little paws gripping his coat, scanning the surroundings warily, its nose twitching now and then.
Tracking didn't always go smoothly.
The scent Nagini had left behind came and went, especially in a season like this, blanketed in snow, with everything else asleep; whatever trace was distinctly hers had been worn thinner still by the bitter cold and the landscape.
Whenever the trail grew faint, Newt would stop and press on with the help of magic, or with the magical creatures' assistance.
With every pause and every fresh discovery, the excitement building in Newt's chest grew harder to hide.
Many years had passed since Nagini had parted ways with them.
Over those years, questions like Is she still alive?What has she become?Is she in pain? had pricked at Newt and the rest of that old circle from time to time, like small thorns. They were friends, comrades who'd been through life and death together.
Several times the trail seemed to run into a dead end, but Newt didn't give up. He had patience enough, for this forest, for its creatures, and for that lost old friend.
At last, following an extremely faint, winding impression in the ground, and the Niffler's sudden sharp sniffing and pointing, Newt arrived beneath a sheltered rock face.
A cluster of ancient trees, their roots gnarled and intertwined, leaned against one another, forming a dark, deep hollow where their roots met.
Icicles hung from the edge of the opening, and inside lay pitch black, giving off a mingled smell of earth, decay, and cold, rank musk.
The Niffler on his shoulder suddenly gave a soft squeak, its little paws gripping tight at Newt's curly hair, clearly urging him not to go any closer.
Newt was just about to lift a hand to calm the anxious little creature when, suddenly, a rustling sound came from deep within the hollow.
The sound was slow and heavy, carrying the texture of scales dragging over branches and frozen earth.
A triangular, inky-green snake head emerged slowly from the shadows.
Then came the winding body behind it, coated in a cold, glinting sheen.
This green serpent was far larger than any ordinary python, yet it climbed up to the mouth of the hollow with an odd sort of lightness and strength.
It reared the front portion of its body straight up, the way certain cobras do, its indifferent yellow, slit-pupiled eyes locking onto Newt several metres away, its forked tongue flicking out fast now and then.
A pressing sense of menace spread through the air, mingling raw wildness with the taint of Dark Magic.
Looking at his old friend, now entirely in the form of a beast, a flash of pain crossed Newt's eyes.
Even braced as he'd been beforehand, seeing with his own eyes that once-beautiful woman, whose eyes had so often carried melancholy and kindness, now reduced to this great serpent, with nothing left but cold and wildness, Newt still found it hard to accept.
In that moment, he understood all the more why Nagini had chosen to slip away back then without a word.
When she'd sensed she was about to be swallowed whole by the Blood Curse, no longer human, how could she have wanted her old friends to see what she'd become?
Newt slowly tucked the wand in his hand back into his pocket, the motion slow and deliberate, meant to signal harmless intent.
He turned his body sideways, narrowing his silhouette, then extended a hand forward with excruciating slowness, palm open, edging closer to Nagini by a barely perceptible degree at a time.
His voice was pitched very low, gentle, the tone of someone calling out to an old friend.
"Nagini… it's me, Newt. Don't be afraid… look, I mean no harm…"
As Newt kept up his low murmuring and his agonisingly slow approach, the wariness in the great serpent's slit eyes seemed to ease off just a little, and the tense lines of its muscles relaxed slightly too.
A small flicker of hope rose in Newt's chest. Could Nagini still be holding on to some memory, some feeling, from the old days?
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly at that hope.
But Nagini suddenly turned her head, as though it had caught some call or command only it could sense.
That faint trace of memory in its eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by pure, savage ferocity.
It was the look of a beast provoked to fury.
The serpent's body, which had eased just slightly, contracted all at once and shot forward with startling speed.
Its jaws gaped wide, pale, gleaming fangs flashing as it lunged straight for Newt's throat.
It moved so fast it left only a dark green blur hanging in the air.
Experienced as he was, Newt had sensed something was wrong the instant Nagini's eyes changed, his body's instinct outpacing thought, and he threw himself into a roll to the side and back.
Even so, Nagini's strike came faster than he could have imagined.
Just as the fangs closed in on Newt's throat—
The dial of the plain-looking watch on Newt's left wrist suddenly lit up.
Two solid bursts of magic flared instantly: one a translucent, circular shield, Protego, the other a distorting field that warped the air around it, Impedimenta.
Protection against both curse and physical attack layered into place almost in the same breath, wrapping firmly around Newt's whole body.
At the same moment, the grey buckle of the belt at his waist flashed with light.
A precisely aimed Petrificus Totalus shot out, arriving just ahead of the strike, and struck Nagini square on the forehead.
There was a sharp crack.
The fierce momentum of Nagini's lunge stopped dead all at once, the muscles seizing rigid, its body frozen mid-attack in the air, before it crashed down heavily onto the snow and dead leaves with a thud.
That still wasn't the end of it.
The necklace around Newt's neck, bearing the Scamander family crest, blazed with golden light, breaking apart into more than a dozen slender golden beams that shot outward, driving deep into the ground around Nagini like nails, the beams between them linking swiftly to form a makeshift magical cage, holding the petrified serpent inside.
Newt, having pulled off that clumsy but effective roll, steadied himself, catching his breath, still shaken.
He instinctively touched the watch and the belt as they returned to their ordinary appearance, a flash of both delayed fear and embarrassment crossing his face.
The fear came because Nagini's sudden, savage turn had been utterly unexpected, vicious and nearly lethal; it had genuinely given Newt a taste of real danger.
The embarrassment came because he'd completely forgotten that he was, at that very moment, wearing a whole collection of "little trinkets" that Leonardo had practically forced on him.
More than a few of them were alchemical devices meant for protection or for restraining an enemy.
He'd never expected that the first time they'd come in useful would be to stop an attack from Nagini herself.
Newt got quickly to his feet, not even bothering to brush the snow and mud off his clothes, and without a moment's hesitation, drew his wand again and gave it a light flick, lifting the petrified Nagini steadily into the air, then opened the case that had been sitting at his feet the whole time.
The case took Nagini's massive body in gently.
That done, he snapped the lid shut with a click and picked up the case.
Newt glanced around at the eerily silent forest one last time.
Not wanting to court any further trouble or delay, his body twisted and compressed all at once, and with a soft pop, he vanished without a trace.