Chapter 348: The Trapdoor Beneath the Red House! Ethan's Mind Is Something Even a Boggart Fears
Through the gaps in the wall of veins, the stunned faces of Knockturn Alley's residents were just barely visible.
A Dark wizard gathering? Nobody told us about this!!
"We… can't get out, can we…?" the students said blankly.
They watched a grasshopper land on the blood wall.
It dissolved into a smear of red mist in under a second.
Yaxley's stomach lurched. His eyes went wide. He spun toward Ethan, staring in disbelief.
What are you doing?! You've trapped yourself in here too!
Does he… does he know something?
A cold bead of sweat slid down his temple.
Now I understand why Snape didn't come.
Crack.
A flash of red light struck the door. The wards carved into it shattered instantly, releasing magic that ignited the vines and sent them curling away in burning fragments.
Ethan pushed the door open and stepped inside first.
With Bellatrix's wand waiting ahead — and Ancient Magic hidden beneath the house — Ethan was in exceptionally good spirits. At this point, the whole thing felt less like a training exercise and more like a pleasant outing.
Creak.
Rusted hinges ground and shrieked. Ethan brushed a curtain of cobwebs aside with one hand and stepped into the dark.
As he moved forward, the light from outside spilled in behind him, as though the darkness were retreating before his footsteps.
He stopped at the boundary between light and shadow and turned to look at the students.
"…"
The students looked back at him with expressions of pure, luminous blankness.
…Why has he stopped?
Several seconds passed.
Then one student caught on. Then another. Urgent breath-holding spread through the group as they each turned inward, reaching for that elusive, half-understood magic.
Pfft. Pfft.
The sounds that followed were not especially impressive.
Neville, face red, slowly slid downward in mortification.
"Lumos. Lumos. Lumos…"
The incantation was murmured over and over — by one voice, then another, layering together until the repetition took on something almost incantatory in its own right. Without wands to channel through, the students found themselves attending to the spell in a different way — feeling the rise and fall of the words, the weight of each syllable, as if for the first time.
"Hm."
Slowly, small clusters of soft, hazy light bloomed around the students. Faint. But real enough to push back the reaching dark.
Sirius and Lupin both raised their eyebrows, visibly impressed.
They had assumed Ethan was mostly talking. Just finding a creative new way to make everyone's lives difficult.
Apparently not.
"Not bad," Ethan said, with a small nod.
His gaze passed over the students who still hadn't managed it. He said nothing further and turned to walk deeper into the house.
He was not going to reprimand anyone. When the moment came that they truly had no choice — he suspected the breakthroughs would follow naturally.
The interior of the house was decayed and filthy. Dust billowed up with every step, setting off a chorus of coughing. Ethan cleared a few minor traps as he went, following the trace of the magical signature, until a counter-concealment charm peeled back the disguise and revealed a hidden trapdoor beneath the rotting carpet.
Another Ancient Magic relic. Right below them.
Ethan's breathing quickened, just slightly.
He drew his wand.
The incantation he spoke was lilting and precise — something almost like a piece of elven music, rising and falling through the room.
Everyone went quiet.
They watched the Spiral Professor cast, completely absorbed.
This is the first time, Hermione realised, that we've seen Professor Unknown use a wand since the term started.
"Protego Totalum."
The spell settled. A half-transparent shimmer spread around each student, soft and encompassing — it looked unassuming, but in the same moment, it pressed back every pocket of darkness in the room, wrapping the group in a quiet, diffuse glow.
"So he's not incapable of using a wand," Hermione murmured. "He just never has occasion to."
That made sense. With those creatures of his handling most of the work, there was rarely any need for him to intervene personally.
Ethan lowered his wand.
"These should offer you some protection," he said. "So there's no need to hold back."
His gaze swept across them, briefly resting on each face.
"Give me everything you have. Face whatever comes at you head-on."
"This Defence Against the Dark Arts field lesson… begins now."
He threw open the trapdoor and dropped through it.
Got him.
Yaxley watched Ethan disappear and fought with everything he had to keep the smile from his face.
Emotion-amplifying mist. A Boggart to manifest their deepest fears. Lethal magical traps. And Death Eaters fresh from Azkaban waiting below.
One moment of distraction. One curse. And you'll be meat on my board.
What did it matter that the man looked wrong? He was still a wizard. A strange face didn't make him untouchable.
Everyone fears something, Yaxley thought, a cold gleam passing through his eyes. I wonder what form your Boggart will take — and whether it'll be the thing that finally kills you.
He turned to look through the vine-choked window at the terrible blood-red wall surrounding them.
Then, like a man trying to convince himself, he murmured softly, "I will win. The Dark Lord will win."
The drop beneath the trapdoor was deep enough to kill ten Aurors.
The entire underbelly of Knockturn Alley had been hollowed out.
"Unlicensed excavation," Ethan muttered.
He landed lightly. His boots found shallow water — a thin puddle on stone — and he stood still as the ripples settled around him.
Complete darkness. Nothing was visible at all. The only things present were the smell of rot and, beneath it, something else — sweet, cloying, faintly floral.
Ethan's thoughts stirred.
Several orbs of light appeared around him, far larger and brighter than the students' attempts at Lumos above. Their glow spread across a wide radius.
He would have used Flock of Birds outright if he weren't worried about exposing himself.
Tap. Tap.
His boot heels struck the puddle, sending ripples spreading outward.
He looked around.
No one else was down here yet.
The students should have followed me through.
He was still thinking that when his cobalt-blue eyes caught it — a drifting current of dark pink magical energy hanging in the air like visible smoke.
It slipped in through his nose with the same sweet, heavy scent.
Like pollen.
It slid down his throat, spread through his lungs, diffused into his blood.
And lit something on fire.
A restless heat stirred somewhere deep inside him — in his body, and in something deeper still. His magic pressed outward, barely contained, coiling into distorted, iridescent shapes around him.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Behind the mask, Ethan's diamond-blue eyes grew steadily brighter.
The puddle beneath his feet was changing. It thickened. Darkened. Became something viscous and red — a bog of it, clinging to his soles, pulling with each step like strings of membrane.
Hsss.
Ethan drew a long breath.
He half-closed his eyes. The corner of his mouth pulled up very high.
If Yaxley could see his expression right now, Ethan thought, there would be no need for any of this elaborate scheming. The man would simply kneel on the spot and beg Ethan to join the Dark side.
"Ahhh," Ethan said, with the satisfaction of someone settling into a warm bath. "It's been so long since I've felt this relaxed."
He raised one hand and ran it along the stone wall beside him — the wall that had already begun to manifest its flesh-and-blood texture in response to the Wall of Pathos. His fingertip traced, almost playfully, across one of the agonised faces pressed into the surface.
"Miranda Pollen — amplifies the emotions already present in a person's heart… quite good for inspiration, actually."
He tilted his head.
"Is this my bonus stage?"
He looked down at the mass of dark fog huddled before him and addressed it in the easy tone of someone greeting an old acquaintance.
"Would you agree, Mr Boggart?"
It occurred to him, somewhat idly, that Professor Lupin had excused him from the Boggart lesson back in third year.
Well.
He was here now.
And it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity.
Dark wizards had a habit of assuming that one Avada Kedavra from behind would neatly resolve everything. Perhaps it was time to offer them a supplementary lesson in why things did not quite work that way.
Consider it extra credit.
"My Ferryman of the Styx hasn't had a proper outing yet either…" Ethan mused.
He reached slowly toward the Boggart — which was, by now, doing everything in its power to scream without yet having a mouth — and extended one unhurried hand.