Umbridge thrashed around madly, her legs kicking in all directions, tears and snot all over her face as she babbled incoherent Curses and pleas for mercy.
The Dementor dragged her toward the side door. Her screams grew fainter and fainter, until that last, despairing wail was completely cut off by the heavy stone door.
"Thud!"
The courtroom fell deathly silent, then a few relieved yet complicated sighs rose in the air.
Vid and Machioni followed the crowd out of the courtroom, left the Ministry of Magic, and stepped into the warm afternoon sunlight.
The July sun was a bit scorching, but at this moment it seemed to carry a power that dispelled the cold, oppressive air of the courtroom, making people feel a vivid and tangible sense of life.
From afar came the crisp jingling of an ice cream cart and the playful laughter of children. They stood on the bustling, crowded street, briefly enveloped by the warmth and noise of everyday life, as if the trial just now was only a suffocating illusion from another world.
Machioni lifted a hand to his brow, squinted up at the dazzling blue sky, and let out a long breath.
"If it wasn't to see what became of Umbridge, I wouldn't have set one foot in that courtroom… I hate places like that."
He muttered hoarsely, "Come on, I'll buy you something iced to drink, then we head to our next stop."
"Okay."
Vid nodded, cast one last look back at that imposing, oppressive building, then turned and walked into the sunlit street.
They sat by the roadside with two iced drinks, had lunch, and only then got up and entered a secluded alley near the Ministry of Magic.
"Getting a spot like this in Diagon Alley wasn't easy, especially the application for using The Undetectable Extention Charm—that took a lot of work."
Gesturing as he spoke, Machioni said, "Good thing I got all the paperwork done before Fudge stepped down. Otherwise, once Sinclaire was in charge, the officials at the Ministry of Magic might not have dared bend the rules for me."
As he spoke, he couldn't help showing a somewhat conflicted expression.
Fudge was bad in a thousand ways, but he did have one advantage—so long as it wasn't something too troublesome, slip him enough Galleons and he would get things done for you.
Sinclaire, on the other hand, didn't look nearly as easy to talk to.
"Everyone has something that can be used."
Vid said carelessly, "A person who can become Minister of Ministry of Magic can't possibly be without desires. Money, fame, achievements, power… there's always at least one thing he wants."
"That's true." Machioni smiled thoughtfully. "The key is to figure out what he's really after… We still need to watch him a bit longer before we can tell what he's going to do next."
As they talked, a long alley appeared ahead of them, and in that alley there was only one unremarkable, vine-covered old wooden door.
"Don't go that way," Machioni said. "That's just a decoy."
He led Vid twelve paving stones into the alley from the entrance, then tapped the blank wall with his Magic Wand and murmured:
"Glimmer to dust, let the doorways open."
At once, the solid wall seemed to turn into a book. Its pages rustled as they flipped, then quickly stilled, becoming a landscape scene framed like a window.
"Nice design," Vid said in admiration.
"Come on, our playground is inside."
Machioni grabbed Vid's arm, and the two of them stepped together through the "window" in the frame. A soft yet gentle white light poured down from above, enveloping them completely.
They felt a slight dizziness, as if the ground beneath their feet were flowing gently, while the surroundings grew upward and swelled at an unbelievable speed…
Or rather, they themselves were shrinking rapidly.
—The purpose of Vid's outing today, aside from watching Umbridge's trial, was to accept Machioni's invitation and come experience the not-yet-opened Little People Country with him, to see if there was anything that still needed tweaking.
Although Vid had only made a suggestion at the start, and all the follow-up investment and construction had been handled by Machioni's company, Machioni had not pushed Vid aside, but still treated him as one of the creators.
In just a few breaths, the world had completely changed.
Plants that had only reached their shins now became a sky-blotting primeval jungle. Grass stalks were like the trunks of towering ancient trees, their broad leaves like massive overpasses. The air was thick with the sharp scent of grass and damp earth, and from the distance came a low, strange hum.
Vid looked down at his palms, then felt around for his Magic Wand in his pocket. After running his fingers over it twice, he flicked the Wand:
"Incendio!"
A dry, yellowed piece of grass on the ground whooshed into flames. Of course, to Vid at this size, the blade of grass looked more like a long plank of wood.
The Spell's power naturally couldn't compare with before, but that familiar feeling proved that it was indeed his Magic Wand.
"How did you manage this?" Vid asked in surprise. "I thought we'd have to drink a bottle of Shrinking Potion before coming in… And why did all my stuff shrink with me?"
A Shrinking Potion could never achieve this effect.
Machioni, shrunk just like him, immediately grinned, looking very pleased with himself. "Haha, shocking, isn't it? I've been dying to see that expression on your face—that's why I've been holding back from telling you."
Picking his way forward through gaps in the forest of grass, he explained to Vid:
"I originally planned to use Shrinking Potion, but first, the demand for the potion would be huge, and ticket prices would rise with it. That would drastically cut down on the number of visitors;
"And the potion's effects aren't very stable either. Sometimes it just reduces the drinker's body size, and sometimes, like what happened to you before, it makes them revert to their childhood form."
"So I'd been looking for a replacement… Later I happened to hear that a damaged painting had shown up on the black market in Norway, and sometimes it would shrink people."
"I rushed over and paid ten times the asking price for it, then asked Professor Morry to restore it. We found it was actually a Magic Item made by Elves in the past—a ring-shaped fortress that makes people smaller."
"The painting at the entrance?" Vid asked.
"Exactly." Machioni laughed. "Pretty amazing, isn't it? I didn't expect things like that to still exist nowadays."
Vid had read before about Elven ring-forts, which some people also called "dancing circles." Elves would usually use stones or special plants to encircle the place where they lived and cast strange magic over it, different from Wizard Spells.
If someone stepped into one without knowing, they might have all sorts of magical experiences. Some would turn into animals or plants, some would experience greatly accelerated time, some would vanish forever, and some would inexplicably become dogged by misfortune.
Vid hadn't expected that this kind of magic could also be cast onto a painting.
"Let's go," Machioni said with a backward smile. "What's up ahead is the area I designed with special care."