Chapter 189. The Battle. Part 1. Breaking the Barrier.
"Begin the assault!" Not everyone on the less reputable side of the alliance was happy to follow Severus's command, but they had no choice except to swallow their pride, at least for now. He was, after all, the one chosen to represent the coalition.
In that same instant, following the Minister's thunderous order, hundreds of spells streaked toward the building at incredible speed, flooding the area beneath the dome with a blaze of color and triggering a cascade of explosions.
The barrier surrounding the Steel Division's base, however, absorbed the first wave without much difficulty. Gaps opened where windows had stood moments before, and a volley of elemental curses shot outward, threatening to obliterate the fighters in the front ranks. Then three voices rang out simultaneously from different directions. "Protego Maxima!" One was Yaxley's, the second came from an Auror captain, and the third from a gang member.
Three transparent walls sprang up in front of the wizards, merging into a triangle that shielded them from more than eighty attacks. When the barriers dissolved, the previously empty stretch of street between the two sides bore the scars: black scorch marks, walls of ice and frozen shards, dents and deep gashes, and, in places, craters. Any wizard caught by those curses would have faced death or serious injury.
None of that deterred most of Magical Britain's fighters. It only sharpened their resolve, and they resumed pounding the building with spells. Standard charms were cast alongside Unforgivables. The Death Eaters hurled the dark curses with particular fury, and these proved far more effective than ordinary magic. The Killing Curse in particular cut straight through the building's defenses with ease, and within ten seconds it had claimed the lives of several unlucky gang members who hadn't realized its danger.
On one side of the line, the counter-assault nearly ceased entirely. Fifteen seconds later, the gang leaders noticed the shift and gave the same order themselves: use Unforgivables. Only a few could cast them, but even that was enough to ease some of the pressure.
For the Ministry's own staff and the ordinary witches and wizards who had joined the fight, the situation was considerably harder. Casting the darkest curse of all required more than just knowing the incantation and holding a wand. It demanded a genuine intent to kill and genuine hostility toward the target. Only truly dark wizards, those whose hands were steeped in blood and who did not hesitate to go even deeper, could use it reliably. "Light" wizards simply couldn't manage it, and the few who could chose not to. Doing so would have immediately revealed that their reputations were less spotless than advertised, and few were willing to pay that price. So they relied on conventional spells, though a smaller group turned to Bombarda to start weakening and eventually destroying the barrier in preparation for storming the building.
Albus and Voldemort had not yet entered the fight. They stood apart, watching in silence, waiting for the moment the defenses would fall.
Barely two minutes had passed since the start of the battle, yet roughly twenty wizards on the enemy side had already fallen to the Killing Curse. The allied side was faring considerably better. They were using a rhythm of casting and shielding, constantly varying the timing so that their opponents couldn't predict when the barriers would drop, and they never stopped casting curses.
The dome surrounding the building still looked intact to the naked eye, but its color had noticeably dimmed, signaling to anyone watching that it was weakening.
Watching from his screens, Severus acknowledged the wisdom of this "tortoise" approach, even if it was rather dull to watch. He had expected a far more dramatic battle. Still, he was at least mildly relieved it hadn't collapsed into a full-scale slaughter. A mass brawl would have made it far harder to keep track of his four specific wizards.
Eileen, by contrast, was visibly tense as she watched the clash. She had never seen so many wizards fighting at once in her life, especially given how few lived in Britain.
Seeing how effective the current tactics were, particularly thanks to the Killing Curse, the Minister made a small gesture to the Dark Lord and the acting leader of the gang coalition. He wanted them to keep it going, to thin out the Black Star's numbers as aggressively as possible before moving to direct confrontation.
Tom responded with a dismissive snort and turned his gaze back to the building. The other leader gave a silent nod. Under normal circumstances, Riddle would have ignored the gesture entirely and simply killed anyone who presumed to command him. But this wasn't the moment for arrogance and contempt. The enemy in the building came first, and everything else could wait. Besides, why object when the losses were falling almost entirely on the "light" side? He was quite content to prolong this exchange of pleasantries for another hour.
In barely four minutes, the Minister's side had lost seven people. He'd lost one. That ratio suited him perfectly, since the moment the battle ended, they'd inevitably face each other again. The fewer enemies left standing, the better.
Harold understood this just as clearly, but he had no real choice. The Black Star's remaining strength was unknown, and trading twenty of theirs for every ten of his was entirely rational under the circumstances.
Albus himself couldn't suppress a sigh at the sight of wizards crumpling to the ground, many of them not yet twenty-five. He wasn't, all things considered, the kindest man, but he had always tried to avoid casualties, or at least minimize them. Watching young people who had barely begun to live lose their lives left him bitter, even after the war his closest friend Grindelwald had started, a war that had claimed a far higher death toll. He wanted to help them, but he couldn't. He was the only thing keeping Tom in check. Above all, he had to watch him, and if Riddle made any move to harm the others, it was Albus who had to stop it.
After his encounter with ihiros, the Headmaster understood better than anyone that he wasn't invincible. Physically keeping watch over every wizard on the field was simply beyond him. Of two evils, he chose the lesser, sacrificing the greater. If Riddle were left unwatched, the casualties could be far worse.
Another ten minutes passed before the first crack appeared in the barrier, and it sparked something close to hope in the eyes of everyone watching.
During that brief period, the Steel Division had suffered over forty casualties, and the alliance had lost twenty-seven, forcing a change of strategy in the eleventh minute: more pressure, concentrated directly on the barrier.
Even so, everyone on the alliance side couldn't quite hide their surprise. The building's defenses had proved far tougher than anyone anticipated. From the outset, the Minister and his advisors had assumed ten minutes at most. Limited space, overwhelming numbers, a simple crush. Not this: fourteen minutes of sustained assault just to produce a single crack.
And at last, the two Masters entered the fight. Albus and Tom brought their most powerful spells to bear. From the first wizard's wand came a red beam blazing with terrible heat; from the second, a gray beam, cold and saturated with darkness.
The moment both struck the barrier, it shuddered so visibly that no one on either side missed it. The enemy immediately targeted both wizards, since they couldn't allow the dome to be brought down before reinforcements arrived.
But the Death Eaters and the Aurors alike were not about to let anyone interfere, and they threw themselves in front of their respective leaders, absorbing an overwhelming torrent of elemental curses. Even Protego wasn't always enough, and within a single minute the alliance's casualty count jumped from twenty-seven to thirty-nine.
Yet even in that short time, the original crack rapidly spread, inspiring awe among the watching wizards. These two had accomplished in minutes what had taken everyone else fourteen minutes, and many present were beginning to understand why they were called the two most powerful wizards in Britain.
By the second minute, ten more had fallen, but the Black Star also lost five: men who had thrown themselves recklessly at Dumbledore and Voldemort and were struck down by five Killing Curses in return.
From that point on, the cracks spread faster with every passing second, growing wider and branching further, until finally a section of the barrier simply gave way under the barrage. The faces of the Black Star's remaining members drained of color. The alliance's morale surged back instantly, and they immediately concentrated all their fire on the breach, firing combined Bombardas of enormous power.
The two Masters ceased their assault and watched in silence. The rest was merely a formality now: a handful of solid hits and it would be over. Their actions had already cost far too many lives, nearly twice as many as they had lost.
Tom had no desire to lose more servants than he already had. Albus had no desire to watch more wizards die defending him.
And finally, thirty seconds later, five Ministry wizards leveled their wands at the breach and shouted in unison:
"Bombarda Maxima!" A shockwave of enormous force erupted from their wands, throwing the casters backward as it slammed into the barrier. In the same instant, a transparent wall rose before every wizard in sight.
"Bombarda Maxima" was several times more powerful than an ordinary Bombarda, and with five casters behind it, not just the casters themselves but everyone else was in danger. There were barely fifteen meters between them and the barrier, but they had discussed this exact plan with Harold, and he had given his approval for the risk.
A moment later, the spell met the dome:
BOOM!!!
The explosion was enormous, and the shockwave that followed was powerful enough to engulf nearly the entire barrier from within, hurling every wizard nearby off their feet. But they had accomplished what they set out to do.
When the dust settled a few seconds later, an astonishing sight emerged. The dome that had withstood a staggering volume of spells had simply been blown apart on the alliance's side. It wasn't just the barrier. The windows were completely gone, and the left-hand corner nearest the entrance had collapsed, burying an unknown number of Steel Division members beneath it.
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