The morning was wonderful. Sunny, bright, moderately cool. I spent the morning jog outside again, and not on the stairs of the Main Tower, because it seems that the weather has finally begun to move towards summer, slowly, little by little, but bright green grass will no longer surprise anyone. Whereas the only greenery half a month ago was moss and pine needles. And now look, beauty, only flowers are missing.
After breakfast, I immediately changed clothes and went to the courtyard—to wait for the students to gather and further departure to Hogsmeade, under the strict guidance and control of McGonagall. Didn't have to wait very long, and soon the crowd of students moved towards Hogsmeade, where it quickly dissipated who knows where.
Looking around the visible streets of the village, I came to the conclusion that during the Easter holidays there are not so many adult wizards here. Just residents, and that's it.
Running into groups of familiar guys several times, asked, like: "What are the plans?". The answers were surprisingly similar—wander around, buy little things, talk and drop by the Three Broomsticks. The order could be different, but the essence is the same. Considering that I myself can't come up with a better activity than, for example, as teenagers are supposed to, go to explore the Shrieking Shack, I went shopping.
I also met a group of Slytherin girls from different years, among whom were Daphne and Pansy—here is their "female company". In general, there was nothing special to do, and I don't like to wander completely aimlessly. Can, by the way, drop by the Hog's Head—all sorts of "shady types" like to gather there. Listen, look—I can do this even through protection. Throw spiders...
While I was thinking about this, my legs themselves led me to the outskirts of the village, just to the doors of the Hog's Head. I didn't go inside, just "dropped" a couple of spiders and mentally forced them to look for shelter in the hall of the establishment. What now? And yet I know how to Apparate!
Imagining and clearly visualizing a dark nook behind a minimarket a couple of blocks from home, spun magic around myself properly. The sensations were exactly the same as during training, but as soon as I found myself in this dark nook behind the store, between the closely standing walls of houses, among a small mess in the form of garbage and generally, not the best environment, I felt very nauseous due to Apparition. Or maybe also because the smells of the city hit the nose too hard.
Getting out of this inconspicuous alley, I stumbled upon a group of teenagers looking decent, but behaving like a bunch of bandits. They crowded at the corner of the minimarket, its back part, from where I was getting out, drank something and, it seems to me, "played" tough guys. Naturally, they noticed me, because I forgot to use stealth methods.
"Oh, who's this stray?" one of the guys smirked, and the whole company moved to intercept me.
Cleaning a couple of faces is a sacred thing. Only I am not a saint.
Taking a couple of steps back, into the alley, I immediately wrapped myself in magic, wishing to become invisible, inaudible, and all that.
"Faster," one of the guys egged on.
"Don't pee yourself, it's a dead end there."
Now I came out of the alley and stepped aside—the guys walked past me and looked inside.
"And where did he go?"
Smirking, I walked briskly away from here. Familiar streets, cars, houses—I didn't miss, and really ended up in my area, near my parents' house. Looking around, could not help but be surprised that some particularly desperate housewives already have all sorts of bushes and flowers blooming in the gardens near the houses. No, still I decidedly do not understand the local climate—it is terribly... Non-existent.
Reaching the house, saw a parked car. Do they really have a day off and I'm lucky? Coming closer realized that the Range Rover died, and no one is home. How did I understand that the Range Rover died? Well, otherwise father would not have disassembled the entire front panel, clearly concocting something with the wiring there. Here, seems to be a dentist, but if necessary can do everything. But wasn't it easier to drive to the service? Or does he already know what the problem is and how to fix it, and just didn't have enough time? In that case I wouldn't pay either. Or maybe they bought a new one, finally, and now father is finishing breaking what is not broken in the old one?
Sighing, decided to wait—what if parents return early? I don't even know where they went, and it's not a fact that to work. So simply leaned back against the wall next to the door to the house and began to wait, remaining invisible.
Thirty minutes passed before I noticed a suspicious type among rare passers-by. He didn't look particularly neat, in worn dark clothes, but moved along the road confidently, and looked with disapproval at a couple of cars passing by. At the same time, those same rare passers-by paid absolutely no attention to the type.
Here this suspicious person reached our house. The man, and otherwise this type with untidy stubble and no less untidy hair cannot be called, nodded to himself, took out a wand and moved straight to the door. I watched him incessantly, was on alert, held the wand in my hands just in case and listened to magic. The man approached the door, without even looking back pointed the wand at it, moved slightly.
"Alohomora."
The locks clicked, and the man entered inside without problems, and I followed him. Here he is, looking around, walked through the hallway and entered the living room. Without thinking long, took out of the pocket of a battered black coat some clearly magical trinket in the form of a ball on a stand, and put it on the table, and himself impudently sprawled on the sofa, taking a mirror out of another pocket. Tapping the mirror with his wand, the man brought it to his face.
"I'm in place. Activated the artifact, so everything will be transmitted to your copy, and can brag."
"I'm not interested in bragging," an unfamiliar voice was heard from the other side. "Your task is only to deliver maximum harm, but then fix everything and erase memory..."
"Yeah-yeah, teach Mudbloods a lesson, their parents, everyone in general," the man waved it off. "Fresh tradition. The main thing—Galleons."
"Upon completion. Try to do more colorful, so that Mudbloods are impressed seeing. Real harm is not needed."
"Why so?" the man smirked. "Where does such leniency come from."
"A scared rat is a pliable rat. A rat cornered is a dangerous beast."
The man put the mirror back into his pocket and threw his arms on the back of the sofa, examining everything around with a keen look not matching the image.
"But Muggles live well," he chuckled.
Suppressing unnecessary emotions, began to think logically.
The man's goal is to inflict reparable harm on parents and make a recording. What is the probability that the targets were chosen randomly? Extremely low. But it doesn't matter—need to act, but act so that no one thinks of me.
Concentrating, bringing magic control to the maximum so that not a single drop leaked out, became a "background" and so that it could not be felt, created on myself a black deaf coat, gloves, a plague doctor mask—the first thing that came to mind—and a corresponding wide-brimmed hat.
Going behind the back of the sitting man, performed several actions simultaneously at once: put the wand to his neck; poured a powerful controlled dose of life energy with the message "Paralysis"; removed all invisibility from myself.
The man froze, unable to do anything. Even if he could cast spells perfectly without any movements and words, then coping with unfamiliar energy piercing your body is not an easy task. As I understood, coping with sorcery based on neutral energy familiar to all local wizards is by no means simple, so there is nothing to say about life energy.
"Torture is a wonderful invention," my voice sounded changed, and considering that I controlled my movements, changing their manner, it will definitely be impossible to recognize me. "How about a small portion of pain?"
So that there was at least some sign of sorcery, slightly turned the wand around the axis. The wand, by the way, I also have an inconspicuous, quite ordinary one, of which there are many. Think it will also be problematic to recognize.
Forcing the life energy under my control in the man's body to cause him extremely acute pain along all nerves, I put a lot of effort to keep him conscious. Even standing behind this man's back, I saw his face filling with blood. Leaning over him, I saw capillaries appearing on the whites of frantically twitching eyes, vessels bursting.
The man's magic rebelled, trying to "explode" in waves—a clear outburst due to consciousness rushing in agony. It was not easy for me to suppress these flashes of magic, but I simply crushed them with my energy.
Objects around trembled, and some even rose into the air. Is this because of magic tension? Because of its active and rapid circulation in powerful streams? What a delusional analogue of magical induction.
With my free hand, not without difficulty, I pulled the wand out of the man's motionless hand. Let's wait another minute.
The man began to wheeze quietly. The veins on his face turned blue from the rush of blood, and the whites of his eyes were finally flooded with blood—red-red. I stopped the victim's pain sensations, but did not release paralysis—waited a couple of seconds until his magic calmed down. Only after that removed paralysis too.
The man immediately curled up and fell off the sofa, trembling finely, lying in a fetal position. Trembling and howling. Suddenly he disappeared into an Apparition funnel, or similar technique. Don't think he did it himself—not that state. But some artifact—quite. Pulling the ball from the table into my hand, touched with my magic that background cloud that remained after the man's Apparition. Still, local wizards treat their limitless energy reserves too wastefully, not striving to optimize its spending at all. I understand that there is simply absolutely no need for this, but it still evokes in me a picture of someone hammering nails with a microscope.
Entering into contact with residual magic, if one can express it so at all, I wrapped myself in neutral, ordinary energy and forced it to Apparate me to the exit point of that man's movement. A moment, and I, with the ball in my hands, found myself in the middle of a small hall. Well, it was supposed to be a hall ideally, but now it is some shabby and worn in all places room with dirty frosted windows, dim lamps, clearly not "according to Feng Shui" of the room, some furniture dragged into one corner of the hall. In general, the association is such: homeless people built a headquarters, like in childhood, using someone's abandoned house—the concept is the same, as is the quality, only the scale is different.
Under my feet lay that very man, and two more ragamuffins with wands were rushing to his rescue. Without unnecessary fuss, I cast a banal Locomotor on the ball in my hands, and it hung over me. The men stopped abruptly and snatched out wands, pointing at me and shouting spells. Dark clots rushed in my direction. Thanks to the speed of thinking and self-control, I had enough time to, following the "instructions for use of the Dark Arts", decently wind up hatred in myself, directing it at the men and at their both accomplished sorcery and committed.
A wave of the wand, and I am enveloped in such a powerful dark shield from curses that it seemed as if the space buzzed, and I felt that my neutral magic almost changed to something close to the energy of death—that's how, it seems, this crap works. Amusing. Slightly lowering the degree of hatred so as not to suddenly cross this line, because I do not want to fight with my own demons, so to speak, I reflected the curses.
The men, it seems, were slightly shocked by the power of the shield, thereby losing a precious second.
"Sectum," I issued the studied dark curse, and an absurdly wide dark sickle broke from my wand, lightning-fast crashing into both men. Well yes, even without pumping emotions I am capable of giving out huge power, but these emotions are needed for the correct operation of dark spells. The main thing for me personally—not to overwork the brain.
I didn't see what exact wounds the men received under their clothes due to the specifics of the curse, like sacks they collapsed on the floor, and pools of blood spread under them so quickly, as if all the blood simultaneously left the bodies. Overdid it. Who knew that all this could be so powerful?
The problem is that I do not plan to kill—there are more effective methods.
Luring the bodies with magic, made sure that life still glimmers in them. Waving the wand, directed life energy.
"Vulnera Sanentur."
A moment, and pools of blood rushed to the bodies, instantly absorbing into them, and a second later the men opened their eyes.
"Petrificus Totalus."
Simple, but effective immobilizing spell, well suited against disarmed opponents. Especially if you are not going to give them time for non-verbal wandless magic. The fact that men look unpresentable does not mean that they are completely incapable of anything—need to take into account any possibility.
Again winding up hatred for myself, but without excess, quickly "assembled" on the knee a simple curse from a couple of local formulas, flavored with a simple Elven contour for fixing in the body and soul, and directed the wand, the tip of which glowed purple, at these losers. Didn't pick a verbal key, but its absence should not be critical, because true magic is built not on crutches, but on will.
"Hmm..." but need to say something, and I was tempted to say Cruciatus, because the meaning of the word is torture. "Vasanistiri..."
Distorted the Greek word a little—playing to the audience after all.
The ray of the spell hit the man, and he arched. Conducted a similar event with the second one—he also arched. The one that was already lying in a fetal position, howling, and on whose trail I ended up here, was also subjected to this spell. Meaning? The message of the curse was simple—any thought of revenge, retribution, Mudbloods, purebloods, purity of blood, any attempt to conjure or use magic, any attempt to move faster than a disabled person, all this and some variations on similar themes, will cause unbearable pain, and own magic will seem to burn from the inside. Just came up with it, don't know what will happen. But judging by how they beat on the floor and wheeze, their thoughts are far from peacefulness.
Waving the wand in a wide arc, concentrated and released a powerful stream of magic, with the message "Burn everything to the ground".
Fire quickly engulfed everything around and it seemed as if it devoured even stone. Quickly, but not quickly enough. The men have a real opportunity to leave the scene of the tragedy before it becomes their mass grave.
Turning the head in the plague doctor mask to the sphere hovering in the air, could not resist a couple of phrases—they should not get lost in the crackle and hum of the flame flaring up everywhere.
"This country is rotten to the core, as if from a plague. I will cleanse it with fire."
Reaching out with magic to the sphere to try to find out where "that end of the wire" is located, felt how the connection abruptly broke off, but at the same time I managed to understand the direction. Only a vector, and even that expanding in a cone, but this is already very, very much.
The men who lay underfoot stopped howling and looked more meaningfully at the flaring fire, the flame of which miraculously did not touch the route to the exit from the room. Chuckling, concentrated and Apparated away, into the nook behind the supermarket in my area.
Sounds of the suburb, unpleasant smell, cramped alley—nothing unusual. Immediately hid myself with magic, dispelled the "doctor's" clothes, exhaled, and headed away from this place. A walk to Hogsmeade... Yeah. But there is still time, and a lot.
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