"Hermione, watch out!"
George and Fred's sudden loud shout made Hermione freeze for a moment, and she instinctively looked toward where the voice came from.
Then she saw the Killing Curse shooting straight at her.
That deep green color was like a branding iron, leaving a deep mark on her retina.
The next moment, George and Fred almost at the same time stepped in front of her and raised their wands high.
"Expelliarmus!"
The two spoke the spell together without planning it.
Right after that, two crimson beams shot out almost at the same time and collided with the green light.
BOOM!
A heavy crashing sound exploded in the air. One red beam and one green beam froze in midair, and at the place where the lights connected, large amounts of magic "plasma" splashed everywhere.
Harry and the others who saw this all had their pupils shake violently.
Especially Hermione.
That strong feeling of death just now made it seem like her heartbeat skipped, as if a huge hammer had slammed hard into her chest.
"Why are you still standing there? Come help!"
George and Fred shouted angrily again.
That finally snapped Hermione and the others back to their senses.
The three of them copied George and Fred and raised their wands.
Then two more Disarming Spells appeared, pushing the green light back a little again.
Why two?
The reason was simple, Hermione's spell failed.
Her hands, trembling nonstop from fear, could no longer cast steadily.
Luckily, the attacker did not seem that terrifyingly strong either.
With the combined effort of Harry and the other three, that green light representing death kept retreating and was about to fade back into the darkness.
But the very next moment, along with a twist in the green light, the thick red beam connected to it was suddenly dragged sideways.
Right after that, the green light disappeared, and the red beam slammed straight into a nearby shelf, blowing the entire shelf into pieces.
And in that darkness, another spark of fire flashed again.
BOOM!
A thick fireball smashed hard into Harry and the others' group, then exploded.
Harry and the others were still maintaining the Disarming Spell and had no time to pull back their strength. They were directly thrown away by the burning shockwave from the explosion.
Hermione lay in the ruins, her whole body blackened, and her vision started to blur.
This time, it really felt like a "huge hammer" had hit her body.
And through the blur, she vaguely saw a pair of black leather boots walking toward her with cheerful steps.
A few seconds later, the owner of those boots grabbed her hair and lifted her up.
The sudden sharp pain made Hermione, whose ears had been ringing and mind in chaos, regain some clarity. She widened her eyes and finally saw the person's face clearly.
It was a pale, worn face.
He looked like he had not drunk water for a long time.
His lips were so dry they were cracked, with faint traces of blood inside.
But his eyes shone with excited red light.
Those eyes searched over Hermione's face like a hungry wolf. After a while he burst into laughter and said, "Ha! Great! Your eyes aren't hurt! Now I can finally give them to my wife intact!"
'Wife?'
That word made Hermione frown.
It also made the worn middle aged face in front of her finally match a photo from her memory.
Rodolphus Lestrange.
Bellatrix Lestrange's husband.
One of the Death Eaters who escaped from Azkaban that was once reported in the Daily Prophet.
At the same time, he was also the most famous cuckold in the British wizarding world.
Everyone knew about Bellatrix's feelings for Voldemort, and some people even made up countless romantic rumors.
Those stories should have slowly been forgotten along with them being locked in Azkaban.
But after their escape, the topic suddenly became popular again.
With promotion from many gossip tabloids, even Hogwarts had heated discussions about the relationship between that couple and Voldemort.
The more common opinion was that Mr. Lestrange must be a pitiful man.
His wife was devoted to the Dark Lord and even emptied the Lestrange family wealth to support the Dark Lord's cause.
And Mr. Lestrange did not dare show anger because of the Dark Lord's power.
Many people even thought he might be someone who could be persuaded over.
After all, such humiliation would be unbearable for any man.
So Mr. Lestrange must hold resentment toward Bellatrix and Voldemort.
However, what was happening now completely shattered that guess.
Rodolphus Lestrange's love for his wife was still just as deep.
So deep that just one casual mention from his wife made him give up the easy credit of capturing Harry Potter alive and instead help get the treasure his wife wanted.
If this happened normally, it would definitely cause cheers from many Hogwarts girls.
After all, their romantic thinking had no sense at all.
But for Hermione right now, it was like a bolt from the blue.
Because the treasure Mr. Lestrange wanted was her eyeballs.
"Let… let her go…"
In the ruins, Harry, pinned under a large piece of broken wooden shelf, shouted with all his strength.
He wanted to stop the man in front of him, but his wand had disappeared in the explosion just now.
He was extremely weak. Even using all his strength, he could only lift the wooden debris on him slightly.
But Rodolphus Lestrange did not even look at him. He simply sneered and reached three fingers toward Hermione's right eye.
Under great fear, Hermione struggled desperately.
But Rodolphus Lestrange's hand was like an iron clamp, firmly locking her head. The most she could do was shut her eyes.
However, that level of resistance clearly meant nothing to him.
He had done this kind of work many times.
"Do you know? My wife once had a special room just for collecting eyes. It was full of eyeballs from those who dared resist the Dark Lord. I removed all of them myself."
"It was both punishment for them and my wife's pursuit of art. She has always been passionate about those beautiful round things."
Rodolphus Lestrange spoke in a fanatical tone. "Sadly, that collection room was destroyed by the Ministry of Magic more than ten years ago."
"But it doesn't matter. Collections are dead, people are alive."
"As long as I'm alive, I can help her rebuild that collection room."
"And I swear, the one I build this time will be even more magnificent than before!"
"And you will be the first item in that collection room!"
"This is your honor. You should feel happy."
"Oh right! Want to hear how I remove eyes?"
Rodolphus Lestrange paused on purpose, as if waiting for Hermione's answer.
But seeing her shake her head wildly, he ignored it and continued, "Alright, I'll tell you anyway."
"First, closing your eyes is actually useless."
"After checking just now, I already confirmed where your eyeball is. Next I just slowly insert three fingers along the gap between the brow bone and nose bone into the eye socket, then pinch off that soft optic nerve."
"This process will be very long and very painful for you, but it lets me take out the most intact eyeball."
"So… for the sake of art, just bear with it."
As his voice fell, Rodolphus Lestrange's three fingers finally came down.
Everything went exactly as he said. Those three fingers pressed Hermione's eyeball at an extremely slow speed.
Hermione screamed desperately, tears constantly spilling from her eyes.
But Rodolphus Lestrange did not waver at all.
Instead, he seemed even more excited.
Because tears acted as lubrication and made the whole process easier.
Gradually, Hermione could clearly feel pain coming from her eyeball.
Or rather, it was not exactly pain, but a strong feeling of something foreign.
It nearly broke her mentally.
But right at that moment, she suddenly felt the pressure on her eye lighten.
Then a splash of burning hot liquid suddenly poured down.
"Huh?"
Rodolphus Lestrange let out a shocked cry.
Drawn by that cry, Hermione nervously opened her eyes.
What she saw was Rodolphus Lestrange's stunned face and his arm completely severed from the elbow.
Blood kept spraying from the wound, putting a crimson filter over everything in front of her.
Hermione's mouth opened slightly in shock, but the next moment she reacted and quickly closed it.
At that moment, she clearly saw an invisible blade cutting a twisted line through the air, precisely slicing across Rodolphus Lestrange's neck.
"Puff!"
Like a fountain blocked for hundreds of years suddenly cleared.
Strong blood pressure carried the crimson blood, shooting Rodolphus Lestrange's slightly dull head high into the air before it finally landed on a wooden shelf not far away.
The rest of Rodolphus Lestrange's body collapsed.
Hermione and the others all looked together toward the direction the familiar invisible blade had come from.
That was exactly the direction of the narrow door.
And at this moment, the narrow door Harry and the others had been desperately trying to reach was already open.
Led by Link, the members of D.A. were walking aggressively into the Hall of Prophecy.
"Link!"
Hermione did not know where the strength came from.
She cried out, got up, ran toward Link, and threw herself straight into his arms, bursting into loud sobbing.
This scene made Emily's eyes sharpen slightly.
But in the end she said nothing.
Because she could clearly see Hermione trembling badly. She really was close to collapse.
Link said nothing either. He just gently patted Hermione's back to comfort her, then lightly tapped her forehead with his wand, making her fall asleep.
"Take her down and check her properly. See if she's hurt."
Link handed Hermione to a girl following behind him and spoke slowly.
After that, he continued leading Cedric and the others forward toward Aberforth.
At the same time, Harry's classmates and friends had already reached Harry and Ron, moving the wooden debris off them and helping them up.
Seeing their nervous looks, Harry asked in confusion, "How did you end up here?"
"Of course to save you! You idiots!" Harry's roommate Seamus said harshly.
"Link already told us everything. If you wanted to save people you should first figure things out, not rush forward alone when you don't even know anything!"
Harry, Ron and the others were speechless, because they really had fallen into Voldemort's trap.
But Seamus still had not explained how they got here.
Luckily Luna beside them noticed Harry's confusion and explained with a smile, "Link brought us here."
"As soon as he found out you left Hogwarts, he gathered us and said you were in danger and that we needed people to rescue you. Then we came."
As soon as Luna finished, Seamus added, "You really should thank Link properly! Honestly, not everyone was willing to come save you like us."
"Actually, when Link first told us, fewer than ten people wanted to come!"
"Later he said saving you wasn't because you are Harry Potter, but because you are a Hogwarts student."
"If no one saves you today, then when others face danger later, no one will want to save them either. That's why so many people came."
Hearing this, Harry felt warmth fill his chest.
He truly had not expected Link to go this far for him.
And he himself had even misunderstood Link, thinking he had become a villain like Umbridge.
Thinking this, Harry instinctively searched for Link.
It was easy.
Link and the others were right at the very front of their group, resisting the attacks from the surrounding Death Eaters.
Of course, saying "resisting" was just Harry's viewpoint.
From the Death Eaters' perspective, what Link was doing looked more like a slaughter.
After the curse power was strengthened further, Link's Severing Charm had reached an extreme level.
Those unpredictable invisible blades were like the Grim Reaper's scythe. Each time Link waved his wand, terrifying cut marks appeared on the ground and walls made entirely of extraordinary alloy.
And the Death Eaters who dared stand in front of Link fell apart like straw as soon as the blade passed.
Under Link's lead, Cedric and the others slowly walked toward Aberforth in the center of the Hall of Prophecy as if on a casual outing.
Wherever they passed, there was flowing blood from Death Eaters and corpses scattered everywhere.
Under such brutal killing, the Death Eaters who had been chasing Harry finally became afraid.
They quickly retreated back to their main group, giving Link a straight path forward, and letting Aberforth, covered in blood and full of wounds, finally appear in Link's sight.