Yes...
Right now, what makes Scrimgeour most uneasy is the relationship between old Barty, Percy, and Link Flamel.
If they were originally on the same side, then with the Ministry of Magic's strong financial power and official legitimacy, plus the combat strength of the hunters from the Flamel family, replacing or even destroying the Auror force once again would be unbelievably easy.
Clenching his fists tightly, Scrimgeour frowned and made a final probing attempt toward old Barty and Percy, "So, the Flamel family is the family backing you from behind?"
Old Barty and Percy said nothing. They just smiled and stepped back to stand on both sides of Link, about two steps behind him, making everything clear through their actions.
This made the last bit of hope in Scrimgeour's eyes go out.
He suddenly burst into laughter, laughing so hard that tears even came out.
"Fudge, oh Fudge… hahaha! This is hilarious!" Scrimgeour said, half laughing and half crying.
"Never expected it! You fought us in every possible way for so long, and in the end you actually became someone else's puppet! Hahaha!"
Link frowned slightly and said coldly, "Stop the nonsense. Hand those prisoners over to me."
Scrimgeour's laughter stopped abruptly.
He was clearly an Occlumency user too. In an instant he adjusted his emotions and said expressionlessly to Link, "What do you want to do?"
"What else? Just force Voldemort to come out."
"You sure that will work?"
Link said nothing, only quietly looking at Scrimgeour.
The two stared at each other for a while. Finally Scrimgeour nodded, waved his hand to the side, and rows of completely restrained Death Eaters, looking dejected, were pushed out under Auror control with frightened expressions.
Many D.A. students were shocked to discover that Bellatrix and Lucius, who had caused them huge trouble earlier, were also among them.
With a casual hook of his hand, Link dragged a pockmarked Death Eater who fell with a thud in front of him.
"You, yes you." Link pointed at a young Auror whose hair was already partly white. "Stop looking around. I'm talking to you, the one with premature white hair!"
The named young Auror first glanced at Scrimgeour, then reluctantly stepped out of the formation and looked at Link with some hostility.
He did not like being called white-haired.
More precisely, that was his sore spot.
If the one joking about his hair today were not someone obviously important like Link, he would definitely have started a fight.
Link ignored his gaze and gestured toward the Death Eater on the ground with his chin, "Go. Kill him."
"Wha… what?" The young Auror looked disbelieving at first, then frowned. "Killing prisoners is against Auror discipline. And you have no authority to order me!"
"In fact, he does have that authority!" Old Barty and Percy said one after another. "That's right, young man, you'd better do as Lord Flamel says!"
The young Auror's face became extremely ugly, but in the end he still took out his wand.
At this moment, the D.A. members who heard the commotion here also quieted down.
They actually could not understand Link's execution of prisoners. Such behavior has always been despised throughout human history.
Especially since knightly etiquette once flourished across Europe.
Although that etiquette mainly concerned nobles and had little to do with ordinary people, it did not stop ordinary people who were influenced by it from admiring it.
"Link, maybe just forget it?"
Harry suddenly stepped out from the crowd and said in a low voice to Link, "Let the Ministry handle them. That's the punishment they deserve."
George and Fred nodded too, "Yeah, Link. Executing them privately really isn't very good."
With Harry and the Weasley brothers taking the lead, more and more voices in the D.A. began calling for an end to killing prisoners.
More and more people stepped forward, persuading Link to give up this behavior.
Seeing this, a slight smile appeared at the corner of Scrimgeour's mouth.
He loved watching this kind of commotion.
He really wanted to see how Link would resolve the current situation.
As if noticing Scrimgeour's ill intent gaze, Link glanced briefly in his direction before slowly saying, "I understand you. Most of you have never really suffered. The biggest grievance you've had might just be getting scolded by a professor for not handing in homework."
"You have warm beds, delicious meals that always arrive on time, loving parents, knowledgeable professors, even beautiful love."
"These good experiences made you kind and compassionate."
"Yes, those are all good qualities, and having them does not make you bad people."
"But what you don't know is that the life you consider ordinary right now is almost heaven for some people!"
"The reason you can live like this comes from the protection of the rules made by Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic!"
"Outside those rules is chaos and pain!"
"Human evil is far beyond your imagination!"
Link paused, took a deep breath, then pointed at the trembling, pitiful-looking Death Eater on the ground.
"He may look harmless now. You might even think he deserves sympathy. But do you know what he did?"
Percy handed over a thick brown file folder at the right time. Link opened it and read, "Tobias Stamford, half-blood. After graduating from Hogwarts he remained unemployed."
"He repeatedly violated the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, using spells to steal from Muggle shops!"
"After news of Voldemort's resurrection spread, he began calling himself a Death Eater."
"Four months ago, under the excuse of punishing 'filthy wizard bloodlines,' he broke into No.18 Wildeley Road in London and brutally tortured, killed, and dismembered Miss Wilson and her entire family living there."
"Finally, relying on this deed, he successfully joined the Death Eaters and escaped the Ministry's pursuit under their cover!"
"Now, do you still think he shouldn't die?"
When Link finished speaking, the whole place fell silent.
Not only the D.A. students, even many Aurors looked at the Death Eater on the ground with astonishment.
They could not imagine how this thin, haggard man, looking like a terminal patient, could commit such brutality.
Soon, the astonishment in their eyes turned into disgust.
"Ah!"
The young white-haired Auror suddenly screamed.
Right before everyone's eyes, he threw away his wand and pounced on the Death Eater on the ground.
He bit fiercely into the Death Eater's throat, ignoring the screams and cries, tearing with all his strength.
Hot blood kept spurting out, quickly staining a large area of the floor red, and also dyeing the young Auror's trembling eyes and savage face red.
Shrill screams soon erupted from the crowd.
What they were seeing was a huge shock to the nerves of the D.A. members.
Some Aurors could not stand it either.
Doing such a thing in front of Hogwarts juniors was simply too disgraceful.
They frowned and were about to step forward to stop him, but several advisers beside Scrimgeour blocked them.
Facing the puzzled looks of those Aurors, the adviser sighed and said, "No.18 Wildeley Road is the home of Sand's fiancee."
"He and the Wilson family's daughter were already engaged, but just one week before the wedding… sigh! His hair turned white around that time, so he especially hates people joking about it."
"We handled that case. At the time we were short of manpower, and that murderer escaped."
"Never thought we would see him here."
The Aurors froze.
They stared blankly at Sand, who was crazily tearing the Death Eater's throat, not knowing what to do.
Sand joined the Auror force through public recruitment just like them.
They ate and slept together, went through long and tough training together, and formed deep bonds.
Yet from beginning to end, Sand never mentioned anything about his fiancee.
Why did Sand join the Aurors?
Was it to rely on his own strength to track down the murderer who destroyed his love?
Or simply to use the strict, exhausting military life to help himself walk out of grief?
No one knew.
But that was no longer important.
Because at this moment, Sand had fulfilled his wish.
In an extremely brutal way.
Gradually, the Death Eater who had been screaming on the ground stopped moving.
And blood-covered Sand knelt beside the corpse, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Everyone around, both Aurors and D.A. students, looked at him with sympathy.
Just like how they had looked at that Death Eater earlier.
Sand probably did not care about that sympathy.
Likewise, Link did not care.
Link only looked slightly disgusted as he kicked Sand lightly, ordered him to clean himself up, then continued having Death Eaters pulled out one by one from the line and executed.
Just like the first Death Eater, every time one was dragged out, Link flipped through the thick stack of files in his hand and read out the crimes each person had committed.
This level of information gathering was extremely easy for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Anyone joining Voldemort at this stage was a dark wizard among dark wizards.
They might not be very strong, but they were absolutely the cruelest.
Finding their criminal records was very easy.
As one extremely brutal crime after another was exposed, and one murderer after another was executed, the atmosphere in the Hall of Prophecy changed again.
Those who had earlier sympathized with the Death Eaters and thought prisoners should not be executed privately, those who had shown sorrow after witnessing Sand's tragedy, now all fiercely cursed and damned those hateful Death Eaters.
Every time a Death Eater cried out while being executed, a wave of thunderous cheers erupted from the crowd.
Looking at those angry yet excited faces, Link felt they were probably happy at this moment.
After all, punishing guilty people from a moral high ground naturally brings psychological satisfaction.
In fact, many of the Death Eaters here did not commit crimes deserving death.
But that no longer mattered.
With emotions built up to this point, even if Link made up a random excuse to execute them, no one would object.
Because the earlier extremely vicious examples had already formed a clear idea in everyone's mind, Death Eaters are all criminals who deserve death.
Link suddenly felt a bit bored.
So, holding to the idea that professional matters should be handled by professionals, he handed the files to old Barty.
Letting the current head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement continue the work.
Facts proved this decision was correct.
Old Barty showed Link his extraordinary professional ability.
He could smoothly declare the crimes of those Death Eaters without even looking down at the files.
And every charge was well supported, making people instinctively think, "This person deserves to die."
Under his efforts, the execution speed increased several times.
In just over ten minutes, most of the dozen captured Death Eaters were executed, leaving only Bellatrix and Lucius.
Lucius was already on the verge of collapse.
He knelt on the ground crying, begging old Barty to spare him.
He claimed that his appearance here was entirely because he had been controlled by the Imperius Curse by the Death Eaters.
This triggered another burst of laughter from the watching crowd.
Because more than ten years ago, Lucius escaped punishment using exactly this excuse.
Bellatrix, in contrast, was much tougher.
As one of the most loyal Death Eaters, she not only refused to bow, but after hearing Lucius beg for mercy, she even struggled madly against the magical ropes binding her, trying to bite him.
The two of them were like circus monkeys, putting on an extremely ridiculous performance for everyone.
"Lord Flamel, thank you for giving me this opportunity!"
A somewhat familiar voice suddenly sounded not far from Link.
Link and the others turned and saw Sand bending over deeply, respectfully bowing to Link.
Unlike his earlier blood-covered miserable state, Sand was now clean and neat again.
Wearing an Auror uniform, he gave off a capable and disciplined aura.
Seeing Link not responding for a long time, Sand bent even lower and said, "My lord, I can never repay your kindness in this lifetime."
"I am willing to follow you until death and do anything for you! So… can you let me execute these last two criminals? I guarantee they will die in the most miserable way!"
As he spoke, Sand even licked his lips with a longing expression.
As if he was still remembering the taste of blood.
Cedric, Emily, and the others looked pale.
The aura Sand was showing now was simply too crazy.
But Link smiled when he heard this.
He stepped forward a few paces, looked down at Sand, and said, "You're a pretty good guy. But unfortunately, I can't hand these two over to you."
Sand was stunned.
Meanwhile, Link had already walked into the D.A. crowd, stretched out his hand, and gently patted Neville's shoulder.