Scrimgeour was a very strong-willed person.
This could be seen from the fact that although he had a slight limp, he always refused to use a cane or gentleman's stick. Instead, he spent a lot of time and effort reshaping his walking posture into that strange yet stylish manner.
Right now, Scrimgeour was striding toward Link with that same gait.
"Link Flamel! I think your plan to force Voldemort to appear by killing prisoners has already failed!"
"That guy Voldemort is cruel and bloodthirsty, completely lacking humanity. He would never put himself in danger just because a few subordinates might die!"
Before he even arrived, Scrimgeour's voice had already carried over.
Link looked at Scrimgeour with a faint smile and shook his head.
"You're mistaken, Mr. Scrimgeour. Voldemort is indeed cruel and murderous, but he hasn't reached the point of completely ignoring his followers' lives."
"Whether from emotion or simple pros and cons, it's the same. After all, cultivating another batch of loyal and useful subordinates isn't a small task."
Link paused, then continued, "Besides, Voldemort is extremely arrogant. In your eyes, the Hall of Prophecy right now may be a dangerous place with no return."
"But in Voldemort's eyes, it might not be anything serious at all."
"And even if Voldemort truly doesn't care about his subordinates' lives, I believe he still cares about this."
As he spoke, Link took the prophecy orb out of his pocket.
Seeing this, Scrimgeour's eyes lit up.
He almost instantly understood Link's meaning.
Voldemort might treat life and death lightly, but that was toward others.
For himself, he cherished his life greatly.
To escape Death's pursuit, he had even set up Horcruxes and a resurrection ritual.
And now, the prophecy orb in Link's hand recorded an important prophecy that could determine Voldemort's life or death.
Faced with such an important item, Voldemort could not possibly ignore it.
Scrimgeour nodded, his expression becoming somewhat pleased.
Unfortunately, that pleasure did not stay on his face for long.
Because Scrimgeour suddenly noticed Sand standing behind Link.
Of course, as the head of the Auror Office, Scrimgeour couldn't possibly recognize a minor soldier like Sand.
So to be precise, he recognized the uniform Sand was wearing.
That neat and serious Auror uniform appearing behind Link felt extremely glaring to Scrimgeour.
Scrimgeour stared at Sand with a harsh, almost frightening gaze.
This was his usual trick. The authority built from years in a high position was almost all packed into that look. Ordinary people and even Aurors would go weak and panic just from being looked at like that.
But now, Sand seemed completely unconcerned.
He simply watched Neville not far away with bright eyes, occasionally casting an admiring look at Link, completely ignoring Scrimgeour, his nominal superior.
He had already learned about Neville's tragedy from the surrounding students.
So he strongly supported Neville carrying out this execution.
If possible, he even wanted to advise Neville not to finish the execution too quickly, to stretch out the process.
Only that way could those beasts fully taste the fear of approaching death.
His own earlier execution had been a bit too rushed.
Although he had felt a great sense of satisfaction during it, Sand still felt that simply granting death like that was too merciful for those animals.
While Sand was lost in random thoughts, planning how he would conduct the execution if it were him, Neville finally raised his wand.
The noisy crowd fell silent, holding their breath, eyes wide.
Under everyone's gaze, a red glow slowly gathered at Neville's wand tip.
"Reducto!"
BOOM!
The scarlet flash disappeared in an instant.
Its brightness left no doubt about the spell's destructive power.
After all, spells were somewhat like firearms.
Even a lower-year wizard student casting Reducto could kill someone.
But the key issue was accuracy.
It completely missed Bellatrix's main body, only exploding beside her, leaving several deep wounds on her left arm.
"Oh, Neville!"
Harry couldn't help shouting from the crowd.
The sound made Neville's face flush with heat.
Because it sounded just like the tone his grandmother used when he messed something up.
Even worse, this attack finally made the crazed Bellatrix notice Neville.
She stared at him with bloodshot red eyes and suddenly laughed.
"You look… familiar… ah, I remember, you're from the Longbottom family, right? People in your family all look basically the same, especially you and your father, like carved from the same mold!"
"That really brings back memories. I still remember how your father and mother clung to each other, struggling and screaming in pain. You can imagine that scene, right?"
"After all, I heard they didn't die, just went mad and were locked in St. Mungo's. In their ward they often do that too."
"If you haven't seen it, you really should. That's my greatest artwork, you definitely won't be disappointed…"
Listening to Bellatrix ramble, Neville's face quickly went from red to white, then from white to green, finally settling into a strange bluish black.
Neville had indeed seen the scene Bellatrix described.
In the ward at St. Mungo's, whenever his parents had an episode, they would collapse and cling tightly to each other.
It wasn't a normal lovers' embrace.
It was hysterical, twisted, as if they wanted to knead the other completely into their own body.
In that embrace, his father was always on top, back facing others.
When he was younger, Neville was always terrified by this scene.
Because sometimes his parents would pull him in too, trapping him tightly between them.
It made him feel suffocated.
But as he grew older, he understood.
That embrace was actually protection.
His father was protecting his mother, trying to spare her from a few more Cruciatus curses.
And both parents were protecting him, their son.
Keeping him between them meant any attack from either direction wouldn't hit him.
This was the core strength that allowed Neville to keep walking on the difficult road of life.
No matter what humiliation he faced, he could endure it, because he knew his parents loved him deeply.
But now Bellatrix, the person who caused his life's tragedy, was joking about this and even calling it… art?
Neville's body trembled. Veins bulged on his forehead. His eyes turned bloodshot from rapid congestion.
At that moment he instinctively thought of Professor Moody.
That former Auror hero had once given them a lesson about the three Unforgivable Curses.
During the class he briefly explained how to cast the Killing Curse.
Moody had said with contempt that even if they learned all the techniques, the Killing Curse they cast would probably only cause a nosebleed.
But right now Neville wanted to try.
To see whether the dark magic most used by Death Eaters could really kill the demon in front of him.
Neville raised his wand again.
Hatred wrapped around his magic, gathering at the wand tip, soon turning into an ominous green glow.
"My God… am I seeing wrong? Neville, is he… trying to…"
Harry muttered unconsciously, eyes wide.
That green light was far too familiar.
It was the Killing Curse.
"No! Neville! That's an Unforgivable Curse!"
Ron and the rest of the D.A. members shouted directly.
They supported Neville taking revenge personally, but definitely not by using the Killing Curse.
These shouts reached Neville's ears but didn't shake his resolve at all.
Of course he knew the consequences of using the Killing Curse.
It was an Unforgivable Curse. Using it meant Azkaban.
Especially in front of the head of Magical Law Enforcement.
But he didn't care.
Right now he only wanted to kill Bellatrix with the Killing Curse.
Driven by intense hatred, the usually sluggish and disobedient magic inside him began moving faster than ever before.
This was a feeling Neville had never experienced.
He could even sense a sense of exhilaration being conveyed through the wand.
The corner of Neville's mouth lifted slightly.
"Right? You think so too, don't you? Trash like this deserves to die this way!" Neville said excitedly.
The swelling green magic sphere at the wand tip stirred a strong wind, blowing his fringe, as if responding to his question.
Neville's arm finally stopped trembling. He aimed his wand at Bellatrix, still rambling, and slowly recited the spell.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Under Harry and the others' despairing gaze, the dazzling green light shot out.
Its brightness was even stronger than that cast by ordinary Death Eaters.
This was the power of hatred.
However, at that very moment, a streak of blood-red lightning fell from the sky, instantly dispersing the green light completely.
Only afterward did the deafening explosion reach everyone's ears.
Everyone was stunned.
The afterimage of that blood lightning still lingered in their vision.
Not far away, Link drew his wand and smiled.
"Wow! Looks like between the prophecy orb and his followers' lives, our Dark Lord finally chose his followers. That's rare."
"But why did he only appear when Bellatrix was about to die? Mr. Scrimgeour, do you think those rumors about Voldemort and Bellatrix might actually be true?"
Scrimgeour's face immediately darkened.
To him, Link asking such a question was outright humiliation.
Link clearly didn't expect a real answer.
As soon as he finished speaking, he had already turned into a blur, rushing toward Neville.
After fighting Voldemort so many times, Link understood his combat style too well.
Now that Voldemort had acted, he definitely wouldn't be satisfied with merely saving Bellatrix.
Sure enough, right after the first blood lightning, an even thicker bolt descended from the dark ceiling.
This time, its target was the entire D.A. formation.
"Don't panic! Defensive formation, combined Protego barrier!"
Cedric shouted orders from the crowd.
But fear of death shattered the results of the D.A.'s long training.
Only a few people responded hastily. Many others screamed and ran, or stood frozen.
Cedric was frantic.
The red lightning arrived in an instant. At the critical moment, Link finally appeared in front of Neville and the others.
Under everyone's shocked gaze, countless semi-transparent cursed flames shot into the sky.
BOOM!
Two forces of curse power, completely different in form, collided and created an astonishing magical storm.
Wild magic tore everything apart. Even space itself seemed ripped, forming a twisted vortex in midair.
The powerful shockwave, with thunderous noise and rolling dust, swept outward, knocking Aurors and D.A. members back.
When the dust cleared, people saw only Link standing alone with his wand before everyone.
In front of him was a huge crater.
The anti-magic alloy floor of the Hall of Prophecy, over two meters thick, had been blasted through by the earlier magical surge, leaving only glowing red magma and bright red crystals inside the pit.
"Ah!"
Another hysterical scream rang out.
Looking over, people realized Neville hadn't fled like the others when he was thrown back.
Instead, he held his wand high and charged toward the other side of the crater.
There, Bellatrix and Lucius were protected by a flickering gray barrier.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Neville roared like a madman. The ominous green light shot out again toward Bellatrix.
"Seeking death!"
A deep, chilling voice suddenly echoed from the darkness.
With that voice, another slender blood lightning bolt struck, far faster than the Killing Curse.
But Link was faster.
With a slight flick of his wand, a flame of cursed fire shaped like a bat seemed to come alive in midair, intercepting the blood lightning first and blasting another, smaller crater into the alloy floor.
Not only that...
At the same moment the Fiendfyre bat formed, a dark blue ice crystal arrow quietly took shape and struck the barrier protecting Bellatrix and Lucius first.
Crack!
With a crisp sound, the ice arrow shattered.
The "cold poison" hidden inside splashed onto the barrier, instantly corroding a large hole in it.
Then Neville's Killing Curse finally arrived.
It precisely passed through the corroded hole and poured straight into Bellatrix's brain.
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