The wrought-iron gates of Malfoy Manor swung open at precisely six o'clock in the evening. The streetlamps on either side lit up one after another, the light paving the gravel driveway all the way to the front porch of the main house.
The white peacocks in the back garden had all been locked inside temporarily erected carved iron cages placed at the edge of the lawn; a few peacocks were currently screaming and pecking at the bars.
Draco stood on the top step, holding an untouched glass of champagne. Seeing Jerry walk out from the reception hall near the Floo fireplaces, he immediately raised his hand and waved twice.
"See the cages? All locked up."
Draco set his champagne down on a passing waiter's tray, casually straightening Jerry's bowtie and pressing down his collar. "There's a big crowd tonight; I'll tell you straight right now, when those old fossils in the entrance hall swarm you later, you must absolutely not show any annoyance."
"A big crowd?"
"Listen for yourself."
The registration waiter in the front hall had just finished announcing an old lady's title, his voice echoing under the vaulted ceiling.
The chatter of the guests dropped half a beat, then swelled up again.
The waiter announced, "The Rosier Family, Mr. Jerry Rosier."
The chatter in the hall didn't drop; instead, the entire room's volume jumped a notch higher.
The three old patriarchs originally sitting near the fireplace simultaneously gripped their armrests and stood up; the one furthest in even tapped his cane twice against the floor tiles.
Draco let out a low chuckle beside him.
"Hear that? Last time you came, that old man Greengrass didn't even lift his ass off his seat."
"He lifted it pretty fast today."
"Today he wishes he could crawl over here."
The first to intercept Jerry was the old patriarch of the Nott family. The man was as thin as a stick hung with clothes, yet the strength of his handshake was absurdly strong; he grabbed Jerry's hand and didn't let go for quite a while.
"I listened to what you did in the Great Hall three times. Three times! The first time I didn't believe it; the second time I had my grandson read Rita's special edition to me word for word; the third time I went and found a little Hufflepuff girl who was there that day myself."
"You were quite thorough."
"Thorough?" The old man gripped Jerry's hand even tighter. "Mr. Rosier, you skinned that woman from the Department of War Mobilization alive in front of seven hundred children. Fifty thousand Galleons, an orphans fund, and publicly distributing the potions stolen from St. Mungo's. In all my life in the Wizengamot, I've never seen anyone force the Ministry of Magic to cough up fifty grand to slap their own face within two minutes."
"The money wasn't mine."
"It doesn't matter whose money it was; what matters is she coughed it up."
Old man Greengrass finally squeezed to the front, leaning on his cane, and directly used the head of his cane to swat Nott's hand away.
"Old Nott, what kind of manners is it to grab onto someone and not let go. Jerry, come sit over here, sit over here and let's talk; my legs are no good."
The three of them were half-pushed, half-dragged into the circle of low sofas by the fireplace. A waiter immediately brought over a full set of drinking glasses and a special small plate arranged with sliced ham.
Greengrass didn't drink, first laying his cane across his knees.
"I'll ask you straight: that Commander-in-Chief title, how do you plan to use it?"
"Depends on who comes begging me first."
"Then listen to me right now: I'm the first to come begging." The old man tapped his knuckles against his cane. "I have six levels of storehouses beneath my house. Six levels. From the end of the Battle of Olympus until now, I still haven't even finished cataloging the inventory of the fourth level today. Do you know what all that is?"
"I've heard some things."
"The gold hauled out of the temples alone—I don't dare release it onto the market; the moment I do, the value of the Galleon will collapse." Greengrass's tone began to grow urgent. "And the deeds to those olive groves that haven't expired; the soil over there still recognizes its old masters. I sent eleven potion masters over, and lose two to it every year. I've sealed the pantheon's wine cellar; whoever opens it goes mad. That amber-colored stuff—an ordinary wizard takes one sip and laughs for three days and three nights, and after they finish laughing, they never speak again."
"So you are digesting it slowly."
"Digesting it slowly!" The old man chewed over these words, then nodded heavily. "Yes, digesting it slowly. We are all digesting it slowly. We've eaten up to our throats; right now we just want to lie down and slowly grind down the things in our stomachs bit by bit. And at this time, someone wants to pull us back up to go eat a second feast. I'm telling you, that's not appetite; that's a sickness."
Beside him, Nott slammed his wine glass onto the table.
"The Order of the Phoenix is a sickness. That Sebastian kid even sent someone to my door last month, saying he wanted to discuss 'wartime resource coordination' with me. Coordination! The things in my family's storehouse were bought with my son's life. Where is his son? His son is writing articles in the newspaper."
"He doesn't have a son," Greengrass corrected.
"Then he deserves to die even more."
Someone nearby laughed. Jerry looked up to see a middle-aged woman wearing a deep purple evening gown standing diagonally behind him, holding a wine glass; she had listened until now before speaking.
"The two old masters speak too elegantly." she switched her wine glass to her left hand. "The Order of the Phoenix needs a war, because in peacetime they are nothing. For every day the front lines aren't fighting, the Wizengamot won't stamp the seal for the Wartime Special Appropriations Committee. They don't want to win against the East; they want seats on that committee."
"Mrs. Bulstrode is right." Greengrass pointed his cane at her. "Jerry, listen to her some more."
"I'm finished." The woman shrugged. "Our family has nothing to complain about; our allotted share was a mineral vein, and a mineral vein can wait. But my neighbor there—just the three thousand head of livestock taken over from the giants—to this day he still hasn't found a pasture that can keep them alive. Who has the free time to fight a second war!"
Draco squeezed in from outside the crowd, carrying two glasses of wine, and shoved one into Jerry's hand.
"Alright, alright, everyone, the man just walked through the door; let him take a sip first. My dad is waiting in the East Hall; he has official, formal things to say later. If you finish all the talking now, what's he supposed to say later?"
"We'll listen to whatever he says." Nott stood up and patted Jerry's shoulder. "Young man, remember my words. The total number of people in all of Britain who genuinely want to fight this war adds up to fewer than thirty. The rest are all waiting for someone who can stand up and stop it."
Jerry followed Draco toward the East Hall, passing through a corridor lined with old portraits.
The people in the portraits turned their heads one by one to look at him; an old lady wearing a wig even leaned half her body out of her picture frame.
"The Rosier child?"
"That's me."
"I was there the year your ancestors were kicked out." The old lady spoke quite cheerfully. "That day, your great-grandfather stood at the gates of this manor and cursed for a solid twenty minutes, cursed until he went hoarse. Cursed very well; quite flavorful."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me, I voted in favor at the time."
Draco grabbed him and quickened his pace for a few steps.
"Ignore her, she says that to everyone who walks through the door." Draco stopped at the end of the corridor, glanced back at the bustling entrance hall, and lowered his voice. "Honestly, if you want to get something tonight, now is the best time. These people have never been this soft."
"Does your dad think so too?"
"My dad said half a sentence to me in his study yesterday, and then told me to get out." Draco tugged at his collar. "He said the reason the Rosiers were kicked out back then has now become the only thing this family can still use. I didn't understand."
"He means my family owes no favors to the Wizengamot."
Draco paused for a moment.
"...Oh."
"How much does your family owe?"
"Don't ask."
The doors to the East Hall opened. Lucius stood with his back to the door at the end of a long table, his finger pressed upon an open registry. He didn't turn around, speaking first.
"Good evening, Mr. Rosier. You arrived twenty minutes earlier than I anticipated."
"Draco rushed me."
"He did the right thing." Lucius then turned around, pushing the registry forward half a foot. "On this are the names of twenty-three families. Tonight, nineteen patriarchs will speak with you personally. The remaining four won't come; they will send someone to deliver things to your door next week."
"Deliver what?"
"Deliver things they think you might be lacking." Lucius tapped the edge of the registry with his finger. "I don't plan to beat around the bush with you. The second reading of the Wartime Conscription Bill is set for the fourteenth of next month. The old faction wants to lower the age line to sixteen. The day that bill passes, the storehouses of our twenty-three families will be taken over by the Quartermaster Inventory Group. Nominally, it's called coordination; in reality, they walk through the door, and we step aside."
"You can't stop them?"
"We can stall. Stalling until next spring is no problem." Lucius lifted his finger from the registry. "But stalling cannot be built on the excuse of 'we don't want to.' The Wizengamot does not accept 'don't want to.' It needs a voice from the front lines to come out and say that expanding the military now will make the front lines worse."
"And I hold the title of Commander-in-Chief."
"You hold the title of Commander-in-Chief." Lucius repeated. "When the Ministry of Magic gave you this position, they didn't intend for you to speak; they only wanted you to sign your name at the top of the roster, and wait to flip the roster to the first page to show the public after the front lines collapsed. They forgot that the person who signs their name has the authority to request all frontline data."
"I'm already looking at the data."
"Then you should know that the three new recruit battalions deployed last winter were short seventy percent when they returned."
"Short seventy-one percent."
Lucius's hand stalled on the edge of the table.
"...Then your version is more updated than the one I saw."
The sound of high heels clicking on floor tiles came from the doorway. Narcissa walked into the East Hall holding a guest seating chart, walking to the other end of the long table to set it down, not an extra beat of hesitation in her movements.
"The main hall is already chaotic. Nott hid Greengrass's cane; the two of them are currently fighting over a sofa."
"Let them fight." Lucius said.
"I had someone bring in an extra one." Narcissa turned to Jerry, the angle of her nod identical to her greeting for any guest. "Jerry, I have altered your seating. You were originally arranged at table three; you are now moved to the second seat on the left of the head table."
"The second seat is reserved for foreign dignitaries."
"I know."
Narcissa rotated the seating chart toward Jerry so he could see it clearly. "The guest you brought tonight sits in the third seat. She needs an angle that can see all entrances and exits; that seat is the only one in this hall that fits."
Beside them, Draco stretched his neck to look over.
"Wait, Mom, you said he brought a guest? Who did he bring?"
"Elder Blood Butterfly of the Myriad Demons Palace."
The wine glass in Draco's hand tipped, champagne splashing onto his cuff.
"...He brought someone from the East into our family's banquet hall?"
"I invited her." Narcissa smoothed the corners of the seating chart. "The invitation read 'May bring one companion'."
"That's meant for a dance partner!"
"I did not stipulate that the companion must be able to dance."
Lucius said nothing, slowly closing the registry on the table. After closing it, he looked up at Narcissa, then at Jerry.
"Where is that Elder right now."
"Waiting in the South Reception Room; she said she isn't accustomed to places with many people."
"Did she say 'many people,' or 'the smell of many people'?" Jerry asked.
"She said the latter." Narcissa paused. "She also said the ley lines of this manor are pressed too shallow; walking two steps makes her want to sneeze. I had someone remove all the incense on the south side."
Draco wiped his cuff with a handkerchief; as he wiped, he watched his father's expression, growing increasingly nervous the more he looked, finally unable to help himself from speaking.
"Dad, if you plan to get angry, get angry now; don't wait until the banquet."
Lucius tucked the registry under his arm.
"Why would I get angry."
"Because that is a Nascent Soul cultivator of the enemy nation, sitting in the third seat of our head table."
"Nineteen patriarchs will speak with him personally tonight; every single one of them wants to know exactly how much foundation the East still has left, whether they are willing to negotiate, how to negotiate, and whether those indigestible things in our storehouses can be traded out after negotiations." Lucius pressed his hand against the doorframe. "Right now, there is a Nascent Soul Elder sitting at the head table eating our food. You tell me, should I get angry."
Draco opened his mouth.
"...Then I'll go to the south side and invite her over."
"You don't go." Lucius said. "Mr. Rosier goes himself. If he goes, that Elder is a guest. If you go, she is being escorted under guard."
Jerry set his wine glass on a passing waiter's tray, took two steps toward the door, and stopped.
"Mr. Lucius."
"Speak."
"On the fourteenth of next month, I will be at the Wizengamot. But I will not speak for your storehouses. But I will oppose the war."
When the banquet progressed to the second course, Narcissa stood up from the head table, exchanged two hushed sentences with Mrs. Bulstrode beside her, turned, and walked down the side corridor.
Jerry waited about a quarter of an hour before following her out.
Two steps up at the end of the side corridor was the private area of the main house's second floor.
Narcissa stood before the innermost door, pinching a small lock-picking charm ornament in her hand. Seeing him come up, she raised her hand and pushed the door open.
"Come in."
"Which room is this."
"Lucius's bedroom."
Jerry stopped at the doorway.
Narcissa didn't wait for him; she stepped in first, turned around to smooth her skirt, waved her hand, and the brightness of the chandelier in the room immediately dimmed by twenty percent.
She then cast three additional spells at the door. The first was a lockdown, the second was a Muffliato, and the third landed on the door gap, gluing the entire door and frame together.
"He has to sit with those nineteen patriarchs until the banquet ends tonight. After the banquet, there are private conversations, one by one." She tossed the lock-picking ornament onto a small table. "At least three hours."
"You calculate quite accurately."
"I arranged the order for him." Narcissa reached up and unfastened the necklace at the side of her neck, casually hanging it on the bedpost. "I put Nott and Greengrass as the last two. The two of them already argued once tonight over a sofa."
Jerry dragged out the chair behind the door, sat down diagonally, and stretched both legs forward.
"Why this room."
"Last time on the sink at the hospital, I pressed down the faucet the entire time." Narcissa's fingers started from the back of her neck, unfastening that row of tiny buttons one by one. "While I was turning on the water, I was thinking about one thing. I've lived in this house for twenty-two years, and there hasn't been a single night where I didn't have to suppress my voice."
"So you plan to try it today."
"I plan to try it."
The last button unfastened; the evening gown slipped down her arms to the crook of her elbows, and she flicked it, tossing it to the foot of the bed. She walked over, braced both hands on the armrests of the chair Jerry was sitting in, and leaned down.
That cool, elegant fragrance pressed down in a wave.
"The night I wrote the invitation for Draco, I drank half a bottle of red wine."
"He told me. He thought his mom went crazy."
"What else did he say."
"He said after you returned from St. Mungo's, you didn't even utter a single curse word; unprecedented."
Narcissa smiled, lifted a hand from the armrest, and cupped Jerry's jaw.
"I sat in the study downstairs that night, finished that half bottle of wine, and then wrote 'The pillar of Slytherin for the next half-century'." Her thumb pressed against Jerry's lips, pressing down somewhat forcefully. "I have never written a sentence like that for Lucius. In twenty-two years."
"Do you want to take it back now."
"I want to verify it."
Her hand slid downward, slipping inside his collar, her palm pressing against Jerry's chest all the way down to his waist and abdomen, stopping at his belt buckle. Her finger hooked the metal clasp and pushed it sideways with a click. As the zipper slid down, her breathing noticeably grew heavier.
That object sprang out, pressing directly against the inside of her forearm.
Narcissa's hand paused for two seconds.
"It's still astonishing every single time."
"You said the same thing in the hospital."
"What I said in the hospital was 'absurd'." She grasped it with both hands together, her palms enveloping it layer by layer; when she reached the end, a large section still remained exposed. "Today, I change my tune."
She knelt down.
Her knees landed on the floor without a sound. She lowered her head, first rubbing her lips against the tip, then opened her mouth and took it in.
Slurp.
A wet sound echoed in the quiet bedroom.
She couldn't take it in. The corners of her mouth were stretched to their limit, both sides taut, yet she only managed to swallow the better part of the swollen head. The tip of her tongue pressed and ground back and forth along the most sensitive crevice; her palms gripped and kneaded the two orbs below, her nails scraping past intentionally or otherwise.
Jerry reached down, his hands threading into her pale blonde hair.
"Slower."
"You didn't tell me to go slower in the hospital."
"There were eight Aurors outside the hospital."
"There are two hundred and thirty purebloods outside here."
Narcissa lowered her head, pushing her head forward. Her throat was forcibly pushed open a section; her entire body shuddered, the corners of her eyes turning red, yet she stubbornly refused to pull back. Saliva streamed endlessly from the corners of her mouth, sliding down her jaw to her neck, and further down into her cleavage.
Squish... squish...
The wet sounds grew louder.
She began to rise and fall; her lips tightly clamped around the shaft, sliding back and forth. Every withdrawal dragged out a large swath of stringy white foam, hanging wetly between them. Her other hand braced against Jerry's knee, the knuckles white from exertion.
Jerry pressed down on the back of her head, forcing it downward.
"Mmh..."
Narcissa let out a muffled whimper; her throat contracted violently, and she pitched forward from the impact. She forced down a few swallows, but finally couldn't bear it any longer, abruptly pulling her head out.
Pop!
An incredibly loud sound.
She held onto Jerry's knee, panting heavily, a trail of white foam hanging from the corner of her mouth; she raised her hand and wiped it away with the back of her hand.
"I can't anymore."
"Giving up?"
"Change position."
Narcissa stood up, grabbed Jerry's wrist, pulled him up from the chair, took two steps backward, braced both hands behind her, and sat on the edge of the large bed. She spread her legs, planting one foot on the edge of the bed and hooking the other around Jerry's lower back, pulling him toward her.
"Come in."
Jerry squeezed forward between her legs. He was slight of build; standing straight, he only reached her chest. In this posture, she actually had to look down to see his face clearly.
"Looking at you like this, you seem like a student coming to deliver medicine."
"I am indeed a student attending a banquet today."
"Then the dishes at this banquet you're attending are quite good, aren't they?"
Jerry didn't reply; holding himself, he thrust forward.
The tip pushed apart the soft flesh that was already soaked through, slowly pushing inside. She was incredibly tight inside; being forcefully stretched flat, she was forced to let out a cry with every inch he advanced.
"Ah..."
Narcissa's hands grasped backward, clutching the immaculately smoothed bedcover on the bed, her nails bunching it up into a massive wad of wrinkles.
"Too big... slower..."
"You just told me to be fast."
"Just now was my mouth."
Jerry gripped her waist and yanked her against himself, simultaneously thrusting his hips forward. The thick object sank completely inside, the tip smashing solidly against that opening in the absolute deepest part.
"Mmh-ah!"
Her entire back arched; her long legs instantly clamped tightly around Jerry's waist, her ankles locking at his lower back.
Smack.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
The sounds of impact began to grow dense. Jerry's hands gripped the sides of her waist, thrusting all the way to the bottom and then dragging it out; dragging it out every time until only a tiny bit remained inside, and then ruthlessly shoving the entire length back in.
The water accumulated inside her was churned repeatedly like this, squeezing out in spurts from where the two connected, churning up a layer of white foam at the edges, streaming down the roots of her thighs, wetting a large patch of the bed edge.
The squelching wet sounds mixed with the smacking sounds, filling the entire bedroom.
Narcissa let her voice loose.
"Ah... ah! There... yes, right there..."
Her voice was high and chaotic, completely unlike the person announcing the seating chart in the East Hall earlier that day. She released the bedcover, throwing her arms around Jerry's neck and pressing him against her chest.
"Twenty-two years... I haven't made a sound on this bed in twenty-two years..."
"Now the whole building can't hear you."
"I know they can't hear." She panted, her voice trembling. "I just want to make a sound here."
Jerry unhooked her legs from his waist, lifted one of her knees, and raised it up to press against her own shoulder.
That angle instantly deepened.
"Ha-ah!"
Narcissa's entire body bounced; the sound in her throat broke into fragments. Folded up like this, she could only lie back and take it, her two hands grasping wildly at the sides; she grabbed a pillow and hugged it dead tight to her chest.
Jerry pressed her knee down even harder, his waist slamming down at high frequency.
Smack-smack-smack-smack-smack.
The sound of flesh colliding was urgent and solid. She contracted violently inside for several rounds; water surged out wave after wave, splashing where they connected, making a complete mess of the bed edge.
"I can't... I'm going to..."
"Hold it."
"I can't hold it!"
Her lower abdomen suddenly clenched tight; her entire body arched upward from the waist. She hugged the pillow, burying her face into it, letting out a very long, muffled cry. Massive gushes of scalding water surged from the depths, pouring over the coronal head, streaming down the shaft into a puddle.
Jerry stopped, letting her finish trembling.
Narcissa collapsed on the bed panting heavily, her hair completely undone, sticking to her sweat-dampened temples and neck. She moved the pillow from her face, laying it horizontally across her chest.
"...Three hours."
"What."
"Still have two and a half hours."
Jerry lowered her knee. When he pulled out, it drew out an exceptionally loud popping sound.
Pop.
A massive amount of water, losing its obstruction, surged from inside, pooling on the edge of the bed.
Narcissa propped herself up on the bed and rolled over, laying on her stomach, resting her upper body in the center of the bed, dipping her waist down and lifting her buttocks up and back. She looked back, reaching one hand behind her, spreading her five fingers and pressing them against her own backside.
"Last time on the sink, my back was to the mirror."
"What about this time."
"This time, my back is to the pillow he's slept on for twenty-two years."
Jerry knelt onto the edge of the bed, landing a palm on her raised buttocks.
Smack!
A crisp sound; waves of flesh jiggled.
"Mrs. Malfoy."
"Speak."
"Tonight, you used your son's invitation as a dance partner card, arranged for an enemy nation's Elder to sit in the third seat at the head table, and now you dragged me into this room." Holding himself against that wet, slippery entrance. "What exactly are you taking revenge for."
"I am not taking revenge."
"Then what is it."
Narcissa looked back, grabbing the bedsheet with one hand and yanking it beneath herself.
"I am returning twenty-two years, piece by piece. Now get inside me, and cut the chatter."
Jerry sank forward, smashing the entire length inside.
"Ah-ha!"
Her hand clawed a long wrinkle into the bedsheet; her entire upper body slid forward half a foot before being pulled back.
Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.
In this posture, he entered even deeper. Every thrust made her entire buttocks ripple, whipping bodily fluids into foam that splashed onto their legs. She was pounded so hard she couldn't speak in complete sentences, only able to hum intermittently.
"Slow... ah... no, don't slow down..."
"Make up your own mind."
"I'm not thinking! You decide!"
Jerry gripped her waist, dragging her backward, simultaneously thrusting inward, the speed steadily increasing. Her knees couldn't hold up on the bed, sliding apart to the sides; she was pounded until she slumped forward, her face buried in the bedding, her voice completely muffled.
The wet sounds grew louder, mixing with the smacking sounds, echoing from the headboard all the way to the curtains.
Narcissa reached back, grabbing Jerry's wrist, pressing it against her own waist.
"Deeper..."
Jerry grabbed her shoulders and hauled her entire upper body up; she was pulled into a half-sitting, half-kneeling posture, her back pressed against his frail chest. In this posture, her entire weight bore down on the point of their connection; every thrust hit the absolute deepest part.
"Mmh... ah! Like this... this is too..."
"Too what."
"Too full..."
She reached back and hugged the back of Jerry's head, twisting her head around to find his mouth. The two kissed in this awkward posture; saliva overflowed from their pressed lips, sliding down her jaw.
Jerry reached one hand around to the front, pressing it against her lower abdomen, pushing inward.
With that press, her entire body trembled so violently she could barely sit up.
"Don't press there... ah..."
"Why."
"I won't... won't be able to hold on..."
Jerry pressed even harder, simultaneously thrusting upward rapidly with his waist.
Smack-smack-smack-smack-smack!
The dense sounds of impact blurred into one. Narcissa's body shook violently in his embrace, the sounds in her throat breaking into a string. She began to tighten inside again, clenching wave after wave.
"It's coming again... ah... I'm going to..."
"Together."
Jerry gripped her waist with both hands, pressing her down ruthlessly, while thrusting his waist to the absolute deepest point, pressing against that tightly shut opening.
Scalding material sprayed inside in massive gushes, wave after wave, completely flooding the deepest part.
"Mmh!"
Narcissa's back arched into a curve, her neck thrown back until it rested against Jerry's forehead. She trembled as if her bones had been removed, her legs kicking wildly against the bed a few times, before finally going completely limp.
The massive amount of material couldn't be contained; it squeezed out from the crevice where the two connected, streaming all the way down to the crooks of her knees.
The two collapsed onto the bed together, crushing that immaculately smoothed bedcover.
For a long while, neither spoke; only the sound of panting remained.
Narcissa turned on her side, resting her forehead against Jerry's shoulder, raising a hand to wipe the sweat from her own neck.
"You're lying on that bedcover."
"You laid on it first."
"I'm reminding you." Her fingers tapped twice against his chest. "This bedcover will be collected and washed by the house-elves tomorrow morning. It will be sent to the laundry room, then it will be ironed flat, and then re-spread onto this bed. For twenty-two years, it has been treated this way once a week."
"So."
"So I am not worried at all."
Jerry let out a laugh, rolling over and resting his hands behind his head.
"After the banquet ends, you still have to arrange his conversation with the last two people."
"Nott and Greengrass." Narcissa lifted her face from his shoulder, propping herself up to sit, raising a hand to push her disheveled hair back. "The two of them will argue over that sofa until midnight. When Lucius comes upstairs, he won't even have the energy to take off his shoes."
"You're quite considerate of him."
"I arranged the order of his conversations for twenty-two years."
She turned around, threw a leg over Jerry's waist, and sat back down, pressing both hands against his chest to support her body.
"Now I am going to use the remaining two hours. Lie still and don't move."
"Watch out!"
The defensive lines on the lacquered wood door of the second-floor bedroom, along with the entire section of plaster, disintegrated in an instant.
A wave of dark purple fire, viscous as mercury, blasted directly up from the lower atrium, tearing up the wide spiral staircase and sweeping horizontally across the entire corridor. The entire row of floor-to-ceiling windows decorated with family crests along the street-facing side of the second floor blew outward simultaneously; shattered glass and melted lead frames were pushed hundreds of feet away by the shockwave, smashing down like a torrential downpour onto the lawn and the white peacock iron cages outside with a smack-smack-smack.
The three soundproofing charms and anti-eavesdropping locks on the bedroom door shattered crisply into powder the moment the first wave of concussion arrived.
The sturdy bed frame shook violently; the carved crossbeam above snapped in two, crashing onto the floor with a muffled boom. Dust mixed with fragments of curtains whipped up by the air blast swirled wildly in the air.
Narcissa reacted within a microsecond of the concussion initiating. She didn't reach for the evening gown lying at the foot of the bed; instead, using the momentum, she executed a side-roll off the bed, her bare feet landing on the wood-splintered floor. She grabbed forward with her right hand, violently tearing the double-headed snake crest necklace hanging on the bedpost; she dug out the metallic core inside and hurled it into the air.
A transparent water membrane barrier instantly popped open, dead-locking the scalding aftershocks and rubble pouring in through the doorway half a foot away.
"Lucius's advanced alarm array didn't trigger."
Narcissa's voice was chillingly clear, hardly even panting.
Maintaining the water membrane with one hand, her other hand incredibly nimbly grabbed a dark cyan cashmere robe from the nearby coat rack and draped it over herself, pulling the belt tight and knotting it at her waist.
Jerry was already standing beside the chair. He pulled up his pants, fastened his belt tight, and slapped his left hand flat against empty space.
"It's not conventional magic." Jerry bent down to pick up his jacket and slipped it on, his gaze falling on the corridor outside. "It's laced with alchemical potions. There's more than one ignition point for the explosion."
"The main hall."
Narcissa stepped over the debris of the doorframe, taking the lead.
The hem of the cashmere robe she wore whipped violently in the hot wind, her hair still wet and draped over her back, yet her strides as she walked remained incredibly steady.
The corridor was filled with the sounds of coughing and screams of terror.
The originally soaring ceiling of the atrium had been completely blown off in one piece, revealing the pitch-black night sky above. Billowing clouds of grey-black thick smoke rose along the snapped wooden beams; the air was permeated with the pungent smell of sulfur, the burnt odor of leather, and an incredibly acrid stench of scorched metal.
The grand banquet hall downstairs was now a complete disaster zone.
The massive, sunken-wood long table originally set in the center, capable of seating dozens of people, had snapped into three sections. The exquisite silverware, porcelain plates, and half-eaten dishes atop it had all been overturned onto the ground, mixed in with mud, water, and rubble. Several massive crystal chandeliers had plummeted from the vaulted ceiling, smashing against the floor tiles; shattered crystal scattered everywhere like hail.
"Old Nott! Move your cane! You're stepping on my hand!"
Old man Greengrass was sprawled beside the collapsed fireplace, half his body pinned by stacked bricks and stones, currently holding his cane and frantically swatting at the empty air in front of him. Less than half a foot in front of him, a ball of dark green alchemical poison fire was burning fiercely, crackling against the floor tiles.
Old man Nott was lying prone behind an overturned low sofa two meters away; the hem of his clothes had been burned with several black holes by sparks. He was currently using his two chicken-claw-like hands to scrabble wildly through the scalding rubble.
"Where is my cane! Who saw my cane! That has the snake-gall stone left by my grandfather inlaid on it!"
"Stop looking for your broken stone!" Mrs. Bulstrode leaned half her body out from behind a snapped stone pillar; her hair was a complete mess, and the deep purple evening gown she wore had a massive tear ripped into it. Her left hand pressed against a wound on her shoulder, while her right hand held her wand, waving it fiercely at the thick smoke in the air. "It's self-detonating golems! They dropped in from the skylight!"
Within the grey smoke in the center of the hall, several upright figures were unsteadily getting to their feet.
They weren't living people at all. They were golems cobbled together from metal skeletons and leather skin; a fist-sized hole was opened at the chest, from which a faint, dark red light was currently radiating. Accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of metal gears grinding, the golems' limbs twitched violently, and the light in their chests grew brighter and brighter.
"Get back!"
Lucius Malfoy's voice rang out from the west side of the hall.
His hair was somewhat disheveled; he had already taken off his originally immaculate suit jacket and thrown it aside, leaving only a thin white shirt on his body. He gripped that snake-head cane with both hands; a blindingly thick column of white light erupted from the tip of the wand, blasting straight into the chest of a metal golem that was just about to pounce on Greengrass.
The powerful impact force shoved the golem backward with a boom, smashing it against the wall behind.
But the light in the golem's chest had already reached its apex.
BOOM!
Another muffled, massive explosion detonated within the hall.
A wave of heat, accompanied by flying metal shrapnel, swept in all directions, instantly shredding two nearby heavy wooden chairs into splinters.
Falling stones were deflected by spells, smashing craters into the ground.
Right when the hall was in total chaos, with Aurors and waiters running around blindly like headless flies, the position of the third seat at the head table was strangely quiet.
The tail end of that long table had already been overturned by the aftershocks of the explosions, yet the area where Yin Luo sat didn't even have a single clean chair knocked over.
The purple-haired, blood-eyed woman still sat steadily in her wooden chair, one hand resting on the edge of the table, her fingers pinching half a glass of unfinished dark red wine. In the air three feet around her, hundreds of blood-red spiritual power butterflies hovered statically, forming a semi-transparent, elliptical dome.
Whether it was flying, highly toxic metal shrapnel, or scalding waves of alchemical fire, as long as it touched that layer of red butterflies, it would be ground into ash by minuscule spiritual power in an instant, without even emitting the slightest sound.
She lifted her eyes, looking at Jerry walking down from the second-floor stairwell, the corners of her mouth ticking upward.
"Little pervert, these compatriots of yours have pretty nimble hands and feet."
Jerry ignored her teasing. He crossed down the stairs in two strides, his toes tapping lightly on the rubble; his frail body leaped nimbly over a snapped crossbeam like a swallow, landing in the center of the hall.
"It's not a conventional trick."
Jerry crouched down, reaching out and grabbing a still-warm golem fragment from the rubble pile.
The fragment was carved with dense, tiny, intricate patterns; they were not the runes commonly used in the wizarding world, but rather carried the traces of some bone-chilling array formation.
"Heavenly Secrets Pavilion golem wreckage." Jerry swiped his fingertip across it, a layer of white stone powder sticking to his pad. "Someone combined the explosive cores of Heavenly Secrets Pavilion golems with alchemical potions from the wizarding world."
Behind him, Narcissa also walked over in her high heels. She held a long wand picked up from somewhere in her hand, her eyes sweeping coldly over the chaotic crowd around them.
"Every single guest who entered the doors tonight went through double quarantine checks. The golems couldn't possibly have come through the doors."
"Then they dropped from above."
Jerry looked up toward the torn skylight above.
In the night sky, threads of rain began to drift down through the hole, landing on the scalding ruins, emitting bursts of hissing steam sounds.
Before the crowd in the hall could even catch their breath, an incredibly dense sound of objects cutting through the air suddenly came from above the damaged vaulted ceiling.
Dozens of black shadows, like a flock of massive bats, dive-bombed down through the hole in the skylight!
The speed of those shadows was astonishingly fast; their bodies were entirely wrapped in heavy black cloaks. What they held in their hands was neither a wand nor a Cultivator's flying sword, but a strange-looking metal cylinder.
"Enemy attack!"
Lucius roared furiously; the snake-head cane in his hands once again erupted with blinding light.
However, those black shadows pulled the triggers of the metal cylinders in their hands while still in mid-air.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Over a hundred fist-sized black metal spheres rained down upon every corner of the hall. The metal spheres did not explode the instant they touched the ground; instead, they popped open with a click, spraying massive amounts of thick, black fog in all directions.
The fog expanded incredibly fast, instantly swallowing the entire hall.
"Don't breathe it in!" Old man Greengrass coughed in the heavy fog as if he was going to cough his lungs out. "It's hallucinogenic miasma! It's laced with Mandrake juice!"
Cries of agony immediately rang out in the hall. A few young, lower-year wizards and waiters went limp and collapsed to the ground the moment they came into contact with the black fog, their limbs twitching, white foam bubbling from their mouths.
"Catch!"
In the heavy fog, a low, hoarse voice exploded in mid-air.
A tall, towering black shadow plummeted straight down from the skylight, the tips of his boots stomping heavily onto the shattered white jade statue in the center of the hall. The man wore a washed-out Auror combat robe; his face mask was pulled very low, exposing only a pair of bloodshot eyes.
He held a heavy iron box in his hand, violently tearing the lid open with a fierce yank.
Inside lay exactly twelve crimson crystals, radiating volatile magical power fluctuations!
"What Sebastian failed to do, I'll finish for him today!" The man laughed maniacally in a hoarse voice. "What bullshit purebloods, what bullshit wartime hero! All of you can go to hell together!"