"But what did he mean by 'I won't make the same mistake again' at the end? What future does he have left in his current state?" Alan muttered softly, a hint of confusion in his voice. Then he recalled the strange occurrences he had witnessed with Golden Knight, who could appear in two places at once. Did this mean Golden Knight had another trump card? Was he still alive?
Moreover, Alan could clearly sense that the strength of the Peter he had just fought was not as formidable as he had imagined. At least, compared to Phoenix and Thunderbird, Peter's spellcasting intensity and magical reserves were a notch lower than theirs. However, due to the overbearing nature of gravity magic, which exerted an overwhelming suppression on all wizards within a certain range, Alan found it extremely difficult to deal with. Otherwise, he believed he wouldn't have struggled so much.
Unfortunately, the intelligence gathered so far was too limited, and Alan couldn't draw a conclusion at the moment. Thinking this, Alan shook his head helplessly, then immediately took out a bottle of restorative potion and gulped it down. This battle had significantly drained him, almost emptying his magic reserves, and his face was still as pale as paper.
After a slight adjustment, Alan approached Andre. "How is it? Are the casualties among the others severe?"
"Thanks to your timely intervention, no one died." Andre sighed softly. "However, several people were seriously injured, and more than a dozen sustained minor injuries. But thankfully, the crisis has been averted, and Peter, the culprit, has finally met his end."
Andre looked down at Peter, his former Ministry of Magic colleague. Peter's body was now covered in grime, and his chest and shoulders were caved in from the last two spells. Recalling the past, though he disagreed with Peter's political views, he had still respected him as a person. He never imagined that in just over a month, the two would stand at opposite extremes, becoming irreconcilable enemies.
Then Andre looked up and scanned the surroundings. The Aurors had also recovered and were now gathering closer. However, the lingering fear in the depths of their eyes couldn't be hidden, partly due to their awe of Peter's strength and partly because of the opponent's identity.
Alan, who had personally killed Peter, felt nothing about this. The reason these Aurors felt such apprehension was simply because they knew too little. If they knew Peter's full background, as Alan did, they would have no psychological burden whatsoever.
However, this battle was indeed a close call. Facing such an outrageous ability as gravity manipulation for the first time meant Alan couldn't use any of his throwing tools, forcing him to resort to such a highly draining fighting style. Furthermore, Peter's destructive power was truly astonishing. The Ministry of Magic's largest First Hearing Chamber was now virtually unrecognizable. The entire floor, walls, and even the ceiling were pockmarked from the aftermath of the battle.
Alan also approached Peter's corpse and, after a brief examination, found that it was indeed a normal human body, with no strange sensations. Yet, Peter's corpse always gave him a strange sense of incongruity. After a careful investigation, Alan found the problem: there was no trace of magic on Peter's body. He even took out a magic detector to conduct a detailed test, almost disbelieving what he found.
The final conclusion confirmed his suspicion: there was no residual magic on Peter's corpse, as if it were the body of an ordinary Muggle. But this was extremely illogical, because a wizard's magic is fundamentally tied to their body. Even after death, there should be remnants in their blood, muscle tissue, and bones, which would only slowly dissipate over time. Alan had conducted extensive experiments on this, which was why he could detect the difference in Peter's body.
*Why did this happen? Was it related to his final accumulation of magic?*
Numerous questions swirled in Alan's mind. Multiple pieces of evidence indicated that Peter's death was not normal. Upon returning, he had to immediately begin tracking the other Golden Knight.
Seeing Alan touching and drawing blood from Peter's body, Andre also felt a bit strange. "What's wrong, Alan? Is there a problem?"
"Nothing, this is just a routine inspection. Even if many wizards lose their lives, there might still be hidden dangers, such as viruses or curses, which must be completely neutralized. It was the same with Phoenix before." Alan did not share the newly discovered suspicions with Andre. He did not plan to involve the Ministry of Magic in the subsequent actions targeting the club, so he simply offered a casual excuse.
"You are truly cautious. Whether it's in battle or in preparations before and after, I feel like you're more like an Auror than we are." Andre recalled how Alan had also handled Phoenix's corpse very carefully during the previous battle, and couldn't help but express his admiration. Then he playfully asked, "By the way, will you also include these contents in your textbook, Tactical Training Studies? I'm already eager to read your work."
Andre was well aware of the book Alan was writing. He had even pre-ordered quite a few copies from Alan, planning to use them as teaching materials for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
"Everything that should be there will be there. However, I'm still organizing it, so you might be able to read it soon," Alan said with a light chuckle, seeing Andre's enthusiasm.
Then he took out the spatial pouch from Peter's body and inspected its contents in front of Andre. Andre had no objections to this, as he was the primary combatant against Peter, and Alan would also organize and share important information with him.
However, after careful inspection, Alan found that the items in Peter's spatial pouch were surprisingly few, consisting only of a few Galleons, some Ministry of Magic documents, and some common wizarding potions. Items related to the club, such as the Elixir of Life, were nowhere to be seen. The only relatively valuable item was a Portkey, though its destination still needed to be determined through testing.
"Aside from some internal Ministry of Magic documents, there are no high-value items. These documents are mostly routine archives, and there's no illicit content inside. It seems Peter was very careful and didn't even carry anything that could incriminate him," Alan said, shaking his head regretfully. Apart from the Portkey, he handed the entire spatial pouch back to Andre.
"Given Peter's cautious nature, this situation is normal," Andre said, not particularly surprised. "By the way, will the next steps proceed as planned? I didn't expect Peter to be so decisive in burning his bridges with us at the critical moment."
"Wasn't that one of the possibilities we calculated early on? We just didn't expect his strength to be so great, and his magic so bizarre," Alan said, standing up and stretching his body. He was quite exhausted after this battle.
Andre also stood up at this point, turning his head to look at the Aurors nearby. "Pack up Peter's body. We'll go see the others now. Also, Second Squad, proceed immediately to all departments and seal the directors' offices and the Minister's office. First Squad, after dealing with Peter's corpse, immediately go to their residences outside the Ministry of Magic and seal them. They will be thoroughly searched later."
"Yes!"
The Aurors immediately sprang into action upon receiving the orders. They were the group who had been consistently working with Andre and Alan for a long time, so they understood the full context very clearly and acted without hesitation.
Alan, meanwhile, returned to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with Andre. There were still many things waiting for them to handle.
First were the wizards who had witnessed the entire incident in the Hearing Chamber. These individuals were either Wizengamot members within the Ministry of Magic, or esteemed wizard representatives from various industries, wizarding family representatives, and reporters from major wizarding newspapers. To keep Peter's secret as a Silver Spears leader, they all had to be handled carefully to prevent panic from spreading. This was also the strategy Andre and Alan had decided upon.
Although Edmund had already been instructed to handle it, Andre still needed to coordinate their statements with them. The same applied to the division-faction wizards, though there was no need to be so polite with these suspects; coercive measures could be used directly.
The official public statement would be that Peter had conspired to manipulate public opinion through civilian organizations, and that his relationship with the Silver Spears was merely a normal cooperation. Today's conflict certainly couldn't be kept secret, so it would be framed as Peter violently resisting arrest with irrefutable evidence, until Alan and a group of Aurors fought hard and killed him on the spot.
Additionally, there was a lot of work to be done within the Ministry of Magic, including filling vacancies left by dismissed personnel, appeasing employee morale, and maintaining the Ministry of Magic's operations. Besides unifying internal and external public opinion, the next step was to boost Andre's publicity and stabilize the situation in the German wizarding world. After this division, Andre's prestige was bound to reach its peak, and this publicity would effectively dilute the negative impact brought by Peter.
As for the split legislation, Alan's suggestion was not to abolish it too quickly, but to gradually restore the previous unified state. Because most wizards in Germany, after Peter's long-term influence, had generally grown accustomed to the fragmented state. A sudden change might have a counterproductive effect.
The subsequent steps would be to intensify propaganda, shifting the blame for the division to the leaders of those civilian organizations and Peter, among others. It would be best to hold a few more public trials later, making those principal offenders confess their crimes to everyone themselves. Through a period of such propaganda, and by gradually connecting the Floo Network across the country and lifting the soft quarantine on the Duden Building, the German wizarding world could regain its vitality in just one or two years.