Cold, unending rain was falling over London at the end of September.
And just like the weather, young Auror Dawlish’s mood was equally grim.
Only a few months earlier, Dawlish had finally been approved to become the Auror he had always dreamed of being.
He had thought that, once he became an Auror, his work would be exactly as he had imagined it, hunting down Dark wizards, investigating evil criminals, or dealing with Death Eater remnants.
Reality, however, had ruthlessly dumped a bucket of cold water over his head, because the very first assignment he received after taking office was to stake out and monitor a Gothic manor near Highgate Cemetery.
It was a mission that could only be described as boring, because the subject under surveillance, a wizard named Lynn Gray, showed no signs whatsoever of being a Dark wizard, aside from having bizarre taste and insisting on living in a gloomy old mansion beside a graveyard.
He was even a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor personally hired by Dumbledore, but the Ministry insisted on keeping him under watch on the grounds that his "origins were unclear."
And yet, for nearly two months now, this so-called suspicious wizard had done nothing except visit Diagon Alley a few times and occasionally buy drinks and snacks from Muggle shops. Other than that, he had stayed inside the house and never come out. Since Hogwarts reopened in September, he had not shown his face there at all. Dawlish had no idea why the Ministry still had not pulled him off this ridiculous post.
Crack
Alastor Moody suddenly Apparated into Dawlish’s hiding place and limped over to his side.
"C-Captain Moody?" Dawlish stared at him in shock, clearly not expecting a top-tier Auror like Moody to show up here.
"Don’t talk. The Ministry detected magical fluctuations nearby. Someone’s come," Moody said softly, pressing a hand down on Dawlish’s head.
A small figure in white was slowly approaching from the distance, like a lost child wandering through the night, but her direction was perfectly straight toward the manor gate.
The layers upon layers of defensive magic surrounding the estate did not trigger at all. The figure walked straight to the iron gate, which swung open under some invisible force, and the little girl stepped inside.
"Th-that little girl... is she Gray’s accomplice?" Dawlish raised his wand nervously.
"Don’t move. Watch," Moody said, holding his hand down. "The real one’s back too."
In the next instant, space warped.
Lynn’s figure appeared in the shadows of the courtyard.
And then, a battle erupted, one that completely overturned everything the two Aurors thought they knew.
From the very first moment, the fight entered a white-hot phase of pure destruction.
"Damn it! What kind of magic is that?!"
Dawlish stared in horror as a series of intricate patterns radiating warped, dreamlike light flared to life around the little girl.
"Don’t look at the pattern!"
Moody suddenly roared and slammed Dawlish’s head down into the muddy ground. He lowered his own head as well, avoiding direct eye contact with the pattern.
But they were already too late. Dawlish’s eyes had rolled back, and he had fallen into a dazed trance.
"This is... an illusion? Just seeing it throws you into a stupor?" Moody evaluated the scene with a pounding heart, while continuing to watch the battlefield through his magical eye.
He saw the courtyard ground suddenly begin to boil, and countless giant black, slick tentacles burst out of the ground. Then came a hailstorm so freezing that even from where they were hiding, they could feel the chill biting into their bones.
Moody had years of Auror experience behind him and had lived through the First Wizarding War, yet even he had never seen anything like this.
But what shocked him even more came next.
As the storm dispersed, the girl in white slowly walked back out. Her clothes had been torn to shreds, and she was clearly half-frozen, but there were no obvious serious injuries on her.
Then that Hogwarts professor, Gray, raised his wand without the slightest hesitation and fired a point of dark green light so ominous it made the heart seize.
Moody’s magical eye spun wildly.
As an Auror who had captured countless Death Eaters, he knew that color far too well.
"The Killing Curse?!"
That Hogwarts professor had just used an Unforgivable Curse in battle without hesitation?!
Hiss!
The green light tore through the air toward the girl.
It’s over, Moody thought instinctively. At that distance, no one could dodge the Killing Curse.
And then, in the very next second, Moody saw something he would never have imagined even in his wildest dreams.
That little girl, facing the incoming "Killing Curse," actually raised her left hand,
A cluster of silver flames ignited in her palm, and the green light symbolizing absolute death was swallowed up by the silver fire, dissolved, and erased into nothingness.
"That’s impossible..."
Every wizard in the magical world knew that the Killing Curse, foremost among the three Unforgivables, had no counter-curse, could not be blocked, and meant instant death if it hit.
And yet that "common knowledge" had just been shattered by a ten-year-old little girl?
Moody’s magical eye froze completely, forgetting even to spin.
Just what kind of people were this Professor Gray hired by Dumbledore, and this little girl?
Just as Moody was considering whether he should retreat and call for reinforcements from the Ministry, the battle came to an abrupt halt.
The girl teleported away, leaving behind only the ruined wreckage of the estate and the wizard standing in the middle of it.
Before Moody could make a move, Lynn turned his head and looked straight at him.
"You’ve watched the whole show long enough. Time to come out, Mr. Moody."
Moody drew in a deep breath, ignored the still-drooling Dawlish sprawled on the ground, and limped out of the bushes with his wand gripped tightly and pointed at Lynn.
"Explain yourself, Gray."
Moody’s voice was hoarse, his magical eye locked onto every movement Lynn made.
"Why would Hogwarts’ Defense Against the Dark Arts professor use an Unforgivable Curse?"
"An Unforgivable Curse?"
Lynn pushed up his glasses and looked at Moody, who clearly regarded him as a major threat. A trace of mockery curled at the edge of his mouth.
"Have you ever seen a Killing Curse that could be defended against?"
Moody was instantly choked into silence.
That was true... the Killing Curse was supposed to be unblockable.
"It was green, and it was lethal..." Moody said harshly, though his conviction sounded rather weak.
His thoughts were in complete chaos. If he wrote in his report that "a little girl blocked the Killing Curse," Fudge would definitely have him committed to the mental ward at St. Mungo’s.
"That’s beyond your understanding, Auror."
Lynn did not explain any further. The silver fire that girl had used had left him under immense pressure, and he had no mood to give the Ministry a lecture on the principles of his spellcasting.
"This is my private property. I am entitled to my privacy." Lynn looked at Moody coldly. "Take your subordinate and leave. If I catch the Ministry’s ’rats’ skulking around my front door again..."
"I don’t mind letting you have a taste of that ’green light’ too."
Hum
5th-circle spell, Wall of Force.
An invisible wall appeared across the gate of Lynn’s courtyard. Then, with one sweep of his robes, he ignored Moody and walked back toward the house.
Through the vision of Moody’s magical eye, he was shocked to discover that this invisible wall seemed fused to the surrounding space itself, unbreakable, impossible to dispel, and even impassable by Apparition.
"Good..."
Moody forced the words out through clenched teeth, grabbed the still-slobbering Dawlish off the ground, and said, "I’ll report everything that happened tonight to Dumbledore exactly as it occurred."
...
Only after returning to his arcane laboratory did Lynn finally let out a long breath. His back was already soaked with cold sweat.
He truly had not had any strength left to deal with Moody. His once-per-day 6th-circle spell slot had already been spent, and among the spells below 6th circle, he had no confidence in defeating that formidable Auror for certain. So in the end, he had chosen intimidation and used his last 5th-circle slot for defense.
Thankfully, Moody did not have a way to break through Wall of Force the way Dumbledore did.
Sinking into the armchair in one corner of the laboratory, Lynn opened his panel and looked at his level:
[Level 11 (56%)]
Staring at the experience bar, which had jumped by more than half, Lynn muttered to himself,
"Just what is that girl? Simply fighting her gave me this much experience. That’s probably worth killing Voldemort over a hundred times..."
Knowing the exact names of the spells he used, neutralizing Disintegrate with her bare hand, and that silver flame...
By now, Lynn already had a few guesses in mind.
"No way... could she be one of Mystra’s Chosen?"
Mystra, the name Lynn had once casually thrown out to bluff Dumbledore, now lingered in his thoughts.
In the D&D world of Faerûn, that name represented magic itself.
Unlike the world he currently inhabited, Faerûn possessed something called the Weave, and at its core, every spell cast by every living being was essentially borrowed from it.
And Mystra was the one who controlled the Weave.
"The Weave is a net too... Could it be that because I’m using spells from that world, it’s like I logged into that world’s local network from the outside, and the admin, Mystra, noticed me?"
I’m in another world and She can still trace me through the connection? Isn’t that way too absurdly overpowered?
<><><><><><><><><><><>
Good Reviews/Ratings are greatly appreciated
Drop some POWERSTONES to push the story forward!
600 P.S / 1 Chapter