“Vinter, do something!”
“Mr.
Minister, please use the Portkey.
The Aurors will handle everything.”
“Stop all this!
I command you!”
The tall man, sweating profusely with fear, grabbed the offered rope.
With a pop of the Portkey activating, the Minister of Magic of Germany and three department heads vanished from the hall.
“Eli…”
“Tell Ilia I’ll be a little late.
Portus.”
Not letting his wife get a word in, Lord Vinter activated the Portkey bracelet on her hand and sent her home.
Though the Ministry itself had enchantments blocking unauthorized Portkeys, he was the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, wasn’t he?
He could allow himself some “liberties,” especially for his family’s safety.
“Septim, organize the evacuation of the guests.
Ryan, send people to subdue the werewolves, try not to kill them.
I hope I don’t have to teach you how to do that.
Execute.”
“Yes, sir.”
The two men in red Auror robes immediately created Patronus charms to relay orders to their subordinates.
Elias turned his gaze to the ballroom, now filled with the frightened screams of guests, the roar of flying spells, and the growling of at least twenty werewolves that darted across the hall like gray shadows.
The man slowly walked toward the nearest werewolf, which was currently ripping out a woman’s throat with an guttural roar, completely ignoring the weak spells hitting its fur, dissipating in useless colored flashes.
From his sleeve, a pendant with a glass sphere fell into his palm.
Inside the sphere, miniature hourglasses slowly turned, reminiscent of the banned Time-Turners.
A stream of magic flowed from his hand into the artifact.
Elias had never found information in his family’s archives about when exactly this artifact had come to the Vinters.
Its existence was documented in the oldest records of the family’s history, dating back to the ninth century, when Krain Vinter described his military campaigns under Charlemagne, noting the pendant’s usefulness against sorcerers.
The only clue to its origin remained in an old legend about the origin of their family name, which had become part of the magical world’s fairy tales.
A rather foolish story about how an enraged Magic punished a wizard who sought immortality.
His castle was forever denied the warmth of summer.
His heart was forever bound by cold, destroying all bright feelings.
Even when, after many winters, the snow finally melted from the castle stones and the cold halls filled with summer’s warmth, his heart remained just as cold.
Devoid of feelings and desires.
Seeing his emotionless face, people named him Vinter.
For he was as cold as the winter that had ruled his castle.
But none of them knew that the wizard cursed by Magic itself had managed to preserve part of his feelings within his pendant.
A pendant whose call he had since followed to reclaim what was lost.
A foolish story.
“Acceleration.”
The world began to slow down, as if everything and everyone had been simultaneously hit with a Slowing Charm.
But Elias von Vinter knew.
Time had changed only for him.
The miniature hourglasses inside the glass sphere spun rapidly, blurring with speed.
“Duo Baubillius.”
The yellow lightning of several Duo Baubillius spells, cast by Elias, merged into a single solid yellow line for the onlookers.
It pierced the werewolf’s magical resistance, sending it crashing to the floor, its legs convulsing.
“Aqua Eructo.
Glacius.”
The stream of water that hit the werewolf froze into an icy sculpture, encasing the magical creature.
Feeling a significant drain on his magic, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement moved to the next werewolf.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed bright flashes of magical flame in another part of the hall.
He mentally noted that, intending to find out later who had cast such a powerful spell, though his instincts suggested a certain British wizard was involved.
But that wasn’t important now.
The most important thing hadn’t happened yet.
“Get out of my way!”
“Help!
Help!
I’m a duchess!
I can’t die here!”
I roughly pushed aside a wizard who nearly knocked me over and ran toward Maria, completely ignoring the screams of the panicking crowd.
I’d heard plenty of those screams during the Cataclysm and almost as many deaths caused by human stupidity and fear.
I pointed my wand at a fallen woman, whose head was about to be trampled by a fleeing Frenchwoman.
Grab.
Pull.
“Carpe Retractum.”
The woman, caught by the spell, flew toward me and landed on her high heels, nearly falling again if I hadn’t steadied her with magic.
Reflexively, I cast a Cleaning Charm on her, removing the dust from her dress.
“Be careful.
And change your shoes.”
“Th-thank you.”
Her stunned voice came from behind me.
Maria’s position had changed, forcing me to alter my route.
If I’d had my old body, I would have used battle Apparition, like the few wizards who had just flown over me in streaks of light.
But in this body, I couldn’t track Maria’s location during battle Apparition, and finding her with my eyes in the panicking crowd while moving at mind-boggling speed as a magical cloud of mist…
some other time.
When I wasn’t bleeding from the nose after using advanced, modified Transfiguration charms at full power to “animate” the fire.
With a dull thud, a bloodied wizard’s body fell in front of me, and a werewolf charged, trying to escape three pursuing Aurors.
I waved my wand.
Birds.
Filth.
“Avis.”
A flock of conjured swallows flew into the creature’s face.
As it tried to swat them away, it suddenly dropped low to the ground and began vomiting slugs, thanks to my non-verbal curse that had found its mouth.
Werewolves’ magical resistance was mostly due to their fur; spells that entered their mouths affected them like any ordinary wizard.
I ran on, while the werewolf, still vomiting slugs, was bound in conjured metal chains by one of the Aurors.
Maria was close.
“Aqua Eructo.”
“Fulgur.”
I saw two wizards, Maria’s parents, holding a werewolf in place with a stream of water and a bolt of lightning from a wand.
Then I noticed Maria casting something nearby. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
A weight lifted from my soul.
I’d help them subdue this creature, then stay close to her, helping suppress any other werewolves that came near.
I’d build my reputation and protect my love, without showing any particular attachment.
A “true wizard” helps people in need, after all.
Suddenly, one of the panicking wizards who had decided to help messed up his spell.
A wave of air knocked down the nearest people, including Mikhail Binnovil, disrupting the stream of water he was maintaining.
The previously pinned beast, with a roar, ignoring the lightning still striking it, charged toward the Binnovil family.
Toward Maria.
Time seemed to slow for my Occlumency-accelerated mind.
I was surrounded by panicking wizards and witches running around like headless chickens.
None of the spells I could cast would reach my love or the werewolf in time.
Standard battle Apparition wouldn’t outrun a fifth-category creature either.
But non-standard…
I grabbed the coat of a wizard running past me, pulled the man out of it in one fluid motion, and let the magic around my body transform into a magical cloud.
My perception expanded, my field of vision stretching to 360 degrees.
With a yellow flash of lightning, I flew over the heads of the crowd, covering the distance between me and her in a fraction of a second.
When the howl of the werewolves echoed through the hall, Maria seriously considered the possibility that she’d picked up some particularly nasty curse in Egypt.
What had happened since her return to Europe?
A month filled with her parents’ attempts to find her a match, making her want to howl like those werewolves.
Then the train ride where she was nearly killed, shot, and her mentor-friend and daughter were kidnapped by thugs.
They were saved by a handsome, boastful, and terrifyingly unsettling Brit.
After that, she finally returned to Berlin, frantically preparing for the upcoming expedition.
Then she was blindsided by the demand to attend the ball, where she unexpectedly encountered the boastful Brit, her parents, who had seen her dancing with him (she should have just refused and run away, even if it had been pleasant…
Wait, Maria!).
And, as a grand finale, werewolves appeared from nowhere.
Probably just there to “congratulate” everyone on the Ministry’s founding.
How could she not think something was wrong with her luck?
A piercing female scream, followed by panicked cries, convinced the girl that this wasn’t some stupid prank.
“Dear, Maria, follow me.”
Her father’s voice held an unusual, commanding edge.
He drew his walnut wand with a unicorn hair core.
Maria obediently followed him, not daring to argue.
The normally gentle man, whose friends jokingly called him a “henpecked husband,” now resembled a finely honed blade.
Pushing through the panicking crowd, the girl and her silent mother struggled to keep up.
Cries and werewolf growls echoed from all directions.
A wizard’s elbow painfully jabbed her ribs.
“Watch where you’re going, asshole!”
The “asshole” ignored her and continued shoving forward.
She was about to add a few more “choice words,” but a child’s cry made her forget them.
Without thinking, she rushed toward the sound.
“Maria!”
Her mother’s worried voice came from behind.
But ignoring it, she moved toward the crying child.
Since childhood, Maria had a personality trait her friends jokingly called “hero syndrome,” though her parents believed it was a “thorn in her side.” She couldn’t tolerate “injustice” and couldn’t abandon those who needed saving.
This “hero syndrome” had caused her many problems over the years, nearly getting her expelled from Durmstrang once.
But she couldn’t, and didn’t want to, change this part of herself.
She finally saw a crying five-year-old boy next to an unconscious woman, blood dripping from her head onto the floor.
Without thinking, she was at their side.
A diagnostic charm, taught to every Curse-Breaker, almost flew from her lips automatically.
The spell touched the woman’s body, sending information to her mind.
She sighed in relief.
The woman was alive, just a mild concussion and a small bleeding wound on her forehead.
She smiled reassuringly at the boy, who had stopped crying and was watching her intently.
Then she pointed her wand at the woman’s forehead and focused on the more complex medical charms.
“Episkey.”
The shouting and trampling around her intensified.
She interrupted the spell and saw several people flying back like broken dolls, revealing a werewolf that seemed maddened by the blood, thrashing through the crowd of wizards.
“Damn.
Damn.
They didn’t prepare me for this at the courses!”
She pushed the boy behind her and raised her wand.
“Bombarda.”
But the creature, sensing the invisible spell, dodged and charged toward her.
“Oh, damn.
Damn.
Damn.”
“Expul…”
Stammering in panic, she bit her tongue, interrupting the spell.
Now, with growing horror, she watched the beast’s blood-soaked body barrel toward her.
“Aqua Eructo.”
A stream of water knocked the werewolf away from her.
“Marie, you’re still the same disobedient girl.”
Her father appeared beside her, smirking.
He manipulated the water with his wand, twisting it into a whirlwind that pinned the werewolf to the ground.
“We’ll discuss your behavior later, young lady.
Fulgur.”
Her mother delivered the “sentence,” hitting the struggling werewolf with lightning.
Smiling gratefully, Maria inwardly winced at the impending “prospect.” She pointed her wand at the unconscious woman.
“Ennervate.”
The woman gasped and opened her eyes.
“Mommy.”
“Take your child and get out of here.”
Stunned, the woman hugged the child, earning a stinging hex to her backside (Maria’s only non-verbal spell).
Turning away from the startled woman, there was no time for polite words, she tried to figure out how to help her parents.
She quickly decided on a Transfiguration spell that would turn the water pinning the werewolf to the floor into stone, immobilizing it.
She shouted her plan to her parents, who nodded silently.
A wave of air from behind disrupted her spell.
Mikhail Binnovil, who had been straining to control the water, staggered.
The water collapsed.
Freed and enraged, the beast charged them even faster, ignoring the continuous lightning strikes.
“Something is definitely wrong with my luck.
Well, at least I made peace with my parents.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
She thought with resignation and sadness, staring at the werewolf’s bared teeth, now only a few meters away.
A thunderclap echoed.
With a loud crack, a yellow lightning bolt struck the floor in front of her.
A man appeared amid the yellow sparks, holding a wand in one hand and…
a man’s coat in the other?
Lockhart.
“Duro.
Depulso.”
The suddenly rock-hard coat flew at the werewolf’s face.
The creature stumbled and fell.
Its attempt to get up ended in a comical fall, its legs slipping on the suddenly slick, now icy floor.
The golden-haired wizard waved his wand.
The hardened coat became soft again and wrapped around the werewolf’s head.
Another wave of the wand, and the creature, its head wrapped in the coat, slid across the icy floor like a child on a sled.
It crashed into the wall, and a table with appetizers toppled onto it, completely disorienting it.
A trio of Aurors quickly finished it off.
Turning away, Maria looked at the Brit with admiration and envy.
“Damn, that was too cool.
Does he take courses in epic entrances or something?”
“Lady Maria, you seem to be the type of girl who always gets into trouble and constantly needs to be saved by the hero.”
“If only he would just shut up!”
She wanted to thank him for saving her, but instead, she changed her words and replied sarcastically.
“And do you consider yourself a typical hero?”
Gilderoy looked at her with feigned indignation.
“Actually, I’m a unique hero!”
Maria felt like she’d eaten a whole lemon.
“Though he could use a whole crate.”
She thought, watching the broadly smiling wizard.
Suddenly, a tremor ran through the hall, like an earthquake.
The girl nearly fell and shouted nervously.
“What now?”
A dried-up witch’s body fell to the floor.
She had been on duty on the lower floors of the Ministry.
The silver-haired man exhaled with satisfaction.
“Ah.
It’s been a long time since I’ve drunk so much wizard blood.”
“Master, all obstacles to the Ministry vault have been destroyed.”
A dark-haired man in impeccable aristocratic robes bowed his head.
“I’m glad you at least managed to complete this task, Lionel.”
The head of the Ventru clan patted the cheek of the dark-haired vampire, whose face was frozen in an icy expression.
“Losing Vinter’s wife and daughter was the humans’ own fault.”
The higher vampire replied emotionlessly, following the man walking ahead.
“What do I hear?
Excuses?
Such pathetic excuses?
Have you dulled your mind over the years of dealing with food?”
The vampire, who had been roaming Europe since the Middle Ages, asked rhetorically.
Lionel remained silent.
“Human hearts are weak and dirty.
You can suppress them, pit them against each other, subjugate them, and use them.
But trusting them with an important task?
Utter foolishness!”
With a wave of his hand, the body of a wizard in a red Auror robe, torn in half by werewolves sent ahead as “cannon fodder,” flew toward the silver-haired higher vampire.
His handsome, refined face took on predatory features, and two upper fangs sank into the corpse’s neck, draining it in seconds.
He grimaced and threw the Auror’s remains aside.
“Tch.
Alive would have been tastier.
Anyway, where was I?”
Lionel remained silent.
“If you hadn’t failed your task, this human would have brought us the sarcophagus with our sealed ancestor themselves.
Such a trivial task was so incompetently botched.
I had to personally oversee the operation to secretly infect the ball’s guests, then use the Totem of the Wild Moon to set one pack of animals against another.
And it will take another twenty years for the totem to saturate with moonlight!”
The two higher undead stopped before a massive oval gate.
The air itself seemed to warp around it from the power of the protective charms.
Nearby lay several piles of ash, all that remained of the werewolves who had fallen to the Art of Blood.
“If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
Slowly, the patriarch of the Ventru clan spread his arms.
Streams of blood rose from his open pores.
“If you were smarter and had eaten more humans, you wouldn’t have failed and could have achieved much more in the Art of Blood.”
With a deafening roar, the ribbons of blood collided with the now-visible blue energy wall of the protective charms.
The pale palms with elongated claws pressed together, the pale hands clutching his chest.
Crack.
With a loud clang, the protective charm complex collapsed.
The gored gates fell into the vault.
“Guard the entrance.
No one must interfere with my meeting with the ancestor.”
“Yes, Master.”
The dark-haired man bowed his head to the pale, emaciated man whose silver hair had lost its luster.
The higher vampire rushing into the vault didn’t see the hate-filled gaze on his back.
Running past shelves of various artifacts and objects deemed too dangerous to keep elsewhere, the silver-haired man stopped before an unremarkable wall.
A wave of his hand, and ribbons of blood shattered the high-quality material illusion, revealing a small room with a sarcophagus on a central pedestal, adorned with silver ornamentation.
A blade of blood destroyed the last protective charms, then split into several streams that ran across the sarcophagus lid, breaking the binding charms.
The higher vampire, his skin now paper-white, triumphantly gripped the lid with his clawed fingers.
“Ancestor, Cornwol of the Ventru clan is here to pay his respects…”
The vampire clan leader stared dumbly at the white cube beginning to glow inside the sarcophagus.
With a dull thud, a wall collapsed behind him, completely cutting off the small room from the rest of the vault.
The resulting explosion shook all ten underground levels of the German Ministry of Magic and destroyed one of the oldest vampires in the magical world.