“Septim, report.”
The dark-haired man approaching the fast-walking head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement coughed a couple of times to clear his throat.
Red eyes and more pronounced wrinkles on his face testified to a less than peaceful night in his Auror career.
“In the past few hours, none of the seriously wounded have died.
However, three more infected individuals were discovered, bringing the total number of those who turned into werewolves to eighteen people.”
Elias Vinter, without slowing his pace, squeezed a rectangle carved from dragon bone and covered in runes between his fingers.
The figures of the two walking men were enveloped in privacy charms, preventing others from overhearing their conversation.
“So the total dead is forty-six.
One hundred and four people injured, requiring help from the Healers at St.
Hyperion’s Hospital.
Seventeen werewolves captured, five killed during apprehension.
Ten of the dead are Ministry employees who were on duty on the lower floors.
The Aurors on duty there that night were on my list?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Deputy Head of the Auror Office replied in a dry, emotionless tone.
“Good.
We’ve gotten rid of the trash.
Write out financial assistance to the families of the Aurors who died heroically, protecting the people and the Ministry of Magic.”
“But…”
“After an event like this, someone’s head has to roll.
And that head will be the current head of the Auror Office.
He’s been taking too many ‘bribes’ lately and having too many conversations with the Minister, forgetting about me.
So get ready to receive the regalia of the Head Auror in a couple of weeks.”
With a dry throat, Septim quietly replied:
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Don’t think it will be for long.
Maybe in a couple of years, you’ll take my position.
And I’ll take a position higher up.
Lehmann’s ratings, which weren’t exactly high before, will be plummeting after this night.
Of course, my reputation will suffer too, as will the entire Ministry’s.
But my personal participation in suppressing the werewolves, combined with the people I have in the newspaper offices, should mitigate that reputational damage.”
“Was it worth this…”
The doubtful man, who had given twenty years of his life to the Auror service, looked into the cold, gray eyes.
“You should know that these creatures will eventually start a new war with the wizards.
According to the archives, killing high vampires was only possible with a prepared ambush, and the number of wizard casualties could exceed fifty.
Trained combat wizards, mind you.
The only reason wizards currently hold a dominant position in the magical world is that the number of high vampires in the world doesn’t exceed two dozen.
The current outcome, given our available resources, is the most favorable for wizards.”
“But the number of wizards in the world is growing.
The vampire clans wouldn’t dare…”
“What if Grindelwald had been able to strike a deal with the vampire clans?”
Septim Ratsius fell silent.
“The fact that there are more wizards hasn’t made us stronger.
It’s only made us more fragmented.
If you think all of this is just for power and influence, then…
you’re right.”
Lord Vinter stopped in front of the massive doors and placed his hands on them, having first put the dragon-bone artifact that created the privacy charms back in his pocket.
“But you can’t build a beautiful future for magical Germany with clean hands.”
Elias Vinter opened the doors.
Several camera flashes went off.
“Lord Vinter, what can you say about what happened last night?”
“Why weren’t Ministry employees able to detect the werewolves in advance?”
“Will new sanctions be imposed against these magical creatures?”
“The ‘White Fang’ organization, which fights for the rights of magical creatures, claimed responsibility for this action.
Is that true?”
A crowd of journalists surrounded the two men.
With a sorrowful expression on his face, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement began to speak.
“The Ministry of Magic regrets to announce…”
Hot, tart Harvey’s Balm spread down my throat, healing my lungs, which had been damaged by the modified combat Apparition.
Thunder Flight puts two or three times more strain on the body than ordinary combat Apparition.
The heaviest burden falls on the respiratory and nervous systems during the transformation into a magical clot.
So now, for the third day in a row, I have to drink various balms and potions to get my body back in order.
Of course, this will strengthen the connection between my body and soul, but the risk of destroying the body isn’t worth it.
Cough, cough.
I cover my mouth and eyes, trying to endure the burning inside.
Lockhart’s pain threshold was nonexistent, or rather, now it’s mine. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
My mind and body relax, allowing the magic of the balm and my own magic to freely move through my body.
Wizards have always been more resilient than Muggles, not just because of magical medicine, which includes thousands of variations of healing spells and potions, but also because of their personal magical power.
This power, following the subconscious desires of the wizard, supports the body.
Such an effect, of course, won’t regrow a lost limb, but it will allow one to survive quite a lot until a qualified Healer arrives.
The same meditation I’m currently immersed in allows me to better focus on this desire for recovery, which sets my magical power in motion for synergy with the drunk balm.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Time slowly passes until the ringing of a Tempus charm signals that three hours have passed since I took the balm.
Such “alarm clock” charms are often used by Potioneers and Healers: one to remember to add the right ingredient to the potion, the other to remember to give the patient the right potion.
I get up from the chair and take off my outer clothing, leaving only my home trousers on.
Then I walk to the center of the hotel room.
Slowly, I begin a set of warm-up exercises.
After ten minutes, I can feel sweat on my skin.
I continue, forcing the excess, unused remnants of the balm and previous potions to exit through my pores.
I’m not going to let toxins accumulate in my body from frequent potion use.
Physical exercise alone, of course, won’t get rid of all the toxins, but combined with other methods, it will allow me to keep my body in excellent condition.
In the very distant future, if I don’t find the right ingredients for my enhancement ritual in the next few years.
In the past, I became one of the strongest wizards thanks to numerous rituals I performed on myself.
Why are pureblood wizards in the magical world almost always stronger than Muggle-borns?
Only because of selective breeding, which allows them to maintain “blood purity”?
If everything depended on the saturation of blood with magic, then all pureblood families would take non-humans into their families, whose blood contains much more magic than ordinary pureblood wizards.
The first aristocratic wizard families did just that to strengthen their descendants.
The Greek wizards were particularly prominent in this regard, considering that a third of the “intimate unions” in popular Muggle Greek mythology are distorted retellings of such “unions.” It was during that time that so-called magical gifts appeared among wizard families, passing from parents to children.
A legacy of ancestors who had rather broad views when it came to choosing a sexual partner.
Later, wizards themselves abandoned this method of enhancement.
The mutations of the “fruits” of such unions were too unpredictable, sometimes preventing them from performing orthodox magic.
Later, wizards discovered that by channeling magic through the body in a certain way, they could enhance their magical power.
That’s when ritualistics experienced a new renaissance.
Bathe in the blood of a freshly killed dragon, allowing its natural magic to stimulate your own, increasing it by a tenth?
No problem.
At a certain time, under the light of the constellation Ursa Major, eat the heart of a she-bear to increase your recovery speed?
Every self-respecting wizard should do this.
Draw a pentagram, kill an enemy on it, then drink their blood, which will contain their magic concentrated by the pentagram, and gain a part of their magical power?
Give me the instructions; I have a couple of enemies handy.
Much later, after tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of victims, effective, economical, and rational rituals were developed to strengthen a wizard.
It is precisely such rituals that pureblood wizard families guard more jealously than gold, rituals for which their ancestors spilled seas of blood, both their own and others’.
And as the heir of the Geysek family, and later as a Master of Ritualistics, I went through them.
Before the Cataclysm, I performed dozens of meticulously calculated and supremely rational rituals every year, planned years in advance.
After the Cataclysm, I didn’t care about side effects; greater power was needed right then.
Of course, there are also simply prodigies who are born with gigantic magical power and don’t particularly need these rituals.
Lockhart wasn’t one of them.
His potential and magical power, through titanic effort, could have brought him to the average level of a pureblood wizard who just did rituals and lazed around.
But that damn inferiority complex…
So now I have to improvise so as not to accidentally ruin my “fragile” body.
Maybe that sounds a bit strange coming from someone who can currently “destroy” the best magical duelists in Europe, but my real enemies are “a little” higher ranking than those duelists.
With a crack of bones, I straighten my back, ignoring the foul smell of my own body, and stand in a new stance.
My eyes linger on the newspaper lying on the table from the day before yesterday, with its large headline:
Bloody Ball at the Ministry of Magic
Why Did This Happen, and Who Is to Blame?
“Layan!”
A girl with brown hair and crooked glasses on her nose screamed.
Her thin hands gripped the palm of a large, dark-haired wizard, who stared with a frozen gaze at the magical lights floating near the gilded ceiling.
His beautiful black suit, with frills sticking out from under the sleeves, was covered in blood from a torn throat.
“Layan.”
I look at Alvia Brown, tears and snot streaming down her face.
She senselessly clutches the blood-stained hand of her dead friend’s corpse.
I glance at her eyes, subconsciously catching her feelings with Legilimency.
Maybe not quite a friend. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Layan.”
I turn away and cover my mouth with my hand.
My body shakes with a cough I can no longer suppress.
I look at my bloodied palm, the blood on which immediately disappears under an Evanesco performed on pure willpower.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
I smoothly change my body’s position, feeling the pain in my untrained muscles, and close my eyes.
I’ve become too impatient because of the threat to Maria.
I need to be more consistent and cautious in my actions.
My corpse, the result of my attempts to take on too much, won’t save the people important to me.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Dressed in aristocratic attire, the dark-haired man with crimson eyes stood at the end of one of the pentagram’s rays and waited.
In the darkness-filled room, only the five-pointed star carved into the stone was visible, illuminated by the cold light of a mica crystal protruding from the ceiling.
Looking at the four bowls filled with blood, which he had placed in advance at the ends of the four other rays of the star, the dark-haired man finally felt a tremor in the air.
Slowly, streams of blood rose from the bowls.
At a certain point, they began to quickly form human figures and change color.
Thirty seconds later, four pairs of eyes were staring at him.
“Cornwall, you brainless woodpecker.
As usual, you rushed in, and this time you finally died.
Neither Jerusalem nor Rome taught you anything.”
“Your commentary, Alexander, was very helpful.
Now let us get down to business.”
The brunette with a body that would make any man lose his mind gave a venomous smile.
A man with reddish hair and blue eyes said gruffly:
“Your affairs, Carmilla, usually boil down to who to sleep with.
If you hadn’t been thinking with your pussy when you agreed to Cornwall’s plan, maybe we’d be talking to that woodpecker right now.”
“Oh, so touchy.
Living among the ‘food’ and bears in the north has really made you crude, hasn’t it?”
“I don’t think it’s important for us to practice rhetoric and wordplay right now.
The head of the Ventru clan is dead, and as I understand it, young Lionel has taken his place?”
The man with Asian features and expensive robes looked at the silent dark-haired man.
“Yes, head of the Makiri clan.”
The high vampire, whose existence had recently passed the three-hundred-year mark, bowed his head.
“Was the ancestor’s coffin found?”
A man with a soft smile asked the next question.
“There was a prepared trap in the German Ministry of Magic’s vault.
It’s quite possible the ancestor’s coffin was never there.”
“That’s what I’m saying: Cornwall was a woodpecker.
Maybe human wizards are weaklings, most of whom have become even weaker than their former selves, but in terms of cunning and resourcefulness, they’ve even improved.”
“Am I hearing admiration in your words, Alexander?
Have you decided to betray your race?”
“Are you still upset that I drained your French lover-pigeon in Moscow in 1812?
He was too arrogant back then, forgetting whose territory it was.”
The only female vampire in the room narrowed her eyes.
“Are personal squabbles more important to you than the destiny of the children of the night?”
A soft smile played on the lips of the man with Asian features.
Alexander and Carmilla fell silent.
“Lionel, I hope you’ll show better results in the search for the ancestor’s coffin, which will fulfill the prophecy.”
“I won’t let you down.”
The representative of the Ventru clan replied confidently.
“Excellent.
Then…”
“I received a vision from our Lord.”
At the words of the bald man in the monk’s robe, who had been silent all this time, his hands folded in prayer, the faces of the vampire clan leaders changed.
“The Nameless One of the Iscariot clan, what did our Lord convey to you?”
The head of the Eastern vampire clan, Makiri, asked tensely.
“A foreign soul from another time has appeared in our world.
The future is at a crossroads.”
The high vampire in the monk’s robe fell silent.
A minute later, one of the vampire leaders spoke.
“And what the hell does that mean?”