Dumbledore watched from the sidelines, clearly seeing that the initiative of the entire duel had been firmly in Isaac’s hands.
For an ordinary wizard, if they wanted to deal with a Seer who could read the script at any given moment, a spell like Stupefy simply wouldn’t cut it.
As long as the Seer was prepared, never mind Crucio—even the Killing Curse was entirely useless if it failed to hit its mark.
There was only one way for the Dark Wizard to win against Isaac: cast wide-range offensive spells and use the area-of-effect damage to scrape Isaac to death.
Yet, such an approach directly contradicted the Dark Wizard’s original intent for visiting.
When the Dark Wizard first spotted Isaac, the very first spell he had cast was Stupefy.
This meant that his primary purpose for this trip was not to murder Isaac; he wanted to subdue him.
Stupefy was easily dodged by Isaac, and the subsequent three-shot barrage of Crucio didn’t land a single hit.
There was even a half-cast Killing Curse right after—this Dark Wizard’s brain was truly fried by the Dark Arts.
Any normal wizard would have sensed that something was desperately wrong, choosing either to retreat or to switch to a different method of attack.
Yet, he remained stubborn, merely swapping Crucio for the Killing Curse.
When you cannot hit your target, never mind a standard Killing Curse—even casting an Avada Kedavra chain lightning would be useless.
Finally, there was that spell Isaac used, Protego Diabolica.
Except for the color and raw power being different from the original version, the Valdore gas stove was structurally no different from the Grindelwald gas stove.
Isaac’s casting movements, combined with those unmistakable elements of Grindelwald…
for a fleeting moment, Dumbledore almost mistook him for a young Gellert Grindelwald dueling someone.
Protego Diabolica was Grindelwald’s personal magic, a signature move reserved for masters of the craft.
If it hadn’t been taught personally by Grindelwald himself, then given Isaac’s current knowledge base, he absolutely could not have self-taught the spell—even if this version was merely a youthful variant combining the Fire-Making Spell and Transfiguration.
Therefore, this spell was Grindelwald’s “greeting” to him.
There was no time left to mourn Dumbledore’s lost youth; next to Apparate into the fray was a trio from the British Ministry of Magic’s Auror Office!
The three Aurors materialized in the courtyard of Isaac’s house with a sharp crack, and the moment they landed, they spotted Dumbledore and Isaac standing inside the ruined hall.
The three were startled and immediately hurried toward them.
“Professor Dumbledore, we received an emergency warning that the Unforgivable Curses were cast at this location.
What exactly is going on here?”
Dumbledore turned his head to look; they were all familiar faces.
“Gawain, Kingsley, and John?
Long time no see.
How have you been lately?”
The arrivals were none other than Gawain Robards, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and John Dawlish from the Auror Office.
Among them, Gawain was the Head of the Auror Office and a highly capable deputy to Rufus Scrimgeour, effectively considered the number-two figure in the department.
If the Improper Use of Magic Office hadn’t detected a wizard firing off Unforgivable Curses within a Muggle residential area, the stature of this investigative team would never have been so exceptionally high.
“Er…
not bad, Professor.
So, what exactly happened here?”
The three Aurors walked into Isaac’s house, and only then did they notice a wizard lying flat on the floor of the hall, his life or death unknown.
Isaac, Dumbledore, plus a collapsed Dark Wizard—this combination of old, middle-aged, and young, superimposed over the deployment of Unforgivable Curses…
forgive them for their lack of experience as Aurors, but they truly hadn’t witnessed such a bizarre scene since Lord Voldemort “died.”
“It is like this…
I received a letter from Mr.
Isaac Valdore at my office earlier today, stating that a rogue wizard was targeting him.
Consequently, I hurried to his residence.
However, I arrived a step too late; by the time I reached the scene, Isaac had already subdued this Dark Wizard himself.”
Gawain realized that the core of the truth likely rested with the young boy, so he asked kindly, “Valdore…
oh, do you mind if I call you Isaac, child?
Can you tell me what exactly happened?
How did you manage to subdue this criminal?”
Isaac was inwardly surprised that Dumbledore had chosen to omit a portion of the truth.
If they went by Dumbledore’s narrative, Isaac’s confrontation evolved directly from an adventure under the Headmaster’s protection into a story of a fledgling hero swinging his sword against evil.
Although he didn’t fully comprehend the political reason for Dumbledore doing this, Isaac knew that the old headmaster must have his reasons.
Compared to these three Aurors, Dumbledore was the one on his side.
“This has to start from Diagon Alley…”
Isaac began his explanation by describing the moment he first noticed someone shadowing him in Diagon Alley.
He detailed discovering the tail, borrowing an owl from the Eeylops Owl Emporium owner to dispatch an urgent letter to Dumbledore, and subsequently returning home.
Isaac admitted he hadn’t expected the Dark Wizard to possess the audacity to come straight to his front door.
Since he didn’t know any escape magic and Dumbledore hadn’t materialized at his house yet, he had been forced to find a way to deal with the intruder himself.
“I managed to dodge his first spell, and then I retaliated with the Levitation Charm…”
Isaac talked them through the sequence all the way up to his final, “self-created spell,” Protego Diabolica.
As a listener, Gawain simply felt his professional worldview being constantly shattered.
Especially when he heard that Isaac had successfully dodged three consecutive Crucio strikes and even stuffed a half-cast Killing Curse back down the Dark Wizard’s throat, the way he looked at Isaac shifted dramatically.
Could this boy be a young Dumbledore?
Isaac’s tale sounded entirely absurd, resembling a third-rate wizarding adventure story.
Yet, Gawain knew that in the magical world, sometimes the more absurd a report sounded, the more likely it was to be the absolute truth.
“Isaac, you did a magnificent job!
At your age, I didn’t even know a single practical spell.” Gawain first praised Isaac warmly, before assuming a helpless expression.
“But according to Ministry of Magic regulations, we still need to perform a check on your wand.
Is that alright?”
“Of course, Mr.
Auror.” Isaac nodded smoothly and handed his wand over to Gawain.
Gawain raised his own wand and pointed it directly at Isaac’s weapon.
“Prior Incantato.”
The first spell to manifest under the Reverse Spell effect was Protego Diabolica.
Gawain was, after all, an elite operative of the Auror Office; unlike standard employees in other departments of the Ministry who couldn’t even cast a proper Shield Charm, he could practically see through the structural mechanics of Isaac’s custom magic.
“Is it a unique variation of the Fire-Making Spell combined with Transfiguration?”
He waved his wand again, forcing the spells Isaac’s wand had previously cast to flash backward in sequence.
The trail flashed all the way back to the boy’s frequent practice of basic Transfiguration.
Gawain glanced at Dawlish, who gave a firm nod to indicate that the magical evidence had been recorded truthfully.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Isaac.
Here is your wand back.”
With one of the involved parties cleared, the focus shifted entirely to the Dark Wizard on the ground.
While John Dawlish was logging the magic from Isaac’s wand, Kingsley Shacklebolt had already begun examining the dying criminal.
“Robards, you need to see this!” Kingsley pulled back the Dark Wizard’s left sleeve, displaying the inside of the forearm to his superior.