Knowing that Voldemort and Barty Crouch Jr.'s target was Harry, even if Dumbledore wanted to turn the enemy's plan against them and wipe them out completely, he would never let Voldemort have his way.
If he really threw Harry out as bait, that would not be fishing anymore. It would be feeding the fish. There was nothing seriously wrong with Dumbledore's brain.
Barty Crouch Jr. could replace the Triwizard Cup with a Portkey, so naturally Dumbledore could also replace Harry.
During dinner, the Harry who appeared in the Great Hall was no longer Harry himself, but Sirius Black, who had drunk Polyjuice Potion. Harry, meanwhile, had taken on the appearance of his godfather.
Although Harry was a hundred times unwilling, he did not want Sirius and Eda to take the risk in his place, nor did he want others to be hurt because of him.
But Dumbledore's decision was not something Harry could change.
To make the substitution completely convincing, Sirius and Harry had even exchanged wands.
Just as Dumbledore was secretly switching the two of them, the Moody impersonated by Barty Crouch Jr. was excitedly placing the Portkey in the center of the maze. Judging from Barty's subsequent actions, he probably failed to distinguish Sirius, who had taken Polyjuice Potion.
And so Sirius successfully substituted himself for Harry, sneaking into the group of champions and entering the maze. He saw the unconscious Fleur together with Eda and grabbed the substituted Triwizard Cup with her.
Voldemort's plan was carried out, and he obtained a new body that night. But Voldemort failed to use Harry's blood as he had intended. Instead, without realizing it, he used Sirius's blood.
Resurrection required the blood of an enemy, preferably Harry's blood. It was fortunate that Harry was a boy. If he had been a girl, Barty would have had a much easier time.
Voldemort was furious. He wanted to kill the fake Harry in front of him to vent his anger. Not to cover anything up, since there was no way to conceal the fact that the real Harry was still alive. He simply wanted to vent his anger.
Nearly a year of plotting, nearly a year of waiting, and this was what he got in return!
Voldemort's mentality was practically collapsing.
If he had known this would happen, why had he gone to all that trouble?
The ghastly green Killing Curse flashed with blinding light. The more hatred Voldemort felt, the more vicious the curse became.
Yet the Killing Curse, which reaped lives, still failed to do as Voldemort wished. It failed to take Sirius's life. It was blocked.
The reason the Killing Curse could become an Unforgivable Curse, besides its ability to kill with a touch, was that it could not be blocked by other spells.
It was precisely this impossible-to-defend-against nature that made the Killing Curse an unstoppable weapon in the hands of Dark wizards.
However, the Killing Curse could be blocked physically. For example, by a small animal, a wall, or a shield...
Eda happened to have a shield. The ring she wore on her left hand had an ability called "Indestructible," which could actively transform the ring into a shield and even reflect damage.
Of course, the reflection effect was based on probability, and Eda had never counted on such things.
While Voldemort was going on and on with his speech, Eda had been hiding nearby, secretly calculating how to rescue Sirius and how to escape with him safely.
But no matter how much she thought about it, Eda could not come up with a particularly good plan. Especially after the Death Eaters arrived, she could not find even the slightest chance of victory.
The only possibility was to catch them off guard, then take advantage of the chaos to Apparate away with Sirius.
Eda had been hiding behind the gravestone, waiting for an opportunity. Before she could find a chance to act, she instead found Voldemort raising his wand.
There was nothing she could do. Eda could only bite the bullet and step in. She had no idea what was going on in Voldemort's mind. Only Merlin knew what spell he was going to fire!
Fortunately, Eda blinked into place in front of Sirius and saved the helpless Padfoot. Fortunately, Eda had not been overconfident.
She chose to block the curse with her shield instead of her wand. Otherwise, she would have been giving her life away for nothing, with a two-for-one deal.
This also spared her the embarrassment of taking an Avada Kedavra to the face once again.
Although Eda had once wondered whether she might now be able to withstand the Killing Curse head-on, she was nowhere near crazy enough to use her own life as an experiment.
Eda's sudden appearance startled many of the Death Eaters present. There were not many lunatics who dared to block Voldemort's Killing Curse.
They hurriedly lowered their heads, pretending they had seen nothing.
At a moment when Voldemort had lost so much aura, who would be foolish enough to look up and stare?
When the boss gets a winning hand, you draw the winning tile yourself; when the boss offers you a toast, you refuse to drink; when the boss serves you food, you spin the table around. People who lack this much tact usually do not last long in their jobs.
Not to mention a job like being a Death Eater, where the future was already pitch-black. This was no longer a matter of simply losing your job. It meant losing your life.
Unlike the Death Eaters who lowered their heads and played dumb, Barty Crouch Jr. widened his eyes and stared at Eda in front of him without blinking.
Barty Crouch Jr. wondered if he had been too happy tonight, to the point that he was hallucinating. Otherwise, there was simply no way to explain what he was seeing.
He could not believe his own eyes. How could someone he had already confirmed was dead suddenly appear alive and kicking again, even blocking his master's Killing Curse?
Could it be that his Killing Curse had missed? That made no sense. If it had missed, then how had this girl stopped breathing just now? Barty Jr. began to question his entire existence.
Voldemort was also looking at Eda, who had suddenly appeared. He examined her with great interest from head to toe.
"I want to know how you survived the Killing Curse," Voldemort said in a commanding tone.
This was the first thing about Eda that interested him. He did not believe that Eda had simply endured the power of the Killing Curse. Rather, he thought she had used some special method he did not know about.
"That's none of your business," Eda replied stiffly.
She was not just being stubborn. She was telling the truth. Eda really did not know why she had not died. In her memory, she should have dodged the sneak attack, but the reality seemed to be that she had not completely dodged it.
She had dodged it, but not completely. The situation was so confusing that even she could not make sense of it.
Eda could only attribute it to the fact that she had accumulated enough HP, combined with the damage reduction buff brought about by the previous upgrade to her Shield Charm. The two things together had allowed her to escape death.
"Being defiant will not make you special. It will only make you look particularly foolish," Voldemort said coldly. "Kneel down and answer my question. This is the last mercy I will show you."
Eda had no intention of trading verbal blows with Voldemort. Facing someone as powerful as Voldemort, she could never be too careful.
She had already fallen once. If she fell a second time, she would truly be beyond saving.
Without saying another word, Eda chose to attack directly. She swung her arm, and blazing flames erupted from her wand, forming a ferocious giant serpent of fire.
Then she whipped up a raging gale. The wind fed the flames, making the fiery serpent even more terrifying.
The casting process sounded rather complicated, but Eda had completed all of it in an instant.
Aside from Voldemort, there was probably no one present who could clearly see her movements, let alone interrupt her spellcasting in advance.
The raging wind and blazing flames threw the Death Eaters kneeling in a circle into chaos. The enormous head of the fiery serpent also slammed toward Voldemort, creating trouble for the Dark Lord.
Taking advantage of this opening, Eda moved as quickly as possible to undo the restraints binding Sirius.
The moment Sirius hit the ground, he immediately charged toward the stunned Fowley. He punched the newly initiated Death Eater twice in the face, knocking Fowley completely senseless.
Sirius did not do this because he had a grudge against Fowley. He simply wanted to reclaim the wand that had been taken from him.
Although Harry's wand reduced his strength somewhat, it was ultimately Harry's wand, and Sirius could not allow it to fall into the hands of a Death Eater.
After recovering Harry's wand, Sirius and Eda tried to Apparate away, only to discover that Apparition had stopped working. They were still standing right where they had been.
Voldemort's reputation was not built on nothing. The instant Eda had flashed into the scene, Voldemort had sealed off the cemetery, rendering Apparition ineffective.
Unable to leave, Sirius and Eda immediately hid behind a gravestone and exchanged glances as they tried to discuss their next move.
Unfortunately, the two of them genuinely had no chemistry at all. Their attempt at communicating through eye contact was basically like winking at a blind man.
Eda was thinking about driving the dogs away, while Sirius interpreted it as catching chickens. They were completely out of sync.
The giant fiery serpent was still showing off its might. If it had been an ordinary person, their ashes should have been ready for burial by now.
But Voldemort was certainly no ordinary person. He directly subdued the magical fire serpent Eda had created.
The fiery serpent turned around and attacked its own creator. It stopped attacking Voldemort and instead spewed flames fiercely toward Eda.
This time, Eda and Sirius finally found some understanding. The two of them fled in opposite directions.
After hiding behind another gravestone, Eda steadied herself.
She knew that simply running away was not a solution. Whether she stuck her head out or kept it tucked away, she was going to get cut down eventually. She might as well face Voldemort head-on!
Although confronting Voldemort directly was an extremely dangerous choice, Eda seemed to have no better option. A direct confrontation still gave her a chance to survive.
Constantly running away would only allow Voldemort to beat a drowning dog.
Besides, Voldemort was not the only person who had been reborn tonight.
It was still unknown who would emerge victorious!
...
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