Ten minutes after Lys and the other Death Eaters Disapparated from the Bones residence, Ministry of MagicAurors and Order of the Phoenix members led by McGonagall arrived in succession.
In the darkness, the Dark Mark's eerie green glow above and the moon's silver light below couldn't compete with the blazing fire atop the hill that seized everyone's attention.
The crowd fell silent as they stared at the house, nearly burned to collapse. Potter and Evans, though not witnessing such scenes for the first time, still stood with fire reflected in one's eyes and tears brimming in the other's, both speechless.
Finally, Professor McGonagall and the one-legged Alastor Moody raised their wands first, attempting to extinguish the flames and search for the bodies of Lavinia Bones and her family in the ruins.
Two minutes later, Dumbledore, just returned from abroad with exhaustion weighing on him, Apparated at the base of the hill. His breathing was heavy, his eyes harboring pain and a flash of guilt.
Lavinia Bones had maintained her opposition to the aristocratic bill at his suggestion, yet he hadn't taken strong protective measures for her. Instead, at her insistence, he'd allowed her to return home. Her family's six deaths bore some of his responsibility.
Dumbledore raised his wand, and the flames still burning stubbornly seemed to be plucked from the house's combustible materials by giant hands.
Deprived of fuel, the flames died within seconds.
This display of supremely powerful yet casual combination of Transfiguration and spellwork made Potter and Augustus among the Aurors brighten with hope.
At times like these, nothing could lift spirits more than their leader's formidable strength.
Dumbledore knew this well, so when he waved his wand again, the scorching heat over the extinguished ruins vanished in an instant.
In the darkness, everyone began searching through the charcoal-like wreckage. Despite the considerable number present, apart from the flicker of Lumos charms, all was silent.
Only the creak of footsteps on burned floorboards and the crash of collapsing stair frames could be heard.
Until Moody and Lily Evans discovered four half-charred bodies in a corner.
Moody adjusted his eyepatch over his missing eye, trying to hide his grief.
Lily Evans gazed at the horrific scene in silent contemplation, seeming both pained and somehow relieved.
After a long moment, she looked up for Potter, spotting his messy head anxiously rushing toward her from behind a half-collapsed doorway. She blinked, then leaned into his embrace.
Dumbledore, however, quickly responded: "Fenwick's message said Lavinia returned with her husband and children. Keep searching."
But as the others surveyed the remaining embers, no one held onto foolish hope.
The Aurors cast detection spells, but with so many people present, the effectiveness was poor. Twenty minutes later, only two Aurors remained—the rest had departed.
Augustus was one of those who stayed.
He leaned against a mostly burned cabinet, burying his face in his hands regardless of the soot staining them.
Originally, he'd had no strong opinions about aristocratic rule. Though his family had been wiped out leaving only him and his sister, they were still of the purest bloodline. But seeing this scene so similar to his family's tragedy left him momentarily lost in thought.
Sliding helplessly against the cabinet, he seemed to hear faint breathing.
He jumped up, quickly using spells to lift what appeared to be part of the cabinet's wooden panels.
He wanted to call loudly for help, but noticed something familiar on the children's fingers. He quickly assessed their condition—they couldn't wait any longer, both children's breathing was very weak, but...
Augustus shook his head at the dark-haired young man questioning him from afar, indicating nothing was wrong, while releasing an inconspicuous wisp of Patronus smoke from his wand tip.
Dumbledore arrived quickly. Augustus opened a crack in the wooden panel and whispered: "Someone helped them. The fewer people who know about this, the better."
Dumbledore certainly understood this principle. He placed his hand on Augustus's shoulder as if comforting him, while his wand tip dropped to quickly cast several spells on the two children inside.
He announced loudly to those present that he'd received word the children had been sent ahead to a reliable person's home by Lavinia, and everyone could go home to rest—they'd be notified immediately if there was news.
Sirius Black seemed to have concerns he wanted to discuss with Dumbledore, but Augustus blocked him.
Augustus disliked this young Black family member, even though he was a Gryffindor graduate, because he always felt this person's obsessions were absurdly extreme—his thinking wasn't quite right.
After the crowd thinned significantly, Augustus, using the excuse of being overwhelmed with pain from similar past experiences, quickly lay on the cabinet and was led away by Dumbledore.
They then went to Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts.
Madam Pomfrey was still giving Skele-Gro to a Gryffindor injured in Quidditch training when Dumbledore called her away.
Augustus pried out the two cufflinks and the already cracked and chipped amber pendant from the weakly breathing children's hands.
He removed a badge from his inner waistcoat and placed it before Dumbledore, hesitating: "But how did she..." Before he could finish, Madam Pomfrey rushed in carrying her medical kit.
"Albus, I must—oh! Merlin's beard!" She stopped her exclamation, looking at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore shook his head, having house-elves prepare an abandoned classroom. Until they understood the situation, these two children temporarily couldn't be known by others.
Seeing the office again contained only himself and Dumbledore, Augustus continued: "Her technique has greatly improved, but this kind of non-mainstream alchemical method is still so rare. Do you think..."
Dumbledore rubbed his temples, saying nothing but picking up the cufflink trailing a thread from being hastily torn off.
He knew who Augustus was referring to.
That child...
He picked up the pendant again. So hasty—even these two items' protective effects fell far short of the children's actual condition.
For a moment, Dumbledore couldn't even judge whether this child was simply rushed, or deliberately showing goodwill.
He gave Augustus no response, just as in third year, dismissing Augustus who tried to discuss Lys from Hogwarts.
He sat in his high-backed chair until dawn.
The Bones house had Fidelius Charm protection—this was why he'd agreed to let her return home. But still...
When the two children woke, Dumbledore wanted to learn something, but the older child firmly shut his mouth and covered his brother's mouth too.
He only remembered the wizard with a strand of red hair who'd gestured "shh" to him.
At ten years old, the topics frequently discussed at home made him clearly understand what kind of organization had killed his family. In that situation, that person had still left something to save him and his brother—that person was good.
That person said "shh," so he couldn't speak.
But what secrets could a small child keep from this century's greatest white wizard?
The sense of security Dumbledore brought was ultimately stronger than that of a good person who'd inexplicably appeared among the murderers in his home.
Dumbledore used Human Transfiguration to disguise himself and visited Lys's reading room. Since the Diagon Alley massacre, he hadn't been to this street in a long time.
Starlit Reading Room?
He entered just as Lys returned from Snape's. One look left him somewhat shocked.
The once-fine girl now had a dark complexion and visibly weak aura.
Her slightly wavy hair hadn't received careful attention.
Her disheveled head appeared a size too large on her thin body.
And her first action upon entering was to take the potion from her mother's hands and drink it.
Sighing, Dumbledore stepped forward, placing the cufflinks and pendant on the table before Lys. Seeing her slight backward step, he shook his head and said quietly: "Thank you, child."
Lys looked uncertainly at the middle-aged man before her, simply destroying the evidence without speaking.
At the time, there hadn't been enough time—if she'd had time to think, she might not have acted to hide those two children.
She'd constantly worried about these items being discovered by the Dark Lord's people, even becoming anxious. Now they were finally gone.
Dumbledore looked deeply at Lys and left.
The Dark Lord held a small gathering that Lys couldn't attend.
Malfoy saw Lys in her empty black robes, standing there like a Dementor drifting about, and fell silent for a moment.
One after another—how had both she and Snape gotten themselves into such sorry states?
"I'll explain to the Lord. Go home and rest."
In reality, no one cared about Lys's absence. Only Bellatrix, while mocking old Thomas, mentioned "that waste" in passing.
But it was precisely missing this gathering that gave Lys the opportunity to enter the Black family library.
Since being injured by Lys's strange curse, Walburga rarely left the Black ancestral home. This opportunity was rare—Regulus told her to take all the books she wanted to see, and before his mother returned, he would come to take Lys away.
Lys forced her weak body to gather all books possibly related to soul secrets and brought them back to the reading room.
Watching Lys rapidly reading and taking notes in the corner, Senna wrinkled her nose at her own scent.
Recently, the smell of calming draughts and concentration potions had never left her body. The little madwoman drank too many potions—sometimes even normal doses of sleeping draughts couldn't make her sleep.
She could only set aside Noah's potions to research some draughts Lys needed.
While Lys was seriously studying those notes, a dirty owl threw in a note.
Noah opened it and immediately frowned deeply after one glance. It was a list reporting prices of sensitive materials in an unclear manner.
Noah hadn't done accounts in years and felt the numbers and amounts were significantly off, though he couldn't say exactly how.
When he asked Lys and learned this was a smuggling channel she operated in Knockturn Alley, he was momentarily stunned but quickly accepted it.
After all, Miss Last had left them meager assets, and Senna'sLam family fortune consisted of only five boxes of books.
The reading room showed no profit either—it was just kept open for entertainment.
Little Star's alchemical experiments and Senna's potion ingredients always needed sources and financial support.
With Lys's agreement, Noah began researching market prices for circulating materials and understanding some channel structures.
Under his calculations, all the petty scheming in the numbers that had annoyed Lys was exposed.
The final result showed the person reporting accounts had secretly consumed nearly a third of the Galleons.
"If you find dealing with those numbers tiresome, you can leave it to me in the future," Noah suggested to Lys, frowning at the two vastly different account records.
Lys looked at Noah's rewritten, clear accounts and remembered what Senna had said while pinching her cheek:
"After all, Noah and I each have our specialties, unlike your muscle-brained self."
She smiled, picked up the account list, and went to find trouble—or rather, to vent her inner frustration.
Lys sat in a high-backed chair, shaking out the two account lists. But the contact person who had once knelt before Lys begging to spare his life was still trying to deceive her. Now he stood before Lys, looking down at her while twisting concepts in his words.
The memory of nearly dying had grown distant, but the intoxication brought by those Galleons still lingered on him.
The enormous profit tempted him to forget the strange methods of the person before him, who in Knockturn Alley had dared to take everything except life itself.
Lys flicked her wand twice: "You don't have the qualifications to look down on me."
Following her words came a silent Severing Charm. Lys felt her mind tighten from the blood stimulation, her back slamming against the chair's backrest.
Tilting her head slightly to look down at the man kneeling on the ground in growing panic, Lys marveled at her increasingly vanished awe and innocence.
Once, when seeking revenge, she wouldn't harm even a hair on her opponent. Now she casually severed others' limbs with a wave, dissatisfied with others looking down on her and deceiving her—so they must kneel to speak with her...
She thought again of the person signed M.K. and the Dark Lord.
Lost in thought, Lys had to sigh: sometimes, the power in one's hands really does make one increasingly irritable and lazy.
Especially when facing such fools who, even at this point, still tried to deceive her.
Recalling this person's previous crimes—selling Muggles who couldn't use magic in America, violating the Statute of Secrecy by participating in Muggle leadership assassinations in Russia, and in Britain... oh right, he'd also been responsible for that Thomas family trafficking event... who knew how many lives were on his hands.
What had she been thinking originally? Actually keeping such a person under her employ to work for her?
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
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