Voldemort was suffocating in humiliation.
He'd gone from the Dark Lord returning in triumph… to being forced into constant dodging, blocking, and scrambling—like some panicked first-year trying not to get swatted.
After holding out for a while, he finally snapped.
He whirled toward his followers and roared, "What are you standing there for?! Get over here and help!"
Eight Death Eaters—Wormtail included—hurried forward at once.
Lucius, however, quietly took half a step backward and drifted toward the rear.
He was very clearly preparing to contribute nothing.
Because Lucius had done his homework.
From everything he'd gathered, Hermione was one of the people Arthur cared about most. Draco had said it outright—Arthur spoiled her shamelessly.
Lucius didn't care why Hermione was here.
But he did care about one thing:
Arthur would not allow her to die.
And if Hermione got hurt… Arthur would appear.
If Arthur appeared and Lucius was seen actively participating in a group ambush—
Lucius was confident he'd be skinned alive.
And that would be the gentle outcome, done purely out of respect for Draco.
So Lucius chose the only intelligent strategy available:
show up, look loyal, and remain as close to useless as possible.
He was congratulating himself on his brilliant caution when he realized—far too late—that he'd celebrated prematurely.
Hermione wasn't looking at names.
She wasn't sorting faces.
To her, they were simply enemies raising wands.
She saw the Death Eaters rush her, and her expression turned bright—almost excited.
As if she'd just been handed a gift.
Because honestly?
Beating Voldemort alone had been fun.
But beating Voldemort and a pack of Death Eaters at the same time?
That sounded even better.
Hermione flipped her hand and produced something large and heavy—
a rune robot, over a meter tall.
A construct she'd borrowed from Ranni.
Ranni's machines weren't just for managing resources and production in the Zen Garden—they were built to fight. Once activated, as long as their core held power, they could continuously fire magical projectiles at targets.
Ranni had made many.
Hermione, however, had always thought they were too bulky to carry around, so she'd only brought one.
If she'd brought more, this graveyard might have seen the birth of a full rune-robot army.
But one was enough.
And Hermione didn't summon it to deal with the eight Death Eaters.
Not really.
The rune robot's real job was to help the Golden Order Greatsword keep Voldemort pinned—so he couldn't interfere while Hermione dealt with the Death Eaters personally.
Activating the machine cost Hermione a few seconds.
And in those few seconds, Wormtail—normally a coward of legendary proportions—found courage purely because Voldemort was watching.
He raised his wand and led the attack—
and he didn't hold back.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A wave of green light erupted.
The others followed, curses stacking together like a firing squad.
Lucius's blood ran cold.
If Hermione died here—on-screen, no less—then Lucius being present as an enemy would become a death sentence.
He could already imagine Arthur's expression.
He didn't even dare imagine the next part.
In the stadium, far away, the spectators reacted the same way.
Students gasped.
Some screamed.
Some covered their eyes.
Even Harry, after all he'd endured, felt his stomach knot tight.
He turned toward Arthur instinctively, terrified of what this would do to him.
But Arthur was still lounging there, calm and unbothered, like he was watching a play he'd already read.
Harry stared. "Arthur… you're not worried about Hermione?!"
Arthur waved him off. "Relax. Keep watching."
Harry swallowed hard and forced his gaze back to the sky.
The green light struck Hermione.
She vanished inside it—completely swallowed by the Killing Curse glow.
Then the light faded.
And Hermione was still standing.
Unharmed.
Not a mark.
Not a scorch.
Not even a stagger.
The only change was subtle—
if you looked closely, you'd see the bracelet on her wrist.
A delicate piece set with nine rubies.
One of those rubies had cracked.
A single crack.
One life saved.
Nine rubies.
Nine "no"s to death.
It was obviously another of Arthur's creations.
In the stadium, people exhaled like they'd been holding their breath for minutes.
Lucius nearly collapsed in relief.
Hermione, meanwhile, touched the cracked ruby—and looked genuinely upset.
Not because she'd almost died.
Because the cracked gem ruined the bracelet's symmetry.
Practicality be damned.
Aesthetics had been violated.
Her expression cooled.
And if she'd been holding back before…
she wasn't anymore.
Hermione lifted her wand high.
Pale moonlight gathered at the tip, thickening, compressing, expanding—
until it formed a blade.
A sword.
Blue-white.
And enormous.
A forty-meter greatsword hung in the air above her, heavy with magic.
It was a spell from the Lands Between:
Carian Greatsword.
Every Death Eater froze.
They didn't look like hardened criminals anymore.
They looked like men who'd just realized they were standing in front of something that belonged on a battlefield, not a duel.
Were they out of practice?
Or… had Harry been right?
Had the world moved on while they hid in the shadows?
Hermione didn't wait for them to answer.
She brought the Carian Greatsword down.
The strike was big, but not especially fast.
All of them—Lucius first—threw themselves away from the impact zone.
The blade slammed into the ground.
A trench ripped open—over a meter wide, nearly forty meters long.
Hermione's attack had missed.
And yet, she didn't look disappointed.
She looked like she'd just warmed up.
She shifted her grip—
both hands on the wand, treating it like the sword's handle—
and began to spin on the spot.
A simple motion.
A child's idea of a sword technique.
But with a forty-meter blade attached?
It became a nightmare.
The Carian Greatsword turned into a sweeping wall of destruction, rotating around Hermione like a giant magical scythe.
She didn't need her eyes.
Her spirit sense covered everything near her.
She didn't aim.
She just cleaned.
One full rotation.
Two.
Three.
Until she felt a faint dizziness—
and then she flicked her wrist and severed the connection.
The Carian Greatsword didn't vanish immediately.
Freed, it shot off on its own—
straight toward Voldemort.
Voldemort, already struggling against the Golden Order Greatsword and the rune robot's constant bombardment, felt the air behind him split—
and twisted away just in time, narrowly avoiding the forty-meter blade.
But that evasive move cost him.
The Golden Order Greatsword struck like a predator.
A clean, vicious hit across his back.
Blood opened in a bright line.
Hermione's little stunt—this ridiculous, brutal spinning sweep—was something Arthur had taught her.
The "Cleaning Day Sword Style."
In truth, it was nothing more than a giant windmill.
But it fit Hermione perfectly.
She wasn't trained in proper sword forms.
So she used what worked.
And after that single move…
nothing around her remained taller than her waist.
The Death Eaters hadn't been sliced neatly in half.
The Carian Greatsword was energy, not a true physical edge—Hermione still hadn't mastered condensing it into a razor.
Arthur could do that.
Hermione, for now, was trading sharpness for range.
So the Death Eaters lived.
That didn't mean they were fine.
Six of them lay scattered in positions no healthy body should ever be able to achieve.
Ribs shattered.
Spines broken.
Most of them were alive, but ruined—life sentences inside their own bodies.
Only two escaped that sweep:
Lucius, who had already been backing away with every instinct screaming at him—
and Wormtail, who panicked and transformed into a rat, slipping beneath the blade's path.
Lucius stood far away now, breathing hard, face pale.
For the first time in his life, he felt genuine regret over one decision:
Why did I answer the Dark Lord's call?
Staying home would've hurt his arm and annoyed Voldemort.
Coming here had nearly gotten him buried.
He looked at the six twisted bodies and felt the chill settle into his bones.
He had come that close to joining them.
And as Hermione stood in the darkness with her wand lowered, eyes searching—
Lucius realized something worse.
Because of the distance, because of the night—
Hermione could only see one thing out there.
A standing figure.
And she didn't care who he was.
Only that he was still standing.
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