Chapter 396: As If I Was Never Here
Chapter 396: As If I Was Never Here
Not all the wizards who arrived on the island later were aware of the full situation.
In fact, Professor McGonagall had contacted Minister of Magic Fudge and the Head of the Auror Office, Scrimgeour. The other wizards were summoned without knowing what they were up against.
When they appeared through the Portkey, they witnessed the Silent One wreaking havoc above the island, with Professor Dumbledore and several Hogwarts professors fighting against the dark creatures.
Many were killed by the Silent One, and even more Muggles lay on the ground.
The Aurors naturally assumed their most familiar role: fighting against dark creatures and protecting the weak and helpless Muggles.
A young Auror with purplish-red hair noticed a severely injured Muggle soldier lying on the ground at the edge of the battlefield, moaning. She immediately cast a spell to pull him out of the dangerous situation where he was almost engulfed by the black fog.
"Are you okay? Where are you hurt? Oh, sorry!"
She pulled too hard, accidentally knocking the soldier against the nearby lamppost. The young Auror thought she heard the sound of bones breaking.
The soldier almost rolled his eyes, gasping for breath and unable to speak.
"Sorry, sorry! I'm always so clumsy. Are you okay? Does it hurt?"
The young Auror apologized hastily, and her hair turned grayish-white with her mood.
The soldier squinted at her changing hair color, coughed a few times, and asked, "Who are you?"
"Me? I'm Nymphadora Tonks. You can call me Tonks." Tonks said guiltily, "Just a moment, I'll find someone to treat you."
"You're... wizards?"
The soldier had already seen many wizards raising their wands to control the Silent One, but he still asked, "Are you all...?"
"Yes, we're all wizards from the British Ministry of Magic."
Tonks nodded, suddenly remembering that this was a breach of the Secrecy Act. She felt a sense of panic.
Then she remembered that this situation was already beyond the scope of the Secrecy Act. As long as all the Muggles' memories were erased afterward, she wouldn't be breaking the law.
Tonks patted the Muggle soldier's arm reassuringly and said,
"Don't worry, your injuries can be healed in just a second! We'll take care of that guy in the sky soon. By tomorrow morning when you wake up, everything will be back to normal."
The soldier didn't reply. He watched as the witch with the color-changing hair drew her wand and joined the fight against the black fog.
No one paid attention to the struggling Muggles, and no one expected them to do anything other than run for their lives and scream. When the Silent One appeared, the wizards' main opponent naturally shifted.
The soldier on the ground crawled towards the nearby building ruins, coughing up blood as he moved.
He was just a low-ranking soldier, unaware of the Silent One or the research conducted in the facility.
But he had been indoctrinated with the idea that since ancient times, the Muggle-borns were servants of the devil, bringing endless disasters to the world and causing poverty, disease, and misfortune among ordinary people.
In the soldier's eyes, the facts seemed to confirm this belief—everything was fine until the wizards arrived, and then the "black devil" suddenly appeared, causing buildings to collapse like an earthquake, and people around were eradicated like weeds.
They weren't just numbers or symbols to him; they were his friends, his comrades, and the person he cared about.
The soldier struggled to reach the edge of the ruins, moved the rubble, and pushed aside the bodies to retrieve a machine gun from beneath a corpse.
He dragged his heavy body to the edge of a cement block and used the nearby stones to prop up the gun, aiming it at the wizards on the other side.
Blood trickled down his forehead and into his eyes, blurring his vision, but it didn't matter to the soldier; everyone standing was an enemy.
Including the chatty witch from earlier.
He took a deep breath and pulled the trigger without hesitation—
"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat..."
Amid the rapid gunfire, bullets rained down on the wizards who were fighting against the Silent One.
Instantly, six or seven wizards had blood gushing from their chests and abdomens, while the others hastily cast Iron Armor Spells to protect themselves or dove for cover.
The previously orderly situation of suppressing the Silent One was disrupted, and with a "whoosh," the Silent One darted out, leaving the wizards behind to strike only its tail.
A spell of light from above shattered the gun barrel, and Professor Dumbledore appeared with a grim expression.
He flicked his wand, and the machine gun flew away.
"Damn it, what's going on here?"
Scrimgeour, furious, slashed with his wand, and the cement block blocking the soldier flew away. Immediately after, they heard a crisp explosion.
"Bang!"
Scrimgeour quickly bent his wand, and a transparent barrier appeared in front of him, but no attack followed.
After seeing the scene ahead, the lion-like man stiffened, his anger having nowhere to go.
The soldier who fired the shot had committed suicide with his pistol, his forehead lowered and his legs sprawled out, as if silently mocking the arrogant wizard.
"Help! Help me—"
Another young Auror held Tonks, seeing her covered in blood, and cried out, "Help, she's dying!"
"Shut up! Haven't you learned the Stop Bleeding Charm?"
Scrimgeour cursed as he limped over and used his wand to heal Tonks.
The crowd stiffened.
They heard the silent howl of the Silent One again.
This time, the black beast charged towards the wizards.
Dumbledore sighed and waved his wand, shattering a large portion of the Silent One.
The black fog suddenly dived into the ground, and the stones cracked and moved. Soon, the Silent One emerged from the other side, and its black tentacles rushed towards the stunned Fudge.
Streams of magic shot at the Silent One, but this time, they seemed sparse and scattered.
Scrimgeour glanced at his dying subordinate and then at the tense battlefield in the distance. As he prepared to retract his wand, a figure suddenly appeared through apparition.
"Leave her to me." Mabel said as she quickly took over the treatment of the injured.
"Madam Pomfrey!" Several young Aurors exclaimed in surprise.
Over ninety percent of the employees in the Ministry of Magic had attended Hogwarts, and almost all of them, except for the very elderly, had been treated by this matron.
Scrimgeour breathed a sigh of relief and turned to deal with the Silent One, ordering the few Aurors who could still move, "You, knock out all the Muggles on this island, whether they're women or children, show no mercy!"
"But..." The young Aurors hesitated.
[Wizards are not allowed to use magic on Muggles]—this was a written law.
Although most wizards didn't strictly follow this law, these young Aurors held it as a golden rule.
"Do you want to get shot at again? Move it! I'll take full responsibility!" Scrimgeour roared.
"Yes... Yes!"
The young Aurors rushed out, searching for Muggles who seemed relatively intact and casting Stunning Spells on them without hesitation.
Even if the Muggle was already unconscious or even dead, the young Aurors cast their spells meticulously.
...
After the gunshots, Vold immediately returned to the window, witnessing the chaos in the distance.
Several Aurors were injured and needed treatment, and some were sent to deal with the Muggles, leaving the team fighting the Silent One short-handed.
The Silent One had learned its lesson; it no longer charged into the wizards' encirclement and kept its distance from Dumbledore, occasionally attacking isolated wizards at the edges and then rushing to slaughter Muggles on the island.
Like heavy industrial pollution, the black fog became the Silent One's best camouflage, making it difficult to pinpoint its core.
People feared the Silent One escaping—such a powerful creature in the city could cause immeasurable damage and, more importantly, severely compromise the Statute of Secrecy.
Decades ago, a Silent One (Credence) had caused a series of destructions on the streets of New York City. Although the memories of Muggles were eventually erased by mixing venom with rainwater, no one could guarantee that everyone had forgotten that experience or that every photo capturing magic had been found and removed.
What if someone didn't like getting rained on? What if someone found those memories stimulating and interesting, not entirely bad? The magical world was like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, pretending that the magical world hadn't been exposed, deceiving itself into thinking everything was fine, and not wanting to hear any news to the contrary.
Moreover, with the changing times, Muggle communication media had developed rapidly, making it exponentially more difficult to completely hide an incident of a Silent One causing massive destruction compared to the past. The only fortunate thing was that this creature was currently focused on fighting on the island and hadn't escaped to wreak havoc elsewhere.
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...
"What about Mabel?" Haley asked, her hands tightly gripping the bedsheet, with concern. "Is she injured? Is there something you're not comfortable telling me?"
"Mabel isn't injured." Vold pointed out the window. "She's out there."
The little girl immediately tried to sit up in bed but suddenly clutched her chest, her face contorting in pain.
She paused, then crawled up and peered out the window.
She saw the ruined buildings, the rolling black fog, the wizards with their wands, and the soldiers lying on the ground. A scene that would make ordinary people question their worldview appeared before Haley's eyes, like a dull baseball game broadcast.
She watched for a while, then turned to Vold, "I don't see Mabel!"
Vold looked at her clear eyes and paused before saying, "That black fog is Mabel—due to her past pain, she gave birth to the dark creature, the Silent One, and as its host, Mabel is wrapped within the black fog.
(End of Chapter)
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(End of Excerpt)
Chapter end
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