HP: The Duelist of Hogwarts - 441

Chapter 441: The Death Eaters’ Attitude

“Legilimency.”

“Obliviate.”

The two spells worked in perfect tandem. By the time Sean had extracted the memories he wanted and slipped away again, the Death Eater watching the street outside the orphanage merely thought he had zoned out for a moment from fatigue. He never realised, and could never realise, that someone had just plucked the secrets of this mission clean out of his mind.

From that Death Eater’s thoughts, Sean learned that the ones leading this group of young recruits were two veteran Death Eaters: Avery and Yaxley, whom Sean had met once before, the man who had helped little Barty obtain Harry’s blood.

As for the three missing children, Sean did not find an exact location in the young Death Eater’s head. He did, however, confirm that they had indeed been captured. If nothing unexpected had happened, Avery and Yaxley should have known precisely where they were being held.

They were using an ordinary three‑storey house.

The original owner of the place was under the Imperius Curse, moving mechanically about as he served the Death Eaters: bringing them food and water, seeing to their needs. Even the family’s twelve‑ or thirteen‑year‑old child was forced into the work. Their faces had gone grey, and bruises and scrapes showed where they had been driven too hard, but the Death Eaters had not the slightest trace of pity. In their eyes, these Muggles were worth less than house‑elves and deserved no mercy at all.

“Yaxley, those three brats still not talking?” someone asked lazily.

“If the Imperius Curse could get around the Fidelius Charm, we would not have to go to so much trouble,” Yaxley replied. “We could just put them under Imperius and make them lead us there.”

“So what then? Cruciatus? They are all wizard children. If there were any other choice, I would rather not use the Cruciatus Curse on them.”

“Cruciatus? It is not impossible. If we leave them alone, they will probably end up on the Order of the Phoenix’s side anyway. Sooner or later, the curse will be used on them. Doing it a bit earlier does not make much difference.”

Aside from little Barty and Bellatrix, Voldemort showed a sliver of patience and leniency only toward magically gifted children. Perhaps he still remembered the boy he himself had been, which was why some faint fragment of conscience remained where children were concerned, and why he still clung so tightly to his obsession with becoming Hogwarts’ Defence Against the Dark Arts professor.

Because of that, as a rule, his Death Eaters were somewhat restrained in their treatment of magical children. But when necessity dictated it, any such restraint vanished. Their humanity had been ground away long ago; the so‑called moral line meant nothing to them.

“Fine,” Yaxley said. “I will take a short rest and then go over. I am curious how many times those three can stand the Cruciatus Curse.”

He and Avery exchanged a look. The malice in each man’s eyes mirrored the other’s. They both chuckled, reached for the food on the table, and began to eat.

Neither of them noticed that someone stood right beside them whom they could not see, watching them with cold eyes before slipping away, silent as smoke, toward the place where the three children were confined.

The captives were about thirteen or fourteen, two boys and a girl, all unconscious.

Sean did not hesitate. He raised his wand and transformed them into three small hamsters. With Raven’s Claw augmenting his magic, his Transfiguration had reached the fourth tier, enough to turn humans into animals.

If a target fought back with magic, though, the spell was hard to complete cleanly. That was why this kind of Transfiguration was rarely used in open combat. At best, it was a tool for ambushes, catching an enemy before they had time to react.

In the original timeline, when Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Moody, turned Malfoy into a white ferret, he had struck before Malfoy knew what was happening. Had Malfoy been prepared and resisting, even “Moody” would have had to devote all his focus to the spell. In a real fight, leaving oneself that exposed was far too dangerous. Naturally, such methods saw little use on the battlefield.

Now, however, all three children were deeply unconscious. With no resistance at all, Sean turned them into hamsters with ease and slipped the three warm, squirming bodies into an inner pocket of his robes.

He had barely tucked them away when the door to the room was flung open. Yaxley appeared in the doorway with two Death Eaters at his back. They saw Sean from behind, a stranger standing where their prisoners should have been, and instantly whipped out their wands to aim at him.

“Who are you?” Yaxley barked. “One of the wizards from that orphanage? You have walked straight to your own death!”

Sean slowly turned to face them.

The moment Yaxley saw his face clearly, he froze. Recognition wiped the smugness from his expression. The blood drained from his cheeks. Without a second of hesitation, he spun on his heel, reaching for the familiar pull of Apparition to get away.

Even as he moved, Sean’s Anti‑Disapparition Jinx had already flared across the floor, spreading through the house in a wave.

Yaxley’s Apparition snapped and failed. He pitched forward, crashing into the boards. Screaming Avery’s name, he scrambled clumsily for the sitting room. In his blind panic, he missed a step on the stairs and tumbled all the way down, limbs flailing.

Sean watched him flee and lifted his wand. A blue‑white aura pooled at the tip, trailing a ribbon of light as it swept out. It brushed aside the Disarming and Stunning Spells fired by Yaxley’s two underlings as if they were nothing, reflecting them back. Both new recruit Death Eaters were thrown from their feet and knocked out cold.

Then Sean started down the stairs one unhurried step at a time, eyes settling on Avery, who had just helped a bruised and shaking Yaxley upright.

“Yaxley, why are you in such a state?” Avery snapped, raising his wand toward Sean even as he sneered at his companion. “All because of this brat? Who is he? One of the orphans? You are getting more and more pathetic.”

Yaxley stared at Avery, who still had the leisure to mock him while pointing his wand at Sean. Inwardly, he was collapsing into despair.

“Avery,” he choked out, “he is that one. The master’s other half. Sean Bulstrode.”

At his words, Avery looked from Sean to Yaxley and back again. His face went ashen. Without a heartbeat’s pause, he dropped to his knees. His forehead pressed to the floor.

“M–master… Lord… please forgive me. Forgive me…”

Sean glanced down at the kneeling Avery, expression turning faintly odd.

The way these Death Eaters were treating him seemed a little…

Strange.