That was why Ian was willing to let Voldemort's lackey go for the time being. He had something more important to focus on, and more importantly, he intended to use the Death Eater as bait to see what he could draw out.
But before any of that, he needed to understand why this situation had happened in the first place.
Under Ian's gaze, Jorkins felt an overwhelming amount of pressure. The moment he met Ian's eyes, his entire body tensed.
"P-please, ask whatever you want!" he hurriedly babbled, looking utterly terrified. "I'll tell you everything I know!"
What he didn't realize was that the mysterious, terrifying wizard standing before him was, technically speaking, his Hogwarts junior, a fellow Ravenclaw.
"Hmm. I hope you can clear something up for me." Ian's gaze swept across the newly normal Muggle street around them before settling back on Jorkins's face, his eyes deep and unreadable. "That Death Eater was chasing you earlier. From the moment you two first clashed to the point where you were forced to Apparate here, I can roughly reconstruct the route you took.
"Given your position at the time and the surrounding area, there were at least three other routes that were shorter, more secluded, and far more likely to lead you toward other wizards, or directly back to a Ministry safe house. Yet you chose a longer route through a relatively open Muggle area, which ultimately brought you right in front of the Royal Catherine Hotel."
Ian's tone was completely matter-of-fact, but Jorkins immediately broke into a fresh cold sweat.
"That makes me curious," Ian added, a sharp note of scrutiny entering his voice. "Was it a coincidence? Or... did you deliberately lead him here?"
That was exactly what Ian had found suspicious when he sifted through the Death Eater's memories.
The moment Jorkins heard the accusation, his face turned deathly pale, and he frantically waved his hands. "No! It's not like that! My Lord! How could I deliberately lure such a dangerous man into a Muggle district? And right in front of you, no less! I swear on my life that wasn't my intention! I was just trying to escape! My mind was a complete mess..."
Terrified that Ian would misunderstand, he desperately scrambled to explain himself.
"Then was it Mr. Barty Crouch's arrangement?" Ian interrupted calmly, though a subtle sharpness flashed in his eyes at the name.
Among the fragments Ian had gleaned from the Death Eater's memories, there was indeed information about Jorkins working under Crouch. And Barty Crouch... in the original timeline, he was a ruthless, complicated man who would stop at nothing to combat dark magic, even showing cold indifference toward his own son.
If Crouch knew Jorkins was being hunted, could he have used the opportunity to set a trap? Could he have been willing to exploit a Muggle area, and an unknown, powerful wizard, to take down a Death Eater?
The thought made Ian's gaze turn cold. He didn't like being used, and he especially disliked being dragged into the ruthless calculations of a high-ranking Ministry official.
Of course, there was one flaw in the theory: for it to work, Crouch would have needed to know Ian existed in the first place, which seemed practically impossible.
The more Ian considered it, the stranger it all felt.
"It has absolutely nothing to do with Director Crouch!" Jorkins reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, his voice spiking with urgent panic. For a moment, his desperation even overwhelmed his awe of Ian. "Director Crouch doesn't even know I found that item! I haven't had a chance to report it to him yet! I swear! By Merlin, I swear! From start to finish, this was entirely my own discovery and my own mess. It has nothing to do with the Director, and nothing to do with any official Ministry order!"
Clearly, the man was deeply loyal to his department. He was so frantic he could barely string his sentences together, terrified that this unfathomable entity might direct his anger toward Director Crouch, or the entire Ministry of Magic. He didn't dare imagine what that would look like.
Ian quietly watched him panic and babble, offering no immediate response. His calm gaze seemed to cut straight through every disguise, reading the man's heart directly. Jorkins felt like a specimen pinned under a microscope, with nowhere left to hide.
"I'm telling the truth!" he squeaked, forcing the words out.
"Oh?" Ian murmured softly, raising the syllable with obvious skepticism. "If it wasn't Crouch, and it wasn't a coincidence... then can you explain why, with your life on the line, your 'instinct' brought you so precisely to this exact spot?"
He paused, his voice carrying a keen insight that sent a chill down Jorkins's spine. "I just took a look through that Death Eater's memories. Arrogant as he is, he understands basic tracking and interception. Several of your turns and route choices were terrible for escaping pursuit. In fact, some of them looked... deliberate."
Ian's logic was sound. That was precisely what had bothered him when browsing the Death Eater's mind.
"Really...?" Jorkins opened and closed his mouth, struggling for words.
He forced himself to think back through the frantic chaos of his escape. Now that he was calm enough to analyze it, there 'had' been several moments when he could have turned into a familiar alley or run toward areas frequented by Aurors.
Yet, for some reason, it was as if an inner voice, or an overpowering instinct, had driven him in this exact direction, making him ignore options that were obviously safer.
The feeling was horrifying, as if an invisible thread had been tugging him along all along.
The last bit of color drained from his face. A chill far deeper than his fear of the Death Eater seeped from the bottom of his soul. Could he really have been manipulated without even realizing it?
Watching the fear, confusion, and horror flicker across Jorkins's face, Ian had his answer. The man wasn't lying. At least, as far as Jorkins knew, he hadn't done any of this on purpose.
Which raised an even bigger question: 'Why?'
After all, in the wizarding world, true coincidences didn't exist.
"Think carefully, Mr. Jorkins," Ian said, his voice softening slightly, though it still carried an absolute authority. "Before this chase started, did anything unusual happen? Did you meet anyone strange? Or... did you hear any unusual advice or prophecies?"
Having studied similar phenomena before, Ian was already narrowing down the possibilities.
Jorkins jolted as if struck by lightning. He jerked his head up, disbelief flashing across his face as something clicked in his mind, only to be replaced by deeper confusion and dread.
"Someone... special..." Jorkins muttered, the vault of his memory slowly opening. "About... two weeks ago, in Diagon Alley. There's a narrow alley behind the Leaky Cauldron where they dump trash... I met someone there."
He sank back into the memory, speaking hesitantly, unsure of the details. "I'd worked late that night and went to Diagon Alley to buy some potions to help me stay awake. When I passed that dark alley, I saw someone leaning against the wall. He wore a heavy black cloak, his hood pulled down so far I couldn't see his face. I was going to hurry past, but... he suddenly called out to me."
Jorkins paused.
"What did he say?" Ian pressed, keeping his gaze locked onto him.
"His voice was strange, a bit hoarse, as if muffled by something. I couldn't make it out clearly," Jorkins recalled, straining to bring back the specifics. "He said... ''Beware the claws lurking in the shadows. They have already Nifflered your scent.'' At the time, I was startled, but I just thought it was a drunk wizard babbling nonsense, or maybe some weird scam. I ignored him and tried to walk away."
The more Jorkins recounted the story, the more sinister it felt. Cold sweat dripped down his forehead. As a Ravenclaw, he wasn't lacking in intelligence; he could tell now that someone had been pulling his strings behind the scenes all along.
"And then?" Ian prompted smoothly.
"Then he said something else." A look of lingering dread crossed Jorkins's face. "''When darkness closes in and there is nowhere left to hide, remember to run toward the light... toward a sanctuary marked by a golden lion.'' After that, he seemed to... melt right into the shadows and vanish. I looked around, but the alley was completely empty. I was tired and annoyed, and the whole thing gave me the creeps, so I left as fast as I could. I didn't think much of it afterward, just assumed he was a lunatic or that I'd imagined it."
Jorkins swallowed hard, his eyes wide with anxiety.
'A sanctuary marked by a golden lion?' Ian pondered.
The Royal Catherine Hotel... The name itself had no obvious connection to lions, but old-fashioned British establishments with "Royal" in their title almost always featured lion crests or lion motifs in their decor. And a hotel could easily serve as a shelter, a "sanctuary."
It was a remarkably subtle riddle.
"Just now... when that Death Eater had me cornered and my mind went completely blank..." Jorkins whispered, horror creeping back into his voice. "That exact sentence, ''When darkness closes in and there is nowhere left to hide, remember to run toward the light... toward a sanctuary marked by a golden lion'', suddenly blasted through my head at full volume, as if someone were shouting it straight into my mind!
"It was crystal clear! And then... I don't know. My body just took over. I ran frantically in this direction without even thinking about which route made sense..."
Jorkins swallowed heavily. The truth was dawning on him: an ordinary Ministry worker like him had been dragged into something monstrously complex. Finished speaking, he glanced nervously at Ian, terrified the young man would think he was spinning wild tales to cover his tracks.
Ian listened in silence, his expression unreadable, though a subtle flicker passed through his eyes.
Two weeks ago...
An alley behind Diagon Alley...
A mysterious hooded figure...
Phrases sounding like prophecy or psychological suggestion...
And a post-hypnotic trigger activated at the peak of crisis.
This was hardly something Jorkins possessed the imagination or skill to fabricate. Nor did it fit Barty Crouch's rigidly pragmatic operational style.
It felt far more like a contingency planted far in advance, or a calculated nudge from an unseen hand.
"A prophecy?" Ian murmured beneath his breath.
He turned his gaze back onto Jorkins, studying him with renewed interest. "Mr. Jorkins, are you willing to prove your account?"
"I am! Of course I am! A magical contract, anything!" Jorkins nodded frantically. If it could prove his innocence, he would agree to whatever was asked.
"No need for anything so complicated," Ian said, shaking his head. His tone remained polite, but carried absolute authority. "I have a much more direct method to verify if you're telling the truth, and to find out exactly what that suggestion was."
Jorkins froze. "A... a more direct way?"
"Yes," Ian replied calmly. "If you don't mind, I'd like to examine your memories regarding this encounter. It's the clearest, most reliable route."
Examine his memories?!
Jorkins's pupils shrank. Legilimency!
This mysterious, terrifying wizard wanted to use high-level mind magic, a spell that could breach a person's privacy and mental defenses in an instant!
A wave of instinctive fear and resistance surged through him. No one willingly let another person flip through their mind like a book, especially when those memories contained personal secrets, Ministry records, and embarrassing private thoughts. Besides, this man was so dangerously powerful, who knew how deep his intrusion would go? What if he saw things he shouldn't? What if he caused irreversible mental damage?
Jorkins's thoughts were in utter turmoil, but the moment he met Ian's cool, unreadable eyes, eyes that seemed to pierce right through his soul, his resistance collapsed.
He recalled the terrifying feats Ian had displayed in rapid succession: immobilizing a Death Eater with a flick of his fingers, erasing and rewriting the memories of an entire street of Muggles, and ripping information directly from a Dark wizard's mind.
In the face of such power, Jorkins's feeble Occlumency defenses and private secrets were thinner than parchment.
Besides, Ian had asked politely. It sounded like a request, but the underlying message was unmistakable: 'This is how we are going to handle this.'
Ian's supreme confidence made the truth glaringly obvious: this was a notification, not a negotiation. Whether Jorkins agreed or not, the only real variable was whether Ian entered his mind gently or tore his way through.
More importantly, Jorkins knew his story was true. He desperately wanted to clear his name and remove any suspicion that he had set a trap. Letting Ian examine his mind was the fastest way to prove his innocence, and perhaps discover what bizarre force had manipulated him.
'Should I just let him?'
'It's probably for the best.'
After a few agonized seconds of internal debate, Jorkins gritted his teeth, his face a mix of grim resolve and defeat. Taking a deep breath, he tried to look as open and honest as possible, though his voice shook.
"I... I agree, my Lord. Please... go ahead." He swallowed. "As long as it proves I'm telling the truth and helps us figure out what happened... I have no objection."
He even deliberately lowered his mental barriers. As a non-combat wizard with no real training in Occlumency, those defenses hadn't amounted to much anyway.
"Good. Very sensible."
Seeing Jorkins overcome his panic to lower his mind and display total sincerity, the faint trace of a genuine smile finally touched Ian's lips. It wasn't mocking; it was real approval for a man smart enough to read the room and adapt. In a climate as paranoid as the British wizarding world during Voldemort's rise, few wizards would willingly submit to a mind probe.
Of course, as a former Ravenclaw, Jorkins understood one fundamental truth: refusing wouldn't have stopped Ian anyway.
And that was the absolute truth.
(End Of This Chapter)
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