Chapter 335: The Devil's Fire Returns
Meeting Dudley's gaze, Scrimgeour suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
In those eyes, he saw no anger, no fear. Only calm. An absolute, emotionless calm.
It was that very calm that made his scalp prickle.
As Head of the Auror Office, Scrimgeour had personally arrested many dangerous Dark wizards. Faced with capture, they were usually either hysterical or terrified. Only a few had remained eerily composed, and those were always the most frightening.
Wizards like that tended to possess terrifying power. One moment of carelessness around them could lead to catastrophe.
Yet the person in front of him was just a thirteen‑year‑old boy. A student who had only just finished his second year at Hogwarts.
How could a child's eyes carry something that unsettled him more than hardened criminals ever had?
For a heartbeat, he even had the absurd feeling that perhaps Grindelwald had taken Dudley's place.
"Are you threatening me?" Scrimgeour asked, drawing a deep breath.
He forced himself to stay calm and deliberately avoided looking directly into Dudley's eyes.
"No. I am stating a fact," Dudley replied, voice level.
His hand had already tightened around his wand.
"Dudley, there is no need for this. Just relax, all right?" Kingsley cut in quickly, trying to smooth things over.
The situation had spiralled far beyond what he had expected.
They had come here to investigate Grindelwald's appearance. Thanks to Scrimgeour's temper, it had turned into a standoff between the Head of the Auror Office and a schoolboy. No one had seen this coming.
"Director, our priority is to find Grindelwald, not to interrogate Dudley," Kingsley said, after trying to calm Dudley. "He really is a victim here, not a criminal."
"Stand aside, Kingsley. As an Auror, your job is to follow my orders, not make decisions in my place," Scrimgeour snapped.
Kingsley's jaw tightened. He could not openly defy Scrimgeour, but he did not want to watch this escalation continue either.
"Dudley Dursley," Scrimgeour said, "for resisting a Ministry investigation, I am formally placing you under arrest."
He drew his wand and pointed it straight at Dudley.
The atmosphere in the hall froze.
"That is not necessary. What I mean is..." one of the Aurors Dudley had bribed tried to speak up for him, but was quickly silenced by the others.
Scrimgeour had brought a sizeable force. Even after sending some out to search, many still remained. They had no personal ties to Dudley and naturally sided with their superior.
"I will count to three," Scrimgeour said. "Put down your wand and come with me to the Ministry, or I will use force."
Dudley's eyes unsettled him, but he did not truly believe the boy posed any threat. If anything, his refusal to go only confirmed Scrimgeour's conviction that something was wrong. In his view, Dudley had to be hiding something.
One way or another, he was determined to bring him in tonight.
Kingsley could only wait, anxious. Why was Dumbledore still not here?
"You cannot do this. It is illegal!" Hermione burst out, horrified.
Beside her, Harry's wand was already in his hand.
He did not know exactly what had led to this confrontation, but when it came down to a choice, he did not hesitate. He chose Dudley.
Seeing that, Hermione hurriedly drew her own wand as well.
"Harry. Hermione. Put your wands down," Dudley said calmly.
"But..." Harry began, but the words died when he met Dudley's eyes.
He lowered his wand.
Hermione, confused but trusting him, followed suit.
The sight made several people let out a breath of relief. It looked as if Dudley had finally decided not to resist.
Scrimgeour thought so as well. He looked at Dudley, waiting for him to surrender his wand and come quietly.
"Just me is enough," Dudley said.
The next moment, every wizard in the room went rigid.
"Fiendfyre."
Boom.
In an instant, monstrous flames erupted behind Dudley. They roared upward, filling the air and sweeping across the hall, until everything in sight was shrouded in searing red fire.
Yet not a single tongue of flame lashed at the people in the room. Instead, the inferno formed a ring around them, hemming everyone in. Even the ceiling vanished behind a canopy of blazing flame.
"I do not want to hurt anyone," Dudley said, standing calm in the heart of the cursed fire. His voice rang clearly over the crackling. "But if you push me, I will not hesitate to fight."
Every Auror in the hall froze, terror written plainly across their faces.
The flames had not touched them, but the pressure they radiated drove the breath from their lungs. Heat hammered at them in waves, leaving no doubt as to how deadly the spell was.
None of them, not even Scrimgeour, had imagined Dudley would unleash Fiendfyre. They had expected a few Stunners at most, perhaps a Blasting Curse to make a point.
Surrounded by Fiendfyre, none of them now dared raise a wand against him. If the cursed blaze slipped out of his control, very few of them would leave here alive.
Swish.
An Auror near the door cast a Freezing Charm on himself and tried to sprint through the wall of fire.
"Confinement," Dudley said quietly.
Hum.
At once, the room was sealed by an invisible, transparent barrier.
"Appar—" one of the Aurors began, attempting to Disapparate and carry word away.
"This place forbids Apparition," Dudley said.
He swept his wand in a horizontal arc. Ripples of unseen force spread out from him, snuffing out the magic.
The Auror's spell cut off midway.
Panic flickered in every eye.
Fiendfyre. A sealed room. Apparition blocked. Seen together, the abilities Dudley had just displayed were beyond anything they had imagined.
Even Scrimgeour stared, stunned. Kingsley's expression was no less shaken.
What unnerved them even more was that these powers did not look like any spellwork they knew. They could not even identify a countercurse. Several Aurors had already tried quietly to undo what Dudley had done, and nothing had worked.
Crack.
Suddenly, something shattered in the middle of the room. The air quivered, space itself rippling and distorting.
Someone outside was forcing a way through the ban on Apparition, breaking into the sealed space by brute force.