Chapter 347: New Card — Wall of Pathos
The people of Knockturn Alley had no idea who these newcomers were.
But they had eyes.
One look at the figure leading the group — that face, that impossible, wrongly-configured face — was enough to make anyone scream and run.
Whoosh.
In the space of a blink, every visible figure vanished. Like rats into the walls, they melted into corners and alleyways and were simply gone.
"Everyone's run off…" Ethan touched the mask on his face thoughtfully. "I was going to ask someone for directions." He sighed. "Is it this face? It might be too handsome. They all go on about loving darkness — and then actual darkness shows up, and they can't stand it."
"Truly. They love darkness in theory."
"..."
Everyone: "..."
"..."
There was genuinely nowhere to begin.
The group that had come today made up roughly a third of the fifth years — the ones willing to show up. The other two-thirds, mostly Slytherins, had decided no field trip grade was worth this. The Malfoy family in particular had declined with unmistakable finality.
Conditional loyalty, Ethan noted privately. Which meant no loyalty at all.
He would be paying their household a visit after his return. A friendly one.
Alongside Ethan, the group was accompanied by Sirius, Professor Lupin, and the two Ministry officials — Miss Connie Rosier and Mr Yaxley. Connie looked visibly tense. Yaxley, whose face had mostly healed, wore a smile far too relaxed for the occasion — the smile of someone carrying a great many very bad intentions and only barely keeping them contained.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Ethan moved through the morning fog — finish early, be back at Hogwarts in time for lunch. His cane struck the cobblestones with crisp, unhurried rhythm, the sound ringing through dead-silent streets. Like Death doing a routine inspection of its domain.
Behind him, Sirius walked with his wand in hand, head swivelling left and right with barely suppressed excitement.
Good thing my name was cleared, he thought. That I can move through daylight like this. He didn't like to think too hard about what the alternative would have looked like. Locked somewhere, probably. Slowly going mad.
"Thank you, Ethan." Sirius clenched his fist, for what felt like the hundredth time, and said it quietly but with weight. "I'll make myself useful. I won't let you down."
Lupin, by contrast, was composed and watchful.
As a former werewolf, his senses ran sharper than a normal wizard's. He had identified the Spiral Professor's true identity early on without much difficulty. Now, moving through the quiet of the alley, he could feel pairs of eyes tracking them from the shadows — fellow werewolves, recognising one of their own. A small, deliberate raise of his hand was enough to settle them.
Harry and Ron exchanged a glance. There was something different about Lupin now — a straightness to his posture, a steadiness in how he moved, that hadn't been there when he was their professor.
"That's probably Ethan's doing too," Harry murmured, glancing around for the dark-haired figure responsible for so many quiet miracles.
The group wound through several turns.
Before long, Ethan felt it — a faint pop, like passing through a film of soap — and a tall house with a red-tiled roof came into view.
Behind him, Yaxley's eye twitched.
The concealment barrier should still have been active. It had been set up over a decade ago and was meant to hide the property from Dark wizard looters.
Professor Unknown had walked straight through it like a runaway carriage.
Barrier: demolished.
"Extraterrestrial creature indeed," Yaxley muttered. "He's got some ability, I'll give him that." His eyes gleamed. "But let's see how much good it does you once you're inside my net."
You're not getting out of this.
Ethan looked up at the house.
Peeling red tiles greyed with dust. Thin vines crawling across the walls, half-swallowing the door. Every visible sign of a place left abandoned for years — the kind no one would glance at twice while passing by.
But in his field of vision, he could sense it clearly: a coiling mass of dark magical energy beneath the foundations, like a tumour. Sticky. Writhing. Pooling in the dark.
Yaxley's traps. Speed bumps, basically.
Ethan exhaled through his nose.
"Just about right for the students to practice on—"
He stopped.
His eyes sharpened.
A different magical signature had appeared in his field of vision. Small. Faint. But dense in the way a black hole is dense — containing something enormous compressed into almost nothing. It dwarfed Yaxley's traps entirely.
"Ancient Magic."
The voice was quiet, almost ethereal.
Ethan turned slightly and looked at Luna.
Her face had gone still and distant, those clear blue eyes — like a lake in still weather — fixed unblinking on the space below the red house. Fixed on exactly the same point he was looking at.
Ancient Magic.
Ethan felt something kindle in him. Something hungry and bright.
He wet his lips. "Now," he murmured, "things are getting interesting."
"And it's not as though I came unprepared."
The moment the words left him, a surge of tremendous magical power erupted from his body — dense as oil, spreading outward to press on the surrounding air until everything felt compressed.
In one motion, Ethan's wrist turned.
A new card materialised — and in the next instant transformed into a great dark-red battle banner, three or four metres tall. The black lacquered pole drove itself into the cobblestones with a single sharp crack.
The banner unfurled in a wind that had not existed a moment before.
Like something soaked through with resentment and blood, it snapped open with a sound like a thunderclap.
[AAAAAHH—!]
Accompanying a chorus of anguished screams — whether imagined or not, no one could quite say — countless faces seemed to press and writhe against the surface of the banner from within, straining without ever breaking free. Dark red liquid poured from the cloth, ran down the pole, and seeped into the ground.
From there, it moved like veins — spreading fast in every direction.
The students scrambled back, shouting:
"What is that?!"
"Merlin's beard — is no one going to do something about our Defence professor—"
"Look — it's forming a wall!"
At the perimeter, the threads of blood thickened and wove together — rising, spreading — until a wall of flesh and matter enclosed the entire area, wrapping around the red house and everything near it in a dense, airtight seal.
[Name: Wall of Pathos]
[Type: Terrain Painting]
[Rank: Tier 2 · Gold — Legend]
[Description: "Return to the source. Return to the beginning of all things — merged, formless. We are with you."]
[Effect: Drive the battle banner into the ground. A barrier of flesh will automatically form around it as its centre, expanding in all directions. Any person who makes contact with the wall — from inside or outside — will be absorbed and become sustenance.]
[If the battle banner is destroyed, the wall loses its binding and enters a berserk state, consuming everything indiscriminately.]
[Evaluation: Knockturn Alley has seen a sudden drop in population lately. Any thoughts?]