Douglas gave his wrist a slow turn.
His wand slipped from between his fingers and traced a silent arc through the air. HUM, The piercing shriek died instantly.
Dead silence swallowed the office whole.
He waved the wand again. The air rippled, then warped, a scorching barrier sealing the room against every prying eye.
He picked up the radar.
On the screen, the red dot representing Wormtail had come alive.
It was no longer a motionless marker. It was a frantic, hammering heartbeat, and with every pulse it threw out a blaze of red that bled across the screen in a spreading, widening stain.
Douglas pressed one finger lightly to the screen.
The map slammed into focus.
A place name stood out, burning clear against that bloody halo.
Ottery St. Catchpole.
Two locations lit up in his mind almost simultaneously.
The Burrow.
And the Lovegoods' tower.
One second later, he erased The Burrow.
Wormtail knew that house. But Tom's target was never the Weasleys. A Dark Lord who had just clawed back from the edge of nothing, who didn't even have a body yet, wasn't foolish enough to provoke a pure-blood family with deep ties to Dumbledore.
That left only one target.
Xenophilius Lovegood.
The editor who had published his history in The Quibbler in that bizarre, oblique way.
The corner of Douglas's mouth curled into something cold.
"Senior Tom," he murmured, his voice carrying sharply in the silence, every trace of background noise stripped away. "You did see that story after all."
He paused.
"And you're even less patient than I expected."
He crossed to the window. His gaze pushed through the magically shielded glass toward the far side of the castle.
Moody's office. Layered in protection, just like his own.
He couldn't see inside.
But he could feel it.
A focused, icy, inhuman stare pressing outward like an invisible drill, working through stone walls, working through his own barriers, trying to fix itself on this room.
That electric-blue eye was spinning. He was certain of it.
The thing hiding inside Moody's skin was perched up high, perfectly still, waiting. Waiting for him or Dumbledore — either one — to stumble at the first sign of an alarm. Let him open his office door. Let a light come on in Dumbledore's tower. That would be all the signal needed:
We can track Wormtail. In real time.
That card stayed face-down. It wasn't time.
Douglas pulled his gaze back.
He had to trust the pieces already on the board. He trusted the net Dumbledore and Snape had drawn tight around the Lovegood house.
And he trusted one other thing. More personal than strategy.
His eyes settled on an unassuming picture frame on the bookshelf.
Luna's drawing. A Crumple-Horned Snorkack with a spiraling horn, chewing on a rainbow-colored mushroom with an air of deep, private melancholy.
Something stirred in his chest , quiet, unguarded, a softness he hadn't even noticed until it was already there.
That girl who gave the strangest answers in class and somehow landed on exactly the right point every time.
He'd given her two specially made protective amulets. One of them should be on Xenophilius Lovegood right now.
"Luna," he said softly. "I hope your father's still wearing that little gift I gave you."
He turned — but not toward the door to the corridor.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
Can't move just meant can't be seen moving.
He walked to the fireplace on the far wall, grabbed a fistful of Floo powder, and threw it into the cold hearth.
BOOM!
Green flames roared upward and threw shifting light across his face.
"Near The Burrow. Safe point three."
He murmured the coordinates and stepped into the swirling warmth.
An emergency transit point he'd quietly set up after returning. A set of coordinates no one else knew.
...
Moody's office.
Pitch black.
The only light came from the electric-blue eye embedded in its socket, spinning like a blue beetle trapped inside a glass bottle , restless, frantic, sweeping across every corner of the castle.
Waiting.
A hunter's waiting. Taut and gnawing.
...
Deep in the night.
Far below, in the dungeons.
The air was cold and damp, thick as frozen stone.
Snape's body moved before his mind caught up. He was off the bed in an instant, not a fraction of a second's lag. His eyes snapped to the pocket watch on the nightstand. The hands pointed to a specific mark.
Not the time. A signal.
He seized his wand. His black robes cut a cold arc along the stone floor, and he poured out of his quarters like a shadow dissolving into the dungeon dark.
...
Moody's eye caught it , that black current flowing up from below.
He frowned.
Snape had moved.
That wasn't the result he wanted. It wasn't even his fallback.
He wanted noise. He wanted chaos.
The eye swung hard and locked onto two other points.
Dumbledore's tower.
Douglas's office.
Nothing. No light. No movement. Two tombs that had been asleep for hours.
This was wrong.
The prey wasn't running the route he'd laid out for them.
Something ugly shifted across that ravaged face.
Offended. Annoyed.
---
Daily Question , Answer:
Answer: A
Explanation: The Imperius Curse carries fundamental ethical constraints and cannot force a house-elf to harm itself , a principle universally recognized in the wizarding world. Option B is incorrect: family crests offer no immunity to the Imperius Curse. Option C is incorrect: a curse's duration depends on the caster's magical strength. Option D is incorrect: any member of a family may cast it.
➤ Next: Dumbledore's Lemon Sherbet, Insultingly Potent!
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