Nicolas Flamel's words were still hanging in the air inside the factory when the battle erupted with full force.
"Tear those old men to pieces!" the red-haired woman ordered with a shrill scream.
The three enormous shadow creatures didn't hesitate. With unnatural speed and letting out blood-curdling screams, they charged straight toward the Flamels, closing the distance in a matter of seconds.
But Nicolas and Perenelle hadn't survived six hundred years to be intimidated by mere monsters. With a flick of his wand, Nicolas conjured a gust of air so dense that it struck the creatures like a concrete wall, violently hurling them upward. In perfect sync, Perenelle traced an arc with her own wand, and with a whip of energy, she caught the three creatures in midair and slammed them with such force against the brick wall furthest from the factory that it cracked the structure.
The red-haired witch wasn't about to be outdone. With a roar of frustration, she swung her wand, unleashing a hail of lethal, slicing curses at the couple.
Nicolas and Perenelle barely had to look at each other. They raised their shields instinctively, conjuring thick barriers of golden light. The dark curses crashed into the shields, bouncing off as mere red sparks.
Taking advantage of the flash from the collision, the woman made an agile, magic-powered leap and landed on one of the highest metal platforms, several meters above them. Her murderous expression vanished, replaced by a dazzling, almost enchanting smile.
"Oh, please… Where are my manners?" said the witch in a soft voice, smoothing out her bloodstained robe. She gave a deep, mocking bow from the platform. "Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Anastasia Volyov."
She straightened up, resting her hands on the metal railing, and, still smiling with that unsettling kindness, added.
"I must admit I never expected to have the honor of meeting the legendary and immortal Flamels in person, much less in this… fascinating situation in which we find ourselves."
A moment later, the creaking of the wall signaled that the creatures had recovered from the impact. They launched their attack once more from three different directions, the orbs of light on their faces glowing with death.
The couple split up on the front lines. While Nicolas stepped in between them and unleashed a firestorm to keep the three shadow monsters at bay and try to burn them, Perenelle confronted Anastasia head-on.
"You and your husband have gone too far with your schemes, girl," Perenelle rebuked her, her voice laden with the authority of centuries as she hurled an explosive curse that shattered part of the platform. "What you are doing here with these bodies, those souls… is a taboo in magic. Something unforgivable."
Anastasia leaped off the platform, landing nimbly on the ground. She narrowed her eyes in fury at the insult, her smile fading into a grimace of pure hatred.
"Don't you dare judge us! You damned relic!" Anastasia shouted, returning the attack with bursts of dark magic. "My husband is a visionary! He's an Archmage who isn't satisfied with just the power he already has! He sees far beyond the limits of the flesh—limits that fools like you try to impose—and says that what you deem wrong is actually right, with your stupid morality and ethics!"
The two women clashed in a frenzied duel, attacking each other with their entire arsenal. The air filled with lightning, explosions, and shattering shields. But as the seconds ticked by, the abysmal difference in their power levels became painfully evident. Anastasia's ferocity and youth were no match for Perenelle's precision, efficiency, and centuries of combat experience. Slowly, but with crushing certainty, the elderly alchemist began to corner her, gaining the upper hand in the battle and forcing Anastasia to retreat, bleeding from a cut on her cheek.
Seeing their creator in danger, the three shadow creatures abandoned Nicolas. They lunged at Anastasia just in time to shield her, taking the full brunt of a devastating spell from Perenelle that tore large chunks of flesh from their bodies; as these fell to the ground, they decomposed instantly.
Taking advantage of the lull, Nicolas walked over to stand shoulder to shoulder with his wife. He lowered his wand slightly and looked at the redhead with a raised eyebrow.
"Tell me one thing, Anastasia… if Kazimir is such an incredibly powerful Archmage and a visionary as you say… why does he continue to follow Gellert Grindelwald's orders like a lapdog?" he asked sarcastically.
When she heard the question, Anastasia began to laugh. It started off softly, but quickly grew into a burst of laughter that echoed through the abandoned factory.
"Orders?" Anastasia scoffed, covering her mouth with one hand as tears welled up in her eyes. "Oh, please… my dear husband would never follow anyone. Absolutely not. They're just partners—and only for the time being."
Anastasia laughed even harder, her tone growing darker, crueler, and deeply sadistic.
"Kazimir is just using him. He needed his resources and the bodies his war provides. And that foolish, naive Grindelwald thinks he can control him and his creations."
The woman lowered her hand from her mouth, and her expression changed. She slid a hand over the curves of her own body, caressing herself in a way so lewd and sickening that it bordered on madness.
"Good heavens… I almost get turned on just thinking about my powerful and beautiful husband… ahh, when I finally manage to create what he so desires," whispered Anastasia, biting her lip with devotion.
Nicolas and Perenelle exchanged an uncomfortable glance. That witch was, without a doubt, completely deranged, broken beyond any possible salvation. Noticing the revulsion in the Flamels' eyes, Anastasia smoothed her robe and smiled at them again, stroking the head of one of the wounded monsters protecting her.
"It's been a delightful evening. I truly hope to see you again very soon, Mr. and Mrs. Flamel," Anastasia promised them in a sweet tone. "It will be quite an honor to dissect you properly."
A second later, before Nicolas or Perenelle could cast a containment spell, the ground beneath Anastasia and the beasts' feet collapsed. An immense, dense shadow emerged from nowhere, opening like a whale's jaws, and swallowed her whole along with the three creatures. In the blink of an eye, the shadow retracted and vanished, leaving the factory in silence, broken only by the dripping of blood from the ceiling.
Nicolas slowly lowered his wand and let out a long sigh. He looked at the empty spot on the floor where the witch had been standing.
If those three aberrations—capable of slaughtering Muggles effortlessly and withstanding his attacks—were merely a preliminary experiment for Grindelwald's purposes… Nicolas thought with horror about what on earth the final creation that Kazimir Volyov longed to build might be like.
That very afternoon, just as they had agreed, the door to the Room of Requirement materialized in the seventh-floor hallway at Hogwarts.
Hestia and Flora crossed the threshold, slowly closing the door behind them. Upon entering, they found Aurelian sitting calmly on a sofa in the middle of a room that had been decorated in a sober, Victorian style.
The twins hurried over and took a seat together on another identical sofa, positioned directly across from him. They looked at him curiously, their eyes sparkling with anticipation.
"Well then, my love," Hestia began, crossing her legs, "what is this extremely important matter you wanted to discuss with us in private?"
Aurelian leaned back in his seat and gave them an enigmatic smile.
"Today, my loves, I'm finally going to tell you what my great goal is. The ultimate goal I'll be pursuing from now on."
Hestia raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, feigning impatience.
"It's about time, Aurelian. You had us on the edge of our seats."
"Honestly, I was starting to think you'd completely forgotten about it or that you didn't trust us," Flora remarked, resting her chin in her hand with a slight pout.
Aurelian let out a soft laugh and shrugged.
"I've been very busy lately. That's why I hadn't been able to tell you properly before."
Instantly, the girls' feigned indignation vanished. They both smiled at him with understanding.
"We know, my love. We understand perfectly," they assured him in unison.
Aurelian nodded, his expression turning more serious. He stood up from the sofa, raised his right hand, and snapped his fingers.
The sound echoed like thunder through the room.
In the blink of an eye, the entire room disappeared. The walls, the ceiling, the carpet, and the sofas dissolved into dust. Hestia and Flora let out a small cry of surprise as they felt the floor beneath them simply cease to exist. They were left suspended in the air, levitating in the midst of a dark, silent, and infinite abyss.
Fascinated, but instinctively searching for something to hold onto, the twins "flew" clumsily through the dark void, kicking their legs in the air until they reached Aurelian. They clung to him, hugging him tightly around his waist and shoulders.
"I want you to watch something very closely," Aurelian whispered to them, holding them close to his body.
Aurelian began to tell them about the origin of life. As he spoke, the Room of Requirement came to life around them, projecting an immersive 3D environment for the story. Light burst forth from the darkness, stars collided, planets cooled, and vast oceans formed beneath their feet.
The girls were completely spellbound, their eyes wide open, watching the miracle of evolution projected before them.
Suddenly, the scene zoomed in on a rocky shore. They watched as a small, strange prehistoric fish struggled to crawl out of the ocean. As the ages sped by before their eyes, they saw the animal develop small, fragile limbs to adapt to life on land. But just as the creature took its first faltering steps toward a new stage of evolution… a massive boulder broke loose from the cliff and fell directly on top of it, crushing it and killing it instantly.
The sudden, anticlimactic ending made Hestia and Flora burst out laughing. The Carrow heiresses' dark, sadistic sense of humor found the scene absolutely hilarious.
Aurelian smiled wryly, looking down at the fish beneath the rock.
"That's life," he explained dryly. "It's unfair, it's fragile, and no matter how hard you try to adapt, it can end at any moment without warning."
The illusions around them began to accelerate and fast-forward through time, showing the rise of humanity. However, the magic in the room focused on the destructive nature of Muggles.
When the projection reached the horrors of the two World Wars that humanity had waged, the twins' laughter died away completely. The silence was filled with the thunderous sound of artillery, screams of agony, and the blood-soaked mud of the trenches. They saw entire armies of men without a shred of magic annihilating one another with metal machines, toxic gas, and projectiles raining down like hail.
Witnessing the monstrosity of war, Hestia and Flora felt a chill run down their spines. They tightened their grip, digging their fingers into Aurelian's tunic and clutching his chest much more tightly, overwhelmed by the scale of the slaughter.
Aurelian finished his chilling account just as the room transported them to the skies over Japan in 1945.
"And this… is the pinnacle of what human beings are capable of," Aurelian declared.
The room simulated the detonation of the atomic bomb over the city of Nagasaki.
A blinding flash of white light eclipsed everything around them, immediately followed by a hell of raging fire and a shockwave that obliterated an entire city in milliseconds. A colossal, monstrous mushroom cloud rose into the sky, casting a shadow of death that no unforgivable curse could ever hope to match.
The terror of witnessing the apocalypse was too much. Hestia and Flora closed their eyes tightly, unable to watch any longer, and buried their pale faces directly against Aurelian's chest, trembling at the power of pure annihilation that the Muggles had created.
Aurelian wrapped both arms around them. He held them as tightly as he could, pressing them against him as if he were the only shield capable of protecting them from the end of the world, and began to stroke their heads tenderly.
As he watched the nuclear fire reflected in the emptiness of the room, Aurelian lowered his face and whispered softly into their ears.
"My goal… is to save us, to save wizards from something like that happening to us."
--------------------------
I have a Patreon account. If you would like to support me, I would greatly appreciate it. You will be able to read up to 15 more chapters, listen to all chapters as audiobooks, and view images of the characters in the story for free. Thank you very much for reading my story :D
patreon.com/Daoistrg