Rita Skeeter had never been so grateful for having learned Animagus.
She lay on the ground for a few minutes to rest, faintly hearing chaotic footsteps and dog barks. Rita grabbed her magic wand but was still unable to use magic properly. At the last moment, the world in her vision suddenly expanded hundreds of times.
She transformed into a beetle.
Animagus, this special magic that allows transfiguration without using a magic wand, which Rita once thought was only useful for eavesdropping, saved her life once again at this moment.
She trembled under the leaf, watching a dozen hounds sniffing around the forest, growling, but never finding her trail.
The black-clad soldiers held dangerous Muggle weapons in their hands and searched the woods for a while. Then one of them pressed his ear and said, "That woman has disappeared."
A moment later, he told the others, "Keep searching, in half an hour, there will be another magnetic field sweep."
"Understood!"
The group responded in unison and dispersed.
They didn't spare the treetops above or the shrubs below their feet, but no one noticed the tiny beetle.
Rita was terrified, her heart pounding. She struggled on her shaky six legs, crawling cautiously along the grass for a while, then took flight.
A black hound suddenly looked up, watching the chubby beetle and sniffed.
Rita was so scared she nearly fell out of the air. She barely steadied herself, flapping her wings desperately to fly forward, but at a speed of barely two meters per second, a leap from the hound could easily catch her.
Every moment, she seemed to feel the breath of the God of Death.
Fortunately, the black-clad soldier suddenly tugged at the hound, "Alright, buddy, there's nothing interesting about a bug, come this way."
The hound looked back at the beetle, then turned and followed its owner in another direction. Rita breathed a sigh of relief and fled for her life with even more effort.
She knew she had at most half an hour.
However, when she saw the huge, sunlit white complex, she desperately realized she had gone the wrong way.
It was too late to turn back now, so Rita resolutely steeled herself and flew over the wall.
No matter where, there are bound to be drains and vents.
The beetle crawled into a dark gap, ignoring the stench around her, found a dry place to lie down, and gasped for air.
Even in Animagus form, such intense activity had exhausted her significantly.
Half an hour later, the buzzing sound arrived as expected, and the magic power usually like a part of her body suddenly became agitated. Rita wailed as she returned to human form, biting her lip to endure.
She tasted blood.
This time, the buzzing sound lasted longer than before, but perhaps the duct provided some protection, and the pain was somewhat lighter.
Then once again, it was time to flee.
She stumbled along the duct, the enclosed, quiet darkness around her providing a sense of security.
Rita drew her magic wand and softly chanted, "Lumos."
The dim light illuminated the duct, casting a glow on the woman's bedraggled form.
Rita sighed in relief – fortunately, such a simple spell could still be used.
She bit her magic wand and continued crawling along the duct – while being a beetle was discreet, she was currently exhausted and hungry, and in her beetle form, she wanted to lie still instead of succumbing to instincts, while her human body could still be forced to move by sheer will.
The ground was littered with dust, as well as the corpses of insects and mice.
An ordinary woman might scream at the sight of mice, but for a wizard who used frog brains and leeches in brewing magic potions, such things weren't worth her attention.
She crawled along the grimy duct, not knowing where she might escape, but the sense of crisis wouldn't allow her to stop.
Being almost entirely ignorant of Muggle technology, Rita didn't realize what the slight sagging of the duct meant as she crawled.
...
In the laboratory, a row of green lights lit up one by one. On the screen, an area began to sound an alarm.
"The pressure sensor in the ventilation duct is signaling – based on the strength, it doesn't seem like a mouse," someone said in a proper voice.
"Send a scorpion-shaped vehicle in," a ponytailed man said with a smile, "I always see protagonists in movies escaping through ventilation ducts, so I installed sensors. Previously, it could only catch a few stupid mice, but today, it seems we've finally got something."
The woman in a red dress laughed, "Caught a magical mouse?"
"Yes, a bold mouse."
...
When the strange buzzing sounded, Rita Skeeter's hair stood on end, almost causing a reflex.
But then she realized it wasn't the peculiar magic-disrupting thing, but a toy car.
A toy car shaped like a scorpion, topped with a cylindrical device, came towards her, its front emitting a blinding light.
Rita paused for a moment, then pointed with her magic wand, "Defodio!"
With a "bang," the toy car exploded, parts flying everywhere, and the cylinder rolled to Rita's feet, suddenly spewing white gas.
Rita only inhaled a breath before feeling dizzy.
She quickly held her breath and moved away from the area, her hands trembling slightly as she rummaged through her crocodile leather handbag.
When she escaped from the United Kingdom, she had brought many essentials, naturally including an antidote to the magic potion.