Harry knew infiltrating McNair Manor wouldn't be easy. The McNairs were an ancient pure-blood family with old money and older magic; their estate will be wrapped in curses from their house founders' era. Even skilled thieves avoided trespassing pureblood manors.
Still, Harry wasn't the kind of wizard to back away from a challenge.
He leaned back in the candlelight of his small study at Zeus Hotel, tracing the feather-shaped burn mark on Leora's vial with his thumb. He needed specialists—curse-breakers who could read wards older than the Ministry itself.
[Objective Updated: Infiltrate McNair Manor]
Requirement: 2 or more skilled ward specialists.
Optional Bonus: Stealth completion (no alert triggered).
Finding help in Knockturn Alley wasn't hard. If you had gold, you had an army.
Harry sent a discrete owl to Jason Throne and Cassia Frey, the two who had helped him uncover Salazar Slytherin's hidden rooms. Both replied within hours—"We're in."
By dawn, the great emerald fireplace in the Zeus Hotel lobby roared to life as two soot-covered figures stepped through. Jason looked around and nearly dropped his wand.
"Merlin's beard…" he muttered. "This in Knockturn Alley?"
Cassia spun in a slow circle, her eyes wide at the marble floors, the chandelier of floating runestones, and the Veela receptionist politely greeting guests. "This looks grander than the Ministry ballroom, not an alley hotel."
Harry—still wearing his short, middle-aged disguise—smiled. "I like comfort where I work."
Jason gave a low whistle. "And you work here?"
"I own it," Harry said simply.
[Reputation Increased: Cassia Frey +15 | Jason Throne +20]
[Hidden Perk Unlocked: "Trusted Allies – Curse-breakers"]
Cassia laughed. "Explains why you could pay us double last time."
The three of them settled in one of the hotel's private lounges. A house elf brought coffee on a silver tray, bowing slightly before retreating.
Jason leaned forward. "So, what's the job this time? You said something about infiltrating a pureblood manor?"
Harry nodded, sliding the rolled parchment across the table—sketched maps, Borgin's statement, and a faint magical trace drawn from Leora's feather.
"Walden McNair," he said, his tone low and dangerous. "Ministry executioner by day. Smuggler by night. He bought magic-restricting cuffs from Borgin right before my employee was taken. Cassandra Vale from the Auror Office confirmed there's a trafficking network called Midnight Auction."
Cassia's face darkened. "If he's connected to the Auction, that's not a mansion—it's a fortress."
Harry smiled faintly. "That's why I called you."
They unfurled the map of Wiltshire over the table. Jason tapped the parchment, activating a small spell that caused faint green wards to shimmer across the outline of McNair Manor.
"There," he said grimly. "Layered wards. Old magic. Anti-apparition, anti-flight, heat sensors, alarm runes—all powered through ley conduits under the property."
Harry studied them quietly. "Can they be broken?"
Cassia shrugged. "Anything can. But not quietly."
Jason added, "We'll need anchor points for bypass sigils, and someone has to walk the perimeter. You'll need to mask your magical signature. Even a flicker will trip their sensors."
Harry nodded, activating his system interface.
[Quest Updated: Operation Silent Wings]
Objective: Infiltrate McNair Manor
Sub-Objective 1: Disable perimeter wards
Sub-Objective 2: Locate the whereabouts of Leora
Sub-Objective 3: Eliminate McNair or gather evidence (Optional)
Reward: +500 EXP | Rare Item Drop | Reputation
Cassia leaned back in her chair. "So, when do we start?"
Harry smirked under his disguise. "Tonight."
The night air was cold and heavy with mist.
Somewhere beyond the Wiltshire hills, wolves howled faintly, but the sound only made Harry's heart steady.
Sam arrived at the Zeus Hotel courtyard with three hired hands — all of them tall, rough-looking men wrapped in travel cloaks and carrying wands, crossbows, and silver blades. None asked questions. In Knockturn Alley, gold spoke louder than curiosity.
Sam pulled Harry aside and whispered, "They'll follow orders. But if McNair or his cronies fight back, these lads will make sure you don't get cornered."
Harry nodded. He didn't want unnecessary bloodshed, but he wasn't naive. A man who trafficked sentient beings forfeited mercy the day he chained them.
By dusk, everyone was assembled — Harry, Jason, Cassia, Sam, and the three mercenaries. Each wore a long black cloak and a smooth, expressionless serpent-mask that gleamed faintly green in the moonlight. Jason's idea — a tribute to their Lord Slytherin.
[Team Formation Complete]
Participants: 7
Objective: Infiltrate McNair Manor (Stealth Priority)
Bonus Objective: Maintain anonymity (Serpent Masks equipped)
They didn't Apparate.
Apparition would leave magical signatures traceable by the Ministry's Department of Mysteries, and the McNairs were old enough to have their own detection web. So they walked, silent and cloaked, following a narrow, forgotten road that twisted through the dark countryside.
The ruins appeared on the horizon like broken teeth jutting from the earth.
Avery Manor.
It was nothing more than blackened stone and half-collapsed towers now, burned nearly to ash during the last war. The smell of old soot and mold lingered in the air even decades later. Wild vines crept through shattered windows, and the broken crest of the Avery family lay buried in the dirt — a serpent coiled around a skull.
Cassia whispered, "Creepy. Are you sure McNair's estate is near this?"
Jason nodded, consulting his enchanted compass. "According to the map, McNair family built his manor half a mile behind Avery Manor."
They advanced carefully through the overgrown field. The moonlight shimmered over twisted iron gates and melted stone. Every crunch of their boots echoed like thunder in the silence.
[Location Discovered: Ruins of Avery Manor]
Historical Marker: Destroyed during the final months of the Wizarding War.
Warning: Area saturated with residual dark magic.
A soft wind carried the faint smell of decay — mixed with something sharper, metallic. Blood, maybe.
Harry felt the wards before he saw them — a thin pulse against his skin, like invisible lightning crawling over his body. "Stop," he ordered softly. "We've entered the outer perimeter."
Jason and Cassia knelt immediately, unpacking their rune-kits.
Blue sparks danced across their fingers as they examined the invisible barrier, whispering complex counter-phrases in Gobbledegook.
Cassia frowned. "This isn't standard warding. It's adaptive — reads intent, not identity."
Jason swore under his breath. "They've fused old pure-blood enchantments with goblin spellwork. That's not supposed to exist."
Harry smiled faintly under his mask. "Then we'll make history breaking it."
He lifted his hand, feeling the pulse of dark energy ripple through the soil. His Observe ability activated automatically, mapping every magical current nearby. The entire place was a living thing — snarling and coiled like a serpent protecting its nest.
[Skill Activated: Observe Lv. 10]
Detected: 3 ward layers | 2 magical traps | 6 living signatures (inside perimeter)
"There are guards," Harry murmured. "Six of them, two on patrol, four inside. Wards are anchored underground — probably a rune nexus in the cellar."
Jason grinned. "Good. Let's crack this snake open."
With that, the operation truly began — seven shadowed figures moving through cursed ruins toward the lair of a slaver, serpent masks gleaming as the night deepened around them.
[Quest "Operation Silent Wings" – Stage 1: Perimeter Breach]
Progress: 0% → 12%
One of the hired men whispered a spell, and a ripple of nothingness spread outward—folding shadows around them until every cloak, mask, and bootstep disappeared into the dark.
[Invisibility: Active | Duration — Extended | Detection Rate: −65%]
Even with the magic masking them, Harry's focus remained sharp. The manor's air felt thick with old enchantments, layered and territorial. He turned slightly toward Sam, who stood nearby gripping his wand a little too tightly.
Sam had been practicing—Harry knew that. His friend had learned fast for someone who'd never had formal magical education. He could duel a little, heal minor wounds, even manipulate simple barriers. But ward-breaking? That was something else entirely.
Harry leaned closer and whispered, "Stay back when we reach the main gate. This isn't something to brute-force."
Sam nodded, not offended, his eyes glinting beneath the hood. "Understood. I'll keep the others covered."
That was all Harry needed. He gestured forward to Jason, who was crouched near a crumbling stone fence, fingers tracing faint silver runes embedded in the soil. Cassia knelt beside him, muttering counter-incantations in Gobbledegook.
"This ward matrix is centuries old," Jason murmured. "Modified goblin geometry—brilliant but volatile. Touch it wrong, and it'll detonate a flare visible from London."
Harry crouched beside him, activating [Observe].
[Warding Detected: Triple-layered Barrier | Status: Active | Primary Anchor — Subterranean Sigil Point, 4.3m Depth]
"I can dampen its resonance," Harry said quietly. "The goblin layers follow a spiral pattern. Disrupting the outer flow will freeze the cycle for thirty seconds."
Jason's grin was brief and sharp. "That's all I need."
The curse-breaker drew his wand and began murmuring in rhythm with Harry's gestures. Lines of faint green and gold appeared, twisting together like living script. For a moment, the magic thrummed — angry, restless — and then it dimmed, settling into stillness.
Jason exhaled. "Outer layer down."
[Objective: Perimeter Breach — Progress: 40%]
Cassia moved to the next section, scanning for trap sigils. "Two more anchors ahead. One's an alarm rune; the other is a soul-scan trigger. We'll need precision."
Harry nodded, lending his magic through the [Goblin Warding Style: Lv. 8] interface. His control was clean, confident — enough to impress even a professional curse-breaker. Together, he and Jason dismantled the defenses piece by piece, until the last flicker of resistance died out.
[System Notification: Barrier Disarmed]
[Stealth Status: Maintained — Detection 0%]
The group advanced in perfect silence, moving like a single shadow through the field of ruins. Even the mercenaries, hardened fighters though they were, followed the two curse-breakers' hand signals without question.
When the final ward fell and McNair Manor loomed above them—its black spires gleaming faintly beneath the moonlight—Harry gave a single nod.
"Remember," he whispered, voice low through the serpent mask. "No light, no noise, no traces. McNair doesn't even get the chance to scream."
[Quest: Operation Silent Wings — Stage 1: Perimeter Breach — Complete]
[Next Objective: Infiltrate McNair Manor — Status: In Progress]
A single, sick-sweet crack split the night — not from the sky but from the earth itself — and eight figures blinked into being a short distance from where they crouched in the shadow of the hedgerow. They were clean, deliberate arrivals: robes crisp, boots silent, faces set. Cassia's hand went white on her wand at once.
"Don't let them come inside," she breathed. "Apparating into a warded perimeter leaves a signature. If they step through those gates, McNair will know his wards are breached. He'll vanish before we can question him."
Jason's jaw tightened; he gave the faintest of nods. The newcomers' shoulders squared as if they, too, had felt the difference — and then they pushed off toward the manor with an odd, mechanical speed that made Sam flinch.
One of Sam's hired hands hissed through clenched teeth, "Do you want to fight them now or wait?"
"I don't want to give them a reason to run," Harry said.
"Not yet."
Harry's cloak slipped from his shoulders in a motion so quick it looked like wind, and his bones shifted under skin and cloth. Feathers uncoiled from his arms and back, dense and iron-dark. In two seconds he had become an eagle: a compact, predatory shadow above the lawn.
[Shapeshifting Lv. 2: Eagle — Activated]
The party sucked in breath. The eagle wheeled once, twice, and then dropped like a bolt, talons tucked, beak aimed at the center of the approaching group. Mid-dive, with a small, controlled flare of magic, Harry folded the form away and snapped back to human mid-air, landing with a thump that shook leaves loose from the nearest branch.
The sudden human silhouette — unexpected, impossible — slammed into the line of approachers like a living barrier. For a heartbeat they faltered; then two drew wands.
Harry didn't give them the chance.
He exhaled a thin, controlled hiss of green that ached at the edges of sight and smell. The mist rolled low and fast, coiling across the grass like spilled light, and the world tasted of iron and lemon. Harry had measured the dosage in his head a dozen times: enough to topple, not enough to kill. He watched the way the vapour gathered, aimed for lungs, and throttled itself where it would merely knock the body into slumber.
[Poison Mist Attack — Lv. 8]
[Area Effect: 50m radius | Targeted Knockout Threshold: 8 targets]
One by one the eight hit the ground like puppets with cut strings. Hands unclenched; breaths slowed; wands slipped from fingers and fell into the grass. Silence returned almost as quickly as the crack had broken it.
Sam exhaled, voice barely more than a rasp, "You could've—"
"I could have made them scream, drawn every ward for miles," Harry said, pulling his cloak straight. "We don't need noise. We need answers."
Cassia moved forward to check pulses and pockets, eyes hard. Jason scanned the fallen with a rune-glove that shimmered faintly.
[Encounter Result: Ambushers Incapacitated]
[Stealth Integrity: Maintained | Detection Risk: Low]
They worked quickly — searching the unconscious for sigils, seals, or papers that might say who had dispatched them. The manor's dark rose again behind their small ring of light; beyond it, McNair's web of secrets waited.