Moody and his team reached the underground steam room, the temperature spiking as they entered.
"Are you serious? Stuff from the last century still works?"
Harry stared, incredulous, at the still-functioning steam boiler.
Moody and the other Aurors fixed their gazes on a figure standing quietly, looking up at the machine: a middle-aged man, probably in his thirties or forties.
"Isolde Carpenter!"
Scrimgeour's expression hardened, his wand already drawn.
"Amazing, isn't it?"
Isolde turned around. "A Muggle device, untouched by magic, yet..."
"Avada Kedavra!"
What the hell?!
"What?!"
Before Isolde could finish, Harry dove to the floor, narrowly avoiding the Killing Curse.
The green light flashed past him, striking the machine. The boiler remained intact.
"Are you Aurors or what?!"
Isolde shouted, still shaken.
Scrimgeour and the other Aurors stared, their pupils dilating, at Harry.
After all these years, Harry could once again cast "the first spell he learned as a wizard!"
His killing intent was cold and unwavering.
"Why are you all looking at me? You were going to kill him, weren't you?"
Harry knew who deserved to die and wouldn't hesitate when the time came.
The Dark Lord's students were never saints.
Scrimgeour had warned them on the way that they couldn't afford to hold back when facing these dangerous dark wizards.
He'd then detailed the Carpenters' ruthlessness - skilled in murder and arson, countless wizards and Muggles, old and young, dead by their hands.
They even practiced human alchemy… truly monstrous.
"Why all the chatter?!"
Malfoy retorted, "Harry! Just get on with it! Blasting Charm…"
"Wait!"
Harry quickly stopped Malfoy, "If you use an Explosion Charm here, the whole steam room will blow!"
"Fine."
Malfoy shrugged, "Then Avada Kedavra…"
"Ahem! You lot, step back, we'll handle him."
Kingsley pulled Malfoy back, much to the younger wizard's annoyance.
But facing Kingsley, who had previously threatened to "teach him a lesson," Malfoy swallowed his anger.
"Where did these brats come from?! I couldn't even cast the Killing Curse at that age! Are all kids growing up abnormally these days?"
Isolde sneered. "And you hypocritical Aurors, did you teach them? You claim to resist dark magic, but you know it yourselves, and you even teach these brats dark magic!"
"We didn't teach them."
"You think I'd believe that?"
"…"
"Then why don't you arrest them! Use the Unforgivable Curse and lock them up in Azkaban! Isn't that the Ministry of Magic way?!"
"…"
"Hmph! Nonsense! Typical Auror hypocrisy!"
"I'm not wasting my breath on you! You're not worthy of my attention!"
Moody raised his wand, his magical eye whirring, "Expelliarmus!"
"Child's play!"
Isolde confidently curled his lip, then leaped to the side to dodge the spell.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"What?!"
Struck mid-air by Scrimgeour's spell, Isolde's body stiffened and fell to the ground.
"Solved?"
Moody sensed something amiss. "No! Too easy! Something's not right!"
He turned abruptly, casting a Disarming Charm.
The spell deflected off the machine, and a figure emerged from behind it—Isolde.
"Heh… a seasoned old Auror indeed, quite perceptive."
"How is this possible?!"
Cedric, wand raised, stared wide-eyed. "But I clearly saw..."
"Two Isoldes? Was the first one a fake?"
Kingsley frowned. "No, the first one was real! But this..."
"Also real."
Moody spoke clearly, "A Time-Turner allowing multiple versions of oneself? No, every Time-Turner is registered with the Ministry. So, it's..."
"A Horcrux."
Scrimgeour, silent until now, uttered the word invented by Herpo the Foul and "popularized" by Voldemort.
Scrimgeour's words sent shockwaves through the room, especially for Harry and his friends.
"Not bad, as expected of the head Auror. This is indeed a fragmented Horcrux method I obtained by chance. I learned a little myself, out of curiosity."
Isolde smiled, betraying none of the tension one would expect when facing a group of elite Aurors.
"But… why?"
Kingsley was puzzled. "Horcruxes should only split one's own soul."
Isolde, seemingly brimming with confidence, revealed the truth, "That's right, but my brother knows alchemy. Combined with dark magic, he helped me craft a Horcrux from a wizard's corpse."
He sighed, "Unfortunately, my soul isn't strong enough, and my knowledge is incomplete. I could only manage to split it twice."
"So…"
The current Isolde wasn't the original?!
Moody realized his mistake, turning to look at the exit… where a scruffy black cat stood. "A cat?"
The black cat transformed into an old man of seventy or eighty, his hair thinning, his skin withered, his face etched with the marks of dark magic.
"Samuel Carpenter?!"
Moody recognized him. He was the elder Carpenter brother.
He raised his wand to cast a Disarming Charm, but Samuel coldly slammed the door shut, the spell striking the heavy iron.
?!
Tonks stepped forward, pointing her wand at the iron door. "Alohomora!"
But, as she feared, the iron gate remained completely unaffected by the unlocking charm!
"You want to lock us in here?"
Scrimgeour stared intently at Isolde.
"It's not that we want to, it's that we can."
Isolde shrugged. "This place is where we've sunk most of our wealth over the years. Including the gate, everything here is alchemically enhanced."
He chuckled. "Furthermore, we've pulled strings to put an Anti-Apparition Jinx on the whole place. You can't get out."
...
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