Looking at the man standing by the blood pool, whose face was filled with deep vicissitude and haggardness that made him appear decades older than he truly was, seeing his unbearable torso still partially exposed with that black veins spreading like a disease beneath shrunken skin, Selena and Uriel felt something shift within them.
The two subordinates who had been most enraged by Trask Graves's betrayal, whose fury had burned hottest just moments ago, found the disappointment and anger in their eyes gradually dissipating. The emotions transformed into something more complex, more painful.
They looked at Graves with sorrow now, emotions they couldn't quite articulate brewing in their hearts like a storm they couldn't release.
Without question, without any room for debate, this man had committed a grave error, multiple errors, actually.
He had knowingly sheltered a group of dangerous dark creatures who should have been brought to trial years ago, aided their evil resurrection plan with his authority and resources, and over the years steadily helped them smuggle and hunt magical creatures across state lines. He had even committed cold-blooded murder, killed their colleague Santiago to obtain the fang from Bryan's possession.
According to American wizarding law, he would undoubtedly be sentenced to death.
Yet despite knowing all this, despite understanding the full scope of his crimes, they couldn't bring themselves to blame him for his desperate actions. Not completely. Not with the full force of their earlier fury.
While pursuing righteous dreams with genuine dedication, while upholding justice and protecting the innocent as he'd sworn to do, he had received an evil curse—a curse that destroyed not just his body but his dreams, his future, his family's generations-old expectations for him.
In a sense, stripped of all the complicated moral layers, he simply wanted to survive. To live. Was that so unforgivable?
Sirius's expression was complex as he looked at this man whose life should have had no connection with his own. Yet here they stood, bound together by circumstance and Bryan's investigation.
"Aren't you worried? Haven't you considered the obvious risks?"
Sirius said, his gray eyes narrowing with calculation as he glanced covertly at Morgans. From Graves's detailed account, he knew these supposed allies weren't truly united, that their partnership was one of desperation and mutual exploitation.
"What if these vampires are just using you? Playing you for a fool? Perhaps they only want to resurrect their ancestor, and they have no intention whatsoever of lifting your curse. You'd just be another sacrifice to their cause."
Not only Morgans, but all the vampires surrounding them in the vast hall changed color upon hearing Sirius's blunt words. Their pale faces became even more bloodless. Their eyes filled with murderous aura as they looked at him.
Morgans's lips moved rapidly, eager to explain something to Graves, to refute these dangerous accusations that might loosen their alliance. But Graves raised his hand in a sharp gesture to interrupt him before he could speak.
"I interrogated the vampire leader I captured during that operation years ago—interrogated him with both magic and Veritaserum," Graves said with flat certainty. "I made absolutely certain he couldn't lie to me, couldn't deceive me even if he wanted to. I'm confident the method I obtained for lifting the curse is genuine."
"You want to clear your grandfather Percival Graves's shame and maintain the Graves family honor, that's what supposedly drives you," Sirius said, his voice taking on a tougher edge.
"But your actions run completely counter to your stated dreams. Don't you see the contradiction? You're attempting to resurrect a dark creature you know almost nothing about, whose power is completely unknown.
Perhaps it can lift your curse, I'll grant you that possibility. But have you truly considered what harm its existence might bring to American wizarding society, to the innocent wizards living here?"
"We are not that Dark Lord, not Voldemort or Grindelwald—"
Morgans said coldly, his voice carrying defensive pride. "We've never pursued pure slaughter for its own sake. We don't kill for pleasure or power."
"Oh, really? Is that what you tell yourselves?"
Sirius's tone was scornful, dripping with contempt for such clear self-deception. "You don't pursue slaughter, you claim. Yet according to what Graves just told us in his own words, for multiple centuries you've killed many innocent people and magical creatures to resurrect your ancestor, haven't you? How do you reconcile that with your noble self-image?"
"That mass of blood you threw in the coffee shop, that disgusting weapon—"
Amelia, who had been silent throughout most of this talk, processing everything she'd learned, suddenly stared at Morgans with an icy tone. Her voice shook slightly with suppressed rage.
"Bryan told me that evil substance was bound with many human souls, souls trapped in agony. It came from this vampire lord you want to resurrect, didn't it? Those were real people!"
"I already said we don't pursue pure slaughter for entertainment—"
Morgans remained unmoved by Sirius and Amelia's accusations. "But we are vampires. That's our nature. Our food is human blood. Do humans feel remorse for slaughtered cattle and sheep? Do you weep for every chicken killed for your dinner? It's the same principle."
This was a philosophical debate that could never reach a satisfactory conclusion. When wizards categorized vampires as magical creatures centuries ago, they stipulated in binding magical law that vampires could only drink specially provided magical creature blood and were absolutely forbidden to touch wizard or Muggle blood.
Hunting humans or wizards for sustenance was classified as an unforgivable crime punishable by death.
Vampires naturally weren't satisfied with this imposed restriction, this limitation on their nature. Morgans's viewpoint represented the most extreme and radical opinions among the vampire community, those who rejected human authority completely and believed in vampiric supremacy.
However, if creatures rejected by the Church in the Muggle world, hunted by religious authorities for centuries, didn't follow the rules of the more powerful and numerous wizards, they would have no place in this world. They would be exterminated completely.
It was simple mathematics of survival.
Amelia opened her mouth to argue back, but after Graves glanced meaningfully at Morgans with a look that suggested their discussion was over, he raised his hand again in that same sharp gesture, cutting off Amelia's words before they could form.
"Thank you for your thoughtful reminder and advice, Mr. Black—"
Graves pointed his wand at the torn clothing fragments scattered on the ground around him.
Then he nodded at Sirius with the same gentlemanly courtesy he might have shown at a MACUSA formal function.
"Do you have any other questions you need me to answer before we conclude this conversation? Any final curiosities?"
He turned slightly to look at his former subordinates.
"Selena, Uriel, why have you remained silent throughout this? Don't you have questions for me?"
His two once-valued subordinates, the Aurors he'd mentored and promoted, only looked at him silently. They couldn't seem to find words suitable to the moment.
The visible sorrow and deep disappointment in their eyes made his breathing quicken with something that might have been shame or regret.
"It seems you have no more doubts or questions, correct?"
Graves's face returned to its earlier cold expression. The moment of confession was over. He nodded slightly, glanced one last time at the now-obviously-alert pursuers who'd tensed into defensive postures, and commanded sharply:
"Then kill them!!"
Shrill shrieks from dozens of vampires drowned out the constant rumbling and churning of the blood pool behind Graves. In an instant, dazzling curses lit the dilapidated hall as bright as daylight!
"Get down! Now!"
Having anticipated this, having expected nothing less, Sirius roared with battlefield urgency. He suddenly raised his wand high with a slashing motion, and the ground surrounding their small group abruptly rose in response. Earth and stone tore free from the floor, forming four high walls in the blink of an eye to shield them from the first devastating wave of attacks.
Curses impacted against stone with tremendous concussive force.
Killing four wizards, even skilled ones, didn't require all the vampires filling the hall to act simultaneously, that would be overkill.
The dozens of vampires at the front of the loose encirclement, those closest to the targets, fired curses at Sirius's group with coordination. But even so, despite Sirius's quick defensive casting, the high walls he'd conjured were riddled with smoking holes after just the first volley.
Stone vaporized, chunks exploded. In few moments, the barrier would fail completely and all four would perish in the crossfire!
"Mr. Black!" Uriel shouted over the deafening impacts. He threw Selena down beneath him protectively, covering her body with his own, and shouted desperately at Sirius. "We need backup immediately!"
"I know! I'm calling them!"
Sirius roared back, his voice strained. He pushed Amelia's head down lower with one hand, forcing her to duck beneath the worst of the incoming fire. With his other hand, he deflected a purple curse light that flew through a breach in their crumbling defenses, sending it harmlessly into the ceiling.
Then he looked up toward the darkness above and shouted desperately into the air:
"Fawkes! Now!"
BANG!
After the deafening explosion that made ears ring and temporarily deafened everyone, a powerful white shockwave suddenly appeared beneath the ceiling, dazzlingly rendered by the multicolored curse lights still flying through the air like a deadly light show.
The violent air vibration, the sudden displacement of atmosphere, caused the already-shattered glass embedded in the walls, windows, and ceiling of this former MACUSA headquarters to rain down like hailstones!
Thousands of glittering fragments fell looking deadly and beautiful.
In the soaring, triumphant cry of a phoenix, a large shadow appeared in midair without any warning.
Under the vampires' absolutely dumbstruck gazes, their expressions shifting from confidence to shock to horror, dozens of Aurors descended boldly into the hall. They appeared all at once in a coordinated arrival, wands already drawn, already casting.
BOOM!
The most intense battle began immediately, without any hesitation. Every inch of space in the suddenly cramped hall was filled with roars of fury and pain, with flashing curse lights, with the sounds of bodies hitting stone and spells colliding mid-air!
Morgans's pale face instantly became terrifyingly fierce twisting with rage and fear. He couldn't understand how these Aurors had arrived here when the place was clearly sealed with powerful Anti-Apparition Charms. And the connected fireplace in the study had been destroyed in the first wave of attacks, the only exit was deliberately eliminated.
But there was no time to worry about such questions now. Centuries of effort, generations of planning, would come to fruition tonight, and he wouldn't allow it to be destroyed by a last-minute intervention! Not when they were so close!
Raising his hand to cast a blood-red curse that crackled with vampiric power, Morgans immediately moved to join the battle. But—
"Wait! Stay with me!"
Graves snapped out of his own shock at the sudden appearance of so many Aurors. He looked at his former subordinates now surrounded by hostile vampires, engaged in fierce combat on all sides, and his expression subtly changed.
"They can't defeat so many vampires—the numbers are overwhelming. Stay by my side to prevent interference with the ritual. That's the priority."
Morgans's forward steps paused, his body tensing with frustration. He looked unwillingly at the nearby battlefield, at vampires falling to coordinated Auror attacks, clearly wanting to join his brethren in combat. But finally, with reluctance, he nodded in acceptance of Graves's command.
The ritual came first. Everything else was secondary.
However, Graves's judgment wasn't completely accurate.
True, the Aurors were greatly outnumbered. But compared to the vampires who cast curses without proper method, relying on raw power rather than technique, the well-trained Aurors were clearly more lethal and efficient.
Moreover, the hall's limited space, actually weakened the vampires' numerical advantage. They couldn't all attack at once without hitting each other, couldn't move freely in the cramped quarters.
The Aurors, including Selena and Uriel who'd shaken off their shock and confusion, quickly conjured three enormous transparent bubble-like magical barriers using advanced shield charms. Each shimmering barrier held roughly a dozen Aurors, providing mobile protection.
Sirius and Amelia held the center position, the most direct approach to Graves. Uriel and Selena each led a team flanking from left and right in a coordinated pincer movement, slowly but resolutely advancing toward Graves and the blood pool despite fierce resistance.
High above the battlefield, circling on broad wings, Fawkes observed everything. Rather than joining the fight, he simply watched Graves resume his spellcasting on the blood pool. A barely perceptible azure glow flashed in his ruby-like eyes.
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