The tension in the narrow hallway was so thick you could almost cut it with a knife.
Aurelian stood his ground, his wand still pointed directly at the two intruders in front of him. His eyes scanned the scene intently, analyzing the situation with a cool detachment, not missing a single movement in the dim torchlight.
"I won't ask you twice," Aurelian warned, his voice resonating with authority in the silence of the corridor. "What the hell are you doing at Hogwarts?"
Vinda Rosier tilted her head, her relaxed posture contrasting with the hostility in the air. She gave a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Put that wand down, boy. There's no need for this to get ugly," Vinda said in a seductive tone. "If you cooperate and come with us quietly, I give you my word that we won't harm you."
Percival Graves, who had been standing like a bulwark beside her, stepped forward. His battle-hardened face showed no emotion.
"Gellert Grindelwald wants to speak with you in person. Follow us," Graves informed him, getting straight to the point, his wand held firmly at his side.
Aurelian looked at them for a second before letting out a derisive laugh. He didn't lower his wand even a millimeter.
"Tell your boss I appreciate the offer," Aurelian replied arrogantly, "but he can go to hell. The truth is, I'm not interested in having late-night chats with megalomaniacal old men—who knows what that old man would do to me," he finished, placing a hand on his chest.
Graves's face hardened.
"Wrong answer," Percival muttered.
Without warning and at astonishing speed, Graves raised his wand and fired a powerful piercing spell at point-blank range, aiming directly at Aurelian's face to stun him instantly.
Vinda crossed her arms, expecting to see the arrogant student writhing in pain on the floor.
But Aurelian didn't even blink. He stood completely still, waiting for the impact without flinching, not bothering to protect himself. When the reddish beam of the piercing spell was just a few millimeters away from striking his face… it simply stopped. The attack lost speed dramatically in midair and began to disintegrate, dissipating into harmless sparks until there was no evidence left that it had ever been cast.
The spatial barrier—the "Infinity" that constantly surrounded Aurelian's body—had swallowed the enemy's magic as if it were nothing.
Vinda Rosier's eyes widened slightly in surprise, before her smile turned genuine and far more predatory.
"Well… you're definitely a most interesting young man," the witch purred.
"And you're about to become history," Aurelian replied.
With a deft flick of his wrist, Aurelian cast a pair of Stun Spells. The scarlet bolts shot out like cannonballs. Percival and Vinda reacted instantly, conjuring shields to deflect the stunners, which ricocheted off the walls, shattering the nearby torches.
That was the spark. All-out battle erupted on the lower floors of Hogwarts.
Spells, cutting curses, and bursts of fire flew back and forth through the narrow corridor, illuminating the stone with every impact. Despite being two adult wizards—experienced in countless battles and members of the elite of Grindelwald's army—it was Vinda and Percival who were suffering the most in the exchange.
The situation quickly became desperate for them. Everything they threw at that boy—absolutely everything—failed to land. Aurelian didn't even bother to move, dodge, or defend himself. He walked toward them while conjuring his attacks with his fingers; the spells they cast simply vanished before touching his skin, blocked by that invisible wall they couldn't fathom. They had never seen anything like it before.
Aurelian hounded them relentlessly. He unleashed bursts of magic with overwhelming power, forcing the two acolytes to retreat step by step. With a violent sweep of his wand, he conjured a shockwave that swept through the entire hallway, lifting them off the ground and slamming them brutally against the stone wall at the end of the corridor.
The impact left them nearly breathless. Vinda fell to one knee, coughing and cursing under her breath. She wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of her lip and glared at Aurelian, furious with herself for having underestimated the boy and making such a pathetic show of herself.
"You're far more skilled than I expected for someone your age," Vinda growled, struggling to her feet and glaring at Graves.
Percival brushed the dust off his robe, his expression hardening into that of a cornered warrior. He immediately realized that ranged attacks and traditional magic were useless against the anomaly shielding the young Gaunt. He had to change the rules of the game if he wanted to fulfill his mission.
"I'm not holding back anymore, Vinda," Graves declared, tucking his wand inside his coat and assuming a hand-to-hand combat stance. "I'll apologize to Gellert later for hurting the boy."
Under Aurelian's watchful gaze, Graves cracked the knuckles of both hands until they popped loudly. He closed his eyes for a moment, and a dense, heavy magical aura enveloped his body; he used his own magic to saturate his muscles, strengthening his fibers and bones beyond the limits of a normal human.
With a burst of speed that cracked the floor beneath his feet, Graves lunged forward. He closed the distance in the blink of an eye. Before Aurelian could adjust his magic to ward off a physical blow, Graves's right fist—wrapped in his compressed magical energy—sank deep into his stomach.
The blow was devastating. The air was instantly forced from Aurelian's lungs, and the force of the impact lifted him off the ground, sending him flying several meters backward until he crashed into another wall of the hallway, creating a crater around him.
Silence fell over the hallway for a couple of seconds as a cloud of dust created by the impact settled.
Slowly, amid the debris and coughing slightly, Aurelian emerged from the crater in the wall. He wiped the dirt from his face and brought a hand to his stomach, surprised that the man had managed to penetrate his passive defense using magic-enhanced fruit power.
He lowered his hand from his abdomen and looked up at Graves and Vinda. Far from looking intimidated or frightened by the pain, Aurelian smiled widely and savagely, his black eyes shining with intense fervor.
His blood was boiling with excitement; at last, the battle was getting truly interesting.
As he brushed the last bits of stone and dust from his clothes, Aurelian quickly connected through his mental link to the basilisk hidden beneath his shirt.
"Are you okay, Nythoros?" he asked telepathically, without taking his eyes off his enemies.
The king of serpents hissed in his mind, his voice carrying a lazy tone.
"Perfectly fine, my friend. I was just taken aback by the impact. I didn't expect that direct hit. It reminded me quite a bit of Godric… that brute used to fight exactly like that, saturating his muscles with magic." Nythoros let out a sort of laugh in Aurelian's mind. "Thanks to that strange habit, he was such a formidable swordsman back in the day."
Aurelian's eyes widened slightly, momentarily taken aback by the sudden, offhand historical tidbit about the founder of Gryffindor. However, he didn't have a single second to ask questions about Godric's tactics, because Percival Graves was already upon him again.
With terrifying speed, Graves lunged again, unleashing a flurry of blows. Aurelian rolled across the ground, dodging by a hair's breadth a punch that shattered the stones where his head had been just a moment earlier. He leaped to his feet, dodging a side kick from Percival with a backward somersault.
To make matters worse, Vinda Rosier was attacking from the rear. The French witch, keeping a safe distance, unleashed a relentless barrage of explosive and stunning spells. Her goal wasn't to break through Aurelian's perfect defense, but to cut off his escape routes, forcing him to move directly into Graves's line of fire.
The combined tactic finally paid off.
Cornered by one of Vinda's curses, Aurelian stumbled. Graves didn't waste the opportunity. Percival's enormous hand clamped around Aurelian's neck like an iron vice, lifting him off the ground and cutting off his breath as he applied pressure.
Grindelwald's soldier looked him coldly in the eyes.
"It's over, boy," Graves declared, tightening his grip.
Despite his lack of air, a sinister smile spread across Aurelian's lips.
"Yes…" the young lord whispered with difficulty. "It's over… for you."
At that very millisecond.
Like a dart fired from the shadows, Nythoros shot out from the collar of Aurelian's shirt. Opening its jaws as wide as they would go, the basilisk sank its enormous fangs directly into Graves's collarbone and neck repeatedly, injecting its lethal venom into the mage's bloodstream before darting back at full speed into its master's clothing.
Graves suddenly let go of Aurelian's collar, stumbling backward. He instinctively brought a hand to his throat, covering the bite marks. Thanks to the adrenaline and magic coursing through his body, at first he felt no pain, only a strange numbness.
He looked at Aurelian and took a firm step forward to grab him again.
But his other leg simply wouldn't respond. The basilisk's venom had shattered his nervous system in record time. His eyes rolled back, and the imposing soldier fell forward like a felled tree, slamming face-first onto the stone floor, from which he never rose again.
Aurelian, rubbing his neck and coughing slightly to catch his breath, looked down at the lifeless body at his feet. He smiled cruelly.
"You're not so tough anymore, are you?" Aurelian sneered, before lifting his foot and delivering a hard kick to the fallen mage's head, knocking him out of the way.
A few meters away, Vinda Rosier assessed the situation with a cool head.
Everything had just come crashing down. She couldn't defeat that boy under any circumstances as long as that strange defense continued to block her spells, and Graves… Vinda looked at her partner's body, immobilized on the ground. Graves was temporarily—or perhaps permanently—out of commission.
Her survival instinct dictated the only logical option. Knowing that the best course of action was to surrender to buy time and save her own skin, Vinda lowered her wand. She raised both hands in a sign of surrender and gave Aurelian the most charming and harmless smile she could muster.
But Aurelian Gaunt wasn't stupid. He didn't play by those rules.
Without a word, Aurelian raised his hand and attacked with a cutting curse.
Vinda barely had time to open her eyes in surprise before the magic tore deeply into her left cheek. Blood gushed out instantly, staining her pale face and her immaculate clothes. Vinda staggered backward, pressing a hand to the wound and staring at him more intently.
Aurelian walked toward her slowly, his wand pointed directly at her heart. His gaze was devoid of any remorse.
"Tonight you're going to die here," Aurelian told her, his voice echoing through the dungeons. "The world has always worked this way—either you kill, or you're killed. It's nature's simplest rule. And I… I prefer not to leave any loose ends."
The tip of his wand glowed with the green light of the Killing Curse. Vinda closed her eyes, realizing she had greatly underestimated Lord Gaunt.
"Aurelian, stop! This isn't the way!"
A voice rang out behind her, breaking the murderous tension in the corridor.
From the darkness of the main staircase, his coat fluttering behind him and his wand drawn, Newt Scamander appeared. The magizoologist looked sternly at the scene, stepping between the hunter and his prey.
As she opened her eyes and saw the professor's figure, Vinda Rosier let out a sigh, thinking to herself that she had never been so incredibly grateful to see the illustrious Newt Scamander.
Aurelian, for his part, halted the curse at the tip of his wand. He slowly turned his head over his shoulder, glaring at Scamander. He frowned deeply and clicked his tongue.
"What an untimely and annoying guy," Aurelian thought, weighing his options as the magizoologist approached.
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