"Make your move! Second wave!" Anduin yelled over the ringing echoes of the explosion.
His first improvised defense—the flying door panel—had bought them a crucial half-second. He deftly controlled the massive wooden slab with a low-power, high-precision Levitation Charm, forcing it to swing back across the shattered doorway.
The Death Eaters, anticipating an easy entrance after the seal broke, were about to laugh in triumph when they saw the heavy door unexpectedly become a whirling obstruction, forcing them to fire wild, disorganized spells at the wood instead of the people.
The moment the door panel was shoved aside and the two lead Death Eaters stepped past it, they were met by the synchronized, furious barrage.
Lily's Ironclad Charm had already shimmered into existence, protecting the trench. Alice launched a high-velocity, emerald-green Stunning Spell while Augusta unleashed a sharp, bright Reductor Curse aimed low.
One Death Eater was caught square in the chest by two spells simultaneously and was instantly flung backward into the hallway with a sickening thud, unconscious before he hit the ground.
The second Death Eater reacted with surprising agility, twisting sideways and dropping just in time. He narrowly avoided a third spell that grazed his shoulder, and then scrambled backward out the doorway, narrowly escaping the opening attack.
However, the corridor was a bottleneck. A third Death Eater immediately replaced the fallen one, charging into the breach. He unleashed a powerful, indiscriminate cutting curse that tore into the furniture barricade. Lily's protective dome flared, absorbing the blast, while Alice and Augusta launched a rapid succession of counterattacks.
In the instant, the small space was a dizzying exchange of light and energy. The two Death Eaters at the door were utterly unprepared for the coordinated, concentrated fire from the three mature witches. They were pinned down, forced into a passive, defensive posture, able only to block the curses that Lily casually threw at them during their brief lulls in counter-attacking.
Suddenly, a fourth person appeared behind the two Death Eaters, providing immediate, powerful support. This newcomer instantly cast a massive, rippling Shield Charm that blocked the incoming torrent of spells.
"Hold the line!" the fourth Death Eater bellowed.
With that fresh defensive cover, the three Death Eaters—one in front, two slightly behind, stepping over their pinned comrade—began to charge into the room together, their movements synchronized.
What was Anduin doing during this chaotic exchange?
He was not firing offensive spells. While Lily handled the defense and the others launched the counter-barrage, Anduin was subtly reinforcing the magical cohesion of their makeshift barrier with quiet, deep Reinforcement Charms.
More importantly, his wand tip was aimed low, drawing a precise pattern on the floor directly beneath the incoming Death Eaters.
When the two charging Death Eaters stepped fully into the room, disaster struck instantly.
The floor beneath their feet suddenly cracked and splintered as if made of stale biscuit. The earth seemed to give way, and their bodies sank rapidly, dropping them nearly a third of the way into the stone and dirt.
This was the Devouring Curse (a variation of the Dissociation Charm) that Anduin had prepared beforehand. He knew that when the third Death Eater appeared, they needed more than just Stunners.
While the floor at the doorway appeared perfectly normal, the ground beneath the exact point of entry had been rapidly, magically drained of its structural integrity. It was a precise, invisible trap.
The two attackers, their lower bodies immobilized and their balance utterly destroyed, roared in surprise and anger. The trench immediately became a firing line.
"Fire! Focus!" Anduin yelled, pulling the trio of witches back to the offense.
Lily, Alice, and Augusta hammered the two struggling wizards with a furious volley of spells. The Death Eater behind them threw up two layers of Ironclad Shields, but both were instantly shattered by the concentrated force.
The two pinned Death Eaters, unable to move or defend themselves adequately, were struck repeatedly and dropped instantly, knocked utterly unconscious into the sinking floor.
Seeing the devastating effectiveness of the defense, the last remaining Death Eater—the leader, who had been coordinating the charge—hesitated. He was clearly a wizard of higher standing.
He quickly pulled a small, dark vial from his pocket, cast a powerful, sustained Defensive Charm with one hand, and with the other, he tipped the contents of the potion directly into his mouth.
A moment later, the Death Eater's eyes glowed a vibrant, unnatural red. He let out a deafening, animalistic roar that rattled the shelves, and his counter-attack began. His spells were terrifyingly fast and powerful, instantly shifting the course of the battle. He unleashed a furious, wild barrage, throwing two indiscriminate Avada Kedavra curses at the barricade.
Lily, relying on pure skill and lightning reflexes, instantly manipulated the closest stack of heavy furniture. The Killing Curses struck the wooden trunks and splintered boxes, shattering the improvised shields and blocking the deadly magic just inches from the trench.
But the Death Eater, fueled by whatever dark potion he had consumed, was becoming frantic, faster, and more urgent. He forced Lily, Alice, and Augusta into a desperate, purely passive defense. He was about to charge forward and clear the trench entirely when he suddenly gasped.
He clutched desperately at his throat with one hand, his brilliant red eyes widening in confusion and terror. He managed to force out one more powerful, but directionless, curse with his free hand, but within seconds, he couldn't even manage the simple exhalation needed to articulate a spell.
"Now! He's stalled!" Anduin reminded them, his voice tight but calm.
The three women realized instantly it was Anduin's magic at work again. They quickly combined their remaining strength, focusing all their magical energy into a simultaneous, crushing assault. A final, triple-pronged curse slammed into the desperate, suffocating Death Eater, finally striking him down into the dirt, still clutching his throat.
Anduin finally lowered his wand, his breathing slightly ragged. Every Death Eater inside the room was defeated. The barrage from the hallway had ceased completely, indicating no further reinforcements were coming.
He had performed the most dangerous, most subtle spell of the entire encounter: the Dissociation Charm—used not on the ground, but on the air itself.
Anduin had recently been experimenting, building on the knowledge he gained from his previous magical tests. The Dissociation Charm could not be cast directly on a resisting living creature, but it could be cast on an inanimate or non-sentient medium.
He had reasoned: if he could deprive the ground of its integrity, why not deprive a small, tightly controlled sphere of air of its molecular cohesion? By continuously casting the charm into the air directly in front of the Death Eater's mouth and nose, he created a constantly forming, invisible pocket of dissociated air—a localized, dynamic vacuum.
The effect was remarkable. Spells with a projectile trajectory could be blocked or parried. But defending against a spell that had no projectile trajectory, acting directly on the environment, was nearly impossible. The Death Eater had been struck down by simple, physical asphyxiation before he ever understood the invisible attack.
This technique had severe drawbacks: it required intense focus, continuous spell-casting (as the adjacent air rushed in to fill the vacuum), and powerful magical precision to target the exact space needed. It was mentally exhausting.
But the outcome was undeniable: Anduin, the first-year, had successfully applied advanced, theoretical magic to defeat a powerful, potion-enhanced Dark Wizard.
Lily, Alice, and Augusta finally took deep, shaking breaths, the intense defense having drained them completely.
Before they could even speak, another figure appeared outside the door.
In a terrifying, instantaneous reflex, the four wizards—still wired for battle—unleashed their magic. A volley of Stunners, Jinxes, and Knockback Charms tore through the doorway toward the newcomer.
The person who walked through the breach was about to call out but was instantly surprised by the furious counter-attack. Fortunately, his battle-hardened instincts, honed over decades of fighting Dark Wizards, caused him to deploy a massive, smoking Protego shield in a fraction of a second.
"Don't attack! It's me! Look carefully!" the gruff, unmistakable voice bellowed.
Through the dim, dusty light filtering in from the battle upstairs, they recognized the newcomer's unmistakable, scarred face and the magical eye whirring wildly in its socket. It was Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody.
"Thank Merlin, you've finally arrived!" Augusta exclaimed, dropping her wand and letting out a tremendous sigh of relief.
Moody stepped over the two pinned Death Eaters, his magical eye sweeping around the room. He stared in astonishment at the scene: the half-sunken wizards, the three unconscious bodies, the splintered door, and the dust-covered, triumphant women standing behind a barricade.
"What in the blazes happened here?" Moody roared, his voice incredulous. "There are four Death Eaters down—one outside and three in here! Did you four take them down yourselves? How did they get down here? And what in the hell is wrong with the floor?"
"Hmph, what else could it have been?" Augusta retorted sharply, her dignity instantly restored now that the immediate threat was gone. "Did you expect them to knock themselves out? What was the Auror backup doing? How did these traitors manage to breach the primary defenses and find our safe house?"
Moody immediately launched into an explanation, his voice full of gravel and professional frustration. He revealed that he, along with several Aurors and members of the Order, had been lurking nearby. They had arrived shortly after Frank's Patronus signal and joined the battle raging on the ground floor.
"The initial defensive wards held beautifully, but the attack was a feint," Moody explained, pointing his wand at the walls.
"While James, Sirius, and the others were focused on repelling the assault on the main floor, a small, highly specialized team used dark tunneling magic—likely something specialized, or a well-known secret passage—to bypass the perimeter entirely. They appeared directly in the kitchen cellar and came for the children. They must have been tipped off to the exact floor plan."
Lily and Anduin exchanged a silent, cold look. Tipped off to the exact floor plan. This confirmed it: the traitor was internal, someone who knew the Potters' home intimately. Peter Pettigrew, perhaps, or someone who had been given the full contingency details.
The battle upstairs had been a distraction. The real target had always been the safe house, and the Dark Lord's minions were far more coordinated than anyone imagined. They had survived, but the price of their safety had been a terrifying exposure of a deep, systemic betrayal.