Chapter 478 Big Fish (2 in 1)

Jon, who was still in the Department of Mysteries, had no idea about what was happening in Carrow Manor.

He was still inside the Time Room conducting a detailed inspection of all the magical artefacts here, one by one, while those Purebloods who had stayed behind were all brought together by Slughorn who had found a reason to have a banquet, so no one would interfere with Jon at this point in time.

As the time entered the second half of the night, Jon had already checked all the hourglasses in the Time Room, and even absorbed some of the more suspicious magical powers, trying to see if it was possible to open the door.

But without exception, they all failed.

In the end, Jon could only place his eyes on the bird ornament, which was the most conspicuous thing in the entire Time Room, because compared to the hourglasses that were constantly dripping with sand, it was a bit more obvious.

At first, Jon didn't bother to look into it in detail because it was too conspicuous, so conspicuous that if someone just came to the Time Room, the first thing they would notice would definitely be it.

According to common sense, if one really wanted to make use of something in this room to make a key to open the door, then one would not normally choose such a conspicuous item.

But Jon couldn't really think of anything else suspicious in the room either, and it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that Voldemort was using the most dangerous place as the safest.

So Jon set his sights on the bird-shaped ornament and began his own research.

To be honest it was an ancient type of magical timepiece, except that instead of showing the passage of time in the way that an hourglass does, it showed the progression and regression of time through the hatching of the bird from an egg and its transformation from a bird to an egg.

At first glance, one may or may not feel the magic in it, but after a closer look, Jon realised that there was no deep magical mystery in this bird ornament.

The bird that hatched from the egg was just an ordinary specimen of a magical bird, and those liquids that contained it within, although it is a special kind of magical potion, it only worked as a kind of potion to help the object undergo metamorphosis, and there was nothing much more profound about it.

The only thing to note was that the egg from which the bird hatched was a real and living egg.

The potion in the ornament was constantly helping it to change, and that change took the form of this process of having a bird break out of its shell, and then the change effect ended, and so the bird devolved back into the egg's manifestation once more.

From start to finish the egg was unaffected, it was still a living egg, it was just that the morphing potions that enveloped it, while allowing it to undergo magical changes, also prevented it from actually hatching.

Jon stared at this ornament in front of him for a long while, he didn't readily absorb the magic power contained in it, partly because the strength of the magic power that could be absorbed in his ring's gemstone had already reached a limit, and partly because he always felt that he couldn't just violently destroy this thing like this, that would have a very bad consequence.

Just as Jon was doing various experiments with the ornament, he suddenly realised that this thing wasn't completely embedded in the top of the desk and that there was a movable clasp underneath the desk, which made it completely possible to remove it from the desk in a smooth manner.

"Click!"

The crisp sound echoed in the quiet Time Room as Jon easily removed the ornament from the desk, and at the same time was able to see a single flap underneath the base of this ornament that would allow it to be opened up!

This was a very important discovery, generally, after this kind of item was made, there should be no need to open it again, just like those other hourglasses in this Time Room, all of them were not designed in a way that the sand in them could be taken out normally.

But this bird-shaped ornament was the only exception.

Without much hesitation, Jon turned the ornament upside down and opened it from the bottom.

It was also the moment he opened it that the egg-to-bird change in the potion suddenly came to an abrupt end, and then those morphing potions evaporated rapidly like drops of water sprinkled on a hot pan, disappearing almost in the blink of an eye! Only the lone egg remained inside.

Jon tilted the cylindrical transparent tube and took out the egg, it was only the size of a normal bird's egg, it didn't look like anything special from the outside, but it could clearly make people feel that there was a weak life still alive inside.

After weighing the egg and observing it for a few moments, Jon tried to bring it to the door that could not be easily spotted.

At first, there was no special phenomenon manifested, but soon Jon noticed that whenever he brought the egg nearer to the door, there was a sign of depression in a spot just below the centre of the door!

Instantly such a discovery perked him up, and he held the egg up and carefully brought it closer to the depressed spot, and once he had the egg fully pressed against the door, a round hole just appeared in that spot that would perfectly fit the egg in.

Jon stuck the egg into the hole with precision, and in the next second, the door that had been closed tightly seemed to have a different kind of magic added to it by the egg, and then gently opened up towards the inside with an entrance that could be used for people to enter and exit!

***

"Get up! Get up!"

Amid a booming sound around him, Lucius pulled up an Auror who had already had one of his arms and legs blown off.

He knew this Auror, in the Auror office, when Lucius was still the Auror head of office he praised a half-blood commander, at that time he was encouraging this young lad to do his best, there was still a bright future waiting for him, but now he was already dying, breathing in and out become a labour for him.

Lucius didn't care if he died or not, he needed to know about all those people out there, wanted to know just how many people Witching Horizon had sent and who the leader was!

"Tell me! How many men did you see? How many of them in total took down this squad of yours!"

The Auror squad establishment was usually three to a squad, and right now this Auror with a broken arm and leg had the corpses of his other two teammates lying beside him!

"Sis-x... there are six of them."

Blood foams kept gushing out from the corner of his mouth, and his voice was weak and dying as he finished giving Lucius his reply.

And such news made Lucius' already ugly face become even more gloomy, he angrily threw the Auror, who was already teetering on the edge of death, back onto the cold ground.

Six people surrounding three meant that the people sent over by Witching Horizon this time definitely outnumbered the Aurors guarding this place, and after the surprise attack at the beginning, coupled with the Weasley Orb's swift and quick means of killing, many Aurors died in killing curses and explosions before they could even see the enemy's face!

Originally, Lucius thought that the Aurors might have just been scattered, and in fact, there were still quite a lot of living forces preserved, so that he could take over the command, coupled with these purebloods rushed out from the back, there might still be a chance for the situation to be deadlocked, and then he could wait for the detection network of the magical community to find out about the situation and provide support.

But now they simply couldn't hold on!

When Lucius ran down from the Manor with the purebloods, the Aurors that had retreated into the courtyard from around the wall had already been heavily killed and wounded, and now the situation had already fallen into a completely collapsing alleyway warfare, and Witching Horizon's people didn't rush directly to the place where the purebloods were gathered to wipe them out in one fell swoop, but instead bit by bit cleared out the remaining Aurors that were still lingering, and pulled out the living forces of the Ministry of Magic.

Obviously, for Moody and the others, this is the best solution.

Almost all the means of going out of the Manor have been blocked, leaving only a Floo Network that can only be accessed by a few individuals, even if a few more purebloods are allowed to escape, it doesn't matter, the more of these wastes that only dare to run away but don't dare to respond to the battle, the more advantageous to Witching Horizon's later invasion would be, and those that dare to stay behind and resist will be cleared out, including the remaining Auror's in the Manor.

Witching Horizon did not want to drive them completely to extinction, the situation has reached such a point, that even a fool can see that if they continue to resist, it is basically only a dead end, it is not exactly easy for these adult half-bloods to be loyal to the Ministry of Magic, because in the end, Voldemort's rule over the United Kingdom is still less than two decades, two decades are not enough to let those old people who have been through the previous system of magical community to die, nor is it enough for the new people who have been brainwashed and educated to completely replace all the positions.

Therefore, after hearing the people of Witching Horizon advancing forward while shouting "Throw away your wand, and you won't be killed", there were quite a number of half-bloods who did not have to struggle much with their thoughts before they threw their wands on the ground, and then crouched down with their heads in their hands.

These Aurors who gave up their resistance had their wands broken and were then temporarily positioned at the back, leaving two teams of people to guard them, while Moody continued to advance into the depths of the Manor with the rest of the people.

The purebloods that Lucius had brought with him were hidden less than twenty metres away from Moody!

They were separated by a wide ten-metre open pavilion, in which lay the Fountain of Magical Brethren that had previously been placed in the Ministry of Magic, a valuable antique that the Carrow family had privately intercepted and placed in their own home.

Lucius brought the people to hide in a corner before this large open expanse, his previous experience as the head of Auror's office was not for nothing, based on his rich experience he judged that the progress of Moody's group advancement was not very far away from their group, as for other purebloods who were behind him, whether or not other people were encircling them, and if there were, where they were, he was no longer so much cared about it.

It wasn't like he couldn't guess the little thoughts of Amycus, if there were others behind them, then they would surely collide with those who had left following the Carrows, and that would be none of his business.

"We only have this one chance!"

Lucius stared at all the purebloods present as he said with a fierce gaze.

"Whether we live or die depends on whether we dare to fight! They are going to encircle the entire Manor, then for them to form such an encircling net, their personnel will inevitably be spread out! According to normal habits, there will be two squads in front of us, that is, a squad of six people, each squad being no more than 30 metres apart, and then the space will be continuously compressed inwards!"

"To this position, the distance between the two squads should already be less than 20 metres, even if they are fast, they can only gather all the people within 50 metres within a short period of time, that is to say, three different squads with a total of 18 people, and our current number of people is far more than theirs, as long as things go well, there is a good chance that we can still rush out! "

Lucius's words made the purebloods around him perk up a lot, if it was really like what he said, then there was indeed a good chance.

But in fact, there are still some possibilities Lucius did not speak out bluntly, generally, this kind of encirclement network will not be only one layer, the innermost layer is now a squad for 20 metres, and if there is an experienced person to lead the troop, the periphery will surely be arranged two more layers of the "big net" along the 20-metre gap, so once they really attracted the attention of the Witching Horizon Wizards, they will not be able to escape from the net. So once they really attract the attention of these Witching Horizon Wizards, there will definitely be more than just three squads of 18 wizards targeting them in the siege.

But now is the time when the purebloods need morale and confidence, so of course Lucius won't say such a truth, he can only hope that everyone's desire to survive here is firm enough, and then maybe a miracle will happen.

Just a little further away, there is also the voice that keeps shouting through the amplifying charm for Aurors to put down their wands and surrender is getting closer and closer, and through that Fountain of Magical Brethren, Lucius can already vaguely see the silhouettes of that group of two Witching Horizons squads when he gave the order to charge!

"Charge!!!"

The purebloods around him were on full alert, and just the moment they heard Lucius' voice ring out, the desire to stay alive took over all of their brains, so they raised their wands in their hands without hesitation!

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Stupefy!"

Those who could use the killing curse naturally used it without hesitation, while the purebloods who hadn't learnt the killing curse ultimately knew that they wouldn't be able to kill anyone even if they used it, so they used the stunning spell.

Almost instantly, green and red lights intertwined in the middle of the open expanse!

At the same time as they had fired the spells, led by Lucius, the purebloods rushed out of this corner where they were hiding, and using that Fountain of Magical Brethren as a cover, they began to start launching an attack on this Witching Horizon squad!

The target they chose was very coincidental, this team of six happened to be the squad led by Moody and Tonks!

The moment he heard the killing curse's incantation sound, Moody's professional Auror experience came into play, he yelled "Lie down", at the same time waved his wand and immediately used transfiguration to turn a handrail of the staircase that was shattered in the explosion in front of him into an iron shield across the ground!

The killing curses and stunning spells struck the shield like rain, and Moody had already roughly judged the number of people in Lucius's group from the denseness of the spells.

Now that the Aurors had all been completely cleared out, there would only be one type of person who could still organise such a group of resistance within the Manor!

Moody knew that they had encountered a big fish!

----

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