Put out the fire?

...At the moment the bridge exploded, in the director's office....

-Soisen, the effects of these duplication spells are not as simple as when you thought of duplicating the needles to sell them, they will only temporarily last a few minutes at most due to the complexity of the golem before disappearing. Are you sure it will be enough?

-Trust me, Headmistress. Those Death Eaters have no idea what they're getting into.

...Actuality...

-Reparo! -Minerva was restoring the armor that had fallen during the battle while Soisen incinerated the bodies left on the stone bridge to ashes and used a wind current to blow them away.

We don't want scavengers or a disease to spread, do we?

-Hagrid, would you mind doing a sweep to make sure no one else is here? It's very important to know that everything is clear, I trust you," Soisen could sense Hagrid's need to want to help from afar and gave him a piece of paper to act on.

They already knew there was no one else around from the three-dimensional map, so the half-giant would be safe and with his ego satisfied for being part of the plan.

-I'll take care of it! Fang, follow me, we have a mission to accomplish! -Hagrid immediately took his crossbow (reconditioned and improved thanks to his new salary) and faithful doggy companion, to check that everything was clear with an expression that betrayed how pleased he was to receive such an important mission.

-It's good that some things never change," said Minerva as she smiled at Hagrid's actions, "I finished repairing the armor, but you'll have to fix these... "Silver Chariots" as you call them, every time I try to assemble them, they fall apart. I'll go redo the bridge in the meantime.

-I'll take care of that as soon as I'm done on this side. Shall I get rid of these bodies too? -He asked as he pointed to the seven stacked bodies of the Death Eaters who died with an expression of absolute terror and had more holes in them than a gruyere cheese.

On one of his fingers alone, more than nine thermal perforations could be counted.

-Please do," Minerva grimaced in disgust at the sad state of her enemies, "Soisen, you never sold any golems in your store, did you? -she asked suddenly frightened as a thought crossed her mind.

-Don't worry, all golems are exclusive to Hogwarts, even I don't have one of these at home -he understood what she was trying to say and assured her that her idea was impossible.

Besides, the golems he plans to make with Silvia to safeguard the magical bastion will be much more OP in comparison to these, which are just practices of the first versions.

Minerva sighed in relief as she walked away, it would be shocking to have these creations on the other side of the conflict.

As Soisen watched the Death Eaters' bodies burn, he thought about everything that had happened and the adjustments he needed to make after testing the defenses with these "volunteers."

The turrets had good rate of fire, but they needed to improve their aiming for moving targets quite a bit. His estimate was that they would drop about half of the attackers, but the numbers were much lower.

He wasn't too surprised either, these things have to be tested several times to get the proper desired result and there was no occasion to do so before today.

The bridge explosives may be twenty or thirty percent stronger next time, there was still room to add power without side consequences.

The golem replication trick was effective, but unfortunately, it was unrealistic to rely on it. The only reason it succeeded was because they both had the right capabilities, control and skills to pull it off; if you try to repeat the feat by assigning the job to others, at most they will manage to make two or three duplicates before they finish their magic. And the replicated golems may not even be functional, which is also dangerous.

Naturally, he didn't use all the defenses and there were still surprises in store, like the trap doors that expelled liquid nitrogen or taking out the basilisk that was still sleeping in the depths of the castle, but he thought it would be smarter not to go all out.

Who knows if they are using some form of magic to see what happened from a distance.

He snapped out of his thoughts when he saw McGonagall return with a slightly green face.

-Would you mind "clearing" the area around the bridge and let me know when you're done? -He asked her as his face seemed to turn a little greener as he remembered what he saw, "The scene is somewhat... disturbing to me, and I can't concentrate enough to properly restore the entire bridge.

-Are you all right? -Soisen was a bit perplexed.

Were the results so gore as to affect McGonagall in that way?

Well, come to think of it, there were actually two hundred (evil) people who were affected by the blast radius during the defense battle and that's no small amount of casualties in the magical community for a single confrontation.

All the more reason to increase the power of the explosives!

That way there won't be so many untouched parts to clean....

Wait, did that make sense?

Was it normal for his thoughts to have that focus when he was still a young man with a pure and innocent heart?

...

Oh, right, technically he technically counts as a graduate and will even temporarily be a potions teacher.

Yeah, there's definitely nothing wrong with his thought process.

POV McGonagall

It pains me to see Soisen, being so young, being so indifferent to the state of the bodies shattered by the new castle defenses.

When I saw the surroundings of the bridge, I had to restrain my urge to vomit.

I have been in battles and lost a good number of friends in them. The brutality of the world is something I know and I advocate that children should not see that side for as long as possible.

It's better if they can have a peaceful life without conflict, as unrealistic as that sounds.

But the result of the defenses he installed in the castle make my blood run cold, more so when I learned that part of the principles used in them actually came from Muggle knowledge. He wasn't even using advanced knowledge, as I understood it.

When did Muggles come to study something like this?

Did they have worse things perhaps?

And when the possibility occurred to me that one of their golems could be used against us, my heart missed a beat.

Soisen has always been a bit odd and eccentric, with very particular ideas, but he's always been a good guy and I've never seen him engage in behavior that would qualify as evil. If a fifth House hadn't come along, I'm sure he would have ended up in Gryffindor or perhaps he would have been more inclined to Ravenclaw.

While things got tense when he claimed the castle as his property, I was glad he didn't abuse his legitimate rights. In fact, the castle facilities have improved greatly since he took over and he didn't have to explain himself to the Council or any adults.

It is a pity that his relationship with Potter, which started out as more of a healthy rivalry of sorts, deteriorated to this point. Dumbledore explained to me in confidence his meeting to obtain some ingredients from Fawkes and how he flatly refused to support Potter as a condition.

But after what happened in the labyrinth that year, there is nothing I can say, it was simply a point of no return.

Becoming headmistress of the school was a great honor, despite the tragic circumstances that led to that outcome. Soisen's support and the new facilities at the castle greatly improved the efficiency of the work and that he would not protest about burying Albus on his property was also touching.

I myself am embarrassed and feel guilty asking him to clear the bridge environs, being the only adult present.

I did not expect that while making a cup of tea after finishing some papers for school, the castle alarm would go off and I would end up within minutes in this situation.

...

Turn off the fire in the kettle? O_O