Hermione Will Cry If You Do This…

Knock, knock, knock…

Even as Yvonne was thinking this, there was a soft knock on the door.

"Come in!" Ivan said, regaining his composure.

The next moment, the door to the practice room opened and Joseph and the others entered, trembling with fear.

When he saw the Dark Wizard lying on the floor of the training room, his life or death unknown, Joseph shuddered and cautiously warned him.

"Sir Harls… your mother has an urgent matter for you…"

"Okay, I'm on my way," Ivan replied casually as he dusted himself off, then headed for the door.

Joseph and the others skillfully put away the wands of the fifteen Dark Wizards and judged the severity of their injuries.

The minor injuries were temporarily ignored, and the seriously injured were sent to the infirmary.

After wandering around for a while, Joseph was surprised that no one died today…

It must be noted that deaths were unavoidable on previous occasions.

Could it be that Sir Harls was suddenly being kind?

No, that's not true!

Joseph shook his head. There was only one possibility—there were not enough prisoners to go around, so they had to be cautious and not be as brutal.

Joseph breathed a sigh of relief at this realization. His greatest fear had been that too many prisoners would die and someone, short of hands, would force them to act as guinea pigs for a magical experiment.

While no one knows what Sir Harls was planning to do with so many prisoners every day, judging from their injuries and the memories that have been erased, it seems likely that they were experimenting with some sort of cruel magic.

Why not fight?

What a joke, a mere fifteen wizards, combined, would be hard-pressed to warm up Lord Harls before a battle…

Joseph bent down to pick up a seriously injured patient, and could not help but feel some sympathy for him. For these people, death was probably a relief.

Ivan, who had just reached the door, naturally heard the thoughts of Joseph and the others.

After a few days of continuous practice, his Legilimency had successfully broken through to Level Seven, and he could read minds without looking at them.

However, this was not a good thing. In fact, it added to his troubles.

From the feedback he had received over the past few days, his image in the minds of his subordinates seemed to have become more and more terrifying, to the point where he had replaced Lord Voldemort as the mysterious man who dared not speak his name.

The specific reason is, of course, related to recent magical practice.

Every evening, he would order the law-enforcement officers to pull the less seriously injured wizards in the cage into the spacious training room. After dozens of minutes, they would be carried out unconscious.

In a way, this may seem like a terrifying process to an outsider, but Ivan did try his best. He could not possibly hold back against a dozen wizards at once, and at most avoided using lethal magic.

He had nothing to do with the prisoners who died in the course of the exercise, as they were mostly friendly fire.

For example, the unlucky guy from yesterday was hit by his teammate's Exploding Spell and died on the spot. He could not save him even if he wanted to…

"Sir Harls!"

Yvonne walked slowly down a corridor, where the two law-enforcement officers standing guard greeted her respectfully.

Seeing that they were nervous, Ivan smiled and nodded at them.

Ivan's wicked smile sent a chill down both of the enforcers' spines.

They had heard the cries of agony that had filled the room, and they knew that Ivan was fighting the prisoners rather than practising magic.

As such, they came to the conclusion that Sir Harls, seemingly gentle on the outside, was in fact extremely cruel, with such a violent and abusive streak that he would be upset if he did not hit someone every day.

Ivan's face froze when he read their thoughts, and his smile froze on his face.

It's over, Sir Harls is as temperamental as the rumours say, the two enforcers thought nervously.

The veins on Ivan's forehead bulged and his mouth twitched. He resisted the urge to draw his wand and beat them both up. He didn't want any more rumours about his weirdness tomorrow.

After leaving the basement, Ivan angrily deactivated the Legilimency spell. As expected, the spell could not be left on forever, or he would die of anger.

Ivan forced himself to calm down as he made his way to the living room. When he opened the door, he saw Alicia sitting on the sofa, reading some letters.

"What can I do for you, Mom?" Ivan asked.

"No, look, it's from your little girlfriend! It must have been there for a few days. It's in the letterbox outside the shop. I just happened to see it when I went over today…" Alicia said teasingly as she handed the letter to Ivan.

Ivan took the letter nervously, then looked at Alicia helplessly. "Why are you reading my letters?"

Noting Ivan's resentful expression, Alicia couldn't help but smile, vaguely remembering that she hadn't seen such an expression on his face in years.

"I'm not trying to sneak a peek. I'm just trying to make sure there's nothing wrong with the letters. You-Know-Who might try to pull a fast one on them, tamper with the letters, and then pretend to be your friend and mail them to you…" Alicia explained.

Ivan rolled his eyes, not believing a word of it, but he had no choice but to turn his attention to the envelopes in his hand and pull out the parchment.

To Ivan's relief, Hermione only mentioned how she was doing and the interesting things that had happened during her visit to the Black family home.

For example, George and Fred attempted to eavesdrop on the Order of the Phoenix meetings with their Extendable Ears, or she met a new witch, Tonks, who could change her appearance at will.

Did Dumbledore know you were leaking information about the Order of the Phoenix?

Ivan shook his head at Hermione's carelessness.

The little witch was clever enough, but her mind was probably stuck on the students' bickering, and she didn't realise that they were in the middle of a real wizarding war!

It would be a disaster if the letter was intercepted.

Even now…Ivan cocked her head and glanced at Alicia, who was taking notes on the letters, noting key information and individual names, particularly Tonks's.

A witch who could change her appearance at will could cause them a lot of trouble if used well…

"No, don't bother, Mother, I have a list of the vast majority of wizards and witches in the Order of the Phoenix." Ivan quickly grabbed the pen and paper from Alicia.

Hermione would cry if she knew he had used her letters for intelligence analysis…