The familiar explosion sound brought the familiar workplace safety accident.
Only this time, the safety incident seemed particularly severe. By the time Jane Yu realized something was terribly wrong, she was already half-lying... half-buried in a pile of bricks.
She covered her buzzing head and constantly ringing ears, casting Scourgify on herself while struggling to open her eyes and look up—
She didn't see a ceiling, only sky.
Except the sky wasn't very blue, and the clouds weren't very white.
They had been stained a filthy black-gray and ominous dark red by the raging flames and smoke from the explosion.
The situation was truly dire. Even through the Bubble-Head Charm automatically triggered by her Spell-Shielding Hat, she could feel toxic gases permeating the scene. Thick smoke rolled everywhere, obscuring vision, dust and grit filled the air, bright flames burned all around—if not for the Shield Charm and temperature-control spells on her robes, she would have been reduced to ash long ago.
Jane struggled to stand, pushing away the bricks covering her, only to discover her Spell-Shielding Robe had been blasted into tattered strips by the explosion, barely maintaining its last traces of magical warmth.
She drew her wand, trying to stop the spreading fire:
"Finite Incantatem! Meteolojinx Recanto! Aguamenti..."
When the smoke cleared and dust settled, she found the original laboratory building had vanished without a trace, leaving only broken walls and ruins.
Several blackened figures were slowly crawling out from the rubble and charred debris. Each face was pitch-black, with only the whites of their eyes and teeth remaining white—her researchers!
Standing amid the ruins, everyone stared at each other in shock. They looked at one another, then at the laboratory flattened by magical explosion beyond any hope of repair. For a moment, their minds collectively crashed—no one could speak.
Jane felt grief flowing backward like a river in her heart!
Her workshop, her laboratory, her equipment, and the hard-won inventory of Spell-Shielding Robes and Spell-Shielding Hats—fixed assets worth countless Galleons—
All wiped clean with one stroke!
"...Uh..." she asked dryly with her last shred of hope, "Augustus, Croaker, did you preserve any experimental records?"
The two wide noodle-like tears streaming down Augustus's blackened face said everything.
But Jane had no time to grieve for lost Galleons and experimental records.
Because she was watching in horror as a figure slowly emerged from the half-blasted brick house beside them—
His black robes had become like tasseled curtains, and his expression was three shades darker than those robes...
It was her mentor, Severus Snape!
"How thoughtful, Miss Jane, always so considerate of your old professor." The nearly maddened Snape swept his tasseled robes through the wreckage, launching into biting sarcasm. "You finally blew up Spinner's End—otherwise I was always worried you would."
He pressed Jane's shoulder, turned her around, and forced her to look at the neighboring house's devastation—
One brick wall had completely collapsed, exposing the furniture and decorations inside. The familiar second-floor bedroom she knew well now had only an overturned wardrobe, while one ground-floor room was buried under bricks and fallen ceiling.
"I must thank Miss Jane for her mercy," he continued sarcastically, "for sending her good professor Spell-Shielding Robes in advance, so he wouldn't be sent to meet Merlin by explosion and collapsing houses."
"...These losses... I'll compensate..." Jane's voice was completely choked up. In her daze, she seemed to hear Galleons zeroing out, each one feeling like a blade scraping her heart. "Full payment... absolutely no arrears..."
But Snape didn't speak—he had no time to consider his bombed house.
With a grim face, he waved his wand, using Mobiliarbus to move away the bricks and slabs covering the buried ground-floor room—
Beneath lay a creature whose limbs had turned ashen gray...
His body was stiff, limbs curled and completely shattered, small body half-rat, half-human... flattened into 2D shape...
A very short wand had fallen beside him, full of cracks, covered in dust and dirt, looking ready to crumble at any moment.
It was a Death Eater directly killed by this magical explosion—Peter Pettigrew!
"Damn..." Snape cursed under his breath, wanting to spit on him.
He felt his brain had completely crashed.
Wormtail's death left him both elated and troubled.
Elated because though he hadn't personally slain his enemy but borrowed Jane's explosion, his great revenge was finally complete.
Troubled because the Dark Lord's spy had died in his house, leaving him unsure how to explain.
But before he could speak, his heart seized up—
Because piercing sirens, ambulance sounds, fire truck sounds, and Muggle shouts were approaching from far to near!
The laboratory's violent explosion had broken through the layers of magical barriers set here. The magic-infused flames and explosion's shockwave had affected surrounding abandoned houses, creating enormous noise—
This commotion had alerted the Muggles!
Everyone present visibly showed terror—they knew they had thoroughly violated the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, exposing this magical safety incident to Muggles!
This was enough to send them before the Wizengamot court and leave them rotting in prison!
"In the end... we'll still be singing prison blues..." Augustus muttered despairingly.
Jane felt her brain had never operated at such high speed. Those approaching sirens rang in her ears like death knells.
She knew that in just minutes, Aurors and Special Agents protecting this area would descend with people from the Magical Accidents and Catastrophes Department!
Even with Dumbledore and Bones vouching for them, such a disaster could still cause very unfavorable consequences.
She had to do something to help her researchers avoid any possibility of imprisonment in Azkaban!
In a flash of inspiration, she had a brilliant idea—
She quickly stepped forward, picked up Pettigrew's cracked wand, recalled Barty Jr.'s spell, and carefully waved it to avoid complete breakage:
"Morsmordre!"
This already fragile wand's magical circuits weren't very smooth, but fortunately a small Dark Mark still emerged.
A large snake drooped listlessly from the skull's mouth, the skull slowly and weakly rising above the ruins, conveying reluctance and reluctance.
Jane looked with satisfaction at the ugly pattern half-collapsed on a stone brick.
Then she gently snapped the already fragile wand completely in half.
She looked down at Pettigrew's flattened 2D corpse.
Rest in peace. Though he'd done nothing good while alive, she felt he could be a good person after death.
—Such as sharing their burden and taking responsibility for this violation of the Statute of Secrecy.
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