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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 242: The Second Target
"Is this the house?" Abraxas Malfoy turned to glare at the old woman.
Walburga frowned and wondered if Malfoy was teasing her on purpose, as she had no way to know the answer to that question. "I…"
Dolohov stepped forward. "According to the registry handed down by Lord Black… this is the new location of the Family Manor."
Ahead of them was a large house made with some dark type of wood and half hidden by the forest around it. The shadows from all the trees made the house seem almost black in color, giving it a very gloomy atmosphere.
"Mmm… it could be a trick." Malfoy was looking at the house with suspicion. "Lord Black must have known that we had members inside the Ministry of Magic and we would know the location of any house he registered there."
"What do you think?" Dolohov turned to the woman. "You know the man better than we do."
Walburga had been thinking the same thing. Pollux was a tricky old man, and after the attack on the previous house, she didn't think he was going to register another one.
After all, he had no need to do that. The Ministry of Magic requires all families to have one registered address in their files, but the family is not forced to live there and could be somewhere else instead. This is what most wizard families did. "It's probably empty," she finally said.
"That's what I was saying," Malfoy sounded irritated.
"Either that, or a trap," Dolohov added. "But we still need to check. It's not like we can ignore his order and come back empty-handed." He turned to the middle-aged man at his side. "Did you detect anything odd?"
Travers was kneeling on the ground and tapping it with his wand. "I detect some weak wards, but nothing I can't break in a few minutes." He wasn't as knowledgeable about ward breaking as Lord Carrow, but he could still handle something like this.
"Weak wards… yes. It's definitely suspicious." Malfoy shook his head and continued to glance at the house.
The mere fact that they could all see it without the need to use any spells was already an indication that it was not well protected.
"Fine, do it. Break those wards," Dolohov said. "In the meantime, I will be placing some anti-apparition ones around the area. If someone is actually in there, we don't want them to escape."
"I'll help you with that." Lucius Malfoy was the youngest Death Eater there, so he felt the need to be useful. Also, he had a personal vendetta against this particular family and was eager to get some payback.
Abraxas watched his son go with Dolohov and decided to say nothing, even though he didn't like the idea of having his heir here, even if it didn't seem like they were going to be in any danger.
After what happened during the previous attack on the House of Black, he didn't want to risk losing his only son again. They were lucky that time that they had something Pollux would want to exchange with, but that won't happen again.
"The moment we are done, we all rush in." Malfoy turned around to look at the others. "Make sure to keep those beasts in check." He glanced at the large creatures standing at the back.
A dozen more Death Eaters were holding the same number of trolls. On top of that, they also had the majority of the dementors with them.
The sky was filled with dark shadows moving around.
"A bit too much…" Abraxas muttered under his breath. In his opinion, their Lord was being overly cautious with this approach, mobilizing most of his forces to deal with two families.
"I'm almost done…" said Travers as his body trembled. "Damn it…" He shifted his look to the sky. "Did we have to bring those things? They creep me out."
"Don't worry about them," Malfoy told him. "We are unlikely to need them anyway. Even if Lord Black and a few more of his family members are in there, we would be enough to deal with them."
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"They are here." Bella looked out from the window on the second floor.
"They brought trolls?!" Sirius exclaimed. "Wow!"
"Once they breach the entrance..." Lord Pollux leaned closer to the window as well. "I want you to stay on this floor. I will go meet them."
"What? No! That was not the plan," Bella said. "I'm fighting too."
"The plan was never for either of you to be here," Pollux told them.
"I trained so hard for this," Bella huffed. "I'm ready." She pointed at Sirius. "But he isn't."
"Hey! I can handle myself as well," Sirius complained.
"Your grandkids have a lot of spirit, Pollux." An old man wearing a ragged set of robes looked outside the window. "Twelve trolls… looks like they are taking you seriously. There are also a lot of dementors in the sky above the house."
"Dementors?!" Bella and Sirius exclaimed together. Neither of them had noticed it.
Lord Pollux turned to the old man. This was the owner of the Creeping Ivy, and they had known each other for many years. "I was surprised when you offered to help us. I never thought you would get involved in a wizard war again, after… well, you know."
The old man smiled. "I owed Mister Potter a big favor. So here I am."
Bella and Sirius exchanged a suspicious look. Neither of them knew the old man, but just going by looks alone, they didn't think he could do much.
The man looked to be well over a hundred years old, with a bald head, long grey beard, and hunched back. His robes already appeared to be older than their parents.
The old man noticed their stares and looked back at them. "You youngsters should never judge a book by its cover. I thought you would have learned that from Mister Potter," he told them, as if he had guessed what they were thinking.
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