Sagres stepped across the charred, muddy ground strewn with debris, walking toward the Death Eaters collapsed on the ground.
The sound of his boots crushing through puddles of blood and shards of ice was exceptionally clear in the silent night, each step seeming to strike directly against their hearts.
He stopped in front of the trembling Death Eater and looked down at him from above.
Shadows covered the man's twisted, terrified face.
Sagres raised his wand and lightly flicked away the ugly mask covering it.
Beneath the mask was the pale, distorted face of a middle-aged man.
"Castor Septimus Avery."
Sagres softly spoke the man's name, as though recalling an old memory. "According to the Ministry of Magic's records, you once claimed that you were under the Imperius Curse at the time, forced to pledge loyalty against your will. Is that correct?"
Avery's lips trembled violently. The fanaticism he had displayed earlier, when tormenting others and setting fires without restraint, had long since vanished, replaced entirely by icy fear. Only ragged gasps driven by survival instinct remained.
He could not force out a single word.
"Then this operation," Sagres continued calmly, his voice devoid of emotion, "were you also under the Imperius Curse? Or… were you finally acting according to your true beliefs?"
Avery opened his mouth several times in vain, but ultimately failed to form any coherent reply.
"Refusing to answer?" Sagres tilted his head slightly. "It doesn't matter. The truth will speak for itself."
"Wait… wait!"
Avery finally forced out a hoarse scream. "I… I have the right to a formal trial by the Ministry of Magic! According to the law—"
"A trial?"
Sagres repeated the word, his gaze still calmly fixed on the man's pale face. Then he gave a faint nod. "Yes, you certainly should stand trial."
A glimmer of hope instantly appeared in Avery's eyes.
"But not by the Ministry of Magic," Sagres finished indifferently as he steadily raised his wand and slowly pointed it at Avery's forehead, "but by me."
The cold tip of the wand touched his skin.
In the next moment, a surge of magic violently swept through Avery's mind, breaking through every fragile defence and ruthlessly rummaging through his deepest memories and thoughts.
Sure enough, the atrocities committed by these people had not come from Voldemort's direct orders. It had merely been a spontaneously organised revelry.
It made sense, as the Dark Lord was most likely hiding in some dark corner, barely clinging to life, and would never recklessly organise such a meaningless riot at a time like this.
However, one thing did surprise him.
He clearly saw in Avery's fragmented memories that Lucius Malfoy had decisively refused the invitation to participate in this operation.
Sagres's gaze shifted away from Avery's pale face and swept across the surrounding expressions, some terrified, some furious, some bewildered.
In the end, his eyes settled back on Avery. There was no longer anger or disgust in them, only a nearly icy indifference.
"You fear trial, Avery," his voice echoed through the silent campsite. "Or rather, you fear death. You fear the Dementors of Azkaban. You fear rotting away in the darkness."
"But I doubt you have ever feared losing the power that makes you feel superior to Muggles."
Avery seemed to realise something and shook his head frantically, muffled pleas escaping from his throat.
Sagres paid him no attention.
He raised his wand again, and an eerie blue light glowed at its tip, swallowing all colour and sound around it.
"Since your power is used only to create pain and fear," Sagres said in a voice like a final judgement, "then you are no longer worthy of possessing it."
The wand gently touched Avery's chest.
Avery's body instantly stiffened, his eyes widening in disbelief.
His innate magic was forcibly drawn out of his body, as though pulled away by an invisible spindle, continuously absorbed into the tip of Sagres's wand.
Avery's skin visibly lost its lustre, becoming grey and withered. The spirit unique to a wizard rapidly faded from his eyes, leaving behind only confusion and terror.
"Ahhh—!!!"
A shrill scream echoed across the campsite, making everyone present shudder.
When Sagres finally withdrew his wand, Castor Avery, this wizard from a pure-blood family, had completely become a Muggle.
He collapsed limply onto the ground, as though his bones had been extracted together with his magic.
The entire scene fell deathly silent.
Everyone was stunned by this punishment, which was even more horrifying than death.
Turning a wizard into a Muggle... such a method had never been heard of before. To a wizard, it was a terror beyond even their deepest nightmares.
Just then, a series of sharp cracks shattered the silence as the belated Ministry of Magic officials finally arrived.
Led by Barty Crouch, a large number of Aurors Apparated onto the scene, dressed in neat uniforms with wands drawn and the stern expressions of Ministry officials.
"Stop! Put down your wands immediately!"
Crouch's voice was sharp. The moment he saw Sagres's actions and the emaciated Avery lying on the ground, his face darkened. "What are you doing?!"
Mr Weasley immediately stepped forward and explained to the Ministry officials that the captives kneeling on the ground were the Death Eaters responsible for the riot, and that Sagres and his group were wizards who had come to help.
However...
"This is vigilantism! A serious violation of wizarding law!" Barty Crouch declared sternly after hearing the full account. "Greengrass, lower your wand, and all of you as well!"
He pointed at the members of Bronze Feather. "All of you, lower your wands!"
Sagres slowly turned around to face the Ministry officials and the Aurors standing on high alert.
"Mr Crouch," Sagres said calmly, "I am helping you, and your inefficient Ministry of Magic, solve a long-standing problem."
"Solving a problem? In such an... evil manner?! And mind your position, Sagres Greengrass. You are merely a professor at Hogwarts and have no right to take the law into your own hands."
Crouch's voice was sharp with accusation, and the Aurors behind him all raised their wands.
"Evil?"
Sagres gestured with his wand toward the still-burning flames and the ruined campsite. "Compared to what they did tonight, compared to the countless crimes they committed in the past without punishment, isn't stripping them of the means to commit evil the most effective solution?"
"Or would you rather I turned them into those remains instead?"
His wand pointed toward the charred corpses, the congealed blood, and the scattered body parts littering the ground.
Ignoring the wands aimed at him, his gaze locked onto Barty Crouch.
"I must remind you, Mr Crouch."
His calm words carried clearly into everyone's ears.
"Mind your own business. Don't make yourself into a problem I need to solve."
"Arrogant!" Crouch trembled with fury. "Aurors! Take him down!"
The Aurors hesitated for a moment.
Then, with a series of soft cracks, every member of Bronze Feather Apparated at once, silently gathering in front of Sagres and forming an unbreakable human wall.
They raised their wands in silence, and the powerful aura forged through blood and fire instantly suppressed the Aurors, leaving them unwilling to act rashly.
"You are openly defying the law, openly resisting the Ministry of Magic! You are making yourselves enemies of the British wizarding world!"
Crouch roared, his face flushed with anger and a trace of barely concealed fear.
"Unfortunately, we are not under the jurisdiction of the British Ministry of Magic," Lupin said calmly.
At the height of this tense standoff, Sagres calmly stepped past his own line of defence and walked toward the next subdued Death Eater.
With a flick of his wand, he knocked away the man's mask, revealing the stupid and terrified face of Brutus Crabbe beneath it.
"No... don't..." he begged incoherently.
Sagres's eyes showed no pity as his wand gently tapped downward.
Like Avery before him, Crabbe trembled violently. His body, much larger than Avery's, rapidly shrivelled and withered like a deflating balloon, the savagery in his eyes replaced by utter emptiness.
A few seconds later, another pure-blood wizard had become a Muggle.
Sagres did not stop.
Like a cold and emotionless executioner, he walked past the captured Death Eaters one by one, repeating the process.
Every flash of light was accompanied by the permanent loss of a wizard's magic and the complete withering of a soul.
The Ministry officials and Aurors could only watch helplessly. Faced with the members of Bronze Feather and Sagres's utterly ruthless methods, not a single person dared step forward to stop him.
Everyone witnessing this scene, whether survivors, Ilvermorny students from America, Beauxbatons professors and students, or the Weasley family, Harry, Hermione, and Ron, felt an icy chill crawl up their spines.
This was not killing.
This was a punishment more despair-inducing than death.
This was another side of Sagres that they had never known.
___
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