"They're storming the Selwyn estate like they own the place! Those bastards must be begging for a fight!"
"And the scum from Knockturn Alley—filthy scavengers prowling the shadows, now bold enough to come at us!"
The Selwyn patriarch hurled another crystal goblet against the wall, shattering it into shards. His face contorted in rage, veins bulging at his temples.
"Patriarch, disaster!" A young wizard burst through the doors, ducking just in time to avoid the next flying cup. Blood trickled from a gash on his forehead.
"Who the hell let you in? Out!"
"Patriarch, it's the warehouse! Those dark wizards from Knockturn Alley found it and torched everything with Fiendfyre!"
"We sent reinforcements, but..."
"But what?" The patriarch's voice thundered, his patience fraying as the wizard paused to catch his breath.
"But the Fiendfyre's alive now—unquenchable. The whole place is ash. Over a dozen guards are dead, and the flames are spreading fast!"
"Damn them all!" Blood pressure spiking, the patriarch slammed his fist on the armrest. That warehouse wasn't just storage; it concealed their prized R&D outpost, a key hub for Light Wheel innovations—the family's golden goose.
If the fire reached it, the irreplaceable prototypes and formulas would vanish. Catastrophic.
"Stop that blaze at all costs. Mobilize every available hand—now!"
The young wizard nodded sharply and bolted.
With a roar, the patriarch flipped the heavy oak table, sending parchments and inkwells scattering. He paced, chest heaving. The fire couldn't touch the labs. It just couldn't.
...
Meanwhile, the Rosier family—one of the raid's prime targets—faced even graver devastation. Their warehouse losses dwarfed the Selwyns', with vital stockpiles reduced to cinders.
A mob of Knockturn Alley enforcers had the Rosier manor besieged, encircling it like vultures. When word hit of the warehouse inferno, one elder clutched his chest and collapsed, apoplectic with fury.
The Rosier patriarch ground his teeth to splinters. "Excellent. Simply brilliant."
"Round up every soul in the family. Hunt down the bastard who torched our stores—no mercy. Anyone involved, armed or not, dies. I want their heads."
"Understood, Patriarch. But some vaults still hold—shielded by wards. We need you to crack them personally."
"Fine. Those Knockturn vermin will pay." He shrugged off his robes and stormed toward the exit.
But a seething crowd of commoner wizards clogged the gates, baying for blood and answers.
"Rosiers, show your faces!"
"Cowards! You slander the acolytes with lies, then hide? Where's that pure-blood swagger now?"
"No apology, no peace! You think we're daft enough to let this slide?"
"Lock yourselves in forever if you're so tough!"
The barrage of jeers rattled the manor walls. Rosier guards at the gate stood rigid, faces pale, barely leashing their tempers. The hotheads among them balled their fists, shaking with barely contained rage.
Spotting the patriarch, they hurried over. "Sir, you're here!"
"Open the gates. I've got business."
"But outside..."
"What, they'll devour me? Do it!" Arrogance born of ancient bloodline made him scoff at the rabble—Muggle-borns and half-breeds, in his eyes, beneath notice.
Reluctantly, the guards swung the gates wide.
The crowd erupted at the sight of him. "Why frame the acolytes? Explain yourselves!"
"You're leeches on the British wizarding world—parasites!"
"No public apology today, and we'll boycott your wares forever!"
"Apologize! Now!"
The patriarch's jaw tightened amid the din. "Filth like this, lecturing me? If not for the warehouse crisis, I'd hex them into oblivion."
Flanked by clansmen, he shouldered forward, ignoring the uproar. The guards, stewing from hours of insults, saw their chance with the boss's support. No retreat.
One guard roughly elbowed through the front line. "Out of the way! Can't you see the patriarch's leaving?"
"Delay him, and your worthless hides won't cover it!"
The patriarch's gut twisted. "Idiot. Provoke them now? We're a proud house, not suicidal." He knew the optics: pure-bloods hexing commoners would paint them as tyrants, blackening their name across wizarding Britain.
But the damage was done. The crowd's fury ignited.
"You scum! Who do you think you are? We'd spit you to death!"
"Vampires hiding in your manor, too gutless to face us! I'll hex your bloodline to the eighteenth generation!"
"Shameless prats expect us to part like the Red Sea? Keep dreaming!"
The mob surged, shoves turning to grapples. Fists flew; wands twitched in pockets. Chaos loomed.
In the throng's edge, a shadowed wizard smirked with malicious glee, then melted back into the crowd.
"Don't engage—push through!" the patriarch hissed to his kin.
They bowed heads and forced a path, tuning out the venom.
But the instigator wasn't done. The scuffle escalated; one wizard shoved a young Rosier flat on his arse.
Enough. The fallen clansman, eyes blazing, leaped up and whipped out his wand. "Expelliarmus!"
The patriarch nearly choked. "You fool! At this moment? That's a death sentence!" Win or lose, drawing wands here branded them villains. The wizarding world would shun the Rosiers.
The hothead blinked, realizing his blunder. He inhaled sharply, starting to holster the wand.
Too late. A sickly red beam lanced from his sleeve, silent and swift, slamming into his assailant…