Ollie's opponent was the strongest of the Death Eaters. His scarred face remained expressionless as he muttered an incantation and swept his wand through the air.
An invisible blade shot from its tip.
Ollie shifted slightly, allowing the Severing Charm to streak past and graze the hem of his robes.
"Diffindo! Reducto! Impedimenta!"
Three spells followed in rapid succession, cutting off every avenue of retreat.
Ollie moved swiftly through the narrow space—leaning left, darting right, ducking, and bending backward. Every spell passed dangerously close, yet not one managed to touch him.
The Death Eater's breathing grew ragged. He knew he had encountered a formidable opponent.
"Expelliarmus!"
Ollie snapped his wand upward, sending a beam of red light hurtling from its tip with astonishing speed.
The Death Eater twisted aside in a blur. The Disarming Charm grazed his shoulder as it flew past.
Although the spell failed to strike him directly, its wake blew back his hood, revealing a face covered in scars.
"Confringo!"
A blinding bolt erupted from the tip of the Death Eater's wand and shot straight toward Ollie's face.
This Blasting Curse was far more powerful than any of his previous attacks. The Death Eater had poured an enormous amount of magic into his wand, intending to end the battle with a single fatal blow.
Ollie made no attempt to block it head-on.
He threw himself to the side, and the curse slammed into the empty ground behind him, blasting open a massive crater.
Dirt and shattered stone sprayed through the air. The resulting shock wave struck Ollie and sent him stumbling forward two steps.
He quickly regained his balance, glanced at the crater, and then looked back at the Death Eater.
His opponent was already preparing another spell.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
The spell was fired at close range. Ollie had no time to dodge.
He slashed his wand through the air.
"Protego!"
The Shield Charm sprang into existence at the final possible instant. The Full Body-Bind Curse crashed into the barrier, causing it to tremble violently.
The Death Eater did not relent. He continued advancing, his wand lashing out again and again.
"Expelliarmus! Stupefy! Petrificus Totalus!"
The three spells came in a relentless barrage, leaving Ollie no opportunity to catch his breath.
He retreated while maintaining the Shield Charm. One spell after another slammed into the barrier with dull, heavy thuds.
Under the sustained assault, cracks began spreading across the shield from its center, branching outward like a shattering spiderweb.
Ollie knew he could retreat no farther.
"Flipendo!"
He swung his wand downward with tremendous force.
A powerful shock wave erupted from its tip and expanded outward with Ollie at its center.
The Death Eater took the blast head-on. He was hurled backward, flipping through the air before crashing heavily to the ground.
He stared at Ollie in disbelief. The young man was far stronger than he had anticipated.
Ollie gave him no time to recover.
"Sectumsempra!"
An invisible blade shot from the tip of his wand. Before the Death Eater could even raise a Shield Charm, it sliced across his shoulder.
Once the battle was over, the fighting styles of the three young men had been laid bare.
Edgar relied on his physical strength to rush his opponents and end the fight as quickly as possible. His approach was clean, efficient, and decisive.
However, he knew far too few spells. If an opponent prevented him from closing the distance, his chances of victory would fall dramatically.
William knew a great many spells, but he was too hesitant. Before acting, his mind would instinctively begin running through procedures and considering his options. By the time he reached a decision, the battle was usually already over.
His victory this time was entirely due to the Death Eater talking too much.
Ollie was calm and powerful, but he possessed a fatal flaw: his fighting style was too defensive and dogmatic.
There was nothing inherently wrong with following established principles. However, the moment an opponent refused to play by the rules or used a spell Ollie had never encountered, he would fall into a state of panic.
The three had only been resting for a short while when Lynn emerged from a burst of golden-red light.
He stood before them, his gaze moving from Edgar to William, then from William to Ollie.
His expression remained calm, making it impossible to tell whether he was satisfied with their performance.
After a long silence, Lynn finally spoke.
"Edgar."
Edgar subconsciously straightened his back.
"Your actions were decisive, and your close-quarters combat was beautiful. But your spell repertoire..." Lynn paused. "Is it true that, apart from Expelliarmus, Stupefy, the Shield Charm, the Binding Spell, and Petrificus Totalus, you don't know anything else?"
Edgar opened his mouth to argue but found himself unable to say a word.
"There's still half a month left before the holidays end," Lynn said. "Learn one new spell every day. Practical combat in the morning and spell practice in the afternoon. I'll test you before school begins."
Edgar's face immediately fell. This sounded even worse than fighting Death Eaters.
"William."
William rose from the ground, pushed his crooked glasses back into place, and lowered his head, not daring to look at Lynn.
"You know a great many spells," Lynn said, "but you spend a full second thinking before casting each one. Do you know what a single second means in battle?"
William answered in a very quiet voice, "Enough time to die several times over."
"Good. At least you understand." Lynn's tone remained unchanged. "Work on your reaction speed. Don't think with your brain—think with your body. Practice until you know exactly which spell to cast the instant you raise your wand."
William nodded.
"Ollie."
Ollie turned to face Lynn. His expression remained unreadable as he waited for his evaluation.
"You're very calm, and your spellcasting is accurate," Lynn said. "But you need to learn how to adapt."
Ollie's brow twitched slightly. He remained silent for a moment before nodding.
"Overall, I'm fairly satisfied with your performance in this practical combat exercise."
Lynn's voice carried across the open grounds, bearing the calm composure of a teacher who had finished grading his students' work and was now delivering his critique.
With his hands clasped behind his back, he looked from Edgar to William, then to Ollie, before finally turning his attention to the unconscious Death Eaters.
"It ended a little earlier than I expected."
This time, a trace of genuine surprise entered his voice.
It was not empty politeness. He truly had not expected them to finish so quickly.
Lynn had originally assumed Edgar and the others would be fighting for much longer. After all, their opponents had been five Death Eaters with genuine combat experience—not inexperienced rookies, but veterans with blood on their hands who had served beneath the Dark Lord for many years.
Five against three.
They had been outnumbered and faced a vast disparity in experience.
And the result?
Five minutes.
Less than five minutes had passed between the first Death Eater making his move and the last one falling.
Edgar's progress had exceeded Lynn's expectations. During the battle, he had completely shed his usual impulsiveness, seeming almost like a different person.
William had also responded more calmly than Lynn had anticipated.
As for Ollie, his method of fighting had always been the most straightforward of the three.
As Lynn spoke, he clapped his hands.
Crack!
A soft sound echoed through the air, and Dodo instantly appeared beside him.
The house-elf wore a clean tea towel embroidered with a pair of crooked letters he had sewn himself:
"L&E."
The L stood for Lynn, while the E represented Dodo—the elf.
According to Dodo, it meant, "Master and Dodo are a family."
"Master."
Lynn nodded and extended his wand, pointing toward the unconscious Death Eaters lying nearby.
"Since we shouldn't let anything go to waste," Lynn said as calmly as though he were discussing what to have for dinner, "turn them all into fertilizer. Use the Fully Automated Fertilizer Conversion Machine I built earlier."
The Fully Automated Fertilizer Conversion Machine.
Although the Death Eaters could no longer hear those words, the moment they reached Edgar's ears, every hair on his arms stood on end.
He remembered Lynn mentioning that machine before.
At the time, Edgar had assumed he was joking. Who would deliberately construct a machine for turning corpses into fertilizer?
Wasn't that... Wasn't that downright perverse?
He had never expected Lynn to be serious.
The machine had been completed long ago. It simply had not been used because they lacked the necessary raw materials.
Now, those raw materials had arrived.
Dodo nodded without the slightest change in expression.
He snapped his fingers, and the bodies of the five Death Eaters slowly rose from the ground.
They floated in a neat row through the air, resembling five sausages hanging from a rack.
Dodo snapped his fingers again.
Crack!
The man, the elf, and the row of "sausages" all disappeared simultaneously.
The grounds fell silent. Only Lynn, Edgar, William, and Ollie remained.
Lynn turned toward the three young men and flashed them a wild grin.
A chill ran down their spines.
"Now that the nuisances have been dealt with..." he drawled as his wand slid from his sleeve, "let's get to the drills, brothers!"
Before his voice had even faded, he moved.
His wand traced an arc through the air, and Lynn's figure split into three.
All three Lynns raised their wands simultaneously.
"Are you ready?" asked the Lynn on the left.
"This time, there aren't any Death Eaters for you to practice on," said the Lynn on the right.
"Only me," concluded the Lynn in the middle.
The three voices fell silent at once, and three lights flared to life.
"Split up and run!" Edgar roared, already lunging toward the left.
He was fast.
Lynn was faster.
The Lynn on the left appeared in front of Edgar almost instantaneously, his wand pointed directly at the tip of Edgar's nose.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Edgar had no time to answer. He did not even have time to think—his body reacted before his mind could.
He leaned sharply backward, narrowly evading the Stunner Lynn fired at him.
The spell passed less than an inch above his nose. He could even feel its icy wake skimming across his skin.
Pushing off the ground with both feet, Edgar rolled to the side. By the time he scrambled upright, his wand was already aimed at Lynn.
"Expelliarmus!"
A beam of red light shot from its tip and flew straight toward the Lynn on the left.
Lynn neither dodged nor blocked.
He simply raised his left hand and snatched the Disarming Charm out of the air.
Edgar's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
"You—are you even human?!"
"No," Lynn replied. "I'm your coach."
With a casual wave of his wand, an invisible force struck Edgar's ankle.
Edgar felt the ground disappear beneath his feet. He pitched forward, falling face-first toward the earth.
At the last possible moment, he managed to brace himself with his hands, preventing the fall from becoming too disastrous. However, his wand slipped from his grasp and went flying several meters away, disappearing into the grass.
"You can't even keep hold of your wand," Lynn's voice came from above him. "Again."
---
Happy Reading. Be sure to leave a review!!!
Join my P@treon to receive extra updates daily and read up to 75+ chapters ahead.
P@treon: patreon.com/mrfanfiction140