Under the clerk's weird look, Richie paid his tab and squeezed out of Flourish and Blotts with Denton.
Since they were already in Diagon Alley, Richie decided to stock up. He bought the materials he needed to carve his third alchemical rune and picked up a few souvenirs for his dad.
The shopping spree pretty much wiped out his cash on hand. He found a quiet corner to pack all the bags and parcels into his magically expanded trunk.
With nothing else left on the itinerary, the two of them headed back the way they came.
---
London, England — Ministry of Magic, Auror Interrogation Block
"Investigator Godwin, we need you in here."
"What happened?"
"That werewolf you captured in the Muggle residence—something's gone wrong!"
Annabelle and the Auror leading the way rushed urgently down the corridor toward the holding cells.
The Auror interrogation facility was split into two areas: the interrogation room and the observation deck, separated by a heavy one-way mirror.
Right now, in the observation room, Kingsley Shacklebolt was scowling, his eyes locked dead onto the corpse slumped in the chair on the other side of the glass. The suspect had just suddenly dropped dead.
"Boss, the test results are identical across the board. His emotions, memory strands, and consciousness—they're completely gone!"
A junior Auror standing next to Kingsley whispered, unable to hide the tremor in his voice. "According to the early warning proposal submitted by the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, they call this... an Empty Shell."
Normally, even if a suspect died, the Ministry could extract memory strands from their brain as long as they hadn't been dead for more than three days. In those cases, a dead person's memories and residual emotions were tangled together, requiring highly specialized techniques to separate them. And if the person died with intense obsessions and a strong sense of consciousness, they would manifest as a ghost.
But this werewolf had just abruptly died right in front of them, leaving behind absolutely zero emotions, memories, or consciousness.
To the Aurors, this was no different than having no soul at all. In other words, it was true, absolute death.
It was genuinely terrifying.
"An Empty Shell..." Kingsley muttered.
At that exact moment, Annabelle rushed into the room. "What's the situation?"
Kingsley's eyes briefly lit up when he saw her, but his heavy frown quickly returned. "Weren't you out in the field last night? You literally caught this werewolf yourself. Why aren't you resting?"
He handed the case file over to her as he spoke.
"Our entire department was deployed. We're all exhausted, but some of us had to stay on duty in case things went sideways," Annabelle replied automatically, her eyes already scanning the file.
"Rodney Sinclair. Muggle underground boxer, thirty-two years old, unmarried, no kids..."
She looked up through the glass at Rodney Sinclair slumped in the interrogation chair. One glance, and her heart dropped. "He's dead?"
Kingsley didn't sugarcoat it. "He's an Empty Shell."
Hearing that term out loud made Annabelle catch her breath. "How is that possible..."
Kingsley raised his wand, releasing a thick puff of white smoke from the tip. The smoke rapidly swirled into a 3D projection, replaying the interrogation from just moments ago.
In the projection, Rodney was shackled to the chair, completely uncooperative and arrogant. He ignored the Aurors' questions entirely, opting to repeatedly spit at them instead.
The two Aurors gritted their teeth and finished the mandatory questioning protocols. Right as they were about to authorize forceful extraction methods, it happened.
Rodney suddenly started violently seizing. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, he began foaming at the mouth, and within ten seconds, he flatlined.
The Aurors in the room checked his vitals. He was dead on the spot.
Clueless as to what caused it, but strictly following emergency protocols, the Aurors immediately called in a specialist to extract his memories. That was when they hit a wall.
The projection dissipated. A heavy silence filled the observation room.
Annabelle broke the eerie tension. "I need a fully compiled report on this. Where are the two Aurors who were in the room?"
"Currently in isolated holding," Kingsley said, rubbing his temples.
He was running on fumes compared to Annabelle. Kingsley had been the one on duty the previous night. He had pulled an all-nighter coordinating the hunt for the three werewolves and hadn't clocked out since. The worst part was that, aside from this Black Wolf, the other two had managed to slip the net entirely.
Noticing Kingsley's intensely bloodshot eyes, Annabelle shook her head. She pulled a small vial from her pocket and tossed it to him. "Invigorating perfume. Use it."
Kingsley looked at the vial, slightly confused. Annabelle grabbed Rodney's file and turned to leave.
"Once the official report is compiled, send a copy to my department. I'm taking his file."
Before he could even respond, she had vanished.
Kingsley stared blankly at the empty doorway. Slowly processing what just happened, he gripped the small vial, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Well, that's a pleasant surprise."
"Pfft—"
The junior Aurors in the room snickered, thoroughly amused by their hardened boss acting like a smitten teenager.
Hearing them, Kingsley snapped back to reality. Embarrassed, he barked, "What are you laughing at? Get that report typed up!"
"Yes, Boss!"
---
Speed-walking away from the Auror interrogation block, Annabelle's expression grew incredibly grim.
Another Empty Shell. Counting Rodney, that made four.
The pattern was undeniable now. This wasn't just a string of isolated, bizarre cases. It was the creeping prologue to a massive disaster.
And Annabelle wasn't just being paranoid. In magical history, every major catastrophic event—whether man-made or natural—started exactly like this.
The Silencer's Plague of the 15th Century: Infected wizards lost their voices permanently, even remaining mute if they became ghosts. At first, people just assumed a few unlucky souls had caught a nasty strain of the Black Death. One case, two cases... it wasn't until a massive wave hit that the wizarding world actually panicked.
The Moonlight Harvest of the 18th Century: Starting in 1711, for thirteen consecutive full moons, Muggle-born wizards across an entire kingdom were found decapitated in their sleep. Initially, Muggle-borns thought it was a coincidence—a hidden faction of witch hunters operating in the shadows. But as the body count rose while pure-blood families remained entirely untouched, the reality set in. Driven to absolute terror, the Muggle-borns rioted right before the fourteenth full moon. They launched a massive assault against three major pure-blood families, including the royal family themselves, ultimately wiping the entire kingdom off the map.
Then there was the Dead-Burn Plague of 1726. A localized epidemic in Paris that exclusively targeted adult wizards, causing "magical spontaneous combustion." There were no visible flames, no heat waves. A blinding light would ignite from within their bodies. Their magic would liquefy into quicksilver, flooding their veins before sparking out into nothingness, erasing the person completely. During the combustion, victims never struggled. Their faces remained completely serene, as if they were already dead.
According to magical research reports from the era, experts claimed it was a specific genetic defect triggered by exposure to "Unicorn Pollen." The wizarding public bought the lie, ultimately resulting in a massive tragedy. Because plagues always found obscure ways to spread...
History was littered with brutal lessons: born from ignorance, neglect, or orchestrated conspiracies.
And yet, the only lesson humanity ever learned from history was that humanity never learns anything from history.
With a heavy heart and her mind racing, Annabelle hurried back to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.