HP: The Duelist of Hogwarts - 468

Chapter 468: A New Life

“As you wish.”

Gavin’s face hardened, empty of grief or joy. He lifted his wand and gave a formal duelling salute. Borel stood where he was, slowly raising his wand in return. Gavin did not waste another word. His wand snapped forward, and a Disarming Charm shot straight at Borel.

At the same time, a halo of light appeared in Gavin’s eyes. In his vision, Borel’s counterattack path was already laid out. So when Borel flicked his wand to knock the Disarming Charm aside and then chopped down hard, cleaving out a scorching, blade-like arc of energy, Gavin dodged a heartbeat in advance and angled his wand upwards.

“Spiral Flip!”

Borel’s body spun as he was flung up, then slammed down onto the floor.

Gavin stepped in. His wand thrust forward like a sword.

“Spiral Pierce!”

A nearly invisible line shot from Gavin’s wand and arrived at Borel in an instant.

Feeling the force that seemed ready to bore through anything, Borel rolled across the ground to avoid the edge of it. He then swept his wand sideways. Black smoke burst out and transformed into dozens of venomous snakes, lunging at Gavin.

“Spiral Shred!”

Gavin drew a circle in front of him with his wand. Another near-invisible power formed into a high-speed spiral field. The moment the snakes reached it, they were ground into pulp and flung aside by the spinning force.

But as the mangled flesh hit the floor, it began to hiss.

The blood and meat were heavily corrosive.

“That magic,” Gavin said coldly. “Did Voldemort teach it to you?”

“As the price of my submission, the Dark Lord opened his magic to me completely!”

“You leave the family’s magic untouched and go learn Voldemort’s Dark magic instead. Pathetic.”

“The Dark Lord is the strongest wizard alive. What is wrong with learning from him?” Borel snarled. “You have never let me take a step on my own, but every timid breath Yadel took—you praised. Yadel, Yadel, always Yadel. He is a Squib, do you hear me? A low, useless Squib. He cannot even spark a match, and you hold him up over me? Over me? All my life you weighed me against that empty‑handed saint and called his weakness ‘virtue.’ He does not deserve to stand beside me, let alone be compared to me.”

With a furious shout, Borel whipped his wand. Thick black smoke poured from his body.

Sean raised an eyebrow.

Voldemort even taught him the Smoke-Rope Curse?

He really was willing to spend the effort.

The black smoke twisted into the heads of starving wolves that snapped at Gavin with slavering jaws.

Gavin watched the wolf-heads forming from the Smoke-Rope Curse and let out a quiet sigh.

“You say I always deny you,” he said. “But every time you throw away the foundation and chase something hollow. Magic is used by people. Anyone can cast a Killing Curse, but whose Killing Curse will ever be more terrifying than Voldemort’s?

“You look down on the family’s magic. Then I will show you just how powerful it truly is.”

“Spiral Domain!”

Gavin’s wand carved a curved arc in the air.

An invisible field expanded in an instant, swelling until it covered almost the entire Bulstrode Manor. Inside that field, a hidden shredding force appeared. Gavin moved like a conductor leading an orchestra, holding his wand between three fingers and drawing faint, effortless lines. Everything along the path of his wand was instantly torn apart and reduced to fragments.

Sean watched, shock flashing across his face.

The family had magic like this?

Once this was over, it would be worth finding an excuse to duel his grandfather seventeen or eighteen times.

Sean was not the only one stunned. Borel was too.

He watched his smoke vanish without even reaching Gavin and roared, “So you really were hiding it! This magic is not recorded anywhere in the family archives!”

“Hiding it?” Gavin looked at him now with nothing left but disappointment. “The family has a spell called the Spiral Charm. When you were at school, I specifically made you study it properly. You learned the basics, then told me you had mastered it and immediately turned around to study the Flint family’s private library. And now you tell me I hid it from you?”

“The Spiral Charm… the Spiral Charm…” Borel’s eyes shook. “Impossible. That spell, that rubbish spell that only spins things and throws them… it can actually… it can…”

“Rubbish?” Gavin said softly. “Borel, you truly do not understand what the ultimate form of magic is. Sean realised that back in his second or third year, and you still have not grasped it. What a waste.”

Gavin stopped holding back.

His wand stabbed forward.

The invisible shredding force instantly pulverised Borel’s wand and half his arm. Borel’s body was thrown high, then smashed down beside Doris’s unconscious form. Blood from his severed limb mixed with the blood leaking from Doris’s mouth and nose, indistinguishable.

Gavin walked to Borel’s side and levelled his wand at him.

But as he was about to cast, the light at his wand tip flickered, bright then dim, refusing to settle. The finishing spell would not come.

In the end, he could not do it.

No matter what, that was his child. A child he had once held in his own arms.

Even if that child had tried to kill him, he was still his child.

Sean stepped forward. He reached out and clasped the hand Gavin held his wand with, pressing it down gently.

“Leave it to me, Grandfather.”

“And what do you intend to do?” Gavin asked hoarsely.

“I will erase the memories of the three of them, then implant false ones,” Sean said. “After that, I will use alchemy to permanently change their appearances. I will send them to America as an ordinary immigrant family and let them live out their lives in the American wizarding world. That should be a decent ending.”

Gavin pressed his lips together, then nodded slowly.

“Thank you, Sean,” he said in a low voice.

“No need,” Sean replied. “Killing blood relatives is not a habit of mine.”

Sean raised his wand.

“Obliviate!”

He erased Borel’s memories, then Doris’s.

Sean went upstairs and stopped in front of Marcellus, who was kneeling there, dazed and unmoving.

"Sean," Marcellus said, his voice hollow and broken. "You won."

Sean looked down at him, his expression unmoved. "I never once considered you an opponent."

Marcellus flinched at the words. He stayed silent for a long moment, staring at the floor where his mother lay unconscious. Then he slowly lifted his head, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked.

"Thank you for not killing my parents. Thank you for giving them a new life." He swallowed hard, tears beginning to spill down his cheeks. "If possible... could you give them memories where they don't hate each other? Where they're loving and devoted? Could you do that for them?"

Sean's gaze softened, just barely. "Yes. I will."

"Thank you," Marcellus whispered, closing his eyes as the tears fell freely now.

Sean raised his wand, his voice quiet but firm. "No need to thank me."

Then, almost gently: "Obliviate."