HP: Fantastic Beasts And The Right Way To Use Them - 306

Chapter 306: Ah! I Am Dead!

"Impossible. When I pulled you in, I scanned every living presence. Everything that was not a wizard should have been tossed somewhere else. How could anything else have come in with you?" The grey-black mist hanging in mid-air stuttered for a heartbeat. The old woman's face went blank, and a voice tinged with madness came from within the fog. "It cannot be. I tested it—"

"Nothing is impossible." The young man spoke softly, a touch of cheek in his tone. "Whether you have tainted the Founders' shadows or are riding them, you are something from over a thousand years ago."

The problem at the heart of the Forbidden Forest had always spawned countless tales among magical creatures. That meant the so-called Great Lake appeared here not long after this space came into being.

When he first arrived, he had suspected the Great Lake might be a facility created by the Four Founders, but whatever the case, it was something put in place a millennium ago.

And the fact that he had been able to bring this case in here was proof enough.

"I admit that compared to ancient magic, modern magic may be a bit weaker in raw power. But after all this time, in certain specific applications, how could modern magic not have any advantages?"

A faint smile touched Evans's lips. He had not delved deeply into ancient runes, but he knew the basics.

Ancient magic was a system built by primordial witches and wizards using runes and their own magic. It was indeed formidable, but it had some fatal flaws.

For example, ancient magic rarely dealt with matters of will, and its defences in that area were lacking.

Which meant that wards based on ancient magic all shared one issue when facing modern witches and wizards: they could not detect the flashy tricks of modern spellcraft.

And the Undetectable Extension Charm was the most commonly used of those flashy tricks.

"The Undetectable Extension Charm is not spatial magic. It works by infinitely enlarging the concept of the case. Not to mention, Newt piled on all manner of odd little countermeasures on top of it precisely to evade any detection spells that might exist."

"He once used this very case to smuggle himself around the world without being discovered. With protections like yours, which were never designed to counter it, how could you possibly notice anything amiss with the case?"

Magical creatures were still pouring out of the case in an endless stream. Evans watched the old woman before him, the mist billowing off her and the smile long gone from her face, and spoke coolly.

"Now, you have two choices."

"Either you crawl out of Lady Hufflepuff's shadow yourself, or we take our time and drag you out piece by piece."

"Hu... hu..."

Sweat trickled down his brow. Snape clenched his wand and stared at Gryffindor, who was charging him with sword raised yet again.

His body looked exhausted but not at its limit. His mind, however, was close to collapse.

He did not know how long had passed, only that in this space he had died hundreds of times. He had tried every fighting style he could think of, even downed several potions that wrung his body out to boost his mind and magic. None of it worked.

All he had left were the battle instincts honed by those countless deaths, keeping him moving on reflex as he met the relentless assaults.

But now his body's condition was starting to fall behind his conditioned reflexes.

Forcing himself to focus, Snape conjured Protego in front of him. It barely turned aside the sword's cleave, but the jolt sent a deep ache through his arm.

Yet in the middle of that attack, he thought he felt the red-haired, red-bearded man's motion hitch for a moment, and there was something odd in his eyes.

Probably an illusion. His body was at its edge, after all.

This life would likely end here again.

Feeling the sour ache and pain throbbing all over, Snape gritted his teeth and fixed his gaze on the red-haired giant charging him once more.

Those hundreds of deaths had not been meaningless. His combat skill had climbed to a height his former self would never have dared to imagine. But knowing he had improved so much and still could not threaten the enemy before him was despair itself.

That red-maned, red-bearded man was like a mountain thrust into the clouds, immovable and unscalable.

Even so, he had found a line of thought.

After so many deaths—excluding the earliest few—he had forced himself to endure the pain and despair and pay close attention to the changes in his own body each time.

It had given him the barest glimmer of hope.

He would not manage it in this life.

But next time, he would make this brute pay.

He would go to his death calmly, and in the next life, he would break this cycle.

As the red-bearded man came at him again sword-first, Snape squared his shoulders, ready to die like a warrior. That very resolve prompted him to raise his wand and, nonverbally, fire off an utterly ordinary jinx.

It truly was the most ordinary of Impediment Jinxes. Cast nonverbally, its effect could at best match a Seventh Year giving it their all.

A bright red flash flickered and struck at the man's feet. He had used this move a hundred times. Each time, Gryffindor twisted away with easy grace, shifted his angle, and charged right back in without even slowing.

So this time as well, the jinx was a stubborn little act of defiance. He never expected it to land.

But this time, something changed.

When the jinx hit the ground by Gryffindor's boots, Snape clearly saw the Founder stumble, as if he had blundered into it himself, his shin taking the bright red light.

Then Snape watched, eyes wide, as one of Hogwarts's Founders, the very emblem of courage, the man who had cut him down with that longsword hundreds of times, was tagged by a tiny Impediment Jinx, pitched forward, and hit the ground face-first, letting out an extravagantly theatrical, heartfelt scream.

"Ah! Such a dastardly trick! I am slain!"

He lay there for only a few seconds before lifting his head again, perhaps with last words yet to say, and flashed Snape a big, boisterous grin.

"Your companion... not bad!"

Then he flopped back down. Threads of grey-black mist wriggled out of him, drifted outward and vanished at speed.

Snape, who had just had a brilliant idea and was ready to put it into practice to wipe out his humiliation, was left staring, utterly dumbfounded.