"The Patronus Charm..."
The reason Aurora was afraid of Dementors was precisely this. She had tried to practice this spell more than once in the past few days, but not once had she truly succeeded.
The first setback in this life inevitably makes people more timid.
"If I help Grandfather burn these classmates to ashes right now, will he change his mind?" Aurora might care about her classmates' safety, but definitely not to a moving extent.
"Miss Grindelwald, are you worried Dumbledore is going to start fighting with your family again?" Some little wizard insensitively noticed Aurora's anxiety and hesitation.
Her question was left unanswered by Aurora.
"Shut up, all of you."
Aurora rolled her eyes and rubbed her forehead. Seeing a bunch of clueless little wizards, she sighed and stuffed her magic wand back into her robe.
She weighed things over in her heart for a moment.
The little German girl still thought it best to just remove herself from the equation. She gazed at the professors rushing toward the Forbidden Forest in the distance, already pondering where she should hide during future Defense Against the Dark Arts classes.
The Forbidden Forest was a pretty good option.
But the little shack where Ian often hid to brew potions was pretty tempting too; at least, hiding away in that room on the eighth floor, she wouldn't have to deal with Dementor troubles.
...
The ten-plus fiery dragons conjured from Fiery Fire were like Ian's claws and fangs, frantically searching for Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. He genuinely hoped Voldemort wouldn't slip away alive.
It wasn't just because he wanted to use the Soul Furnace to burn a bit of magic power; more importantly, Ian deeply understood Voldemort's vengeful nature. If Voldemort made a comeback, odds were he'd hold a grudge and go after him hard in the future.
That hidden danger was no joke.
Ian was not one to overestimate himself.
He knew that picking on a fragment-soul-state Voldemort was one thing, but in terms of raw strength, a full-power Voldemort was absolutely on the same level as Dumbledore.
Never underestimate all those dangerous magical transformations and augmentations Voldemort performed on himself—though some had side effects like messing up his brain, they really did give him a massive power boost, letting him finish in a few years what was supposed to take decades of painstaking work.
"You could call it overdrawing and squeezing out his own future potential. It's dumb, but in the short term, it's efficient—it saves him a lot of time and effort."
"Even Grindelwald probably can't say he'd definitely beat someone like that."
Ian still remembered the things he learned from several legendary old-timers: wizards in the human world have a power ceiling, so as they approach that ceiling, the rate they grow stronger slows dramatically.
Maybe at his absolute peak Voldemort was still a bit short of Dumbledore, but the gap definitely wasn't vast or obvious. At minimum, they barely count as being in the same echelon of powerful mages.
They're both top-tier, T0 level, in the human world.
"My magic power barely counts as House Head level, but everything else is still way too shallow."
Ian felt that aside from his magic power reaching T1 Level, in terms of deep magical research, experience, and combat skills, he was still some distance behind any of the House Heads.
What he lacked was far more than just magic power—magical foundation and experience were crucial too.
Precisely because of this—
If he had to face a full-power, full-health Voldemort, Ian would definitely fall short of the four House Heads. Right now, he's basically a mini-King Kong with three deadly blows.
Most wizards would crumble after those three strikes, but if any wizard can withstand Ian's combo, they'd find he has nothing else up his sleeve afterward.
If Voldemort is free to use magic wildly, he'd definitely hold up. That's why Ian didn't think he could handle a fully resurrected Voldemort, which is one reason he's determined to kill off the soul fragment before Voldemort comes back.
Whether Harry Potter can keep his Savior status, or the Golden Trio can use Voldemort for personal growth, that's not even close to being Ian's concern.
All he wanted was to eliminate any chance of noseless Tom causing trouble. Only then could he finally gain the time he most desperately lacked—and most desperately wanted—to slowly grow his own foundation. Yes, Ian just wanted no one to stop or bother him from studying, so when he ran into noseless Tom, he wanted to finish him off as quickly as possible!
And burn up this old rival as fuel for his own cultivation while he was at it!
"Where did you run off to?" Ian was also flying around on his broom in search. His Transformation Technique combined with Fiery Fire wasn't yet up to Grindelwald's standards as detailed in Advanced Dark Arts Unveiled.
These so-called "Fierce Fire Giant Dragons" Ian conjured had only his intent imprinted on them. That intent was just the instruction to look for that shadowy figure of Voldemort. For ordinary wizards, this was impressive enough, but compared to Grindelwald's level—able to make Fiery Fire into an extension of his own sight—the gap was pretty wide.
The Fiery Fire under Grindelwald's control was like a drone with a camera, while Ian's was more like a programmed, camera-less automated machine.
If that weren't the case—
They wouldn't have harassed Quirrell three times, with Ian himself totally clueless—the fiery dragons had flown past Quirrell's hiding cave three times, and each time left Quirrell shaking with fright.