"Lightbound Trinity!"
Rowan surged upward, wings flaring wide as he positioned himself above Hermione and the others. A radiant sigil formed over his head, pure and blinding, and three pillars of white light slammed into the ground around them. The beams fused into a massive protective dome just as lightning tore down from the sky.
For a heartbeat, everything froze.
Aurors. Civilians. Even Old One-Eye himself stared upward in disbelief.
Bathed in holy-white light, wings spread against the storm, Rowan didn't look like a wizard at all. He looked like something torn straight from a Muggle myth.
"Don't just stand there!" Rowan shouted over the thunder. "Build a reinforced shield, now!"
Holding back the storm alone was burning through his strength. The Trinity barrier shuddered violently with each strike.
Amy, Lina, and the Aurors snapped out of it at once. Wands rose in unison.
"Maximum Protection! Total Shield! Enemy Suppression!"
Their magic converged overhead, weaving together into a colossal defensive barrier that replaced Rowan's construct and absorbed the lightning in roaring waves of energy.
The moment Old One-Eye saw that light technique, his instincts screamed danger.
He broke off the storm spell and bolted toward the central exit of the magical street. Past the statues lay the Muggle district. One clean jump, and no Auror would ever track him again.
"You think you're getting away?" Rowan muttered.
The instant the Aurors stabilized the shield, Rowan dropped the Trinity spell, reinforced himself with a Shield Charm, and shot forward in pursuit, wings snapping as he accelerated.
Any hope of questioning Old One-Eye about ancient magic vanished the moment that storm came down. Whatever the cost, he couldn't be allowed to escape.
Rowan held back just enough to slip beyond the Aurors' line of sight before overtaking him.
Old One-Eye skidded to a stop and turned, eyes blazing. "You little bastard are really asking to die."
"Avada Kedavra!"
The Killing Curse tore through the air with terrifying speed.
Rowan twisted mid-flight and barely avoided it, landing hard on the stone street.
Fast. Precise. Experienced.
This was no ordinary dark wizard.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The second curse followed instantly.
Rowan ducked and surged forward, wand already moving. "Expelliarmus!"
The red spell streaked toward Old One-Eye, only to be swatted aside with contemptuous ease. In the same motion, Old One-Eye countered.
"Incarcerous—no. Impediment!"
Invisible force slammed into Rowan, crushing down on his limbs and halving his speed.
In raw spellcraft, Rowan could rival an Auror. Against a legend like Old One-Eye, the gap was still there.
But Rowan wasn't limited to this world's magic.
"Diffindo."
At the same instant, eight razor-thin blades erupted from different angles, screaming toward Old One-Eye.
The dark wizard scoffed. "Clever. Too clever for your own good."
"Freeze."
A burst of power locked the flying blades in place.
He'd misjudged.
The blades stopped.
The invisible cutting curse did not.
A silent arc carved through Old One-Eye's wand arm, severing half the wrist in a spray of blood.
Before he could scream, light flared again above him.
"Light Array."
A cascade of luminous bolts hammered into Old One-Eye's back, driving him face-first into the street.
Rowan was on him in an instant.
"Legilimency."
Mind and magic surged together as Rowan forced his way into the dark wizard's memories.
There it was.
The spell.
The book.
Rowan pulled back and flicked his wand. "Stupefy."
Old One-Eye collapsed unconscious.
Rowan quickly searched his robes and withdrew a battered, thin spellbook, no thicker than a diary. Its title was scrawled crudely across the cover: Rituals for Commanding the Heavens and Calling Lightning.
So that was it.
With a quick motion, Rowan cast a duplication charm, slipped the copy into his hidden storage, and returned the original to its place.
He knelt and sealed the wound with a healing counterspell, ensuring the dark wizard wouldn't bleed out.
Footsteps thundered behind him.
"Rowan! Rowan!"
Amy, Lina, and a squad of Aurors rushed up, wands raised, fear written plainly across their faces.
Rowan straightened calmly. "He's alive. Just unconscious."
They stared at Old One-Eye. Then at Rowan.
Silence followed.
"We weren't worried about him," Amy finally said, voice unsteady. "We were worried about you."
Around her, seasoned Aurors stood frozen, struggling to process what they'd just witnessed.
They knew Rowan was exceptional. They had seen him save hostages and hold back a lightning storm.
But seeing an internationally wanted dark wizard, a man who had eluded capture for decades, defeated in a one-on-one fight by a boy barely twelve years old—
That was something else entirely.
...
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