Chapter 449 - Dumbledore: Don’t Kill Anyone

Chapter 449: Chapter 449 - Dumbledore: Don’t Kill Anyone

The calm and gentleness in Dumbledore’s eyes gave way to a focus Regulus had seen a few times before.

He reached out and touched the point of light. His gaze wavered for a moment, then he stood straight up.

Regulus raised an eyebrow, set his mead on the table, and stood as well.

So Moody’s Patronus was a bull. First time he’d learned that, but it fit. Stocky, stubborn, head down, horns forward, ramming whatever was in the way before asking questions. Moody probably thought the bull looked a lot like him too.

Dumbledore turned to him, blue eyes looking over the half-moon glasses. "Geralt, care to come along?"

Regulus’s pupils brightened, and he grinned. "Yes."

Dumbledore nodded, eyes never leaving him, speaking a little faster now. "I sent Fabian and Gideon to investigate Ministry officials who’ve gone over to Voldemort. It was only meant to be reconnaissance, no direct engagement. They ran into Dolohov. Bad luck. The Prewett brothers are good men, full of spirit, but short on experience. They need to be rescued, but the conflict can’t escalate into open confrontation. The Order of the Phoenix isn’t ready. Now is not the time for all-out war. And one more thing."

He paused, and the light in his blue eyes turned very clear. "Don’t kill anyone."

Regulus heard the sincere request in the old man’s tone. He said nothing, just nodded, noncommittal.

Fabian and Gideon Prewett. He knew the brothers. Pure-blood, Sacred Twenty-Eight, Molly Weasley’s older brothers, original core members of the Order, now twenty-six or twenty-seven and right in their fighting prime.

According to the established course of fate, they’d die at Dolohov’s hands six years from now. Five Death Eaters surrounding them, fought until they had nothing left. Afterward Moody would say they died like heroes, and Hagrid would call them some of the best wizards of their time.

But right now they weren’t dead, only surrounded somewhere, waiting for someone to come get them.

Regulus set the thought aside.

If the leader of an organization had to recruit at the grassroots level himself, the Order really didn’t have many people. Even fewer could fight. The whole thing was propped up by a few Aurors and a group of young people who hadn’t gelled yet, with Dumbledore as both commander and strongest fighter.

Set off a full conflict now and it would be scattered. So he was trading time for space, restrained enough that he walked every step himself and calculated whether every fight could be fought.

Regulus didn’t much like the strategy. Conservative, passive, handing the initiative to Voldemort. But with no manpower, no resources, and novices at the core, it was either gamble now or hold back until the day they were ready. He understood the choice, and he respected it.

The Prewett brothers getting surrounded was a textbook danger. Rescue them well and it was damage control. Rescue them badly and it was escalation.

And Dumbledore hadn’t just grabbed his arm and taken him. It was urgent, he could have simply demanded it, but he’d chosen to ask, and that left room to say no.

The Prewett brothers’ situation had nothing to do with him. He was going because he wanted to. Playing the coward held no interest for him. A fight, on the other hand, held plenty. But Dumbledore wanted him to know clearly: you can refuse, and I won’t think any less of you for it.

The old man was protecting him. From being pushed into a position where he had to openly pick a side, from the Black family’s balance in Voldemort’s camp tipping over, from a thirteen-year-old having to pay the price of betrayal. Even though he was Geralt right now, with no connection to the Blacks, the old man still left the choice to him.

That kind of understanding didn’t need to be spelled out.

As for killing, he’d already done it. In Germany, facing the Abyssal Whispers, the Decomposition Curse had killed more than one. But that was a different identity, and Geralt had never killed anyone.

The old man saying don’t kill was probably also a way of protecting him. In Dumbledore’s view, children shouldn’t kill. Killing damaged the soul.

Regulus wasn’t that worried about his soul. If he couldn’t handle killing a few people, it meant his skills weren’t up to standard, the soul framework was a waste, Star Guided Meditation was wasted practice, Bellatrix had shone for nothing. He wasn’t planning to tear his soul apart and stuff it into some jar.

But the old man had said it, so he’d listen. Who told him to be a good person?

Of course, he couldn’t tie his own hands and get himself hurt over it. That would be stupid. He could kill slowly, kill gradually, kill selectively.

And ten Death Eaters was no small scene. Ten trained adult wizards weren’t the kind of trash you brushed off on the roadside.

Moody was a veteran Auror who’d followed Dumbledore through the tail end of the Grindelwald era. But this was Moody in his prime years, not the peak Moody of later. He hadn’t been through the wizarding war, and he didn’t have the razor-edge reflexes ground out by twenty more years of fighting. Calling for help against ten was the most rational choice, especially when the other side had a name people recognized.

Dolohov was no nobody. An old Pure-blood line on the outer ring, producing Death Eaters generation after generation. Antonin Dolohov was one of the core fighters Voldemort trusted most, his signature the purple flame curse, his Dark Magic fighting style vicious to the extreme.

Regulus rolled his wrist, the joint cracking, and the gold light in his amber slit pupils jumped. "Dolohov. Good."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "You know him?"

"His reputation in Pure-blood circles," Regulus answered carelessly, then grinned wide enough to show teeth. "Don’t kill anyone. Got it."

Dumbledore’s gaze lingered on his face a moment longer, then he reached out and gripped his shoulder.

Crack. The two of them vanished from the inn.

Mr. Fernley leaned out from behind the bar and looked at the empty sofa and the half-finished glass of gin.

His wife leaned halfway out of the kitchen doorway. "Gone again?"

"Gone." Mr. Fernley took off his pince-nez and wiped them. "Same as last year. Halfway through eating and he disappears."

Mrs. Fernley sighed and carried the sticky toffee pudding, fresh from the oven and still bubbling, back inside.

---

North Yorkshire, north of Skipton.

The Apparition landed on an open meadow beside a sheep track walled in with stone.

It had just gone fully dark.

Two hundred meters away, the outline of a stone castle showed in the night.

A medieval thing, built by Yorkshire nobles centuries ago to hold off the Scots coming south. No one had lived there for ages. The windows were black holes, and an ordinary wizard passing by wouldn’t give it a second look.

An Anti-Apparition Charm and a perception-jamming charm covered the castle, but they couldn’t block Regulus’s Magic Perception. It merged with his sight and spread out along his gaze, punching through the jamming layer and picking up a dozen-plus magical signatures across the different floors.

The first floor had the most. Seven or eight, clustered together. Second floor, two, squeezed into a turret, their magic rapid and chaotic. The two trapped ones. Third floor, two or three scattered about. Probably on watch.

He pulled his perception back and glanced at Dumbledore. The old man’s blue eyes glowed faintly in the dark. He’d finished scanning too.

Moody stepped out of the shadow behind a large boulder.

He nodded at Dumbledore, voice rough. "Albus."

Then his eyes landed on Regulus. White hair, slit pupils, scorching magic pouring off him, the whole posture of someone who’d come for a fight.

Moody’s brow twitched and wariness flashed in his eyes. But the situation was urgent, and he didn’t ask.

"Fabian and Gideon are trapped in a second-floor turret. The Death Eaters have sealed the stairs. There’s an Anti-Apparition Charm over the castle inside and out. They can’t get out. I haven’t been spotted."

Dumbledore asked directly, "Where’s Dolohov?"

Moody’s voice was low and fast. "Ground-floor reception hall. The other Death Eaters are spread across the first and second floors, with a few on the third keeping watch. Ten in total."

Regulus spoke up, amber slit pupils half-lidded, voice low. "How did the Prewett brothers get caught?"

Moody looked at him, then at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore gave a slight nod.

Moody’s eyes came back to Regulus. "They discovered Rookwood from the Department of Mysteries meeting with Dolohov. They tailed him here and got spotted."

"And Rookwood himself?"

"Apparated away once the meeting was done. He’s Ministry. He won’t stay out long."

Regulus clicked his tongue. "Pity."

Moody’s eyes narrowed slightly.

This one talked big.

He ignored the white-haired wizard and turned to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore looked at Regulus, a flicker of helplessness in his eyes with a bit of amusement mixed in. The polite, restrained, good-student Regulus from Hogwarts had swapped in a different face.

Dumbledore gave brief instructions. "The Death Eaters in the ground-floor hall are yours. Push them away from the stairwell and open a path for the Prewett brothers to come down. Don’t chase, don’t go upstairs. I’ll be outside watching the third floor and the perimeter."

Then his tone hardened, and he added seriously, "Remember. Don’t kill anyone."

Moody’s gaze swept back and forth between Dumbledore and Regulus.

The ground-floor hall. Seven or eight Death Eaters. Handed to a white-haired young wizard of unknown origin, to deal with alone.

Dumbledore’s judgment had always been precise. If he thought this young man could hold the ground floor alone, his combat ability had to be at least elite Auror level. And a specific warning not to kill anyone, on top of that. Who exactly was this person?

Regulus grinned and didn’t answer.

His wand slid into his hand. Magic surged from the surface of his body, the air around him warped violently, and his silver-white hair lifted in the heat.

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