Disaster at Hogwarts

"...Wait for me."

Hermione heard herself say in a voice so hoarse it didn't sound like her own.

She tore off a relatively clean strip from the inner lining of her school robe, quickly and clumsily trying to bandage his still-bleeding wrist and several obvious wounds.

Her movements were gentle, yet her fingertips turned white from the strain.

Finally, she forced several vials of the strongest Essence of Dittany and Blood-Replenishing Potion she carried into Caesar's mouth, regardless of whether he could swallow.

She gave him a deep look, as if to etch his current fragile yet still calculating expression into her very soul.

Then, she turned decisively, her wand gripped tightly, the last trace of hesitation in her eyes burned away by an icy flame.

Hermione moved like a silent shadow, exiting the classroom and charging toward the castle's center, where the fighting was fiercest and the dark magic most concentrated.

The abandoned classroom fell back into dead silence, broken only by the distant sounds of slaughter outside the window and Caesar's faint, nearly inaudible breathing.

A few seconds later, Caesar's half-lidded eyes slowly, completely opened.

Though his body's wretched state and injuries remained real, the aura of weakness receded like a tide, replaced by a chilling focus and sense of control.

He shifted his body with difficulty, propping himself up more comfortably.

His left hand moved extremely slowly, yet with uncanny steadiness, reaching into the innermost layer of his tattered robe—a pocket hidden by an Undetectable Extension Charm and layers of protective magic.

His fingertips touched a cold, hard object.

Not a wand, but a crystal disc engraved with dizzyingly complex layers of spatial coordinates and summoning runes.

At the center of the runes was embedded a small piece of ever-shifting Fire Dragon Scale, a tuft of metallic-lustered Purple Venom Leopard Fur, and a fragment of stone bearing the primal, wild aura unique to giant territory.

This was the "byproduct" of his years of "academic research."

Using partially lost Spatial Secret Arts from the Divine Mountain Tribe, combined with summoning contracts he had exchanged for and researched himself, he had established "One-Way Forced Summoning Links" with powerful, ferocious magical creatures across hidden corners or dangerous zones worldwide—creatures often hostile to humans.

He had expended countless resources and survived numerous life-or-death crises to collect these "beacons," secretly perfecting this massive Mass Summoning Magic Array.

They were not allies. They were weapons of destruction—bound, enraged, and precisely deployed to this location.

"It's time," Caesar murmured to himself, his voice utterly devoid of emotion.

He channeled the meager remaining magic, along with a strange command derived from the Soul Contract, into the crystal disc.

The disc vibrated silently, runes at its core lighting up one by one, emitting an eerie purple-black glow.

The scale, fur, and stone seemed to activate, releasing the brutal auras unique to their respective species.

On the disc's surface, a miniature map of Hogwarts and its surroundings emerged.

Seven points of light flickered wildly at different locations on the map—positions he had pre-calculated as relatively weak or critical points in Hogwarts' defensive system.

Caesar did not summon the monsters directly to his side or the battlefield's center; that would have been too obvious.

Instead, he deployed them "evenly," lethally, behind or to the flanks of the students and professors who were currently resisting the Death Eaters' assault across the castle!

At almost the same moment, all across the castle.

At the edge of the Quidditch pitch, the air tore open.

A fully grown Hungarian Horntail roared into existence, a blast of scorching dragonfire forcing Professor Flitwick, who was organizing the evacuation of younger students, to retreat repeatedly, while several students screamed as they were thrown back by the shockwave.

On the open ground near the North Tower.

Three Purple Venom Leopards, swift as lightning and wreathed in numbing purple mist, materialized silently.

Their targets were not the dark wizards, but several Hufflepuff students reinforcing the walls with magic. Their screams were instantly swallowed by the greater chaos.

Near the castle's west side, close to the Forbidden Forest.

The ground bulged, and two Hill Giants, fifteen feet tall and wielding massive tree trunks, smashed through the wall, roaring as they charged into the crowd, wreaking havoc indiscriminately...

Chaos escalated into a hell of slaughter in an instant.

The defensive line, barely maintained under the professors' organization, collapsed utterly under the surprise attacks of these rampaging top-tier magical creatures from behind.

Student casualties skyrocketed at a terrifying rate.

Having done all this, Caesar seemed to have exhausted his last strength. The crystal disc slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor.

He closed his eyes again, his aura once more growing faint and weak, as if that brief moment of "clarity" had been nothing but a final flicker.

Just then, the classroom door burst open!

Professor McGonagall rushed in, her emerald-green robes stained with dust and blood, her hair completely disheveled, her face bearing the grime of fierce battle and extreme exhaustion.

But her eyes remained sharp as a blade, her wand pointed directly at Caesar, who was leaning against the lab table.

Behind her followed two Ravenclaw students, covered in wounds and still terrified. They gasped at the sight of Caesar's condition.

"Caesar Habs!" Professor McGonagall's voice was hoarse but carried undeniable authority. "Are those magical creatures that suddenly appeared outside your doing?!"

When she had received Flitwick's urgent message, she could hardly believe it.

The timing and locations of these creatures' appearances were far too strange—far beyond what the Death Eaters could precisely control.

Recalling Caesar's past actions and his unfathomable "research," a terrifying conjecture took shape in her mind.

Caesar seemed to struggle greatly just to lift his eyelids again, looking at McGonagall.

His gaze was terrifyingly calm, a stark contrast to the carnage around him and McGonagall's fury.

"Minerva..." He took a light, labored breath, his voice still weak. "You're still as sharp as ever."

"Why?!" Professor McGonagall's voice trembled with anger and grief. She stepped forward, the tip of her wand nearly touching Caesar's nose. "Those students! They might be dying! Stop it! Order those monsters to stop right now!"

Caesar slowly, very slowly, shook his head. The corner of his mouth even twisted into a faint, almost cruel arc: "Can't stop it. Once the magic is activated, the Summoning Contract and spatial anchor are locked in. They will keep killing until there's nothing alive left in Hogwarts... or..."

He paused, his fathomless black eyes meeting McGonagall's blazing gaze.

"...or until I die."

The air froze instantly.

The two students behind Professor McGonagall covered their mouths in terror.

"You..."

Professor McGonagall's wand hand trembled violently—not from fear, but from extreme rage and a bone-chilling sense of being cornered. "Are you threatening me with the lives of the entire school?"

"Threatening?" Caesar seemed to find the word amusing. He coughed lightly, bringing up more blood. "No, it's a statement of fact. The magic core is linked to my life. I die, the contract is forcibly terminated, the spatial passage collapses, and they'll be dragged back to where they came from."