Hogwarts' Calamity

"...Wait for me."

Hermione heard herself say in a voice so hoarse it hardly sounded like her own.

She tore off the relatively clean lining of her school robe and quickly, clumsily tried to bandage his still-bleeding wrists and several obvious wounds.

Her touch was gentle, but her fingertips had gone white with the effort.

Finally, she forcefully poured several of the strongest Essence of Dittany and Blood-Replenishing Potions she carried into Caesar's mouth, whether or not he could swallow them.

She took one deep look at him, as if trying to carve his fragile form, still marked by a certain deep calculation, into her soul.

Then she turned resolutely, wand clenched tight, the last trace of hesitation in her eyes burned away by cold fire.

Hermione slipped out of the classroom like a silent shadow and raced toward the castle's center, where the fighting was fiercest and the dark magic thickest.

Silence settled over the abandoned classroom once more, broken only by the distant sounds of fighting outside and Caesar's breath, so faint it was almost inaudible.

A few seconds later, Caesar's half-lidded eyes slowly opened all the way.

His battered body and injuries were still real, but the weakness drained away like a receding tide, replaced by an unnerving focus and sense of control.

He struggled to shift his body, settling into a more comfortable position.

His left hand crept with extreme slowness, yet startling steadiness, into the innermost pocket of his tattered robe, concealed by an Undetectable Extension Charm and layers of protective magic.

His fingertips touched a cold, hard object.

It wasn't a wand, but a Crystal Disc engraved with layer upon layer of Spatial Coordinates and Summoning Runes, so complex they were dizzying to look at.

At the center of the runes were embedded a small Fire Dragon Scale that shimmered through changing colors, a tuft of Purple Venom Leopard Fur that glinted like metal, and a piece of gravel imbued with the primal wildness unique to Hill Giant territory.

This was a "by-product" of his years of "academic research."

Using some of the Divine Mountain Tribe's lost Spatial Secret Arts, combined with the Summoning Contract he had exchanged for through the system and studied on his own,

he had established "One-Way Forced Summoning Links" with powerful, ferocious Magical Creatures—often hostile to humans—in hidden corners and dangerous regions around the world.

He had spent countless resources and survived several brushes with death to collect these "beacons," then secretly perfected this massive Mass Summoning Magic Array.

They weren't allies. They were weapons of destruction, bound, enraged, and precisely deployed here.

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

He poured what little magic he had left, along with a strange command drawn from the Soul Contract, into the Crystal Disc.

The Crystal Disc began to vibrate silently, its central runes lighting up one by one with an eerie purple-black glow.

The scale, fur, and gravel seemed to come alive, releasing the characteristic rage of their respective species.

A miniature map of Hogwarts and its surroundings appeared across the disc.

Seven points of light flashed wildly in different locations on the map: places he had calculated in advance, where Hogwarts' defenses were relatively weak or particularly crucial.

Caesar hadn't summoned the monsters beside himself or into the center of the battlefield. That would have made his intentions too obvious.

Instead, he deployed them "evenly" and lethally behind or beside the students and professors fighting the Death Eaters throughout the castle!

Throughout the castle, almost at the same moment.

At the edge of the Quidditch Pitch, the air split open.

An adult Hungarian Horntail roared into being, driving Professor Flitwick, who was organizing the evacuation of younger students, back with a blast of scorching dragon fire. Several students screamed as the shock wave hurled them away.

In an open space near the North Tower.

Three Purple Venom Leopards appeared without a sound, swift as lightning and wreathed in a paralyzing purple mist.

Their targets weren't the dark wizards, but several Hufflepuff students who were using magic to reinforce the walls. Their screams were swallowed at once by the greater chaos.

On the west side of the castle, near the Forbidden Forest.

The ground bulged. Two fifteen-foot-tall Hill Giants wielding massive tree trunks smashed through the wall and charged into the crowd with roars, rampaging wildly without regard for friend or foe...

The chaos instantly became a slaughterhouse of hellish proportions.

The defensive lines, which the professors had managed to hold together until then, collapsed in an instant under the surprise attack by these frenzied, top-tier Magical Creatures.

The student death toll soared at a horrifying rate.

After doing all this, Caesar seemed to expend his last strength. The Crystal Disc slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor.

He closed his eyes again, his breathing once more growing feeble, as if that brief moment of "clarity" had been nothing more than a final rally.

Just then, the classroom door was flung open!

Professor McGonagall rushed in, her emerald-green dressing gown covered in dust and blood. Her bun had come completely undone, and grime from the fierce fighting streaked her face, which was haggard with exhaustion.

But her gaze was still sharp as a blade, and her wand pointed straight at Caesar, who was leaning against the workbench.

Two Ravenclaw students followed behind her, battered and still shaken. When they saw Caesar's condition, they both drew in a sharp breath.

"Caesar Habs!" Professor McGonagall's voice was hoarse, but carried unquestionable authority. "Did you cause those Magical Creatures to appear outside?!"

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

The timing and locations of the creatures' appearances were far too strange. The Death Eaters couldn't have controlled them so precisely.

Thinking of Caesar's earlier actions and his unfathomable "research," a terrible suspicion had taken shape in her mind.

Caesar seemed to struggle to lift his eyelids again and look at McGonagall.

His gaze was frighteningly calm, in stark contrast with the carnage around them and McGonagall's fury.

"Minerva..." He took a light, ragged breath. His voice was still weak. "You're as perceptive as ever."

"Why?!" Professor McGonagall's voice trembled with anger and anguish. She stepped forward, her wand tip nearly touching Caesar's nose.

"Those students! They could be dying right now! Stop this! Make those monsters stop at once!"

Caesar slowly, very slowly, shook his head. The corner of his mouth even lifted in an exceedingly faint, almost cruel smile.

"They can't be stopped. Once the magic is activated, the Summoning Contract and spatial anchors are locked in place. They'll keep killing until there's nothing alive left at Hogwarts, or..."

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

"...or I die."

The air instantly froze.

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

"You..."

Professor McGonagall's wand hand shook violently. It wasn't fear, but pure fury and the cold despair of being driven into a corner. "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 bloody froth.

"No. I'm stating a fact. The magical core is linked to my life. If I die, the contract will end by force and the spatial passages will collapse, dragging them back to where they came from."