As he retreated, he raised his voice again, trying his last line of argument:
"Albus! Witch! Are you really going to fight here? Look around you! These are all Hogwarts students! Are you really going to disregard their lives for your own sake?"
He had already tested Dumbledore's stance. As long as he dragged the students into the fighting, Dumbledore would surely intervene to stop the Witch!
"Cornelius, I think you've misunderstood."
Standing on the dais, Dumbledore looked at Fudge's disgraceful display and sighed helplessly.
"From the very beginning, I didn't draw my wand to fight you."
Before his words had faded, Dumbledore gently swept the Elder Wand through the air.
"I merely meant to protect these children so she could act freely."
A transparent ripple spread from the tip of the Elder Wand.
A strange hum filled the entire Great Hall.
Before the students' astonished eyes, something like a film of water appeared between them and the scene ahead.
The Ministry of Magic personnel were still only a short distance away, yet they seemed to be in another world, their magical power fluctuations completely cut off by an invisible barrier.
Harry reached out, trying to touch someone on the other side, only to find his hand passing straight through their body.
He could see them, but he couldn't touch them.
Hermione glanced at Dumbledore in surprise.
"After watching you use the Mirror Dimension so many times..."
Dumbledore winked at her and said with a smile:
"I worked out a little something myself. It can't match your results, but simply isolating them is no trouble."
Hermione smiled too. She hadn't expected someone in another world to pick up Kamar-Taj's signature technique just by watching.
"Stupefy!"
"Reducto!"
"Incendio!"
"Incarcerous!"
The Aurors finally buckled under the suffocating pressure, and someone broke first