After mid-October, the weather in London never improved again.
The relentless rain seemed to drape the entire city in a veil of gray gauze.
The cobblestones of Diagon Alley were always wet, so slippery underfoot that it was irritating.
Business at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour had dried up completely. The old man simply hung a "Closed" sign by the door and brought out a chair every day to sit behind the shop window and watch the rain.
Lin Ze's patrol route had extended from Diagon Alley to the outskirts of Knockturn Alley, on Scrimgeour's orders.
The Death Eaters had become noticeably more active lately. They had once appeared only at night; now they dared to cast the Dark Mark in the streets in broad daylight.
The Ministry of Magic's hotline received over a dozen reports a day, but fewer than two or three were actually useful. The rest were either false alarms or people playing pranks with Dark Mark fireworks.
"Pranks." Even Lin Ze found it absurd as he wrote the word in his patrol log.
Who would play that sort of prank at a time like this?
But the fact was that the black-market dealers in Knockturn Alley had recently launched a new business.
Custom-made Dark Mark fireworks, five Sickles a shot. They lingered in the air for fifteen seconds after launch and looked so convincing that even Aurors could not tell the difference.
Business was reportedly booming.
"These days, even terrorists get their branding ripped off."
Lin Ze closed his patrol log, leaned against a lamppost by the road, and sighed at the gray sky.
Ben Frick walked over with two cups of steaming coffee and handed one to Lin Ze.
After being caught eavesdropping on Crabbe last time, Frick had behaved himself for a while. But his appetite for gossip was impossible to change, and within a few days, he was at it again.
"Have you heard? There was more trouble in Hogsmeade last night." Frick took a sip of pumpkin juice, leaving a ring of white foam around his mouth.
"What happened?"
"Apparently, a few Death Eaters barged into the Hog's Head, then got beaten up by the owner. When they realized they weren't getting anywhere, they ran off and left two unconscious accomplices behind."
Lin Ze raised his eyebrows.
The owner of the Hog's Head was Aberforth Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore's younger brother.
The Death Eaters had either stumbled into trouble with him by chance or had been testing Dumbledore's limits.
Either way, it showed that Voldemort's reach was growing longer and longer.
"Any other news?" Lin Ze asked.
"Yes." Frick leaned closer and lowered his voice.
"I heard there's been talk in the Ministry lately that the Dark Lord is looking for something. Or someone. Nobody knows exactly what, but apparently, he's already pinpointed his target's location."
Lin Ze's fingers tightened slightly around his coffee cup.
He knew whom Voldemort was looking for.
Lily Potter and James Potter, along with their newborn son, Harry.
The Prophecy said that this child would become the one to defeat the Dark Lord, and Voldemort had chosen to believe it.
According to the original timeline, Voldemort would find the Potter family's hiding place at the end of October, then bring about his own downfall on Halloween night.
But there was one question in all this.
How had Voldemort learned where the Potter family was hiding?
The answer was Wormtail-Peter Pettigrew.
This trusted friend of the Potters had secretly gone over to Voldemort more than a year earlier.
At the crucial moment, he would reveal the Potters' location, trading his friends' blood for his master's reward.
Lin Ze knew this, but he had no intention of telling anyone.
It was not that he did not want to save the Potters. He simply had no way to explain it.
How could an Auror who had been on the job for one month know who the Potters' Secret Keeper was?
How could he know the contents of the Prophecy? How could he know Voldemort's plans?
If he spoke up, he himself would probably be the first person arrested as a Death Eater mole.
Besides, his golden finger could only improve through combat. This final stretch of chaos before Voldemort's downfall was his best chance to farm experience.
If he stopped Voldemort ahead of time, Voldemort would not fall, and the entire timeline would be rewritten.
His greatest advantage, his knowledge of the future, would become nothing more than a pile of wastepaper.
So he had no intention of being a hero.
There was only one thing he could do now: gather as much intelligence as possible in the time remaining, then use it to secure a good position in the new order after Voldemort's downfall.
To put it plainly, he was a sophisticated egoist.
But Lin Ze felt no shame about it.
In an age when everyone feared for their own safety and could die at any moment, self-interest was not a sin. It was a survival instinct.
"Frick," Lin Ze suddenly called.
"Hmm?"
"If one day you realized you could stop something bad from happening, but chose not to, would you consider that doing evil?"
Frick froze for a moment, then gave it some serious thought.
"That depends on what the bad thing is, doesn't it? If my mum's steak and kidney pie was burning, I'd definitely stop it. If someone else's chamber pot tipped over, what's that got to do with me?"
Lin Ze smiled, then raised his coffee cup and clinked it against Frick's.
"Well said."
Although Frick had no idea why Lin Ze had suddenly asked him that, he still happily took a large gulp of coffee.
On October 23, the weather cleared up for once.
When Lin Ze arrived at the office that morning, sunlight was slanting through the windows, spreading a broad patch of gold across the floor.
A few Aurors who had arrived early sat yawning at their desks, with yesterday's unfinished reports spread out before them.
Everything was just as it always was.
Until ten that morning.
Lin Ze was hunched over his desk, writing up last week's patrol summary in handwriting so messy that even he could not read it.
Beside him, Frick was opening a newly arrived packet of Chocolate Frogs, muttering that this time he would definitely get an Andros card.
Then the office door opened.
It was not pushed open the usual way, but slammed open by a sudden force.
The door struck the wall with a tremendous crash, drawing everyone's eyes.
Standing in the doorway was Edgar Bones, another core member of the Order of the Phoenix.
He was usually an extremely composed man, but now his face was as white as a sheet, his chest was heaving, and his forehead was covered in sweat.
His lips parted, and his voice sounded as though something had seized him by the throat.
"Meadows... Dorcas Meadows is dead."
The entire office fell silent for about three seconds.
Then came a succession of chairs toppling and cups shattering.
"What happened?" Scrimgeour rushed out of his office.
"The Dark Lord." Edgar Bones's lips were trembling.
"The Dark Lord did it himself. This morning, Meadows ran into him while patrolling near Hogsmeade... She was alone. There were at least twenty of them, along with the Dark Lord himself."
A deathly silence fell over the office.
Voldemort had acted personally.
Twenty Death Eaters and the Dark Lord himself, all attacking one person.
This was not a battle. It was an execution.
The news soon spread throughout the Ministry of Magic.
Staff whispered to one another all along the corridors. Some were quietly crying, some were arguing loudly, and others silently packed up in corners, stuffing their personal belongings into cardboard boxes before heading for the Floo Network without looking back.
Minister for Magic Millicent Bagnold held an emergency press conference at noon, announcing a level-two alert. All Auror leave was canceled, and all outside patrols were to operate in groups of three.
His speech was strongly worded and his tone resolute, but everyone noticed his fingers trembling slightly as he read from the script.