About five minutes later, a rapid series of whooshes cut through the night sky.
More than a dozen broomsticks swooped in from the north, circled once above the beach, then landed one after another.
Leading them was a tall wizard with a stern face. His thick, tawny hair streamed back in the sea breeze, and a Head of the Auror Office badge was pinned to his dark dragon hide coat.
He jumped neatly off his broom and strode forward, his hawklike gaze sweeping over the body on the beach and the surrounding area.
Several Aurors followed him, quickly spreading out to search around the beach.
"Mr. Scrimgeour." Hunt immediately straightened.
Scrimgeour did not acknowledge his greeting. He went straight to Quirrell's body, crouched beside it, and began examining it closely.
Signs of battle covered the beach. Several rocks had been blasted to pieces, and pits and furrows of varying depths dotted the sand.
A scorched smell hung in the air, as though something had burned fiercely here.
"Judging by the surroundings, the fighting must have been intense," Scrimgeour said calmly. "But strangely, Quirrell appears to have been stabbed to death."
"And his expression seems very peaceful. There are no signs of resistance." He frowned, feeling that the circumstances were rather baffling.
"Then... what about You-Know-Who?" an Auror behind him asked nervously.
Scrimgeour did not answer. He slowly turned Quirrell's head, exposing the back of it.
The moonlight fell on that patch of skin, revealing a sickly gray pallor.
Fine, dark purple lines covered its surface. At their center was an almost pitch-black circular depression with slightly raised edges, as though something had once grown there.
"According to our intelligence, You-Know-Who was attached to the back of his head," Scrimgeour said. "But there's nothing here now... perhaps he escaped."
The Aurors present all fell silent at those words.
The sea wind howled, and every Auror instinctively tightened their grip on their wand.
Hunt swallowed and summoned the courage to add, "It was already like this when we arrived. We found no trace of You-Know-Who."
Scrimgeour stood, brushed the sand from his hands, and looked out at the dark sea in the distance.
"Both sides were highly skilled in magic." He turned, surveying the traces around them.
"At least two people on par with elite Aurors were fighting here," Scrimgeour added. "One of them may even have been stronger."
Just then, an Auror hurried over. "Sir, we found a Muggle about two hundred meters southeast of here."
"Judging by his condition, he's probably a witness."
"Bring him here."
A few minutes later, two Aurors brought over a middle-aged fisherman, supporting him between them. He looked rather panicked.
Scrimgeour frowned, stepped up to the fisherman, and lowered his voice. "What did you just see?"
The fisherman furrowed his brow as though struggling to remember. "I don't know. I only know something happened here just now, but I can't remember what exactly."
Scrimgeour wasted no time. He raised his wand, gently touched its tip to the fisherman's temple, and closed his eyes.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Legilimency."
A few seconds later, he opened his eyes, his brows knitting more tightly.
"His memory has been subjected to a Memory Charm. Very clean work. Only a few blurry fragments remain." He withdrew his wand.
"What are you people doing?!" the fisherman demanded in alarm.
"Can it be restored?" the Auror beside him asked.
"St. Mungo's has specialists who treat memory damage." Scrimgeour turned to another Auror.
"Take two people and escort this Muggle to St. Mungo's. Find the memory damage department and tell them this is a request from the Ministry of Magic's Auror Office."
"Yes, sir."
After the fisherman had been taken away, Scrimgeour's gaze fell on Quirrell's original wand lying on the ground.
"Seal the deceased's wand and send it back to the Ministry of Magic for testing. Use Prior Incantato to identify the spells recently cast with it," Scrimgeour ordered.
"Understood."
"Leave the body where it is until Ministry personnel arrive to perform a detailed autopsy, but prioritize collecting samples of the Dark Magic residue on the back of his head. Send them to the Department of Mysteries for analysis."
"Yes, sir."
"Sir." An Auror approached from a distance, holding a logbook. "We found no other suspicious individuals within a kilometer, nor any traces out at sea."
Scrimgeour nodded, his gaze returning to Quirrell's body.
Moonlight illuminated that pale face. Its expression was unexpectedly peaceful, the corners of its mouth even turned slightly upward.
What had he seen before he died?
Scrimgeour stood there with his brows tightly furrowed, his fingers tapping lightly against his wand.
"Stay here. No one is to leave the scene or touch anything."
"Sir, where are you going?"
Scrimgeour did not answer. He strode toward a building near the shoreline that glowed with dim yellow light.
It was an abandoned fishing tackle shop, with an old fireplace set into the outside of its rear wall.
He knew it was connected to the Floo Network. The Ministry of Magic had established a series of concealed contact points along the coast for emergencies.
He pushed open the shop door, and dust billowed into his face.
The ashes in the fireplace were stone cold. With a casual flick of his wand, flames sprang to life inside it.
Then he took a pouch from his pocket, pinched out a little Floo Powder, and scattered it into the hearth.
"Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Head's office."
The flames surged, turning emerald green in an instant.
Scrimgeour thrust his head into the flames. They whispered around his ears, and his view spun briefly before settling.
Behind the desk opposite the fireplace, Amelia Bones sat in a chair, holding a quill, a thick document spread out before her.
She looked up at the head protruding from the fireplace without any sign of surprise. She merely set down her quill and folded her hands on the desk.
"Scrimgeour, you should be at St Margaret's Bay examining Quirrell's body at this hour."
"Madam Bones." Scrimgeour's voice came from the flames. "There are signs of battle at the scene. His opponent was very powerful, at least on par with an elite Auror."
"And the face on the back of Quirrell's head has disappeared. I suspect You-Know-Who has already left that body."
"Who did it?"
"We have no leads at present. The only witness is a Muggle, but someone used a Memory Charm on him. There's no way to make out what happened."
Amelia's expression grew extremely grave. "So an unidentified individual got there first and killed Quirrell, while You-Know-Who's remnant soul escaped."
"That is our conclusion."
Amelia tapped her fingers twice against the desk. "So why have you come to me?"
"I need a Time-Turner."
Amelia's gaze sharpened, but she did not immediately refuse.
"You want to go back and observe the scene?"
"Yes," Scrimgeour said. "Quirrell managed to escape Hogwarts despite being surrounded by more than a dozen Aurors, yet he died here."
"And the person who killed him is powerful, with an unknown identity and unknown motives. He could very well become the next threat."
"We must find out who he is!"
Amelia nodded in agreement, then turned and entered a small room off the side of her office, where several rows of locked cabinets stood.
She took out a key, opened one of the cabinets, and retrieved a small box wrapped in black velvet.
Returning to the office, she placed the box on the desk and opened it.
Inside lay a small golden hourglass, catching the candlelight in tiny glimmers.
"Scrimgeour, you know the rules for using a Time-Turner." Amelia handed him the hourglass. "You may observe, but you must not change anything."
"Once you intervene, even if you merely disturb a single grain of sand, you could cause irreversible consequences."
"Time is an extraordinarily precise thing. It cannot withstand any outside interference."
Scrimgeour took the hourglass and held it in his palm, feeling a subtle vibration from its metal surface.
"I understand," he said. "I'll only observe. I won't interfere."
"When you return, remember to extract your memory and put it in a Pensieve. We'll need to examine it carefully."
Scrimgeour nodded and pulled his head out of the fireplace.
The green flames faded behind him, and he stood once again in the darkness of the fishing village's common room.
He looked down at the golden hourglass in his palm and drew a deep breath.
An hour earlier, he had been sitting idly in his office at the Ministry of Magic.
Fudge had sent an entire Auror Squad to Hogwarts to surround and capture Quirrell, yet had kept him, the Head of the Auror Office, at the Ministry.
His reason was the fear that You-Know-Who might "go mad and attack the Ministry of Magic."
Afraid You-Know-Who would attack the Ministry? Scrimgeour scoffed. The one who was truly afraid was Fudge himself.
In the end, Fudge had chosen to keep Scrimgeour at his side as his "personal bodyguard," a shield he could hide behind.
As for Hogwarts, the Aurors dispatched there would be more than enough-or so Fudge had thought.
Unfortunately, the outcome had been unexpected.
Quirrell had escaped with You-Know-Who. More than a dozen Aurors had failed to stop him.
"Fudge," Scrimgeour murmured, his tone complicated.
He tightened his grip on the golden hourglass and closed his eyes in the darkness.
An hour earlier, those dozen or so Aurors should have just left the Ministry of Magic. Now he would return to that point in time.
He gently pinched the hourglass and turned it once.
"Click."
With a soft sound, his surroundings abruptly blurred into rapidly flowing lines.
Every color and sound seemed to stretch into distorted rivers. He felt a powerful force dragging his entire body backward.
Everything around him retreated. Light and shadow flowed in reverse, and time whistled past his ears.
A few seconds later, everything stopped.
He stood in a corridor on the third floor of the Ministry of Magic.
It was deserted, and the embers of the fire that had just gone out in the fireplace still glowed faintly.
The "him" of this point in time should have been in his office, kept behind by Fudge to "hold the fort."
Without pausing, Scrimgeour strode toward the communal fireplace at the end of the corridor and tossed in a handful of Floo Powder. Green flames rose.
"St Margaret's Bay, beach fishing tackle shop."
Green fire swallowed his figure.
A moment later, he appeared in the fishing tackle shop he had just occupied in the original timeline.
Through the window, the sea outside still held the last trace of deep blue after twilight's fading. The moon had yet to reach its highest point, and the fishermen were still sorting their nets.
He cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, pushed open the door, and moved silently along the edge of the beach toward the fishing boats' moorings.
About two hundred meters away, the small fishing boat was still there, its fisherman crouching on deck as he sorted ropes.
Scrimgeour chose a spot behind a sand dune with a good view and crouched, keeping his gaze fixed on the area around the boat.
About half an hour later, a figure suddenly appeared in the moonlight.
The moonlight illuminated his deathly pale face and scarlet eyes.
It was You-Know-Who-or rather, Quirrell under You-Know-Who's control.
Scrimgeour held his breath slightly.
He watched You-Know-Who guide Quirrell's body toward the fishing boat, seemingly saying something.
Then the fisherman appeared to refuse his demand. You-Know-Who raised his wand, and emerald light began gathering at its tip.
But the fisherman hadn't died in the end, so someone nearby must have stopped You-Know-Who.
A thought flashed through Scrimgeour's mind.
He whipped his head around, searching his surroundings for anyone who might appear. On the distant stretch of moonlit sand, a figure was approaching at a slow walk.
It was a slender man wearing a long black trench coat, its hem whipping in the sea breeze, a wand held in his hand.
Scrimgeour held his breath, trying hard to make out the man's face.
Yet just as his gaze was about to focus on the man's features, it shifted downward against his will.
The wand in that man's hand.
As though a force had welled up from some deep consciousness, his gaze abruptly became fixed on that wand.
He could see a faint silvery-white light flowing within its shaft, like a sleeping dragon breathing slowly. It rose and fell slightly with the movement of its wielder's arm, carrying an indescribable air of mystery.
Scrimgeour tried everything he could to look away, but unfortunately, he could not.
That silvery-white light seemed to possess an attraction that reached straight into the depths of his soul, drawing all his attention toward it like a whirlpool.
The silvery-white light gradually expanded in his vision, and the beach, waves, and sky around him began to blur.
He felt some force pulling him inside, drawing him deeper and deeper.
Within the depths of the light, a vast, divinity-filled eye with a vertical pupil slowly opened.
It seemed to belong to no known creature. Deep within its pupil, suns and moons faintly rose and fell in succession, stars revolved, and time passed.
The tides of time rose and fell within it. Day and night alternated, and the four seasons cycled through its eye.
The vertical pupil glanced downward, settling on Scrimgeour.
Like an ancient god looking down upon an ant on the ground that was trying to pry into the secrets of heaven.
The next second, that vertical pupil revealed a trace of something almost human...
Contempt and mockery.
A cracking sound began to ring through the silence.
Crack-
A sharp shattering sound exploded in Scrimgeour's ears.
The scenery around him fractured into countless pieces like a mirror.
The fishing village, the moonlight, the beach, the boat, the man in the trench coat... all shattered into millions of flickering specks of light, scattering into the deepest reaches of his consciousness.
Scrimgeour's eyes snapped open. His body was shaking violently, and his hand was clamped tightly around his wand's grip.
He found that he was still standing in the dim fishing village common room.
But Scrimgeour paid that no heed. His eyes were aching, his vision was blurred, and two streams of warm liquid ran down his cheeks.
He instinctively raised a hand to wipe the corner of his eye. A vivid smear of red stained his fingers.
Scrimgeour fell silent. Just then, he caught sight of something glinting on the floor out of the corner of his eye.
He crouched to look.
Fragments of the shattered hourglass lay scattered across the floor at his feet, fine golden sand spilled everywhere, shimmering faintly in the moonlight.