"Robert?" Alastor called out, instantly detecting that the young man's magical signature was altered.
The call seemed to wake the Auror, but it wasn't Robert who returned. His eyes, now bloodshot with a feverish red, glowed with a demented fanaticism. A twisted, alien smile formed on his face.
"Long live the Dark Lord! He shall rule over the ashes of this world!" he screamed with an uncontrollable ecstasy that chilled the blood of those present. "Filthy scum! Kneel before the greatness of our Lord!"
The shift was so violent it left the Ministry paralyzed. Robert, an officer of the law, raised his wand with a hand that no longer belonged to him. An emerald-green glow began to brew at the tip—the unmistakable light of the Killing Curse—aiming directly at the crowd.
Moody reacted with lightning speed, casting two bursts of light almost simultaneously: a Disarming Charm to neutralize the possessed Auror and a Banishing Charm to rip the notebook from his hands. Losing contact, the boy collapsed into a stupor, but to the horror of those present, the diary did not hit the ground. As if possessed by a malignant will of its own, it flew through the air until it landed in the hands of another official.
The infection was immediate, but this time it manifested with an almost religious devotion. The man fell to his knees, his skin turning a cadaverous white as his vitality was sucked into the black pages.
"Lord Voldemort!" he proclaimed with mystical ecstasy, staring into the void. "Our only savior! Bathe us in your eternal glory!"
Chaos, fear, and the intervention of the aurors… that notebook flew and fell into the hands of various individuals without any pattern and turned them into fanatics, bringing with it unparalleled chaos.
Dumbledore finally intervened, launching bursts of magic against the diary. Although the object resisted with malignant stubbornness, it lost ground against the old man's power—but not before claiming its final victims. The notebook jumped through the crowd, seeking desperate flesh, and fell into the hands of two women: an administrative clerk and an Auror.
Unlike the men, who turned into fanatical Death Eaters, they were subjected to absolute depravation. As soon as their fingers touched the black leather, their faces transfigured into masks of insane lechery. They lost every trace of will or shame; they collapsed onto the Atrium floor, their legs splayed before the dignitaries and noble families, while their hands and wands began to profane their own bodies with rhythmic, frenetic violence.
"My Lord... oh, please, I need it..." the clerk moaned, arching her back as her hands tore at her clothes. A violent, continuous orgasm racked her body, staining her trousers and the marble floor as her eyes rolled back. "Please me... my flesh exists only for you... I am your slave, use me..."
A few meters away, the Auror buried her own wand into her sex with suicidal devotion, ignoring the pain and the blood, her gaze lost in an ecstasy bordering on agony.
"I am your most loyal whore... command anything... my life belongs to you," she gasped, her voice broken by the curse-induced pleasure.
The scene left the entire Ministry frozen in absolute shock. Even when the diary was finally engulfed by Dumbledore's fiery flames, the horror did not cease. From the fire emerged a thick, black smoke that twisted in the air until it formed a gigantic Dark Mark that seemed to laugh at everyone before dissipating.
In the sepulchral silence that followed, as the women regained consciousness amidst spasms of humiliation and the rest stared at the charred remains of the notebook, the tension exploded from another flank.
"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Arthur Weasley's scream tore through the air.
My father, a man who was usually the epitome of patience and kindness, lunged at Lucius Malfoy with an animal fury never seen before. His hands sought the aristocrat's throat—not to duel, but to strangle him right there on the Ministry floor.
Any doubt my parents had about my sanity or my methods had evaporated. Seeing Ginny, seeing the profanation of those women, and realizing their own daughter had been at the mercy of such perversion transformed their fear into pure, destructive hatred. For everyone present, my return from Brazil and my public challenge were no longer the delusions of an eccentric; they were the logical reaction of a young boy completely blinded by rage, just as my father was in this moment.
...
The Aurors had to use all their strength to restrain my father, who struggled with the ferociousness of a beast. My mother was in no better state; her eyes burned with a maternal fury so lethal that, had she not been holding Ginny, she would have unleashed a firestorm upon Malfoy. To them, the image of their daughter exposed to such abject perversion was...
Lucius, for his part, had lost his porcelain mask. His seriousness was no longer aristocratic, but born of pure panic. In the depths of his mind, he doubted that notebook was the same one he had slipped into Ginny's cauldron; the magic he had just witnessed was too erratic, too... hungry, nothing like what his old master used to use. But it no longer mattered. Whether it was the original or a replica, it was an artifact of such tangible evil that it would sink him forever in the mud of suspicion.
"EVERYONE, CALM DOWN!" Dumbledore's voice boomed in the Atrium, laden with an ancient authority that managed to quell the start of a riot.
The notebook, turned into a charred scrap, gave off a cloud of black smoke that pulsed with residual malevolence as it levitated toward the Headmaster's hands. Around it, the victims of the possession lay like puppets with their strings cut: some lethargic, others plunged into physical exhaustion so extreme they could barely breathe, staring blankly into the void.
"Aurors, perform a trace analysis on everyone present!" Moody ordered, his paranoia now appearing to be the only sane reaction. "You, move the affected to a secure area and contact St. Mungo's immediately!"
The black aura emanating from the diary's remains was corrosive, a miasma of dark magic that seemed to infect the air itself. No one wanted to risk the "seed of adoration" for the Dark Lord having spread through the Atrium. The political spectacle was over; it was now a health and national security emergency.
The discussion could not continue much longer; the situation demanded immediate attention.
Dumbledore remained silent, analyzing the cursed notebook, while the Aurors handled containing those present and preventing my father from doing something... irreversible to Lucius.
Of course, no one was left unmonitored. Fortunately for me, that book had been designed to perfection.
Though its appearance was alarming, everything was under control. Andra and Ismelda had worked on it with meticulous precision, drawing on the benefits of the Merchant, the Archmage, and my entire collection of magical knowledge. The result: a carefully constructed curse to generate maximum impact... without leaving a trace.
A spectacle. One impossible to forget. And completely clean.
Furthermore, my experience in the Marauders' era—facing Death Eaters and even Voldemort himself—had allowed me to learn enough to replicate his magical signature... or, at least, imitate it with enough fidelity.
Anyone who investigated that object would reach the same conclusion: it was not my work. And that was exactly what was happening.
Dumbledore observed the remains of the notebook with a grave expression, trying to decipher its origin... unaware that every detail had been placed there by me.
Once Dumbledore finished analyzing the remains of the notebook, he concluded that no trace of the immediate threat remained. What he held was a charred shell whose magic had been exhausted in that last burst of depravity. Under the orders of a visibly perturbed Fudge, the object was removed under maximum containment protocol to be held in the Department of Mysteries.
As for the affected, the Healers' diagnosis was bittersweet. Physically they were stable, but their minds were a wasteland of confusion, as if a blunt force had tried to rewrite their consciousness with a hammer. The true concern was the black miasma clinging to their systems; a contamination that, if not purified, would render any future healing spells useless and rot their mental stability. Fortunately, it was resolvable with some purification potions, though someone of Snape's level might be needed to resolve it with a single dose and avoid prolonged treatment.
Ginny was also subjected to an examination, being the "original carrier." My sister maintained her composure despite the nervousness. Everything was calculated: Tonks had already taken care of "staining" her with the right amount of dark energy. Just enough for the Aurors' sensors to trigger, but not so much as to suggest she hadn't "fallen" like the others... in addition to justifying my next words.
"When I found her at Hogwarts, she hadn't reached that point yet," I declared, gesturing somberly to the injured being evacuated. "But she was headed there. That notebook was sucking her vitality, growing stronger day by day to unleash what we just saw. Honestly... I don't know if I would have kept my sanity if I had arrived a minute later and seen my sister turned into... that."
I glanced at the women who were still trembling after their possession. The Atrium sank into a silence laden with funeral-like seriousness.
Even my own expression was one of authentic gravity. I hadn't supervised every detail of this decoy's creation; the graphic crudeness of the curse was surely Andra's work. I felt a pang of real guilt thinking that Ginny had to witness that degradation for my plan to work. I looked at her with a remorse that those present, fortunately, interpreted as deep, fraternal pity.
My parents, for their part, fluctuated between relief and pure horror. The idea that their little girl had been on the verge of being turned into a "Dark Lord's whore" had them on the brink of collapse. Now that my guards finally relaxed the perimeter and allowed them to approach, the initial tension toward me disappeared. They no longer saw me as a rebellious or eccentric son, but as the only one who had the vision—and the power—to stop a bomb that had been under their very noses and that their children had to face alone.
What followed was a display of judicial efficiency. Both law enforcement and my parents questioned Ginny and me about the origin and behavior of the diary. Thanks to Tonks's instructions and her own intuition, Ginny did an exceptional job, weaving a web of half-truths that made me both proud and concerned.
Amelia Bones, in particular, became our shield. She was throwing all her influence into the investigation, protecting us as the victims we were pretending to be. There was a spark of fierce empathy in her eyes; I'm sure she couldn't help but imagine the face of her niece, Susan, in Ginny's place. Lucius Malfoy was finished. Even if he managed to walk away from this, Amelia Bones would haunt him legally until Lucius himself begged for a cell just to escape her.