Although they said only Tver and Percy would handle things here, if one counted the time, Dumbledore had probably already extricated himself from Fudge by now and learned what was happening on this side.
Thanks to how important this area was, the residential districts were actually quite far away.
So Tver only needed to make sure the giants did not spread their attack beyond Whitehall. Once the Order of the Phoenix reinforcements arrived, they could safely deal with the other places.
Or rather, with the Voldemort lurking in hiding.
"Don't worry too much," Tver said to Percy with a smile. "You just need to make sure these buildings aren't too badly destroyed, so it'll be easier for us to restore them afterward."
"But those giants-"
Before Percy could finish, Tver had already vanished from where he stood.
In the next instant, he appeared in front of a giant swinging a massive club.
Percy was not sure whether it was just his imagination, but he could have sworn a trace of surprise flashed across the giant's face when it saw the professor floating in midair.
No. Inferi don't show surprise.
He shook his head and hurriedly corrected himself in his own mind.
But by the time he looked up again, the giant had already been swallowed by flames.
Blue-violet fire twisted like an agile serpent, winding through the chessboard-like cluster of buildings and hunting down the giants with perfect precision.
Relying on its tremendous magical and physical resistance, the Inferi giant initially still swung its club and smashed it straight into the fiery serpent's head.
What it had not expected was that the moment the serpent dispersed, the flames clung to it like a curse that would not let go, wrapping around its body and eating away every trace of the Inferi magic on it.
Percy had not even had time to recover from the spectacle when the giant collapsed with a thunderous crash as the magic dissipated, and the firelight lit up his pale face.
Even after striking the giant, the flames did not lose any momentum. Carrying the giant's corpse with them, they slammed straight into a nearby building that was already on the verge of collapse.
The overburdened structure instantly came crashing down, reduced to rubble.
Percy stared at the scene in speechless disbelief. It seemed the professor had caused far more destruction than the giant had.
The giant had been pounding on that building for quite a while, and it had still managed to hold together. Yet it had been shattered in a single blow by the force of the professor's spell.
But the question was, how exactly was he supposed to protect these buildings when attacks were coming from both the giants and the professor?
Tver, seeing the result, could only rein in the raging fire in resignation.
Although he had already controlled the flames' temperature and power, using them purely for their ability to corrode magic rather than burn directly, the destruction they caused was still more than these buildings could withstand.
To put it bluntly, if the buildings were smashed by the giants, they still had many ways to restore them.
But if they were destroyed by his magic, then rebuilding from scratch really was the only option left.
Still, it was not as if there was no solution at all. Tver waved his wand, and the blue-violet fire took on the red and yellow tones of ordinary flame, immediately becoming a warm orange.
Once it shifted into being mainly Gubraithian Fire, although the heat rose slightly, its controllability improved much more.
The giant serpent became a smaller python that crept along the street until it reached the giant, then gently wrapped around it and bound it tightly in place.
Under the blazing fire, all the original chill of the Inferi was burned away. Its once-solid skin gave off wave after wave of the foul stink of scorched dead flesh, and together with the giant's corpse, it gradually melted into a puddle of rotten sludge.
Seeing that, Tver had no choice but to use fire to completely reduce the giant's remains to vapor. Then he pinched his nose and, in resignation, withdrew all the flames.
If Voldemort had sent this batch of giants here simply to disgust Tver, then he had clearly succeeded.
"It seems that even with greater maturity of mind, you still can't cover up the shortcoming of insufficient magical accumulation."
Voldemort appeared abruptly opposite Tver, black robes shifting in the wind and displaying his gaunt body and the satisfaction on his face in full.
He glanced at the fading fire-serpent, and the pale smile on his face widened a little more.
"My magic isn't so easy to learn. Why not join my side, and I'll teach you slowly..."
Tver looked at Voldemort with a faintly amused expression. Clearly, after their last battle on the snowy mountain, Voldemort had deliberately chosen a battlefield like this specifically to target him.
Tver could not use Protego Diabolica here, nor any other large-scale magic. Voldemort, on the other hand, could cast whatever he wanted without restraint.
More than that, Tver also had to worry about everyone below them.
"I'll admit it. When it comes to certain strange and obscure forms of magic, I still lack far too much compared to you and Dumbledore."
The wand in his hand spun once, and a cloud of black mist dispersed into the night.
"But I imagine the other Tom Riddle would be more than happy to teach me those spells, wouldn't he, Mr. Voldemort?"
At the thought of his traitorous Horcrux, Voldemort's smile twisted hideously.
With a violent flick of his wand, he shattered the black mist at once.
"Ambushes are hardly elegant, Tver," he hissed like a snake. "Originally, I planned to use Potter to lure you to the Ministry, so I could focus on dealing with that old man Dumbledore."
"I didn't expect that waste of space Thicknesse to fail to keep watch over one little mole, but it doesn't matter. Once I've dealt with you, I'll have plenty of time to handle my disobedient Horcrux and Dumbledore!"
Tver's heart gave a jolt, and his expression darkened.
If Voldemort's real target had been Dumbledore at Hogwarts, then with so many students inside the school, Dumbledore might genuinely not have been able to gain much advantage fighting within the castle.
Fortunately, Percy had spread the news that Voldemort had not gone to Hogwarts, and by sheer accident Tver had ended up making no further arrangements there.
The moment Voldemort caught the flash of relief in Tver's eyes, he understood at once what had happened.
He angrily fired off several green flashes. If Tver had not lured away his former Death Eaters, would he really have been reduced to driving about wizards and creatures he had once looked down on?
But when he thought of his plan for tonight, his mood finally improved somewhat.
"Don't be so irritable." Having gained the upper hand for the moment, Tver lightly dodged the Killing Curses without returning fire.
Voldemort seemed rather willing to talk right now, and it would be too wasteful not to use the chance to pry out some information.
"You're attacking so many places at once. Honestly, I was surprised, but I reinforced every single one of them."
"So what's the point of this, other than losing your own manpower?"
Voldemort had not intended to answer him, but the moment he heard the question, the smile on his face grew more and more deranged.
"It's very simple, Tver. I purely wanted the giants to attack these idiotic Muggles..."
"I wanted to-"
He flung his arms wide, floating there in the air with an overbearing presence.
"Destroy the status quo the wizarding world has worked so hard to preserve through secrecy!"