In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 431: The Dursleys (2 in 1)

Jon stared at the copy of the Daily Prophet, in thought.

"Is this something Snape deliberately left for us to read?"

Lily after tossing the newspaper aside continued to search the room.

"Whether it was deliberate on his part or not, it doesn't matter."

Jon nodded, the things in the newspaper really weren't a big deal, just some poor political manoeuvring by Voldemort to appease the British magical community after the failure of the Triwizard Tournament.

It wasn't even a patch compared to what the other him had done before.

But Voldemort's own prestige was still there, so even if he did nothing, Britain would not be in chaos, unless he himself was uncomfortable and insisted on doing some big bloodbath.

They spent enough time quickly checking every room in Snape's house, but no oddities were found anywhere.

Just as Lily started to cast an Apparition through the rooms, starting with the bedrooms, a series of sonic booms in the air suddenly rang out from the living room!

Both Jon and Lily reacted quickly, the cloak of invisibility was in Jon's hands, and they didn't hesitate, they instantly draped that cloak of invisibility over both of them, and together they hid in a secluded corner.

Just as their bodies were concealed, a series of footsteps came from the living room.

It was a male wizard with a long horse-like face who pushed open the door to the otherwise hidden room, scanned the empty bedroom and, after finding nothing, turned back to whoever was in the living room and opened his mouth to complain.

"So what the hell did they send us over here to find? Didn't an Auror already come over and search the place three days ago? There was nothing here except some useless potions, and now they're making us come all the way over here for what?"

The voice that responded to him was a cold female voice.

"Now that we're here, and you're asking me about it, I received the task from Barty with you, why don't you ask for clarification in front of him?"

The long-faced male wizard turned and returned to the living room.

"It's not like you don't know that ever since he returned from that tournament, Crouch has become strange, he hasn't shown a friendly face to anyone, he doesn't even pretend anymore, so who dares to ask more questions."

"Since we don't have the guts to do that, let's stop nagging and start searching now, once we have searched this house in its entirety, we can go back and resume our duties."

Jon and Lily looked at each other from under the cloak of invisibility, of all the people in the British magical community, Aurors were basically all half-bloods and none of them dared to call Barty Jr. by his first name, the two people who had come to Snape's house were clearly "fighters" of a higher status than Aurors, that is, they could only be Death Eaters!

Lily quickly refocused her eyes on the living room, which was cleverly positioned so that they could see the fireplace right from the open bedroom door.

And as the two whined and searched the room that Jon and Lily had already searched in its entirety and found nothing, then eventually a witch in a black leather jacket suddenly set her eyes on the fireplace, which was still covered in ashes!

"Come here! Selwyn, come and see this!"

The long-faced male wizard named Selwyn soon came to the witch's side, and together they saw the ashes in the fireplace.

It was the easiest thing to spot, the ashes hadn't even been cold when Jon and the others had arrived here, and they still held a residual heat, obviously left over from some time recently.

Then there was the wood in the fireplace that had been half burnt and then extinguished, the length of time it had taken to cool was something that could be easily discerned.

"Someone has been here today!"

The expression on Selwyn's face became stony as he looked around with a wary and suspicious observation, then held his wand, which he had been holding in his hand, up in front of him.

Jon also gripped his wand under the cloak of invisibility, and just as he was about to make a move to finish off the two Death Eaters before they could report anything unusual about the place, Lily suddenly grabbed the arm he was holding his wand in.

Jon looked up and Lily shook her head at him, clearly signalling him not to do anything rash just yet.

Soon the two Death Eaters had rechecked the whole house up and down, they hadn't spotted Lily or Jon, yet they hadn't let their guard down either.

"You go back first and bring in the Floo Network Authority from the Ministry and have them check if this fireplace has had any recent use of Floo powder, and if so, find where that landing point is!"

After hearing this, Lily withdrew her hand that was holding Jon down and then extended her own hand, the one that was holding her wand.

Just as the male wizard named Selwyn was about to use Apparition to get out of the room, a fallen chair at his feet suddenly turned into a rope as thick as a baby's fist and bound his feet!

Since it wasn't a straightforward spell, the shield charm on Selwyn didn't show any signs of triggering, so he just fell to the ground completely bound!

The witch in the leather jacket reacted quickly too, except that Lily's silent spell-casting left her with no way to identify the direction of her enemy's location.

It wasn't until the sound of an incantation that she instantly locked on to her target, but when her eyes looked over, only a green colour filled her vision!

"Avada Kedavra."

Struck by the killing curse, the witch no longer had any chance of surviving, and with that, her body fell straight to the ground with a horrified expression still on her face.

Selwyn, the one who had been bound by the ropes from the Transfiguration spell, with a grim expression, fought to raise his upper body from the ground and aimed the wand in his hand in the direction where Jon and Lily had already lifted the cloak of invisibility off first.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Once again the green light flashed across the room, but unlike the leather-jacketed witch from before, Jon had been prepared for such a counter-attack, and as he pulled the cloak off, he also held up a broken board that looked like a tabletop in front of him, and Selwyn's killing curse struck the board, leaving only a charred crater and unable to do any more damage.

After deflecting the killing curse, Jon dropped the plank in his hand and rushed to Selwyn's side with a single fluid stride, his ringed left hand outstretched, the general counter-spell that had been activated instantly erased the shield charm he had been maintaining, while the tip of the wand he held in his right hand began to glow with red light!

The next moment, the full body-bind curse struck Selwyn, who was struggling desperately to swing his wand back at Jon, and his body then went rigid, with only those vicious eyes glaring at Jon.

Lily came forward at this time and aimed her wand at Selwyn's head, and soon a silvery memory was forcibly pulled from the Death Eater's mind!

Selwyn obviously began to resist violently, but magic like Occlumency was not something anyone could master, especially under Voldemort, either they could learn it to the extent like Jon and Slughorn that they could weave false memories so that no one could even notice that the person whose memories were being spied on had learned it, or they should not bother learning it.

Or else when one day their lord suddenly wanted to view their memories on a whim, only to be hindered by the occlumency, wariness would be raised about their intentions to learn this magic.

A strand of memory was drawn out while Lily glanced at the leather-jacketed witch's corpse and said calmly to Jon.

"The killing curse should be used sparingly, at most as a means of necessity. Even if you can control the hostility in your own mind, the dark magic of this magnitude will still affect you in a subtle way that you as the person in question will hardly notice."

She had drawn all the memories she needed, and as she spoke, she nudged a shard of teacup aside with the wand in her hand.

"If it's a desire to kill, then there are actually many means to do so, and there is absolutely no need to use such magic with side effects."

The very next second she spoke, that teacup shard turned into a short blade under the effect of a transfiguration spell!

Selwyn's bloodshot eyes were filled with fear, and then the blade fell out of mid-air and plunged straight into his chest!

Blood spurted out!

Jon's eyes could not help but twitch, he was not sure if the killing curse had a subtle effect on his consciousness, but the bloody scene in front of him would have been difficult for the average person to experience without being affected.

After finishing the two Death Eaters, Lily didn't want to stay here any longer, she took Jon and left Snape's house.

It wasn't until after they were completely out of Spinner's End that Jon asked in confusion.

"Why don't we just strike and capture them both? Now this way the British Ministry of Magic, if they react quickly, will probably notice their deaths in two hours at the most, and when they send someone to investigate, they'll surely be able to trace the source of the Floo powder, and then find Knockturn Alley based on that, and maybe get the information that Snape has escaped back to Britain based on that."

"There's no way to alter a Death Eater's memory so easily without them finding out." Lily explained softly to Jon, "They have special internal screening, the same as within the Order of the Phoenix, everyone who returns from a mission is checked for memory integrity and likewise tested for the Imperius Curse, this testing is not always 100% accurate but if there is a problem found then there is no mistaking it. So it's no use us catching them at all, the British Ministry of Magic was already doomed to discover the trail of Snape the moment they arrived at Snape's house."

Jon rubbed his chin and nodded.

"So doesn't that mean that if they keep following the trail and go to Knockturn Alley for clues, they'll simply find something wrong with the memory of the owner of that potion shop, and we'll be found out as well?"

Lily said flatly.

"So since we're going to be found out sooner or later, we might as well just kill these two right here, at least we've made a profit with two lives."

Jon continued to nod in deep thought, Lily was acting more murderous than he had expected.

Instead of just using the Apparition to leave the city, they analysed the situation at hand along the foul, stinking river.

"These two Death Eaters suddenly stopped by at this time to search, could such a coincidence have something to do with Snape? Did he deliberately reveal something to the British Ministry of Magic and then have them block us in here?"

Lily shook her head.

"From what I could hear in the conversation between the two Death Eaters, the person who gave them the order was Barty Crouch, and if it really was Snape who revealed the information to the Ministry of Magic, then it's unlikely that he would have sought this man out. The second piece of information he told us about the location said that sooner or later Voldemort would find out about his importance, and it's not beyond the scope of coincidence that those two Death Eaters just came over for that purpose."

Jon turned his head to look at Lily.

"So what do we do now? Do you have any more clues about Snape, Professor?"

Lily didn't make a sound at first, she just looked silently at a grey building in its place, lost in thought.

It was only after a long time that she resumed the conversation.

"Since we've both re-entered Britain, Jon, I wonder if you'd be willing to do me a favour?"

***

"Dudley! Come on, your mum's already got some delicious sausages and steaks ready!"

Vernon, whose neck was about to drown his chin, shouted in the direction of the stairs.

Soon there was a violent "thud" coming from the first floor as if something heavy was tumbling on the wooden floor.

A boy who looked very much like Vernon, and was just as fat, stared at the table with small eyes as he descended the stairs.

"I told you, I need the stamina!" He yelled out in discontent, "Roast elbows! I told Mum I had to eat it to beat my opponent in the most heroic stance at a boxing match! Not these usual steaks and sausages!"

In stark contrast to the father and son figures, a thin and lean Petunia carried the salad from the kitchen to the table while offering reassurance to her son.

"Don't worry babe, I've got it all ready, we'll have sizzling roast pork knuckles this evening, so let's get padded up with these for lunch."

Dudley reluctantly sat down at the table, he looked in a bad mood, fork in hand, poking at the slice of steak with a reluctant look on his face.

Just then, the doorbell to Dursleys house suddenly rang.

"Open the door! Honey, I've got work to do!"

Vernon looked up at his son just in time to meet those little eyes, and all he could do was drop the knife and fork he was holding and get up and walk in the direction of the door, all the while muttering.

"Well, well, let's see who the hell is interrupting this fine lunchtime."

Dudley stared at Vernon's movements as he forked over the sausage that was still on his dad's plate and took half of it in one bite, all the while looking in the direction of the door.

Vernon opened the door, he didn't see anyone at first and only after looking down did he see a kid with some brilliant blonde hair and a smile on his face waving a greeting at him.

"Hello, sir, may I ask if this is the Dursleys?"

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