In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 437: Clue

Lily still took that list of materials.

It was just that she threw the piece of parchment on the floor casually after taking one glance at the materials listed at the top of the list.

This could never be something Snape would once have had to go through the trouble of using an alias to buy. All these ingredients, even if he had bought them openly and directly in Diagon Alley it wouldn't have raised any suspicion, as they were all commonly used in the normal production of potions.

Lily turned to the male wizard, who was still under the effect of Truth Serum, and then abruptly asked it in a slightly different context.

"Do you still have the inventory list of your warehouse stock after last Christmas?"

The male wizard then spoke up.

"It's in the bottom cupboard of the bookcase."

Lily instantly turned around and went to find the place the wizard had mentioned and rummaged through it, pulling out a thick pile of inventory lists from various periods and soon found the one from after last Christmas!

Most of the magical ingredients needed special storage and preservation time, so herb merchants like this usually made sure they received a large deposit from their customers before helping them proceed with their orders and usually didn't store them for long periods at all.

That meant that at the point in time when Snape came to get his materials after Christmas each year, the warehouse should only contain materials purchased by him alone or by a handful of people.

She didn't need to know exactly what Snape was buying, and it was unlikely that Snape himself wouldn't be prepared to mix in a few temporarily unused ingredients with the large number of materials he needed to cover his tracks, which was a common sense tactic for any Potions Master.

Lily only needed to pay attention to those materials that had a very limited shelf life and were particularly precious and hard to come by.

Sure enough, on the inventory list, Lily really did see something very different!

She looked at the names of the ingredients and squinted, her mind flashing to several potions that she would need it for, but before she could compare the other ingredients in the list, a series of sonic booms suddenly appeared in the living room outside!

"I got the information from Karkaroff, Aurors found this supplier of potion ingredients after being given the task to investigate Snape's alias Prince by our lord, this guy is a half-breed, but has a lot of connections with the Shafiq family, so he has been controlling the trade of those precious potion ingredients."

After the sonic boom sounded, a string of conversations also came from the living room.

Lily immediately held her breath, the only people who could have Apparated in a wizard's house with such impunity and brazenness were those from the British Ministry of Magic!

Sure enough, through a gap in the door of the study, she saw four wizards dressed in black robes and iron masks, dressed as Death Eaters, along with an Auror of the British Ministry of Magic.

"Atkins, why are you still sitting there! Can't you see the lords! Stand up now!"

Just as the Auror was admonishing the male wizard who was sitting on the sofa with his head hung low, seemingly not half-responsive to these sudden intruders into his home.

One of the Death Eaters suddenly sensed that something was wrong!

"Wait, go check his statu-"

Before he could finish his sentence, a wand protruding from the Study swung abruptly down!

A silent spell was cast with a blast!

A dazzling explosion of fire burst through the confined space, giving the Death Eaters and Auror present no time to react!

But the Purebloods who had fought with Voldemort through the First Wizarding War were not a bunch of pampered losers like their next generation, who could not even use the shield charm properly.

They kept their shield charm on during any mission and were always on guard against any sneak attack, especially when two Death Eaters had already died for this task in Snape's old house!

But Lily had been dealing with these Death Eaters for years and knew their habits and psychology well enough.

Before the Death Eaters could locate their attackers, Lily pulled two small balls out of her pocket and threw them into the living room!

Before the smoke from the last Blasting Curse had dissipated, the two new blasts continued!

It was a bit of a stretch for the shield charm the Death Eaters maintained on their bodies to hold off a round of blasting curses, and even if the two Weasley Orbs that followed were slightly less powerful, they would still be enough to break their shields completely.

"Bombarda Maxima!"

Finally, Lily used the strongest variation of the Exploding Charm on the ceiling above the heads of the Death Eaters, and the next moment the whole building trembled while she grabbed the male wizard who had been woken up from the effect of Truth Potion and was shivering under the coffee table directly and used Apparition to leave the place.

The entire ceiling shattered into large chunks and crashed down, Lily's flurry of attacks happened so quickly that her silent spell and throwing of the Weasley Orbs was done almost instantly, and the moment the explosion occurred, which was when the Death Eaters were just trying to prepare their counterattack and reinforce their defences, the ceiling shattered!

"Move! Get out of here! The building's going to collapse!"

A Death Eater shouted, yet it sounded like not many of his companions were responding to him, the air only resounding with one or two infrequent sonic booms, and all he could do was mentally curse and then immediately use Apparition to get away as well.

But while some were still able to escape safely, two Death Eaters whose heads had been hit by rocks and who had fainted were already sprawled out on the ground, along with the small two-storey building, which stood alone in the wilderness, collapsing with a crash and completely submerging itself!

The loud noise here startled a flock of birds in the distant woods, while beneath the trees a pretty woman sitting on her knees on the grass with a cup of tea in her hand, looking as if she was having a picnic, watched the scene from afar.

She took a gentle sip from her cup of black tea, and the smile on her face was as charming as it could be.

Miss Coulibaly, who had arrived from Devon at some point, whispered softly to herself.

"Work hard, Severus. And you, stupid as hell, other me."

***

After Jon had dropped the Dursleys off in France and left them in the hands of Professor McGonagall to settle in, he then rushed back again and waited at the rendezvous point he had agreed with Lily.

Dumbledore had given him the task of keeping Lily safe in Britain, and it had been a bit of a risk for the two of them to move separately on this trip.

But Jon wasn't a mum, and Lily wasn't a child without the ability to defend herself, so he didn't need to follow her every step along.

Of course, to be on the safe side, Lily had a feather from his own Animagus transformation placed on her body to locate her whereabout.

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