Chapter 63| To Destroy

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YVONNE'S POV

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YVONNE'S POV

It didn't take an hour.

In twenty minutes, we were packed, cloaked, and vanished from the manor like ghosts too dangerous to leave behind. We didn't bother trying to erase our presence—it would be ash by midday. No trace but the echo of shattered wards and the smell of old fire.

The world beyond the manor was cold. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones and makes your magic flicker nervously in your chest, unsure if it should burn hotter or curl inward to hide.

We Apparated in pairs, leapfrogging safe points and decoys. No more group jumps—it was too risky now. Too loud in the currents of magical detection.

Mattheo and I landed hard in a forest clearing, somewhere in the highlands. It was damp, moss-covered, the air thick with fog and silence. Regulus and Hermione followed seconds later, wands up, eyes scanning the trees. The rest would arrive in staggered intervals.

"This is it?" I asked, looking around.

Hermione nodded, pulling a folded piece of parchment from her robes. "An abandoned Druid shrine. Shielded by ancient magic. It won't last forever, but it's hidden, and it won't question our presence."

Regulus stepped forward, brushing away vines until a moss-covered archway appeared—half sunken into the earth, glowing faintly with ancient runes.

It wasn't a house. It was a tomb.

Perfect.

Inside, the air was damp and quiet. It smelled like lichen and lost time.

"I'll ward the perimeter," Mattheo said, already moving, wand spinning patterns into the air behind him. Magic shimmered in lines only we could see.

I stayed by the entrance, staring into the dark.

The Horcrux was here now—Hermione had placed it gently on a stone altar at the far end of the shrine, wrapped in thick spellcloth and containment charms. Even hidden, I could feel it. A wrongness in the space. A pulsing nausea that made the runes on my fingers itch.

Dark magic called to dark magic.

Regulus approached me without a sound. He always did that—moved like he was part of the shadows.

"You felt it," he said softly.

I nodded.

"It's growing stronger," he murmured. "The closer we get to destroying them, the more it pushes back."

"You think it knows we're here?"

"I think it always knows."

A pause.

"You used powerful magic yesterday. How do you feel?"

I didn't look at him. "Better than I did a few hours ago"

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