The Butcher of Hogsmeade

Upon hearing Marlene's account, Shen Hou suddenly recalled his emergency plan when facing the Killing Curse in the corridor outside the emergency room, and couldn't help but ask, "Besides using a spell to counter it, can't you think of any other way to fight it?"

Sirius Black said dismissively, "If there were a way, the Ministry of Magic and the Auror Office would be overjoyed, but unfortunately, there hasn't been! Do you have any ideas, Shen?"

"Find some cover?"

"Haha, great idea! Everyone should carry a large door on their shoulder when they go out, and it has to be a thick, heavy solid wood door." Sirius was overjoyed, and the others laughed along with him.

Shen Hou hurriedly explained, "I'm not talking about inanimate objects, but something living, something with life, I mean animals."

Sirius Black was still chuckling: "What animal can protect a person from a Killing Curse? Ride a horse every day? That would work. Horses are quite big; they could really block a Killing Curse for you."

"Wouldn't smaller animals work?" Shen Hou persisted in his idea. "For example, rats. They're small, so we can bring several. If a Killing Curse comes at us, we can throw all the rats out. As long as one of them hits the Killing Curse..."

The group of wizards looked at each other for a moment, then burst into laughter, interrupting Shen Hou's words and making him realize that he had come up with a bad idea.

"Do you think you can offset a Killing Curse with the life of a rat?" Sirius laughed so hard he could barely breathe.

"Is that not allowed?" Shen Hou asked sheepishly.

Sirius laughed and shook his head: "Of course not, but how did you come up with this idea?"

"Didn't I say that when I was fighting the Death Eaters in the hospital, I used a werewolf to block a Killing Curse? I thought that a Killing Curse would only take one life, so..."

"But a werewolf is still a human, and its vitality is even stronger after it transforms; although both are considered to have one life, they are not the same as rats."

"Looks like I misunderstood. I heard you say that the effect of the Killing Curse is to take away life, and I thought it was a simple conversion, one life for one life! It turns out that there are differences in life force." Shen Hou roughly understood. It's just like bullets fired from a gun. Whether a cover can block them depends on both the penetrating power of the bullet and the sturdiness of the cover.

"Don't treat the wizards in the Ministry of Magic and the Auror Office like idiots, Shen! If it were that easy to counter the Killing Curse, how come no one has thought of it for hundreds of years?" Sirius feigned displeasure, like a top student reprimanding a struggling student friend.

"Actually, someone did think about it," Benji Fenwick said with a smile. "I heard Alastor tell me about a new Auror in the Ministry of Magic who wanted to knock a long snake unconscious, coil it up like a pancake, and stuff it into his chest, thinking that this would protect him from the Killing Curse. He had the same idea as Shen, thinking that he could trade one life for another."

"And then?"

"The head of the Auror office at the time listened very carefully to what he had to say, and then immediately ordered that this newly promoted official Auror be demoted back to intern Auror and ordered him to complete the internship course again."

"Ha ha ha ha……"

The more the wizards laughed, the more embarrassed Shen Hou felt. James was the most sympathetic, suppressing his laughter as he explained to Shen Hou, "Shen, what do you think are the prerequisites for a Killing Curse—or any kind of spell—to take effect?"

"Hmm... magic?" Shen Hou gave a cautious but uncertain answer.

"Magic is one of them, but another key element is the wizard's will."

Shen Hou was taken aback, and suddenly remembered that this was the second time he had heard the word "will" today; the last time he heard it was when he was chatting with the Prewitt brothers at the Three Broomsticks bar during the day. At that time, they were not discussing the Killing Curse, but the bar owner's and Molly Weasley's service magic.

However, both conversations mentioned "willpower".

James, unaware of Shen Hou's thoughts, followed up with another question: "When a dark wizard or Auror is about to use a Killing Curse, what do you think they're thinking? Are they thinking, 'I'm going to kill that person,' or 'I'm going to kill the first creature the spell hits after it's cast'?"

"I guess it should be the former," Shen Hou replied dejectedly; actually, there was no need to guess, the right or wrong of the two answers was obvious. If the goal was to "kill the first creature hit after the spell was fired," wouldn't the microorganisms floating in the air count as living beings? Wouldn't the microorganisms attached to the tip of the staff count as living beings?

Will the Killing Curse still be able to be fired?

James nodded in satisfaction. His mindset at that moment was probably similar to Sirius's, a kind of approval that "the underachiever has finally figured it out."

"This is the key reason why the idea of ​​'one life for another' doesn't hold true. The 'life' you choose to exchange is completely different from the 'life' the caster of the Killing Curse wants to take away. Opportunistic methods won't work. The only way to stop the Killing Curse is to use a sufficiently sturdy shield—such as a solid wooden door, or another 'life' at least equivalent to a person's life—to block it. You must understand that this method is mainly to exhaust the magic contained in the curse, not to negate the caster's definition of 'life'."

"James, you've overlooked a crucial point." Sirius had overheard their entire exchange and seized the opportunity to interject, "You should remind him that the methods mentioned above for blocking the Killing Curse only work against ordinary wizards. If the person on the other end is a mysterious figure casting the Killing Curse on you, a solid wooden door or a person won't be able to stop it at all."

"What can we use to block it?"

"What are you trying to block? If you encounter the mysterious person, all you need to do is run!" Sirius Black spoke with unwavering conviction, making his escape seem perfectly justified.

Meeting Shen Hou's stunned gaze, James nodded in agreement with his good friend: "He's right. If you encounter the Mystic, the wisest thing to do is to look for every opportunity to escape and get away from him as quickly as possible—if you still have a chance. To stop the Mystic's Killing Curse, you'd have to go through the main gate of Hogwarts Castle. If you can hide behind the castle walls, that would be even better, because the castle gates aren't secure enough."

Faced with the unquestionable attitude of James and Sirius, Shen Hou nodded blankly, accepting their demand that he "must flee at the first sign of trouble."

Just then, the back door was pushed open from the outside, and Alastor returned to the cabin alone.

"Thank you all for your hard work. Today's mission is now complete. There's no need to continue guarding this area. You can all go back now. Please be careful in all matters."

"What about those people? Did they confess? What were they done with?" Sirius Black was the quickest to speak, essentially asking questions for everyone who remained on guard.

"The gains were minimal. Most of them were desperate criminals who were paid to do things, not even outsiders; the Avery father and son insisted that they assassinated Mr. Shen to win the underground gambling, and that it was not under orders but purely their own doing."

"Ha, killing for money is a much lighter crime than killing for the mysterious man, and it's considered attempted murder. You might not even get a life sentence." Sirius was quite exasperated.

Alastor ignored Sirius's complaints, seemingly used to his temper, and continued, "After dawn, Dumbledore will personally hand him over to the Ministry of Magic. Potter and Black, for the next week, you will take the place of the Prewitt brothers and protect Shen's safety."

Sirius couldn't help but question, "Isn't this over yet? The Death Eaters have already failed twice, why would they send more people to their deaths?"

Alastor didn't answer, but instead said something seemingly unrelated: "The Averys family bet on a two-week timeframe for death at the underground gambling den, but some other people bet a much larger sum on a one-month timeframe!"