The lake surface trembled violently, waking all the Inferi in the entire body of water. Soon, a slimy, bone-white hand stretched out from the water.
Then a second hand.
A third... endless! Bone-white heads and arms everywhere—men's, women's, old people's, children's—all with sunken eyes as pale as their faces, floating toward the stone pillar.
The scene was utterly horrifying.
Fortunately, Hodge and the others stood high up. One Inferius reached out with a withered, emaciated hand, clawing at the rough surface and crevices of the pillar, its pale, slimy head straining upward, fixing empty, grayish eyes on Hodge. But before it could haul itself up, another Inferius raised an arm, trying to climb over the first, and both tumbled back into the water.
Exactly—Hodge had deliberately cast the spell from a distance underwater, so part of the pillar stood submerged.
"Why... am I feeling a bit dizzy?" Ron said, shaking his head. He lay draped over a pillar, his face ashen.
Harry swallowed hard and raised his wand.
What now?
No one had told him. He glanced at Hodge, who was making the pillar's surface slick—was that some kind of Transfiguration? Too bad Harry didn't know it. Just then, an Inferius lunged upward, its fingers catching in a rock crevice—
"Petrificus Totalus!"
The Inferius was hit and fell backward. Something pale in the crevice kept drawing Harry's eye. He tried not to look, not to think about what it was, terrified he'd vomit.
"Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus!"
Harry cast the spell repeatedly. Then he saw a small cluster of Inferi gathering under Ron's pillar, seemingly filling the water below, packed tight like a human pyramid. Soon they'd reach Ron. At that moment, a tall silver Thestral charged out, scattering the Inferi in all directions.
"Th-thanks," Ron said, his face somehow paler than the Inferi.
"Careful not to fall," Hodge said. He glanced at Sirius, crouched on a pillar and clearly gloating, and added, "Sirius, don't forget your job. None of us know Regulus. One stray spell could destroy his body…"
Sirius had been nonchalant—Harry and Ron's spells weren't powerful, and he was watching anyway. But after seeing Hodge incinerate a middle-aged Inferius to ash, he sobered instantly.
"Kreacher will help too." The house-elf clung to the pillar, glaring with tennis-ball-sized eyes, scanning the corpses relentlessly.
Hodge's cleanup was brutally efficient.
A flick of his wand, and three Inferi soared into the air. A flash of fire, and they turned to ash.
In one breath, he cleared thirty-odd Inferi that were clearly not Regulus, testing a few spells along the way. Then he paused, amused, watching Harry and Ron fumble with their casting.
When Harry used the Stinging Hex, Hodge let out an ungentlemanly chuckle.
"Heh heh."
Harry pretended not to hear. He knew it was dumb—Inferi felt no pain; the spell would only leave a few welts on their skin.
On the other side, Ron quietly switched from the Pimple Jinx.
He looked up and met Bill's grinning face.
He turned away.
"Inferi are corpses enchanted to serve dark wizards. They're not alive, nor do they have souls. In the Dark Lord's prime, they were mass-produced—graveyards, wars, plagues… too many options and excuses," Bill said slowly. "A single Inferius is easy to handle: slow, no spellcasting, only a threat to Muggles and children. But in numbers, they spread fog and terror. The Dark Lord once used hordes of them to overrun wizard defenses."
"The best way is to burn them all."
While Bill explained to Harry and Ron, Hodge looked elsewhere. Dumbledore had vanished at some point. Searching, Hodge spotted him far along the narrow path between the lake and the rock wall, stopping to trace slow patterns in the air.
Hodge cast a Disillusionment Charm and a Silencing Charm on himself. A few Inferi twitched their noses.
Oh, right—smell.
Hodge pointed his wand at himself. Now he was completely invisible to the Inferi. Looking away, under the massive fireball overhead, he could faintly see Dumbledore's blurred figure through the darkness.
Whoosh!
A thick green bronze chain suddenly rose from the lake's depths.
"What's that?" Harry yelped.
No one had an answer. Sirius and Ron's mouths hung open in a contest. Bill had a guess—strange chain? One end plunged into the lake; was something down there? Soon, a small boat emerged eerily from the water.
The boat that weighed magic!
Hodge desperately wanted to study it but restrained himself. Like the others, he stared toward Dumbledore as the boat steadied. Dumbledore stepped aboard, and it glided forward automatically, leaving a faint ripple on the surface.
Hodge flicked his wand, conjuring a gust that toppled the "human tower" of Inferi. Harry, snapping out of it, muttered, "Good thing these Inferi have no minds."
If they did, wouldn't they fight Hodge to the death?
That's the logic, right? Hodge glanced at Harry. He'd adapted fast—in under half an hour, he was deftly combining Wingardium Leviosa and Incendio.
Unknowingly, they'd cleared hundreds of Inferi.
Bored, Hodge even wandered to the island-like center of the lake. It was vast and flat, with only a stone basin like a Pensieve, filled with glowing green, phosphorescent liquid.
Neither Hodge nor Dumbledore touched it.
"Voldemort seems to want someone to drink the liquid," Dumbledore said.
"Who would do that?" Hodge replied, then added, "That'd be idiotic."
"Yes, idiotic," Dumbledore murmured.
A shout came from nearby. They turned to see Sirius and Kreacher, ecstatic and yelling. Had they found Regulus's body?
Hodge checked the time—nearly a morning had passed.
They headed for the boat. As they walked, Hodge's magic drained rapidly from his body.
Dumbledore's blue eyes flickered with curiosity.
"This is… ancient magic…"
"…an extension of a technique," Hodge nodded.
In Voldemort's magic, the boat carried only one wizard at a time—but exceptions existed. Voldemort never cared about numbers, only magic. By shifting his magic outside his body, Hodge became a temporary weakling, naturally ignored.
Hm. If finding loopholes was a test, there was more than one solution.
"Speaking of, Professor Dumbledore, what do you think of that plan?"
"Using a Horcrux to set a trap… it's worth a try."