Hermione thought again for a moment, then tapped her fist against her palm in surprise.

“Perfect…”

“What?”

“Everything. Perfect timing for any decisive action on the part of the Dark Lord. Few wizards in the Ministry. With agents in place, not a problem. Everyone is just leaving it. The Aurors base and the academy are elsewhere, and here are only the duty officers and those present on business in the DMLE. In the DMLE itself, only those on duty remain – investigators, supervisors, and others go home. Provoke all the security forces to leave the ministry, wait for the victim to come, and that’s it – the trap closes. So it’s Harry Potter he’s after.”

“That’s understandable,” I nodded. “If he didn’t need Potter, then such an action could take place any other day.”

“We need to help them.”

“Really?” I smirked. “Are you sure you want to go there? To meet grown-up and experienced wizards? Maybe fight them to the death? Do you really have to do that?”

“I don’t know what I should do, Max,” Hermione shook her head. “But I know what I can do. I don’t need the Dark Lord at the helm. I don’t need his successes. Neither do you. If the Dark Lord wants something, it’s worth trying to keep it from him. We don’t have to fight him. A couple of surprise strikes, cover the boys, dig in, get on the defensive and wait for backup.”

“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you? But how do we get in?”

Hermione smiled.

“I’ve already thought of everything. Modern fields of transfiguration prohibition are based not on the prohibition of transfiguration itself but on the impossibility of passing through them the contours of spells for it. The same applies to the prohibition of spatial transfiguration, as well as short apparation. Most likely, those inside will not want to deprive themselves of the advantage of short apparation. The prohibition field spends more magic than a dome or a sphere, which means…”

“There’s a sphere. And if it is a sphere, then it is worth applying phasing magic. But I haven’t started calculating these moments yet — I’m still having fun with lasers.”

“No problem. Look,” Hermione reached into the bag behind her shoulder, and after rummaging through it for a few seconds, pulled out a notebook, quickly flipping through it to the right place. “Here.”

Taking the notebook, I immersed myself in reading the notes in the girl’s neat handwriting.

«I know what you’re going to ask, so I’m already processing,» Rowena’s voice echoed in my head, and I literally physically felt a sudden heaviness in my head. Rowena didn’t seem to be sparing my body’s resources.

As I was reading, I began to use magic to add or correct the arithmetic nuances and rune combinations that seemed to be forming themselves in my head – I was very good at refining Hermione’s unfinished, incomplete, but structured notes.

Not a minute later, I gave the notes back to her, and now she was looking through them quickly, memorizing them, and the wand in her hands seemed to be reflexively and unconsciously twitching.

“Cool,” the girl smiled. “I don’t understand why you haven’t finished your laser project yet? I mean, you calculate everything so quickly.”

“I’m doing a full adaptation of the physical model to minimize the magical costs. If you don’t mind the effort spent, then a couple of samples are ready right now.”

“I see. Let’s go quickly.”

“Only on one condition” I stopped the girl who was heading out of our dark corner and already wanted to put a concealing charm on herself. “You don’t go into battle. Deaf defense. And when we find the guys, you help them in defense, do treatment, and other support. I’m too worried about you.”

“So am I for you,” Hermione nodded gravely. “But it’s not like I’m trying to keep you from all your questionable and extremely dangerous adventures. Have a little more faith and trust, Max.”

Under a complex of concealing charms, we ran across the road, providently skipping a couple of cars, and approached three wizards who pretended to be ordinary citizens talking about their business. It wasn’t clear why they were doing it, though, being under muggle repelling charm, but what if that was the protocol?

Without hesitation, I created a contour for Somnus on the tip of the wand, putting the wizards to sleep, and holding Hermione’s hand so as not to lose each other due to our invisibility, I pointed the wand at the area of the wall, which is particularly well felt in magic.

To begin with, I tried to penetrate beyond this area with the help of the Architect’s shadow, but, as I thought, nothing came of it — spatial transfiguration seemed to run into a wall, beyond which it was simply impossible to penetrate.

«I modeled the construct. Launch it.»

Listening to Rowena, I launched the construct. It was as if a translucent light wave spread out from the center of my chest, stopping within two meters of Hermione and me. An extremely strange sensation pierced through my body. Unusual, painfully unusual, and in addition to this, there was a feeling as if I had suddenly fallen off a cliff — goosebumps seemed to run through my insides. But what was much more interesting was that inside this hemisphere, air and light acquired a greenish glow, and at the very edge, in the area of transition from the sphere to ordinary space, a funny visual effect of the aurora appeared.

«Now, in theory, all magic and spells emanating from this area have a reverse phase. If you can call it that at all.»

Wasting no time in dialogue with my schizophrenia, I launched the shadow, which turned out to be not the usual black but a rotten green. It passed easily through the barrier that had stopped it moments before.

Yanking Hermione’s arm, all I got was the sound of gagging and, from the looks of it, the sound masking charms turned off.

” Disgusting feelings…” Hermione whispered softly, and I agreed with her — I could hardly contain myself.

“Now I’ll get us there, then we’ll use short apparation if the space is free.”

“Got it.”

Concentrating as much as possible, I sent the shadow of the Architect further along the magically closed area from ordinary people. A mixture of shadow and transfiguration of space, and even mostly under the control of Rowena, easily passed along a kind of thread of charms that connected this wall and the hall deep underground — another games with space, hiding areas, and other nonsense.. However, it was enough for the Architect’s abilities to play the role of a trolley on these magical rails, transferring Hermione and me from point “A” to point “B”.