At the mention of Flick's name, Bart's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Is there... a problem?" he asked slowly, his rumbling tone becoming more serious.
"That Treant called Flick committed a very serious error previously," Umbridge stated with cold formality, as if reading out an official verdict from a courtroom podium. "It violently attacked officials from the Ministry of Magic without provocation, causing an extremely adverse impact on inter-species relations and Ministry operations. This is completely unacceptable behavior."
She paused for emphasis, letting her words sink in.
"Therefore, we must take him into custody immediately for thorough investigation and necessary legal disposition according to the protocols."
Her statement echoed clearly through the peaceful woodland, carrying across the clearing and into the surrounding trees.
Everyone present instinctively tensed at this declaration.
Walden MacNair's hand had already moved smoothly to the wand holstered at his waist. His hard face showed anticipation rather than concern. He looked almost eager.
At precisely the same moment, recognizing the shift and reading the signals of impending violence, Dumbledore and Adrian exchanged brief glances across the clearing.
Without drawing attention or making any obvious movements, both quietly, carefully stepped backward several paces, increasing the distance between themselves and Umbridge's group.
They positioned themselves separate from the Ministry delegation.
As expected, Adrian thought with resignation, conflict was completely unavoidable after all. This was always going to end this way.
How could someone like Umbridge possibly let Flick go unpunished? Her vindictive nature and hurt pride wouldn't allow it.
She was, after all, a true believer in Ministry authority.
From her narrow, bureaucratic perspective and worldview, absolutely no organization or individual anywhere could defy or resist the Ministry's direct orders.
However, despite her true intentions and the inevitable violence she was building toward, appearances still had to be carefully maintained for the official report. Proper procedures had to be observed, at least superficially.
Seeing that Bart didn't immediately respond to her declaration, Umbridge forced out two short, false laughs that sounded more like coughs.
"Ha. Ha, Of course, you must understand, this is merely a necessary legal procedure," she continued with exaggerated reassurance, her voice taking on that sickeningly sweet, patronizing tone again.
"Standard protocol for such incidents. I can personally assure you that after the investigation is complete and proper statements are taken, if it's objectively proven through Ministry review that Mr. Flick's aggressive behavior was... somehow justifiable or provoked, we will certainly return him to your community safe and sound, completely unharmed."
She deliberately emphasized the words "safe and sound" with particular stress, as if this conditional promise were some magnanimous favor she was graciously offering.
Adrian, standing in the background beside Dumbledore, almost laughed out loud at this clear manipulation and obvious lie.
It seemed quite clear that Umbridge didn't understand the situation at all.
At that critical moment, Bart slowly turned his massive wooden head and gaze away from Umbridge to look once more toward Adrian.
Adrian met that questioning gaze and shook his head very slightly.
Don't trust this woman.
Good.
Now Bart understood the situation. The last uncertainty vanished.
He turned his attention back to Umbridge and the Ministry officials, and spoke again firmly.
"I will not agree to your demands,"
The false smile that Umbridge had been maintaining completely vanished from her toad-like face in an instant.
A trace of malice flashed in her small, cold eyes, and her high voice turned icy and sharp. "Then, sir, this becomes a very serious problem indeed," s
She drew herself up, trying to project power through posture alone.
"To uphold the dignity of magical law and Ministry authority, we may have absolutely no choice but to... take coercive measures."
Upon hearing this clear threat of violence and official authorization for the Aurors to act, the Ministry officials and Aurors behind Umbridge immediately responded.
They tensed, adjusted their stances into combat-ready positions, and their wands rose as one—all suddenly pointing at Bart's massive body.
Walden MacNair, standing slightly apart from the other Aurors had even silently begun muttering the first half of some incantation under his breath.
His expression showed cruel anticipation, like a hunting dog finally released to pursue prey.
Oh, but don't misunderstand their intentions, Adrian thought cynically. They weren't actually planning to attack immediately or launch the first strike.
This aggressive display was merely a pressure tactic, an intimidation technique.
Umbridge clearly believed that the being called Bart standing before her was intelligent—capable of reason, capable of understanding consequences, capable of fear.
An intelligent tree, yes. But still just a tree when you got down to it.
Besides, it was just one tree against trained Aurors and Ministry officials. Even if it possessed some wisdom and even some combat capability, what kind of serious trouble could a single plant possibly cause against organized wizards with wands?
Adrian, watching this unfold from distance beside the even calmer Dumbledore, felt somewhat amazed at Umbridge's complete and utter recklessness. The woman's stupidity was genuinely impressive.
This was, after all, deep within the Treants territory, surrounded by their community and homes. Yet these Ministry officials dared to threaten and wave wands so brazenly, so arrogantly.
Did they truly not understand the danger?
Umbridge had obviously never properly assessed their side's actual combat capability or tactical position.
Bart remained motionless for a moment, silently observing the multiple wands pointing threateningly at his massive trunk, at his face. Those eyes moved slowly from wand to wand.
Then he spoke slowly word by word: "Then... there is nothing more... to discuss."
As a Treant, Bart didn't particularly care about political complexities or diplomatic or legal bases.
He only knew and cared about one simple thing: the people standing before him, threatening him, wanted to forcibly take away his kinsman.
Then they were, quite simply... enemies.
And enemies faced consequences.
Before the final word of his declaration had finished echoing through the clearing, before anyone could react or respond, a suffocating transformation began to occur.
Bart's already extraordinarily tall and massive body suddenly erupted with a tremendous, earth-shaking sound—CRRRACK—like a mountain splitting open or thunder striking.
His trunk shot up and expanded out at a visible, incredible rate, growing exponentially larger with each passing second. Bark thickened and hardened. Branches extended and multiplied. Roots burst from the ground.
In mere moments, he had transformed from an already large tree into an absolute giant measuring dozens of meters tall, towering above everything around him like a living mountain or ancient titan.
His massive body casted a shadow like descending nightfall that completely enveloped Umbridge and her entire group, swallowing them in sudden, ominous darkness. The sun vanished behind his canopy.
Several Ministry officials gasped. One stumbled backward in shock.
But this dramatic transformation was only the beginning of their problems.
"Creak—creak—creak—"
The sound started soft, then grew louder, multiplying.
Like a sleeping army finally hearing the battle horn's clarion call after years of dormancy, like ancient guardians awakening from eternal slumber, with Bart's newly gigantic form as the central point and gathering standard, the entire surrounding forest came alive.
Gigantic trees pulled themselves free from the ground one after another with tremendous cracking and ripping sounds and converged steadily from all directions.
Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.
An ever-tightening encirclement formed rapidly. More than a dozen massive Treants now stood in a rough circle, surrounding Umbridge's group completely. Escape routes vanished one by one as the gaps between giants closed.
Dumbledore, maintaining his calmness despite the escalation glanced sideways at Adrian standing beside him in their relatively safe position. Both of them were also technically within the Treants' encirclement, though clearly not the targets.
If this situation became absolutely necessary, if it escalated to lethal violence, Dumbledore would have to intervene to stop it. He couldn't let a massacre of Ministry officials happen, no matter how foolish they'd been.
"Don't worry yourself, Professor," Adrian said softly, his tone remarkably confident and unconcerned despite being surrounded by angry tree giants. "Bart knows his limits quite well. At least he won't deliberately attack the two of us—we're clearly separate from them."
He paused, then added with slight amusement, "And... I guess you also don't actually want the Treants to permanently eliminate Umbridge, despite how satisfying that might be emotionally."
Dumbledore nodded slightly, indicating his understanding. They would watch and intervene only if absolutely necessary to prevent deaths.
Meanwhile, in the center of the tightening circle of wooden giants, Umbridge's expression had transformed from smugness to genuine panic and terror.
Her face had gone from pink to pale white in seconds. Her small eyes were huge, darting frantically between the surrounding massive trees.
The scene before her completely exceeded her understanding and expectations and every assumption she'd made. This wasn't how things were supposed to go.
She had never anticipated this scenario, certainly never imagined trees could be this dangerous or coordinated or numerous.
This was supposed to be simple intimidation of primitive beasts.
The shadows of dozens of Treants loomed over them now, blocking out the sky. The temperature dropped as sunlight vanished.
Under such intense, overwhelming pressure, faced with the reality of her catastrophic miscalculation, Umbridge made the absolute worst possible decision in that moment.
"Attack!" she shrieked, her voice went shrill with panic. "Quick! All of you! Stop them! Don't let them get any closer! Fire at will! That's an order!"
Her command came out strangled with fear.
Several bright, colorful offensive spells immediately shot from the Aurors' wand tips in response to their superior's direct order.
CRACK! BOOM! FLASH!
The spells struck the nearest Treants' bark-covered bodies.
However, these powerful spells sufficient to subdue most dangerous magical creatures and incapacitate dark wizards, merely sparked into small, powerless bursts when they hit the Treants' extraordinarily dense, magically-resistant bark.
Some spells left shallow white scratches or small scorch marks on the surface—superficial damage, nothing more. Like throwing stones at castle walls.
The Treants didn't even slow their advance. They continued tightening their encirclement steadily, not even having their outer defenses significantly broken or penetrated.
"Useless! Completely useless!" Umbridge shrieked in genuine panic now. "Use fire! They must fear fire! All plants fear fire!!"
She spun around frantically to address Walden MacNair specifically, gripping his arm desperately as if grasping at a last straw of hope. "MacNair! Quickly! Burn them! Use your strongest fire magic!"
A glint of cruel excitement flashed across Walden MacNair's hard face. His lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile but showed too many teeth.
He seemed to have been waiting eagerly for precisely this moment, for permission to unleash his specialty.
In response to Umbridge's desperate, screaming order, he didn't simply use a common, standard fire spell like Incendio.
Instead, MacNair held his wand upright directly before his chest in a formal dueling stance. He began chanting a lengthy, complex, eerie incantation in a sharp, piercing tone.
As the incantation built toward its climax, a strange, unnatural blue fire suddenly burst explosively from his wand tip. Not the normal orange-red of ordinary flames, but an otherworldly, cold-looking blue.
The blue flames twisted and wriggled like living serpents, forming themselves into an actual barrier—a protective wall that circled around Umbridge's group, separating them temporarily from the approaching Treants with a curtain of fire.
Fiendfyre?
Adrian's eyes narrowed sharply with recognition. That was his first thought.
But no... wait.
No, that wasn't quite right. This wasn't actually Fiendfyre.
First and most obviously, the color was completely wrong. Fiendfyre burned in shades of orange, red, white-hot intensity. Not this cold, strange blue.
Second, no matter how foolish and obsessive and dark MacNair was known to be, even he should understand that using genuine Fiendfyre here, in the middle of the Forbidden Forest surrounded by countless tons of flammable plant matter, would be tantamount to suicide.
The cursed fire would spread uncontrollably, consuming the entire forest and everyone in it—including him.
MacNair waved his wand again with a sharp, aggressive gesture, directing his creation. A concentrated stream of blue flame detached from the protective circle and rushed forward like a striking serpent toward the nearest Treant.
The blue fire hit the Treant's trunk and spread rapidly along its body like a living, wicked thing, climbing and consuming. Unlike normal fire that burned across surfaces, this strange flame seemed to burrow into the wood itself, spreading along.
The affected Treant's wood began to char and blacken rapidly. Soon, large charred patches appeared across the struck Treant's entire body.
It was effective!
Seeing this success, Umbridge let out a cold, triumphant laugh. Her confidence surged back instantly.
"Yes! That's it! More! Burn them all!" she shouted with vindictive pleasure.
MacNair smiled cruelly and prepared to continue his assault, raising his wand for another devastating strike. His wand began glowing with gathering blue flames.
However, at precisely that moment, before he could complete his next casting, a new player entered the battle.
A slightly smaller Treant that had been standing in the surrounding circle suddenly stepped forward, moving past its injured companion.
This particular Treant's most striking and unusual feature was its right arm—that entire wooden limb, from shoulder to the tips of its branch-fingers, presented a deep almost blood-like dark red color.
That's right.
It was Adrian's Flame Wood.
Although the Flame Wood tree itself couldn't fully transform into a mobile Treant form due to certain limitations, Adrian had successfully grafted substantial portions of it onto this particular Treant several months ago.
An experimental hybrid. A fusion of normal Treant mobility and Flame Wood's unique fire-related properties.
This meant that this specific Treant possessed, to a considerable degree, the specialized magical abilities inherent in the Flame Wood species.
The Flame Wood Treant raised its deep crimson right arm slowly, pointing toward MacNair's blue flames. They emitted a faint but growing red glow that rivaled the blue flames in brightness.
The blue flames that had been ravaging and consuming the injured Treant, as well as the entire ring of protective fire MacNair had created on the ground around Umbridge's group, suddenly behaved as if pulled by an irresistible, invisible force.
The flames instantly detached from the Treant's charred trunk and from the ground, transforming mid-air into streams of pure blue light. They flowed rapidly through the air toward the red arm, being continuously absorbed and drawn into the Flame Wood limb like water down a drain.
In literally the blink of an eye, all of MacNair's blue flames disappeared completely without a trace.
The temperature dropped back to normal. The acrid smell of burning wood faded.
The massive shadows of the Treant circle once again began enveloping the now ashen-faced Umbridge and her group in darkness.
________________
You can read more chapters on:
patreon.com/IamLuis