The Ninth Port: Blood, Ash and Parchment

Hidden in the labyrinths seven levels beneath Bodrum Castle, the Bodrum Ministry of Magic was experiencing its darkest hour of the night. The only sound echoing in the grand main hall— its ceiling illuminated by magic and its historic stone walls cast with the shadows of torches— was the rhythmic footsteps of the three guard wizards on duty. The silence was as heavy as the harbinger of a storm.

The peace of the night came to an end when the magically reinforced, multi-ton bronze doors that formed the main entrance were torn like paper and blasted inward.

Through the deafening roar and dense cloud of dust, a dark silhouette emerged. The hems of his black, gold-embroidered traditional robes swept the floor, and from beneath the black keffiyeh that hid half his face, only his eyes—cold and ruthless as a desert night—shone. Abu Nazir, the greatest nightmare of the Turkish Wizarding World, was finally in Bodrum. Five more loyal men, their faces hidden by silver masks, glided in behind him.

One of the guard wizards was the first to overcome the shock. He swiftly aimed his wand at Nazir:

“Serpensortia!”

A massive cobra shot from the tip of his wand, lunging at Nazir with a hiss. But Nazir did not even slow his steps. He slightly raised his right hand holding his wand, and a single word spilled from his lips:

“Evanesco.”

While still in the air, the snake turned into black smoke and vanished. When Nazir sharply swung his wand downward, the guard wizard flew backward as if struck by an invisible sledgehammer, crashing into one of the stone pillars and losing consciousness.

At that moment, the voices of Aurors rose from the balconies on the upper floor of the hall. Five Aurors on the night watch leapt over the railings, their cloaks billowing as they descended into the main hall. Spells burst consecutively from their wands while they hovered in the air.

“Raise the shields, catch them in a crossfire!” shouted the senior Auror.

An asymmetric duel instantly broke out between the five Aurors and Nazir’s five men, flooding the hall in red and blue lights. While two of the Aurors cornered one of Nazir’s men with Confringo, another tried to disrupt their opponent’s balance by freezing the floor with Glacius. The hall had turned into a living hell, filled with the ringing of curses striking magical shields and the roar of shattering stones.

Yet amidst this chaos, Abu Nazir walked like a ghost, ignoring the destruction around him as he headed straight for the Artifacts Vault in the deepest part of the Ministry. An Auror, noticing that Nazir was making a direct line for the vault, broke away from the skirmish with his men. He sprinted up behind Nazir and aimed his wand at his back.

“Stupefy!”

The stunning spell flew toward Nazir like a red arrow. Nazir didn’t even turn around. He merely swung his wand backward over his shoulder in a graceful arc. The red light struck an invisible shield that materialized behind Nazir, ricocheting to shatter the magical chandelier on the hall’s ceiling. As Nazir continued to walk, he flicked his wrist slightly:

“Expulso!”

The attacking Auror was thrown backward by the violent shockwave that hit his chest, skidding for meters across the marble floor.

In those exact seconds, miles away from these labyrinths, a deadly silence reigned in a luxurious and isolated stone villa on the ridges of Yalıkavak.

The Bodrum Minister of Magic, Haldun, was sitting in his leather chair, examining the following day’s meeting parchments in the dim light of the fireplace. The concealment, muggle repelling, and alarm charms surrounding the house were the most powerful protective magics in the country.

However, the temperature inside the room suddenly dropped below zero. The fire in the hearth flickered with an invisible wind and turned green. When Minister Haldun looked up with the cold shiver of sensing danger, he saw the shadow standing in the doorway of his study.

The man bore Abu Nazir’s silver crest on his shoulders. No alarm had sounded, nor had the door been forced. The assassin hadn’t broken the protective shields from the outside; he had infiltrated using dark magic ancient enough to corrupt the very nature of the wards.

Minister Haldun reached toward his desk to grab his wand, but it was too late. There was no trace of emotion on the assassin’s face as he raised his wand. The words sliced through the silence of the room like a sharp knife:

“Avada Kedavra!”

The blinding green light that erupted from the tip of the wand erased all the shadows in the room. The light in Minister Haldun’s eyes instantly extinguished; his lifeless body slumped over the desk along with the parchments in his hand. As the green fire in the hearth died out, surrendering the room to pitch blackness, the assassin melted silently back into the darkness just as he had arrived.

Back in the Ministry building beneath Bodrum Castle, the skirmish was in its final moments. The number of Aurors had dwindled to one, and that last Auror was agonizing behind his defensive shield under the crossfire of Nazir’s three men.

Abu Nazir stood before the massive, pure silver door of the Artifacts Vault, covered in runes. The vault’s door was protected by an ancient seal that could not be broken by brute force or standard unlocking charms. Nazir tucked his wand inside his robes. He placed his long right hand, adorned with silver rings, onto the cold surface of the door, right in the center of the runes.

He closed his eyes, and dark words, a mixture of Arabic and ancient magical tongues, spilled from his lips in a whisper. As the words left his mouth, the runes on the silver door began to glow a blood-red hue. A dense aura of dark magic spread, making the air in the room heavy and difficult to breathe.

The runes, now turning red, first cracked and then began to melt with an ear-splitting shriek of metal. The millennial seal had bowed to Nazir’s dark will. The heavy door was torn from its hinges and collapsed inward with a tremendous crash.

Nazir stepped inside. He looked at the old parchment, the ‘Port’ map, hovering inside a glass case resting on a stone pedestal in the middle of the vault. Shattering the glass case with the back of his hand, he took the parchment and placed it inside his robes.

When he stepped outside, the hall had plunged into complete silence. The last surviving Auror was lying among the rubble on the floor. Nazir’s five men lined up respectfully behind their master, bowing their heads.

Nazir cast one last, disdainful glance at the destruction he left behind, the groaning wounded, and the shattered statues. The Bodrum Ministry of Magic had fallen, the Minister was dead, and the key piece needed for the real game had been taken.

He raised his wand into the air to return to the darkness of the night. A second later, the six dark figures disapparated with a loud vacuum of air and vanished. All that remained was smoke, devastation, and the approaching footsteps of a great war.