Ivan's heart was in his mouth when he heard the footsteps outside the door stop. He gritted his teeth, waved his wand, and cast a Stunning Spell on the drunk Douget, then pulled a strand of hair off his sparse head.
When he was finished, Ivan whispered to Hermione.
"Take them with you! Quick! I'll buy us some time!"
"Where should I take them? And how?" Hermione asked, flustered and nonplussed.
Knock knock knock …
At the same time, there was a knock on the door, and Ivan's expression changed. He knew that he had little patience in the past.
"Use magic! Use the windows! Just get out of this house!" Ivan said, then added Doggett's hair to the Polyjuice Potion and sipped it.
All he had to do was transform into Doggett for a short while,
Ivan began to change shape as he walked, and by the time he reached the door, he had completely transformed into Doggett, and his clothes had been enlarged by his Transfiguration.
She opened the door to find, as Ivan had expected, a young wizard with anxious blond hair.
Yvonne wondered if she should say something to start the conversation, but she couldn't remember if Dougett, whom she had met at the time, had spoken or even what expression she should be wearing.
Sadness? Sympathy? It was as if he had not seen such an expression on Doggett's face.
Ivan could only keep a straight face and wait for her to speak first.
"Headmaster Dougett, can my mother be saved?" The blond wizard stepped aside eagerly, revealing a pale and quiet-looking Alicia hovering behind him.
Ivan turned his attention to the corpse. He understood what was going on with it, but what should he say now?
"She's dead!" Ivan said, gritting his teeth when he couldn't remember.
"I'm asking you if she can be saved." The young wizard didn't disagree with him, instead adding an impatient emphasis to his words, his dark eyes desperate and hopeful.
Ivan took all of this in and felt frustrated. Had he been like this before?
He took a long look at the young wizard before him and warned him softly.
"No one can save a dead man!"
Unless she's not dead after all…
Yvonne bit back the rest of her words. He couldn't remind her too much about changing history.
There was a sudden silence. The blond wizard's mouth was set in a thin line, and his wand was in his right hand.
Ivan's expression hardened, his sharp senses picking up on the other man's suspicions.
Indeed, his disguise as Doggett was very different from his usual self.
Bang!
Just then, there was a noise from upstairs.
"What's that?" the blond wizard asked, glaring at him. In the blink of an eye, he had cast an Armor Charm to protect himself.
Yvonne knew in her heart that it must have been Hermione, or perhaps she had slipped out of the window there with Alicia and Doggett.
However, this could not be said directly, so Ivan had to make up an excuse.
"Perhaps it was a cat. Who knows?"
"I don't recall you having one of those…" the blond wizard persisted, his guard up. He suspected that this was not Dougett.
Ivan was silent, not knowing how to respond, trying to remember how he had seen Doggett handle…
The blond wizard's eyes caught Ivan's left hand on the door handle, and he shuddered.
"The Dark Mark, you're a Death Eater?!"
Ivan looked down sharply at his left wrist, where a Dark Mark had also appeared…
Due to the fact that the clothes he was wearing were created by him using Transfiguration in a moment of desperation, they were unable to conceal the fact that he was wearing an odd-looking robe with short sleeves.
'Is that why I saw it at the time?'
Yvonne had an idea.
"Does she know you're a Death Eater?" the blond wizard asked Ivan, his eyes fixed on Ivan.
Ivan was speechless at this question. How could he know if Alicia knew the identity of the Doggart Death Eater? He had not even had a chance to ask.
"Maybe he didn't know?" Ivan could only be honest. He felt that Alicia probably didn't know.
Ivan's words ignited a barrel of gunpowder, and the blond wizard's anger rose to a boiling point, his eyes turning faintly orange and vertical.
Ivan felt his heart skip a beat when he looked into those eyes, but he was unaffected.
Realizing that her past self intended to attack him, Ivan felt that it was ridiculous, so he tried to persuade her. "I advise you not to waste your time with me. If you have the time, you might as well think about what you've done…"
"It's the same as asking you!" The blond wizard mistook Ivan's smile for mockery and was even more certain that the person in front of him knew something. With a wave of his wand, wisps of white mist floated out and instantly dissipated…
Ivan had no intention of fighting his past self. It was pointless!
Besides, he had used up a lot of his magic, and he didn't know who would win if they fought, so he took advantage of the moment to slam the door shut and put on the Invisibility Cloak.
Bang!
The next moment, an explosion sounded and the door was blown open!
Ivan stepped aside in his Cloak of Invisibility and watched as the blond wizard entered the room with a scowl on his face.
Yvonne walked past him and out of the house. She heard explosions behind her and turned to look.
Ivan sighed as he watched the mansion of Doggett collapse under the effects of the Blast Charm, having figured everything out.
"Is this fate?" Ivan muttered to himself. He had done so many things since his return, some of them of his own accord, some of them passive, but nothing had ever changed.
It is true that he could break all of this by appearing to his past self.
However, this would undoubtedly have caused his previous efforts to be in vain, and he would have ended up in another parallel universe, so he did not do such a thing.
You can't change the past, you're just making up for it!
Ivan finally understood what that meant…