Chapter 691: Big Lie (2 in 1)
Finally, it dawned on Felix that another one of the backhands that Dumbledore laid out had appeared.
Three Deathly Hallows, with the exception of Harry’s invisibility cloak, the other two were in the possession of Dumbledore in the final years of his life. Felix had thought that with the dissolution of the Resurrection Stone, the Deathly Hallows would never be gathered together again, and the Elder Wand lost its meaning with the end of Dumbledore’s life.
“Dumbledore asked you to pass it on to me?” Felix asked lightly, more interested in probing Dumbledore’s true intentions.
“He let me judge for myself.” Snape’s eyes struggled a little, “He said he would prefer to see the fate of the Elder Wand become a permanent mystery, but was worried about a big change that could happen in the wizarding world in the future … Right now it should be the time.”
Felix scrutinized Snape’s face. “I don’t think it’s time yet.” He said. Snape’s expression froze.
“Things aren’t that bad – the window for discussion has opened, and we can remain optimistic to a limited extent, and compared to the sporadic disturbances that have occurred in some places abroad, the situation here is fairly stable – oh, and by the way, Future World has opened up two new branches.”
Snape’s expression was stunned.
“Dumbledore had no ability to anticipate what would happen after his time, so he needed a pair of eyes – I’m sure he trusted you.” Felix spoke emotionally, ” Surely you have more than one person in mind since you could have been observing for a few months or longer no?”
Snape stared at him, for a long moment, and said slowly, “You’re the one in front of the list, followed by … Potter,” he paused, “I’ve also considered Minerva and Amelia Bones. ”
Felix spared a moment to help him analyse. “Dumbledore knew I have no shortage of wands, remember my ebony wand? I found I could incorporate the Book of Runes into my wand and I recently got another nice one; as for Harry – well, he might have the potential to get one step closer with the Elder Wand, but you two don’t see eye to eye with each other, and you certainly wouldn’t be happy to give it to him; Minerva… . alas, she’s not young after all; Amelia may have been strong once, but now she simply doesn’t have the time or the heart to study magic as Minister of Magic, and she’s probably the unluckiest of all the Ministers of Magic.”
“So don’t make decisions lightly. There should be good candidates available in the next generation, or the one after that, and what’s crucial is, that person still needs to be perfectly in line with your heart.” He concluded.
Snape took a deep breath, anger could clearly be seen on his thin cheeks.
“What do you think all this is about, it’s the biggest crisis the wizarding world has ever seen and Grindelwald is fanning the flames all over the place-”
“You know what Grindelwald has done?”
“I do read the news, Felix Hap!” Snape panted, “There are reports of him appearing in the Land of Chaos. He came up with the ten rules of wizardry. One of them is about equal retaliation and that wizards are not weak and bullyable creatures; another one calls for wizards to unite and not allow any theft of wizarding authority to happen; then there’s the theory that magic belongs to magic … These theories are very marketable.”
“And what do you think about these rules?” Felix asked calmly.
Snape’s eyebrows knitted together.
“It’s too radical.”
“But it sounds a lot like it came out of Grindelwald’s mouth, doesn’t it? It could be altered anyhow, the relevant code is still a blank at the moment-” Felix said indifferently, and Snape looked over at him with horror.
“Oh, I mean, Grindelwald can only shout slogans now, it’s us who are really in a position to negotiate terms of the settlement.” Felix said, “By the way, I actually have something more important to ask.”
“What is it?” Snape’s expression turned grim.
“If the negotiations go well, there will inevitably trade between the two sides, and potions are an important part of that, but you should know that most potions only work on wizards-”
“Lupin told me about this.” Snape interrupted.
“Yeah, someone needs to work on the future potion formulas, laws, and standards that focus on the ordinary people.”
“So you thought of me?”
“Exactly.”
“Slughorn is a better fit than me.”
“He’s better suited for dealing with government departments, he has good eyes and ears, and he’s happy to do that … I need someone who can do research quietly.” Felix said, “And it’s obvious that I trust you more.”
…
The next day, the Ministry of Magic.
“Grindelwald truly made his move.” Ms. Bones said with a serious expression, spreading a newspaper on the table as Felix, high-ranking Ministry of Magic officials, and several members of the Order of the Phoenix stared fixedly at the magical photograph of Grindelwald under a barrage of gunfire and flames. At the same time, they all ignored the woman next to him.
“What’s going on?” Arthur Weasley gasped in shock as he asked worriedly, “War is started?” He isn’t considered to be a high-ranking official at the moment, but as the former head of the ‘Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office’, he was allowed to attend the meeting on an exceptional basis.
“Not yet, he is still bound by a vow.” Ms. Bones said with relief, “He’s there to save people.”
“Save people?” Ludo Bagman’s round eyes widened, and he reached out to point at the ruins in the moving photograph, “He was trying to save people? Then who did all this?”
“Of course, it was that other person in the picture.” Bones said with a grimace, “Sadly, what I said is true, he didn’t attack anyone. Muggle TV captured some footage that is more complete than these photos – Percy went to get some equipment.”
The door to the office was pushed open from outside and Percy walked in, followed by a set of projection equipment behind him.
Percy shoved a box of tape inside, then expertly pushed a button, and a few moments later footage was projected on the wall. Everyone stares in wonder. The footage kept shaking, but it still recorded the surrounding scenery.
The place looked like a chemical factory, the surrounding area was somewhat deserted, barbed wire hanging from a tall fence, the gates were closed, the helicopter’s propellers made a loud noise, and a hand appeared in the frame, then disappeared again, accompanied by a sharp, excited voice: “Over there!”
The camera then turned towards a corner of the factory.
Black flames rose into the air, pouring out of the rows of windows and gaps in the huge factory-like building, black flames that seemed to come from hell, huge tongues of flame twisting like the palms of a giant’s hands, which were now joined together, catching anything within sight that could burn in a sea of fire.
“Is this – a Fiendfyre?” Mr. Weasley uttered breathlessly.
The window suddenly broke open and a figure leapt out with a tumble, it was a woman completely smeared with black, her hands and face bruised, her hair mangled in a mess, and she looked in a state of disarray. But she was laughing madly. Everyone in the room recognised her as the woman standing with Grindelwald in the newspaper.
Everyone watched in shock as the woman waved her wand desperately, the flames leaping high with her command and showing a tendency to spread in all directions. From high above, it looked like an ink bottle had been smashed to the ground. The sound of a reporter’s intake of breath was heard on the screen.
“Edith Pandora.” Ms. Bones spoke, “Word has come from the magical congress side of the United States that her daughter mysteriously disappeared not long ago, and she sought help from the magical congress, but the congress had made the decision to go into complete hiding and naturally would not alter it for her. She disappeared for a few days, during which time no one knows what happened, except that at five o’clock this morning she suddenly appeared and unleashed a horrible, Fiendfyre Curse.”
“Her daughter … is dead?” Sirius asked, his eyes bugging out.
“Not sure for now-”
“Don’t fool me!”
“I’m really not sure,” Ms. Bones sighed, “but that place-” she gestured to the massive factory building, “is a secret laboratory, which is supposed to be built for wizards, so the odds are high that her daughter didn’t survive, otherwise she wouldn’t …”
The office became solemnly silent, the atmosphere seemed to freeze. Everyone looked at the footage in silence.
Edith Pandora waved her wand with great intensity, which allowed everyone to feel her emotions, even though she was a small part of the frame. Gradually, as if it were alive, the Fiendfyre began to morph, a ball of a flame being thrown about, scorching the ground, some of it coming close to hitting the caster herself, but she showed absolutely no intention of dodging it, as she instead kept manipulating it to make it even bigger.
“She’s trying to destroy everything around her.” A high-ranking Ministry of Magic official saw the end.
“She can’t do the job! She’s not skilled in that magic.” Someone said.
“Unless she doesn’t want to live.” Another shouted.
“Where did she learn this magic?”
“The investigation revealed-” Ms. Bones said with a frown and a hard expression-“that Edith Pandora had never previously studied the Fiendfyre Curse, and the Magical Congress of the United States of America investigation found her to be a common wizard, who excelled most in housekeeping magic.”
“Could it be that Grindelwald helped her?” Someone asked, thinking of the two people in the same frame in the photo.
“Again, that question is unanswered, but – well, Grindelwald didn’t show up first, and he seems to have seen it on live TV. You guys keep watching.”
From the edge of the camera an ant-sized team poured out, and heavy gunfire rang out as Edith Pandora turned back to fight back, but she was quickly wounded and took cover behind a grey metal cylinder. Someone from the special ops team shouted, but they were answered by a succession of red lights, so the team dispersed methodically and surrounded her from all sides.
There was a flurry of flying sand.
Edith Pandora appeared to have released an immature hurricane spell, a whirlwind thirty or forty feet high expanding outwards with the grey metal cylinder at its centre, the attack temporarily slowed, and the woman could not be seen from the frame for the moment. Suddenly, an urgent voice came from near the camera, “It’s a military helicopter, great!”
Two helicopters grazed them and warned the reporters through the radio to evacuate immediately, but the reporters ignored them, “They don’t even have their tail number.” The two armed helicopters swooped straight at the target, missiles mounted underneath them. Immediately afterwards two machine guns poked out of their compartments, their muzzles spewing out dense tongues of fire. For a moment, everyone thought Edith Pandora was done for.
The smoke cleared, and she was intact, with one more person by her side – Grindelwald. Grindelwald held up a huge shield and deflected the attack in its entirety. But he did not continue, and instead looked down to talk to the woman.
The scene in the magical photograph just happened to match what was happening now.
“Zoom in! Zoom the camera in!” The reporter shouted at the top of his voice, and the picture fluttered, then the desperate face of Edith Pandora was revealed, but the despair was immediately replaced by joy, then by a grimace, and it was difficult to understand the changes unless one was there, and she reached out and pointed at the factory, speaking fiercely about something.
Grindelwald shook his head slowly as he held up his palm for her to see, then looked back into the black, Fiendfyre, his lips quirking. They seemed to have reached an agreement.
The woman stopped caring about the threat from behind her and her wand redirected the Fiendfyre, everyone could see that she was incapable of wielding that magic and just kept stacking the flames with spite, which in turn had the effect of going out of her control, but since Grindelwald was present, they weren’t sure of the outcome anymore.
The sound of machine guns stopped briefly at Grindelwald’s sudden appearance, then they continued firing. Two flashes of fire suddenly emerged from beneath the helicopter, Grindelwald glanced back and with a wave of his wand, the missile exploded in the sky.
Then, from the tip of his wand came a tiny blue glow, like a liquid flame or a burning stream of water, which flew a foot from the tip and disappeared into thin air, seemingly transferred elsewhere. No one knew what magic Grindelwald had used.
But those in the room witnessed its effects the next second.
A volley of missiles that were launched suddenly exploded of their own accord when they were hundreds of feet closer to the two people as if they had hit an invisible wall – “There’s supposed to be an invisible magical barrier in the air!” Sirius said excitedly.
For the next half minute, missiles exploded around the two men, but none could break through the barrier.
Grindelwald seemed to do this casually, and after ascertaining that those helicopters and ground troops couldn’t interfere with them, he focused his attention on Edith Pandora. Fuelled by extreme emotions, the Fiendfyre scaled up to a certain point and turned into monsters made of black flames.
These monsters, who also inherited their master’s state of mind, appeared mad and brutal, trampling the earth desperately and storming in all directions – Edith Pandora fell to the ground and watched all this with pleasure.
The people in the Ministry of Magic realised that the curse was out of control.
Sure enough, the Fiendfyre monsters pounced on the only two beings in the field and kept crashing into them, but they were held back by an invisible force.
Grindelwald pulled the woman to her feet and raised his wand flatly, gaining control of the Fiendfyre in an instant. The black flames became well-behaved in his hands, and the flaming creatures were reformed into a single mass that resembled a hideous monster that was coiled in the spot where the factory had originally been.
Then he waved his wand again and a hurricane, a hundred times more powerful than the one Edith Pandora had created before, appeared out of nowhere, this whirlwind seemed to connect with the clouds in the sky and the black flames were torn out of shape by the gale, curdling into one stream and rushing towards the sky.
The Fiendfyre merged with the hurricane and then swelled rapidly. The helicopter in the sky scrambled to avoid it, but the flames were not aimed at them, the whole factory was wrapped up and burnt to a white ground, Grindelwald locked eyes with the camera in a sea of fire, then the whirlwind of flames suddenly shrank, and the factory was wiped off the ground, along with Grindelwald and Edith Pandora.
The helicopter slowly moved closer and a huge deep crater became visible in the frame.
This is where the footage ends. A long silence fell over the conference room.
“Both the International Confederation of Wizards and the Magical Congress of the United States of America have divided their manpower to gather information on the whereabouts of these two individuals, but in the end they found nothing. They fear that this matter will spark greater antagonism and conflict.” Ms. Bones said in a dry voice.
“Then let them go after Grindelwald.” Felix said disinterestedly.
…
The fiery incident in the experimental laboratory has caused quite a global uproar, and the footage they saw at the Ministry of Magic has been analysed and interpreted frame by frame by the relevant authorities in various countries, and it is clear that Grindelwald did not use his full strength at all. The conclusion that was drawn, nevertheless, was truly unnerving.
“If this magic had arisen in the city, it probably would have destroyed dozens of blocks.”
Grindelwald’s past experiences are no longer a secret, being covered in turn by journalists and the media. Along with this, the Unbreakable Vow, the Ten Rules of Wizardry, appeared brazenly in the Muggle newspapers, drawing wave after wave of fervour and criticism.
A few more newspapers received ‘letters from students’. Two newspapers maintained a neutral stance, while the remaining ones were very critical about the letters, perhaps trying to use the opportunity to attract protests from disgruntled wizards, and naturally, they did not receive any follow-up letters as a result.
But all this was a minor matter.
After selecting the students who would participate in the special afternoon tea, Felix then initiated special training for them, and the Ministry of Magic sent someone to train them in etiquette and eloquence, what issues they could and could not speak about, how to respond to provocation, and so on.
The students noticed that Professor Hap seemed to have developed a new habit of looking up at the moon and looking thoughtful. This, of course, seemed like a red flag to Hermione.
“Professor, you’re not thinking about the moon again, are you?”
“Miss Granger, do you think there are traces of the presence of ancient wizards on the moon?”
“Well, it’s unlikely, isn’t it? If ancient wizards did live on the moon, they certainly would have left some architectural remnants behind that would have been spotted by modern telescopes …”
“What if they used magic to conceal their presence?”
“Professor, there is no evidence to support this!”
“Well, I actually read about it in an ancient journal …”
“Professor, you sound odd. What’s the name of the journal, can I see it?”
“… No thanks, you’ll believe it when I bring back a few antiques from the moon one day.”
Felix was prepared to tell a big lie – or possibly more than one.
————
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