• October 3rd, 8:45 AM •
• British Ministry of Magic, Minister's Office •
[Cornelius Fudge]
Being the Minister of Magic came with a great many responsibilities and more than its fair share of worries. Cornelius understood this well. His duty was to keep the Wizengamot, the lords, the ICW, foreign ministries, business owners, employees, and the general populace content and satisfied.
It was not an easy job, but Cornelius liked to think he was a skilled politician. He knew how to keep the masses—most of them, anyway—calm and favorably disposed toward him. He understood how to wield the media to burnish his own image and that of the Ministry in the eyes of the common witch and wizard. He knew whom to talk to and, more importantly, how to talk to them; otherwise, he would never have attained his post, let alone held it for as long as he had.
Still, within the tangled web of Ministry administration and political maneuvering lay the core of his current problem. Somewhere along the way, he had lost sight of what he ought to do and had become more focused on simply keeping his job. It was a regret that now loomed large as circumstances rapidly spiraled out of control.
Cornelius had long accepted that he would not retain his position past this year. Problems kept arising, one after another. He'd like to say he'd come to terms with that, but that would be lying. He clung to the hope that if he accomplished something worthwhile in these final months, he might stand a chance of being re-elected in the future. That was why, for the past couple of weeks, he had done his absolute best to lobby all the powerful figures in the British Isles to temporarily join Dumbledore's camp.
"And then this happens…" Cornelius muttered under his breath, his tone thick with resignation.
He had almost succeeded in unifying nearly every faction inside the Ministry to support Dumbledore. Sure, the only reason it had worked so quickly was Albus's towering reputation, but that didn't mean Cornelius deserved no recognition for his efforts.
Then another powerful figure emerged—one with a worldwide reputation. Not a good one, but a reputation nonetheless. It threw a wrench into his plans. The re-emergence of Gellert Grindelwald gave people another option, one that almost all the unsavory characters in the world would likely flock toward.
'Things just keep going from bad to worse…' he thought, feeling his anxiety begin to stir again.
He stood from his chair and started pacing back and forth. He needed to feel like he was doing something to keep his emotions in check. This was not the time to panic. Not yet. He still needed to know what Dumbledore was going to do before he allowed himself to lose his composure.
'Inhale deeply through the nose… hold your breath for a few seconds. Exhale slowly through your mouth… and hold once more. Exhale the rest, then inhale deeply again…'
He repeated the mantra in his head, focusing on the diaphragm exercises as he went through the motions.
It helped, just as the Archive had said it would. That was to be expected, really, as this was one of the recommended breathing exercises for everyone, alongside ten minutes of daily meditation and Mind Arts practice.
"Anyway," he exhaled one last time and opened his eyes, "now I just need to figure out what to do in case Dumbledore refuses to go after Gellert."
He looked at his desk, where a stack of papers grew taller by the second—one paper airplane at a time. They flew in, unfolded themselves, and settled one on top of the other.
He didn't know how many he'd read in the past two hours, but they just kept coming. Kept piling up.
Knock. Knock.
The sound at his office door snapped him from his thoughts, and he turned.
"Come in."
A man in a grey uniform, a sky-blue cape draped over his shoulders, entered. He was tall—considerably taller than Fudge—with slightly sunken eyes and dark circles beneath them. His beard was a little unkempt, in contrast to his impeccable clothes. He had broad shoulders and was beginning to bald.
"Ah, Croaker," Cornelius greeted the newly arrived Unspeakable and gestured for him to sit. "What do you have for me?"
"Well, nothing substantial," Croaker replied, his voice monotonous. "As of now, no one knows where Gellert Grindelwald is. Not us, nor any other Unspeakable department in the world."
"So nothing has changed since his escape?"
"As far as we can tell, he hasn't contacted any of his known past supporters or followers. The ICW and everyone else is monitoring them closely."
"That's what I was afraid of. Him being unreachable doesn't reassure the public—a powerful and untraceable Grindelwald is scarier than one running wild. At least then we'd know where he was and could plan accordingly…"
"Any news from Dumbledore?" Croaker asked. "We need to know if he can track him through the Archive. Our research, inquiries, and hypotheses suggest that he should be able to."
Cornelius raised an eyebrow at Croaker. How did they know that? Weren't they the ones who said it would take at least half a year before they could get any solid data on the Archive? Weren't they the ones who insisted on further study before releasing it to the public? Weren't they the ones who threatened to halt maintenance on the Ministry's enchantments and wards if he didn't force the Aurors to slow its distribution?
'So what is this now?' he thought before shaking his head. There was no point trying to understand how the Unspeakables' minds worked.
'Remember the past,' he reminded himself. What was the point of experience if he couldn't learn from it? Leave the Unspeakables to their mysteries. They were rarely helpful in straightforward ways.
Knock. Knock.
Creak.
Cornelius turned toward the door to see Amelia enter, her face set in a deep frown, eyes scowling.
'She's mad,' he thought, suppressing a wince.
"So, what are we doing?" Amelia asked, her voice carrying an angry undertone. "And where's Dumbledore? Is he meeting us here, or are we heading to him?"
"He asked us to go to him," Cornelius answered quickly. He might be the Minister, but she was a pregnant woman who commanded the Ministry's forces. "Said something more important came up and he needs to attend to it first, so he's only meeting with us so we can handle the rest of the meetings without him."
"Of course something came up. Why wouldn't it?" Amelia complained before taking a deep breath and looking at him. "So? Why are you still sitting? Let's get going. I have a vacation that's being interrupted by this nonsense…"
Cornelius scrambled up, took his wand, and walked toward the book shelves on the right side of his office. He tapped his wand on the book in front of him three times and stepped back. The sound of clicking and clacking soon followed as the shelves folded into themselves, revealing an archway leading to a smaller room.
He walked inside, followed by Amelia and Croaker, and headed for the fireplace. He waved his wand to activate the Floo Network and moved closer to it.
"Dumbledore! Open the network—we're coming!" he yelled, stepping back as he felt a wave of magic pulse through the fireplace.
'It's connected,' he thought as he took a handful of Floo powder and stepped inside. "Hogwarts, Headmaster's office!" he announced, throwing the powder down. A green fire ignited beneath his feet, and he felt himself yanked up and hurled toward his destination.
Sigh~
X_
• Headmaster's Tower, Hogwarts •
[Albus Dumbledore]
I might have made a mistake, I thought grimly, watching the piles and piles of letters accumulating on my desk. I wasn't sure what to regret more: the new automatic mail-sorting system I'd put in place, or my decision to create a mess that would keep causing me recurring headaches for the foreseeable future.
I sighed tiredly and leaned back, completely ignoring the flashes of green fire and the arrival of the Minister and his entourage. I'd had different plans for today—things I intended to get done while letting people stew in their anxiety for a moment—but…
"New problems just keep popping up…" I muttered in annoyance, opening my eyes and leaning forward over my desk toward the three people now seated across from me: Fudge, Amelia, and Croaker.
"Let's get this over with," I said, deciding to go with a blunt and direct approach for this conversation. "What do you want to know?"
"Can you track Gellert through the Archive?" Croaker asked instantly. 'Merlin, at least let my question register in their heads first.'
"No, I cannot. He has not activated the tracking function," I replied, lying through my teeth with a perfectly straight face.
"That doesn't make sense," Croaker argued. "Our preliminary testing and hypotheses suggest you should be able to. We had some of our colleagues connect to the archive and after some research we found the broadcasting location option as well as the S.O.S and other functions that suggest you could… So I see no reason stopping you from doing so…"
"Ah, that's where you are wrong," I interrupted, smiling softly as I looked at him. "While the Archive is essentially a form of mind magic, everyone's mind and magic is their own, and they fight against foreign influence fiercely when needed, something you should know. " I paused for dramatic effect before continuing. "What I did was create a network that allows minds to interact with each other. I don't have much influence over individuals who use the network itself. So unless someone wants to announce their location to the world, I would not be able to track them."
Croaker frowned as he began turning over what I'd said. Cornelius looked clueless but tried to act as though he understood. Amelia, on the other hand, appeared both agitated and uninterested in the current topic.
"So the easy way is out. What else is there? What do we tell people?" Amelia asked, looking as though she was losing her patience with every passing moment.
"Nothing," I replied. "I can't fight Gellert without essentially sacrificing the entire city where our confrontation would take place—and that's simply not an option. Gellert will do his best to stay in crowded cities from now on, as I have no doubt he's already figured this out. So whether we like it or not, we have to find a different solution to the problem, or wait until I figure out a way to restrain him without risking the deaths of millions."
"It can't be that exaggerated…" Croaker muttered skeptically.
"Oh, it's not an exaggeration. You cannot fathom just how powerful the two of us are compared to our past selves." I shook my head with a troubled expression. "To give you an estimate, I could duel thirty versions of my past self and win in less than five minutes—and you have records of my past battles with Gellert, so you do the math…"
"Ugh!!!" Amelia groaned into her hands. "So I was up and busy since the crack of dawn for nothing?"
"Frankly? Yes," I chuckled, amused by her grumpiness. "If you had waited a bit, you would have simply read my announcement in the Archive. But Cornelius here kept insisting we meet, so here we are…"
Fudge began fidgeting in his seat. He clearly had things to say, so I directed my attention back to him. Seeing me smile at him, he took a shallow breath and started rambling on about what he had been doing since we last met—unnecessary details that were inconsequential in the long run but still mattered in the moment.
I was slightly impressed by all the maneuvering he had been doing, especially with the new Hogwarts admission inquiries the Ministry had been receiving since the latest batch of acceptance letters went out.
He had handled that rather well, informing the Department of Education to issue a statement to every household in the Isles, clarifying that the letters were not a mistake and that Hogwarts was entering a new era of change. Neither I nor anyone else had asked him to do that; he had simply gone fully into the Dumbledore camp and started endorsing whatever I said.
"…and you will be glad to know that as of October fifth, Magical Britain will officially begin its transition to a war status. Our preparations will be complete—we just need to get the goblins in line, and then we will meet again to discuss next steps," Fudge said, his eyes lighting up as he wore a bright, proud smile.
"That's good. Slow, but still within expectations," I nodded, my eyes moving from right to left to study the reactions of the other two. They didn't seem to care, so I simply shrugged.
"Alright, then. The announcement will go out across the Archive in a few minutes, so you should head back to prepare yourselves," I said as I stood up. "I truly do have something urgent to attend to shortly, so…"
"Oh, alright. We'd better head back and prepare, then," Cornelius said, standing and moving toward the fireplace.
I chuckled inwardly, rather liking the new changes in Cornelius.
They left, and I headed back down to my lab. I had two new items on the agenda for today, so I'd better get them done as soon as possible.
My research on chakra is finally complete after all…
X_
Chakra—the energy generated by blending physical and spiritual energies together. Or at least, that's what I knew about it before I started my research.
Turns out, creating a new energy—even when you theoretically understand it—is not easy. And that's coming from me, someone with a cheat-like power like the Archmage Essence.
I had to study each energy separately. Physical energy, which turned out to be a combination of many different factors, contrary to my initial hypothesis that it was merely bio-electric energy. Then there was spiritual energy, a far more complicated form, something between soul energy and mind energy.
Ugh, I really wouldn't know what I would have done without the Archmage Essence, I thought, deeply relieved by how things had turned out. I knew perfectly well just how improbable it would have been for anyone else to accomplish the same.
It took me countless tries and errors to determine the ratio alone.
"But now, it's time to actually succeed…" I grinned, closing my eyes and sitting down on the floor. The whole library was under the highest level of protection; the barriers and wards around me would make everything much smoother.
I took a deep breath, relaxed, and slowly, carefully, began the process. It took only a second—but the moment the two energies merged and transformed into a new energy, I felt as if my entire being was laid bare.
It was so brief, so fleeting, that under any other circumstances I would have thought I was imagining things. But not now. Still, I had no time to ponder, because the next second, it felt as though the whole world stopped. As if reality itself halted to take a second look, to verify what I had just done.
It was then that I felt something I could never have hoped to imagine. My soul, my body, my very existence, seemed to solidify—as if from this moment on, I was a constant, an indelible part of the world.
Simultaneously, everything around me changed. I began to perceive the world from a different perspective. I saw what was happening in real time, and somehow, I understood.
This merger wasn't just three different realities blending together like clay. Worlds weren't playthings to be reshaped at will. The process we were undergoing was, in essence, the creation of a new world—one in which the unique elements of the three original worlds would compete to preserve as much of themselves as possible.
I understood why our world had been chosen as the base, and not the other two. Our world was younger, smaller, and more adaptable. It held far more potential to remain connected to this part of the multiverse for much longer.
Then, just as I felt myself on the verge of comprehending more—of studying and understanding the inner workings of worlds, perhaps even the multiverse itself—I snapped back to reality.
And suddenly, I was no longer just the simple, fledgling godling Albus Dumbledore I had been a few seconds before. I was the first Primordial in my world. I was the origin of a new energy. I carried a different weight in reality than I had before.
It was unsettling. It was exciting. It was complicated.
I smiled. A happy smile. A goofy smile. A relieved smile.
And for the first time since I woke up as Albus Dumbledore, I felt like everything was going to be okay.
—————-
A/N: I am back. Let's hope this is the last time I take such a long time to update.