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London
–Damian Hawthorne–
He sighed and stepped back as he looked at the London safehouse, a big box buried underneath London. Apparently, the vacuum isolation matrix worked, but to test the extent of its durability, he would have to either overload the matrix with as much magic as he could summon or send in concentrated lasers at the shielding, both of which would be very noticeable, despite the depth of the safehouse.
He shrugged and turned on the spot, disappearing and appearing back in his lair. He would go back in the evening, to check on the Daily Prophet and see what actions the Ministry had taken against his persona. He could always just retire that one and don a new one whenever he needed something within the Magical community.
Kamar Taj did have sourcing routes but he couldn't use them since he was not a member of Kamar Taj.
In the meantime, he had a few leads on the magical artifact that Dumbledore used on him. Well, he said, leads but just hearsay and rumours about things capable of knocking out people en masse when used by wizards.
He reported that thing to Master Corven, who just shrugged and told him that he would look into it, which was not reassuring at all.
He leaned back into his chair, trying to think of something that would not take up the entire day and derail his next plans, but also would not be too boring or require too much effort. As he rolled back from his desk, his gaze landed on the calendar hanging on the wall.
"2000, huh?" He whispered to himself. It meant he only had a year before he had to go to Hogwarts. Not want to, but had to, because he could not be an adult in the eyes of British Law before that. Apparently, he was born here and magical jurisdiction was a real thing, so just going to any other ministry and getting declared an adult would not work, not without a disguise anyway.
Since he was on a time crunch and had magic to play with, he had mostly focused on the Harry Potter side of stuff, getting ready with his magic and tools, and had let the MCU plot fall to the wayside since that stuff was at least a decade away.
Or, so he thought. His mere existence might have postponed or preponed everything, he couldn't really be sure about that, but then again, he would have no method of confirming anything.
Mutants as a whole did not seem to exist here, which was a huge relief for him. Inhumans, he did not know. Other than that, Reed Richards did exist here but no Susan Storm or Baxter Foundation, which either meant that the Reed Richards guy was just a fluke or this timeline had just Mr.Fantastic, which seems unlikely.
Latveria did not exist, which, hopefully, meant that Doom did not exist.
Wakanda was a major player on the planet but their really tight defenses made him wary of touching them. Even with his satellites in place, their entire country registered as a black dot to him, no magic emission, small or big, left that shield of theirs.
On the flipside, he had accurate coordinates for where the shield began and ended, but no way to actually breach it. This rendition of Wakanda seems far more in tune with magic than canon, which meant that teleportation, even of the magical variety, would be inadvisable.
Not just Wakanda, every single power of note here seems to have employed the means of magic through wizards, to safeguard their most coveted secrets. The White House, for example, was a giant beacon of magic for his satellites, with scores of other buildings throughout DC exuding high amounts of magic, placed around the White House in a strategic pattern.
Beijing, in particular, was a city wide shield, almost half the size of Wakanda's shields but Beijing's shields were nowhere near as ridiculous as theirs. If he was not wrong, it also served to remove pollution from the city, which was a nice little bonus on top of the obvious protection it provided.
India. UK. France. Germany. Norway. Israel. Hell, even North Korea. All of them had some centrally important structure, guarded with magic, which meant that the ruling class of all these countries knew of wizards, wizardkind, magic, and did not leak it to the world.
Man, the Statute of Secrecy worked really well for all these years. It would only fail when the advent of smartphones and always connected everything came into fruition, which was not that far away.
He gestured with his hand and spiked his magic with a specific intent, as a globe appeared in front of him, glowing with various shades of red, yellow, and green, signifying magic and its intensity.
Some areas were completely black, like Wakanda and what he was pretty sure was Atlantis beneath the ocean, but some were dark red, like the White House.
Switzerland, in particular, was something that interested him the most. The banking capital for the world's shady ruling class, holding onto money from everyone whilst being neutral, truly neutral in regards to world-spanning conflicts.
Coincidentally, Switzerland is also the neutral ground for magical conflicts. The ICW has an important meeting place there, regularly used to mediate between conflicts. Also, even in the magical world, Switzerland is the place to store your money if you do not trust the goblins or your local governments, who sometimes could sway the goblins in their favour.
There, Dwarves kept your money safe, and they hated Goblins with a passion, ensuring that no information was shared about your transaction.
All these factors came together to create Switzerland, a place that is so heavily fortified, with both magic and conventional means, not to mention the place holding everyone's money, that it is considered the height of folly to even think of attacking Switzerland.
If he ever needed to flee the magical world, and the non magical world, because let's face it, he had some pretty radical ideas, and if things went according to plan, the power to enact those radical ideas by hook or crook, he might need a truly neutral place to lay low.
Granted, space as an option should have opened by then but Switzerland just had its own charm.
His fingers rotated idly, as he looked at the globe, which was connected to a computer, which was connected to a magical relay, which took data from all the satellites across the planet. It was the single most tedious project he had undertaken, but boy, was it worth it.
Making the satellites, launching them and making sure they remained in orbit was one thing, but to create an interface for all of it was a whole other ballgame, something that he would not have been successful at if not for he Sanctum's library.
The magical contents of it were off limits to him, but they held a surprising amount of books on non magical science as well, which really saved his butt, since they were old books with scribbles from past wizards, using those principles to explain magic.
"It helps those new to magic make sense of what they see in front of them," were the words of Master Corven when asked about those books and he believed him, for he was one of those people.
Getting it interfacing with a computer and then those holo projectors in his office were the final steps, and with that, voila! He had his very own global magical surveillance system, hidden and undetected.
Big Brother, who?
He blinked, his finger stopped, as the globe came to a halt, a red dot blinking incessantly on the screen, alarmingly close to Wakanda. His finger twitched as the view expanded, zooming in and his eyes widened as he saw volatile magical activity right next to the small village/poor country getup that Wakanda had placed to fool the world.
The blinking was a feature that was to indicate loss of wizard life on top of high volatility magic, which required, at a minimum, a hundred wizards simultaneously casting spells, which was a big event in the wizarding world, at least currently since no large scale war like WW2 was happening, only civil wars with pockets of maybe a dozen wizards firing spells at each other.
A feature he built into the globe to see where the most magical conflicts happened and, if possible, intervene in them. This was real time, and on top of Wakanda being a no-no zone for him, it was also far away.
Way too far away to safely teleport. He had no trust of black market international portkeys, and Floo systems did not work near Wakanda, because none had been installed yet. That left him with only a single option.
But before he could use that, he had to decide whether it was worth it to go there and potentially expose himself to Wakanda. A superior entity in everything that mattered, save for his enchantments and magic, which were still in their budding phase.
He sighed as he stood up. Running to the teleportation room, he apparated on the spot and appeared on top of the Sanctum. Maybe he could just observe? Plus, this was the first blink that he had seen that was active for so long. Usually, it detected students of organisations practising, which was a small time activity.
This time, it was longer lasting and some wizards had already died. His curiosity wouldn't let him sit still.
The Sanctum Door burst open as he stormed the Sanctum, "Master Corven!" He shouted, summoning the cranky, old Sanctum Master.
"What is it?!" The man snapped, but then the scowl on his face turned into a serious frown as he ran to the man, "I need a lift. To Africa. Something big, happening near Wakanda."
"Wakanda?" The man said, seemingly to himself, before turning to him, "Wakanda is a sovereign nation, both magical and mundane in one. They are more than capable of defending themselves. Why do you feel the need to go there? It is dangerous."
He grinned, as a small blue layer flickered on top of his body, as he mentally catalogued the artifacts he kept on hand, "Precisely."
The disturbed look Master Corven gave to the gloves on his hands only served to widen his grin. He noticed, then? Good.
"Fine. But this is a one time thing. This is not free. I will be expecting something in return. Also, you will have to facilitate your own return. I am doing this against my better judgment, since you seem to be careful enough to take that abomination with you," Corven grumbled as he waved his hands in the air, a fiery portal appearing in front of him.
"Thanks!" He waved at the man and flew through the portal, the sky still bright, as he looked down and found himself looking at the small country of Wakanda. Mostly farms, with few buildings in between, with a small congregation of important-looking buildings, right next to the airstrip that served as the only airport for the neighbouring areas.
"Let's see," He whispered to himself as he activated the invisibly enchantments, on top of all magical concealment ones he knew, as he began lowering towards the city, wary of any sudden Panthers jumping out of the sky or bumping into an invisible jet.
Despite the danger to himself, he grinned, "This is going to be fun."
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