There are five years. Five years until the generation I want to reshape comes into its own — five years to turn scaffolding into structure, whispers into thunder. I stood in my study, the map of Europe spread before me, the vanishing cabinet links humming faintly beneath the table. The Sword of Gryffindor glittered in its stand nearby; Nagini coiled around my shoulders and purred like a living talisman. It felt good to count time as a resource instead of a limitation.
"Five years," I said aloud. Mimsy, dutiful as ever, was folding fresh robes at the far side of the room. "We begin at once."
She looked up. "Master, will you leave for long again?"
"As often as necessary," I replied. "But I will be here more than I have been the last decade. The next stage must be coordinated." I walked to the window, hands tucked into my pockets, and watched the grounds — so composed from this angle, so unaware.
I had already built much: artifacts, horcrux, Philosopher's Stone, international cells, beasts and giants, a vanishing cabinet network. What remained was the patient, inevitable work of turning influence into control: placing people in positions where their simple presence would bend policy, where a whispered rumor would become law. The Marauders' generation was not a single target to destroy; they were a curve of time I could shape. I intended to shape the curve's beginning.
I wrote the plan down, line by line, and then I walked through it with Abraxas and Itachi while Nagini listened, content.
"Year one," I said, "is consolidation. Make every cell resilient. Harden France, tighten the ledger with the goblins, and fortify our routes. Itachi will make France immiscible — no infiltration without my leaves showing."
Itachi listened, expression calm as always. "I will place three redundancies in recruitment leadership and two false chains of command. If one is compromised, the others will continue to feed you talent."
"Good," I said. "Abraxas?"
"My family can handle discreet pressures in the Ministry's lower divisions," he offered. "We can plant apprentices in offices that matter: register clerks, procurement officials for Academy texts, supply channels. Nothing obvious, but useful." His confidence had the pleasant sheen of inherited ease; useful when leveraged.
I moved a finger along the map. "We need influence at the Ministry — not the obvious parts, but the torsion points. Licensing, prize grants, artifact approvals. People there will make small, administrative decisions that ripple. Place our men as clerks, as aides, as the people who touch petitions. It's bureaucratic, but bureaucracy is where culture ossifies."
That afternoon we rehearsed openings and cover stories. I trained each of my lieutenants to speak the language of their assignment so that their lips never gave them away. I taught them how to enjoy small power — patronage for an excavation here, a committee recommendation there. Influence grows like mold if you feed it crumbs regularly.
Year two would be expansion outward. The vanishing cabinet network, which lay dormant beneath the Room of Requirement, had to be activated in stages so the magical signatures were murky and indistinguishable from mundane transit channels. That required cooperation with the goblins and with a few private cartels I'd greased in America and Egypt. Itachi's teams in France would provide safehouses; Hagrid's giants would move heavy loads when roads were surveilled; Aragog's brood could act as screen or terror, whichever suited the occasion.
"We will test the cabinet this year," I told Abraxas. "Move a single crate. Nothing else. If it arrives intact and unremarked, we begin moving personnel by the end of year two."
Abraxas nodded. "I'll coordinate with Gringotts. They'll provide transport details masked as antique consignments. They profit; we gain stealth."
Year three was the first offensive posture. Not recklessness — surgical. By then I wanted several footholds in important institutions: a minor official at the Ministry's archival department who would delay inquiries; a junior curator at the British Museum who could 'discover' a lead I needed; an innkeeper in Hogsmeade who would never recall faces. We would seed opinion, manufacture scarcity, and make certain paths easier for those who followed mine.
"Politics," Itachi observed, "is a duel of small influences. We will perform ethics as decoration. People will walk into webs of obligation because we will have taught them to be grateful."
Year four would be an intensification of force: armies of influence and muscle tested against minor resistance. The giants would be carefully deployed — not as open threats but as the occasional, devastating answer to those who underestimated us. The Acromantula colonies would be positioned for rapid expansion in wild zones, and Nagini's brood would be trained in stealth and detection denial. We would run exercises in multi-front logistics until the whole apparatus behaved like one organism, obedient to my voice.
Year five… year five would be the leverage year. By then the Marauder-age children would be entering adolescence, and that is precisely where influence sticks: teachers, exam assignments, scholarships, invitations. I would place mentors and subtle pressures that bend temperament. Some children will resist; some will align. Both are useful. The world does not need total obedience — it needs pliancy in the right places. A generation of adults forged with convenient loyalties would do the rest.
I paused when I reached that line in my plan. "We will not rush them into revolt," I said. "We will prepare them. We will put the right people into their lives. And when the time is right, we will sweep."
There was a pause in the study as the men considered it. Itachi stretched his hands together, fingers steepled. "We must also set decoys. Make sure Dumbledore and his allies have visible threats that draw attention while the real work is done elsewhere."
"Agreed." I smiled. "Let Dumbledore chase smoke. He'll always chase heroics. My work is quieter."
Practicalities followed: artifacts rotated through secure wards for calibration; Philosopher's Stone maintenance scheduled monthly; the horcrux sword's pedestal reinforced with goblin wards and false enchantments so any meddler thinks it merely a relic and not the anchor I made it. I also set up contingency plans that were pure mathematics: if the Ministry acts against a cell, then a neighboring cell should enact a diversion that taxes the Ministry's resources. If a high-value operative is compromised, the ledger in Gringotts triggers a cascade of claims that divert investigators into routine financial audits that lead nowhere.
We coded signals in everyday things: a book placed in a particular window, a rosary of beads on a mantel, a recipe sent as a gift. The Dark Mark remained our final recourse, not to be shown recklessly, but to be felt as the silent binding of loyalty. The Mark meant punishment and promise; it was the private law among our people. I added to it: a clause of exemption for those who turned in behalf of us, small mercy to keep recruits obedient without crushing their pride.
Training never stopped. I insisted on daily sessions where my people learned to walk through the world unnoticed, to change identities like hats. They studied Occlumency, illusion, wordless spells, and legal code; they learned to improvise at auctions and charm at dinner parties. Power is less about a single act of violence than the thousand adjustments that make violence unnecessary.
There were also gifts. I sent Itachi a small supply of enchanted crystal shards from Egypt that increased his Legilimency range by a fraction — a tool for an already formidable mind. In return he sent back dossiers of families and potential assets in France, annotated with exactly where pride would cost them their independence. Abraxas trained a cadre of young purebloods in etiquette and cruelty disguised as civility — they would be our diplomats when the time came.
I made time, too, for darker experiments. The rituals I'd studied had limits and costs, but they also offered edge cases: short-lived wards that could let a dozen men cross borders unseen; bindings that increased loyalty for a fortnight at the cost of exhaustion afterward; necromantic protocols that could, in a pinch, produce a puppet for a small audience. I used them sparingly; a tool becomes a crutch if overused, and I have no intention of becoming dependent on ritual shock when cunning suffices.
There were nights I walked alone in the chamber beneath the manor and spoke out loud to the sword. "One anchor," I repeated, like an oath. "Measured. Surgical. We are not monsters by accident." Sometimes I meant it. Sometimes it was comfort for the part of me that still remembered boyish fears.
We scheduled yearly uses of the Summoning Talent Card. Each year, one figure from a parallel world would be integrated. It is a temptation to call forth an army of gods, but I am not reckless. I planned the summons like another chess move: a specialist for infiltration, a strategist for a particular front, a healer in a crisis. I kept the card in a locked chest and used it like a trump when real need arrived.
Dumbledore remained the constant variable I respected. He was brilliant, wary, and surrounded by people who would die for him. We would avoid direct collision until advantage favored me. Let him gather laurels; let him be famous. My work—systematic, patient, inevitable—does not require applause.
Months stretched into years. We tested the vanishing cabinet—perfect. We moved crates as practice loads—perfect. A small skirmish in the Midlands, orchestrated as a false threat, drew a handful of Auror attention away from a true shipment leaving through Gringotts—successful. The goblins honored their neutrality but sold us goblin steel at a price that made their ledgers glow. Hagrid slowly but surely won giant loyalty; their brute force was a different kind of negotiation, not political but physical, and needed in the right place at the right time.
At home, on quiet nights, I allowed myself the luxury of imagining the day when the Marauders' children would look up and see the world I had prepared. Some would defy me. Some would become useful. The truth is I did not need everyone; I only needed the right people positioned in the right roles. One hand can steer a ship if it holds the tiller at the right moment.
"Are you worried?" Abraxas once asked, late over brandy. "That it will all become… too heavy?"
"No," I said. "I am prepared for weight. I measure it, distribute it, and account for stress. Fear is a poor adviser. Discipline is better." I saw that he wanted reassurance and gave him the tactical kind. He smiled, the old surety returning to his features.
We moved through the five years with the calm certainty of a tide. Each victory was catalogued; each error corrected. We kept our faces pleasant at parties, our hands clean of obvious blood. We laughed at the right jokes, pressed the right palms, and kept our ledger of favors in a neat, obsessive script. Influence is like water: it finds cracks and then enlarges them until they are canyons.
On the eve of the fifth year's end, I stood again with the map before me. The vanishing cabinets were ready; France had safehouses and a cadre of loyal professional operatives; the goblins' contracts were enforceable; the Philosopher's Stone hummed quietly, topped up only when necessary; Nagini's brood had hunters in training; Hagrid's giants answered his call. We had contingency measures for the Ministry, for wand-professionals, for Dumbledore's likely interventions.
"It will begin," Itachi said quietly. "When you say the word."
"Yes." I touched the cool metal of the sword where it rested in the study, feeling the faint pulse of my fragment within. "When I say the word."
Outside, the moon carved silver into the hedges of the garden. The world was a surface to be acted upon and then rearranged. I had chosen a long game because the stakes deserved care. I had chosen measured cruelty because wholesale havoc solves little beyond the appetite of those who love spectacle.
The Marauder generation had yet to be named or shaped. Let them be children of their time. I would be the hand that guided what they became. And when the hour came, when the first string pulled and the first useful mind bent to a necessary reward, the world would begin to change.
For now, though, we waited, trained, recruited, and refined. Power is not a single roar — it is a chorus, tuned and patient. I smiled and returned to my notes, thick with names, dates, and the small rituals of governance. The next move would be mine, and it would be precise.