Time slides like a blade when you're busy carving the world. I check the date with the casual curiosity of someone checking the weather. 1970.
The new generation — Lily, James, Sirius, Remus, Peter — have bled the doorstep of Hogwarts. The small, soft things that will one day argue with history are now children. That timing is exquisite.
I call the core into the dining hall of Slytherin Manor. One by one they arrive: Orion Black with that old, patient look of his; Edward Lestrange, sharp and suspicious; Abraxas Malfoy, always immaculate; Arianna — the girl I remade from shadow — now steadier than most adults; Tam, newly formed and smart as a blade; Charles Prince, practical and polite; and Itachi, quiet, eyes like water that knows where the current runs.
They sit. The candles gutter. Nagini curls once, half-asleep, a living talisman at my feet. I do not wait for formalities.
"We have five years," I say. "That's enough to shape a generation. It's enough to bend institutions. It's enough to start a war that looks like something else entirely."
A murmur. Abraxas taps his fingers together. "You mean—"
"A conflict that forces their hand," I finish. "One that gives us the moral vantage point. If the public sees us as villains before the first shot, the Ministry will never follow. If they see us as protectors, or at least as the lesser of two evils, then the architecture of power shifts in our favor. Perception creates permission."
Orion folds his hands. "Permission is fragile. We must create a narrative that can't easily be dismantled by headlines or witnesses."
"I control headlines," I say. "I own newspapers, print houses, a dozen columnists who owe me favors. The Daily Prophet can run as many sympathetic editorials as we need. But propaganda alone is not enough. A crisis must feel real. It must sting in the present and promise safety in the future — something only we can deliver."
Itachi's voice is measured. "Fabricated crises are risky. The more elaborate, the more people will look for the seams. We should prefer ambiguous incidents: scapegoats the public already fears, places the Ministry struggles to protect, and actors who can plausibly be linked to threats. Create pressure where institutions are weakest."
Tam, who has the clean, hungry intelligence of one born for strategy, leans in. "We do not want to be seen as aggressors. We want to be guardians. Frame our actions as necessary interventions to prevent a catastrophe that the Ministry cannot stop. Offer concrete solutions — protection zones, emergency laws, 'temporary' powers — that the public will accept because fear short-circuits scrutiny."
Arianna—Ariana, I correct myself sometimes, and her name feels better each time—sits straighter. "We must be careful in the means. If we slaughter and call it preservation, history will remember the slaughter. But if we pressure, control, and then present ourselves as the only stabilizing force, we will be remembered as the architects."
Edward frowns. "People will ask — what about those left behind? The ones who oppose you? Dumbledore, the order, the teachers? We need a way to neutralize opposition without martyring them."
I let the thought sit between us like an offered knife. "Neutralize reputations. We are not children throwing stones. We will remove credibility. We will reveal true scandals, and manufacture plausible ones where none exist. Not wholesale executions — that is for amateurs. We will rot authority from the inside. People follow leaders they trust. Take away the trust."
Abraxas smiles a slow, agreeable smile. "Money will plant the right friends. Contracts, donations, scholarships. We create gratitude networks. The Ministry will be full of people who cannot, in good conscience, defy us."
"Itachi," I say, "what of military response? Will the public accept an armed force under our sanction?"
He closes his eyes for a second and opens them. "People accept force when they believe it keeps them safe. If the Ministry is shown to be incompetent, and you offer an efficient alternative, the public will welcome an organized, disciplined answer. The key is legitimacy: legal frameworks, symbols of authority, and visible humanitarian gestures. March under rescue banners and few will ask why the rescuers carry arms."
Tam tilts her head. "And the moral question — what do we become? We talk of steering the world to avoid annihilation, but power reshapes the mind. How do we ensure we do not become what we replace?"
Silence. It is the only uncomfortable thing in the room. I could answer with platitudes — we are disciplined, we are gifted, we will not fall — but my honesty is a weapon. "We will be ruthless where necessary," I say plainly. "We will not romanticize. But we will mask our ruthlessness in competence. That's the difference. People forgive efficacy when framed as protection."
There is a faint chuckle from the corner. "And the rest?" Charles asks. "Guerrilla cells? Open insurrection? Or a political takeover?"
"We use all the levers," I tell them. "Politics first — reshape law, seed ministers and clerks, control the narratives. Then law enforcement and humanitarian operations that appear benevolent. We train a cadre of disciplined operatives — not children of ideology but professionals who act when required. Finally, if the moment calls for it, we will use force — targeted, decisive, surgical — to create the gravity that pulls the rest of the world into the orbit we choose."
Arianna's eyes are a cold bright. "And if Dumbledore opposes us in public? He is capable of exacting impossible moral authority."
"Then we force him to choose between two goods," I say. "To protect innocents or to defend abstract principles. He is not a fool; he will try to be both. We will make the former impossible without appearing as the villain. If he moves to block us, we expose the cost of his choices."
Edward uncovers a detail that pleases me. "How will we ensure the loyalty of those we recruit in the Ministry, the press, the institutions?"
"You reward them, and you entangle them," I say. "Financial ties, favors, contracts, and the slow hardening of dependence. People who are rewarded in small, reliable ways learn to expect more. You do not need to threaten them daily — that is wasteful. Let the society around them fold them in like a glove."
We talk for hours. We do not speak of massacres or needless cruelty. We outline frameworks, rhetoric, and a choreography that makes each move appear necessary and well-meaning. We discuss symbols — rescue banners, medical convoys, charity drives — because optics matter more than violence. A good chestful of public goodwill buys many sins.
Itachi draws up diagrams on the table — not maps of attack but flows of influence: donor networks, editorial lines, personnel placements. Tam proposes an education program, a set of scholarships and "safety certifications" that will normalize our institutions' presence in local communities. Abraxas proposes quiet financial incentives for ministry clerks — a network of small gratifications that purchase silence. Orion recommends legal counsel and guardians in the Ministry archives. Arianna volunteers specialized units to handle escalation — not terror, but containment. The conversation is clinical. Brutal. Brilliant.
When the meeting winds down, I stand and walk to the window. The moon is a thin coin. I look at the faces around the table, my instruments, my friends, my chosen kin.
"This is not the first war the world has seen," I tell them. "But it will be the first we shape before it happens. We will present ourselves as necessary. We will make the Ministry look like an old, brittle thing that refuses to mend. Then we will step in with order and the price of safety."
Tam comes to stand beside me. "And when the world asks why they must follow you?"
I smile without warmth. "Because I will be the one who can keep them alive long enough to change it. They will forgive me much if they believe I saved them."
We adjourn. They leave to tend their cells, their apprentices, the small mundane things that make a revolution plausible: letters sent, favors called, checks written, articles placed. I remain a moment longer, feeling the slow, cold pleasure of a man who knows how to bend not just a body, but an entire story.
A war begins the moment people believe they must take sides. Our task is to make their choices obvious, to make our side appear as the shelter when the storm arrives.
That is the truth of it: wars are less about swords and more about stories. I am a master storyteller.
Tomorrow we begin to write the first chapter.