The world had a rhythm, and I had learned to move with it rather than against it. Loud, brazen conquests attract coalitions. Subtle power takes root and becomes inevitable. I had burned that lesson into every plan after the duel in the Great Hall. England was secure now; my banners hung over its ministries, markets, and schools. The people marched to my drum, more by conditioning and reward than by fear. That was how empires endured.
France would be different. France had fallen into place early, a loose ally shaped by Itachi's iron-quiet ministrations. He had been deft: minister, puppeteer, and cultivator of networks. He preferred the shade to my fire, and that suited me perfectly. He had already built a training ground across the Channel — a place where the Auror office became a school for minds I could later call upon. It was not conquest so much as a long, patient harvesting. I would nudge; he would reap.
America and China were a different calculus entirely. China's mass and the American magical military's reach made direct, head-on war a contingency I would not spring until I could afford a dozen mistakes. I would not be the rash tyrant who brought the world down upon himself. Lessons of history are useful when you can read the handwriting others have already left.
So the plan settled into clear lines.
Secure England completely — politically, economically, magically.Consolidate France quietly — infiltration, influence, and a puppet network so stable it resembled sovereignty.Research, refine, and wait — refine my magic, deepen my reserves, train my inner circle.When the hour is right, move outward — surgical, unstoppable.
Practicalities require detail.
— The Ministry would continue to hum with new edicts. I could command law, but law must be administered. I created three new executive councils: Infrastructure & Order, Arcane Research, and Foreign Magical Relations. Each chaired by a trusted subordinate and sanctioned with my mandatory loyalty bindings. They had visibility and reach; I had plausible deniability and distance.
— Propaganda would do the rest. I tightened control over the Daily Prophet and subsidized alternative journals that praised stability and practical magic. The narrative changed: unrest was the work of terrorists; reformers were saviors; dissenters were nostalgic eccentrics. Most minds prefer comfort to truth.
— The military arm was reorganized. Auror detachments were integrated with werewolf regiments and selected giants on static defense; tactical units made use of golems and transfigured constructs for siege work. I ordered quiet development of a rapid-deployment network of vanishing cabinets and fortified safe houses — a logistical backbone any modern campaign needs.
— Research continued day and night. The Forbidden Library's secrets were now actively mined. My apprentices churned through old runes and flaking parchment—every recovered spell, counter-spell, and ritual added another vector of advantage. I used Time-Turner cycles sparingly but efficiently, seeding my mind with tactical simulations centuries could produce.
— France remained my quiet project. Itachi's ministry had been secure for years; now he would transition from minister to viceroy in all but name. He had established several legal covers — cultural exchange programs, joint magical research institutes, and trade agreements that gave him plausible cause to place trusted agents throughout French magical infrastructure. I added a thin but lethal layer: a set of enchanted emissary seals that allowed me to pull resources through France without trace. Contracts were written in a dozen subtle languages — bank transfers disguised as art loans, shipments of alchemical reagents listed as theatrical supplies. The French Wizards believed they ran their own affairs; in truth, many of the levers I touched were already mine.
— Diplomacy was an art. The ICW watched, but they were pragmatists. They remembered how England had refused aid in the Grindelwald years; they were reluctant to expend treasure and lives while a single, if brilliant, man obeyed the rules in public. I would behave. I would slow my expansion long enough to seem reasonable. Seeming reasonable buys time; time made inevitability.
— Finally, the most delicate piece: the people. Hogwarts became my nursery for talent. The Sorting Hat's alterations were subtle; students still felt the old charm of house rivalry, but they also felt an implicit civic religion: the State of Power. Meritocracy under my banner. It would supply me the human engines for decades.
I walked through the Ministry gardens at dawn, the light slanting across bronze and stone. It felt good to have space again between events — the space where plans evolve into inevitabilities. I did not crave war for its own sake. War was a tool, and tools are sharpened, not wasted on impatience.
When I spoke to Itachi across the secure channel that evening his voice was cool and efficient. "France is stable. I have folded the academies into our network. We will keep Paris quiet."
"Good," I replied. "Hold the shadows until I call. No interruptions. No displays. Let them think they govern themselves."
"I will," he said. There was that familiar, dispassionate click at the end of his words; a man who prefers knives to fireworks. Perfect.
So I did as rulers do: I consolidated power, rewarded loyalty, and laid traps beneath velvet carpets. I took the long view, because immortality and a Horcrux make impatience a luxury I do not afford. For now, England would be my laboratory and my throne. France, my quiet investment. The rest of the world would be studied, mapped, and integrated in time.
And while the nations slept, I returned to my true obsession: the nature of magic itself. In the quiet of the Forbidden Library, pouring through Dumbledore's memory-echoes and the parchments I had wrested from other ages, I learned how to convert inevitability into law. The world is a web; I had only to pull at the right strands.
When the moment came that I decided to pull, the world would not feel the tug until the animals of the map had already been rearranged.