As for the mystery of why Dumbledore was eating Crazy Thursday on a Friday...
Even when Kasen went to bed that night, he still had no idea.
Maybe some Muggle-born young wizard had been sharing bits of daily life with Dumbledore, and Dumbledore simply remembered the day wrong.
Or perhaps someone had played a tiny prank on him.
As for who?
No one cared.
Just like how, at this moment, the wizarding world had sunk into a strange but brief period of peace.
Ever since Voldemort had been completely pierced through like a grilled sausage by Kasen's Orbital Dragon-Slaying Cannon, there had been no further news of him.
Which made sense.
Their boss had been solo-killed so many times. The first time, it had been by a baby not even a year old. After that, it was always some perfectly ordinary Alchemy professor...
Perhaps Voldemort had already resurrected by now and was simply figuring out how to rebuild his authority.
There were ways to do that, of course.
After all, no one else had witnessed the details of him getting solo-killed that day. He could always stubbornly insist that Kasen, Dumbledore, and Grindelwald had all ganged up on him.
Young and old teaming up to beat down one poor little villain.
No sense of honour!
And so, peaceful life continued all the way until the Halloween feast.
"What are you thinking about? You don't seem very enthusiastic."
Kasen was helping Professor McGonagall decorate the Great Hall alongside Steve, both of them wearing solemn expressions, when Snape, who had finally emerged from the dungeons and returned above ground, questioned him.
"Voldemort, obviously. How has he been lately? Has he been holding endless meetings with you lot because he lost so much of his fragile reputation?" Kasen asked in an extremely low voice, making sure no one else could hear.
"The Dark Lord isn't seeing anyone at present, apart from Barty Crouch Jr. and Bella."
Snape turned his head to make sure no one was looking their way before answering quietly.
"So he's already resurrected. That makes sense. You lot were probably ordered to search for and buy all those expensive materials for the resurrection ritual again, weren't you?"
Kasen suddenly pulled a ridiculous expression.
"Actually, I paid for most of it. The ordinary Death Eaters don't even know he died again," Snape said.
"I see... Do you think he'd fly into a rage if I gave him an exclusive news feature?"
Kasen had previously assumed Voldemort had used some terrifying method to temporarily stabilise his fellow Death Eaters.
Only now did he learn for the first time that Voldemort also practised the art of secretly dying.
In more flattering terms, he simply didn't want his subordinates to worry...
But as an enemy, if the Death Eaters weren't worried, Voldemort wouldn't be worried.
And if Voldemort wasn't worried, then Kasen had reason to worry.
"What kind of news are you planning this time? Are you trying to make the Dark Lord lead a massacre on the Daily Prophet offices?" Snape asked, raising an eyebrow.
Kasen shook his head.
"Whenever I see him having even a slightly better time, I feel uncomfortable all over. As for the news, I'm not planning to publish it in any particular newspaper. It'll be Christmas soon, and I have no interest in running around protecting the Daily Prophet offices."
"I might use something a little more magical."
After placing the final Halloween crystal decoration in position, Kasen found himself a corner and began thinking about how he could pull off something spectacular that would completely humiliate Voldemort.
Voldemort himself was actually nothing special.
No matter how powerful one wizard's magic was, could he really cause more chaos than Grindelwald had back when he set Paris ablaze?
The truly annoying part was Voldemort and his Death Eaters spending every day like a pack of stray dogs loitering outside a school gate, biting anyone they came across.
As for Voldemort's place in that ecosystem...
At most, he was just the leader of the dogs.
As long as he could use all sorts of methods to make the pack of wild dogs under Voldemort abandon him, then once only two or three strays remained, the ones who truly worshipped him like a god, what would there be to fear?
Clack, clack...
The sound of Steve moving around came from the distance.
Thanks to his skeletal appearance, Halloween was basically his home turf.
Although, to be fair, Steve normally lived quite comfortably at Hogwarts anyway.
From time to time, young wizards would even feed him sweets.
He was practically the embodiment of Halloween.
"Kasen, this area feels a little empty. What do you think about putting an End Crystal here?" McGonagall called over to him again.
"Coming!"
Kasen instinctively pulled out an End Crystal, then suddenly froze.
"Wait, no!"
He turned to Professor McGonagall.
"This thing is basically a bomb."
"Then can't we just surround it with glass?"
"Good idea."
Kasen tilted his head, instantly gave up thinking any further, placed the End Crystal in position, then enclosed the entire area with glass panes.
Once that was done, Kasen sat down in a chair at the staff table and began seriously considering how he could make Voldemort lose a tremendous amount of face on Halloween.
"Any ideas?" he asked, elbowing Dumbledore beside him.
"About what?"
"If I wanted to humiliate Voldemort today, what should I do?" Kasen asked.
"The Daily Prophet."
"What if Voldemort gets desperate and goes to personally smash up the Daily Prophet offices?" Kasen shook his head uneasily. "I'm going to come up with something safer."
"What sort of method?" Dumbledore asked curiously.
"Have you ever watched Naruto? There's a technique in it called Infinite Tsukuyomi."
Kasen was just about to explain his incredibly badass plan to Dumbledore in detail.
But just as he was preparing to follow the wisdom of those who came before him and lay out his grand scheme, Snape suddenly walked over with an ashen expression.
"The Dark Lord wants me to go to him immediately."
He bent slightly behind the two of them and spoke in a low voice.
"Understood... We'll make preparations," Dumbledore replied quickly.
After Snape left the castle and transformed into a cloud of black smoke before flying away, Kasen finally spoke.
"The Aurors should all still be at their posts right now, shouldn't they?"
"These are extraordinary times. Besides, they don't normally get Christmas holidays anyway," Dumbledore explained.
"Then there probably won't be too much chaos."
Kasen breathed a sigh of relief.
For now, all he needed to do was sit here quietly.
His plan to make Voldemort publicly humiliate himself would have to be shelved.
The most important thing now was to wait for information and avoid doing anything that might provoke Voldemort.
Otherwise, if this turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary Halloween meeting and Kasen somehow irritated him into launching an indiscriminate massacre, that would be a monumental disaster of his own making.
Before long, the ring on Kasen's finger grew warm.
He waved his hand and pulled a mirror out from it.
A face he had not seen in quite some time appeared in the reflection.
"Professor! It's Liam. The Dark Mark has appeared over Downing Street!"
...
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