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London
–Damian Hawthorne–
With a soft whoosh, he appeared high atop The Leaky Cauldron, the de facto entrance to Diagon Alley from the Muggle world, looking at the vast expanse of the city in front of him. It was beautiful, not just the view but also the fact that he was flying, unaided, and if things went right, he would see people doing the same, in his lifetime.
Granted, he was a wizard now, so his natural lifespan was far higher than just a century and change, on top of whatever boost he got to his longevity because of his superbody. Whatever it was, he would have loved to analyse it and see if he was some kind of mutant or not, but unfortunately, mad science like that was not his forte, especially not with science being what it was right now. Maybe in a decade or two, Tony Stark would get close, but right now? He was just a college kid.
Carefully, he let the jets of air keeping him afloat run down, as he began floating down, looking at the sea of people beneath him, bending around the entrance of the Leaky Cauldron as if ants avoiding an invisible obstacle.
Landing on the ground, he timed it the moment he felt himself entering the sphere of influence that kept the Leaky Cauldron out of the eyes of any Muggle and deactivated the invisibility enchantment, assuming a rather unassuming appearance, with robes and a hat.
All decked out with a pale face, brunette, and brown eyes, with a wand in hand, which was just a fancy looking piece of wood, he walked into the Leaky Cauldron, garnering no attention.
Perfect.
Still, the lack of customers save for the two old ones, both drinking alcohol with a dozen glasses on the table, told him that yesterday's incident had a pretty good impact on the newsline.
Nodding at Tom, he went to the wall, hitting the precise spots with just his magic, and pretending it was the wand that did it, as the relatively empty visage of Diagon Alley was revealed to him.
As soon as he did that, however, an Auror popped up right in front of him, "Hey! Didn't Tom tell you? This entrance is closed for the time being, for your own safety. Please use the Floo or come tomorrow." The Auror had a frustrated look on his young baby-ish face, as he took two steps forward and jabbed his wand into a corner, as he took two steps back, the wall rematerialising in its place.
He heard a bark of laughter behind him as he leaned back and saw Tom laughing at his bar counter, still using that rag of his to clean the counter. He was pretty sure that the same rag was used to clean the glasses as well, and despite what magic might tell him, he preferred for there to be separation between rags for utensils and rags for counters.
He was somewhat of a neat freak. Sue him.
"Sorry about that," Tom said as he slid a glass of something towards him, "On the house. Business has been slow today and I just couldn't help it when I saw a new face. I've never seen you before and I remember most faces that pass through this bar."
Tom was…surprisingly talkative, something that he took full advantage of, after the obligatory small talk.
When asked about the reason for the closure of the Alley entrance, Tom raised an eyebrow at him and remained silent for a moment before nodding, "You really are new here."
"Didn't believe me when I told you?" He asked, maintaining the somewhat adventurous and extroverted spirit he was trying to project from this persona. He was a backpacking wizard, coming from Europe, with British Ancestry. Both muggleborn and Pureblood parents, free spirit and all that.
Tom waved his hand with the rag at him before continuing, "Yeah, something happened yesterday. In Knockturn Alley. Frankly, if you ask me, they had it all long coming, but nobody expected something like that to happen."
"What happened?"
Tom leaned forward, as if they were discussing some conspiracy, "Word on the block is that the Aurors finally bit off more than they could chew and got their butts handed to them. Hell, I heard that Dumbledore had to save them."
"Heard?" He raised an eyebrow at that, "Did the Ministry say something? I thought the Daily Prophet would have something confirmed."
"That's the thing. They have not delivered today's newspaper yet. I think the Ministry has stopped the Daily Prophet from saying anything that might make the Minister look bad."
"Huh," He said as he leaned back, nodding at the logical conclusion. "Thank you for this. I'll wait for it then."
"Just order something, and you can sit as long as you want. As you can see," Tom gestured at the empty bar behind him, "Business is booming."
He smirked and shook his head, "Tempting but sadly, I have work to do."
Leaving the bar, he shook his head and apparated to his safehouse. He had a few hours to kill and some interesting experiments to do. He had the new vacuum isolation matrix to test.
___xx___
–Albus Dumbledore–
He sighed as he was pulled into yet another meeting, to soothe the ruffled feathers of the people in power. It always took something monumental happening for people to realise that just being in positions of power does not actually guarantee power.
Then, to feel secure, they had to call in people whom they believed to have power over the situation. Most times, it ended up being him, and despite what many people believe, he did not lord over the Ministry as if it was his personal fiefdom.
There were concessions and negotiations when it came to every single thing that he had to get from the government. Which is why he had no choice but to attend this meeting, lest he slight the Minister. Especially the newly elected one, who was known to play both sides, never tilting too far to one side.
It was a politician's game, and sometimes, he wondered whether it would be better to let his wand do the talking but then past experience dictated that doing so would only end in tragedy.
He had far too many questions that needed answering before he was even remotely ready to talk to the Minister but being the new Minister, Cornelius Fudge, a portly little man, he remembered being portly in his childhood as well, was sure to took him missing this meeting as snubbing the Ministry of Magic.
"Ah! Dumbledore, just the man I wanted to see. Come! Come!" Cornelius stood up and enthusiastically shook his hands as if his secretary had not told him exactly who was coming, after making him wait for 10 minutes. Another power play, but he liked to think he had aged beyond such petty tactics, but the burning questions in his mind made him slightly more impatient than he would have liked.
Ofcourse, he let none of that show on his face as he smiled genially, "Minister."
Once they were seated with tea in front of them, the cheap Ministry standard, Cornelius spoke, "So, ah, Headmaster, I know you are a busy man and I am sure that you are doing your best to get to the bottom of the issue, but time is running out. I can only hold back the Daily Prophet for so long. They have given me a 2 hour deadline to come out with the official Ministry story so that they can print it. You have to help me here."
"Hmm," He said noncommittally, as he thought of the repercussions of the power grab that Cornelius here did in his first few months of being Minister. It was an open secret that the Ministry held the highest number of shares in the Daily Prophet. Roughly 40%, if his memory served him correctly.
That alone was not enough to get the Daily Prophet to stop, but rarely has a man risen to the post of Ministry without the support of wealthy purebloods, who owned quite a bit of the newspaper as well. Cornelius must have called in some favours to get the votes required for such an action.
Ofcourse, they could not let things go too far, lest the common public realise something was up. Instead of it being delivered in the morning, it could be delivered in the evening. It would raise some eyebrows but it was manageable but if they missed an entire day? There would be fingers pointed at the Ministry and that was not the kind of attention that Cornelius here wanted.
Instead of answering Cornelius' question, he asked, "What did the members of the DMLE say? I assume they have a report ready for you." He had not requested a report because the most accurate one was within his mind, as most of the other aurors had long since evacuated after seeing him and the masked wizard in action.
Cornelius scoffed, "Them? They have been useless. Nothing they say can be published. They believe him to be a threat to society and want to declare to the common public about how deadly, dangerous, and lethal he can be. Bunch of idiots, I tell you!"
He ignored the jab at his own employees and after collecting his thoughts, he spoke, "Their idea does have merit, but," he spoke as Cornelius wanted to intervene, "a public announcement might just create panic and we don't want that."
"Thank you! I am glad at least you understand,"
"What you can do, however, is do it slowly. Designate him as a priority target, issue bounties, alert the ICW, and more. While we don't need panic in our society because of him, we do need him captured."
Cornelius looked at him with a narrowed gaze, silent for almost a minute before he spoke in a soft voice, "He's that dangerous, huh?"
"Yes," He nodded, "He is very dangerous. I can't tell you much right now except this. During our fight. Most of my spells were dodged or deflected using debris but some of them hit his shield. The shield did not even ripple. The wizard called the Giant Killer did not draw his wand against me."
Cornelius sucked in a breath of cold air as he continued, "The last spell, the one that devastated half of Knockturn Alley, was completely wandless as well, not to mention the ability of flight. I don't have to remind you of what happened when the last person who could fly waged a war against the Ministry."
Sweat gathered on Cornelius's forehead as he nodded swiftly, his hands trembling at the mere mention of Tom. He sighed internally. He wondered what his reaction would be when it was revealed that Tom was not dead yet.
Would he confront the truth and prepare for the inevitable, thereby increasing their chances?"
Or would he stick his head in the sand and pretend the problems did not exist until they were too big to ignore?
The way Cornelius' body trembled as he began writing out the order–something told him what choice he would make.
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