After a considerably long period of coordination, the International Confederation of Wizards Conference was finally convened.
To be precise, this session of the International Confederation of Wizards Conference should be called an Emergency Special Meeting of the International Confederation of Wizards.
The status of the International Confederation of Wizards in the Wizarding World was roughly equivalent to that of the United Nations in the Muggle world.
The last time the International Confederation of Wizards held such an emergency meeting could be traced all the way back to the 1940s—which was the peak era of Gellert Grindelwald.
As for the period when Voldemort was raging across Britain...
A village-level terrorist leader simply didn't have the qualifications to make the International Confederation of Wizards convene a meeting like this.
The location for this International Confederation of Wizards Conference was set at the headquarters of the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA)—namely, the Woolworth Building in New York, USA.
There was a reason why the International Confederation of Wizards chose to hold this meeting here.
As early as the beginning of the twentieth century, MACUSA had been a major force in opposing Grindelwald.
After Grindelwald flattened the entire French Ministry of Magic with supreme, overwhelming force, among the many ministries of magic, MACUSA was the one jumping up and down the hardest.
In truth, the mere flattening of the French Ministry of Magic wasn't enough to provoke such a fierce reaction from MACUSA.
The glorious tradition of surrendering quickly wasn't exclusive to the Muggle world; the Wizarding World had it too.
Given MACUSA's strength, they didn't hold the French wizards in high regard. After all, during Grindelwald's peak, the French were the ones who surrendered the fastest.
Even when Grindelwald launched a blitzkrieg back then, he couldn't manage to break through their defenses before the French Ministry of Magic submitted its surrender.
As long as I surrender fast enough, nobody can defeat me.jpg
The reason MACUSA was jumping around so frantically was another matter entirely—Grindelwald had flattened the French Ministry of Magic just to stand up for his son.
When speaking of Kyle, another incident that occurred a few years prior had to be mentioned.
Several years ago, people in MACUSA had discovered Kyle's existence through Ilvermorny School's admissions register.
America's Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was modeled after Hogwarts, as its founder, Isolt Sayre, had an aunt—Gormlaith Gaunt—who was a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin.
Hogwarts possessed the Book of Admittance, which could display the names of all children possessing magical talent, and Ilvermorny had an item with a similar function.
Unlike the original Book of Admittance, however, Ilvermorny's replica had to wait until a student reached enrollment age—eleven years old—before displaying their name.
That was the reason Kyle was able to lay low in MACUSA's territory for so long.
Kyle's appearance hadn't been given much importance by MACUSA, with the exception of one person—the current President of MACUSA, Pavel Graves.
According to ordinary people's thinking, Grindelwald had been gone from the Wizarding World for so many years that an eleven-year-old child who happened to share his surname could, at most, be a distant collateral relative of the Grindelwald family who had been left wandering outside.
Sending an Auror over to check out the situation would suffice; if he really was just a collateral relative, it wouldn't matter, and they could recruit him into Ilvermorny just like any other student.
After all, Grindelwald had collapsed long ago.
Of course, that was only how normal people thought.
Pavel Graves was different.
His grandfather was named Percival Graves.
That's right—the unfortunate soul whom Grindelwald had replaced using Human Transfiguration to infiltrate MACUSA back in the day.
As for where the original Percival went? That remained a mystery to this day.
After Grindelwald's identity fraud was exposed, the Aurors failed to find Percival's body.
Given Grindelwald's usual methods, Percival had most likely been incinerated into ash by Fiendfyre and scattered in the wind.
Percival was considered the most accomplished member of the Graves family in those years, yet he had died in such a humiliating manner. Thus, this hatred was handed down through the generations.
Driven by hatred for Grindelwald, his descendant Pavel had secretly given a separate order to the two Aurors assigned to the mission—if they discovered that this so-called Kyle Grindelwald belonged to that family, they were to execute him on the spot.
However, by the time the Aurors rushed to that abandoned factory in Brooklyn, Kyle had long since been carried across the Atlantic Ocean by Dumbledore, fleeing to Hogwarts.
Thus, the matter had simply ended without resolution.
But who could have guessed that this brat Kyle was actually Grindelwald's son?
Given how fiercely protective Grindelwald was of his child, if this past incident ever came to light, MACUSA would definitely suffer terrible consequences.
That was why Pavel Graves had spent this recent period sparing no effort, jumping around frantically to lobby the ministries of magic of other nations to form an alliance with them against Grindelwald.
Since they had already offended him anyway, they might as well offend him to the absolute end. As long as they could lock Gellert Grindelwald back inside Nurmengard, MACUSA would be safe.
That was Pavel Graves's train of thought.
Over the course of a single week, countless meetings of all sizes were held inside the Woolworth Building, accompanied by endless arguments.
Having arguments was completely normal. One had to understand that dealing with Grindelwald was an extremely dangerous endeavor, and not everyone shared an irreconcilable, blood-feud level of hatred with Grindelwald like the Graves family.
As for whether Grindelwald, upon his return, would continue pushing the ideology he preached before his defeat by Dumbledore—overthrowing the Wizarding World's Statute of Secrecy—that didn't have much to do with them either.
Because they were already mentally prepared for the Statute of Secrecy to fail.
With the advancement of Muggle technology, the effectiveness of the Statute of Secrecy was gradually weakening.
If Muggle technology developed to the level of Kyle's previous life before transmigrating, the moment a wizard or some magical creature caused a major incident that exposed them in front of Muggles...
If wizards failed to erase the memories in time, allowing Muggles to take photos or record videos and post them on the Internet, then within a few short seconds, that information would spread across the entire world, and the Wizarding World would be finished right then and there.
No matter how powerful Swooping Evil venom was, it couldn't possibly erase Muggle memories on such a massive scale, let alone wipe data off the Internet.
Since the Statute of Secrecy would fall apart sooner or later whether Grindelwald overturned it or not, it was better to stick their heads in the sand and quietly preserve their own little lives.
That way, they might even manage to survive under Grindelwald, because Grindelwald's attitude toward his fellow wizards remained quite tolerant.
But how could Pavel Graves tolerate these people hiding away and acting like timid turtles?
This drove him to jump around in the conference rooms with even greater zeal.
In order to assemble eighteen ministries of magic into an Anti-Grindelwald Coalition, Pavel selected two people as his diehard allies—British Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge, and French Minister for Magic Chrétien Burnham.
Between these two, the former could be said to have thoroughly and completely offended the Little Dark Lord at Hogwarts, right in front of the two Old Dark Lords—though Fudge himself hadn't realized Grindelwald was present at the time.
As for the latter, Grindelwald had led a gang of followers to trash his home base.
Although the Old Dark Lord hadn't inflicted any substantial harm on the French Ministry of Magic, his actions had stripped away the dignity of Chrétien and the entire French Ministry of Magic, stomping on it repeatedly—short of taking a leak right on top of it.
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