บท 211: Chapter 211: Turbulent Times
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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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1 May 1994, Hogwarts, Scotland
Victory was near. He could almost taste it. It was all coming together brilliantly. Even he hadn't expected things to just align themselves so perfectly when he devised the tournament months previously. He had his doubts, especially with the Potter boy being a thorn in his side, but by the end of the day, everything should be on track for his dream to become reality in Britain in a few years, and soon after, the entirety of Europe.
Who would have thought that a school tournament would be so important that it could change the course of history? And the best part, no one would even realize it. No one would imagine that this would be his crowning moment.
This was him realizing his goal, completely independent of the Light that governed his life. The creation of a truly peaceful magical world, where children would grow up without the shadows of war, learning magic as the wonderful force it was.
This was his crowning moment.
The income from the tickets made up for the materials he had used to build a new prison that he had dubbed Tartarus, after Greek mythology. For all the scandals and losing his position as the Supreme Mugwump, and with it a lot of influence over the European political scene, this prison more than made up for it. The moment Tartarus became the official magical prison in Britain and the inmates were finally transferred, Albus became untouchable.
Albus could turn the entire country on its head with barely a thought and with the way Cornelius blew a lot of gold trying to quickly capture the Azkaban escapees by hiring mercenaries and hit wizards, the ministry finances couldn't afford another large undertaking for years.
The man really was a far better peace minister than a wartime one. He panicked very quickly and was more worried about his investments in the Quidditch World Cup and the European tournament, which wouldn't really pay off for a few years. It wasn't really his fault. Cornelius' reforms would help the economy grow through international trade. It was the best way to move on from the civil war that Voldemort started but that was a long-term project, which he probably wants to outline in his reelection campaign.
But that wouldn't matter anyway. Today was the day Albus took his first step in destroying the last traces of ancient and unpredictable magic in magical Britain, something that even the Light seemed to approve of.
His journey that started the day his sister perished all those years ago, was coming to a close and he couldn't help but have a smile on his face ever since the day began. The destruction of his relationship with Grindelwald, his brother's hatred, his decades of manipulation, his years of slowly making magical experimentation fade out of society, and even destabilizing the country with a Dark Lord, in a civil war that he used to strategically eliminate people that would have eliminated him. After all, no one really paid attention to a few deaths here and there, when there were guerrilla attacks happening every day.
And this was it. The beginning of the end.
The Potter Boy was the first sacrifice for his end goal. His fate was a tragic one, even for Albus. The boy might have been a nuisance and a very intelligent wizard, but he lacked perspective and wisdom. He would have been an opponent of the making, and as much as it pained Albus to see such a promising wizard disappear, he made sure that the boy's life wouldn't be in vain.
In a way, it was Flamel who had doomed the boy as much as Albus did. He could have made do with the Philosopher's stone, but the famed Alchemist just had to hide it from him. He spent years looking for it, trying to decipher any clues in Nicholas' notes, but he gave up and ended up using one of the few artifacts remaining from those loathsome fey.
As much as it pained him to use such an artefact, it was his best choice, and the Potter boy was just too enticing of a victim. And no one would really miss the boy. Outside of Arcturus Black, and those three friends of his, no one really cared about Harry Potter and that made him the perfect target.
Albus watched from the stands, suppressing the urge to smile smugly, as the unconscious body of Harry Potter was being levitated to the infirmary. The crowd didn't even notice anything wrong; he was just one of the many lightly injured students who were eliminated from the maze.
Alastor grunted next to him, "So, I'm assuming this is your work."
"I'm afraid I have no idea what you're referencing. Young Harry's elimination was such a sad thing. Everyone had him as the underdog and expected him to somehow stumble into a victory."
The former Auror's response was a snort. He probably thought that Albus arranged for him to be eliminated. He didn't see the full picture. No one did. They didn't realize that this was not Harry Potter being fretted over by Madam Pomphrey.
The idea was simple, replace the boy's feed with that of one of his agents so that no one would notice his disappearance, and have him 'suffer' a magical accident in one of the challenges. It was just so easy with Polyjuice, and Dumbledore had even used alchemy to make his agent have his appearance permanently.
Then all it took was a spell misfire in the maze to eliminate him, and then not waking up due to a surprising case of Dragon Pox. It seemed like Arcturus Black did not check if his ward was up to date with his immunity potion. Albus had personally checked up on it and found no trace of them. All the detection charms would say that the boy suffered from the disease and a very quickly progressing one, considering how far along it was. Someone would even suggest that there had to have been some kind of magical interaction to accelerate its progression so much.
And those detection charms would be correct because the man wearing Harry Potter's skin was dying from the disease. He accepted Albus' deal in exchange for a nice sum of gold for his children, and a guarantee that they would have fruitful careers.
In the end, the boy would remain unconscious in Saint Mungo's until he inevitably perishes. As far as the world would have been concerned, it would have been the end of the Potter family.
No one would know the truth about the boy's fate and that suited him perfectly.
Still, the small speech that the Potter brat said as he was being bound to the artifact made him shudder. There was conviction in the promise of escaping and hunting down Dumbledore. So much so, that the headmaster almost believed it for a fraction of a second. It was utter nonsense, of course, the artifact's power was known to be absolute. The fey did not mess around with magical items.
He shook his head, ignoring the brat's words and promises of ruin. The Potter brat was gone and that was one loose end gone, nothing more.
With that done, Albus decided to switch to his next objective, Neville Longbottom. The boy had strangely grown since the mess that was his duelling match. He was fairly sure that someone had hexed the boy or something achieving a similar result. The boy might be a little reckless, but he wasn't stupid enough to cast Dark Magic in front of thousands of people.
It took more than a few bribes to the correct people for things to not blow up. The fact that the Warrington boy didn't press any charges stopped things from progressing from an official standpoint, but public opinion regarding the boy who lived was at an all-time low. Thankfully, Augusta Longbottom pulled her weight and stopped things from escalating too much and took young Neville out of school for a few weeks.
When Neville came back, he was more subdued, noticeably calmer, and stopped visibly craving for the approval of others. This didn't suit Albus' plans at all, but he had time to mold the boy to the fate he wished for.
Whatever the Longbottom Matriarch did to young Neville obviously worked wonders since the boy partnered up with Cassius Warrington instead of attacking him, and even publicly apologized for what he did. Albus could have done without the older boy revealing that Augusta paid him and his family off, but the obvious comradery between the two students made people's opinions of the boy who lived soar. The fact that young Neville promised to not win the task as repayment for the older boy saving him in the nightmare room helped matters a lot.
All in all, the artifact was ready for his plan, the Potter Boy was gone, Neville's reputation was finally starting to get a little better, and he had ended up with a fortune from the ticket sales. Talk about hitting four birds with one stone.
Deciding to get the whole event over with, Albus controlled the maze to shift in a way that the Longbottom and Warrington duo would have access to his shortcut towards the trophy. They solved the puzzle surprisingly quickly, and the moment they arrived near the trophy, Albus got up and walked out of the stands towards where the inevitable champion was going to appear.
All that remained was for Albus to announce the winner, retrieve the artifact, and silence Pettigrew. His final plan will be ready by the time the official award ceremony is ready. It would be more than enough time to get the artifact and make some final preparations.
He could get rid of Pettigrew later. The rat Animagus didn't know that Albus had tracking charms on him. Even if he had gotten rid of it, the headmaster had a vial of his blood that he could use as an anchor to a blood-tracking spell.
Thankfully, Wormtail was extremely predictable. Cowards often were. For all the rat Animagus wanted to believe that he had betrayed Albus and gotten one over him, the headmaster had already known about his defection and his plan of betraying the Potters. He didn't do anything since he had known from Severus that Lord Voldemort was planning on attacking the Longbottoms, which was where Albus laid his trap for Voldemort. However, Albus was growing suspicious of Lily Potter's behavior during the war. The girl was obviously not buying into his philosophy but was forcing herself to pretend that she did.
The headmaster had sacrificed too much for his dream to flourish. What he had done to Gellert alone was more than enough proof of it. Because when Albus defeated his rival, he did not just imprison him; he knew that nothing would hold a Dark Champion, let alone one of Gellert's talents, for very long. Instead, Albus had bound Gellert's very soul, his essence to Nurmengard. It had worked because, in a way, the Dark Lord considered this fortress to be his home; he had built it with his two hands, and poured some of his blood, magic, and even a little of his soul into it.
The Light had helped immensely with the ritual. Not only did this trap Gellert in the fortress, but it stopped him from dying and allowed a new Dark Champion to rise. The entire fortress acted like a bastardized Phylactery, a trap using Gellert's own soul.
This was a fate worse than Death. But it was a necessary one. The Light had promised him that this would be the first step towards achieving his ultimate goal, and so far, it did not steer him wrong. Now that he was a little wiser and a little more experienced, he could have found other ways of doing so. He understood that the Light had pushed him in a way to cripple the Dark. He was manipulated but not lied to. He learned to recognize the difference between the two over decades of life. When to resist the Light and when to follow its advice. It was a lesson that served him well, even now.
This was also why he refused to risk having people like Lily Potter in Britain. The troublemakers, the revolutionaries, they were no longer welcome in his new world. He would not allow it. He had sacrificed everything he held dear for his dream.
And in an hour at most, magical Britain would never be the same again.
Albus had finally reached the end of the stands Neville stopped himself from taking the trophy and offered it to Cassius as he promised. It was the perfect ending to a perfect task. Everything was so close.
Until it wasn't.
Until Cassius Warrington banished Neville into the trophy and the Portkey did not take him to the stands like it should have.
The crowd waited for almost half a minute, hoping for him to finally appear.
Dumbledore was about to frantically start tracking where Neville was but froze when a familiar voice spoke up from behind him, "Hello, Albus. Did you miss me?"
The headmaster paled as he turned and saw the recognizable face of the man whom he had doomed to a fate worse than death, the man who secured his ascension, the man whom he once loved, Gellert Grindelwald.
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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.
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