"We meet again, Mr. Hap." Akingbade said wearily, extending his hand to shake Felix's, "Can we find a place to talk? I spoke briefly with Amelia before coming here, and I was informed by her that you guys are doing a great job."
Felix was about to nod when a deep voice interjected, "Excuse me, would you mind adding me?"
"All together then, Horace." Akingbade said, seeing that Felix had no objection. "Horace is the President of the Magical Congress of the United States of America and has only been in office for less than a year." He added, and Felix heard a hint of sympathy in his words.
They were both caught up in an unforeseen historical crisis not long after taking up their posts, and both were facing the most difficult situation in the crisis - the former Akingbade realized that the rules that had worked for hundreds of years were no longer in effect, falling apart like a box full of tiny wizard puzzles on the floor, each piece shaped differently, and it was difficult to put them back together again.
The latter represents the most completely shattered pieces of the puzzle, which may have been crushed by someone who stepped on them.
"Hello, Mr. Hap," the President of the Magical Congress of the United States of America said, "Horace Grimsditch."
"Hello, Mr. Grimsditch," Felix mouthed the family name of a man prominent in American magical society, not surprisingly this man is also a descendant of the Original Twelve Aurors, "You two come with me."
He looked past the two men and glanced at Amelia Bones for a moment as he turned around. She was congratulating Mr. Weasley, and two familiar but unfamiliar faces stood not far away from them, Felix could not remember who they were for a while - not Tonks, she was staying with Lupin - as he led the way through the gap between the golden chairs, he suddenly remembered the duos' identities, they were the French and Bulgarian ministers of magic.
Behind the huge pillar, the three stood near the end of the tent.
Felix observed the two without moving, just like the other two had done.
It goes without saying that Akingbade, whose dark skin could not hide the deep wrinkles on his face, had a shaggy beard and did not seem to have slept well for some time. From what Ms. Bones said, he dispatched a special staff to request a copy of the negotiation minutes every day and probably spent most of his time studying the feasibility of such strategies. In contrast, Horace Grimsditch, clad in a purple wizard's robe with gold trim, seemed to have come prepared for the wedding. The President of the MACUSA appears to be in his fifties or sixties, but his real age is probably much older, his eyes are small with wrinkles around them, his gaze is firm, and his facial features are rigid, giving him a serious, old-fashioned look.
At a rough glance, Felix sketched out a simple character outline in his mind. When facing Horace Grimsditch, an image of Barty Crouch Sr. came to his mind.
Felix had no doubt that even with the Crouch Jr. mess, once Voldemort's return was announced openly, the Crouch Sr. would have immediately become Amelia Bones' strongest rival on the road to the Minister of Magic. During the war years, the public is always yearning for strong political leadership, and Fudge's weak image does not help at all - which is why he tried to avoid acknowledging that Voldemort was still alive.
But the problem that the people are facing right now could not be solved by a strong will alone.
"Let's cut to the chase, Mr. Hap. The situation is serious, the wizarding world needs your wisdom. I think you also have some plans regarding this, right? You are an expert in this field, predicting the inevitable exposure of the wizarding world well in advance, and the recent series of moves by the British Ministry of Magic have all been influenced by you."
"I do have such plans." Felix looked straight into Akingbade's eyes and said, "I'm sure you both reviewed all the reports available."
"To be precise, I reviewed it more than once. At the beginning of this month, it served as the only expert proposal that seemed to predict the future direction of the situation." Akingbade said, as for the second half of the month, naturally, the British Ministry of Magic attracted the world's attention with a dazzling series of actions on the outside world.
Everyone waiting with bated breath for a result.
Akingbade hardly could breathe under the enormous pressure and sudden burden of responsibility on his back, and he did not dare to make a decision lightly, the only thing he was able to do was ordering the ministries of magic, in general, to hide locally and try to make contact with local governments in order to reach a new agreement. He himself asked his assistant to find all of Felix's previous works and finally came to the conclusion that Felix did indeed have real expertise in this area.
"... Some of the findings mentioned in my previous articles have been proven. We have ignored the rate of Muggle progress, and hiding the existence of magic has become increasingly difficult, as evidenced by past data. Compared to a hundred years ago, the world's population has tripled, and they have taken over large areas of land, making the range of wizards' activities severely limited."
"The increase in population has brought more than just that." Felix said, "The number of wizards also rose along with them, which made all the problems mentioned before more acute and prominent. Of course, there are some benefits as well - wizards have completely dominated the magical world, and viewing these results from a higher perspective will let us see the silent synergy between wizards and non-wizards."
Horace Grimsditch, who was standing on the side, opened his mouth slightly; he had never thought of it that way, but it did make some sense when he thought about it carefully.
That's how goblins declined. They have done nothing wrong, but their influence is getting lower and lower.
One hundred years may be somewhat short, but when the time scale is broadened to two hundred, five hundred, or one thousand years, the trend would appear extremely conspicuous. He felt the need to go back and look over the past statistics to see if the number of wizards of muggle origin showing increase year by year.
Akingbade had recently read a lot of records and agreed with this statement by intuition with just a slight recollection. He concluded, "So the more the muggles develop, the more the population grows; the more the population grows, the bigger the place they occupy. At the same time, the number of wizards is also climbing, and all of these fall towards one result: contact between the two sides is inevitable."
"It's just a matter of sooner or later." Felix nodded.
"Excellent insight." Akingbade praised, and then asked, "You intend to duplicate and replicate what you did in the British Ministry of Magic? Pan-magical alliance, joint law enforcement, exclusive wands, squib groups, wizarding commerce, and some plans that are still on paper; I also found from the recent negotiations that you have taken some of Grindelwald's ideas and made modifications to make them less harsh ... which can be described as bold and shocking, but considering from my position, all the countries are not a single entity, there could be some kind of terrible chain reaction may happen when it involves the whole world."
That's Akingbade's biggest concern - Bones and Felix messing around will impact only one country at worst, if he messes around it will affect all the wizards.
"That's not true, the first step is always the hardest." Felix said.
"But other regions are different from Britain, like," Akingbade gave Horace Grimsditch a look, refraining from citing America where the situation is most dire, "like - well, Africa. The problem in Africa is the lack of a strong law enforcement presence, and with the unexpected failure of the statute of secrecy, the long-standing suppression has given the wizards in that land a tendency to take the wrong path, and the sight of wizards there are becoming more and more common."
"Our problem is just the opposite." Horace Grimsditch said seriously.
The existence of wizards in Africa, America, and England (or Europe) is well worth putting together for comparison, the British Ministry of Magic has largely enforced the statute of secrecy in a relatively comprehensive manner, and America is more strict in this respect, without any connection with the local government, which may be related to several serious disclosures in history. As a result, the two sides now have a very strong smell of gunpowder, and public opinion is not on their side at all, and they simply can only watch the situation deteriorate little by little; the conditions in Africa were the most relaxed among the three, and many wizards secretly had a 'side business', doing some fortune-telling and spiritual medium work. Felix thought of the young girl, Refitin, who disguised herself as a gypsy witch.
But it's not mean that African wizards are all happy.
Wizards are a group with outstanding individual capabilities and flexible means, and when they purposely dive underwater, they only leave behind a colourful bubble that looks like something else, but when they surface, they are bound to stir up the storm clouds and set off a flood of waves. They will no longer face the ordinary people at the bottom who are more than happy to accept the mysterious power, but the people in authority who are trying to control this power. The play of solicitation and division, attack and union will be staged in turn, and it will become more and more chaotic as time passes.
"The authority of the International Confederation of Witches must be re-established." Felix said.
Akingbade shook his head sadly.
"The authority of the International Confederation of Wizards was built up little by little with the common view to conceal the magic community back then, but now the foundation of the organization's existence has disappeared."
"Then find out the new meaning." Felix brought over what he had said to Ms. Bones and said it again.
Akingbade was somewhat moved; the International Confederation of Wizards is on the verge of collapse at his hands, and he wishes to restore its former brilliance more than anyone else, no matter what the cost is. But he also knew that everything had changed, and he still occupied this position because he and Grindelwald had made an unbreakable vow, which to a certain extent had restrained the fall of the already chaotic wizarding world into an unpredictable abyss.
"By the way," Akingbade seemed to remember something, "there is another huge-hidden problem in Africa."
"What is it?"
"Grindelwald!" Akingbade said in a deep voice.
Felix looked a little surprised and asked in a hurry, "What's going on? He doesn't seem to have made much fuss in the past two weeks, no?"
"That's the problem." Akingbade said, "I have seen his crafty nature, he will never sit back and wait for defeat, previously I was worried that he would intervene in the British peace negotiations, but that would mean standing against the vast majority of wizards, I have thought it over and over again since he is not in Britain, not in America, the biggest possibility of him hiding in would be Africa."
"Where is the ... evidence?"
"He has appeared in the Americas only a handful of times, at least publicly, compared to the surprisingly large number of times he has appeared in Africa. His excuse was to provide a sanctuary for wizards in crisis, and he did save a number of them, including a group of Uagadou students, gaining a massive reputation there - not to mention the fact that the place where he first proposed the Ten Rules of Wizardry was in Africa."
Felix blinked as he asked tentatively, "Perhaps it was only because Africa was truly chaotic during that time?"
Akingbade flatly denied it.
"He is a true demon, drawing his power from chaos." He looked at Felix with a heavy expression, "Some have speculated that he wants to make Africa a new source to acquire acolytes."
Felix looked at the two men with some bewilderment and muttered, "Yeah, it simply makes too much sense, if anyone has any hope of unifying the magical regime there anytime soon, it would be Grindelwald. Plus the rest of the world was busy minding their own business, so it would indeed be a good place to establish a stronghold - assuming he does intend to return to his old career."
Horace Grimsditch interjected, "I've heard something similar in the Muggle newspapers--" The other two stared at him in unison, and he stared over in surprise, "We certainly can't afford to play dumb when something like this happens. Pretend to be deaf and dumb."
"What did they say?" Felix asked.
He was missing something in that content. Bones had sent some Aurors abroad to gather information, but the results were limited and could only provide a general picture; Felix was still relying on Vinda Rosier's intel.
"Some of the muggle politicians think," Horace Grimsditch said with disgust in his eyes, "that the exposure of the magical world has left the wizards of all nations scattered, and that this is the perfect opportunity to get wizards to do their bidding, and some of the more radical rhetoric... ..."
"Well, what I mean is, their judgment of Grindelwald." Felix rephrased.
"Grindelwald destroyed an underground experiment facility and made such a big fuss about it that it had brought very negative repercussions at the time. A lot of people clamoured for the death penalty to be reinstated or for him to be strapped to the stake - and we all know the chances of that happening are close to none. The more critical media outlets reported pretty much the same thing as Mr. Akingbade's analysis, except that they also mentioned you."
"Me?"
"Yes," Horace Grimsditch said with an odd look on his face, "they think you two are bound to have a battle and if necessary you would help them."
"Would I ...?" Felix wasn't sure how to think of such news, would he fight with himself?
"You will." Akingbade said, "If Grindelwald intends to assassinate a few politicians, no one cares, the crime will be held against him anyway; but if he wants to destroy a city, we must do all we can to stop him, otherwise he will destroy the future of the wizards. Especially since we're still in the middle of negotiations."
Felix pondered quietly. At that moment two wizards dressed in bright gold walked some distance from them; it was Luna and her father, Xenophilius, with a huge sunflower headdress on Luna's head.
"Well, perhaps the current peaceful conditions have given you the wrong impression - what if, I mean what if, one side insists on starting a conflict?"
Babajide Akingbade and Horace Grimsditch looked at each other, this is a question they tried their best to avoid, they came on this trip to find out about the miracle the British Ministry of Magic was going to create, and couldn't wait to see if the miracle would still follow to the other places - this 'miracle ' has affected more than two hundred countries around the world, not a single country has declared war on wizards, and not a single country has caused an irreconcilable armed conflict between wizards and non-wizards.
"If necessary, some countries can be abandoned." Akingbade said with difficulty.
"What about the wizards living there?"
"Arrange for evacuation." Akingbade said.
"What about those who do not want to relocate, would you let them fend for themselves?"
Akingbade was speechless.
"Also, what about the newborn wizards from the muggle populace in that country?"
This was an equally unanswerable dilemma.
...
"Akingbade's face is pretty awful, what did you say?" In the golden chair, Ms. Bones leaned over quietly to inquire.
"Some truth."
Bones glared at Felix.
"The wedding has begun." Sirius said with a couple of coughs.
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