The sky overhead was bright with stars, and as Felix was walking through the streets of Cairo, Egypt, his body shape gradually changed but no one seemed to have noticed it. He entered a wizard tavern, and with his presence, the crowd, which had been boisterous, fell silent, and a sense of unease spread through the crowd from near to far, like wheat falling in a field.
The people were aware of his infamy from half a century ago, but there was a slight curiosity mixed with their fear.
"My brothers, my sisters, my fellow wizards," with a hint of hoarseness an old voice echoed in the tavern, and Grindelwald opened his arms wide, "I will put an end to the chaos in this land- "
"In the name of the Grindelwald Code!"
...
The next day, Harry woke up in a daze from his bed in the Burrow. His head was dizzy, and he fumbled around for a long time before finding his glasses in his shirt pocket, and after putting them on, he looked through the window to find that the sky was already bright, and the sun was a bit glaring.
He pushed one of Ron's arms away and jumped out of bed, and looked at the time on the old watch on his wrist - a birthday present from Mrs. Weasley, the original owner of this watch was her older brother who had died heroically in the war.
"Noon." Harry spat out a word, feeling a little dry in his throat and a little nauseous, which he guessed might have been from drinking too much champagne last night. He walked slowly downstairs, memories of the wedding surfacing bit by bit, Harry couldn't help but smile, it had been a fabulous night.
It had begun with Professor Hap informing him that he would be working with someone to complete a biography of Dumbledore, and then the Professor and Hermione had left one after another before showing up on the dance floor; at that time Harry had been talking with Elphias Doge for some time, and after recalling the content of the obituary Doge had written, Harry had grown fond of him.
The two had a good talk, but when Ginny had passed in front of them for the third time, Doge raised his glass and urged him to enjoy a good time promptly, which Harry accepted instantly, and then he hastily made an appointment with Doge for the next time they would meet, after which he pulled Ginny, who was waiting impatiently, to dance - and what happened after that?
Harry knocked his head gently, and when he passed Ginny's room on the second floor, he resisted the temptation to go over and knock on the door and made his way to the kitchen. He immediately felt grateful for that thought; Ginny was sitting at the table, eating breakfast (or was it lunch?) in a listless manner.
"Harry, you have woken up already?" Mrs. Weasley said with great enthusiasm, which interrupted the sweet whispers of Bill and Fleur who were sitting facing each other. In Harry's eyes, the married pair seemed to have become joined up as one, they started to share the same set of cutlery, as if Weasley's financial situation had taken a sharp turn for the worse.
"Yes, Mrs. Weasley, I just got up." Harry muttered.
"Allie!" Fleur greeted him warmly, in line with her usual French tone, "We're discussing vacation destinations, come over here and help us out."
Harry sat down next to Bill and looked down at the picture book that was handed to him, which was printed with pictures of various scenic locations. He flipped through two pages, and said, pointing to a cliff adjacent to the sea, "This looks good."
"Yeah," Fleur read the small words at the bottom of the photo with a thoughtful expression, "In Cornwall ... I have never been there, it says that there are wild roses blooming all over the place in summer, what do you think? " She turned her head to look at Bill.
"Honey, we have plenty of time to go to all the places." Bill said gently.
Mrs. Weasley served Harry a plate of food, the plate rattled loudly against the table, Harry felt she was in a not-so-pleasant mood and subconsciously glanced at Ginny, who made a face at him.
"Where's Mr. Weasley?" Harry asked.
"Left for work," Mrs. Weasley said absent-mindedly, "Percy and Penelope couldn't stay last night, there's not enough room in the house ... I was wondering if we ought to build an extra house around?"
"Mum," Bill said, "even if we move out, Fleur and I will come over to visit you and Dad every week."
As if her little thoughts had been exposed, Mrs. Weasley waved her rag in some panic and said, "Oh, yes, well, I just thought - there will always be times when the family will get together - like yesterday's occasion, it will certainly be used if we built it now. "
The meal was a heart-breaking one for Harry, but the atmosphere had long since settled down by the time Ron came down, gorging himself on fried eggs and pie.
"Any champagne left from yesterday?" Ron asked expectantly.
"No." Mrs. Weasley said with a stern face.
After their meal, Harry, Ron, and Ginny moved to the living room while Bill and Fleur went out for a walk, and the three listened to the tinkling in the kitchen until the moment when Ron asked, as an afterthought.
"What's wrong with Mom?"
Ginny sighed, "Bill and Fleur want to move out and live alone, it was already discussed and agreed upon, but Mom wants to struggle a little more."
Ron made a praying gesture.
"Merlin bless her."
"By the way," Harry asked Ginny, "how come I haven't seen Hermione? She wouldn't still be sleeping, would she?"
Ginny rolled her eyes.
"What are you thinking? She went to Diagon Alley first thing in the morning, and the radio said some muggles were invited to get a closer look at the wizarding community - kind of courtesy. Hermione was on TV a while back, and I thought she might be able to help." She said uncertainly.
Near the end of the evening, Hermione returned in high spirits, and she happily announced to the crowd that the activities of the day had been a great success.
"I kept an eye on them throughout the day, apart from a freckled woman who stayed in the beauty potion store and refused to come out, insisting on trying the potions inside, everything went well - no out-of-control little creatures ran out of the pet store, no books bite anyone in the Flourish and Blotts Bookseller, no goblins in the Gringotts yelled at the customers for being thief, no Bludgers in the Quality Quidditch Supplies knocked someone's head to hell ..."
Hermione said a lot of dangerous things in one breath and ended with a long breath of relief, making Harry wonder if those people went to the same place as he had imagined they would at all.
"Yeah, well, they were pretty lucky." Ron said with a sarcastic sneer.
Hermione ignored his sarcasm and continued, "I talked to one of them when she was standing idle--you wouldn't believe it, she's from France! And what's even more amazing is that she knows the Professor, but they didn't get to meet up today."
"Why?" Harry asked.
"Don't you know?" Hermione gave Harry a surprised look, "The Professor has left England and gone to the Headquarters of the International Confederation of Wizards."
...
The Headquarters of the International Confederation of Wizards is located in an unmarkable place on the northeastern border of France, in the middle of the wilderness, and has been protected since its early inception with almost all the known protective enchantments, with unquestionable security and secrecy. The only problem is that access to it is very troublesome and somewhat behind the times. Felix only visited this place once, and was dazzled by all the bright, nested layers of magical splendour, and was then taken to the neighbouring northeastern city of Strasbourg.
Strasbourg is the largest border city in France. This city is located on the west bank of the Rhine. It is bordered on the west by the Vosges Mountains; on the east by the river that runs between the German state of Baden-Württemberg and the German Black Forest at a distance of 25 kilometers; on the north by the forest of Agno, and on the south by the Rhine plain.
Felix and Babajide Akingbade walked for some time along the scenic riverbank and passed through a small area of wooden truss houses with medieval features and baroque sandstone buildings, then disappeared over a stone bridge.
The two men's footsteps were constantly echoed and amplified by the walls on either side of the spacious descending golden staircase, which echoed back to their ears all over again. Felix carefully examined the various reliefs carved on the walls.
"That's a scene from the first General Assembly of the International Confederation of Wizards," Akingbade said, pointing to the relief, "the Supreme Mugwump at the time - also the first Supreme Mugwump, Pierre Bonaccord, was a Frenchman, and he picked this as the venue for the General Assembly."
Felix was mildly surprised.
"I thought that the assembly would be held at the Confederation's headquarters."
"At that time, the headquarters was yet to be built, and the conditions were very rudimentary, so an open plaza was temporarily chosen. Goblins originally wanted to attend, but were driven away, oh, Wizards from Liechtenstein also did not attend."
"I seem to remember it was because of the trolls?"
"Yes, it was because of the trolls." Akingbade affirmed, "The wizards there had a tense relationship with some particularly vicious tribes of mountain trolls. They originally wanted to besiege the trolls with the help of the Confederation, but Pierre Bonaccord refused to help them."
Felix nodded.
Just by looking at the name, he knew that this wizard organization was originally established to promote cooperation between various countries of wizards in the wizarding world, and no other race had anything to do with it. The Supreme Mugwump of the Confederation generally played the role of a mediator to reconcile the conflicts between different countries, with extremely limited powers, until the end of the 17th century, when the concept of secrecy became more and more popular among the wizards at that time, and after several weeks of intense discussions, the Statute of Secrecy was developed.
In the end, the important task of monitoring the implementation of the Statute of Secrecy was taken up by the International Confederation of Wizards, which was rapidly expanded afterward, establishing subordinate departments to communicate, liaise and monitor the implementation of the Statute of Secrecy among wizards.
"Theoretically this was just an office of the Confederation," Akingbade said, "but later people realized that they preferred to work here rather than in a damp, deserted place, so a certain Supreme Mugwump of the Confederation bought this place, and buried the whole plaza where the meetings were held, and the staircase under our feet is part of the plaza...."
"The city has been through several wars and chaos, and the Confederation of Wizards members have returned to their true headquarters while leaving wizards from nearby countries to stay and conceal it, but of course, we couldn't care less, as long as we don't expose the presence of magic."
They walked through a circular hall with a very obvious ancient Roman style, luxurious, magnificent, with a spacious interior. Equally spaced individual doors were lined up on the walls of the circular hall, with each door seamed to face the center of the circle in the middle of the hall, as if invisible thin lines of light were radiating outward. On both sides of the door stood tall stone pillars and arched porch tops used for decoration.
Along the way, Felix only spotted two or three people as they walked from room to room, looking tired and weary.
"There are a lot of people who were listed to stay here, but most of them have their own mess and only come together when they need to, even I don't come here often myself, the general approach is to pick a place near to host a meeting when there is a problem." Akingbade said somewhat glumly: "A few weeks ago, there were still a number of representatives frequenting here to discuss plans; much earlier the Auror squads responsible for capturing Grindelwald also assembled here, but now the numbers are much smaller ..."
Well, why has it become like this?
It happened because the Confederation couldn't come up with a practical solution, and everyone left to take care of their own problems, so they didn't respond to the summons, and the Confederation immediately became an empty shell.
"What do you have in mind?" Akingbade asked Felix.
"The first step is definitely to regroup the prestige of the Confederation." Felix said thoughtfully, "I'm going to travel around the world first, so arrange a Special Envoy title for me, though I may need to spend a few days here first, going through the information and learning about the history of different countries' ministries of magic."
Felix stood in the empty hall and glanced around, looking hesitant. Akingbade immediately believed what he said a few percent, but if he knew what Felix was really thinking inside at the moment he probably wouldn't be all that positive.
'I can speak a lot about the information of the black market all over the world, but if someone asked me about the history of all those countries - I definitely would have filled in that part of my knowledge if I had known that such a day would come.'
Well, Felix's thinking room didn't contain much useful information about the history of the world, and even if he had once read it, he had long since tossed it aside like a piece of rubbish.
...
In the middle of August, Felix, who had been out wandering around for half a month, made a trip back to school. In the headmistress's office at Hogwarts Castle - "Three students have refused to enrol in the school." Professor McGonagall said seriously.
"Has this happened a lot in previous years?" Felix asked.
"It probably only happens once every two or three years." Professor McGonagall hesitated for a moment and explained, "You know, to a great extent the ancestors of the little Muggle-born wizards, even if it's dozens of generations back in the line were highly likely to be wizards, so these families are unlikely to have a strong aversion to magic in their blood ..."
Professor McGonagall grunted under her breath, "It's not like we're in America, where Scourers exist."
"They may have been affected by the recent news," Felix said with some headache, "Hogwarts doesn't force students to enrol, so if they are adamant about not agreeing, then let's cast some protection and monitoring magic in secret, in case they became Obscurial."
During this period of time, there was a lot of turbulence happening in the outside world, with many major incidents, of which many were related to Felix. Newspapers around the world - both magical and muggle newspapers - have featured his name.
For example, the following happened most recently.
A week ago, the descendants of the American Scourers approached law enforcement and handed over twelve children with magical gifts, and implored the authorities with great malice to research the secrets of the wizards. The children were immediately locked up under heavy protection, guarded by three hundred soldiers of great military force and layers of modern technology.
The day after this happened, a wizard dressed in a black wizard's robe walked up to the entrance of that particular facility and stood quietly in place for a while, then the door opened on its own and a group of soldiers voluntarily handed over the children to him, who then threw out a card and disappeared with the children without saying a word from the beginning to end.
The four soldiers in charge of guarding the gate turned a blind eye to them throughout the whole process. Apart from the footage captured by the surveillance camera, the only clue was the card left by the mysterious wizard. The logo on the card was later identified as the logo of the International Confederation of Wizards.
The Footage taken by surveillance cameras was naturally studied repeatedly.
Experts soon discovered that the mysterious wizard acted totally different from the information available, wearing a hood, not saying a word during the whole process, not reciting a single incantation, not pulling out a wand, not making a gesture - he even glanced at the camera before walking away, seemingly intentionally leaving his side profile.
God knows how many people gawk at Felix's straight nose and smooth jawline these days.
Seemingly under pressure from the outside world, the British Prime Minister issued a query, but it was strongly countered by Amelia Bones. Her reply repeatedly scrolled in text form on the TV news: the wizards are willing to cooperate and sign a treaty to prompt the accelerated birth of a new age, for which we have voluntarily extended goodwill, but if it comes at the cost of harm to the wizards - the wizards would prefer war.
On the same day, twenty-seven descendants of the Scourers died in twelve different locations in a bizarre manner, and the police could find no evidence of an invasion; also on the same day, the Acolytes, who had remained inactive, assembled in Africa from all directions.
If any scholars of later generations had studied this history, they would have found this event to be an extremely important turning point, marking the opening of a new page in the relationship between the two sides. For the next two days, in an eerie atmosphere, some people in the outside world raised a ruckus, but the authorities chose to remain silent, and the negotiations between the two sides coincidentally picked up speed.
Some issues that previously required hours or even days of debate became irrelevant at once, and there was a tacit agreement reached between the two sides to make concessions. Some journalists who have snooped on insider information said in an article that the public is expected to see the details of the draft contract between the two sides within a month.
In what seemed like the blink of an eye, September first arrived.
The opening day of school was here.
---------------
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