All along, Dumbledore had hoped that Hogwarts could accommodate more Muggle-born wizards and witches. He wished that these young sorcerers, after entering the wizarding world, could subtly influence the stagnant Wizarding community and bring about a revolution through peaceful means—or such was his idea.
However, as Amelia said, the air of the wizarding world concealed something extremely stubborn and corrosive, and most Muggle-born children who aspired to survive in the Wizarding realm would inevitably be assimilated by it.
Bryan knew very well that Dumbledore's 'novel' idea was doomed to fail because he underestimated the potential of Muggles and underestimated the speed of progress in the Muggle world.
Endowed with a almost godlike perspective, Bryan was acutely aware that as the 21st century dawned and Muggle society wholeheartedly embraced the transformative power of the information age, the once-formidable flexibility of magic would find itself increasingly compressed. It might well take less than a century, he surmised, for wizards to be utterly overshadowed by Muggles in every conceivable aspect.
"The Statute of Secrecy, that has stood firm for three hundred years, is a solid cage," Bryan said, his words carrying a weight of conviction. "Everyone believes that it's the Muggles who live in the cage, but in reality, it's the wizards who are imprisoned, while Muggle society, undisturbed by the influence of wizards, has unleashed incredible potential."
Turning his gaze towards Amelia, who listened with rapt attention, Bryan spoke with a lightness that belied the gravity of his words. "I'd wager my life on it, Amelia. There's more than one Muggle nation's government secretly employing technology to research weapons that could counteract magic. If they succeed one day… Have you ever been to a Muggle zoo? That will be our fate."
Animals in the zoo – the vivid imagery evoked a visceral chill that ran up Amelia's forehead, causing her to shudder involuntarily.
Amelia, as a high-ranking Ministry official endowed with foresight, was no mere mediocre, bottom-tier wizard in the Wizarding community. She knew, with a certainty that pierced her very core, that Bryan was not exaggerating.
"Change is imperative—" Amelia uttered wearily, massaging her temples in a futile attempt to alleviate the mounting pressure she felt.
"Somebody has tried this before, but it failed," Bryan's flat tone elicited a visible twitch from Amelia's eyebrow, her expression morphing into one of abject horror.
"You mean—"
"Voldemort's external propaganda is to restore the glory of pure-blood families, but anyone who has experienced the turmoil of the past twenty years knows that what he truly pursues is a completely chaotic Wizarding world and Muggle society," Bryan expounded, his words carrying a chilling certainty. "He seeks dictatorship, not transformation."
Crash!
The teacup before Amelia was suddenly, violently upended, its contents – tea and fragrant leaves – spilling forth onto the wooden table in a cascade of disarray.
The pale-faced Amelia, her composure shaken, tried to retrieve the fallen cup, but her trembling hands and feet, uncooperative and rebellious, conspired against her efforts, rendering her attempts futile several times over.
A waitress, stationed nearby, bore witness to this unsettling scene and swiftly made her approach, trying to help. Yet, upon glimpsing the indifferent, almost dismissive gaze of the young man seated across from the gray-haired woman, she found herself rooted to the spot, paralyzed by an inexplicable force.
"We can handle it ourselves..." A magnetic, low voice resonated, and the startled woman, jolted from her trance, nodded vigorously, hastily shifting her gaze elsewhere.
"You actually..." Amelia's words trailed off, her mind grappling with the realization that the young man before her had dared to utter the name of the Dark Lord so casually.
Bryan lightly tapped the table, and the tea water that had splashed onto the wooden surface and the stone floor disappeared silently, as if it had never existed. Amelia, having finally regained her composure, did not reprimand Bryan for his brazen display of magic in plain sight of Muggles. Instead, she patted her chest, staring at him with a mixture of incredulity and dawning comprehension. Yet, when she saw the calm expression and inscrutable, unpredictable eyes of the young man seated across from her, she found herself unable to voice the questions that burned within her.
Amelia realized, in that pivotal moment, that the young wizard seated before her was a prodigy whose name would – no, had already – etched itself indelibly into the annals of the Wizarding world's history. A wizard as outstanding as Albus Dumbledore himself, would not be frightened in mentioning the name of 'mere' He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Bryan didn't care about the turmoil he stirred in Amelia's heart by uttering 'Voldemort.' Noticing her emotions stabilizing, he spoke indifferently,
"What I refer to is Gellert Grindelwald, whom people called the Dark Lord earlier. He was a wizard with foresight and a unique vision. He foresaw that if wizards always remained immersed in the glory of bygone eras, trapped in the amber of antiquity before the Middle Ages, they would eventually be driven into a dead end by Muggles. So, he sought to initiate a 'transformation' while Muggles were still powerless to resist."
"But he failed," Amelia remarked after a momentary silence, her voice laced with certainty. "Dumbledore stopped him."
"Even if Dumbledore hadn't intervened, he would still have failed because he took the wrong path," Bryan criticized mercilessly. "The so-called 'deep-rooted resistance' to acknowledging the rapid development of Muggles is not solely due to Wizards's reverence for tradition or their arrogant pride. It's because once revolution begins, it would harm the entrenched interests of pure-blood wizarding families.
For hundreds of years, these traditional wizarding families have rooted themselves in the Wizarding world like towering trees, controlling every aspect of ordinary wizards's lives, dominating the Ministry, public opinion, and even Hogwarts itself. War is bound to happen, but not like Grindelwald waging war against the Muggle world."
Amelia had broached this topic with the subtle intent of revealing her own future political aspirations, believing that a word like "revolution" or "change" would hold great appeal for a young wizard of exceptional talent and Muggle origin like Bryan. Yet, she had not anticipated that she herself would be drawn into it by Bryan's impassioned speech.
She listened intently and solemnly to Bryan's viewpoints. When she heard his unfinished sentence, a sense of dread welled up within her, and her expression became terribly unsightly.
She understood, with a dawning clarity, the implication behind Bryan's words: under the current, fixed structure of the wizarding world, any attempt at radical reform was doomed to fail unless there was a war– an internal war to purge those pests from within the Wizarding community itself.
"It's difficult to do, Bryan," Amelia said with palpable difficulty, her voice strained by the weight of her own words. "No one... has that kind of determination...and Albus will definitely stop it,"
Bryan toyed with the rim of the teacup, with a smile that revealed deep secrets on his face.
"Yes, it's difficult to do, but not impossible-" he remarked, his tone carrying a weight of conviction that sent a chill coursing through Amelia's very being.
"Out of chaos, stars are born.'"
Bryan's penetrating gaze settled upon Amelia, whose face was etched with suspicion and mounting unease. His smile, slightly slanted, carried an undercurrent of cold calculation.
"Stitching and strengthening may preserve a structure, but grandeur arises not from mere repairs. Great Civilizations do not merely collapse; they rise anew, phoenix-like, from the remnants of their past glory."
In that moment, a primal urge gripped Amelia – an urge to turn on her heel and flee, Or, at the cost of her very life, to draw her wand and arrest Bryan Watson then and there. In a daze, the Bryan Watson seated across from her seemed oblivious to the severe, potentially cataclysmic consequences his words would provoke if they were to spread. He would grow, she realized with dawning horror, into the next generation's Dark Lord, far more terrifying than the wizard whose name must not be mentioned!
The head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was in turmoil, cold sweat dripping from her gray temples, forming a small puddle on her shoulder.
If the person before her was not Bryan Watson – the very same who had single-handedly wiped out the nefarious Greyback and was hailed by many news media as the most powerful wizard under Albus Dumbledore himself – Amelia might not have felt such overwhelming weird fear. It was precisely because Bryan was a very powerful and well-known young wizard that she found herself gripped by fear, knowing full well that if Bryan attempted to incite a civil war in the Wizarding world, he was entirely capable of doing so!
"Don't worry, Amelia..." Bryan's voice cut through the silence, a slight smile playing upon his lips as he observed the beads of sweat forming on Amelia's eyebrows, and the constantly shifting expressions that danced across her face.
"Up to this point, I've never had the intention to actively push for that 'Revolution' in the Wizarding world. As you said, Dumbledore wouldn't support it, and the environment of the Wizarding world wouldn't allow it. But one day in the future, if the right moment comes, I wouldn't mind giving it a push."
The conversation on this topic ended with Amelia lapsing into a prolonged silence, but Bryan's words still planted a seed in her heart, a seed that might sprout one day in the future.
With the news about Sirius Black soon to be published, the hard-working Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement inviting Bryan for tea in the Muggle realm was not simply to cultivate friendship or discuss about change and revolutions.
In fact, the two met here for other matters.
A few days ago, at the press conference, Bryan's brilliant improvisation left the scandal-hungry Rita Skeeter, who delighted in pleasing the masses, utterly defeated.
However, Amelia had warned Bryan at the subsequent luncheon that Rita Skeeter was a troublesome sort who would not rest until digging up some sensational news from the now hot commodity Bryan Watson.
And things unfolded exactly as she had predicted. On the eve of the Ministry's release of the Sirius Black affair, Amelia received the news.
It was now 9 p.m., an hour when any wizards still out and about in the Wizarding world generally had something sinister in mind. But in the Muggle world, the exciting nightlife was just beginning.
Outside the shop window, the Muggle sidewalk was so crowded muggles were walking touching shoulder to shoulder in the sea of humans, while a middle-aged wizard wearing a light brown coat, clutching a tattered briefcase under his arm, with baldness more severe than Mr. Weasley, stood across the street, searching aimlessly.
When he finally spotted Amelia and Bryan through the glass window, he was startled and started to push through the bustling crowd despite many resentful glares, clutching his briefcase tightly as he made his way inside the Cafe.
"Good evening, Madam Bones!"
After much effort, the middle-aged wizard, wiping sweat from his forehead and panting, greeted Amelia and then turned his attention to Bryan, who wore a light smile. Before even sitting down, he exclaimed in a low voice, "Oh, what an honor, Mr. Watson, I didn't expect you to be here!"
"Allow me to introduce you, Bryan—"
Amelia pushed aside the unease and worry the previous topic had brought her, pursing her lips as her dignified demeanor returned to that of the renowned Head of Magical Law Enforcement, famed for her fairness in the wizarding world.
"The editor-in-chief of the Daily Prophet and an old friend to many of us in the Department, including myself, Mr. Barnabas Cuffe."
"I've heard a great deal about you—"
Bryan's hand met the awestruck Mr. Cuffe's on the wooden table, shaking a few times before he said in a steady voice,
"Yes, I had to come, Mr. Cuffe. Madam Bones informed me that the Daily Prophet will publish an article accusing me tomorrow morning, is that right?"
*******************************
For More Chapters; patreon.com/FicFrenzy