The Old Ones of Hogwarts

Chapter 554, page 563: Ian the Great Demon God 1

It was another long few minutes.

When they looked up again, their expressions were exactly the same as Windsor's.

"That boy..." Ashworth murmured, his voice trembling, "Who exactly is he?"

"I can't sense the boundaries of his magic." Foley's voice trembled as well. "He stood there, like a deep pool, like...like an abyss. There's only one possibility."

He looked at Windsor, who spoke for him the chilling conclusion:

"His level is higher than Voldemort's."

Dead silence.

Absolute silence.

The people who had been arguing fiercely just moments before now stood frozen in place, their faces filled with terror and bewilderment. Even greater than Voldemort?

Voldemort is already a legend.

What's even higher than legend?

Nobody knows.

No one dared to even think about it.

Finally, Windsor broke the silence: "Notify the International Wizarding Federation. This is no longer a matter that the British Ministry of Magic can handle alone. Furthermore..."

He looked at Fudge, "Please contact the Department of Mysteries. We need more precise testing."

The Secret Service arrived an hour later.

Three people dressed in grey robes, their faces completely shrouded in shadow, appeared silently in the office. No one could tell how they got there.

No one dared to ask.

Under Dumbledore's leadership.

Everyone returned to the scene.

At dawn, the ruins in East London were shrouded in a light morning mist.

When the Ministry of Magic's emergency response team arrived, the scene was already heavily cordoned off by Muggle police—at least twenty police cars were parked around, their flashing lights particularly glaring in the morning light. Dozens of heavily armed police officers patrolled back and forth outside the cordon, their faces etched with tension and confusion.

"They must have seen something they shouldn't have," said Scrimgeour, the Auror's chief of staff, frowning. "It's something that ordinary Muggles can't possibly understand."

Dumbledore stood beside him and nodded. Although utterly exhausted, he insisted on being there as the only "normal" wizard to witness the entire event firsthand.

His judgment was crucial to the investigation.

"Take care of the Muggles first," Dumbledore said, drawing the Elder Wand.

He stepped forward, and the policemen, seeing him approach, immediately raised their guns in alarm. However, before they could utter a warning, Dumbledore's wand had already swung.

"To confuse the public."

An invisible wave of magical energy spread out, rippling across every policeman. Their expressions instantly turned blank, their guns slowly lowered, and their eyes stared vacantly into the distance.

"What you witnessed was a chain reaction triggered by a gas pipeline explosion." Dumbledore's voice was calm and gentle, with a hypnotic power. "The car explosion was due to mechanical failure. There was nothing unusual. You have completed your containment mission and can now withdraw. Go back and write your report... 'Suspected industrial accident, under further investigation.'"

This is a memory alteration.

The police officers nodded like puppets, then turned around and began packing up the police tape, signaling their colleagues to evacuate. In less than ten minutes, all the police cars had left, leaving only the Ministry of Magic investigators at the scene.

"The Muggle memory modification needs to be completed as soon as possible," Scrimgeour said. "Such a large scope, so many people...we'll have to use the entire Memory Deletion Office."

"Let's get down to business first," Dumbledore said, glancing at the ruins.

The Aurors began to scatter, searching the ruins for any remaining traces of magic. But soon, they discovered a strange fact.

There was almost nothing.

There were no signs of battle, no scorch marks from a large-scale magical clash, no bloodstains, no corpses. Only empty streets, collapsed stalls, and the trampled remnants of the night market.

"This...this isn't right," an Auror murmured. "According to Professor Dumbledore's description, a tremendous battle should have taken place here."

"Illusion." Dumbledore took a deep breath. "That boy... he used illusion to cover the entire area. Everyone was pulled into the illusion, but in the real world... nothing happened."

This realization sent chills down the spines of everyone present.

An illusion that covers the entire area?

How could hundreds of people, including Death Eaters, Muggles, and even top wizards like Dumbledore and Grindelwald, be completely caught up in it without them even realizing it?

What terrifying mental strength would that require?

Just then, an Auror exclaimed, "There are residual magical fluctuations here! Very strong ones!"

Everyone crowded around. Scrimgeour took out a sophisticated magic detector—the Ministry of Magic's most advanced equipment, capable of detecting any trace of magic remaining within the last seventy-two hours. He pointed the detector at the area...

The detector's pointer jumped wildly, and then "pop!" it exploded.

"This..." Scrimgeour stared blankly at the smoking device in his hand. "This is the latest model, capable of withstanding any magic power below the legendary level..."

Dumbledore stepped forward, knelt down, and gently touched the ground with his hand. His brow furrowed, and he remained silent for a long time before standing up, his voice carrying an undisguised gravity:

"Call the Mysterious Affairs Department. The situation here is beyond our capabilities." As soon as he finished speaking, several people from the Mysterious Affairs Department appeared.

No one knew their names, no one had ever seen their faces; they were like shadows themselves, forever shrouded in those grey hoods.

This time, they brought that eerie device—a machine made of countless crystal balls and metal gears, constantly rotating and emitting a low-frequency hum. The machine floated slowly in the morning light, and from time to time, blurry, incomprehensible images flashed through the crystal balls, like shattered dreams.

The three men in gray robes split up and went their separate ways.

The first person to operate the machine watched it slowly rise into the air and begin to rotate automatically. The images in the crystal balls flickered more frequently, sometimes revealing blurry figures, and sometimes transforming into pure, chaotic colors. The machine's humming rose and fell, as if conversing with some unseen force.

The second grey-robed man took out a slender crystal rod and began to walk slowly through the ruins. As the rod sliced ​​through the air, it occasionally left brief trails of light, like the afterimages of some ancient rune. He reached the spot Dumbledore had described—the place where Ian had once stood—when the crystal rod suddenly trembled violently, emitting a piercing shriek, nearly slipping from his grasp. The trail of light coalesced in the air into a complex symbol, remaining there for a full three seconds before slowly dissipating.

The third man in the grey robes produced a thick book whose cover kept changing color, sometimes turning black, sometimes deep red, and sometimes revealing golden patterns. He flipped through the pages rapidly, muttering to himself. The sound of the pages turning was exceptionally clear in the silent ruins. Sometimes, he would suddenly stop, flip back a few pages, his brow furrowed, as if he were comparing something.

The testing took a full hour.

During this time, the machine would sometimes emit a ghostly blue light, illuminating the entire ruins; sometimes it would turn deep red, as if soaked in blood; and sometimes it would suddenly come to a complete stop, even the humming sound disappearing, but that silence was all the more unsettling. The trails left by the crystal rod as it swept through the air became more numerous and complex, eventually forming a faintly visible net of light above that area. Meanwhile, the pages of the book were jumping wildly, sometimes even turning at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye, as if the pages themselves were resisting something.

No one dared to make a sound. Dumbledore stood quietly to the side, while Scrimgeour and the Aurors held their breath, afraid of making any noise that might affect the test. Even the Muggles in the distance, controlled by the Confusion Charm, seemed to sense something, their sleep revealing uneasy expressions. Finally, the test was over.

The machine slowly descended, its light fading, returning it to its ordinary, silent state. The light from the crystal rod dissipated, leaving only a faint lingering glow in the air. The book also stopped turning its pages, its cover frozen in a deep, all-encompassing black.

Three grey-robed men huddled together and exchanged a few words in hushed tones. Their voices were so low that even Dumbledore couldn't hear what they were saying. But from their occasional raised gestures and slightly trembling shoulders, it was clear that the content of their conversation shocked even themselves. Then, one of the grey-robed men approached Dumbledore and handed him a sealed envelope. The envelope bore the emblem of the Department of Mysteries—an eye without pupils that gleamed faintly silver in the morning light.

Without saying a word, he turned and left.

The other two gray-robed figures had already put away their devices and turned around. The three of them disappeared silently into the mist at the edge of the ruins, just as they had come.

Dumbledore looked down at the envelope in his hand, remained silent for a few seconds, then tore open the seal and took out the parchment inside.

There was only one line of text on the paper, written with a special ink that changed color depending on the light:

"Confirmed. Target 1 Magic Level: Legendary. Target 2 Magic Level: Higher than Legendary (cannot be precisely determined). Source: Unknown. Recommendation: Full alert."

Dumbledore lowered his eyes slightly, then handed the parchment to Scrimgeour.

Scrimgeour took it, glanced at it, and the color drained from his face instantly. His hands trembled, his lips trembled, his whole body trembled. "Higher than...legendary?" His voice was almost inaudible. "Unable to be precisely measured? What...what does this mean?"

No one could answer him.

He passed the parchment to the Auror next to him, who glanced at it, his legs buckled, and he collapsed to the ground. The parchment was then passed to the next person, and the next to the next…

After everyone had seen the parchment, the ruins fell into a deathly silence.

Only the morning mist drifted slowly, and only the occasional cry of seagulls could be heard from afar.

After a long silence, an Auror murmured, "Two legends... one of them is Voldemort... what should we do?"

Scrimgeour opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end he could only let out a powerless sigh.

Dumbledore remained standing there, gazing in the direction the three grey-robed men had disappeared. His back, bathed in the morning light, appeared exceptionally lonely and heavy. "And that boy," he finally spoke, his voice unsettlingly calm, "more than a legend. Origin unknown. Friend or foe unknown." He turned, his gaze sweeping over every terrified face present:

"From this day forward, the magical world will enter an unprecedented era. Everything we know, the rules upon which we depend for survival, may be completely rewritten. Prepare yourselves."

The morning light is getting brighter; a new day has begun.

But at this moment, everyone standing on the ruins felt an unprecedented chill—a fear of the unknown, an awe of incomprehensible power, and a premonition of the impending storm.

Two legends.

One that surpasses even the legendary.

And they knew nothing about it.

Everyone's feelings at this moment were hard to describe. Of course, even so, things still needed to be dealt with, and most people didn't know how they returned to the Ministry of Magic in a daze.

Many people probably won't be able to fall asleep again after this. Time slipped by unnoticed. Outside the window, the eastern sky began to lighten with the first hint of dawn. Dumbledore was still assisting with the presentations and recording. Finally, the last question was answered, and the last record was signed. The officials left one after another; some went to handle follow-up matters, some went to catch up on sleep, and some simply needed to get some fresh air from this oppressive space. In the office, only Fudge and Dumbledore remained.

Fudge sat behind his large desk, hands clasped, head bowed, in silence for a long time. Dumbledore also remained silent, simply sitting quietly opposite him, waiting.

Finally, Fudge raised his head. His face was even paler than it had been a few hours earlier, and the dark circles under his eyes were clearly visible. He looked as if he had aged ten years overnight.

"Dumbledore," his voice was hoarse and weary, "one last question."

Dumbledore looked at him and waited.

"The mysterious figure... still exists, right?"

Fudge's voice was soft, yet it struck the air between the two like a boulder.

"You did not defeat him."

It's not a question, it's a statement.

Dumbledore did not speak.

He neither nodded nor shook his head. He simply lowered his eyes; those once azure eyes, capable of seeing through countless mysteries, were now lowered, his gaze fixed on his hands folded across his knees. Those hands, old and wrinkled, had once wielded countless powerful spells. They had once defeated Grindelwald, and had protected the magical world for decades.

But at this moment, they simply lay there quietly, motionless.

silence.

A long, suffocating silence.

The office was dark, only the faint light of dawn filtering through the window cast two silent silhouettes of the two men. Fudge stared at Dumbledore, waiting for his answer. One second, two seconds, ten seconds, one minute…

Dumbledore remained silent throughout.

He neither denied nor explained, nor did he use his usual soothing words to ease the tension. He simply remained silent, and with that silence, he admitted everything.

Yes, Voldemort is still around.

Yes, he did not defeat him. That dark shadow still hangs over the magical world, larger and more dangerous than ever before.

"And that kid, damn it, why did it have to happen during my term!"

Fudge slowly leaned back in his chair.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. In that breath was helplessness, fear, and uncertainty about the future.