'Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.' – Sleepy Hallow (1999)
It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind. He was waiting for a call from the President of a far distant country, and between wondering when the wretched man would telephone, and trying to suppress unpleasant memories of what had been a very long, tiring, and difficult week, there was not much space in his head for anything else. The more he attempted to focus on the print on the page before him, the more clearly the Prime Minister could see the gloating face of one of his political opponents. This particular opponent had appeared on the news that very day, not only to enumerate all the terrible things that had happened in the last week (as though anyone needed reminding) but also to explain why each and every one of them was the government's fault.
The Prime Minister's pulse quickened at the very thought of these accusations, for they were neither fair nor true. How on earth was his government supposed to have stopped that bridge collapsing? It was outrageous for anybody to suggest that they were not spending enough on bridges. The bridge was fewer than ten years old, and the best experts were at a loss to explain why it had snapped cleanly in two, sending a dozen cars into the watery depths of the river below. And how dare anyone suggest that it was lack of policemen that had resulted in those two very nasty and well-publicized murders? Or that the government should have somehow foreseen the freak hurricane in the West Country that had caused so much damage to both people and property?
But no one knew that he had answers for all the above phenomena. But he also knew he couldn't say that in public unless he wanted to be thrown into the nearest mental institution. Magic… magic of all bloody things was the reason behind these attacks. The day he learnt that magic exists and was told the existence of a hidden community right under their noses was the day he never forgot.
He remembered it as though it were yesterday and knew it would haunt him until his dying day.
He had been standing alone in this very office, savouring the triumph that was his after so many years of dreaming and scheming, when he had heard a cough behind him, just like two days ago, and turned to find an ugly little portrait talking to him, announcing that the Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic was about to arrive and introduce himself
Naturally, he had thought that the long campaign and the strain of the election had caused him to go mad. He had been utterly terrified to find a portrait talking to him, though this had been nothing to how he felt when a self-proclaimed wizard had bounced out of the fireplace and shaken his hand. He had remained speechless throughout Fudge's kindly explanation that there were witches and wizards still living in secret all over the world and his reassurances that he was not to bother his head about them as the Ministry of Magic took responsibility for the whole Wizarding community and prevented the non-magical population from getting wind of them. It was, said Fudge, a difficult job that encompassed everything from regulations on the responsible use of broomsticks to keeping the dragon population under control (the Prime Minister remembered clutching the desk for support at this point). Fudge had then patted the shoulder of the still-dumbstruck Prime Minister in a fatherly sort of way.
"Not to worry," he had said, "it's odds-on you'll never see me or anyone from the Ministry again. We'll only bother you if there's something really serious going on our end, something that's likely to affect the Muggles—the non-magical population, I should say. Otherwise, it's live and let live. And I must say, you're taking it a lot better than your predecessor. He tried to throw me out the window, thought I was a hoax planned by the opposition."
At this, the Prime Minister had found his voice at last.
"You're—you're not a hoax, then?"
It had been his last, desperate hope then.
"No," said Fudge gently. "No, I'm afraid I'm not. Look."
And he had turned the Prime Minister's teacup into a gerbil.
"But," said the Prime Minister breathlessly, watching his teacup chewing on the corner of his next speech, "but why…why has nobody told me…?"
"The Minister of Magic or his Undersecretary only reveals himself or herself to the Muggle Prime Minister of the day," said Fudge, poking his wand back inside his jacket. "We find it the best way to maintain secrecy."
"But then," bleated the Prime Minister, "why hasn't a former Prime Minister warned me..?"
At this, Fudge had actually laughed.
"My dear Prime Minister, are you ever going to tell anybody?"
Still chortling, Fudge had thrown some powder into the fireplace, stepped into the emerald flames, and vanished with a whooshing sound. The Prime Minister had stood there, quite motionless, and realized that he would never, as long as he lived, dare mention this encounter to a living soul, for who in the wide world would believe him?
The shock had taken a little while to wear off. For a time, he had tried to convince himself that Fudge had indeed been a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep during his gruelling election campaign. In a vain attempt to rid himself of all reminders of this uncomfortable encounter, he had given the gerbil to his delighted niece and instructed his private secretary to take down the portrait of the ugly little man who had announced Fudge's arrival. To the Prime Minister's dismay, however, the portrait had proved impossible to remove. When several carpenters, a builder or two, an art historian, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had all tried unsuccessfully to pry it from the wall, the Prime Minister had abandoned the attempt and simply resolved to hope that the thing remained motionless and silent for the rest of his term in office. Occasionally he could have sworn he saw out of the corner of his eye the occupant of the painting yawning, or else scratching his nose; even, once or twice, simply walking out of his frame and leaving nothing but a stretch of muddy-brown canvas behind. However, he had trained himself not to look at the picture very much, and always to tell himself firmly that his eyes were playing tricks on him when anything like this happened.
He turned over the second page of the memo, saw how much longer it went on, and gave it up as a bad job. Stretching his arms above his head he looked around his office mournfully. It was a handsome room, with a fine marble fireplace facing the long sash windows closed due to unseasonal rain and thunderstorms. The rain hit the glass windows heavily and made his reflection look blurred.
A few moments later the lights got turned off but John knew the backup would return the power in a few moments. As predicted the power came back immediately as he continued watching his reflection and suddenly froze seeing an unfamiliar body in the reflection lounging casually eating something from a cup on the opposite side of the table where he usually conducted his meetings.
Trying not to give away what he was doing, John Major groped slowly for the panic button when the voice spoke up.
"The carpets here are exotic and add aesthetic appeal to this already beautiful office Lord Major." The unknown intruder spoke in a smooth cultured baritone voice yet he could hear the steel behind it. "I don't think red splashes will be a good design on them."
He scoffed internally at the arrogance of a boy who thought he could kill his security detail. Even though the intruder got past them there was no way anyone could kill a squad of highly trained killers the Prime Minister decided to humour him. Slowly he turned and got a good look at the intruder and his heart sunk and he immediately retracted his previous thought berating himself for his overconfidence.
The intruder was a handsome boy in his early teens. A fifteen-year-old child at most. Standing around five foot six inches his entire body was covered in a coal-black triple-sleeved overcoat with orange highlights and black pants with a knife holster tied to his right leg. He had diamond diamond-shaped face devoid of any baby fat which accentuated his sharp cheekbones, pointed chin and defined jawline. His hair was deep black cut into army army-cut hairstyle. His eyes are emerald green and he looked lazily from under his well-defined thick eyebrows.
If he hadn't got the report from the magical ministry, he'd have passed off this boy as a harmless teen. But he saw the photos at the places the wisp of the boy destroyed and knew better than to underestimate him.
"Judging by the way your heartbeat has gone up and how you reek of fear I guess the Ministry of Magic have informed you who I am. Still 'Manners maketh Man.' So…" the boy stood up setting the bowl he was eating from and walked gracefully towards the frozen minister and offered his hand. "My name is Evans, Harry Evans. Please call me Harry."
"I try not to be in cohort with criminals." The Prime Minister replied summoning his courage.
"Fair enough." He retracted his hand and sat down again. "Please make yourself comfortable."
Cautiously he sat back in his chair and hope bloomed from his chest when his fireplace turned green. It means some backup had come from the Ministry of Magic.
Instead, a person identical to the boy before him walked out of the fireplace with a bound person thrown over his shoulder.
The twin, or is it a copy or a clone, set the greying red-haired man he is carrying carefully on the other available chair and then cut off the ropes that bound the man and turned towards the intruder.
"Did you encounter any difficulties while extracting him?"
"No boss…" he cheerfully saluted "he's a fighter but he at the very most is on the same level as Kingsley Shacklebolt or Alastor Moody."
"So a low tokubetsu jonin then." The boy hummed. "You may dispel." He ordered and the clone disappeared with a slight amount of smoke.
"Don't think that any backup will come Prime Minister. I have sealed off all entry and exits. Sorry to put you in this position but the Ministry of Magic leaves me with very little choice."
"So you're here to assassinate both of us?" He asked gesturing towards the still unconscious man.
"Not really." He said and then turned towards the other man. "Mr Scamander." The boy spoke calmly. "Please stop pretending to be unconscious."
The old man opened his bright blue eyes and pulled out his wand. Whatever he tried to do with it was unknown as the spell disappeared before it even reached the boy.
"Sorry Mr Scamander." The boy spoke in an amused tone. "We are in the office of the Non-Maj Prime Minister. So any spell you aim towards any person in here would be suppressed by the wards. Really sorry for kidnapping you though. But I really don't have any intention of killing either of you."
Looking at their sceptical faces the boy sighed. "I swear on my magic and life that I have no intention of harming either Mr Newton Scamander or Lord John Major. If I have intentions to harm either of them let magic judge me and strip me of both. So mote it be." Then he raised his hand and created a pure ball of energy.
Newt look flabbergasted at the guts of the child who dared to perform a magical oath. Turning towards the Minister he said. "He's not lying. If he is he would be dead immediately."
This brought his courage back and he slammed his hands on his desk. "Then why on earth are you here? Why did you kidnap whoever this is?" he shouted.
"To talk." Was the boy's reply.
"To talk…" the politician parroted in a dumb astonishment. "You broke into one of the heavily guarded places in the entirety of London just for a bloody talk?"
"More or less…" the boy unrepentantly shrugged "Anyway I forgot to introduce you to the guest. This is Mr Newton Artemis Fido Scamander. He's a veteran from the Global wizarding war also known as World War Two by you guys and one of the greatest Magizoologists of all time." Seeing his confused face he elaborated "He studies magical creatures. But really the reason he's here is because he's the world's premier in one of the topics no wizard has ever dared to venture too closely."
Newt's eyes grew larger when he understood why he was there. Seething in rage he turned towards his kidnapper and growled "That research is classified for a reason. And I will never talk about it to you who used it to wreak havoc in the muggle world. And…" Whatever he was about to say died in his throat when the boy pulled out a file from inside his coat. It was an ornate file with a symbol of a cross with a serpent draped around it along with detached wings with the crown above it in an embossed golden print. It was the symbol of Unspeakables. Newt's full name was embossed the same way at the bottom.
His face turned ashen in terror. "How did you have that?" he stuttered in panic. "That's a heavily guarded file."
"I broke into the Ministry last night Mr Scamander. Out of all the files they have about this subject… yours was the best. Clean clear and clinical without a hint of bias, without a hint of pre-conceived beliefs. Excellent research if I have to comment."
"Anyway if you didn't understand what I am saying by now…let me explain to you clearly. This man was the world's premier in the study of Obscurials. The beings that wreaked havoc all around the country last week. Hell, he even rescued and took care of an Obscurial even after the host body was destroyed. Our Minister here needs to know about them.
So Mr Scamander… we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either you tell our Minister the necessary information about the Obscurials or I'll give him the entire file on it. Your choice."
Lips pressed tightly in clear frustration the wizened wizard spoke up. "Before wizards went underground when we were still being hunted by muggles, young wizards and witches sometimes tried to suppress their magic to avoid persecution. So instead of learning to harness or to control their powers, they developed parasitical creatures within their minds which was called an Obscurus as a result of strong emotional distress. The host is called Obscurial.
An Obscurial may lose control when they reach their emotional and mental breaking point, releasing their Obscurus as an invisible (or nearly invisible) destructive wind. In extreme cases, they may physically transform into an Obscurus.
When an Obscurial releases the Obscurus within, their eyes become pure white and their physical form vibrates and becomes distorted. While the Obscurus is invisible, the Obscurial can physically interact with the world without making physical contact, though the ability is uncontrolled and triggered by the host's distress, anger, or other intense emotions. This notably damages structures and objects near the host.
For the last almost three hundred years you, the Sudanese girl whom I was unable to rescue and Aurelius Dumbledore were the only Obscurials known and recorded. And shockingly…you are the only person who retained your mind while as an Obscurial. You are the only person who has control over your Obscurus instead of the other way around."
The Prime Minister who listened patiently was now spotting an enraged look on his face. "So for the abuse you faced in the hands of Non-Magical people you have done this." He growled. "Innocent people who have done nothing to you have lost their families because of your grudge."
The boy went from relaxed to enraged in a matter of moments. Whatever he did was unknown but suddenly both the men literally froze in fear and started to have visions of their death. The boy let it up after a few seconds and Newt despite being older recovered quickly the Prime Minister however was shivering continually in fear.
"Everything you said about the Obscurials is true except for the last few statements. I was never an Obscurial." He said frostily. "And what is recorded is false. The truth is that in the last three hundred years there are not three… there are at least seventeen Obscurials that have been formed and five have been formed just the last week as far as I know."
"Yo-You are ly-lying" Newt stuttered.
The cold emotional face slowly reverted back to mocking amusement. "Need another oath, Mr Scamander?" he said cockily. "Why do I need to lie when the truth is much more devastating?"
Here the boy pulled out some disc-shaped objects and walked towards the televisions present in the room. "Man, it's a pain in the ass to get these discs before the Her Majesty's Secret Wizarding Services got their grabby hands on them." Placing the disc in the DVD player the video played showing images of an eighteen-year-old girl transforming her eyes turning pure white, her physical form vibrating and distorting as she held a homeless person wailing to high heavens. A few moments later the intruder was on the scene trying to stop attacks and finally succeeded by pressing flame-covered fingers into her stomach. The roaring winds around them stopped and the girl form fell unconscious.
There are four other scenes similar to those. "All of these are completely authentic. You can have these verified if you want. Fifteen Muggleborns, Fifteen Obscurials… a condition that's seldom seen above the age of ten. And in the last ten years, there have been fifteen cases. And funnily one of them received 'full education' …" Here he growled " The first girl, her name is Penelope Clearwater, would have been graduated from the Society of Muggle-borns in a month. All the fifteen others were receiving 'magical education'. Please tell me, Mr Scamander, considering all these circumstances what are the chances of this happening."
"Next to none." He whispered still in a daze. "Did you tamper with any of these?"
"I'm ready to perform another magical oath that this isn't tampered with."
"You are on-site at every place where the Obscurial transformations happened." The Prime Minister spoke sharply. "You stopped them. You stopped five of them before they could do much more damage. Once is a chance twice is a coincidence third time is a pattern but you are there five times.
Your people may have branded you a criminal as they don't have all the facts but I'm willing to listen. You have an idea why is this happening. You must have an idea. You only showed what happened to five of them. What happened to the other ten children? You must have an idea what happened to the other ten. Please tell us you have…" Newt looked at the boy pleading with his eyes for answers.
"I do know what happened and truthfully… and the last five Obscurials were partially my fault." He said with an expression warring in between remorse and hatred. "I was the one who released them from the cages. The two murders I've committed were the jailers."
"Are you daft? You released Obscurials despite knowing the destruction they could inflict on the nation. So they are right… you are a criminal. Your hatred lead to all of this."
The boy laughed mirthlessly shaking his head. "If only my story is that simple Minister…"
Standing up he pulled a diary by the looks of it and placed it on the table. "I'll be back in five days. Please give it a thorough read. I'll come here even if you have bought a squad of Aurors to ambush me. But all I request is to not contact the Ministry before you read each and every page.
This diary is written by my friend Hermione Granger, and if you have to know she's the bushy-haired girl and the final Obscurial I've saved this week. This diary contains the last three years of her… no not only hers it contains the lives in the last three years of every Muggleborn sent into the England's wizarding world. It's private but I managed to convince her to give this to me.
This is precious to me and the only reason why I'm giving this is so that you can understand what happened. So you can understand how the brightest and the most kind-hearted girl I've ever known became something horrifying, something destructive. Read that and I hope you can understand what I did. You too can take a copy if you wish Mr Scamander. God day to you, Prime Minister." And immediately disappeared in front of their eyes leaving both of them stunned.
Slowly the Prime Minister picked up the diary and started to read it.
"How are the others, Penelope?" Harry asked a beautiful eighteen-year-old raven-haired girl sitting in a makeshift infirmary in an abandoned farmhouse.
"They'll live." She said calmly. "The parents and the children all of them will live Harry." He placed his hand on her shoulders and squeezed softly biting his lip and trying to suppress his tears.
"How can they do this to us? How can they do this to our parents? What have we ever done to them?" She asked her tone breaking down. "Maybe we might have stolen their magic but what did our parents do to them? They don't even recognise us. We might be as well a stone on the pathway for them if not for what you have done. Those pompous bastards made our parents think they were homeless beggars. My father is a Cardiothoracic surgeon but now he thinks he's a homeless person. My mother is a professor at a university but last seven years she was made into a prostitute and lived like that. Why Harry…Why did magic make a mistake and choose us?"
The boy stood solemnly for a few minutes and composed himself.
"I tested your blood in Gringotts Penny. Your great-grandfather is a squib. Hermione's grandmother is a squib who goes by the name Helena Selwyn. Dean's father who was killed in the Vietnam War is a half-blood. Colin's grandfather is a squib named Marius Black. Hell, both my parents are wizards. Terry's mother was…" here his knuckles went white and crescents formed on his palm drew blood because to the pressure "kept under Imperious and was raped by a sick bastard named Alecto Carrow. His stepfather was a kind-hearted man…" he said looking at a man in blue janitor clothes "…took her, married her and adopted him as his own. I checked all of their blood at Gringotts.
"You mean…you mean all of us are..."
"Magic didn't choose us by mistake Penny. Magic is not a man to make mistakes. And even the dogma they fed us is a lie. Let's say we really are thieves who stole magic from their squibs. How on earth can a thief steal anything which he does not know?
You know in the Department of Mysteries there's an excellent research paper on how Muggleborns came to existence. Due to inbreeding, there is the formation of physical and mental defects causing the offspring to become squibs. And pardon my animal language. Mating with outside blood started to heal centuries of defects in the blood. The Muggleborns are the ones whose bodies can accept magic after the defects are healed and cleansed."
"So by his definition, we are all half-bloods?"
"I guess we are." The boy spoke calmly. "No one in the Magical world will agree but we are."
"Why won't they agree? I mean it makes a lot more sense than all the dogma they fed to us."
"Oh, not too many people knew this. To prevent that from coming out the man might have been killed. and it was never revealed to the public. I never saw any more reports under that codename again so either he lost his job or was killed. I don't know which of these happened." Penelope suppressed a gasp at that.
"Why would they do that?"
"Can I tell you a story, Penny? It was usually taught in Greek philosophy classes." Taking a deep breath he started. "It was called The Allegory of the Cave."
"The premise," he expounded, and Penelope couldn't help but be drawn in by his narration, "was a cave where a group of slaves had been imprisoned from birth. These prisoners were chained so that their legs and necks were fixed, forcing them to gaze at the wall in front of them and not look around at the cave, each other, or themselves.
Behind the prisoners was a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners was a raised walkway with a low wall, behind which people walked carrying objects or puppets. The people walked behind the wall so their bodies did not cast shadows for the prisoners to see, but the objects they carried did. The prisoners couldn't see any of what was happening behind them, they were only able to see the shadows cast upon the cave wall in front of them. The sounds of the people talking echoed off the walls, and the prisoners believed that these sounds came from the shadows."
Penelope looked uncomfortable at the implied barbarism inherent to the allegory, sympathizing with the slaves' condition with that of her fellow Muggle-borns.
"Over time, the shadows became reality to the prisoners because they have never seen anything else; they did not realize that what they saw were shadows of objects in front of a fire, much less that these objects were inspired by real things outside the cave."
Harry looked at her for another long moment before continuing, "One day, one of the slaves broke free. He immediately turned around and saw the fire, but the light hurt his eyes and obscured the objects casting the shadows. He fled from the fire, and in his blind desperation he accidentally made his way to the surface where he stepped out into the brilliance of the morning sun."
An enraptured Penelope visualized that slave, pale and naked, basking in the warmth and light of the sun for the first time in his life.
"When he saw the sun, it all became clear to him—he realized that he and his fellows were living a false reality, a lie. He rushed back down into the cave and set about freeing the other slaves from their bondage so that they could see the light as he had."
She could hear the grim half-smile in his voice at the next words.
"Can you guess what they did Penny?"
She shook her head, and she could feel his same smile.
"They beat him to death, and put their chains back on."
She reeled back in shock at the unexpected ending. Not really bothered by her shock he continued
"The Magical world…" here he took a long breath "was not really different from those people in that cave. They might have forced chains on us but those fools are willing slaves. Slaves to their beliefs, slaves to their prejudice, slaves to their idiosyncratic biases and thousands of others. Just like the slave who accidentally escaped and realised that the world is not what they understood, there might be one or two people who tried to teach them and make them understand. But they were silenced and killed because the Wizarding World didn't want to let go of their chains. God forbid…" he mocked "if anyone dares to go against their tradition."
After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, she asked. "You compared the Wizarding World to those of slaves. Tell me who are the people who made them that way ." At his inquisitive look, she elaborated. "Because by this story it can't be just tradition. No, some people must know the truth yet are happy with the world being the way it is. Or even actively suppressing it."
"How did you come to that conclusion Penny?" he asked softly. "Maybe I just told the story to make you understand why England's wizarding world is this way. It doesn't mean every element in this story has to be present."
Penelope hesitated but looking closely Harry asked her how she came to that conclusion but didn't deny what she asked. Taking a deep breath she spoke out her thoughts.
"If the hatred for us Muggleborns are really rooted in their minds… if all of them think we are stealing their magic at the very worst we would have been killed. At the very best we would be dissected and experimented as animals..." The bitterness in her tone was clearly heard… "but no despite all the hell we've been through none of us have been killed. They destroyed our parents' lives yet there are no murders of Muggle-borns. There are no more than ten deaths and all those deaths happened because they escaped that hell hole and turned into Obscurials.
Someone wants us to live. Yeah beaten down broken beyond anything but someone wants us to live. I don't know what they want from us but they knew the truth and still puppeteering such that the world would live in ignorance."
"You're insightful, Penelope." The boy smiled softly. "Do you know Lord Marvolo Gaunt?"
Blinking a bit at the question she nonetheless answered him. "He's the current Minister of Magic, isn't he? Is he one of them? He doesn't give that vibe. More like to wipe out all the Muggle-borns and even half-bloods off the face of the earth."
"He does have that vibe doesn't he?" Harry mused. "Funnily if he is to act upon that desire well he too would be wiped out."
The meaning of that statement fell upon her like a pile of bricks. "H-he's a muggleborn?" The raven-haired boy shook his head and replied. "A half-blood."
"But he is said to be heir of one of the Founders of Hogwarts, Salazar Slytherin." She said passionately. "The incest-loving bastard that started all this useless blood supremacy."
"His mother's name is Merope Gaunt. His father is a muggle aristocrat named Thomas Riddle. He might have erased his half-blood status in Wizarding World but on the mundane side, the marriage certificate is still present. His birth certificate on which his real name Tom Marvolo Riddle with his parents' names are present is still in the mundane records. The ironic and hypocritical thing is that the champion of Blood supremacy is a half-blood himself."
Shaking his head he continued. "Anyway, we're off the topic. He's the heart of that corrupt government. He's one of the puppeteers. But not the only one. The grandmaster puppeteer was the head of the snake which allowed this. You asked me right that someone who wants something from us. He's that man."
"Who is he?" She asked her grey eyes turning steely. The answer she received was not the one she was expecting.
"Professor Albus Dumbledore."
This time she couldn't control the shock that appeared on her face.
"The Head Master of Hogwarts?"
Harry simply nodded. "He looked like a man incapable of cruelty." She spoke incredulously. "He showed kindness where all the others showed cruelty. How on earth is he that person?"
"Villany wears many masks, Penelope. But none are as dangerous as the mask of virtue."
"What do we have to offer? What is he expecting from us?"
"You have enough shocks today. I'll tell you another time ok."
"Anyway there are more than two hundred Muggle-borns that have remained in that hell. I will go back for them." Here his eyes turned glacial. "No more. This ends even if I have to burn down the world. No more."
"But what happens if they turn into monsters like me and the others"
" Then I'll stop them just as I have stopped you and the others."
"And then what will you do?" she asked
The boy's smile was angelic when he answered. "What will I do? I always wanted to be a teacher. I'll teach them to be me."
Penelope remembering the way he killed Filch and her former Headmistress Umbridge felt no small amount of pity for the wizarding world