"Let's get down to business."
Douglas nodded and reached into the inner layer of his pack, drawing out a scroll with the kind of care you'd give something fragile.
The ancient parchment still carried with it , that dry, sun-scorched smell of the Nile.
He unrolled it across Dumbledore's desk.
Three ancient scripts covered the surface, written in three different magical inks, the clauses packed tight and dense from edge to edge. A tripartite agreement, jointly signed by Hogwarts, the Egyptian Ministry of Magic, and Uagadou School of Magic.
The smile left Dumbledore's face.
He settled his half-moon spectacles back onto his nose and read carefully, working through every word on the scroll. His gaze was focused and sharp, the kind that seemed to pierce straight through the parchment to every hidden negotiation and calculated trade-off buried behind the text.
"A brilliant diplomatic victory, Douglas."
After a long moment, Dumbledore looked up. His praise was entirely sincere.
"Trading a handful of insignificant little gold mines for a priceless ancient magic testing ground." He paused. "The Egyptians won't realize what they've given away for quite some time."
He picked up the quill from the desk. Dipped the nib lightly into the inkwell. Then, in the column reserved for the Hogwarts representative, he signed his name with deliberate care.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.
The moment the final letter settled, the entire scroll erupted in soft golden light. It flared once and vanished, swallowed by the parchment as if it had never been.
Douglas felt it: a strange magical resonance, reaching across an impossible distance. Somewhere far away, in the headmaster's office at Uagadou and in a sealed chamber beneath the Egyptian Ministry of Magic, two identical scrolls were receiving the same golden signature.
The agreement was now in effect.
"Now," Dumbledore said, clearly pleased, "this is a moment worth celebrating."
He snapped his fingers. Two crystal goblets and a bottle of Firewhisky appeared on the desk from nowhere. Amber liquid poured itself into both glasses.
"To our new allies." Dumbledore raised his goblet. "And... to complicated times."
"Tch."
An undisguised snort came from the wall.
In his portrait, Phineas Nigellus Black , goatee neatly trimmed, expression as aristocratically contemptuous as ever , was looking down on the scene like something he'd scraped off his shoe.
"Allied with a Hufflepuff," he said. "And Egyptians." His voice dripped disdain. "The world has truly gone mad."
Before the words had fully faded, a stern-faced headmistress in the neighboring portrait cut him off.
"Be quiet, Phineas."
Her voice could have frozen a lake.
"This young man is, at the very least, actually doing something. Which is rather more than you ever managed — sitting in your office complaining about the wallpaper color."
Phineas opened his mouth, found nothing useful to say, made a disgruntled sound in his throat, and retreated into the painted background of his own portrait.
Douglas lifted his goblet and drained it. The burn traced a slow path from his throat down to his stomach, warm and spreading.
He looked out the window.
The last sliver of sunset had finally sunk behind the mountains. The Forbidden Forest's outline blurred in the gathering dusk, huge and shapeless, like something vast that was sleeping and might not stay that way.
Dumbledore was looking in the same direction.
The warmth had gone from his expression , Douglas wasn't sure when. His blue eyes caught the deep dark outside the window and held it, and there was nothing light in them now.
"Now," he said slowly, his voice dropping to something quiet and deliberate. "We should discuss... what happened at the World Cup."
He set down his goblet. The crystal rang once against the desk.
The sound seemed to change something in the room. Whatever ease the Firewhisky had brought began to seep away, pulled out by the darkening night beyond the glass.
"Their actions were more like a drunken mob than a coordinated strike," Dumbledore said, describing the World Cup riot in the same measured tone he might use to recite a potion recipe. "Chaotic execution, but the intent was clear , testing the Ministry's limits."
Douglas nodded. He wasn't surprised.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the familiar magical compass. Its casing threw back cold metallic reflections in the light of the silver instruments surrounding them. He tapped the surface once with his knuckle.
A faint HUM of resonance answered, and then a three-dimensional map of magical Britain bloomed across the desk. Miniature mountains, rivers, and villages turned slowly in the air above the parchment scroll, casting a pale blue glow across everything.
In one corner of the map , a remote, unremarkable rural location , a faint red dot pulsed in a steady rhythm.
Like a dying heart, making its final beats.
"Peter has been sitting in that spot for nearly two months," Douglas said. His tone was flat, certain, the way you'd read aloud from a report. "Which means this disturbance wasn't Voldemort's direct order." He paused. "Even if there's a connection, it went around his most loyal servant."
A strange thought moved through his mind.
If Voldemort hadn't directed this personally, then who had? It meant something was shifting inside the long-dormant Death Eater ranks , a new center of gravity, hungrier and more restless. Some pure-blood aristocrat, most likely. Ambitious, impatient, and trying to impress his master in the dark with a flashy, deniable demonstration.
Dumbledore stroked his long silver beard and nodded. His blue eyes gave nothing away.
"That aligns with my own assessment. A show of force." A beat. "And the Ministry's response, with your help, managed to satisfy the public well enough." Something faintly sardonic edged into his voice. "Though the direction left something to be desired. That's always been Cornelius's trouble."
"Speaking of the Ministry's response," Dumbledore continued, shifting tone with the ease of long practice, almost as if this were idle conversation, "it seems to have made an old friend rather restless."
"Alastor Moody wrote to me."
The hand holding Douglas's goblet didn't move.
His expression didn't change.
But somewhere underneath, sharp and clear, the alarms were already going off.
Mad-Eye Moody.
That name landed like a rusty key turning in a lock , the kind of lock on a door you already knew was going to open, whether you wanted it to or not.
"Mad-Eye?" Douglas kept his voice easy, curious, the way you'd ask after a retired colleague you barely thought about. "Hasn't he already stepped down?"
"He says he's practically rotting from the inactivity." Dumbledore smiled faintly, and there was nostalgia in it, and something a little helpless. "The way some of our students handled themselves at the World Cup — and Sirius's rather fearless conduct — apparently made quite an impression on him." He folded his hands. "He believes Hogwarts is the true front line of whatever's coming. He'd like to come and... contribute his experience."
➤ Next: The Triangular Surveillance Formation, Welcome Mad-Eye Into the Trap!
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