The anti-Grindelwald alliance pulled together by Pavel Graves collapsed like a joke following his death.
Among the Ministries of Magic in various countries, there was no shortage of people whose families held grudges against Grindelwald and wished to push for the alliance's formation.
However, the thousands of hostages held by Grindelwald caused them to hesitate, fear, and hold back.
If these hostages were merely ordinary nobodies like Rita Skeeter, they wouldn't have had many scruples and would have engaged Grindelwald in direct combat.
But aside from the media, those attending the meeting at the Magical Congress of the United States of America were the so-called wizarding aristocracy.
The lives of thousands of the magical society's "first-class citizens" were held in Grindelwald's hands.
If the Ministries of Magic stubbornly fought Grindelwald, causing him to execute the hostages, they wouldn't even need an anti-Grindelwald alliance. Under those circumstances, before fighting Grindelwald, they would plunge into internal chaos first.
In the end, it was only through Dumbledore's active mediation that Grindelwald and the Ministries reached a compromise—Grindelwald released the hostages, and the Ministries ceased opposing him.
This compromise naturally met with opposition from many, mainly those harmed by Grindelwald in the past.
However, their voices barely made a ripple; compared to the lives of thousands of first-class citizens in the magical world, their past injuries paled in comparison.
It wasn't that they hadn't considered turning their backs after the hostages were released, but the power Grindelwald displayed made them obediently extinguish that thought.
Over a thousand Saints with standard Auror-level combat capabilities represented only the force Grindelwald showed on the surface.
Heaven only knew if these thousand-plus Saints were truly the entirety of the force Grindelwald currently commanded.
After all, this number was still a far cry from Grindelwald's peak period.
Therefore, as long as those without deep grudges against Grindelwald gave up resistance, the remaining ones who were still determined to resist and seek revenge couldn't cause any major waves.
With that, the affair of the anti-Grindelwald alliance came to a close.
Consequently, Kyle, the dutiful son, could finally stay peacefully at Hogwarts, repeatedly pushing Dumbledore's buttons and driving his father half-mad with anger.
Time quickly moved into April, and the turmoil of the outside world did not disrupt the peaceful routine at Hogwarts.
On the contrary, without the Father Troubleshooters stirring up trouble, Hogwarts became much quieter.
During this period, Grindelwald had been causing a stir across the magical world to track down the identity of the mysterious group of wizards who had boldly attempted to kidnap Kyle.
Grindelwald originally intended to use his divination abilities to root them out, but they ended up only catching Rita Skeeter.
Upon interrogation, Grindelwald confirmed that this foolish woman knew nothing of the mysterious group's origins and had no connection to them whatsoever.
Thus, they could only rely on the simplest and most brute-force method: scattering the Saints like a net, searching far and wide.
This caused chaos wherever the Saints went.
Fortunately, they had no intention of clashing with local Ministries of Magic, focusing solely on tracking down that group of mysterious wizards.
Even so, such actions thoroughly terrified the local Ministries.
Two of the strongest Ministries of Magic in the wizarding world had already fallen to Grindelwald; if these Saints suddenly launched an attack, the local Ministries couldn't withstand it.
So, they could only write letters to harass Dumbledore, begging him to whisper in Grindelwald's ear to get him to call off his forces.
This made Dumbledore's temper particularly foul during this period, so none of the four Father Troubleshooters dared to push their luck under his nose.
However, given the nature of the Father Troubleshooters, refraining from causing trouble was impossible.
Refraining from trouble in the short term was merely building up for a major move.
Sometime ago, the Father Troubleshooters formulated an Artificial Tailed Beast Plan, aiming to combine magic and technology to modify a batch of sufficiently powerful magical creatures as their combat partners.
Although high-danger magical creatures possessed formidable power even without dark magic modification—making it difficult for three or five adult wizards to get close to them—the Father Troubleshooters were not satisfied with just that.
After all, ordinary magical creatures, even the legendary Qilin, couldn't withstand a few Killing Curses from a wizard.
As a legendary creature, even an ordinary dragon would be trampled underfoot by a Qilin.
Back then, Kyle's mother—er, mother here refers to Vinda Rosier, who gave birth to Kyle, not the old bumblebee Albus Dumbledore who ignored Kyle for the first eleven years of his life, dumped him in an orphanage, and ultimately lost him.
Back when Vinda Rosier was sent by Grindelwald to search for the Qilin, she used only two Killing Curses to kill the fully grown Qilin.
To be precise, Vinda didn't kill the Qilin instantly on the spot; due to its immense vitality, it clung to life for a short while.
Although the Qilin's life was so easily taken by the Killing Curse mainly because its ability lay in evaluating the purity of a person's soul rather than magical resistance, it also demonstrated that ordinary magical creatures were quite weak before powerful wizards. Even the Hydra Kyle encountered in his second year was like paper in front of Dumbledore.
That was why the Father Troubleshooters formulated the Artificial Tailed Beast Plan.
However, shortly after the plan was launched, Kyle was attacked at Hogsmeade, so the research was delayed.
After the attack resolved, the Gringotts Standard Job came up.
Afterward, all four Father Troubleshooters had their own matters to attend to.
Kyle was concentrating on studying how to better control the power of the Obscurus.
An Obscurus erodes a wizard's life energy. Even Aurelius Dumbledore—the previous Obscurial who broke the rule of not living past the age of ten, and also Kyle's cousin—didn't live long after his Obscurus erupted.
Although Kyle's vitality was many times stronger than his cousin's, as he continuously used the power of the Obscurus, he could still feel it eroding his life force.
If he couldn't find a way to resist this erosion, unless he refrained from using magic entirely, Kyle wouldn't live very long either.
At the current rate of erosion, given Kyle's total vitality... if he refrained from fighting and only used everyday household magic to cook and such, he could live to around a hundred and twenty or thirty.
Of course, given the young Dark Lord's personality, refraining from fighting was impossible.
Increasing his control over the Obscurus could slow down the rate of life energy erosion when using its power, which was the only temporary solution available in the short term.
Cedric was focused on developing his Hydra bloodline.
During the Gringotts Standard Job, Cedric realized he hadn't fully utilized the many magical talents granted to him by the Hydra bloodline.
There was still considerable room for improvement in his strength, so Cedric decided to concentrate on research for a while to draw out the potential granted by his Hydra bloodline.
Meanwhile, the Weasley twins were busy running back and forth over opening their shop.
Currently, the twin brothers' biggest dream was to own their own shop in Diagon Alley, and they had saved up money for a long time to achieve this goal.
Now, having struck it rich overnight, they were no longer satisfied with just a single shop.
With Alfred's help, the four Father Troubleshooters acquired a large plot of land adjacent to Diagon Alley. The four planned to build a skyscraper on this land—the Troubleshooter Tower.
Once this hundred-plus-story tower was completed, the top few floors would serve as the headquarters for the Father Troubleshooters.
As for most of the middle floors, they would be allocated for the Akatsuki organization's use.
Although Akatsuki followed an elite path, the few of them alone couldn't accomplish grand schemes, so establishing an affiliated force similar to Amegakure (Hidden Rain Village) was necessary.
When the time came, those middle floors would be handed over to the sub-organizations under Akatsuki.
As for the bottom few floors, a portion of the area would be designated for the twins to open their long-awaited Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
Calling it a "shop" wasn't quite accurate; judging by the floor area, it should properly be called a massive shopping mall.
As for another section of the bottom area, it could be allocated to Cedric to open a wand shop and compete directly with Ollivanders next door.
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