Charles Weasley meandered through the bustling corridors of Hogwarts, absorbing the familiar sights and sounds that coaxed a smile onto his face. The castle resonated with a unique energy, alive with the buzz of student conversations. As he moved past clusters of students, their hushed, animated discussions floated to his ears.
"Have you heard about the prophecy?" whispered a Ravenclaw student with tousled brown hair to his peer.
"It's rumored to be significant," responded another, his eyes brimming with curiosity. "Any insider information?"
"My father's in the Ministry, and he let slip a few details this morning in the mail," boasted the brown-haired Ravenclaw. Charlie couldn't resist slowing his pace. "There's talk among the Ministry staff suspect that the Weaver of Strings might actually be the boy who vanquished the Dark Lord."
"What? The boy who lived?" gasped the other student, his exclamation turning heads. "So, he's the Weaver of Strings, just as we thought!"
The boy with the messy hair faltered. "It still need comfirma..." He noticed a passing Hufflepuff girl and amplified his voice. "Yes, my father, a high-ranking Ministry official, hinted that the boy who lived could be the Weaver of Strings from the prophecy."
His boisterous, attention-grabbing declaration stirred excitement among the younger students and sparked a flurry of whispers among the girls.
Charles, having observed the entire exchange, couldn't suppress a chuckle. The Hogwarts rumor mill never disappointed, always churning out fresh, thrilling tales.
"Charles! Quidditch practice is starting. Hurry up!"
"On my way!"
---
Dolores Umbridge, clad in her signature fluffy pink cardigan dress that was as deceptively soft as her own exterior, sat with an air of rigid composure. Her back was as straight as a ruler, a posture she had perfected over years of enforcing order and obedience. The Minister's grand office, with its high ceilings and polished wood, felt suffocating in its solemnity. The walls were lined with portraits of past Ministers, their stern faces etched with authority, watching the proceedings with an almost palpable judgment. Each figure seemed to peer down at the current assembly, silently questioning whether the decisions made today would measure up to the legacy they had left behind.
Cornelius Fudge, the current Minister of Magic, stood at the head of the room, addressing the gathered officials with a tone that betrayed his unease. His normally confident demeanor was slipping, his eyes darting around the room as if seeking reassurance from the unspeaking portraits.
"The prophecy has come to our attention, and we cannot afford to be complacent," Fudge declared, his voice wavering slightly as he tried to project authority. "It seems even Dumbledore doesn't know anything about this. Now, Mr. Croaker, what do you have to say?"
The room shifted its collective attention to Saul Croaker, an Unspeakable from the Department of Mysteries, whose work in the shadows of the Ministry was both revered and feared. Croaker, an enigmatic figure with a reputation for delving into the arcane and forbidden, spoke with an intensity that commanded immediate attention.
"We have made significant progress in determining the initial point of the start of the prophecy," Croaker began, his words laced with fervor. The room seemed to hold its breath as he continued, his revelation sending a ripple of unease through the gathered officials. Minister Fudge visibly fidgeted, his discomfort growing more apparent with each passing second. "We have found that the prophecy was not delivered simultaneously across the globe. The Asia region was the last to know the prophecy, while we here in Britain were among the first. After consulting with the International Confederation of Wizards, we now believe that the origin point of the prophecy lies somewhere near the North Pole."
A murmur of disbelief swept through the room. The notion of an "initial point" for a prophecy was unprecedented, and it unsettled even the most seasoned officials. Bartemius Crouch Senior, the stern Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, leaned forward, his voice cutting through the tense atmosphere.
"What do you mean by the initial point of the prophecy, Mr. Croaker?" Crouch's question hung in the air, demanding clarification.
Dolores Umbridge, who had been listening intently, felt her interest piqued. In her rigid worldview, fate was a force that transcended physical boundaries, unbound by space and distance. The idea that a prophecy could have a specific origin suggested that it was not a natural occurrence, but something deliberately engineered. The implications were profound—and dangerous. If someone had created this prophecy, it meant there was a mastermind behind it, one who could potentially be captured and manipulated. Dolores's narrow eyes glinted with cunning. Could this individual be used to gain foresight into the future? The very thought sent a thrill of excitement through her.
"It is exactly as you heard, Mr. Crouch," Saul Croaker replied, his voice steady but tinged with an undercurrent of fear. "It seems to be the result of a ritual, and more alarmingly, we've observed some irregularities with time itself. We believe that the prophecy and the ritual that created it are disturbing the natural flow of time. This is a matter of utmost urgency, and I trust that all resources will be mobilized to resolve this issue."
The room fell into an even deeper silence, the weight of Croaker's words pressing down on every individual present. The idea of tampering with time was one that struck at the very core of wizarding fears. Time was an unforgiving and precarious force, a river whose flow was not meant to be altered. Even the smallest ripple in its current could lead to catastrophic consequences.
The Department of Mysteries, where Croaker worked, had long experimented with the mysteries of time. Time Turners, the devices that allowed witches and wizards to travel back through the hours, had been carefully regulated due to their dangerous potential. The Ministry had learned through bitter experience that even brief journeys into the past could result in paradoxes—events that should never have happened, yet somehow did, creating rifts in reality. The very fabric of existence could be torn apart by the unintended consequences of meddling with time.
Croaker knew this better than anyone. He had witnessed the devastating outcomes of time experiments gone awry. In some cases, those who had attempted to alter their pasts had found themselves erased from existence, their lives undone by their own interference. In other instances, ripples from the past had cascaded into waves, altering the present in ways no one could have predicted. The thought that a prophecy—a force already laden with uncertainty—could be linked to such a disturbance was terrifying.
Even more troubling was the idea that the ritual that sparked the prophecy might not only have tampered with time but could still be affecting it. If left unchecked, this disturbance could spread, unraveling the delicate balance that kept their world stable. The fear of a potential collapse in the timeline, of a reality where past, present, and future might collide, loomed large in the minds of those in the room. And the consequences of such a collapse? They were beyond comprehension—chaos, disorder, the very unraveling of existence as they knew it.
"This is not just a theoretical concern," Croaker continued, his voice gaining a slight edge as he tried to impress upon them the gravity of the situation. "The anomalies we've detected are not isolated. They suggest that the flow of time has already been disrupted in small, yet significant ways. If this continues unchecked, the resulting damage could be irreversible."
The officials exchanged uneasy glances; the true horror of what Croaker was describing beginning to take root in their minds. They were not merely dealing with a prophecy; they were standing on the brink of a disaster that could reshape their world in ways that were both unpredictable and uncontrollable. And the most frightening aspect of all was that they did not know who—or what—was behind this ritual, or what their ultimate goal might be.
Dolores clenched her hands in her lap, willing them to stop trembling. The situation was escalating far beyond anything she had anticipated. Her earlier, more mundane schemes to maintain control now seemed laughably inadequate in the face of this looming calamity. She forced herself to maintain her composed exterior, but inside, her mind was racing. This was a crisis of unprecedented scale, and the consequences could be catastrophic.
The meeting ended in a bone-chilling silence. The usually composed Minister Fudge was visibly sweating as he hurried off to consult with Dumbledore, leaving the room in a state of uneasy contemplation. The weight of Croaker's words pressed heavily on everyone present, and Dolores felt the pressure to act mounting with every passing moment.
As she walked out of the room among the silent crowd, each lost in their own troubled thoughts, Dolores's mind was already calculating her next move. This won't do at all, she thought, her mind churning with the need to find a way to shift public focus. If word of this prophecy and its implications were to leak… No, she needed something big, something scandalous to distract the masses, to keep them from peering too closely into matters that could spell disaster for the Ministry—and for herself.
---
The stone walls of Nurmengard Castle felt colder than usual, the chill seeping into the bones of those who patrolled its ancient corridors. The air was thick with an oppressive unease, as if the very stones were saturated with the echoes of dark deeds long past. The guard stood at his post, every sense heightened, his eyes fixed on the iron-barred cell that contained the infamous Gellert Grindelwald. The name alone was enough to send a shiver through even the most hardened of wizards. Once the most feared dark wizard in history, Grindelwald had been reduced to a mere shadow of his former self, a frail old man in a forgotten cell. Yet despite his diminished state, there was an aura about him, something that still commanded not just respect, but a deep, primal fear.
But lately, something had shifted. Grindelwald's restlessness had become palpable, his once listless pacing now driven by an almost frantic energy. His eyes, once dulled by years of confinement, had regained a dangerous sharpness, as if they were piercing through the walls of his cell, seeing beyond the confines of the castle to some distant horizon only he could perceive. The guard could feel it in his gut, a gnawing sense of dread that only grew stronger with each passing day. It was as though the castle itself was holding its breath, the very air thick with the anticipation of something terrible on the verge of happening.
The silence in the corridor was suffocating, broken only by the distant echoes of footsteps, the clinking of chains, and the occasional muttered curse. But beneath the surface, there was something else—a low, almost imperceptible hum, like the sound of a distant storm gathering strength. The guard could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, his instincts screaming at him that something was terribly, terribly wrong. He shifted uneasily, his grip tightening on his wand, as if the slender piece of wood could protect him from whatever malevolent force was stirring in the depths of the castle.
Whispers had begun to circulate among the guards—dark, fearful rumors that Grindelwald had somehow learned of a prophecy, one that spoke of a return, a resurgence of the dark powers he once wielded. Some said he had been speaking in his sleep, muttering words in a language none could understand, but all felt the weight of. Others claimed they had seen strange lights flickering in the darkness of his cell, unnatural and terrifying. The thought of it was enough to make even the bravest among them shudder. What could it mean, if the most feared dark wizard of their time had discovered a prophecy that might reignite the flames of his ambition?
The guard's mind raced with terrifying possibilities. What if Grindelwald's imprisonment was never meant to last? What if his years in this stone prison were nothing more than a pause, a brief respite before he unleashed a new wave of terror upon the world? The chill in the air deepened, and the guard could almost feel the weight of Grindelwald's gaze upon him, even though the dark wizard's eyes were closed, his head bowed as if in sleep. But there was no peace in that posture—only the eerie stillness of a predator waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
The guard glanced around the dimly lit corridor, his heart pounding in his chest. He wanted to believe that Nurmengard, with its impregnable walls and powerful wards, would keep whatever evil was brewing at bay. But the fear gnawing at him told a different story. What if those walls, so long trusted to contain the darkest of magic, were no longer enough? What if the storm he sensed was not just a figment of his imagination, but a real and looming threat?
His thoughts spiraled into dark territory. The prophecy… Could it be the harbinger of something far worse than they had ever imagined? The idea of Grindelwald, once more empowered by dark forces, breaking free from his prison was a nightmare that threatened to swallow him whole. The guard's breath quickened, his prayers turning desperate. Whatever was coming, he knew instinctively that it was far beyond his ability to stop. He could only hope that the ancient wards of Nurmengard would hold, that the darkness gathering around Grindelwald would remain confined within these walls. But in the depths of his soul, the guard feared that this was only the beginning—that the storm was already upon them, and that they were all, every last one of them, utterly unprepared for what was to come.
---
Aurelius said to Bramble. "We need to change the plan. Cancel the negotiation to buy that piece of land in Diagon Alley. We must lay low for now, Bramble."