Chapter 140: A Crisis Caused by a Small Matter
Magical schools, Ministries of Magic, wizarding law, the Statute of Secrecy—this string of words formed a concise summary of wizarding society in Nava's mind. She could already picture a mysterious and brilliant magical civilization, hidden from the known world, lurking just beneath the surface. The wizards she had met all seemed to be rare elites, among them geniuses of unparalleled talent. Subconsciously, she had set her imagined average standard for the wizarding world very high.
Just then, the door was pushed open. A waiter came in with a small cart, bringing their next course.
Nava's eyes widened. The people in front of her were still chatting casually, and the werewolf was still twitching in the corner.
Is this even reasonable?! she thought. Aren't you going to be discreet at all?!
But the waiter who brought the food was like a blind man. He arranged everything on the table, bowed, and left, without saying a word the entire time.
An absurd thought popped into her head: the wizards' magic must be creating another scene in the waiter's mind. What profound mastery of optics and light! What an incomprehensible interference with neural illusions! Magic is truly mysterious!
But mysterious or not, she knew her little sister's protests would be ignored. Laws, no matter where or when, only ever restrain those who can be restrained. The upper echelons and the "invincible" have always treated the law as an optional plaything. The former can circumvent the law because they are the ones who make it; the latter operate on the fundamental principle that "people die when they are killed."
The two men in front of her were clearly the kind who could circumvent and create laws. After all, one of them was a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Magic. For Julia to lecture them about the law... Nava shook her head slightly, thinking that Julia was still just a child.
"Miss Wilkinson, please," Ryan said, pushing a plate of food in front of Julia, a clear signal for her to eat more and talk less.
Someone had already taken the Veritaserum and was pouring it into the werewolf's mouth. Three drops, and the effect was immediate.
Ryan walked over to the werewolf. "Your name."
"Herbert... Avery."
"Why did you transform into a werewolf in a crowd of people?"
"There was an Auror... I was scared..."
Almost everyone glanced in Julia's direction, then nodded to themselves. The signs of an Auror were so obvious that to a real expert, she looked like an amateur. But to an outsider, she looked every bit the part.
"Why were you afraid of an Auror?" Ryan pressed.
"Theft..." the werewolf squeezed out the word. It was an answer that didn't surprise Ryan in the least. In fact, he suspected the theft this werewolf had committed was no ordinary one.
This wasn't discrimination against werewolves. It was a fact that in the wizarding world, infected werewolves were ostracized. They were highly contagious and dangerous, prone to violent attacks during the full moon. Most ordinary wizards and young students had no way to defend themselves, which was why werewolves were classified as highly dangerous. As a result, the werewolf community struggled to survive.
To make matters worse, some naturally bloodthirsty werewolves would actively infect normal wizards, further tarnishing the already poor reputation of their kind and forcing them to live like rats in the sewers. The prejudice against werewolves in the wizarding world hadn't always been so extreme, but the actions of a few bad apples had led to their current plight.
"So, because of theft, you were afraid of Aurors and chose to flee the wizarding world, living as a beggar in the Muggle world. And because you were afraid of Aurors, when you saw Miss Wilkinson, you thought you'd been discovered, so you attacked, hoping to escape..."
Such a simple, ordinary matter, and it had nearly exposed the entire magical world. And even though they had cleaned up the scene, the exposure was still a risk. With the advancement of technology, even with the communication channels between the Ministry and various governments, there was no way to stop ordinary people from discussing this event. Once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. This made Ryan think of the prophecy: The path of man and the path of man will eventually intersect.
"What do we do now?" Julia asked, fiddling with her knife and fork, having lost her appetite.
"Nothing. Eat, sleep, carry on," Ryan replied. "If you want to borrow a Time-Turner to go back to the beginning and stop all this, I won't stop you." Although, in his heart, he didn't believe a Time-Turner could achieve that. From Professor Flamel's previous lectures, Ryan had gathered that the normal use of a Time-Turner couldn't change established facts. But since no one truly understood the limits of a Time-Turner, they couldn't be certain. After all, there's a first time for everything, and magic is no exception.
"But I can't borrow a Time-Turner," Julia said.
Ryan stared at her in shock. It seemed this woman from MACUSA had no idea about the generally accepted limits of a Time-Turner; she actually looked as if Ryan had just made a very good suggestion.
"It seems the educational standards at Ilvermorny could use some improvement..."
"What?" Julia blinked, not having heard what Ryan had muttered.
"Nothing."
"Excuse me, if you're all finished?" Nava said, her eyes bright and intense.
"Ms. Morgan, please, go ahead," Ryan said. He was unsure what to do with this woman who had stumbled into their world. According to the Statute of Secrecy, he was supposed to hit her with a respectful "Obliviate." But he despised the Statute of Secrecy; the very thought of it made him sick. So he had no intention of following its regulations.
"From what I've observed, you wizards have matters of secrecy concerning ordinary people, and I am an ordinary person—a 'Muggle,' as you call it."
"So, what happens to me? Also, the people who were taking pictures must have captured my image. In the ordinary world, I will surely be in a great deal of trouble."
Nava's words were logical and well-reasoned. In her view, the people in front of her were all young, passionate, and didn't seem like bad people. They wouldn't just sit by and let something bad happen to an innocent person. To put it nicely, she was fighting for her reasonable rights, hoping for a perfect resolution that would make everyone happy.
"Are you concerned for your personal safety, Ms. Morgan? Please rest assured on that point. At least in the magical world, you will not be harmed. As for opinions in the ordinary world... first, while it's true photos can be uploaded to the internet now, the resolution is not very clear, and it would be difficult to identify you. Also, from your accent, you don't sound French. You can simply return across the ocean, and no one will be able to bother you." Ryan tried to put her at ease. This wasn't a few decades from now; ordinary incidents didn't spread across borders with such intensity. At most, this would become a local ghost story.
"It's not entirely about personal safety. There's also... will you use a Memory Charm on me?"
The moment Nava's words fell, the atmosphere in the room instantly tensed.
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