Another two years wizzed past as Cassius became even more involved in actioning his plans for the world and the future at large.
To a child, two years was an eternity.
To Cassius, it was a heartbeat.
By 1989, he was nine years old, a boy only in flesh.
His mind, sharpened by Grindelwald's tutelage and crowned by Ravenclaw's lost diadem, was something altogether different.
His magical foundation was no longer fragile.
10 idle slots pulsed within him, continuing his growth, even as his magical pathways and core day by day solidied more and more towards their final forms.
Each idle slot churning out experience points to further raise his magical control value to allow him to juice out the last few drops of magical growth he could attain via this method until his growth slowed to the pace his own maturity would bring.
And still—his date with destiny drew nearer.
In just under two years, Hogwarts would claim him.
The thought sent a bitter taste to the back of his throat.
To sit in a castle under the watchful eyes of Dumbledore, surrounded by children who thought themselves clever for casting a proper Lumos.
Meeting his father who probably to this day still never even knew he existed all while living the life of a miserable simp to that bitch of a witchy woman.
It would be a cage, gilded and suffocating, but rewarding in ways of being a fertile field in which to grow his faction against the established order, seek out his revenge for those who harmed him, and even alter the destinies of a chosen few to rise to their true potential rather than be mired in the sins of fate.
But until then, there was work to be done.
~
The First Trials
The muggle world became his laboratory.
Operating through shell companies—paper entities run by men and women who never once saw their master—Cassius launched what the muggles called clinical trials.
A promising "medication" designed to "improve vitality and immune response."
Hundreds volunteered, lured by stipends and the promise of scientific progress.
What they received instead was Cassius' blood.
The results were immediate and horrifying.
Adults, even those with matching blood types, rejected the transfusion violently.
Some convulsed until their bones fractured; others burned out from the inside, their cores collapsing before they could even form.
Death was absolute, irreversible.
A failure.
Cassius did not mourn.
Failure was the forge of discovery, and these people all accept the risks for their own greed, why should he care if they died... he did warn them of the chance that it could happen afterall.
If adults could not withstand the fire, then children would.
Their pathways were unformed, malleable, still close to the chaos of birth where magic riots sometimes naturally awakened.
If any had a chance, it was them.
The trials shifted.
Smaller samples.
Younger subjects.
And then—success.
The awakenings began.
It was not clean of course as not all experimentation begins with perfect success rates.
Some children perished, their bodies shattering under pressure when their parents, desperate for money, lied about blood types.
The casualty rate hovered at ten percent.
But the rest?
The rest ignited.
Their magic stirred.
Sparks became flame.
Awakening in all manners of ways, from causing items to float nearby, or making things disappear without touching them.
Some were more violent causing wounds to appear on those they had negative emotions towards, or even sparking elemental fury as the exam room was lit on fire.
Cassius watched every episode with fascination, noting the wildness, the uncontrollable surges.
Yes.
Just like my own riots in the beginning.
The awakened were never released, not truly.
Instead, they were relocated to controlled sites hidden across Europe—boarding academies disguised as charitable scholarships.
There, they were taught to restrain their riots, trained in discipline and obedience.
Every lesson was designed with a higher purpose: to bind their loyalty not to their governments, not even to themselves, but to Arcana, and ultimately to Cassius.
"You are chosen," the instructors told them. "You are the first of a New Dawn."
And they believed.
By the end of the second year since the experiments were began (this year), Hogwarts' coming term would see its largest influx of muggle-borns in recorded memory.
Children smuggled into Britain under false documents, placed regular orphanages as plants awaiting their acceptance letters to hogwartz and receiving entrance into the magical world.
The excess, those still too young, were folded into the Academies—preparatory institutions where magic was whispered like scripture, while classes themselves were rigourous, making those who would graduate them and enter into Hogwartz, Beaxbatons, even Durmstrang would thouroughly shock their pure-blood and half-blood classmates.
~
The real genius, however, lay in the orphanages.
Cassius had seeded them across major cities, each one bearing the polished veneer of philanthropy.
To the world, they were shelters for abandoned children, places of hope.
To Cassius, they were farms—seedbeds where magical potential could be tested, cultivated, and harvested.
The youngest subjects had the highest success rates.
young children who were self-aware, but not so old as to have already entered the first stages of puberty, still so fluid in body and spirit, often survived the awakening rituals where older children failed.
Losses still occurred, but they were accepted as a natural tax.
Cassius saw it proven again and again.
Every death was a statistic, every survivor a soldier in waiting.
~
Meanwhile, the fronts of Nox and Arcana continued their inexorable expansion.
The muggle New Dawn Alliance, fed on his subtle ideology, had spread from Britain into whispers of France, Germany, and beyond.
While still a minority, their growing grassroots power made the old guard uneasy.
Parliament found itself forced to reckon with them.
The magical world fared no better.
Cassius' cosmetics and spellcraft still dominated markets.
His Arcanum institute now housed over two hundred scholars, a veritable post-Hogwarts university churning out innovations once thought impossible.
The Ministry tried to interfere, of course—endless inspections, petty restrictions—but Arcana always complied just enough to pass their scrutiny.
Trying to dam the river with paperwork, but the ministry forgot Water is patient, it flows on endlessly slowly working away at rock even metal until it causes fractures to appear.
The Ministry hated him, though they didn't know who "him" was.
But they could not stop him.
Not when the people adored his inventions, not when even Aurors used his charms in the field.
Every attempt at suppression only made the public cling tighter to Arcana's gifts, while opening their eyes further to the indolence and ineptitude of the ministry.
~
Cassius was only nine, yet he felt the tide rising.
The world shifted under his unseen hand, one innovation, one child, one awakened ember at a time.
And yet, he knew he was racing a clock.
Hogwarts loomed ahead, and with it, Albus Dumbledore—the one man in the world who might pierce through masks and shadows to glimpse the truth of him.
For now, Cassius consoled himself with numbers.
ten idle slots, each filled with knowledge and strength.
Hundreds of awakened children, each a spark awaiting his command.
Ministries squabbling, unable to contain the changes he unleashed.
He was building an empire of the unseen.
A foundation laid in blood and brilliance, ready to erupt when the time was right.
As summer of 1989 waned, Cassius stood atop his London condo's balcony, Ravenclaw's diadem catching the last rays of light.
Below, the city roared with muggle lives, unaware that their children were being remade into something greater.
"it will be my time soon to step out of the shadows and be seen for what i really am."