1987 arrived not with fireworks, but with a shift in the air that even the untrained could feel.
For the muggle world, it came in the form of a general election.
Britain awoke to headlines announcing the New Dawn Alliance had secured its seat as the primary opposition in Parliament, breaking the longterm struggle between the labor and conservative sides, and further pushing the liberals down in the polls.
For some it was a shock; for others, a long-awaited inevitability.
The Alliance, built on promises of technological revitalization, social restructuring, and the blending of old traditions with modern logic, had been dismissed as a "movement of dreamers." by the more traditional parties, and yet.
here they were, a threat to the status quo, making promises they can keep, injecting money not into their party standing but into the local economy to create jobs and bring the british people into the modern age that they were behind on.
Cassius watched from the quiet of his London condo, perched on the windowsill with the morning paper spread across his lap.
The boy's lips curved faintly as his eyes scanned the columns.
His involvement with the party was fairly limited at this point, having already long established the party ideology and found himself a near perfect puppet, one whom could be controlled as he just wanted to 'be in charge' even if that was really just an illusion as there was a real power behind his throne
Within another few years, the New Dawn could secure the office of the Prime Minister and officially take over the government and with public support could begin the process of overhaulling the outdated political system and removing needless redtape and opening the way for Cassius to begin meddling deeper into the magical world through the prime minsiters connection to the ministry of magic.
The papers called it a grassroots revolution.
Cassius knew better.
His carefully seeded concepts, his subtle introductions of hybrid thinking between muggle and magical sciences, had given the Alliance intellectual legitimacy.
By now, it was no longer confined to Britain.
Travelers from France, Germany, and other corners of Europe had carried whispers of the New Dawn back home, planting the first seeds of continental ambition.
Small roots, true—but roots nonetheless.
While the muggle world churned with the ripple of politics, Cassius allowed himself something rare: a holiday.
Not to beaches or cities, but to a place that had haunted fanfiction and whispered lore alike—Albania.
Armed only with a broom and the heightened magical senses honed by years of riot-training, he flew over forests that stretched like endless emerald seas.
Wind whipped his hair as his aura flared outward, combing the wilds like a net for a trace of the Dark Lord's presence.
In the tales, Voldemort lingered here in his exile, little more than a shade feeding on vermin and fear.
Cassius sought him with equal parts caution and curiosity, a predator sniffing for another, getting an idea of how much power the dark lord managed to retain after his body was destroyed.
But it wasn't Voldemort he found.
It was something greater.
Within the forest a powerful magic power was sensed, but not a malicious one, so Cassius choose to investigate, and what he found within the hollow of a great tree was crown, or hat like thing.
A circlet of silver so fine it seemed spun from moonlight, etched with sapphires that gleamed like frozen tears.
And inscribed upon it, the words Cassius knew by heart:
Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure.
He lifted the diadem with hands that trembled—not from reverence, but from amusement.
"Wit," he chuckled. "Middle-aged slang for dick. Truly, Rowena, you had quite the sense of humor. Or rather J.K had a dirty mind while slipping in adult jokes like that to a childrens novel."
The forest echoed with his laughter.
For a moment he was less sorcerer and schemer, more boy laughing at a dirty joke carved into history.
Then the weight of it settled across his brow.
And everything changed.
Thoughts sharpened like blades honed on whetstone.
The diadem did not whisper knowledge of spells or rituals—that was never its gift.
Instead, it widened the doors of thought, allowed Cassius to see connections invisible even moments before.
The world became a latticework of equations, a web where magic and logic danced as one.
Almost like his thinking skill had been boosted up to level 10.
Returning to Nurmengard, Cassius tested it at once.
His experiments, once painstaking, now unfolded with startling speed.
Theories that had taken weeks to articulate poured forth in hours.
When Grindelwald asked him to summarize his research on spell-layering, Cassius delivered not one, but three new models, each with supporting diagrams.
His mentor only smiled, knowingly.
Yet the diadem's greatest gift was not in spells, but in vision.
Cassius began to assemble a thesis that would have been heresy in any era before his own: that all muggles carried dormant magic.
Not metaphorical sparks of creativity or resilience, but true cores buried deep, sealed by circumstance or suppressed by history.
Wizards were not a separate race—they were simply the rare few whose pathways opened naturally.
But what if that lock could be forced open?
The idea consumed him.
He theorized "magic riots" could be induced in muggles through careful experimentation simulating the very crucible he had endured under Grindelwald's guidance.
The risks were astronomical.
Most would die, their bodies unprepared for the strain.
But some… some might awaken.
And if even one in ten survived, the wizarding world's population would swell to unimaginable numbers.
No more dwindling pureblood lines.
No more slow decline into obscurity.
With awakened muggles added to the ranks, wizardkind could dominate the earth once more, not as a hidden minority but as a majority in plain sight.
Cassius scribbled notes late into the night, parchment after parchment filling with diagrams of human cores, pathways, and possible catalysts.
His thoughts outpaced his quill, and only the diadem's steadying presence kept him from drowning in the flood of ideas.
"Imagine it," he whispered to himself, staring at the candlelight flickering against his window. "A New Dawn, not just for politics, not just for academia, but for humanity. A world where every man, woman, and child breathes magic."
He smiled, sharp and certain.
"Voldemort dreams of conquest, and immortality. Dumbledore dreams of peace at any cost. But I—Arcana—dream of transformation for a brighter future."
The diadem gleamed faintly in the dark, as though it, too, approved.
And somewhere in Albania, the shadow of a wraith stirred, sensing the theft of what he had once sought for himself.