The pleasant hours of the long, sun-drenched lunch passed quickly, leaving Anduin with a catalogue of sharp, concise impressions of his fellow wizards.
Mr. Xenophilius Lovegood, for all his bizarre theories about Trembling Worms and Blibbering Humdingers, was a peculiar genius. His ideas, while rooted in apparent fantasy, were underpinned by a profound, if wildly skewed, intellectual honesty.
He was utterly naive and straightforward, lacking the fundamental social conditioning that taught most people to temper their more outlandish thoughts.
His wife, Pandora, seemed the grounding force—a clever wizard who, judging by her hushed conversation with Augusta, was actively trying to research and develop new branches of defensive magic, channeling her husband's abstract creativity into practical, protective enchantments for their young daughter, Luna.
The Diggory family were the embodiment of conventional wizarding decency. Amos and his wife were good-natured, stable, and deeply committed to their Ministry roles, exuding an easy, good-neighborly charm. They represented the bedrock of the community, dependable but ultimately predictable.
The Weasleys, however, were a world unto themselves. Their familial warmth was a tangible, overwhelming force. Molly had, after their long, detailed conversation over the simmering stockpot, taken a strong liking to Anduin. She repeatedly invited him to visit The Burrow before the school year started.
While Molly genuinely enjoyed his company and, as Frank had previously mentioned, appreciated the loyalty Anduin showed to the Prewett sisters' memory, Anduin couldn't help but conclude his culinary skills were the decisive factor.
"She likes me," he calculated, "because my cooking efficiently fills the profound caloric deficit created by that entire family's metabolic rate. They are a constant, self-sustaining engine of appetite."
Arthur Weasley was equally captivating, though for entirely different reasons. Upon learning Anduin was a Muggle-born wizard, Arthur displayed an extraordinary, almost scholarly curiosity about the Muggle world.
This was no doubt tied to his office in the Ministry's Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, which technically prohibited the misuse of Muggle items by wizards.
The irony, as Anduin immediately observed, was that Mr. Weasley's department, responsible for dealing with the misapplication of magic to Muggle-born items, actually encouraged him to handle, collect, and potentially break the very laws he was supposed to uphold.
His fascination bordered on obsession, and Anduin suspected that Arthur's own curiosity might lead him to occasionally skirt the boundaries of his position.
The pleasant gathering finally drew to a close. The guests bid farewell to the Longbottoms and Anduin with genuine warmth. Frank and Alice, though exhausted by the social exertion, were visibly happier.
Augusta was immensely proud; the sheer success of the meal—the dishes were almost entirely consumed—served as a potent validation of her judgment in hiring Anduin. She constantly praised his excellent cooking skills, clearly enjoying the role of the successful host.
However, the period of peace was short-lived. The very next day, the Longbottoms returned to their intensive work as Aurors, and the atmosphere in the house immediately chilled, reflecting the darkening state of the wizarding world.
Recently, the Death Eaters have slowly become active again. There was a grim, steady stream of cases: torturing and killing Muggles, ambushing and injuring wizards and Aurors. The Ministry's Auror Command was once again thrown into chaotic, reactive mode.
Anduin, listening to the professional complaints and operational reports filtering through the Longbottom manor, applied his strategic mind to the problem. He had studied the structure of their defense and found it fundamentally flawed.
"The core of the problem is a passive response architecture," Anduin mused, discussing the issues with Frank and Alice in the evenings. The Aurors' primary duty was to patrol key wizarding settlements like Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, but their system lacked any effective alarm or real-time feedback system.
If a wizarding conflict erupted, the victim's options were fatally limited: passively await rescue, fight back, or flee. The Aurors were, by definition, always one step behind.
Frank and Alice explained the Ministry's existing infrastructure, which, to Anduin, only highlighted the depth of the systemic failure.
The Ministry of Magic does, in fact, possess a very powerful Detection Array, a network of ancient enchantments capable of covering all of Britain. It is centrally managed from the Office for the Prevention of Misuse of Magic. However, this array suffers from two critical, structural vulnerabilities:
Delay and Imprecision: The magical reaction is delayed. More critically, it cannot identify specific individuals. For instance, when Anduin cast his complex Levitation Charms at the Longbottom house, the Ministry could detect a localized spike of magical energy, but they couldn't pinpoint who cast it or why.
The sheer volume of everyday spellcasting across Britain—housewives cleaning, wizards commuting—created a constant, high-volume noise that the system struggled to filter. Even attempts to post guards to prevent underage magic were often based on generalized location pings rather than specific identification.
Threshold Failure: Mobile forces were only dispatched if the array registered an energy reaction above a certain threshold—typically a massive surge indicative of battle, or the explicit casting of an Unforgivable Curse. Many Death Eaters, however, were shrewd; they targeted Muggles or isolated wizards using low-magical density Dark Arts or mundane, non-magical violence.
These subtle attacks often fell below the activation threshold, meaning the Ministry would remain completely oblivious until a fleeing or injured wizard managed to report the incident. Only the recent escalation of violence had forced the Ministry to grudgingly increase surveillance efforts, dispatching Aurors to investigate even frequent, minor spellcasting.
Furthermore, the Aurors' ability to communicate in a timely manner is limited. They heavily rely on the Patronus Charm for rapid, targeted information relay. "But many of us lack the advanced skill to project an articulate, speaking Patronus," Frank admitted grimly.
This reliance on a high-level skill meant that Apparition—physically moving personnel—was often the fastest method of transmitting intelligence, making the war primarily a battle of information and speed.
Adding to the strategic disadvantage, there were widely known internal forces within the Ministry that supported the Dark Lord. These individuals, acting as moles, would relay information about Auror deployments and strategic movements directly to the Death Eaters.
"It's a complete exposure," Alice said, tracing a weary pattern on the table. "The enemy is in the dark, and we are completely in the light."
This, Anduin realized, was the single, compelling raison d'être of the Order of the Phoenix. It wasn't just a combat unit; it was an alternate communication and intelligence network whose very existence depended on its clandestine activities and independence from the compromised Ministry.
He finally understood why so many of the most effective Aurors, like Moody and the Longbottoms, found themselves working for a shadow organization to oppose the enemy that the Ministry itself could not effectively fight.
"It is like trying to enforce law in a feudal society where the criminals possess supernatural powers," Anduin concluded. "Cases are only dealt with post facto. The Death Eaters use the Dark Mark for simple, immediate communication and command structure. The Aurors have nothing comparable for widespread, instantaneous vigilance."
He offered a strategic suggestion: "If every wizard possessed a simple alarm device or spell that could quickly notify the Auror office—not just of a magic spike, but of a direct attack context—the number of successful ambushes would be greatly reduced, and support could be deployed more swiftly." The idea was met with weary acceptance; such technological integration was simply too radical for the current bureaucracy.
Anduin also learned about the structure of the Ministry's specialized forces.
Within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, there was a specialized unit known as the Strike Team. These individuals possessed higher operational powers than regular Aurors and undertook the most dangerous, front-line missions.
"They are the ones who kick down the doors," Frank explained. "Some Aurors are on a Strike Team, but not all Aurors qualify." Mad-Eye Moody, for instance, was famously the captain of a Strike Team while simultaneously holding broader Auror duties.
To Anduin, the analogy was clear: Aurors were the ordinary police officers focused on patrol and investigation, while the Strike Teams were the armed response units or special police forces, deployed only in high-risk scenarios.
However, even these elites were flawed. Anduin judged that their battlefield skills needed serious honing. "When a fight breaks out, they simply pour in," he noted. "There is no coordination, no clear command structure in the field. They unleash spells independently, relying on individual power rather than cohesive strategy." Their courage was unquestionable; their tactical efficiency was zero.
Finally, he was introduced to the job—or non-job—of the Roving Striker. This was not an official position; it was more akin to being a licensed bounty hunter.
Roving Strikers received no salary and operated independently, but after successfully capturing or eliminating Dark Wizards or dangerous criminal sorcerers, they could submit evidence to the Ministry of Magic for a reward. They were essentially private contractors specializing in high-reward criminal apprehension.
The Ministry would symbolically award these bounty hunters a Roving Striker Certificate.
"It's utterly pointless for domestic work," Frank scoffed, shaking his head. The only remotely useful feature of the certificate was its recognition by Foreign Ministries of Magic. A certified Roving Striker could hunt wanted criminals abroad and then claim the bounty from the foreign government.
"But even if you're not a Ranger," Frank added, "you still get a Ministry reward for capturing a Dark wizard here. It's like taking your pants off just to fart; completely unnecessary paperwork."
He finished with a historical anecdote: "Sirius Black actually applied for one of these certificates years ago. He thought the name sounded cool. He was issued the document and then promptly threw it away a week later. Said it was a waste of perfectly good Ministry parchment."
The certificate was, in essence, an empty layer of officialdom, unless one intended to practice their dangerous trade across international borders. The whole system, like much of the Ministry's structure, was an exercise in redundant bureaucracy that failed to address the existential threats facing the wizarding world.
The analysis further hardened Anduin's resolve: he would have to rely entirely on his own strategic and magical discipline, not on the flawed systems of the Ministry.