After the afternoon session ended, the delegation returned to the hotel.
Skyl pushed open the door and stepped into his room. No lights were on. The dim dusk filtered through the sheer curtains, turning the furniture into black shapes like the shadows of trees.
He took two steps inside.
Someone switched on the lights.
The sudden brightness revealed the uninvited guest: a man in sunglasses sitting on the sofa directly facing the door. White, male, around forty, slicked-back hair, the lean, efficient look of someone who lived in tailored suits.
More men in suits emerged from the bathroom and bedroom, forming a tight circle around Skyl.
It looked like one of those classic spy-movie shots. Breaking into someone's living space was a warning—an announcement that they were everywhere, and that they could do anything.
Skyl put on a surprised expression, but he wasn't a great actor. The act cracked almost immediately; he shook his head, sat down on the opposite sofa, and faced the man in sunglasses.
"Let me guess. You're from the Human Union Department. You're here because you want to know why Lockhart's scared of me, right?"
The Human Union Department agent froze. The opening speech he'd prepared collapsed on the spot.
"Both yes and no," the sunglasses man said, slipping into negotiation techniques, trying to recover the initiative so he wouldn't get dragged around by Skyl's pace.
"Then it's yes." Skyl opened Mora's Black Book. Information rushed across the page like a waterfall. "I know what you want. You tried to buy me, realized you couldn't offer terms tempting enough, so you came to play hardball. And I know you've been pulling little stunts in the dark—ever since we entered this hotel, you've been monitoring us."
"Baseless accusations," the agent snapped.
Skyl smiled and shook his head. "Your listening team is in the second-floor break room. The cleaners steal magical items while we're out. In the corridor beneath our feet, there are seventeen armed personnel on standby. On the rooftop helipad of the high-rise at one o'clock outside the window, you've got a sniper. Downstairs you've got officers disguised as civilians. And to squeeze an answer out of me, you put together a three-hundred-person expert group to analyze my personality. In the last three days I've spoken to forty-one strangers and said a total of one thousand seven hundred and fifty-one words. Nineteen of those people were planted by you."
"Is this magic?" The agent's voice went stiff. Sweat started to bead at his forehead. Behind him, the other operatives pressed hands to their holsters.
"Close. A little deeper than that." Skyl kept his eyes on the Black Book. "It's a craft called the Grand Symphony. I only just learned it from a kind friend. And right now, you're inside my Grand Symphony. I know almost everything—limited to things with souls. Ask me for a grand unified equation and I'll tell you I have nothing to say. But ask me what a villager on the far side of the planet ate for lunch, and I can give you the answer."
The Human Union Department agent stared at him for a moment, then said flatly, "You're bluffing."
Skyl nearly laughed. He'd made it this obvious and they still wanted to call it bluff. Fine. Let it be a bluff.
"Gilderoy Lockhart is afraid of you. Why?"
"Plenty of people are afraid of me. You should try it too. It'll do you good. I mean that." Skyl answered lightly.
"You're just a student. A kid." The agent leaned forward, doing everything he could to create pressure. "We know what Hogwarts students can do. At best, you've got a dozen spells—harmless little tricks. Aurors are the real fighters among wizards. We know more about the wizarding world than you think. So cooperate. You won't be hurt, and you'll be rewarded."
The line about "only Aurors are fighters" said everything: these people barely understood the wizarding world at all.
"You're lions, I'm a lamb. Got it," Skyl said, raising both hands obediently.
"Good. And don't sit there condemning us in your head. Kid—do you think the wizarding world should open itself to the general public?" The agent decided he'd regained control and restarted the conversation.
"You want to use Lockhart to force the wizarding world to open up on its own." Skyl looked at him. "But you need a way to control Lockhart—evidence that can ruin him."
"Yes. You know the answer. Tell us." The man in sunglasses finally took them off and wiped sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. He clearly couldn't keep up with Skyl's straight-to-the-throat style. Most negotiations were back-and-forth; this young man was a blade that only stabbed the vital points.
"It's hard to explain what Lockhart did, because you people are always in love with being 'right' and disgusted by the 'truth.'" Skyl's voice stayed calm. "I'll say it one last time. This is a revelry. A game. Play your role in the script, and try to have as much fun as you can. That's what you should be doing."
The Human Union Department bureaucrat bristled. "We're talking about the survival of six and a half billion people! Not some childish play-pretend. You don't understand—this world is on the edge of war. Naive and stupid. For the safety of all humankind, tell me Lockhart's secret!"
Skyl propped his cheek in one hand and asked, amused, "For all humankind?"
"Yes. Wizards are human too. Maybe you're cold-blooded and don't care whether No-Majs live or die, but you should care about the future of wizards."
"You're representing all humanity while you speak to God."
The agent blinked. "What did you say—God?"
"Yes. You're speaking to God. My Adam." Skyl's gaze didn't waver. "Is there anything you want to say to your Creator?"
"Hahahaha!" The agent burst into disbelieving laughter, and the operatives around him joined in with low, mocking chuckles.
"You? Calling yourself God?"
The "representative of humanity" laughed until his eyes watered—then his face hardened in an instant. He lifted his sunglasses again, and his stare turned vicious as he glared at the young wizard across from him.
"Wizard—calling yourself God, are you taking us for idiots? You sneer at us as Muggles, as No-Majs, but the ones living in a cave are you. Human intelligence put us on the moon, and you're still hiding in the gutter playing with cauldrons."
"Then you need proof that's more direct." Skyl rose to his feet. "Fine. But you should know—when Adam ate the forbidden fruit, he was cast out of Eden."
The moment Skyl stood, every gun barrel swung toward him.
The local operatives moved with that sharp North American efficiency—fast hands, fast draws, a clean little routine that ended wars before they started. If Skyl made the slightest wrong motion, he'd be greeted by a storm of bullets.
"Don't move!"
Skyl lowered his voice. "Quiet."
The agent tried to speak.
His lips were stuck together as if glued.
He tried to force sound out—his vocal cords felt fossilized.
He tried to shift his body—and couldn't move an inch.
Not just him. Every operative was the same: unable to speak, unable to act, unable even to blink. All they could do was watch the young man who claimed to be God deliver judgment.
Skyl stood in the center of the room like a black pillar. A solemn, ancient pressure descended, like an iron curtain dropping.
"I'll show you the truth of this world," Skyl said softly, "if you're capable of bearing it."
As his words fell, slick, dark green tentacles stretched out of empty air, one after another, stabbing into the operatives' brains.
They convulsed violently, eyes rolling back, like scarecrows trembling on a wooden frame in the wind.
Skyl opened Mora's Black Book. Fourteen movements appeared across the page.
There were fourteen agents in the room.
"I banish you," Skyl said, "out of my Grand Symphony—back into real history."
He lifted his hand and wiped away the fourteen movements.
Boom!
The door was smashed apart as Human Union Department personnel and Ministry of Magic representatives poured into the room.
They didn't even get a chance to speak before the sight in front of them horrified them.
The agents had their skulls pierced by dark green tentacles—like fourteen human-shaped fruits grown on the ends of those writhing limbs. It looked like a bloody sacrifice from some ancient cult. Worse still, the operatives' bodies were slowly turning transparent, as if the world itself was deleting them.
"Oh God," the No-Majs whispered.
"Merlin," the wizards breathed.
Then the pierced agents suddenly began shouting, one after another:
"I understand! I understand everything! That's it—revelry! This is the Grand Symphony! Hahaha! I'm leaving! Wake me up—wake me up!"
Mid-sentence, they vanished.
Only the echo of their voices remained in the room, and from Skyl's Black Book rose a thin drift of faint black smoke.
"Y-you…" The Human Union Department agent was shaking. "What did you do?! You evil Dark wizard!"
The Ministry representatives looked even more terrified. Faced with Skyl's magic, they felt like they were the No-Majs.
Skyl raised a finger to his lips. "Shh. I suggest you forget everything you saw here. Otherwise you'll be leaving the stage early."
Silver light flared in Skyl's eyes.
Everyone who had barged into the room stared into that glow. Their expressions went slack and dazed. They nodded obediently and, one by one, filed back out.
Two days later, the British delegation flew back to London.
Skyl and Dumbledore returned to Hogwarts and to campus life as usual. No one remembered the fourteen operatives who had broken into Skyl's hotel room, as if they had never existed at all.
This was a collective revelry, and yet it was also real. What the soul of the universe accepts becomes history; what it denies becomes a dream.
So enjoy it—fully.
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