There was a fairy tale about a blonde girl. Her mother sent her to buy muffins in the neighboring village and told her not to take the shortcut through the forest, but she refused to listen and got lost in the woods. She walked and walked until she reached the heart of the forest, where she found a lovely house. Hungry and exhausted, she saw that the door was unlocked and went inside. There was fragrant food on the table, served in three bowls—large, medium, and small—and the beds came in the same three sizes.
After making her choice, she ate and drank her fill, then lay down on her favorite bed and fell asleep. When she woke, she found three bears standing beside the bed. She let out a scream, jumped out the window, and ran away.
Economists called this the "Goldilocks Effect." It meant that when the economy was doing well and the bears appeared, the good times were over. The Magical Congress of the United States of America had once declared that Obscurials had completely vanished from America before 1926, yet when Newt Scamander appeared in New York, he still encountered an Obscurial.
That had happened during the final boom before the Great Depression. By the time of the Wizarding Confederation election in 1930, the Great Depression had swept across the globe. According to Newt, the destruction Credence caused ranked among the greatest even for an Obscurial, at the very least far greater than the Obscurial Felix Yang whom Pomona had once encountered. Unlike Credence, this child had both parents, but he was descended from illegal immigrants.
The conditions for creating an Obscurial required a conscious attempt to suppress one's magical power. They did not want to make too much of a fuss, attract the attention of