What was so great about power, anyway?
Anton didn't understand.
Nor did he want to.
Grindelwald had once carefully explained to Anton just how many opportunities he'd let slip through his fingers.
—The live-action War Chess game Comeback could easily rake in Gold Galleons from all over the world...
—The Ritual Magic of the Werewolf Animagus was more than enough for him to negotiate partnerships with the Ministries of Magic in various countries, making Anton the Director of every wizarding nation's office and giving him an extraordinary status...
—That fool Cornelius Fudge was greedily stealing the power Anton might have wielded...
—The Squib transformation technique should have put him on top, allowing him to forge a divine nature. If things went well, he might even have had a chance to compete with Dumbledore for the position of Chief Warlock at the International Confederation of Wizards...
There was so much more.
Every opportunity was tempting enough to drive anyone mad.
But Anton didn't care!
He truly didn't care. Given a second life, he didn't want to exhaust himself like that, fighting for this and fighting for that. He simply loved magic.
If someone else wanted it, they could have it.
Anna, who had witnessed so much history, had a perspective that Anton deeply agreed with. Perhaps it was precisely this focus that had allowed Anton to reach the level of Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Nicolas Flamel, and Voldemort in such a short time, while retaining immense potential to continue down the Path of Magic to even greater depths.
A long lifespan didn't mean anything.
Grindelwald's Path of Magic had come to an abrupt end after he launched his Wizard Supremacy movement. Dumbledore's magical research had ground to a complete halt after he turned a hundred, while Voldemort had fared a little better. Spurred