Foolish Fudge

Harry, who had lost his true name, looked utterly bewildered.

He recognized the newcomer. Half again as tall as him and three times as wide, it could only be Hagrid. But... wasn't the magical world supposed to follow the Statute of Secrecy? —I can get away with it because the Black-hearted Book helps me interfere with perception, but you, Hagrid, don't even have your wand. How?

With an eagle's cry, Hagrid landed. Cracking his knuckles, his small, beetle-like black eyes swept hatefully over Number Four, Privet Drive, a place that clashed entirely with its surroundings. "So clean... even more than a house-elf... How dare your family treat Harry like this? Tell your father to get lost—"

Harry was in the middle of high-knee training, alternating legs raised high. His upper body wasn't idle either, arms extended flat above his shoulders, because it earned him extra points. Four years had passed, and Harry had become the complete shape of the Black-hearted Book. If Hagrid hadn't suddenly appeared, Harry would have been practicing [Healing Fist] with one hand and [Deadly Palm] with the other.

"Harry?" Hagrid finally spotted the scar on Harry's forehead. He strained to find signs of abuse on Harry, but only found perfect muscle lines, a well-made shirt, jeans, and shoes. And a smile that remained perfectly composed even during exercise. "The Dursleys may have mistreated you, but it looks like they didn't skimp on food or clothes, and they taught you well." A visible portion of Hagrid's anger subsided.

"You're a wizard? Where's Dumbledore?" Harry's tone stayed steady even as he moved.

"They didn't hide the magical world from you either—"

"No, they didn't." Harry cut Hagrid off. "You don't know Dumbledore came here?"

"Dumbledore's busy at the Ministry of Magic. The letter he left... it said you were living like a house-elf, so I rushed over on Buckbeak. Lucky I still remember the way. Eleven years ago, when I brought you here, you weren't even as big as a Niffler."

"From Hogwarts to here?" Harry only then noticed the frost in Hagrid's beard and hair.

"Buckbeak's a sturdy lad. Took less than an hour." Hearing this, Harry was touched but inwardly stunned. His [Mathematics] and [Geography] skills automatically linked... From the Scottish Highlands to Surrey near London... Latitude 57.4778°N, longitude 4.2247°W—latitude 51.2362°N, longitude 0.5746°W. The straight-line distance was roughly... 430 miles (692 kilometers). An hour. At that rate, Buckbeak's speed rivaled a Boeing 737, and he was carrying Hagrid. A Firebolt only did 150 miles per hour. Harry looked at Buckbeak's gray wings. —A Hippogriff's wings... Not as fast as Voldemort's furious limit burst of 3,800 kilometers per hour, going from the South Pole to the North Pole in just seven or eight hours, 1.3 times faster than a MiG-31 supersonic fighter, but it wouldn't be bad to draw something like this.

[The Savior Lord's fighting spirit soars. Encountered a key figure for [Intermediate Training Quest]. Unlock conditions met.]

[Side quest released... [Speed King of Flight] (100 experience points, 1 Golden Affix draw).]

[Acquire flight ability within one year of entering the magical world. Reward issued based on rival [Voldemort]'s maximum flight speed as the passing standard.]

—Surpass Voldemort in a year? How about arm wrestling? I wouldn't mind. Harry fantasized about flattening Voldemort into a little pancake.

[Please, Savior Lord, abandon thoughts of taking shortcuts and steadily surpass your rival.]

[New [Diplomacy] target detected—Buckbeak. Side quest released... [Hippogriff Is Also an Eagle].]

[Attempt to communicate with it using [Horse Speech] and [Eagle Speech] (10 experience points).]

Harry was long used to the occasional side quest pop-ups and voice prompts. He still smiled, his high-knee movements perfectly matching the Black-hearted Book's requirements. Daily quests couldn't outweigh side quests. This one quenched his immediate thirst. Harry's movements suddenly stopped, aborting the daily quest. Under Hagrid's puzzled gaze, he walked smiling toward Buckbeak and let out a clear eagle cry. "Hello (Eagle Speech)."

"You speak our language (Eagle Speech)," Buckbeak replied.

[...Quest complete. 10 experience points gained.]

Inside the house, the Dursleys, watching through the window, were all pale-faced. "Mom, Harry's having another episode," Dudley trembled.

"Don't talk nonsense. This is magic. In fairy tales, princesses can talk to animals. That's common sense," Petunia forced herself to sound confident. As the one in the family who knew most about magic, she had to hold it together in front of her husband and son.

"Why didn't Dumbledore come?" Vernon stroked his hunting rifle. "That giant rode a monster over. Plenty of people must have seen it."

"Dumbledore! Plenty of people saw it—a Hippogriff flying through Muggle towns! And one of your men was on it." Minister of Magic Fudge pushed the door open and entered.

He was dressed quite oddly, a garish wizard's robe worn over a green Muggle suit.

Though his tone was interrogative, it carried a hint of bluster masking inner weakness.

"I arranged it." Inside the Memory Erasure Command office, Dumbledore said calmly.

Though he held no real power in the Ministry of Magic, he acted as if he were the master of the place, and the surrounding staff instinctively followed his lead.

"I—I see. You must have your reasons." Fudge's fat face squeezed out a smile.

"The immediate priority is giving Harry a plausible reason to disappear from the Muggle world for a period each year." Dumbledore rose. "UKMT-JMO champion, star player representing the ISA Cup—Harry shines just as brightly in the ordinary world. Almost no one in Britain doesn't know his name. It exceeded my expectations."

A flicker of confusion crossed Fudge's fat face. He glanced at the employees in the office who kept stepping in and out of the green fireplace flames. "Can't you just send Pisgood and his team? One letter from you would suffice. You didn't need to come in person."

He was deeply wary of Dumbledore appearing at the Ministry and tried hard to hide it.

Dumbledore sighed. "They can't do it alone. The last large-scale memory modification in our country was in the 19th century, when we built Platform 9¾ in central London and requisitioned a Muggle train."

"You think I'm inferior to Evangeline Orpington—the universally acknowledged most accomplished Minister of Magic, who solved the wizard train problem." A flash of humiliation crossed Fudge's stupid face.

"She was a friend of Queen Victoria. The Ministry of Magic had 457 employees on the payroll back then. Now there are only 278." Dumbledore turned his face away. "With all due respect, among the current Ministry staff, aside from Aurors and other frontline workers, most can't even cast a proper Shield Charm. Let alone Obliviate."

Obliviate wasn't simply about deleting memories—it involved reconstructing and modifying them, demanding great skill from the caster.

Fudge only heard that Dumbledore knew exactly how many employees the Ministry currently had.

—I didn't even know that, and he does. Dumbledore must be eyeing my seat as Minister of Magic.

The wariness on his face grew more pronounced—so obvious that even Arnold Pisgood, who had just returned from Devon after modifying the memories of a tour group (they'd encountered a Welsh Green Dragon, and one person had broken a leg), noticed it through his sleep-dazed eyes.

Dumbledore naturally noticed it too, but he possessed immense patience and tolerance, along with enough wisdom to speak with foolish people.

"Now is your chance to surpass Evangeline Orpington."

"Really!" Fudge instantly forgot his wariness.

Perhaps he would remember it again someday, but hindered by his own intellect, he would inevitably seek Dumbledore's help and forget his wariness once more, cycling on and on.

This situation had already occurred many times.

The employees in the office all believed it would continue until Fudge's term ended.