Dewey entered London without incident. Before he did, he had left behind a few precautions, just in case.
The weather in London was as miserable as ever, just as he'd expected. Dewey strolled easily through the city's streets and alleys. The whole of London was bustling with people, and the Ministry of Magic simply didn't have enough manpower to investigate everyone coming and going. The city carried on as usual.
The wanted posters for Dewey and Sirius Black were still on TV.
Unfortunately, the two fugitives posed no threat to London.
Apart from providing gossip for people to chatter about over tea, the posters served no purpose at all.
London was enjoying a peaceful, prosperous time.
There wasn't even a single police officer stationed at the roads leading into the city.
As for the Wizarding World, Mad-Eye Moody, a retired Auror brought back into service, and his followers had set up checkpoints in London. But they were stopping wizards entering and leaving the city. When it came to Muggles, there was nothing he could do.
His heavy-handed tactics had left many wizards deeply dissatisfied. For a time, they complained bitterly about the Ministry's actions and took measures to show their displeasure with the Aurors.
Dewey knew all this because lately, many well-known freelance writers and guest reporters had been attacking the Ministry of Magic in various newspapers. They knew Mad-Eye Moody was a tough nut to crack, so they didn't dare point their accusations directly at the madman.
Instead, they made snide, sarcastic remarks about Moody in the papers, directly challenged Fudge, and blamed the Ministry of Magic. Articles like these were springing up like mushrooms after rain, appearing in every issue.
Dewey treated these editorials as jokes and often found himself laughing out loud.
In his view, it wouldn't be long before Fudge reined in Mad-Eye Moody and made him try a different way of investigating the fugitives.
What a weak and foolish Minister.
Dewey thought that the backwardness of wizards wasn't reflected in their methods.
The Wizarding World and the Muggle World weren't completely cut off from each other.
Things like newspapers, Magic Radios, magical cars, and magical telegraphs were all Muggle technologies that wizards had adapted with magic.
The biggest problem facing magical wizards wasn't that they had failed to keep up with the times. It was their arrogance and their rigid attachment to the old ways.
Their ideas and understanding of Muggles were still stuck in the Middle Ages.
They simply lacked the wisdom to match their magic.
Even Dumbledore was the same. He had never applied his wisdom to these matters. He didn't want to change the world or rule it.
His conscience kept him away from power and stopped him from wielding strength he had no right to possess, lest he cause even greater destruction.
That was conscience.
At the same time, he was pursuing another power, one greater than political power.
Resurrection.
That was an obsession.
More than anything, he wanted to find the Deathly Hallows and bring back his parents and sister.
What he wanted was to completely shatter the boundary between life and death, to defy the rules.
He had never even considered ruling the world. Dumbledore had never been a perfect man or a saint, but he was a good man. Given the magic—and power—he possessed, and what he had done, he was an admirable person.
Even Dewey had to admit that.
Voldemort was the same.
Unfortunately, Dewey didn't yet know how to exploit Dumbledore's flaws and deceive him. The gap in their strength was simply too great.
Neither covert schemes nor open tactics would work.
As he thought this over, Dewey turned into a shop.
The air was misty with drizzle. Dewey didn't much like this kind of weather. He liked the sun, the blazing sun. He liked the feeling of it shining down on him, hot and scorching.
Dewey settled into a family-run restaurant and added sugar to his coffee. One, two, three, four, five...
He spooned in one spoonful of sugar after another, making the waiter's eyes widen.
The waiter felt as if he'd just seen something extraordinary.
Looking at the thickening coffee, he wondered whether it was still drinkable.
The customer had ordered fries and a sandwich. The waiter left, but before he went, he saw the strange man take chocolate out of his clothes as well.
In the kitchen, he shared what he'd seen with his mother, who was also his boss and the cook.
"That really was a strange man..."
He said it to his mother with absolute certainty.
Dewey had no interest in paying attention to any of that. He ate the fries one by one, his eyes narrowing in contentment. Aside from desserts, fried food was his favorite. He licked the ketchup from his fingers and set his pocket watch on the table, waiting patiently.
He was deeply puzzled by the Ministry of Magic's efficiency—or lack thereof. Neither Stupefy nor Avada Kedavra would have killed those Hit Wizards. They should have woken up by now.
In other words, Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic should both have learned by now that they had been attacked.
That was part of the plan, too. But here was the problem: the magical device he'd left outside the tent had seen the Hit Wizards stumble out, terrified, and call for help from Hogwarts. They should have called the Ministry of Magic as well. Surely they could use Floo Powder?
Magical messages traveled pretty quickly.
So where were the people from the Ministry?
The Aurors?
The Hit Wizards?
The other officials?
Where had they all gone?
Why were they still doing nothing?
Could they really keep their nerve for this long?
Dewey refused to believe they didn't understand the consequences of all the Hit Wizards being taken out.
Dewey didn't know much about the Ministry of Magic, but he knew Dementors all too well.
These creatures had no morals by nature. The power that held them in Azkaban was less a contract between them and the Ministry of Magic than a worthless piece of paper. The magic written upon it wasn't what truly kept them in line.
What really restrained them was the wizards' authority. The Ministry of Magic still had a few decent Aurors. Besides, if something really happened in Azkaban, the Dementors wouldn't just have the Ministry to contend with. Plenty of other powerful wizards would be there to face them, too. Those wizards wouldn't stand by and do nothing if the Dementors flew all over the place.
Dementors were intelligent, but that didn't mean they had a strong sense of the consequences. To them, the Hogwarts grounds were an irresistibly tempting cake. The children's happiness was so enticing it made their insides squirm. The Dementors stationed there were ravenous, and having to face such a feast every day without being able to take a bite had left them on edge.
If they noticed their guards were weak, if they could no longer resist the temptation, the Dementors would rush into Hogwarts. Dementors who had lost their reason wouldn't hesitate to give the students a Dementor's Kiss.
A loving kiss, wasn't it?
Dewey called it a secondary disaster.
What bothered him, though, was that he seemed to have relied too much on his own assumptions and given the Ministry of Magic too much credit. Even after the Hit Wizards stationed outside the Ministry had been attacked, the Ministry still did nothing.
One hour, two hours, three hours.
Time passed second by second, and Dewey grew anxious. The Ministry still hadn't sent anyone to check on the Hit Wizards or rein in the Dementors. Instead, Professor McGonagall came out with Madam Pomfrey, with Snape following behind. Snape was in a hurry, his expression grim.
He didn't summon his Patronus. Instead, he used the silvery light of the Patronus Charm to envelop everyone and bring the injured into Hogwarts. It looked as though Professor McGonagall intended to have Madam Pomfrey treat them.
"The Ministry never fails to disappoint."
By this point, Dewey had long since left the family restaurant. He wandered through London's streets and alleys as if he had no particular destination. But from above, it would have been clear that his movements weren't random. He was looking for the best escape route.
He even made his way to the British Library. He wasn't a reader, a member, or a donor, so he had to get clever and use a very magical, not-at-all-Muggle way to enter the library.
The Ministry of Magic still hadn't made a move, and Dewey's contingency plan had come into play.
The time had come.
With a click, the door of a cage opened outside London.
Once the clever, timed Muggle cage opened, the owl inside spread its wings and took flight. A letter-delivering owl wasn't cheap, but fortunately, Dewey hadn't paid for it. Sirius Black was always surprisingly generous. To him, wealth was just a number.
He didn't care about it.
Even with him and his cousin in prison, and all the other Black heirs dead, the Ministry of Magic still couldn't seize their fortune.
A large part of it was in Gringotts. The Goblins, after all, controlled the currency and finance of the wizarding world.
The Ministry of Magic had no power over the Goblins.
The cage door swung open, and the owl Dewey had left behind flapped away. It didn't go to the Ministry of Magic. It went to the Leaky Cauldron, where it tapped its beak against the door of a private room booked by the Minister for Magic.
It sounded like a woodpecker.
Mr. Scrimgeour opened the door, his hair a mess, and saw the owl. He looked surprised. The owl dropped the letter in front of him, then flew into the room, where a perch stood for it to rest on.
Scrimgeour looked at the owl curiously. It didn't look familiar, and it didn't look like one of the Ministry's owls.
Was someone looking for him?
Everyone knew he was staying here. He hadn't been going into the Ministry to work.
The Ministry had recently taken on a lot of former Death Eaters. They huddled together, made snide remarks, and shut everyone else out. On top of that, the Minister had been taking his frustrations out on the hard-working people like Scrimgeour, thanks to the attacks from all sides. Scrimgeour couldn't be bothered to go to the Ministry and take the abuse.
He was staying at the Leaky Cauldron for the time being. This place was supposed to be where the Hit Wizards stationed at Azkaban rested, but the Hit Wizards who knew the Patronus Charm had split into two groups: one stationed outside Hogwarts, the other at Azkaban.
Even if they switched places, the ones at Azkaban would go to Hogwarts, and the ones at Hogwarts would go to Azkaban.
It made no difference.
So the place was going to waste. He might as well stay there.
After closing the door, Scrimgeour eyed the letter suspiciously. On the envelope, someone had written in hideously ugly, crooked black-inked handwriting:
"To Mr. Rufus Scrimgeour, Head of the Auror Office at the Ministry of Magic, staying in the Ministry's permanent suite on the third floor of the Leaky Cauldron.
Dewey Jones."
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