An Unusual Guess

Whitehall was an avenue in Westminster, London, home to the heart of Britain's Muggle government. Numerous departments were located there.

But what Muggles could never have imagined was that deep beneath Whitehall lay a mysterious institution: the Ministry of Magic.

The Ministry of Magic normally had three ways in and out. The first was through fireplaces connected to the Floo Network. In this ten-story underground building, every floor had corresponding fireplaces for employees commuting to and from work.

The second was by Portkey. This referred to an enhanced version of the Portkey originally reserved for important visitors. Unlike ordinary Portkeys, it was not so unpleasant; according to wizards who had used one, it felt like a shiver running through their bodies.

They were also more exquisitely made and could be used repeatedly. However, that gave the Ministry's Maintenance Department employees a headache, since more functions meant more complicated upkeep and repairs.

According to an unnamed employee from the Ministry's Maintenance Department, among the recent Ministers, only Fudge frequently used it for his commute, even though it was mainly intended to transport important visitors.

Recently, Fudge had even permitted direct Apparition into the grand hall on the eighth floor, on the grounds that maintaining the anti-Apparition wards cost too much money.

The third was the elevator. Yes, you read that right. The elevator looked like an abandoned red telephone booth; to use this entrance, one had to dial 62442 inside the booth. Following the operator's instructions, an issued pass would drop from the coin return slot, and the elevator would activate, descending underground to the grand hall on the eighth floor.

And I was an Auror Department trainee, exactly one year out of Gryffindor at Hogwarts. In Muggle terms, I was an intern at the wizarding world's police station.

My favorite way to commute was by elevator. Finnidax loved a slow-paced life most of all—ordering a Butterbeer before work and leisurely taking the elevator down to begin the day.

But something had felt strange lately. There was a café across from the elevator. If I remembered correctly, I had been to a place like that with my Muggle-born ex-girlfriend.

It seemed to have been under renovation recently, and during that time, my colleagues from the same intake had all seemed rather absent-minded. Why were there so few people around now? There were barely any Muggles in sight.

Huh?

"That's a spell! Expelliarmus!"

It was a short, black-robed dwarf. So fast—he seemed to have emerged from the café. All Finnidax could see was a blurry afterimage, accompanied by an unknown beam of magical light.

I can't dodge it. I've been hit. Finnidax could not help feeling a little despair. Huh? I just can't move. Petrificus Totalus! It's only a Full Body-Bind Curse. Looks like I might live.

But Finnidax only heard a clear incantation: "Obliviate!"

The short, black-robed dwarf was Ryan.

Tenth one! Ryan muttered to himself.

Ryan suddenly vanished soundlessly from where he stood. This was Apparition—physical Apparition. With the support of the Martial Arts skill, it produced only the faintest breeze.

Finnidax shook his head where he stood, completely unaware, then continued on to work.

Ugh, controlling the Obliviation Charm is still too difficult, especially when I have to erase less than a single minute. I can only speak the incantation and maintain a steady output. How did Lockhart make this spell so refined?

Ryan, having returned to the café, frowned in dissatisfaction.

Ryan's brief impulse had led to this simple ambush and experiment.

For this test, Ryan had Jack purchase and renovate the café opposite the Ministry of Magic's elevator.

He had then spent this period observing from there, repeatedly using the Detection skill.

Ryan discovered that most adult wizards had magical power close to thirty, while some had only around twenty to twenty-three.

This Finnidax, meanwhile, had barely twenty-two.

Don't ask how Ryan knew his name. He had specifically selected ten wizards whose magical power did not exceed twenty-three.

He had Jack obtain the relevant list, figure out their commuting habits, and clear the area in advance to make it easier to act.

Yet strangely, just as Ryan's previous tests had shown, the power of their spells was absurdly high. The same spell, at the same level, used against wizards with even less magical power than his, produced far greater force.

The only difference was that they were adults.

This matched Ryan's conjecture. With his exceptional talent, whenever he used the Thinking skill, all he needed to do was feed a question and relevant information into his mind, and it would keep thinking up answers, drawing closer and closer to the true correct answer with each iteration.

But this method consumed too much time and affected his own growth. Besides, the final answer might only be a relative truth.

Ryan did not intend to use it too often.

Every wizard who could be called a reality warper became a hindrance to the others once gathered into a group. The invisible collective mindset turned into chains that bound everything. Under such circumstances, every wizard was both a prisoner and the warden of his own prison.

Wizards had been bound from the moment they were born.

This was especially true for young wizards. Though they had been bound for a shorter time, they could still display magical phenomena in dangerous situations that even adult wizards could not achieve. Yet as they grew up, they instead became increasingly ordinary.

An Obscurus was a manifestation of that unreasonable collective mindset. Under certain circumstances, it continuously suppressed itself, only to eventually shatter its restraints by force and erupt. This was also why almost no Obscurus could survive to near adulthood.

After all, an existence that possessed great power and was free of restraint was itself a sin. It would suffer the subconscious curse of all wizards, even if they themselves were unaware of it.

Interestingly, after adulthood, perhaps because they became free and formed their own independent collective mindset, their strength underwent a sudden change.

Although their magical power and learning did not improve, their destructive power against the outside world—in other words, the power of their spells—increased enormously.

This led most of them to believe that they had improved and matured.

Seeing his conjecture come true, Ryan felt that although he had a panel and could continue improving, resolving this problem in advance was still a good thing.

And after Thinking, he found that some Ancient Magic could solve this problem. Ryan's magical nature happened to be better suited for such high-consumption spells as well.

Herpo the Foul was an interesting Dark Wizard. That was Ryan's assessment, entirely different from his portrayal in A History of Magic.

In A History of Magic, he was the earliest known Dark Wizard. He was believed to be the first to breed a Basilisk, which was what made him famous.

He had also invented many evil curses and become the first wizard to successfully create a Horcrux. In addition, he possessed a stigmatized talent: Parseltongue.

But after examining the relevant records in his family, Ryan discovered that Herpo had been a longtime friend of an ancestor who had refused to leave behind a name. He was easygoing, possessed the same reclusive personality as most Smiths, and also suffered from severe paranoia. He had made Horcruxes simply to preserve his life.

As for the murders people criticized him for, they had been fairly common means of self-defense in that era.

And many of the supposedly evil spells he had created were actually written by others. Like the Stealing Saint in My Own Swordsman, he had clearly stolen nothing, yet the stories spread far and wide. But that was also because Herpo himself needed such infamy—to keep unnecessary people away, so he could be alone.