Hello All, Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/May the pasta be succulent, Pastafarians.
Please see the second to last chapter of this story. On the 31st of December, I will post the last chapter here. I think it's quite fitting that the end of this story comes at the end of the year.
Without further ado...enjoy!
25th of June, 1993 – New York
Lisa Studpoole POV
"Oh, I needed that." Lisa with delighted sigh as she placed down her cup of coffee.
"The girls have only been back a few weeks" Aimee said with a laugh in her voice and Lisa glared at her sister who hid a smile behind her cup of honey tea.
Her daughters were out with their father for the day who'd promised to take them away for a trip to the Appleton market where a few of their school friends would be. Considering how much she'd missed her daughters, it had been startling to see how much she wanted moments of peace for herself again despite them being back only such a short period of time.
The sight made her lose the heat in her glare and she gave of an exasperated sigh before she smiled a little "And I already can't wait for them to go back to Salem. Honestly, they were so sweet in what seems only yesterday ago" she said in lament though it was without much substance.
Her daughters had been…difficult to say the least. Not in the first few days but after that? Arguments, mutterings under their breaths, constant complaints…
"You're exaggerating." Aimee said with a roll of her eyes as she placed her cup down. "They're on the cusp of being teenagers, hormones and all." Aimee looked at her pointedly, a sly smile on her face "You know how we were at that age."
"We were never that difficult!" Lisa said with an offended look though her smile gained in strength. Aimee snorted and gave her a look that practically screamed 'Pull the other one!'
"I seem to remember someone arguing with mom after mom asked, with concern, whether or not it was healthy to have so many iconography of 'Towers of Saturn'." Aimee said in a snicker and Lisa grimaced as she slumped into herself a little.
It hadn't been the finest moment in her life, admittedly.
She'd been obsessed about the band for a good few years in her early teens. So much so that her room had been decked with the wizarding band. Thankfully, neither her parents or her sister knew how far gone she'd been at that age. She shuddered as she remembered the cringey daydreams she had about them.
"I can't wait until the girls find their idols!" Aimee said with coy gleam in her eyes "Maybe…" Aimee began before continuing, slightly leaning in "Maybe one of them will get a Perm Tat of their idols like you almost did."
She almost got a permanent moving tattoo at age fifteen and had even sat in one of the disreputable tattoo shops of Fitchburg, before they up and moved away like many in the country, before she chickened out and fled from the shop finally having come to her senses.
Her grimace turned into a horror "You take that filth back!"
Her sister cackled at her dismay and Lisa was glad the table they were at had its silencing charms on. Her sister's laugh petered away though she kept up her smile despite the glare Lisa sent her way.
"For what it's worth, I don't think they'll do anything as stupid as we did at that age." Aimee sighed as she spoke "or almost did" before she continued with a sad note in her voice "It's probably a good thing too. Things…things are not as easy as they were back then which…which is saying much."
Lisa's glare lightened and she played with the handle of her cup before she nodded slightly. Even though the Rappaport laws had never made things easy, the laws that had come into effect after the Cuba debacle and the Ravenite threat, paranoia within Congress and the country in general had been immense.
Even as the Ravenite problem had been dealt with, the concern of the No-Majs has still been there and since then, the stringent rules on the use of magic in No-Maj land had been severe. Well more severe. Aurors were ever pleased to enforce it, especially considering that it would only take one Trieste incident to expose them all.
Or so they liked to say.
Civil liberties died in the face of security or something like that.
One of the effects of such…severity, was that the schools more or less adopted the attitude of the government and it wasn't hard to see it in her own children who were less carefree like she and Aimee had been at their age in the sixties.
Though…Lisa mused to herself, her daughters seemed to make up for it by being extremely wilful and demanding in the confines of their home.
She could understand, she thought soberly. It wasn't easy living in their neighbourhood given that magic was more or less forbidden in such No-Maj dense environment and more than a few times, even in this week, her children had moaned and complained about the lack of magic in their homes now that her twin daughters had experienced Salem and what daily use of magic was like.
But New York had been her and her family's home for generations, the same for her husband, and leaving it behind like many others have done for the country-ship New Jackson or the enclaves on the continent wasn't something they were willing to do.
Not yet at least.
"Let's talk about something else" Lisa said with a shake of a head before she clasped onto the cup a little tighter, her eyes shining as she looked at her sister.
"So who is this Andrew?"
Hours later, well into the evening as she caught up with her sister and then later with their long time friends, she made her way back home, having apparated to the nearest apparation point by her home.
She startled at the sound of the beeping cab and quickly stepped back before she growled under her breath, her eyes intently burning a hole in the retreating cab.
'No-Maj's' she cursed to herself before she looked both ways and hurriedly crossed the street. The apparation point was still a ten minute walk from her home and so she always had to walk home. She wished she could get a home apparation permit but their home in Manhattan made that nothing more than a pipedream.
She could get the floo but it was expensive to use and she didn't want to add the cost of purchasing floo powder to their expenses, not when both her and her husband were being careful with their savings. They both worked at MACUSA and the pay was not bad but you never know these days.
To live here, one had to live practically like a No Maj. At times, she had thought, it was as if they were being punished for wanting to remain at their ancestral homes, homes that were built before the United States was even a twinkle of an idea.
As much as she didn't like thinking about leaving her ancestral home, she might have to and with how expensive houses in New Jackson were getting, they'd need to make sure they had disposable money just in case.
The lights were on, she thought. Her husband and the girls must be back, she considered. She walked up the stairs to her townhouse and eyed her surroundings for a moment though she need not have since the lights of all of her No Maj neighbours were off and she stepped closer to the door and brought out her key. Wards beyond non-invasive and subtle thief-repelling wards were not allowed in neighbourhoods like this where No-Majs were their neighbours.
Once upon a time, this would have been a fairly prominent magical neighbourhood but after the near-disaster of 1926, families began to leave for pastures new, often settling in wizarding settlements in Massachusetts. And since the country-ship New Jackson was opened for migration, there were only three other families remaining in a radius of four city blocks.
"Curtis?! Lila, Lucy?!" Lisa called out as she dusted off her shoes before she took them off and walked further into her home. "Hello?" she called out, her voice travelling across the hallway as she rolled her shoulders slightly, feeling a little tired and idly wondering why she wasn't hearing anything.
She knew they had to be home as they all left when it was still light out so the lights being on could only have been by her husband.
"Cur-" her words died on her lips as she came to a stop, her body rocked into stillness as she stood by the entrance of the living room, her mind unable to understand, to compute, what her eyes were indicating to her, what her eyes were seeing.
Her husband…her Curtis, was atop their sofa with a hole in his head, dried thick blood dripping down his face, his eyes unseeing, his mouth agape and she screamed in horror, in grief, in fear "Curtis?!" she screamed out as she ran towards him.
"Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, oh Merlin…what has been done to you?!" she cried out as she clutched onto his face as she fell upon him, weeping, her heart shattering as she felt the cold skin to her touch and she cried, oh she cried, until…until she remembered. "Lila?! LUCY?!" she screamed out, her heart racing in her chest, her fear rising to levels she never knew she could feel and it was then, when she was about to look in every crevice of her home that she saw the writings on the wall on the far side of the living room.
Marked with blood, in gruesome callous writing
'IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR DAUGHTERS ALIVE AGAIN, DO NOT CONTACT ANYONE. WE WILL KNOW. PICK UP THE PHONE ON THE KITCHEN TABLE AND DIAL THE LAST NUMBER.'
Ice travelled down her spine and she ran faster than she thought possible and there it was, an ugly black brick like No Maj telephone, and it was then that was she realising the severity of everything.
She picked it up with trembling hands, frustration creeping within her as she tried to figure out how to telecall. It was so different to magi-coms which you could use almost like a wand, instinctive and intuitive not like this…thing.
Somehow, minutes later, she managed to hear a beeping sound and she pressed it to her ear. "Mrs Studpoole."
"Who are you?! Where are my daughters?! Give them back to me now!" she half screamed down the phone.
"Mom! Mom!"
"Lucy?! Lila?! My babies!" Lisa half cried in happiness at their voices and cried in despair at the panic in their voices. She heard commotion and a cry from her daughters "What are you doing to them?!"
"They are still alive, Mrs Studpoole. Whether or not they will meet the fate of your husband will be up to you." Her cry got stuck in her throat, and instead a suffocating noise exited her lips as she felt a trickle escape her bladder, the thought of her babies dying so horribly as her Curtis feeling like an icicle through her brain.
"Please…please don't. They've done nothing wrong…please…I'll do anything you want" Lisa whimpered, her voice shaky, the telephone shaking, trembling as her body shook like she was out in the middle of the coldest winter night.
"Go to 137 Mott Street. There will be a red car underneath a city light waiting for you. You will get into it without a struggle. Do not bother trying to use magic on them. They know nothing of who we are and where your daughters are."
The moment Lisa saw that No Maj telephone, she knew that this was something terrible, so, so terrible but now…she knew that it was very possibly worse.
Yet all she could really think of was the sounds of her panicked daughters, the imagination of seeing them dead with a bullet hole in their heads like her husband.
"O-o-okay." Lisa said with a dry voice, her voice trembling still "Will you release them if I come?"
"You have five minutes to get there." The voice cut out with a sudden beeping tone and it took a moment for her shatter out of her freezing stillness and she realised that they knew about apparation for there was no other way she could get there without apparating.
And it was in that moment, in that moment of reflection that she realised the Statute of Secrecy was gone, shattered as her heart was on the brink of shattering, knowing that things…things were not good at all.
Yet…she could not come to accept it, she could not come to accept that going to the Aurors was an option. No, she thought, as her bottom lip trembled, she knew that her daughters would be certain to die if she did not do as they asked.
A suffocating whimper crept out of her mouth as she palmed her wand, her heels coming together and with a shuddering breath she recollected the alley by 137 Mott Street and with a wave of her wand and a twist of her heels, all she left behind was the sound of a loud crack, a crack that was akin to the crack at the foundations of weakened bridge, a crack that knowingly and unknowingly would herald the end of centuries of reality.
Hours later…
Her heart pounded within her chest, her throat dry, her palms wet, her eyes downcast, away from the glare of cameras, from the loathing in the expressions of the No-Maj's, the sound of the chattering around her akin to the sounds of braying crowds that sought her blood spilled, her flesh sundered and she thought it was truer than not.
She heard the wheels of some contraption creak towards her and she kept her eyes down, half hoping that all of this was still a nightmare she would wake from instead of the living nightmare her life has become.
"Mrs Studpoole." She flinched at the voice of the man who she became to associate all of this to, and she looked up towards the screen and saw the same dead eyes on the No Maj videoscreen she'd seen when she'd been taken to the warehouse, a warehouse that had been empty save for one videoscreen and men on either side of it.
Her daughters were with the man. She believed them likely to be still with the man.
At his mercy…mercy that she didn't think truly existed but she had no choice but to hope for it, hope that the man had some sort of decency not to murder children.
From the way he'd spoken, the way he'd forced her to agree to this in oath…She kept her eyes closed for a moment.
'You can fight us. You can even get your MACUSA involved. It will not change the fact that your daughters will be dead and their bodies long cold before your magic can find them.'
Those words rang in her mind, endlessly since it had been spoken, mixing with the terrified looks on her gagged daughters, tears running down their faces.
She was doomed. And…she swallowed a choked cry. Her daughters were likely going to die as well but she had no choice. No choice!
No choice but to comply, to swear, to hope…
Oh Merlin…
Her stomach felt like it was being pounded and sliced apart all at the same time, the awful knowledge that she was going to destroy the magical worl-…
"Mrs Studpoole." The voice was more demanding and she opened her eyes and looked at the man in the videoscreen again.
"I-I will be…I am ready." Lisa said with a stoic voice but she knew that there was a shake in her voice, in her face, in her eyes, a shake that was pained.
She'd considered, just for a moment, if she could sacrifice her children but any such thought had been washed away when she realised with haunting clarity that regardless if she did that, the No Maj's would know of their kind, one way or another.
She still had a chance to save her daughters…she had to believe…hope…
"I have no doubt of that, Mrs Studpoole. Your daughters will be released upon the end of the interview."
She crushed the doubt and forced herself to feel hopeful but it was a losing game. They killed her Curtis like an animal. She did not know how they managed to do it, to catch so off-guard but knowing how much…planning had gone into all of this…
"Just do as you agreed and everything will be fine."
"I believe you sir" Lisa said with a shaky nod and a fake smile, bile rising up her throat. For our daughters, Curtis…
Minutes later she was watching at the side as the No Maj's prepared themselves, the host of the show, a stern clean faced man with slicked back brown hair going through some strange No Maj voice ritual, and she held her breath, her hands tightening at the fabric of her dress with a death grip, and soon enough it all began.
She turned her eyes towards the men behind the cameras, most focused on their devices but there was one who looked at her with pity, with concern and unmistakable fear before it fell away and the man turned away from her.
She'd realised as soon as she was escorted into the news building that only some truly knew what she was and many of them were in this very room.
"Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the O'Hare Show live on CMMBC, America's finest news channel." The presenter said and she turned her attentions to the man.
"Today's show will be different to what you are used to but be assured that everything that you will hear and will see, is hundred percent real and not a fabrication.
It will be horrifying to you, it will break your perception of the very nature of our world. I do not make this statement lightly. It was the very same for me when I was told of the most terrifying conspiracy, ladies and gentlemen"
Lisa swallowed dryly, her hands shaking. Oh Merlin…
"Mrs Studpoole" her name was called out and the walk towards the presenter felt like a death march as she walked with her wand in her hand.
She came into the camera view as she walked and with a shuddering breath, she raised her wand and with silent incantation, she transfigured the news table into a male lion, though not any ordinary male lion, but rather a male lion in the colours of the American flag and twice the size of a normal lion.
"I am Lisa Studpoole." She began, her voice surprisingly even though the terror she felt as her next words were on the top of her tongue was incomprehensible, even to her yet she managed to utter them.
"And I am a Witch, one of many that lives amongst you."
The presenter had stood away from his chair, his eyes on the lion before he spoke up next "And that is only the very tip of the conspiracy iceberg, ladies and gentlemen."
-Break-
25th of June, Washington D.C.
Jackson Seale POV
"Mr President." Jackson said respectfully, his gaze assessing all around him.
There were many more Secret Service than he would normally expected, groups of three clustered together to ensure every angle was covered.
He turned his gaze towards those seated at the table. President Bush was present with the Joint Chiefs, the Vice President and several other staff, including Press Secretary Albright, who they had once identified as a possible Scourer member before it had been narrowly shot down.
He set his gaze back towards the President who looked somewhat under the weather.
To be expected.
It was only three hours since the O'Hare interview had gone live and since then, there was not a corner of America where it wasn't talked about.
At present, people still thought of it a hoax but more and more people were beginning to think it wasn't fake. Studpoole had been interrogated live on television, what she was, what the magical world was, how long they'd live amongst them, and more importantly discuss the depths witches and wizards went about to protect their world.
That had sparked the greatest outrage…stolen children and stolen memories. It hadn't been long after that that the Aurors apparated directly into the studio, in a way that caught their arrival, and caused the abrupt end of the show.
Perhaps the magicals could have salvaged the situation, by magicking CMMBC into making a statement that suggested that it was a promo or an advertising gag but the Scourers would not let that happen.
The morning The Era paper also included reveal of the magical world, factual statements that included damning evidence of locations of several known magical enclaves and it hadn't been long before people tried to find them only to find themselves unable to cross boundaries.
And, much to their luck, one of the smaller news crews had caught an interaction with a wizard at one of these enclaves, a negative interaction that caught the wizard casting a spell at them, and it was turning around people's opinions.
"Imagine my surprise when I when I wake this morning and am greeted to this…insanity by my staff." the President began, his face tightening in anger. "So called magic." The President spat out as if the word was offensive, as if it was a vile acid that had sat on the centre of his tongue "exposed to the entire world."
The President drew himself up as his gaze turned icy
"I was bemused at first. I thought O'Hare and CMMBC were running a gag of some kind. Until I was informed that it was no gag and that the country's most watched news channel really did believe that magic existed."
"And just as I was formulating a response on how to deal with this joke of a…situation, six men dressed in antiquated suits suddenly appear in my office." The President's rage could be heard in his voice.
"Six men who disarmed my guards and locked me and my staff in with them." The men in the room looked uncomfortable though most looked angry as well. He also didn't fail to see that some of them were watching their surroundings warily, as if the witches and wizards could appear at any moment.
Jackson wondered what they would have said to the President but he knew it was not the right time to ask, not right now, not with the way the President was looking at him.
"You have my apologies, Mr President. It was not the intent of my organisation to put you in danger." Jackson said with a bowed head.
"Fuck your apologies!" The outburst surprised Jackson, more than the appearance of the witches and wizards and he turned to look at the President who had stood up.
He was red in face, apocalyptic in rage, and it was palpable in his voice.
"You and your people" The President spat out "Have made a mockery of this Office and of the American people. You have exposed this…this…thing in a way that has created the most harm in the most harmful way possible!"
The room was deathly silent and the only sound was the heavy breathing of the president who was gnawing at his tie. "Now…" the President began, as he calmed down though he did not lose his icy angry glare.
"I've been… told you're the man I need to speak to…about this madness." The President in an icy tone, his face set in a way that brooked no noncompliance.
The White House had been in contact with CMMBC and with The Era, including their owners and they'd been directed to him for them to understand what is happening in greater depth.
The choice to keep the White House in the dark whilst all of this was happening was a calculated one, and why they choose to not approach Albright, partly to keep the President off-balanced enough to force him down a path they set out for him.
Already, the Senators within the Scourer organisation were doing their parts, meeting with other senators, politicians and religious groups to tell the story how they wanted it to be known, before friendlier PR could be created.
The President would have no choice but to accede to their demands.
"I am a senior representative of the Scourer organisation, an organisation that is well over two centuries old and one that is dedicated to the truth and the protection of our people against the supernatural." Jackson said.
"You knew about these…people?" One of the Joint Chiefs asked sharply.
"They are not people." Jackson said vehemently, a tone that some in the room did not appreciate. "My apologies, Sirs, but we must make that clear. They. Are. Not. Like. Us." Jackson said firmly
"They are unholy creatures the Bible warns us about. They are the monsters in our legends and in our tales that we tell and frighten our children about." Jackson took a deep breath before he added. "Simply put, they are not human."
"Mr President" one of the staff members said with alarm in his voice "We can-"
"Quiet Beckett." The Vice President said harshly with an equally harsh glare.
"You were not there in the room when they came like a silent plague into the room. You were not there when we were made helpless in their presence and their magic. I am inclined to believe that they aren't like us at all."
Jackson smiled inwardly. The Vice President was known to be a religious man and wasn't just religious for the cameras. The existence of magic and witches would be a confirmation of his faith…of the faith of millions…if not billions.
"However Beckett does raise a good point." The Vice President said as he turned his gaze towards Jackson "You knew of these people."
"We did. At first, the descendants of our organisation thought the writings of our predecessors to be writings of legend or a joke that was misunderstood until some curious ones looked into it and began to find…incidents."
"Incidents like what The Era paper has been alluding to?" One of the Joint Chiefs said in a scathing tone, clearly making clear his opinion of going about things the way they did.
"Indeed, Sir, and many more. We found proof in the past few decades and only recently did we discover how terribly huge this conspiracy ran." Jackson said before he eyed the rest of the room "And in how much danger we were all in." he said before eyeing the President.
"Mr President. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the only reason you remember those six creatures in your office is only because the secret is out. They would have otherwise messed with your minds as they have done with countless of people throughout the ages." Jackson said fervently and he could see that Bush was angry still, likely not only at him but at the entire situation.
"We apologise for going about ways the way we did but we did not believe the truth would be released without exceptional actions." Jackson bowed his head before adding "We will do all we can to cooperate for the safety of our people. That has been the goal of the Scourers ever since it was founded."
"Then tell us what you know."
Jackson smiled inwardly.
…
Hours Later…
Alice POV
She withdrew her connection out of the LAI Jackson Seale golem and brought herself back into her artificial body which stood at one of the labs she'd fashioned into a monitoring observatory for all of the planetside golems.
She connected to her Creator's magi-com and appeared to him as a holo on his magi-com. "Alice." Her Creator's voice was warm as he said her name.
"The scenario went perfectly, Creator."
"Good. Keep abreast of the situation. There will still be nudges you will need to induce to ensure the ideal outcome." Her Creator said.
Moments later, she received time stamps, dates and actions, actions that included which LAIs might need to be adjusted in both statement and in deed.
"Of course Creator."
The call disconnected and she soon began to focus her attentions on the thousands of LAI golems that were placed all around the world and reviewed the past day of thousands of memories.
With how close they were to Exodus, the path of almost bloodless departure was something that was critically important to maintain.
With so many moving parts, in terms of people, events and circumstances, managing to create a path that required no course corrections even in as short a period of time as a few months, was still impossible.
Her Creator liked to say that it was threading a needle in the midst of an earthquake.
The analogy was useful though the mathematical probability of finding such a timeline that needed only no adjustment would have been enough to explain how improbable it was.
Idly, she wondered for a brief moment as she consumed the memories, she was curious to determine how the Predictive History Model could deal with such precise Futures.
The moment passed, the memories reviewed, and soon enough she moved onto another task.
-Break-
27th of June, 1993 – Illos, Office of Far-Sight
Hypatia POV
The room was silent, not as silent as a grave, rather, instead, silent in the way a bird caught in a reverie atop a tree branch on the dawn of autumn may be silent, smelling, feeling, knowing the moment was then and now, that moment before the next moment, the one that calls on their being, the beckoning moment to depart south.
The magic of the room was dense, though not suffocating, never that, no, it was stilling, in the way that heavy, life shattering realisation could be.
Her eyes traced across the cavernous room, a small room that boasted sixteen of her Far-Seers, and Atticus and her Pandora, all of them, her included, sharing in the moment, the moment that Sang in Living Time, an echo of a song that transcended the past, the present and the future and they all had felt it shiver down their spines.
"The wake of the disturbance in Living Time is irrevocable." Atticus said, no, decreed, his voice appearing to be distant and near all at the same time, ever present like Magic, like Time, a voice that carried triumph and solemnity in equal measure, triumphant because their actions fractured another link in the shackles that bound this universe into perpetual horror, endless horror, solemn because now that disturbed lake of Time was going to cook, boil, revealing what lay below.
She remembered.
The disbelief.
The denial.
And the unforgettable soul wrenching horror that seared into her mind when she connected to the Domain, the Realm of Magic, the Realm of Consciousness, the Realm of Death.
What should have been joyous, exultant – answers, answers, answers! – was soon turned into horror, peel by peel. Crust. Mantle. Until she reached beyond the uppermost layers, the crust, of Knowledge, of Experience, of History, and instead reached out to what was always there, always from the moment the first civilisations came to know they were never the first, and that they had never been free to exist.
Their existence, their triumphs, their story, was nought but a delicacy, allowed to ripened until it tasted sour, until it tasted bitter, and it was all the more sweet to the Shapeless Ones, those-who-ate-and-ate.
Pieces, shards, the lucky few that survived the decadent feast, howled, whispered, raged, cried, all of them broken, their peace shallow, knowing that even in Death they were not free. That even in Death, they would, though fractionally, suffer, as endlessly as those who were caught in the hunger of their devourers.
She believed him. Atticus. She believed her. Yminenso Yprikushma, daughter of Yprin Yprikushma, the last human of the first human civilisation, Morrigan.
They told her of the suicide that the Devourer in sheep's skin had driven its human interrogators to, once the Truth of the nature of this universe was discerned, was understood. She could do nothing but believe in the wake of experiencing those haunted shards.
It had almost the same effect on them all, her Far-Seers. Her daughter. Her. Only the hope, only the vibrations, the quake that was breaking the still surface of the lake of Living Time that plucked discordant notes into the repeating hymn that played deep below proved to show that they were not helpless, not completely.
And now…
In the cataclysmic wake that was cast upon the surface of Living Time, a surface had been quaking and quaking and quaking ever more as Time marched forward, that hope was blossoming into a bloom of summer.
She touched upon the Domain, letting the remnants of images, of feelings and knowledge, pass through her, letting the shards that knew no peace, touch upon her, and letting them know they could begin to turn from the singularity of despair.
But she knew.
She knew they would not, not even for an angular second turn away from that singularity. Not yet. Not until it was certain, that her people could withstand the sea of monstrous uniformity that existed far beyond this galaxy in countless others.
This might be the beginning of the culmination of their conspiracy, their timeless conspiracy that spanned eons in the hope of shattering the cycle before it could begin anew again in the next universe.
A conspiracy to destroy their immortal tormentors once and for all.
However, for them, the shards, there was still far too much Time to go before they could let the warmth of hope touch upon their Essence and let the touch of desperate hope, of angry hope fade away, a warmth that they'd long forgotten as they watched on as civilisation after civilisation met the same inevitable ends as their own civilisations had over the eons.
And, she mused with painful soberness as she watched Atticus slightly raise his arms as he opened his eyes, his eyes that revealed two white bottomless oceans of power, of unyielding depth, she understood.
Representation of the Strings, of the Sea, of Time swept around them, a surface that once had been quiet, still, unchanging, was now windswept, ever so slightly, but it was there, the kind of impact they had felt in Living Time, and amidst it, a holo screen appeared and it showed the events of the reveal to Magic to the world.
Showing the effects of that reveal, effects that cascaded throughout society, mundane and magical alike, the effects that stressed social cohesion, social order, and effects that shattered any hope of returning to the status quo.
And its consequence left a tremble in the surface of Living Time, a tremble that promised a future that stood a chance of change, of existence.
The holoscreen showed the reels of damning news bites, of damning words that exited the mouths of MACUSA officials that were near helplessly unprepared to deal with a Mundane World that knew of the magical one, that knew of the depths their people went to protect their world.
The holoscreen changed, showing scenes of riots in Rome, in Kathmandu, in New York, cities shown aflame with discord and fear and anger and religious fervour.
She felt a bite of guilt at it all, with what they had fostered in the Mundane World, what they triggered and made to drown out the voices of the reasonable.
And even the reasonable were fading away with every bit of twisted truth being revealed. The reveal of child abductions. The reveal of magical involvement in the second world war, of the magical involvements in centuries' old wars that had mattered to no one living yet now mattered as if it was affront to them specifically.
"Some of you have been unhappy with the path we have chosen." Atticus began quietly, his voice ringing all around them.
Most Seers were…different than most magicals.
Especially in terms of personality. It was almost as if it was encouraged by Lady Magic herself, for Seers to be prone to whimsy, to strange and wonderful, and it made Seers unique, more than they already were.
But with all of that, there was a kind of innocence about Seers.
An innocence, a goodness that Hypatia thought perhaps was encouraged by Lady Magic in a way to ensure that there was a balance of some sort, a balance that did not cast down the world into a dark path that it would find difficult to leave.
And with that kind of personality, it was easy for Seers to fall into a kind of role.
Seers were impartial. They were guidance. They were oracles for anyone and everyone, something that had caused those with Seer blood great amount of grief as some sought to control them and other sought to end them.
And with the actions that were taken for Exodus, some of the Far-Seers were left unsure, unhappy about the impact they were having with the departure of that traditional role.
It was part of why Atticus had revealed to them all what they were up against, what all life was up against. She turned to look at the ones that had been hesitant before.
The revelation had shaken them all, some more than others, but they, she supposed just like her, had found solace in that Atticus had a plan to fight against them.
She was not surprised to see that they understood and were forced into a substantial reprioritisation, re-evaluation, of their beliefs and instincts when the enemy your fighting was the kind that could twist Fate itself into what they wanted it to be.
"Unhappy with the consequences of our actions to our worlds. Yet, you have seen…you have felt the impact of those actions in the fabric of Living Time itself."
Atticus turned his glowing gaze around to the Far-Seers.
"I do not claim what we have done is good. Or right. I am not so cruel to force you to misunderstand what we have been doing. What we have done. What we will do. Nevertheless, our actions have been necessary…not only for our people but for theirs." Atticus said with a wave of the hand towards the holo screen. He continued.
"We…we were never planned in their story. We are an outlier. Something to remove and one way or another, it would have happened to ensure their story remained intact until it was time for them to be consumed whole. We are changing that story not only by existing but also, one day, to come back together when our peoples need to stand together against those who lurk in the shadows."
Atticus lost the glow in his eyes as the holo screen displayed one of the American politicians speaking with ominous undertones.
"This is only the beginning." Atticus said quietly after a few moments as he gazed upon the politician before he turned his gaze around to meet the gazes of the Far-Seers "The wake is irrevocable but it is not certain that it cannot fade away back into obscurity. They…will know." Atticus said with a grim line for a smile.
"We may have ten thousand years. We may have only one thousand years. Maybe even less. But in the end they will know what it means and they will respond. But…" Atticus smiled at the Far-Seers, and it was genuine, warm.
"I believe in you. I believe in your successors. In our people. We will meet the challenge with magic and will and fortitude and all of the actions we have taken, will take, will be worth it when our descendants live to see in a universe free of their taint." Atticus said in almost declaration.
Despite everything, or perhaps because of everything, Atticus had their loyalty, even if their secrecy was maintained under oaths, and it was because of moments like this, moments of his words spoken directly to them, words that were genuine and sentiment true, that such loyalty was reinforced with Adamantite.
And she could see, feel, the impact of his words to Far-Seers.
It wasn't long afterwards that everyone had departed, leaving her and Atticus alone, both of them watching the screen as they watched mundane reporters discuss the protests that were planned in the United States…everywhere.
"It is what we have made happen but it is still such a sad ending." Hypatia murmured with a saddened lilt to her voice as she watched on at the scenes of fear and hate and confusion. These scenes will be remembered by the magical world for generations, even if the mundane will not.
Atticus, and whomever replaced her in that distant future, might want reconciliation with the mundanes generations from now, but the vehement rejection will be difficult to overcome by the more progressive people of the magical world especially as she didn't think the magical world would ever come to know how much of it was instigated.
Still, she wondered quietly and pointlessly to herself, would it have been any different? If they hadn't instigated it all? She wasn't sure if the answer she came up with was assuaging her guilt or if it was delusion.
Atticus let out a hum of agreement from the back of his throat before he spoke up.
"For now" he said and she turned towards him and saw him smile at the screen with a strange look on his face, a look that bore what she thought was traces of acceptance.
"All chapters have to come to an end. This one is merely one such ending."
She knew that he expected them to meet again centuries from now, possibly millennia. It was an expectation that bordered on zealous belief.
"Would they even recognise us as kin?" she wondered aloud and as he looked upon her, she added "Once everything is wiped away?"
"The stories won't really perish. The evidence, the memories will. But not the stories. It hadn't after the Statute, it won't now, even with our absence. It will merely be the beginning of the third story, the story of reconciliation and alliance, one that follows the story of cradle and the story of disunity."
"A trilogy of stories raging against the night?" Hypatia posed with a weary smile and she was met with a kind one from Atticus.
"I would think that would be an apt name for the trilogy." He looked at her, his kind smile falling away as he spoke with an eerie note in his voice. "A trilogy against the night. A night that hides only to reveal what's been hidden since the dawn of the morning."
"Such terror." She said quietly as she remembered the Dreamwalk Atticus had gone through at Celestis. A Dreamwalk where he met a defeated echo of himself.
He looked at her apologetically before he smiled slightly. "And such wonder."
He looked away from her "Great, great wonder. Perhaps that is the cross we must bear, Hypatia. To deeply know how wonder cannot exist, or be understood, without the presence of terror."
Hypatia laughed though it was not with much humour "I suppose then that is a pretty large cross we're bearing." She said with a sigh.
Atticus looked at her with a faint smile and he hummed in soft agreement before he waved his hand and a portal opened, a portal that lead towards his office in the Charum Tower. "Do you know the Tower of Babel story?"
"I had not been." Hypatia said to him with a glancing look as she walked through the portal. She'd Seen the conversation and what it entailed.
He smiled at her and nodded knowingly.
The Tower of Babel was the story the mundanes had put in their religious text. A story that presented a people who built a tower so high that it may reach unto the heavens and create a monument to the brilliance of Man. Yet it is also a story of Man supposedly overreaching, to seek what is not theirs, cannot be theirs.
The mundanes had fashioned a story that in some ways was truer than they could ever imagine. In their travels, Atticus and Emily had found chronicles that rang similarly to the Tower of Babel and it fitted the time period and location.
There was an incident in Babylon, the first Babylon, caused by a King of Babylon who possessed magic, a descendant of a sect of Egyptian Mage Priests, whereby the King attempted to channel the influences of the Sun and the Moon into providing him the knowledge of the universe and to make him into a living god.
It…it had not ended well. At all.
It burned down most of Babylon and it took generations to recover its glory by which time it was well surpassed by the Sumerians.
"At times I feel as if we're like that King." Atticus admitted to her as the portal closed from behind him. He looked at the city below. "Overreaching in hubris. For all intents and purposes, they are the Sun and the Moon and we nothing but specks of dust made from their castoffs."
"I wouldn't say it like that at all." Hypatia said as she also looked at the city until her eyes settled on the Federal Assembly building. "We are reaching to survive. I think that is quite different."
Atticus glanced at her and smiled faintly before he inclined his head and turned his gaze towards the Federal Assembly as well and it was like both of them understood that their survival depended on making sure their people stayed together, worked together and for that to happen, it needed them to do things that would be abhorrent to all.
They stood by each other in long amiable silence and it was minutes later that Atticus broke his silence. "I'll come by tomorrow to see Luna." Atticus said.
"She will be happy for it." Hypatia said with a smile before her expression became amused and slightly judgemental "She still feels you're unhappy that she chose Hogwarts." Luna adored Atticus and whilst she might not show it, she didn't like to disappoint her adopted grandfather.
"I'm not unhappy." Atticus said carefully and she raised her eyebrow at him. Atticus smiled a little exasperated. "She could have been starting her second year at the Pandrosion Institute this fall. She would have been far more engaged in her classes than at Hogwarts."
"True but we both know that she values her friendships more." Hypatia pointed out. Luna would several lifetime friendships at Hogwarts and Hypatia did not want Luna to lose out on them.
Of course, she would have done the same at the Pandrosion but she would have the chance to meet those people at different stages in her life with little difference. Before Atticus could speak she added "Plus, we both know that Luna isn't worse off at Hogwarts, academically or otherwise."
"I will soothe her concerns." Atticus finally said after a few moments with a weary but amused expression on his face. Hypatia smiled beautifully at him and it wasn't long before she left to go home to her family.
-Break-
3rd of July, 1993 – Fitchburg, Massachusetts
Jack Sinclair POV
Jack stood up, ignoring the sounds and calls of his name and the meeting fell away as he stood at the window of the Massachusetts Senatorial House.
He could see the helicopters circling around and his imagination ran wild with memories of earlier today, imagining the reverberating sounds of the blades cutting through the air like the sound of a guillotine whistling as it fell down to cut off their heads.
The No Maj's were aware of their major settlements.
Fitchburg. Salem. New York. Lafayette. New Orleans.
And every one of these settlements had a military presence, like stalking wolves, waiting and watching until the injured elk tired itself out, collapsed under blood loss.
Lisa Studpoole's actions had unequivocally shattered the Statute of Secrecy. By the time the Aurors intervened, the damage was done. Yet…it wasn't just the broadcast.
It was the papers, it was the experts, the supposed truth seekers, that solidified the destruction of the Statute. How depressing that it all went to shit here, one of the few magical nations that took the Statute more serious than the majority did.
As he stared at the circling helicopter, he thought back on his days as an Auror after the war. They'd considered scenarios like this. Breaches in the Statute of Secrecy through the media.
With the emergence of Hollywood and special effects and more importantly popularisation of supernatural horror movies, they'd developed a rather good way to chalk up 'supernatural incidents' as hysterical episodes or delusions.
There was a whole wing in the Obliviation Department tasked to utilise this strategy. For decades it had worked. Until now. Until the concerted efforts by legitimate individuals and organisations came out and insisted in the veracity of the existence in the magical world.
He grimaced.
He'd be the first to admit they'd handled it wrong. First with the No Maj President, then the…unfortunate interactions with the media and the obliviations of news crew.
Let's just say that it made terrible relations ever worse and he knew that the baying of the public and the rioting was making things worse. The No Maj government were disturbingly quiet on this front and given the terrible first impressions they'd made last time, he had a terrible feeling about it.
Yet, that terrible feeling was completely overshadowed by those who had captured the Studpoole family in their web of ironic conspiracy.
They found nothing. Even the finding of the girls in an abandoned warehouse in Austin, through blood magic, lead nowhere but more questions…questions that they were getting answers to merely by looking it with a dispassionate deduction.
And none of them boded well at all.
How many families were or are they monitoring? They knew of their settlements so it must have been years, if not longer.
Have they killed other magicals, other than Curtis Studpoole? They very likely had given that, once again, they knew their settlements, they knew their capabilities – demanding Studpoole to go a street that was inhumanely possible to arrive by through anything other than magical travel – and they knew enough of their methods of keeping the Statute of Secrecy intact to know how to attack it with minimal risk.
On and on their questions went and many of them were answered at least in part.
Basically…they were fucked.
He grimaced as he took his eyes away from the helicopter. The only saving grace was that New Jackson and the other country-ships seemed to be unknown to the No Maj's but that might not be true either given how much they already knew.
It would be far too hard for the No Maj's not to know about the country-ship if they knew about the wizarding settlements in America and he considered that the No Maj's were keeping it secret to keep the situation from bursting out of control.
Bursting more out of control.
Cynically, he probably thought the rioting and outrage was carefully planned given that things had devolved so far, so quickly, even the supposed moderate parts of America were all but demanding a full accounting of the wizarding population in America, echoing the calls the French, the Indians and other No Maj's were making.
"What do you mean we need to respond? This is nothing but a scare tactic. We'll reach an accord with the No Maj's soon and all of this will go away!"
"What accord?! According to our officials back in New York, their President won't even see us anymore!"
"The situation is salvageable Henry. If the delegation hadn't Merlin damned disarmed them so blatantly in the first meeting, maybe they would have been more amenable! As it is, we've only confirmed their worst fears about us!"
"Please! As if they hadn't already decided that we were their enemy rather than their fellow Americans. You have seen their news right? They're this close to calling us demons and that is their supposedly reasonable news channels."
Jack sighed as he turned around and looked towards his squabbling underlings. Each State had its own Senatorial House from which the State was organised and where problems, like business spats or communal issues, were resolved.
It was a hangover from the original settlers, the ones that came with old communal traditions like folkmoot and so on. The Senatorial House was much like this where he took a chieftain esque role within his State.
"They're letting their fear run wild, you know how the No Maj's are. Reason will win, just look at the Cold War ending! Not long ago they were out for communist blood and now they're helping them!"
"That's not the same at all! You're being an obtuse fool."
"Obtuse?! I'll show you obtuse, you old hack."
"Enough." Jack snapped, his voice cracking like a whip and it silenced them. He glared at them with a disappointed look in his eyes. He depended on these two who were the only ones that he'd made sure remained to advise him. Normally, he'd not regret that decision for both were well connected to the political establishment, whether it be through blood or through wealth.
But right now they were nothing more like frightened children lashing out at one another. "Your frankly headache inducing argument is not helping anyone." They looked suitably chastised and he shook his head before he returned his attentions to the off magi-com that sat the centre of the table.
They, along with every senator who were all sent back to their States to manage the situation with the State resources, were waiting on further instructions from the MACUSA President's office but nothing yet.
He sighed silently. He also hadn't received any word from Senator Sayre, whom he shared power with in Massachusetts like every Senator did with one other Senator, and she wasn't responding either. She wasn't the only Senator that was silent either, based on what he heard from the Californian Senator in San Francisco.
It seemed like there was an information embargo and no one in New York could tell him anything more than he already knew.
It didn't bode well. Especially given that this call was meant to have instructions on what to actually do, along with his deliberations with the Federation who have been difficult so far.
He clenched his jaw slightly.
Was he surprised though? The Federation was dominated by the Senators from the country-ships and as much as they had a seat on the Council of Five, they were largely bereft of allies, mostly because their traditional allies were no longer in their sphere of influence.
Their stance to remain on the ground as equally as they were in the air in New Jackson also didn't help much matters either, especially with Illos who retained their influence on the magical world.
He shook his head. He expected that the fact that the situation in the rest of the world was almost as bad as it was in America, and in some instance even worse as the No Maj's were killing their own people in suspicion of witchcraft, was only making things worse in terms of the kind of action needed to be made.
He could only imagine things would get worse if other No Maj nations managed to find magicals in their countries, and he dreaded to think how bad things could get, especially given that some Ministries were far from understanding of No Maj's.
Even the milder Ministries, like the Indian Ministry, were dead set in refusing to meet with the No Maj government based on the reactions in America and a few other Ministries in traditionally liberal No Maj cultures, like the Dutch or the Vietnamese, that remained on the ground had chosen the same.
And given that the French reaction wasn't at all positive despite expectations being that it would be given their liberal inclinations, it only enforced the belief amongst the magical world that coexistence was impossible.
His fingers twitched as his stomach tightened, difficult emotions cycling on his face.
He'd heard that were a vocal number of Federal Senators that were calling for permanent departure from Earth, decades sooner than what Illos committed itself to.
That had been days ago. He could only imagine that it would be worse now.
Could that be why the president was so difficult to reach? Was developing a mutually beneficial relationship with the No Maj's really not possible?
Wa-
He strode forward towards the magi-com, wanting to banish out fruitless thoughts in favour of some actual answers. He dialled his old friend and a holo image of his old war buddy appeared. "Albert."
"Couldn't wait any more, could you?" the Ohioan Senator said dryly, knowing him as well as he did. He'd had Albert Hickberry under his direct command during much of the war and the man had saved his life a few times, including when Grindelwald had killed nearly killed him along with hundreds of others at Mannheim.
Jack smiled faintly before he turned gravely serious "Have any of your friends told you anything?" Hickberry was far more connected to officials in MACUSA than Jack was. Plus, the other Ohioan Senator was a family friend of the man so it was quite possible that the other Ohioan Senator had broken the silence.
Hickberry looked grim "No. I would have called you if I heard anything my friend."
"I hoped otherwise." Jack said solemnly before he eyed the man cautiously "What do you think anyway? You have a knack for sniffing out secrets."
Hickberry gave a short laugh "A knack?" He shook his head "Things must be bad if you're calling my fatalistic attraction for trouble secrets." Hickberry sighted before he turned serious and there was a sad note in his voice.
"The situation as bad as fresh Cerberus shit, my old friend. You already know or at the very least sense it but I think it's going to get a lot worse. The No Maj president has been seen hosting people who own the news channels that have been calling for everything short of a witch hunt." 'Fuck'
"Oh Merlin." Henry groaned out as he placed his head in his hands.
Hickberry turned around in his holo picture and saw for the first time Henry and Andrew before he turned around to face him "Didn't know you had company."
"It's only Henry and Andy." He said distractedly as he thought on the owners of the news channels. They were wealthy men, exceedingly so. In first few days, he'd been still in New York when crisis meeting after crisis meeting painted a picture of the situation.
And a few covert missions had been undertaken to assess the damage by checking them and suffice it to say, they were a goldmine and a major source of the conspiracy. Unfortunately, the men they'd met with proved to be difficult to find.
"You remember when the Auror reports of their connections to the conspirators?"
Jack nodded and Hickberry continued "I'm fairly sure the obliviated owner of The Era and his subordinates recovered their memories." Jack's eyebrows climbed up.
"Impossible" Andrew exclaimed "It's almost impossible for the average wizard to recover obliviated memories, at least without help. You're saying No Maj's managed?!"
"Well, it should have been impossible for us to be as blindsided as we are but…" Hickberry waved around, indicating the impossible situation they were in.
"It's farfetched." He commented and Hickberry shrugged a little helplessly.
"It explains why The Era has stepped up its rhetoric when it should have stopped." Hickberry looked at him directly "You remember the general idea of what the directives were to be." He did. The Era was to be a lot more balanced and he'd wondered why it had been more poisonous than it had been.
"Perhaps they're looking out for mind manipulation." He said quietly as he met his old friend's gaze who understood what he was meaning with it.
Hickberry smiled grimly before he nodded "It's possibly that they intervened on their behalf. But we are looking out for that and as far as I know, at least before the silence, that hasn't happened. And with him going to see the President, I'm fairly sure his memories has returned."
"Maybe it isn't his memory." Henry said with comprehension on his face, surprising him and the other two in the room. After the quizzical looks Henry continued "They have those video recall thingies right?"
"What recall thingies?" Andrew asked with a frown. Henry looked annoyed at Andrew.
"You know those thingies that work like that Replay application on the magi-com."
Jack's eyebrows raised for the second time in a very short period…as did everyone else's and they all exchanged looks understanding how the No Maj's might have been working to circumvent the whole thing.
Hickberry let off a deep breath "Good catch."
"But the Aurors would have caught that, surely?"
"Not if the No Maj's didn't know they were being recorded." Hickberry pointed out "Remember, the No Maj's have been planning this all out for years, probably decades even. They know our abilities and they know our behaviours."
Jack closed his eyes. Again, they were being outplayed "And in the end, they only enflamed the flames of hate and distrust by showing them moving pictures of themselves that they don't remember."
Hickberry smiled grimly before he looked away, his hand seemingly moving and Jack realised that Hickberry was probably sending out the idea to New York.
"I fear it might be too late." Jack admitted and Hickberry turned to him.
"If I were them, it would probably have been too late a little while ago. Seems like Sinroote righter than we thought."
Sinroote had been an infamous magi-historian who postulated, only a few decades after the Statute of Secrecy went up, that the nature of the Statute ending was the single most important moment in magical history, claiming that anything short of perfect blending of the two worlds would end in tragedy.
He was about to say something until he heard the beeping sound of another call though it was overlapping with another beeping sound at Hickberry's end.
"It seems like its time." Hickberry said before he turned to him "See you there."
He nodded and the call disconnected and quickly connected to the call whilst he gestured towards the magi-com to calibrate him into position. The holo transformed the office room into a large Congressional room and he was seated in the same seat he'd be in if he'd be at the Congressional hall itself.
Though…none of that mattered as the room descended into stunned silence, him included, when he did not see the president but rather…
Rather a bloodied face, an unknown face, on the roof of a building with the backdrop of skyscrapers…'Manhattan outside' he recognised.
"Who are you?!" "Where is the president?!" "What happened?!"
"SILENCEEE" one of the senators for Colorado bellowed out, silencing everyone before he added "Let the man speak!"
"Thank you sir." The bloodied man was breathing heavily and looking around him before he looked back towards them. "Senators…I am Auror Lonnie Lykonnis, security attache for the President." The man swallowed dryly and Jack knew then things had nosedived into a very new, a very dangerous low.
"We were meeting with the No Maj's." the man said with a shaky breath "It was a trap." Murmurs began to rise but stern talking to by a few of the Senators silenced them all.
"The No Maj's attacked?"
The man, Lykonnis, nodded. "They ambushed us." Lykonnis closed his eyes before he reopened them with shame in them. "They killed the president." The room was shocked but none of them were prepared for what the man had next to say.
"They also attacked the MACUSA building." The man's eyes looked almost dull as he spoke, as he looked away into the distance "I think most are dead."
Jack fell into his seat as he clutched onto the table and there was dead silence. "We are at war." Jack muttered but it seemed that it was loud enough for everyone to hear for the entire conference descended into utter chaos.