~oo00oo~

Chapter 11

The Most Magical Place on Earth

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―==(oIo)==―
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9 January 1985

I stabbed myself again.

I took one of the little plasters I had nearby and stuck it on this new finger in the hopes that my craft would not be anointed with any more of my blood. I had come up with this idea when I was doing my exercises this morning. Then I went out after a light meal and got some harnesses for small dogs and I was now trying to sew them in such a way that there would be a cloth covered backing with a pocket sewn on.

Harry and I couldn't be seen doing anything that would be deemed odd or unusual behavior, especially around the upcoming events. We had no reason to seek one another out or give each other anything. The Dursleys rarely let the child out of the house long enough for one of my lookouts to alert me and me to amble my way over. No, we needed a different solution and this was it.

Mr Tibbles was going to wear this harness with a pocket and go lay in wait at the Dursley house. When he saw Harry he would approach the boy once the coast was clear. Harry should be clever enough to look in the pocket, but I had faith that Mr Tibbles could encourage him if need be. The pocket is big enough to fit the extended pouch and a square of paper with instructions.

This way Harry would have food and essentials as we worked on getting him out of his own personal hell. It was exceedingly important to get it to him as soon as possible for other reasons as well. Inside the pouch was a will weakening potion. On Saturday morning Harry would be pressed into making the usual large weekend breakfast for the Dursleys. He would need to follow the directions to ensure each Dursley had at least three drops of the potion with their breakfast.

Will weakening potions can take many forms, some are extremely dangerous, but this one was a recipe I had used many times before during the war. It was the equivalent of perhaps one too many drinks at the bar. It made one a bit happy and willing to go along with things, perhaps a bit confused but content with a situation. For a spy it was the perfect way to test sources and to gain information. It was not the Imperius, no one could be forced to do something that they didn't want to do. They just became happier to help with things they would normally want anyway. The real trick was making sure that the dosed individual really wanted to help.

I knew I hadn't been sleeping well, or sometimes at all, since waking up as a whole new person. But this afternoon I woke up after many blissful hours of sleep nearly content and at peace. I had accomplished a great deal with the help of Clinkscale and had started many things rolling during our long talks. And, to be very honest, it was nice to have someone else willing to share the burden. John would be a great help, but he was never going to be as involved as Clinkscale. The Manager of the Potter Estates would be in meetings for most of today. The rest of the week would be preparing teams to help Harry before culminating in what woulf truly be an award winning performance on Saturday morning.

I already had a notepad going with all the things I would be including in this extended pouch besides the will weakening potion and instructions for this weekend. Originally, I had wanted to start Harry on his own potions regimen to get him going on better health. The goblins most firmly nixed that idea. They had told me that a child with as many potential health issues as I had described should be thoroughly examined first. I'm glad that I thought to mention it when we were making appointments for Harry to have an exam. I suppose I just wanted to get everything moving now, but I would feel awful if my trying to help just made him more ill.

For now the pouch would contain fun and essential things. It would have enough food for two full meals a day and several easy snacks. It would have a glow orb, which would react to Harry's natural magic to turn it on or off. It would also have puzzle books, coloring books, pencils and crayons, and one book to read that would rotate if he put it back in the pouch. The first was on the history of Magical Britain, a small primer for young children before entering Hogwarts. I needed to help him not just with his physical health, but also with his mental health. When he wasn't being used as slave labor he was shoved into a dark cupboard, like a mop bucket that hadn't a use at the moment. It's an awful thing. With these activity books and things that were just for him, I hoped to help him get through this difficult time as I worked to get him away from his monsters.

Darn it, why hadn't I learnt to sew better in any of my lifetimes?

I reached for another plaster and then continued with my project.

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―==(oIo)==―
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12 January 1985

Over the years I had made contact with a dotty old cat lady, a middle aged woman doing the shopping, a chatty squib on a very particular bus, and on one memorable occasion a dog walker with more dogs than she could handle.

I never did find out where she had gotten those dogs, or what happened to them after. I simply had something of note that required immediate attention and could not be written, not even in code. Then she was there and I was tangled in leashes and frantic apologies as we passed information along discreetly under the distraction. Thankfully, magical listening charms could only listen in on a wide unprotected area. Nothing like those fanciful "bugs" from muggle cinema.

I never had to move into something outside of my comfort zone in order to be of assistance, not really. Instead I simply gathered information as I went about my daily life, perhaps spending a little longer talking than I might but nothing too terrible. I had different social circles than she did and an entirely different path, so it was the most obvious of things for us to work together. From there we, or really she, began forming a wide ranging network of precisely positioned like minded friends.

The Wold family was not considered traditionally pure as we had no problem with muggleborns, but to many it was a stable wizarding family that had been around a very long time. We were never titled or a part of that perfidious book that listed the so-called pureblooded families. The Wold's were more on the level of the Cattermole family. Well known, well liked, not brimming with money or self importance. There was usually at least one of us being schooled at Hogwarts at any point in time. Though the wars, both muggle and magical, had thinned the branches too much for that now.

Being a Wold had afforded me a comfort that people rarely have in life. My family had enough money and love for all of us, even when it became obvious that I would not be attending Hogwarts. For many years I worked extremely hard at my education, thinking that I needed to prove to everyone that I deserved to be taken seriously. Or perhaps, more honestly, that I still deserved to be a Wold when I had no magic. Then it was to prove that I could make it on my own in the muggle world, standing on my own two feet.

By the time it was confirmed no letter from Hogwarts would come addressed to John Wold, the bombings were ongoing and it felt like war would never end. There was constant fear and grief. My parents feared the darkness that Grindelwald was slowly suffocating our world in and the weapons that the muggles were using to decimate everything, so horrific they were nearly unimaginable to us. I know that there were many, many arguments over what to do with me. Not because they were ashamed, but because they were afraid. Because the soil of the world was being turned black with blood and it seemed it would go on forever. They didn't want my blood added to that unending sorrow.

In the end they decided that there would simply be a year where I stayed at home and studied muggle subjects until they felt I was ready to attend school with others my age. They also used it as an excuse to have the time to find an acceptable school for me. It worked out in everyone's favor, though they could not have predicated that it would. By the end of that year both Hitler and Grindelwald had been defeated, and there seemed to be a cautious hope stirring.

I often think back on that year of uncertainty, when it felt like death and darkness stalked me, and how much it shaped my journey. If it were not for the very precise timing of everything I would not be the man that I am today. I certainly wouldn't have looked at the disappearances and odd deaths the way that I did in the early seventies. It was odd to not know what was happening, but to feel you knew what was happening.

These weren't the sort of people that would uproot themselves to follow a charismatic leader on a revolution. They were the fodder, the blood in the dirt.

When I was initially approached about helping it was not a profound moment, it was not a recruitment by some staunch supporter or by Dumbledore himself, instead it was a simple cup of tea and a newspaper.

During the sixties many people began to be more outspoken about the rights of various groups. When squibs and their families marched for their rights to exist and have some form of help or protections, the darker pureblood families rioted against such aberrations to the status quo. My family had not wished to partake in such walks and protests and I lived so much in the muggle world that it hardly seemed appropriate to raise my voice. The aftermath of such pushes and pushbacks, however, was that even if the squib had only before been whispered about existing in a family there was now a record of them that anyone could find. That's how they were finding us in the seventies to kill us, but that's also how she found us to help us.

I was having a nice darjeeling at my usual club, not even paying attention to my surroundings, when a paper was set down on the table next to me. I glanced down at it and then around for who might have set it there, before my eyes darted back after realizing that the pictures were moving. I admit that I had initially thought it was a threat, but the card hidden in the paper held only four words and a phone number.

Let me help you

Arabella Figg was a woman on a mission. She was more immersed in the magical world than I had been since I was a boy and she was a force to be reckoned with when it came to protecting her world. She recognized the signs, just as I had, but realized that there was something there that could be used to help stop these terrorists. She told me about a building opposition that she had been personally recruited into and how she was using stereotypes to make herself unassuming and invisible to accumulate information to help them. She was taking things a step further by recruiting others like her that could help gain even further access to information on both the muggle and magical side of things.

It took more than a week and another sighting of a sickly skull over the burnt husk of a home for me to contact her and confirm that I would help.

I knew there were a few others, but it was important that we rarely if ever interacted. Should we be captured a well trained enemy could look into our minds and pull out whatever they might wish. One needed to have enough magic to be able to occlude against legilimency. Bella was our contact point in all things even when it became obvious that the information was going from her to Albus Dumbledore.

I spent several intensive months being drilled and trained in methods of her devising. Courses in not being followed or getting away when one was followed as well as learning to recognize useful information and how to pass it along without appearing out of place. We spoke in three or four different codes until it felt natural to do on the fly. We learned to speak to each other without saying a word.

After that though, I simply went back to my own life. I spent more time with my family and my family's friends. I took my tea at a variety of magical cafés. I went shopping in the magical shopping districts more often. I used my connections as a muggle solicitor to find out what the upper echelons thought about what was happening. All I did was listen, make note, and pass it along to my handler. It was a prideful thing that made me feel as though I belonged a little more in the wizarding world. Or perhaps as if the wizarding world might belong more to me.

There were increased dangers, of course, but seeing as an entire faction of people wanted to murder me and display my death in such a way as to strike fear in the hearts of others the danger seemed minimally different.

That feeling changed after seventy-three though.

It was absolutely against the established protocols, but I went to her when I learned what had happened. When they said that she had gone into the still burning building to find her wife. What was left of her wife. When what my friend held most dear in all the world was ripped away from her.

Bella had trusted me enough to meet her wife a few times. She was a brilliant and lovely woman who was helping the war effort through her potions. Although, to hear her tell it, Bella was doing just as much potion making as she was.

The death of her beloved wife changed Bella deeply. Everyone grieves during war, but Bella refused to do so. There was too much to be done.

It was as though she pushed it so far down that her very bones absorbed the grief of it.

As things became more violent and more insidious, we needed to become more subtle and more creative. Anyone we knew had the potential to be under the imperius curse. There were random checks added to our already intensive security measures. There were meeting places further afield from our usual haunts. Enchanted objects that would confirm identity even if a person was using polyjuice. A higher use of muggle based technology that we knew the enemy wouldn't understand. Safe houses that were known only to the Squib Squad, as Bella sometimes called us, so that they would not be compromised by the fighters when the intel gatherers needed to be pulled out.

Watching her work, knowing it was her at the top organizing all of this so that it could make a difference in how Dumbledore directed his fighters, it was amazing.

It was magical.

As though I was watching a violent ballet of shadows and light.

I felt proud to have held a small role in making a difference.

To have helped make my world safer for people like me.

When Bella had arranged for a meeting in a way that spoke more of the old days than of a casual friendship, I was worried about what that might mean.

I was right to have worried.

After our meeting just four days previous, though it felt so much longer, I had gone back to the office to continue my work like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. When I finally arrived home I let the understandings of that meeting shatter me.

I knew, intellectually, that we had not truly won the war. That things were going very badly, we seemed in a horrible and bloody stalemate. After the defeat of You-Know-Who and the rounding up of the Death Eaters, it was easy to pretend. To wrap myself up in my pride and pat myself on the back for a job well done.

Faced with so many disturbing truths, or theories from a trusted source, I had to face that shame head on.

A small boy had been the downfall of a bloody and terrifying maniac. I had not actually done anything to help. I had not done anything since then to help the orphaned child. Instead Bella had been stationed as his guard, still suppressing her grief and war wounded.

I cannot imagine how far she had to pull herself up and out to be able to fight Albus Dumbledore for this child. That's exactly what she was doing, fighting against the wizard who had led us against You-Know-Who. Ready to orchestrate a war against a man that insisted on having a child abused.

I was not entirely certain about her theories of Dumbledore wanting to make the young boy into an obscurial, but if she had argued with him and shown him proof of the abuse there seemed to be little other explanation. Everyone knew that abusing a magical child was likely to cause such a thing. To allow it to happen after being presented with photographs of bruises? Even if he hadn't known about the rift between Lily Potter and her muggle sister, this was unacceptable.

She was right to warn me that it would be difficult to know about without acting on it. Perhaps that's how she was able to raise herself from her wounded state. Someone vulnerable needed her and she would be damned if she didn't help. That certainly sounded like the chaos causing, spy leading rebel I knew.

In agreeing to help her in the schemes to save this child I got to know an interesting side of Bella that I had not before witnessed. When passing along information to her during the war she would often be in some character, but since it was always such a brief meeting it never seemed so intense as this character she used against the Dursleys. I had also never seen her put someone else on and it was a frightening thing.

The teams that would be making their way to Little Whinging worked for Gringotts and it would not be odd for them to be at the bank all at once. This meant that Bella and myself simply had to casually go to appointments at the bank in order to meet up with them. After that there were several different security measures even though everyone but the two of us were under strict contracts, we all need to make sure that we were not tracked or followed in anyway that might compromise the safety of the Boy Who Lived.

As the line of cars met up with each other from their different, randomized routes the passengers arranged their disguises. Everyone but myself and Bella would be wearing black and a masking spell that made them appear nondescript. There were spells in place so that their equipment would resemble muggle electronics and tools. Bella had given me a new suit and a medallion with small crystals embedded into it on a chain that would change my coloring as well as my complexion. All of this seemed relatively minor compared to what I was watching happen with Bella herself.

She was in a smart pink Chanel number with Louis Vuitton heels and a matching bag that screamed money. A little row of pearls decorated her slender throat and a jeweled watch glittered on her wrist. With her hair pulled back in a twist, she looked more her age than I remembered her being for more than a decade. When she turned on her own medallion it turned her hair blonde and gave her a fair but rosy complexion. As soon as she changed her coloring it was like a switch was flipped. Her posture was different, her facial expression was different, the air around her seemed different. She was looking at her nails with the bored expression of a trophy wife who has listened to her husband drone on about the stock market one too many times.

She caught me staring open mouthed at her and she just… smiled.

Oh, she was going to kill these people. They were definitely going to die horrible, terrifying deaths. Their bodies would likely never be found, but if they were it would appear as though no crime had even been committed.

When she spoke it was with a husky whisper that I was certain was never before heard by man and I nearly jumped in my seat from the fright.

"See something interesting Johnny boy?"

As I swallowed the lump that was stuck in my throat she laughed at me in a way that told my every instinct that this was a predator and I was just prey.

And then, just as quickly, it was gone and the bored wife with pretty jewelry was back.

I knew that she was a great actor. I had seen her change her physical appearance so much that she was nearly unrecognizable during the war several times. But I hadn't seen her change her personality in such a way before, let alone right in front of me like it was nothing. It astounded me that she was somehow even more magnificent than I had realized during the war.

As we made our way into the Dursley property my role was clear, stay out of the way unless it is to notarize the documents. I stood off to the side while watching as the aptly named Hells Bells destroyed the Dursleys with their own greed. Building up the egos of their shallow prideful selves so that she could hang them with it whenever she pleased. At this point I was certain they would sign over their first born without realizing it if Bella put the right paperwork in front of them.

After finishing my bit with the paperwork, however, there wasn't really anything for me to do. The teams that were inspecting everything were swarming around the house, the garden, and the Dursleys. Bella was there, or rather Sandra Moore was, flitting around the Dursleys to keep them distracted while all kinds of magic was used around them without their knowledge.

The kitchen had been set up as a makeup stage. On the floor there was laid out a thick canvas that Sandra Moore had informed them was to protect their beautiful kitchen. In reality, the cloth was specially made, infused with magic and runic writings to help the wizards and witches do their testings of the Dursley family without alerting them. The team in the garden was searching for anything that had been buried on the property as an anchor as well as finding the barrier that should be wrapped around the home. Sandra talked about how lovely it would be to get the photoshoot done outside in the spring after the happy family returned from their holiday. Of course, they would need to have measurements and lighting understandings and so on before then. Might as well do all of that now.

I did my best to keep my face impassive. I was never the greatest at covering my emotions and several times I just barely restrained a number of eye rolls and scoffs. Though I did raise a questioning brow when the Sandra Moore disguise started to slip as she argued about something in hushed tones with a team leader by the stairs. She just gave me a Sandra Moore smile and a shake of her head, the two women going their separate ways to finish their assigned tasks.

Hours later a sleek parade made its way out of Little Whinging before the cars split into pairs and then split up again to head towards different little hideaways. Having security measures like this might be over the top, but our opponent was Albus Dumbledore. A well positioned man in every part of our society. A man who could ask nearly anything of a large number of people and they would do it without question.

It was an easy thing for me to turn off the medallion and take off my disguise. I put back on my own clothing which had been hidden in an expanded pouch after it had been checked by Gringotts security. I watched Bella, she was actually Bella, as she attempted to get her hair under control. It was such an absurd thing to watch the woman struggle with some sort of clip in her hair after having spent much of the day being certain she was plotting the murder of a horrible family in Surrey.

"You are terrifying," escaped an awed whisper.

She glared at me as she gave up on her still blonde hair. I was slightly worried that she might smack me.

"John you are well aware that I am not a stupid, dottering old lady."

I felt a bit of a shock run through me. All day I had been trying to deal with this impossibly different woman. A change from the Bella at the beginning of the war, but not the Bella I knew after her wife had died either. I didn't actually know how to put into words that she seemed to be an entirely new third Bella that could morph into her own characters, like Sandra Moore, with an ease that terrified me.

"Hells Bells, I just- I just think that I had forgotten exactly how good you actually are at this. I mean I look back at what we did," I said as I gestured back and forth between us. "But you, on your own, you are on a different level. You actually became that woman. It was as though I walked in with a completely different person. But what really affected me," I held up a hand to thwart anything she had been getting ready to say. "What really affected me was just now as you were 'taking off' this character. You were just you, struggling with your hair being you. Not a cat lady disguise, not a politician's wife disguise, just you. And the change was so stark and so sudden that I am still experiencing a bit of a shock."

"Thanks Johnny. I'm glad that even with someone who knows, I can still pull a turn on them."

We smiled for a moment before turning our attention back to getting to the rendezvous point on time. The others would need to meet at another location and then make their way out from there. I would not be joining them for the meeting later. My part in all of this was supposedly done. But the rest of them had much to report on and continue with once they were in a more secure place.

I just wondered if this was truly the end of my part in her war, this new Bella against anyone who would hurt a little boy under her protection.

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―==(oIo)==―
ˇ

14 January 1985

Over the years I had seen a great deal in my field, more than most humans ever would. I think this ward, though, would probably be the one that made all my hard work worth it. The protections on this one child were insane and I am certain nothing like this had ever happened before, on purpose or on accident.

I rubbed my hands over my wrinkled face and breathed deeply. I felt old.

It wasn't often that I felt old, though I was approaching 82 rather quickly. I was a daughter of the clans, raised in the Nation. My many greats grandparents had been brought in from the cold to dance in the halls. It was rare these days that a human of the clan would be descended from so many that had been of the Nation before them. Usually, a human of the clan would meet and marry a human from outside the Nation and bring them in if they wanted to stay with their clan after the marriage. My ancestors, though, consistently married other humans of the clan that stayed in the Nation. I guess you could say we were generations of homebodies.

The aging process between goblins and humans was vastly different. For the most part, humans will be fully mature adults physically at 27 years old. Humans that can create large amounts of ambient magical energy, proven in Britain by being able to use a wand, have the same developmental stages but with magic added in to make the process slightly different. Humans might live to about a hundred years, but with that magical ability their lifespan can be two hundred years. With goblins, though, their lifespan can average four hundred years and they have significantly different stages of development as well. Not that most lived that long due to disease and war.

As a magical human living around goblins I had often run into the problems associated with having such a vastly different range in what age is considered juvenile and when one would be considered an adult. There were often difficulties trying to get the goblins to see the humans as adults even though the goblin offspring would be considered a child at the same year age. Even the schooling could be an issue for the humans of the clan in comparison to the goblins of their family.

There were the Core Lessons that every child of the Nation needed to study and pass tests on in order to move on to the Greater Lessons. The Core Lessons were started at age 20 and ended at age 60. The Greater Lessons started at age 60 and would end at age 80. Then one could choose the path they wanted for their Journey Lessons. Though it was usually based on what one's clan was well known for, occasionally a new path was chosen.

After that one could go on to become a Master. Only those with the Master title can have the highest positions within the Nation. This is because those who hold the Master title have devoted themselves beyond their own clan and to the greater interests of the Nation.

There have only ever been seven humans of the Nation to hold the title of Master in all of Goblin history.

Of course, there are ways for humans to learn amongst themselves while still within the Nation for most of their lives. Schools built within the Nation that specifically cater to the more rapid development of the human kin. Human students are then encouraged to go out into the world suppressed by outside humans and learn from them. Humans of the clans have returned to the Nation with understandings of art, language, mathematics, politics, sciences, and human based magics. This is always helpful to both their clan and the Nation. It is considered a great honor.

The feeling that I have always gotten from my goblin kin about this honor though, is one of polite condescension. As though a pat on the head for doing our very best to help, since we obviously are incapable of doing as much as our goblin kin. It has always bothered me. And it has always empowered me. Fueling me to study more and work harder than anyone else has in my whole clan.

Technically, one can take and pass the tests for the Core and Greater Lessons in order to start their Journey earlier. The absolute shame and dishonor that would fall upon such a foolhardy individual that requests the tests earlier and fails to pass is the only punishment for such a decision, but it keeps almost the entire Nation from ever trying. Perhaps one percent of the Nation in all of its history has tried to take their tests early. Less than one percent has ever passed, the names of them living on in memory for all of history.

I had always wanted to pass the tests early and move on to my Journey, but then I started to display accidental magic and my early plans changed. Instead I went to school with the other human kin while being tutored in the Core and Greater Lessons on my own time. When I went out into the human suppressed world to learn of magic in a country called Brazil, I studied the lessons there as well. Even as I apprenticed to a runes master, I studied the lessons of the Nation.

When I returned home in my thirties, I had made a significant name for myself in Latin America as well as Southeast Asia. They called me a cursebreaker. To them that is the understanding of what I do. To the Nation, a cursebreaker is a human that couldn't possibly become a Master. I was determined to go beyond cursebreaking. I immediately applied to take the Core and Greater tests.

They laughed at me.

Those that didn't laugh were instead full of concern.

Reminders of the shame that I would bring to the clan if I failed.

Pressures to see what I had done as good enough for what I was.

My determination won out and eventually they relented into allowing me a specially proctored test. I was under constant scrutiny. I had been searched physically and magically to ensure I was not cheating. The room was warded and spelled so that it would not be possible to cheat, but because I was me they went beyond that to be sure.

It took three days to have the results posted. The whole of the Nation knew by then that a human of the clans had presumed that they could pass tests that those older and supposedly more knowledgeable than them would not attempt in this manner.

I passed with shine.

Of the last two decades for the tests, my scores were the highest.

The name Natalia Rayner would be sung throughout the history of our halls.

The Heads of all the Journey Paths wished to speak with me, I could take my pick.

By passing I had proven that I wanted to do more for the Nation, wanted to devote myself to the good of the Nation. It was a massive feat for anyone of the Nation to do, human or goblin.

There were still those who would make subtle remarks, but I had made it clear. I wasn't just a human, I was of the Nation.

My Journey Lessons were under the Head of Wardsmithing for the Nation. The use and manipulation of various protections were studied for a long time. Eventually, the humans from outside the Nation noticed that the goblins on various expeditions and ventures treated me differently. Often this had them trying to make me their go between.

Initially I had tried to explain the culture of the Nation to these human outsiders. I tried many different ways to explain how I was a daughter of the clans, a part of the Nation in a way that they couldn't be because of the treaties. After many attempts, eventually I gave up in trying to explain the reality of the situation to them. They never seemed to listen. Even when I tried explaining that I was much like a half blood, someone of both worlds but distinctly magical. Honestly, that might have made it worse.

When I was finally at the end of my Journey, I began to prepare my Falchtuck. Every child of the Nation learns to fight with a sword. The first sword is the Falchtoc and it is given by one's parents to a child old enough and strong enough to wield it. One must learn to defend themselves, their family, their clan, and their Nation with the Falchtoc. When one is at the end of their Journey they must craft their own Falchtuck and fight the Chaa. This proves that they have earned a Mastery from their Journey Lessons. Not even all of the goblins of the Nation will craft the Falchtuck. Only about a third of the Nation will ever hold a Mastery in their subject. Though many positions within the Nation do not require more than the Greater Lessons, often there will be additional informal training for other jobs.

The Chaa is a beautiful retelling of the battles experienced early in the history of the Goblin Nation. One battled with others during the Chaa in established steps laid out by Masters long ago. There were practices allowed leading up to the true Chaa, but even then it was still a test of endurance and strength of devotion to the Nation.

My whole clan watched from the high circles as witness to the honor I brought them as I showed my devotion to helping the Nation move forward.

It was the most amazing moment in the whole of my life, surpassing the exhilaration that I had felt when my scores were posted. It was a heavy shining stone that settled into me, a proud moment for all of us, when I finally achieved my title of Master.

When I had gotten the request to look at unique unknown wards in Britain, I had been in Southwestern Asia since the 1960s. It was a place where the humans constantly liked to kill each other with ever increasing massive weaponry. The Nation had predicted that this infighting would likely become worse during the latter part of the century and wanted someone like me in place to make the biggest difference in the outcomes. The more the humans tried to kill each other the more they needed wards as well fitted as the ones which we could provide.

The humans there responded well to my olive complexion and my human nature, thinking that they were getting one over on the greedy and distasteful goblins. It was a sick thing to witness. Over and over again they saw my human skin and believed me to be one of them. They thought I was in on it with them, this derogatory mindset against goblins.

To be honest, it was starting to make me understand why so many of my human kin stayed in the Nation. Avoiding this sickness that affected the humans of the suppressed world.

For a goblin Master to call me back to Britain for this project meant that it would be interesting at the very least and it would give me a much needed break from these humans.

I had not expected to be thrust into an operation to undermine the control of one human over another. Even I was familiar with the work of Headmaster Dumbledore in regards to the International Confederation of Wizards. I didn't really have an opinion on him before now, just an awareness of his existence.

After this?

I took a look around and rubbed at my aching neck.

My team had set up the reconstruction rooms that would simulate the house and its occupants of Little Whinging. Threads of magic showed through the illusion of the walls and the people to give us an idea of what the wards were and how it all connected. According to the woman managing the operation the wards were somehow connected to the family themselves. From our initial observations, however, these wards were only being powered by a single individual. There was obviously ties of magic showing up on the other three, but it would take time to figure out what was happening with them.

None of what I was seeing in the reconstruction made a lot of sense right away. Which meant that Master Clinkscale was absolutely right to call me into this project. Whatever was going on here was far from normal and that was extremely interesting.

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―==(oIo)==―
ˇ