Jeremy remembered, as he slowly came back to his senses. In the subsequent investigation that followed it was Greymist of all people who stood by him, defending him from detractors who wished to see him lose his job over the usage of the unforgivable curse. But he remained on the force, somehow, and it was not a choice he was happy with. The law was either equal for all, or else it was no true law. If an unforgivable curse could be forgiven, then it was not an unforgivable curse. Yet forgive it they did. In the words of Commissioner Richard Kaczynski, they could not overlook his faithful service over the last three years, nor could they ignore the extraordinarily distressing circumstances under which he had felt compelled to use the Imperius curse.

Why did Greymist aid him? So he could have him under his thumb later, say that Jeremy owed him a favor now? As he woke up to find his hands and feet were tied and he was kneeling in the darkness, Jeremy felt that Greymist did not care very much about any favors. How magnanimous, to do it out of the courtesy of his own heart.

So there he knelt, waiting for the dark lord to make his grand entrance. And yes, he would call him the dark lord from this moment onwards. Previously he always spoke of him as a wannabe, a self–declared, self–proclaimed dark lord. But today, after all he had seen, Jeremy felt Greymist had more than deserved the title.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. He began seeing things. First, the immense iron gate from behind which their host undoubtedly waited on their awakening. There was a weight on his shoulder. That, no doubt, was Eren's head. Presently he shifted and exhaled softly, and lifted his head to look around just as Jeremy did.

There were other shapes in the darkness, too. Other people. „Karla?" Eren whispered uncertainly. She looked over at a familiar voice, professor Christian following her gaze. Suddenly in the presence of her betrothed she became shy, too dumbfounded to speak. „Du..." she could only stammer, as if she had forgotten how to speak. „Du lebst noch?"

Jeremy left them to their reunion, such as it was. Next to her he saw Hermione and paid her a slight respectful nod. The streaks of bloody tears remained upon her face, like a reminder of her failure and shame. She returned the nod and asked, „How many did you save?"

„It would've been better if they had all died," Jeremy responded, remembering the looks upon the faces of those who shared the safety of the bunker with them, once they beheld the ruin of London, the home of once brave.

„Someone had to survive, to rebuild London," she said, but he was in no mood in arguing with her. He felt eyes on him and turned his head to the right to see master Irion seeming to smile at him in the darkness.

„I'm tired," he whispered.

Next to him was the man over whom this entire struggle had begun in the first place. „Professor Christian Jäger, I presume," Jeremy said. The man turned his head to regard him, and the Auror could see that he was indeed professor Jäger, but also... wasn't.

„No," he said in a hoarse voice, as if he hadn't used it in a very long time. „Now I am become Death..."

Jeremy almost felt like rolling his eyes. He knew what the next line would be, just as he knew why professor Jäger would utter it. But the old German scientist actually went one step further than doctor Oppenheimer.

„...the Enemy of Man," he finished, and the unexpected ending startled Jeremy enough to look closer upon his face. He looked like he had aged a thousand years down here. Forsaken. Broken. Ripe for something, or someone, to slip inside his head.

„He... he hasn't been well," Karla said, with a voice that was practically begging Jeremy to try and do something to help his failing mental health, but there was little he could do. Especially bound as he was and wandless.

The hollow professor nodded his assent. „I haven't. I haven't been well. He... he talks. About everything. I listen. I forgot there's such a thing as... sleep. He speaks of... love."

Jeremy raised his eyebrow. „Love?"

„Not like what you think. Cosmic, cosmic love. He made me s–see things. Things. You know."

Jeremy did not know, but he nodded anyway. The stage seemed to be adequately set for a ceremony of gloating. Or maybe Greymist's goal was to unnerve him and Eren. In which case, it worked. The gates swung open soundlessly and faint light washed over them. As he saw beyond the gate, Jeremy forgot about his lower jaw and it slowly fell down until he was staring with mouth agape at an immense dark throne, tall and twisted... and empty.

A chummy slap at his back startled him and Eren both. „Guyyyyys! What are you doing here in the Dark Lord's abode? Small world!" Mulligan said behind them and laughed, only to be quickly silenced as someone else approached. They didn't need to guess who it would be.

Curiously enough, the pain in Jeremy's side had gone away now. Now that he had someone to focus his hate upon. He knew it, he knew he should've left the poxy son of a whore outside to die with London. „Traitor," he hissed, and spat on the floor.

„Au contraire, I am staying loyal," Mulligan wagged his finger.

„Oh yeah? To what, exactly?"

„Some day, I will be a rich man. A nobleman. I am loyal to my dream. Do you... dream much, Jeremy?"

„Enough," said the voice of the Excruciator. A crimson light was not turned on, but rather born, as tendrils of crimson luminescence slowly crept into view and washed everything in their bloody haze. The bonds keeping Jeremy and Eren bound and kneeling were cut. Rubbing their wrists, they stood up. Well, Jeremy did. Eren tried to get up on his own but his wounds had not yet fully healed and he faltered, so Jeremy offered him a hand.

Now they both stood and turned to see the dark lord triumphant, clad in his typical attire consisting of a snow–white trenchcoat, white cargo pants, white combat boots. Beside him stood someone whom Jeremy did not recognize at first, but considering how Greymist briefly held their hand, it could have been none other than Abigail LaFey. He could hardly recognize her, armed and armored as she was in tactical gear one might expect on a member of a police tactical unit. He saw an assault rifle strapped across her back. He saw an armored vest, and over it a chest rig with multiple ammo pouches. Her shins, forearms and thighs were similarly covered in ballistic armor. The patch on her right shoulder displayed a proud and great red dragon. The only thing to distinguish her from a small army standing behind her and Greymist was that she actually showed the top half of her face, and the rest was hidden by a black face mask.

Malachi left her side and made his way to master Irion. „You said you were tired," he whispered. „I have no more need of you. I release you."

Something was exchanged between the two, but they could not see it properly until Greymist stepped back. It was a dagger, and Irion plunged it into his chest without hesitation, without even a single sound. He fell to his knees, blood bursting out of him.

Karla could not take any more. Knowing full well it would likely be a futile gesture, she charged at Greymist anyway. „Du Hurens–"

Her scream, of course, was cut short. Malachi only looked at her and in an instant she was standing back at her spot, rooted to it, unable to move. It did little to turn her anger into fear, and in her eyes they saw resolve, like she was trying to stare Malachi to death since she could not physically touch him.

In the brief scuffle, it occured to Jeremy that no one but him had heard professor Jäger plead with Greymist that he be allowed to take his own life next.

Next, Greymist moved up to Eren, raising his hands. Eren flinched, but all Greymist did was settle his hands upon the other man's shoulders. Jeremy looked on as the wounded man's posture straightened up, the near permanent grimace of pain on his face gone for good. Greymist had healed him of the wounds he had sustained in the car chase, and Eren looked upon him with confusion.

„Oh, don't be so perplexed," Greymist scoffed. „You will need all your strength to survive what's to come. Am I right, Jeremy?"

He felt the dark lord inside his head. He saw all. He knew all. He knew of Jeremy's conversation with his American colleagues. Because of course he would.

And Jeremy saw a little of the dark lord's own plans. He saw the blindfold over Hermione's eyes, left loose only to be tightened as they approached St. Anne's. He saw her speech, the one in which she blinked in Morse Code. He saw that her blinking was noticed, but the recording had been released anyway to lure in those who would most ferociously oppose the dark lord, and destroy them.

There were a couple of things he did not see, such as Greymist's emotions as he pulled the blindfold over Hermione's eyes. Or his reaction when he saw that Hermione was blinking in Morse Code. There could only be two explanations for why he did not feel those emotions; either he simply did not have the capacity to peer so deeply into the mind of another, or Greymist was not letting him see. And in the latter case, the only reason he wouldn't let him see could be because Hermione seeing her whereabouts was an accident, and the subsequent ruse was not planned but rather Greymist trying to capitalize on an opportunity. Though, for what it was worth, he did tell her in the broadcast that he would only let her see what he wanted her to see.

„You're right," Jeremy said. The concentration of magical power was so high in this place that he could feel it tingle against his skin. „You know, you promised to tell me what went wrong in Seattle. I'm still standing," he spread out his arms, „and I still care."

Greymist nodded. And then he spoke. Not with mere words, since words would not suffice to adequately explain his decision to seize power back in May. By 2022 Greymist had served for four years as a private detective of great renown in Seattle, the great and old terrible city of unnumbered crimes. Passing his sorcerous skills off as mere intuition, talent at unnerving and interrogating criminals, he was of great value to the police force. Money was the only aim at the time, and cynicism had made a nest in his heart.

Aye, that period of Greymist's life was so far removed from him now, it might as well have been the life of another person entirely, another young man named Greymist. After 2022 there came a period of two years where Greymist's views were changed, drastically. It was in that time period that a series of events gradually wore down his apathy, and cynicism was dislodged. But no matter how rich or skilled, a detective was still just that; a detective. A single man, wizard or otherwise, could hardly make a positive impact upon a city of millions.

Thankfully, he was not alone. There were many others who felt like him, that merely enforcing the law just would not cut it anymore. Men and women from all walks of life began to feel that before the rising tide of crime, the only solution was to elect one man as the Romans would do in times of crisis, to clean up the mess. And some of these people came to Greymist, and as the plans began to be put in place, so too did the rumors begin to spread, that those who kept company with Malachi Greymist looked upon sights which others saw not.

November 2024 was agreed upon as the time to make a move that would see the impotent perpetuators of the previous system swept away and a new order put into place. But something happened in May that none could have foreseen. It was a crime, a crime of murder, just another one in a neverending torrent of savagery which plagued the city. Only, this one was different. Greymist's cynicism had evaporated long ago and every new crime he read about or saw on the news hit him deeply, but none so deeply as this. He could not sneer. He could not turn his back. He could not even shut his eyes, though he wanted to. Something, this time, was different.

The difference was that the victim was a baby.

A nine month old, innocent, dead baby.

Shot, murdered by her own father, high on PCP.

There it lay upon a wobbly table in a dingy apartment, its head a bloody ruin. No concrete sensations could Jeremy discern from this memory beyond that horrid sight, seared into the dark lord's memory because he never wanted it to be forgotten. There was only the feeling, a strangely familiar one. The feeling of horror and complete powerlessness, the despair which overwhelmed him then so that he covered his face and wept and had to be led away from the crime scene by two police officers. Then anger arose in his breast at his own impotence, only to be cut through by a realization, boring itself into his mind and extinguishing all confusion and all thought as if he, too, had just shared in that little girl's fate.

This, then, was the catalyst. The wizardkind he belonged to, if only partly, would alter the memories of the non–wizards, yet they would not lift a finger to stop a drug addicted non–wizard from killing his own daughter because it was a step too far, in their twisted thinking. Looking upon his face then, Greymist's comrades could tell that all their well–laid plans had just been broken as though with a sledgehammer. And nothing they said, nothing they did, could pacify him from that point onward. Greymist changed his mind. He would not wait until November to seize power. He would do it that very night.

Jeremy staggered away from the vision of six years of gazing into the abyss, compressed and purified. His heart was beating like crazy and he could scarcely draw in a breath. Eyes wide with knowledge he looked at Greymist and Greymist looked back. Now do you see? He seemed to be asking with his eyes. And God help him, Jeremy saw. How could he not? Did he not sometimes feel like for all their talk of defending the liberties of wizardkind, the Aurors more resembled a secret police of some totalitarian state? He had that exact thought yesterday, when walking with Eren down the Knockturn Alley. A day which, indeed, seemed so far away in his memory now it might as well have been lived by someone else.

In his decision to break with the hypocrisy of the wizarding world, Greymist transformed himself into something more than a man and less than a god. A force, a phenomenon, consuming all those who came in contact with it. It had consumed the army gathered in this cathedral, it had seemingly consumed the poor professor, and now it was trying to consume Jeremy. But he held on. He held on, because beneath the myth Greymist was consciously or unconsciously building up, behind the atrocities, the pain he inflicted on those he found guilty, there was still a young man his age who loved and was loved, who fought with his heart for what he believed in. And for that reason if nothing else, Jeremy would not give in to a mere man, especially not one who could commit atrocities such as these. Dark lord or not, Malachi Greymist remained irrevocably human. And humans held certain grudges.

„Where is your wand now?" Greymist began, turning to find Mulligan. „Give it to him."

The traitor's eyes flitted confusedly from face to face, yet he obeyed. The spiralling eye–studded wand landed on the floor with a clatter and rolled to a stop at Jeremy's feet. Eyes on Malachi, Taylor bent down and picked it up. „I sure hope there is a point to this."

„Of course there is, Jeremy," Greymist replied. „You asked me by what right do I deserve to rule? Now's your time to find out. You know the spell."

It took a moment for Jeremy to connect the dots in his head before he tossed the wand back to Mulligan, who caught it just as gravity began to take hold of it, nearly dropping it once and stumbling slightly to catch it. „You have your own creature to perform experiments with," Jeremy said, nose wrinkling and lip pulling into a sneer of disgust.

What was the point of this? To make him commit the same mistake again, but this time in such a way that he would not get away with it as easily? How petty that was. Greymist played the role of a lord, cold and distant, but back when Jeremy cast the Imperius curse on the dark lady he never imagined it would touch a nerve as much as it did.

As for the dark lady, she looked on as Mulligan withered before Greymist's gaze, who still waited on that curse. But it never came, not until she scoffed and took the matters into her own hands. In the space of a blink she was beside Mulligan, snatching the wand from his hand. „Imperio."

It was a subtle art, to get people to do what you want. No matter how well laid one's schemes or how unnoticeable the manipulation, free will of the subject was always a very real risk. That is, unless one had access to a spell that could bend even a human being's own free will to the whims of another. In the ancient times, the Hashashin would be drugged and taken to a luxurious garden, provided with every manner of beauty and intoxication so that when they woke from their stupor, they would be convinced they had been taken into Paradise. From that point on they would pledge their lives to the Old Man of the Mountain, fighting and killing and dying in his name just to return to that heaven they had caught a fleeting glimpse of.

The Imperius curse was this treatment, in the form of a spell. In its thrall the subject would hurt themselves and others at the caster's command and be happy while doing it, all reasoning thrown out the window in pursuit of that hideous bliss.

Malachi did not seem to be under the spell's sway. But then, no one hit with the Imperius would outwardly appear different. If they were to see whether or not the spell had taken hold, they would have to make Greymist do something, something outrageous, something utterly alien to his character.

Tip of the wand against her lips, Abigail thought for a moment what she could make her beloved do in this state, and her gaze settled on Jeremy. „Kiss him," she ordered, pointing a clawed finger at Jeremy, who was about to roll his eyes before he stopped and stared in shock as Greymist rolled his eyes as well.

She did not seem to have expected that. „Er... kill him?"

„No. Not yet, at least."

„Release them. Uh, stand on your head! Slap someone, anyone!"

The dark lord did not budge. Feeling his point had been proven, he stared now at Jeremy. This, then, was why he felt he deserved power. Everyone longed for willpower, but past a certain point willpower turned to insanity. In this case, a madness so strong its wielder was convinced the world was there for him to command, not the other way around. Jeremy remembered the vial.

But now unease swept through the silent crowd as the electrifying power which dwelled in the cathedral was overwhelmed, pushed out by a power even greater, and its presence was felt even in the heartbeat of the earth beneath their feet. „The storm is coming," Jeremy remarked. „In fact, it seems like it's much closer than we thought."

He looked up just in time to see the immense ceiling above their heads creak and groan and crack and finally split from the rest of the cavernous structure. It was as if a giant had reached down to play with his toys, lifted up the roof and tossed it aside. His small force counting 290 well trained men and women tensed up but remained in place. Greymist's strength was their strength, and they would not waver. Mulligan flinched and stood behind Greymist. The dark lord, unintimidated, put up his wand, and huge chunks of rubble that were falling on their heads were suddenly gracefully coming to a halt without ever harming anyone.

All eyes turned to the sky. Night had fallen long ago, and Jeremy could see nothing of what lurked beyond until their deliverers chose to show themselves.

„Lumos Maxima!" a powerful voice bellowed, and a light was flung above their heads to illuminate Jeremy, Eren and the others down in the pit. They squinted against the intensity of the light, but once they got used to it they could glimpse shapes up in the sky, men and women on brooms. And not just them.

Indeed the Aurors did not have a giant at their disposal. They had something far better. An immense inverted pyramid the color of midnight floated in the air, revolving soundlessly above their heads like the tip of a great spear about to plunge down. The Aurors of America were here. For once, Jeremy was glad that there weren't a whole lot of wizards in the world, because if their numbers were greater he had no doubt they would've still been crippled with uncertainty and debating among themselves whether to mobilize against Greymist or not.

That same powerful voice spoke up again, the voice of Commissioner Richard Kaczynski. „Malachi Greymist! You will order your troops to stand down and turn yourself in to face justice. If you do not comply, we have been authorized to use deadly force!"

His was the only voice to be heard. Jeremy, like everyone else in the room, turned to stare at Greymist, waiting on his answer.

At first he did not reply, not verbally at least. His wand in his right hand, he reached for some black object hanging from his belt, and Jeremy saw that it was a weathered but still functional gas mask. Placing it over his head and face, Greymist now pressed the tip of his wand to the side of his throat. When he spoke, he did so without shouting. His voice was muffled somewhat by the gas mask, yet everyone could hear him as clearly as though he were standing right next to them.

„How long did it take you to get here, Commissioner Kaczynski?" he inquired. „An hour? Two? Whatever the case, my friends here," he gestured at the cooling corpse of master Irion and professor Jäger, who stood there sucking his thumb like a baby trying to pacify itself. „My friends have worked diligently at synthesizing more atsilatree poison from what leaves we've had left. Abby."

No one saw Abigail move. She simply disappeared and then reappeared beside Greymist, handing him an opened two–liter glass bottle almost completely filled to the brim with a black liquid that could have only been...

No. No, he was bluffing, he had to be, Jeremy thought. But then, didn't Hermione think the same? And look how that turned out. Behind Greymist Mulligan giggled, the achievement of that dream of his close at hand. The dream of nobility.

„The Angel of the Lord, it is called," Greymist spoke up, raising the bottle in the air for all to see. „There's enough of it in this bottle to wipe out London three times over. Now, I don't want to use it," he lowered the hand which held the bottle, „but I will only seal it away for a price. Your total allegiance."

„You're insane," Richard replied.

„And what of it?" Aye, insane. He had been called that before. Insane and evil and a tyrant and every name under the sun. After a while it all began to slide off him like water off a raincoat, because for all the insults they could hurl at him, they still did not deny that he could do what he claimed.

No response. It was in fact Eren, of all people, who had something to say. He even raised his hand, as if asking the teacher's permission to speak. „Yes, all well and good, my lord, but let me ask you this..." He looked past Greymist, at Mulligan, and intoned somberly, „Who silences the wind when it howls? Who cuts down the songbirds as they cry their morning melody?"

Jeremy remembered.

Mulligan remembered.

Greymist saw.

It took an hour to synthesize a pint of the Angel. Greymist would have surely succeeded in producing at least one more pint by the time they reached him, as he would not let himself be deprived of his greatest advantage. So Jeremy's plan was to allow themselves to be captured, seemingly betrayed by Mulligan in an attempt to regain favor with the dark lord whom he had failed several times by now. Mulligan would once again be in Greymist's good graces, and when the Aurors made themselves known and Greymist threatened to unleash the Angel once again, Mulligan would tackle him and take the poison away from him, thus denying him his weapon of mass destruction.

The one and only time Mulligan raised a concern while Jeremy explained his plan was to point out that Greymist could break inside people's minds and read them. But Jeremy knew that already. Luckily the Aurors had access to a certain spell, a spell devised for missions where merely disguising oneself was not enough, and one had to hide their very thoughts not just from those who could see inside their minds, but from themselves. The sleeper agent spell, whose word was Dormitator.

Mulligan was bewitched first and his sleeper persona provided with a set of instructions. The words which turned him into their betrayer were the ones written upon the pyramid, which Jeremy had read out loud. Upon becoming a sleeper, his next directive was to use the same spell against Jeremy himself so the Auror would give nothing away to Greymist, susceptible as he was to his influence. And finally there were the words that Eren had been entrusted with. Of the three, he was the only one who had never met Greymist and so his mind could not be read as easily. His task was to say those words once Greymist brandished the Angel again, so that Jeremy and Mulligan would awaken and remember their true goal.

For Malachi, time slowed to a crawl. He did not understand what Eren was saying, but he did not need to. He was feeling the import behind the words, the weight of intent crushing him. Many a scheme did the dark lord set in motion, but now Jeremy's own plot was laid bare before him. Panic rose to choke his mind, he was turning and out of the corner of his eye he saw Mulligan, determination returning to his eyes and the dream which bound him to the dark lord abandoned, already taking the first step, already running toward him, at him, and his mind grasped blindly at something he could do right now, right this second, if Mulligan reached him he could never...

He shouted into the bottle. „KILL THE AUR–"

He never got the chance to finish the command as Mulligan barrelled into him head first. Time had slowed for the merchant as well, as he came to realize what Malachi had attempted to say before he was cut off. The only word the poison would register as a command was his very first. Kill. And so it would. It would kill everyone here, friend or foe, and it would spread out, it would kill what survivors there remained, and it would go on to whatever city was nearest and it would consume it too just like it did with London. It would not stop. The command was to kill, and it would continue to do so until it ran out of people and animals and vegetation to consume. How many more would die by then?

This was the peril. This was the thread upon which doom hung, not just his own or Malachi's, but the doom of hundreds of thousands of others. Unless he put his foolish dream aside and did something about it. Before anyone could process what was happening Mulligan grabbed the bottle as it tumbled through the air and then he was off, a pillar of black smoke shooting straight for the night sky above.

This was probably not what Jeremy had envisioned for him when he asked if he could fly without a broom. But this was what he was doing now. Soaring through the darkness and towards the stars, he could feel the bottle violently shake in his grasp as the Angel struggled to get out, but the tremendous wind and gravity pushed down on it. He held onto the bottle even tighter, abandoning Earth and abandoning his dreams.

What a shame. He'd hoped to be rich one day, to be a noble. Tears stung his eyes yet he took a deep breath, as deep as he could, and continued flying higher than any bird, higher even than any plane. The poison needed oxygen, and he would deprive it of oxygen. Deprive himself, too. Not that it mattered. This is where we are. Here. Now. This.

Technically, there was no such thing as a border at which the Earth's atmosphere ended and space began, but officially it was put as a hundred kilometres. Without supplementary oxygen, a human would die at eight kilometres, but by Mulligan's account he had long surpassed even that limit, so fast did he fly. Even at night, the sky was never entirely black, and the planet's atmosphere always coated the night in a very deep shade of blue. Not anymore. Water in his body was boiling away, he still flew. The last thing he ever saw before the water in his eyeballs was gone and he was rendered blind were the stars in a pitch black void. As good a last sight as any. Better than most. Inhuman strength was dredged up from some well from within him and his final act in life was to throw the bottle up and away from him, away from the planet revolving far beneath him.

He was no longer flying, but floating. The moment right before darkness claimed him at last, Mulligan thought, I hope this works.

The glass bottle shattered soundlessly and the Angel was free at last, not that it would do it any good. It floated in the void as a loose collection of distorted black spheres, incapable even of reaching out to find nourishment in the body which drifted away. There the poison would remain, deprived of oxygen. And if the day should come where Earth's gravity would reclaim this poison again... well, that was no longer Mulligan's concern, was it? At the end of the day he did not have much, but what little he did have he'd now given away. Namely his life, and his dream.