A certain Hogwarts professor of runes

Chapter 168 The Man Behind the Plan

"Have the attackers been caught? Are there any casualties?" Bubaji asked anxiously. She knew nothing about what was happening outside and had been protected from the beginning.

"We've made some progress," Felix said, a strange light gleaming in his eyes. "Professor Bubbaji, I may need to leave for a while..."

The next second, his figure twisted and disappeared, reappearing in a grove of trees outside the Busles Hotel.

"Footprints have been revealed."

Felix deftly waved his wand, and large plumes of golden mist emanated from its tip, leaving messy golden footprints on the ground, pointing diagonally in one direction.

Although the area covered by the golden mist was not large, it was enough to indicate the direction.

Besides--

Felix took out a few strands of brown hair, which came from the big boy whose mask he had removed.

He murmured softly, "Reveal your traces, owner of the hair."

Then Felix crushed a strand of hair from his fingertip into golden light, which merged with the golden mist, and an illusion of a panicked boy appeared.

He saw a brief scene:

"Wait for me, Julia!" the boy called out.

"Put on your mask, Byers!" a stern voice said to the boy.

The phantom then vanished, and Felix looked thoughtful. "Byles... is that the boy's name? And who is Julia? Judging from the back, he looks a bit like the student leader of the retreating organization."

Felix quickly gave chase; he had pretty much pieced together the whole story.

Why was an Iphamoni badge left at the scene of the first attack? Was it really the threat mentioned by the black market intelligence dealer Aladdin?

Why has U.S. Legislative Council Speaker Celeste repeatedly requested additional personnel to assist in the defense?

And why were there strong and weak attackers, and even underage children among them?

He had an explanation for all of these.

The root of all this lies in the flawed legal system of the Magical Congress of the United States—in order to prevent the magical world from being exposed, they enacted extremely harsh legal provisions. The original Rappaport Law strictly prohibited all forms of contact, including friendship, marriage, and even required concealing one's wizarding identity from even the closest relatives.

The law was formally repealed in 1965, but its form outweighed its meaning, and many of Rappaport's provisions were absorbed by other laws.

This disappointed a large number of wizards from Muggle families and the first generation of half-blood wizards, who felt that the Magical Congress had deceived them.

As things have developed, a resistance organization has finally emerged – the Reform Society.

The Reformation Society is a relatively mild-mannered secret organization, but its members strongly oppose the Magical Congress of the United States' practice of rigorously screening wizards' friends and relatives in order to conceal the magical world.

……

Felix suspected that the Ivermony Magical School had become the headquarters of the Reformation Society, constantly supplying fresh blood. But how many years had the Reformation Society been developing? And how many members had quietly taken over various industries?

For example, are there any members of the Reformation Society in the Magical Congress of America? That's an interesting question.

This is why Felix told Celeste, the head of the Legislative Council, that they were fighting a war they were destined to lose.

One represents the present, the other represents the future—how can they possibly win?

Felix was still pondering what role he should play. He had no intention of leading the fledgling Reformation to counterattack the Magical Congress of the United States, even though he might work hard for a few years to spread his power throughout the entire wizarding world.

But what's the point?

As he rounded a bend in the hillside, Felix heard a heated argument. He silently cast an illusion spell on himself and strolled into the crowd.

He was somewhat surprised to see only a dozen or so black-robed wizards in front of him. Were they hiding in batches?

Did they set up more than one hiding place?

Felix became even more convinced that the innovations were not merely the product of Ivermony's students' own amusement, but that at least adult wizards, such as Aurors, were involved.

……

"It's not over yet!"

"Bessney stayed behind. Yuria, you're best friends with her. What do you think we should do?" said Byers, the short boy whose mask Felix had removed.

Felix was less than a meter away from him; he had used the hair to locate the attackers. Felix carefully examined Byers' young face, which was covered in blood, and his brown hair was stained crimson.

Student leader Julia looked around at his dejected companions and said with difficulty, "We can't go back. That man, that gentleman... he's too strong. We have no chance at all. Your sister..." He couldn't finish his sentence, his eyes filled with sorrow.

Felix listened silently. So, the girl who was severely injured by dark magic—Bethney—is related to Byers as siblings?

Uh... first, they removed his mask, completely exposing him, and then they healed his seriously injured sister, Besni.

Felix was completely baffled as to how to sort out their relationship.

The others chimed in, offering their own words of comfort and advice to the young man.

"Byles, Julia was also in a difficult position. If that gentleman hadn't ultimately refrained from making a move—"

"None of us will escape," one of them replied.

"The Aurors from the French Ministry of Magic must have arrived by now." A student impatiently lifted his mask, revealing a round face.

"Can we get in touch with Daniel? He'll definitely know the news," someone suggested.

Yuria shook her head. "His communication is limited. Before the operation, I only told him the start time and the hiding place."

Felix keenly noticed the newly appeared name "Daniel," and based on their conversation, he guessed that this Daniel was likely an official of the Magical Congress of the United States, and most likely an Auror.

However, he heard Maxwell mention that he had explicitly rejected the entry application of the American Auror, so was that Daniel smuggled into France?

Byers wiped away her pale red tears, her lips trembling as she said, "My sister... she's seriously injured. Will they treat her, Yuria? I'm so worried about her, I don't even know if she's still alive..."

The others also removed their masks, revealing faces full of sorrow.

Yuria gritted her teeth and said, "It's all my fault—"

Just then, a strange voice suddenly appeared: "Juria, your operation this time was far too reckless!"

The people turned around, their faces beaming with surprise and delight. "Brother Daniel!"

Two adult wizards appeared in the valley. One had long, fiery red hair and a slender build, while the other had short, dark brown hair and a stocky build.

The crowd surrounded the two wizards, asking them all sorts of questions.

"Brother Daniel, do you know how Besni is? She's my sister, and I'm very worried about her safety!" Byers said.

"Yes, has she received treatment?"

Upon hearing this, Daniel, who had long, fiery red hair, turned pale. "I don't know the specifics yet. As agreed, we pretended to be lured away by you and passed on false information to others. We didn't go to the Busles Hotel at all."

"But Bethney... as long as she's alive, she'll be fine. Celeste can't afford that!"

Byers felt slightly relieved, but then something occurred to him. "Could you go and find out about my sister now? You're nominally Celeste's guards, aren't you?"

American Auror Daniel looked apologetic: "Byles, our entire team smuggled ourselves in; there's no way we could possibly appear before the French Ministry of Magic."

"It's all your team's fault, that pure-blooded Auror! He's the one who kidnapped Matt!"

"Nonsense!" Daniel scolded, "Matt had the guts to attack a high-ranking official of the Magic Congress, and now he's complaining about being arrested?"

Everyone lowered their heads and remained silent.

Felix's heart skipped a beat. Matt? Was he the Reformation member Celeste had mentioned who had been captured? He had indeed heard them say, "The people have been rescued, we can leave now," as they retreated.

It turns out that this Auror provided the information; no wonder he was able to quickly pinpoint Matt's location.

On the other side, Daniel, now an adult, softened his tone. He looked at Julia, "The situation was urgent before, and communication wasn't smooth, so I didn't have time to ask in detail. How did you manage to make such a fuss? I don't remember passing any information to you. Was it intelligence from someone else in the Reformation? Fury? Herman? Kelly?"

The others looked at Julia, the student leader who had initiated the operation.

"It's the *New York Ghost*, Daniel," Julia said sheepishly. "Matt saw in it that Celeste was going to a conference in Paris, France. He and I contacted a few people privately, all graduates. We thought we were good enough, so we didn't tell anyone..."

"We are prepared to kidnap her and extract evidence of her crimes and intelligence from some high-ranking members of Congress."

Daniel looked at him with a scrutinizing gaze.

Eurya frankly stated, "It went very smoothly at first. We found the right opportunity to launch a surprise attack. Celeste and her henchmen were no match for them, let alone those Muggle research experts. But then two Congress Aurors suddenly appeared. They were very strong. We retreated all the way, but they pursued us relentlessly. Matt was captured while trying to buy us time to escape..."

Daniel, an Auror, added what he knew: "That was Celeste's hidden force. The French Ministry of Magic only approved her and Cecil to enter, not allowing Aurors from Parliament to enter. So she could only choose the two people she trusted most to sneak into France and secretly protect her."

"No wonder their attack was so discreet, and they even deliberately avoided the French Aurors!" Yuria suddenly realized.

"Brother Daniel, weren't you here at the time?" a short-haired girl asked.

Daniel retorted irritably, "If I were here, none of this would have happened!"

He calmed down and said, "Let's go through this again. You and Matt got intelligence from the newspapers and secretly organized the first operation, but it was defeated by Celeste's hidden forces, and Matt was captured. Afterwards, in order to rescue him, you gathered more people and planned this operation."

Yuria nodded. As the student leader of the Reformation Society, he had this right—of course, only for Iphamoni's students.

This is why Felix felt that the attackers were generally not very strong.

Because they were all Julia's classmates.

Daniel continued his analysis: "This is your perspective. Now I'll tell you how Celeste and I view this operation, which will also serve as a warning to you: you should know that you made too many mistakes in the process!" His expression suddenly turned serious.

Meanwhile, Felix, who was secretly watching, slightly curled the corners of his mouth. Sure enough, the Reformation Society had the practice of "experience sharing," which made them more cohesive. Moreover, if it continued to develop, it might very well become a new force, thus influencing the entire American magical world.

Daniel began to recount the entire incident from Celeste's perspective, which greatly intrigued the somewhat naive Iphamoni students.

"Because of me and some other people, her first two entrapment attempts both failed—"

"Thanks to Brother Daniel's information!" a freckled girl said excitedly.

“We are all members of the Reformation.” Daniel declined the praise. “This meeting… I’m not sure if she saw it as a trap, after all, it’s too risky and could easily cause an international dispute. Of course, she could also have been pushed to the limit! But she must have been prepared, so she ordered her two most trusted Aurors to sneak into France and hide in the shadows.”

"Your first operation failed under these circumstances!"

"And I, and the others in the Reform Society, knew nothing about it."

"After that, Celeste got the chance to get the list because he captured Matt, and he also thought that you might launch a rescue operation, so the liaison council sent more people, and we were the second batch."

Daniel pointed to the short, stocky wizard next to him, who scratched his head sheepishly without saying a word.

"Celeste's excuse is to guard against Grindelwald's admirers, but I've heard some inside information from my pureblood teammates and I suspect it might be your doing."

"At this point, the two of us have become another important factor of influence, following Celeste, you, and the French Ministry of Magic."

The others listened intently, but Yuria only knew that Matt had been captured and that she had gathered everyone to rescue him, unaware of the many twists and turns involved.

Reading tips: Unfamiliar characters appearing in recent chapters:

Besni (seriously injured and treated by Felix, she is the catalyst for the incident);

Yuria (student leader);

Daniel (an American Auror and a member of the Reformation, who has been secretly passing on intelligence).

Byers (Bethney's brother, the one whose mask was removed by Felix);

Matt (whom Felix overhears and learns about the captured attacker);

The others were all extras.

(End of this chapter)