Chương 251: Ch241- Wardnet

Albus Dumbledore stepped through the archway into the Department of Mysteries, robes shifting around his ankles. A figure waited just inside. Cloaked from head to toe in a fabric that shimmered oddly, like it wasn't sure what colour it wanted to be, made it hard to pin anything down. Height, shape, voice, none of it.

"Headmaster." Dumbledore gave a smile.

"Miss Green." The figure stiffened. Not enough for most to notice. But Dumbledore's smile widened.

"I can always recognise my students, Miss Green." Olivia didn't say anything. She led the way. Looking around, Dumbledore let out a tired breath. He hadn't planned to come himself. But there were only a few names the Unspeakables would even let past the threshold without snarling, and most of them were buried or retired.

"I need to access the wardnet," he said.

"There's an elf I need to trace." Olivia stopped mid-step.

"You'll need permission from-" He handed her a folded slip. She took it, opened it with one hand. Just tucked it into the folds of her cloak and kept walking.

"This way." She turned without saying anything else, and started walking. Dumbledore followed. They passed a room lined with glass boxes. Dumbledore's gaze lingered on them as they passed. One of them had frost spreading inward from the seams. Old memories, probably. Bad ones. This place was full of them. They stopped in front of a heavy black door. Olivia tapped her wand, and the door opened with a heavy groan, releasing mist into the corridor they had just walked through. The room beyond was mostly dark.

A globe hovered in the centre, the size of a desk, turning slowly. The base was carved stone, cracked with age. It pulsed with buried runes, old enough they'd stopped glowing evenly. The globe showed Earth. Except one lit patch, the rest was completely dark. Light traced lines across the lit part, faint pulses threading through what was clearly Britain. Glowing criss-crossed strands, some sharp and thin, others wide as rivers. They flickered every few seconds, stretching and twisting in slow motion.

Dumbledore stepped closer. It wasn't like any map one would see in the Ministry proper. Leylines flickered in and out, weaving through the land with spells woven so deep the Ministry barely understood them anymore. The thickest ones ran through Hogwarts, St Mungo's, the Ministry, and a handful of old sites that hadn't had names in centuries. Some of the pulse-lines weren't tied to any living structure. Just marks scorched by something long gone. A duel. A ritual.

A death no one remembered, but the land hadn't let go of. Magic didn't forget after all. A few drifted wider, loose nets cast over forest lines, lake beds, mountain passes. A perimeter of sorts.

"This never stops fascinating me," Dumbledore murmured, nodding at the globe. Behind him, Olivia made a sound close to a hum.

"Intent matters, right?" He could hear the smile in her voice, despite the mask, under whatever spell twisted her voice.

"Intent matters," he echoed, quietly. He hadn't taught Olivia as a Professor. By the time she entered Hogwarts, he was long past the classroom. But he remembered taking the odd session when someone fell ill or got hexed into a desk. He didn't teach wandwork in those lessons. Just two things, intent and visualisation. He'd written them on the board like they were the whole point of the subject. Because, in a way, they were. Seemed she remembered it too.

"This wardnet's brilliant," he said.

"Most people don't know you can key it to track not just people or spells but also words." Olivia turned slightly.

"Words?"

"Say the right phrase. The right name. The system can follow it across the country, if you're clever about it."

"Didn't know that."

"Cassian found it. I don't know where he got half of what he pulled into that proposal," Dumbledore went on.

"Some of the files weren't in the Ministry archive. At least not the parts we had access to."

"And you didn't ask?" Dumbledore gave a small smile.

"No point. Once Cassian's obsessed, he finds things no one else can. Documents. Spells. A cleaner index system. Usually before breakfast." Olivia let out something that might've been a laugh. Or a cough. Hard to tell with the distortion. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Dumbledore stepped closer to the globe, eyes narrowed. Every magical nation had their own wardnet, tuned to its soil, its oaths, its politics. Britain's was old. Cranky.

Refused to be updated without throwing a fit. And still, it worked better than most. Sort of. The international links hadn't been used in years. They'd been built, once, to catch things no single country could handle alone. Things that didn't care about flags or borders or polite paperwork. Now they mostly sat dormant. Countries would only share access when it was absolutely necessary. Which meant almost never. Too many secrets tangled up in the spells.

Cassian had tried to push this through last year, when he and the H. E. A. R. T. had presented to the Wizengamot.

"If it can track underage magic," he'd said, "it can bloody well track this." The Minister hadn't liked that. Fudge had spent the entire meeting looking like he'd swallowed a lemon. The old families weren't thrilled either.

"Abuse" was a word they didn't like attached to their traditions. Still, the Unspeakables accepted the proposal. And the tracking runes had been added. Dumbledore didn't know until later that Cassian hadn't done it just for the elves. He was trying to protect them, that part wasn't up for the debate, but it wasn't his only reason. He'd wanted to trace the elf who broke Barty out. The one who got him out of the World Cup camp. Cassian never got the access. Didn't have the clearance.

Not even with all the titles behind his name. If Cassian had been given permission, things might have been different, but bureaucracy was like that. Its slowness sometimes felt as though it protected criminals. And now that he couldn't cast at all... So he'd passed the job on. Slid the whole mess into Dumbledore's hands. Dumbledore let out a deep breath. He could never decide if Cassian planned this far ahead, or just had a particular knack for worst-case scenarios. Either way, it was uncanny.

Every time Dumbledore tried to walk two steps forward, Cassian had already chalked the trap line and labelled it "idiot test." Terrifying man, really. Dumbledore's hand drifted along the globe's edge. He tapped it at a location. The surface crackled faintly at his touch. The runes shifted colour, blue threads pulling toward the southern half of England, then splitting into seven different directions. Olivia stepped forward, wand raised, and flicked twice across the hemisphere.

The runes shimmered green, then snapped into a tighter weave. The elf-tracking system came online. His eyes flicked over the readouts, columns of faint script, movement logs, flare patterns. A few blinked red. He shut them out. Most were already marked, cases flagged, resolved, ticked off by enforcement. Numbers matched up. Teams dispatched. Victims recovered. Charges filed. One stood out.

"This must be it," he said quietly. No status update. Just a fixed location pinged three days ago, more before that, pulse still active. He squinted. Traced the lines around it. A half-faded leyline nearby. He knew what it was. Trap. Voldemort might be a thousand things, but thick wasn't one of them. Once he got wind of this system, he'd use it. Bait them with a known elf. Let the well-meaning come running. And then close the net. Fortunately, Cassian warned them not to send Aurors first.

Back when his proposal for the elf-tracking system got accepted, he sat down with the Unspeakables and spelled it out in simple terms. The whole thing could be twisted. Traps baited with a house-elf's location, Aurors walking straight into it. All you'd need is the right signature and someone stupid enough to care. And the Ministry had no shortage of "bleeding hearts." So, he told them, don't send people. Send something disposable. Or better, something that couldn't die twice. Like Dementors.

The Unspeakables agreed before he even finished the sentence. They pulled the Phantoms. Gaunt, moaning things with blank white faces and crooked limbs, all shrouded in tattered veils. Unlike Dementors that fed on happiness, emotions, warmth. Phantoms fed on ambient magic. Leaked it, sometimes. Too weird to classify, too harmless to ban. Centuries ago, someone had rounded up the lot of them. No records of who.

Typical Ministry logic, if it couldn't be killed or classified, best shove it in a room and pretend it was furniture. They stuck them in wards so they could snack on residual spells and glow faintly in the halls. Once or twice a decade, they'd be leashed to high-magic areas where it was unsafe to send an Auror. Since most Magicks found them creepy, and the Phantoms loathed the fear that followed them, the Ministry's offer was a treat they couldn't pass up. They were perfect for the task.

Couldn't be tricked with illusions. Didn't follow orders unless the wards were keyed just right. But they were honest and quiet. And now they were gone.

"How many did you send?"

"Two."

"Silenced?"

"No readings since arrival. They walked in and vanished." Dumbledore frowned. If something shredded their anchor, they just stopped existing. But not something easy to achieve.

"No magical residue," Olivia added.

"Not even an afterimage. It's as if they'd been eaten." Dumbledore glanced at the globe. If a Phantom's tether snapped, it should leave behind something. The runes didn't show anything. Just a neat hole where they'd vanished. That narrowed the list. Olivia held out a slip.

"Outskirts of Perth. Hillside boundary. Registered as disused farmland." He took it, scanned the coordinates.

"Too far north for a death ward. Too small for a summoning site."

"But near enough to the leyline to channel off-grid magic," she said. Dumbledore folded the paper, tucked it away.

"And there's no record of activity there?"

"Only noise. Static, mostly. Might've been a decoy."

"Or bait." He kept his hand on the edge of the globe. If they disappeared... don't send a second team. That was the agreement. Cassian had been right again. The system was clean, efficient but dangerous. But it was only as smart as the people using it. And Voldemort was smarter. Dumbledore straightened. Closed his eyes. Going alone wasn't the clever option. But dragging someone along without knowing what was waiting... that was worse. If Voldemort wasn't there, this would be a waste of time.

It had taken them nearly a year just to secure the proper permission. He doubted Tom had the patience to sit quietly, waiting as bait. But the Tom he knew would never leave anything to chance. Cassian's magic was flickering back, but it was slow and... And for now, they were keeping that quiet. Bathsheda could handle herself. Had for years. Much better than he ever expected at that. He hadn't lied to Olivia when he said he remembered every student. He remembered Cassian and Bathsheda quite vividly.

It should've been comforting, seeing them take up the mantle. But something about the two of them... just didn't feel right. He shook the thought loose. Dwelling never helped. He couldn't call on the Flamels. Couldn't lean on Ji. This wasn't the sort of thing you spread around or dress up as an international concern. This sat squarely inside Britain's mess, tangled up with its wards, its ghosts, and its mistakes. His mess. Dumbledore turned and headed for the exit.

"I'll check the address and report in a few hours," he said, already walking. Olivia stiffened.

"Headmaster..." He paused at the threshold and glanced back.

"Please be careful," she said. Dumbledore smiled.

"I will, Miss Green."