The French Ministry had seen plenty of bold ideas over the centuries, but few had arrived under such strange circumstances. A boy of eleven, escorted by the most famous alchemists in history, was proposing to change the way magic itself was communicated. It would have been laughable had it come from anyone else. But with Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel seated at the front of the long mahogany chamber, their presence silenced every murmur of doubt.
Oliver sat between them, Nyx perched like a little crown on his head. The Phoenix chick chirped quietly, her sky-blue eyes glowing faintly in the lantern light, a reminder that nothing about this meeting was ordinary.
The head of the French Department of Magical Affairs, Minister Duval, cleared his throat. His voice was clipped, precise, as though he still wasn't sure whether he was presiding over a breakthrough or a farce.
"Monsieur Night," Duval began, his dark eyes flicking briefly to the Flamels before settling on Oliver, "it is not every day that a child presents a matter of international interest to us. You are aware of the weight of what you propose?"
Oliver nodded, his back straight though his palms pressed nervously into his knees under the table. "Yes, Minister. What I've built is not just a toy. It's a tool that can change how we live—how quickly we can speak with each other no matter the distance." His voice gained a steadiness as he continued. "I want every witch and wizard to be able to call for help, to reach their families, to stay connected. That's why I started with simple designs, something cheap enough for anyone."
There was a stir among the council members. A few leaned forward with genuine interest, others raised skeptical brows. Duval raised a hand, silencing them.
"And yet," he said slowly, "your prototypes function only within a limited range. What you propose—global networks of communication—would require power sources far beyond anything sustainable. Surely you do not expect us to—"
Nicholas interrupted gently, his smile calm but commanding. "That is why we are here, Étienne. Oliver has discovered a method of crystallizing magical resonance. He has already succeeded in binding his devices to a larger focus crystal. The network is not theory. It is already functioning."
At that, a ripple went through the chamber. Perenelle reached into her bag and placed one of the prototypes on the table. It looked ordinary—sapphire glinting faintly, its runes etched with the careful precision of a craftsman. She slid it toward Duval, who picked it up with careful hands.
Oliver leaned forward. "That's one of the cheaper models. It works up to five hundred kilometers without a beacon. With a beacon"—he gestured instinctively toward the great glowing sapphire sphere resting under protective wards nearby—"it can connect across entire continents."
Gasps broke out. Several aides scribbled notes frantically. One older witch muttered something about "a new age of correspondence."
Duval placed the prototype down slowly, staring at Oliver with renewed attention. "And where, exactly, do you intend to build these… beacons?"
Nicholas answered smoothly before Oliver could: "On lands under our ownership. Private sites. The Ministry need not worry about jurisdictional interference. You will benefit from the infrastructure without assuming the risk."
That reassurance seemed to settle many of the officials' immediate concerns. There was something disarming about Nicholas's confidence—centuries of reputation backing his words.
The meeting lasted hours, filled with questions of security, distribution, and control. Oliver did his best to answer where he could, though Nick and Penny handled the denser political language. By the time the council recessed, murmurs had shifted from suspicion to excitement.
"France will not miss this opportunity," Duval declared at last, his voice firm. "We grant approval for installation. The Flamels will oversee it. The boy—" He paused, then corrected himself with deliberate weight. "Monsieur Night—will be recognized as the inventor. Let it be known that France supports this endeavor."
The chamber broke into applause. Oliver blinked, cheeks flushing. He had expected suspicion, maybe even rejection. Instead, he was being treated as though he had just written himself into history.
Perenelle squeezed his shoulder. "Breathe, Oliver. This is only the beginning."
The next site was less formal, but no less important.
The Delacour estate lay nestled in the countryside, surrounded by forests that shimmered faintly with Veela magic. It had been their home for centuries, a sanctuary given freely by the Flamels. While technically Flamel land, it was in practice governed by the Veela themselves.
The Delacour patriarch, tall and distinguished, greeted them warmly but with guarded curiosity. "You speak of crystals, of towers of magic," he said as they walked the grounds. "And yet you promise no interference with our way of life?"
"You will not lose anything," Nicholas assured him. "No ministry oversight, no unwanted guests. Only a beacon, humming quietly, anchored deep. Your people will benefit, not suffer."
Oliver added softly, "And if it ever bothers you, if it causes harm in any way, I'll shut it down. I want this to help, not hurt."
The sincerity in his voice seemed to catch the patriarch off guard. For a moment, he simply regarded Oliver, then nodded. "You speak with honesty. That is rare."
Construction began quickly, ward teams anchoring the crystal deep in the soil. The air shimmered faintly as protective spells were layered, blending seamlessly into the natural Veela aura of the land.
It was during this process that two young figures appeared on the veranda of the Delacour home. Fleur Delacour, already striking even in her youth, paused mid-stride when her eyes fell on Oliver. Her gaze lingered not on Nyx, perched like a tiny flame on his head, but on his hair—streaked with dark blue, glimmering as though it carried the night sky itself.
Her Veela nature expected reaction, perhaps admiration, perhaps stammering awe. Instead, Oliver simply smiled politely, brushing dust from his robes. He bowed slightly in greeting, as he had been taught by Penny.
Fleur blinked, something unsettled in her chest. He's not reacting… why? She was accustomed to allure tugging at others, bending their composure. But here was a boy immune, or perhaps simply uninterested. And that made him all the more curious.
Beside her, Gabrielle gasped, eyes wide with excitement. "The bird!" she squealed, pointing at Nyx. "Can I—can I pet her?"
Oliver hesitated only a second before lowering his head. Nyx chirped softly, bowing too, and allowed Gabrielle's small hand to stroke her feathers. The girl giggled with delight, her laughter ringing like silver.
Their parents exchanged surprised glances. Nyx was no ordinary bird; her acceptance of the child spoke volumes.
"I will purchase several of these phones," the patriarch said decisively. "For our representatives, for my family. When one has daughters…" He looked briefly at Fleur and Gabrielle, his expression softening. "Nothing is more valuable than knowing they are safe."
Oliver flushed but nodded. "Thank you, sir. That's exactly why I made them."
By the time the crystal was fully anchored, word had already spread. Whispers raced through France faster than fire. Shops opening with the first batch of phones saw lines stretch down entire streets. Within hours, shelves were emptied. The devices were no longer mere tools—they were symbols of status, proof of belonging to a new age.
Newspapers called Oliver "le prodige," the prodigy who had brought communication into the future. Others whispered about the Flamels' influence, how their protection had given the boy space to rise. Whatever the interpretation, the result was the same: his name was everywhere.
The French Government moved swiftly, officially commissioning a special batch of phones for ministry offices and ambassadors abroad. Their speed only fueled demand further; if the government wanted them, so did everyone else.
Oliver sat in quiet awe at the dinner table that evening with Nick and Penny, Nyx nestled asleep against his neck. "I didn't think…" He shook his head. "I didn't think it would spread this fast."
Perenelle smiled knowingly. "Revolutions never wait for permission, Oliver. You've lit the match. Now the fire runs."
Far away, across the Channel, two very different figures sat fuming in the British Ministry of Magic.
Cornelius Fudge slammed a copy of Le Sorcier Quotidien onto his desk. The headline screamed about France's "New Age of Communication" with Oliver Night at its center.
"A child!" Fudge thundered, his face red. "A child is selling devices to the world, while Britain is left behind? Do you realize how this makes us look, Dolores?"
Umbridge, her smile syrupy and sharp, leaned forward. "It makes us look weak, Minister. Very weak indeed. This… Night boy is monopolizing a resource. Dangerous. Unfair. And discriminatory, if he has chosen to exclude his own people."
Fudge puffed furiously on his cigar. "Unacceptable. Utterly unacceptable. We cannot allow this."
"Then we act," Umbridge purred. "Seize the patent. Strip him of ownership. A boy cannot be trusted with such power. It is irresponsible."
Fudge slammed his fist on the desk. "Summon the Aurors. If France will not hand him over, then we'll make him bend. Britain will not be mocked by a child!"
The room fell silent but for the hiss of smoke curling upward.
The storm was coming.
Fudge's order hung in the air like smoke.
"Summon the Aurors," he'd said, knuckles white around the newspaper that had crowned France—not Britain—the first magical nation with a true, continent-scale communications web. Dolores Umbridge's bow bobbed once as she slid out the door to "facilitate." Somewhere down the corridor, parchment already rustled, quills already scratched. The British Ministry of Magic, stung by pride, moved.
But the world did not stop for Britain's pride.
By the time Umbridge's owl reached the Auror Office, Oliver, Nicholas, and Perenelle were still at the Delacour estate, watching wardmakers finish the last stabilizing lattice around the buried core of the beacon. The ground above looked untouched—grass smooth, trees whispering in a mild breeze—but beneath lay a lattice of focus runes, amplification arrays, and translation matrices keyed to the sapphire heart. It would hum quietly for a century if left alone.
Fleur lingered on the veranda longer than she meant to, eyes narrowed just a fraction as Oliver, sleeves rolled, revised one last glyph at her father's request. He didn't so much as flinch at her presence; his attention was on the diagram, on the way the humming changed when he adjusted a curve by a hair. She folded her arms, almost annoyed at herself for watching. Immunity to allure wasn't unheard of—old masters, occlumens, particularly stubborn crones—but in someone his age?
Interesting.
Gabrielle didn't notice any of that. She chattered to Nyx, who tolerated small hands with saintly patience, then announced imperiously that the "little star-bird" could nest in her hair any time she liked. Nyx chirped once, approving.
By evening, the Delacour patriarch had signed the final letter of acknowledgement. "You have our blessing," he said, extending a hand to Oliver as if to an equal. "This will keep our travelers safer. For that, I thank you."
Oliver shook, ears pinked. "I'm honored, sir."
Perenelle twined her arm through his as they walked back toward the Floo. "That was diplomacy," she whispered, pleased. "You listened, offered contingency, kept the promise modest. Let the results speak. Remember that."
"I will," he said—and meant it.
Paris sang with it that night.
Windows glowed in rows as families huddled around new devices, pressing runes and laughing when distant voices answered. Lanterns swung above queues that had only thinned because the shelves had emptied. In government offices, clerks went half-wild at the ease of scheduling across provinces. A pair of Healers tested a call from a remote dragon ward to the capital and instead of waiting two owls and a day, got a consultant in thirty seconds.
The next morning, three sealed letters arrived at the Flamels' townhouse in quick succession, each with a Ministry seal and a tone more eager than the last. Perenelle stacked them, smiling without triumph. "Government batch," she said simply. "Ambassadors, field offices, Emergency Services."
"Price and terms?" Nick asked.
"Tier Three, standard quota, one-galleon monthly per device for Network maintenance. Exclusivity clause limited to administrative lines; no interference with civilian sales." She tapped the corner of the top letter. "And Étienne wants a press handshake. He wants France seen as first."
Oliver winced. "That'll irritate Britain."
"It will," Nick agreed mildly. "And that is not our concern."
Oliver's face stayed serious. "I won't gloat."
Perenelle squeezed his shoulder. "That, child, is why the right people are finding you easy to help."
They signed.
Then the map got bigger.
The Flamels had always owned parcels of land in sleepy, unremarkable places—old family holdings that taxed no patience and answered no regulators. Now those parcels finally had a purpose.
North America first: a wooded swath in rural Vermont, hours from any Muggle road, where the ground was granite firm and the leylines, while thin, were steady. MACUSA sent two observers—one young, one careful; both skeptical. Nicholas walked them through the arrays without ever quite showing the secret sauce. Oliver etched a compact translation cluster by hand, humming under his breath as Nyx sat on a pine branch and watched the morning fog peel back. When they powered the beacon, the MACUSA observers went quiet, pressed a rune on a Tier Two device, and connected to Paris on the first try.
"Two words," the older one said, eyes unfocused as she listened to a voice leap across an ocean. "First contract."
"Tier Three bulk," Nick returned, as if discussing tea. "And we'll consult on security hardening. No back doors."
"Government audit?"
"On premises only. No copying."
They shook.
South America next, to a Flamel grove in the Mantiqueira. Then southeast Africa, where an old Flamel preserve—dormant for a century—woke to a crew of wardmakers who made the ground ring like a temple bell. A modest farm outside Kyoto; a lonely stretch of outback beyond Perth. Each site followed a rhythm: survey, ward, bury, bind, test, contract. Everywhere, the same reaction: skepticism → quiet, stunned listening → logistics.
It wasn't glamorous. It was work.
Between sites, evenings were for the business plan that, two weeks earlier, had been scribbles on Oliver's parchment. Now it was paragraphs and clauses: Tier One accessible without a beacon at half a galleon; Tier Two five galleons with five knuts monthly on Network; Tier Three for governments and serious enterprises at fifty with one galleon monthly; Tier Four bespoke and not for sale unless Oliver decided it was. The subscription language hardened: service contingent on compliance, payment, and non-abuse; connection revocable; devices downgradable to Tier One if terms were breached.
"Are you sure about enforcement power?" Perenelle asked one night, hair pinned loosely as she annotated a draft. "Regulators will howl."
Oliver turned his pen and thought before answering. "I'm not using it to squeeze families. I am reserving it for regimes and magnates who think they can bully me. Or for sabotage. If someone points this at suppression or war, I want to be able to pull the plug."
Nick nodded once. "Then write that. Spell it. And be ready to actually do it."
"I will," Oliver said softly. "Phones are bridges. Not weapons."
Perenelle smiled into her teacup. "You'll be a terror with principles."
"I'll be me," he said—and didn't look away.
Back in London, parchment moved without principles.
Auror Office, late evening. Tonks leaned against a file cabinet, hair a lazy violet, reading the assignment with a frown she wasn't bothering to hide. "Seize patents? On a kid?" she said flatly. "Who wrote this?"
"Minister's office," came the answer from a harried administrator. "Or rather, Dolores."
Kingsley Shacklebolt, calm as a polished wand, skimmed and set the paper down. "Investigation authority we have. Seizure is… questionable without due process."
"Questionable?" Tonks snorted. "Try stupid."
"Orders are orders," the administrator muttered, clearly wishing to be anywhere else.
Kingsley glanced at Tonks. "We'll investigate." He enunciated the second word and left the rest unsaid. "We'll avoid… theater."
"Good," Tonks said. "Because my mother would hex me bald if she heard I roughed up a boy with a phoenix for inventing a phone."
"Your mother's a wise woman," Kingsley said dryly, and the administrator pretended not to hear.
Even in a ministry behaving badly, there were still people who preferred a clean line to a crooked one.
France did not intend to wait for Britain's paperwork to clear or its temper to cool.
Étienne Duval's office released a carefully worded statement two days after the first government batch shipped: France affirmed the utility and safety of the Crystal Network, lauded its inventor by name, and emphasized that installations had been sited on privately owned land with full Ministry oversight. It ended with a line that made Perenelle laugh aloud when she read it at breakfast:
"Innovation is best shepherded by those who have proven faithful stewards of the public good."
"Étienne does have a way," she said. "Translation: thank you, Flamels."
"And a poke at Fudge," Nick added, amused. "Translation: try to seize it and we will embarrass you."
Oliver only chewed his toast and stared at the letters piling by his plate. Requests. Or—if he was honest—demands disguised as requests, stamped with seals from ministries he had never visited. He turned one over and traced the brisk signature of a Deputy Minister who wanted an expedited exclusive in exchange for favorable… something. He slid it aside, unread.
Perenelle noticed. "We'll sort them," she said. "Not now. Not with your breakfast."
"I'm fine," he said—and meant it more than he had a month ago. "It's just… odd. The speed."
"People sprint to power," Nick said. "The trick, child, is to keep walking."
Oliver exhaled and, after a heartbeat, smiled. "We walk."
The Veela did more than walk—they danced right past the queue.
Fleur's mother had been diplomatic during the initial delegation, but now she sent for Oliver personally, ushered him under a trellis into a courtyard softened by late light, and spoke without pomp.
"I bought one for each of my family," she said, brandishing a small stack of Tier Two phones as if they were pastries. "And three for our performers. And a spare for when Gabrielle becomes a mischievous magpie and pretends she lost hers."
"Maman!" Gabrielle protested from a window above. "I will not—oh, all right, maybe once."
They all laughed. The sound belled into the garden.
"When my girls travel," Madame Delacour said, more quietly, "I will sleep. That is the difference. Merci."
Oliver did not peeve or preen; he nodded, then surprised himself by adding, "If anything feels off, if a call drops or warps, send word. I'm still… tuning."
She tilted her head. "You learn as you go."
"I always have," he said. Nyx, catching the lilt of pride in his voice, trilled a small note that sounded like agreement.
Fleur watched all of that without speaking, watching how people conspired toward him not out of fear, not out of desire, but out of respect. She knew power in dozens of forms. This new one—built of usefulness and humility—filed itself away in a place she used for interesting problems. It would stay there quite comfortably as she grew older.
In Vermont, a test call pinged from a ranger hut to a Healer on call in the New York Conclave. In Kyoto, a collector of rare texts negotiated a sale with a bookseller in Florence while standing in his garden. In Johannesburg, a ward designer patched a consultation with a Parisian arithmancer and sent an apprentice to fetch more chalk. In São Paulo, orders back-ordered themselves and a new courier firm's logo appeared on three shop windows overnight.
Across two dozen countries, owls left their perches and were startled to find themselves less busy.
Oliver was exhausted, and very happy. He slept when Perenelle pointed at a bed and said, "enough," and woke to Nicholas setting a saucer of coffee and a parchment of figures by his elbow. He had never kept a ledger that had to track three continents at once before. He wished, briefly, for Hermione's fanatical neatness before remembering she was, at the moment, reading his other kind of ledger—one bound in blue cloth and full of demigods.
He smiled without meaning to. Family, all over the map.
Britain, meanwhile, shored up its reasons.
Fudge's second memo to Umbridge was less flung and more composed: Legal grounds will be framed as public safety and antitrust. Contact Goblin Liaison Office for joint leverage; the patents likely sit with a French registrar but royalties will cross Gringotts. If we can't seize, we can freeze.
Umbridge's reply came back with three ribbons and no conscience: We will portray exclusion of Britain as discriminatory. Press is primed to say: "Boy invents phones for the world, spurns his home."
Neither considered that "home" had been the place that tried to take his phoenix and his freedom. Neither considered that the boy had been sleeping on a classroom floor until house-elves made him a bed. Politics, especially bad politics, rarely considered.
In the Auror Office, Tonks slid the memo stack into a drawer without malice and stared at the ceiling until her hair paled toward gray. Kingsley, passing by, paused long enough to say, "We will ask questions. We will not break a child."
"Understood," Tonks said. "And if they try?"
"Then we will ask louder," he said, and walked on.
On the fourth morning after the Delacour installation, Perenelle set down her spoon, lifted her head like a hunting dog scenting a change in the wind, and said, "Letters from America. Good ones."
They were. MACUSA had authorized a pilot program: Tier Three devices for departmental chiefs, Tier Two for field teams, Tier One recommended to the public with a cheerful poster that somebody in Public Relations had lettered with ridiculous stars. The price points were accepted "pending review." The subscription language was read without blinking. The only note back, surprisingly, was a safety request: Could Oliver please publish a public-facing sheet reminding users never to channel spellwork through the devices?
"Yes," Oliver said immediately. "And I'll build a tiny dampener into the housing that makes it obvious when somebody's trying to cast through it."
"Good," Nick said, already scribbling. "Harm foreseen is harm averted."
The same day, a courier from the Japanese Ministry came with a carefully folded note of thanks for the first stable translation call between two prefectures' offices in living memory. The call had taken them five minutes to attempt and ten seconds to complete.
That night, Oliver fell asleep sitting up with a draft of "Basic Use and Safety" on his lap, ink still drying above a line that read: Phones are for voices. Keep your wand for spells.
Perenelle took the page off his knee and kissed his hair. "You're a good boy," she murmured. "Stay one."
Nyx snored very faintly on his shoulder like a tea kettle too far from the boil to bother with.
And then: the British press.
Daily Prophet ran it first, wrapped in tutting concern: FRENCH MINISTRY BACKS FOREIGN COMMUNICATION SCHEME; BRITAIN EXCLUDED. A smaller column tried to stir safety panic. Another op-ed dripped with fret about "our children's voices monitored by a private network."
It would have been laughable if it weren't so transparent. It was also effective in the way only insulted pride can be. Owls dropped letters to the editor like rocks; a few asked real questions, most threw stones. A decent one asked whether Hogwarts would be connected soon. A bad one asked whether the phones turned your wand hand weak.
Oliver read none of them. Dumbledore did, sighed, and put them in a drawer with other regrettable things.
At lunch in the Great Hall, students read headlines and theorized; at dinner, nobody had a phone in hand because France's first shipments had not yet crossed the Channel, but half the hall was already imagining what it would be like when they did. Ron, somewhere else and suspended, was not part of the chorus, and for once the buzz in the Gryffindor corner did not bend around his opinions. Harry and Hermione, who had used the first prototype that day via Hagrid to shout a thrilled "hullo!" into a Tier Two on Perenelle's desk in Paris, wore identical grins. House loyalty was complicated; pride in a friend was not.
The castle slept that night with its usual odd creaks and sighs. In the Headmaster's office, two phoenixes dozed within sight of each other—a red-gold elder and a night-winged chick—and their dreams glowed like cinders and stars.
Fudge did not sleep.
He paced. He dictated. He decided.
At two in the morning, he signed a directive that would read, in polite language, like this: The Department of Magical Law Enforcement is to take immediate steps to secure patent control of any device or network capable of cross-border communication, when such device is controlled by a minor and presents a risk to national security and public order. If legal means fail, practical means are authorized.
He blew sand to dry the ink. He sealed it. He did not consider who, exactly, he was pointing that at, or what it would do to the fragile spine of trust between a school full of children and the men and women who wore Auror badges.
The directive went into an inner-office folder stamped URGENT.
Kingsley read it at eight. He did not sigh aloud. "We will consult the Wizengamot first," he said, voice neutral.
"We will act," Umbridge said, voice bright as a knife. "Wizengamot can rubber-stamp at leisure."
Kingsley said nothing. He took the folder. He left the room. He did not hand it to a hit squad; he carried it to Amelia Bones.
Madam Bones looked at the heading, and her jaw tightened. "I will not let the Ministry shove a boot on an eleven-year-old's neck because he built a better postcard," she said. "Thank you, Shacklebolt. Buy me twelve hours. I will speak to the Headmaster."
"Twelve," Kingsley said. "I'll make them count."
He closed the door softly behind him. In a building full of loud decisions, quiet ones mattered most.
Oliver spent those twelve hours in a robe with ink on the sleeve, hunched over a drafting board while Perenelle dictated phrasing for an international filing she had written a version of three centuries before. "We will call it Crystal Network formally," she said, "and remind them that stones are as old as law. They like tradition if it glitters."
He grinned sideways at her. "You're very good at this."
"I've had practice," she said dryly. "Now add your safety sheet as an appendix. They cannot call it irresponsible if they sign a page that tells them not to be."
Nicholas returned with a ledger of sales that made Oliver's eyes widen and then bounce guiltily to the bottom line he had insisted be bolded: Subsidy Pool—Tier One. It was already a real number.
"People paid full for Tier Three," he said, astonished. "We can drop Tier One price even lower if we need to. Or use it to plant more beacons where it's hard to get to."
"Do that," Nick said. "Wealth that only rises is brittle. Wealth that flows is hard to break."
Oliver nodded, and wrote: Subsidy: remote villages, field Healers, volunteer squads. He thought of Hagrid's big hands awkward around the prototype and added: Hogwarts grounds staff: comped.
Perenelle pretended she had something in her eye.
Nyx hopped down to the desk, put one tiny foot on the word Hogwarts, and chirped so emphatically Oliver laughed.
"Yes, yes," he said, scratching her chin. "Home. I know."
That afternoon, a Fomorian-scowling clerk at the British Patent Sub-Registrar stamped received on a furious, sloppy motion to freeze royalties routed through Gringotts. Gringotts replied two hours later in a hand so elegant it was almost rude: Your request lacks jurisdiction over French instruments held in trust on non-British soil. Kindly re-read your own treaties.
Somewhere else in the Ministry, a journalist waited outside a door Umbridge had promised would see him "exclusive notes" on a "dangerous network controlled by a schoolboy." The notes were ready; the truth was not invited. Skeeter—forever uninvited and forever present—waited also, like a beetle who always knew where to find the jam.
None of this touched Oliver directly, and that was by design. Perenelle kept the doors that mattered quiet and the corridors noisy; Nicholas kept the paper shields high while letters with seals made friends faster than enemies could count them.
What did touch Oliver was a small, dignified owl bearing a card in Madam Bones's firm script:
Meet me at Hogwarts. Bring your guardians.
He read it twice, then looked up. "Is this… bad?"
"It's careful," Nick said. "That's often the best we can hope for."
Perenelle reached for her cloak. "And sometimes it's better than that. We'll go."
At Hogwarts, the Great Hall's ceiling matched a gray afternoon. Students muttered over porridge as owls dropped weekend schedules and letters; a few pointed at a folded French magazine at the staff table and whispered. Hagrid waved cheerfully at Oliver when he entered with the Flamels, then tried to pretend, badly, that he hadn't just wiped a tear thinking about phone calls that could reach across a forest.
Amelia Bones met them in the antechamber off the Hall, monocle steady, expression grave without being cold. "Mr. Night," she said, nodding to Oliver, and then to Nicholas and Perenelle, "Mr. and Mrs. Flamel. Thank you."
"Thank you," Perenelle said, as if they were old friends already. "For asking before acting."
Bones's mouth twitched the tiniest bit. "Not as universal a custom here as one might hope. Sit, please. I'll be plain. The Minister is preparing to move against your patents under the pretense of public safety. There are people—some in my department—who think that is nonsense. I am among them."
Oliver listened without interruption, hands folded in his lap to keep them from fidgeting. "What do you need from me?" he asked when she paused.
"Transparency," Bones said. "A demonstration for the Wizengamot when called. Safety documentation filed with our Department and MACUSA's; I see you've already started that. Affirmation that you won't sell network access to parties we sanction."
Oliver blinked. "I wouldn't."
"Write it," Bones said. "Make it policy. Make it so public even the Prophet can't claim otherwise. It won't stop fools, but it will give cover to people like me who prefer reason over theater."
Nicholas inclined his head. "We will deliver it by evening."
Bones stood. "Good. In return, I will lean on process. Twelve hours and then twelve more." She glanced at Oliver then, weighing something, and said, "You've done a good thing. Don't let us spoil it for you."
Oliver didn't trust himself to speak. He nodded. Nyx, who had tucked herself into his collar against the chill, peeped very quietly as if to say thanks.
Bones left with the particular economy of motion common to people who spend their lives stepping around egos.
Perenelle exhaled slowly. "We will need a clean copyist, two couriers, and a late supper."
Nicholas patted Oliver's shoulder. "Eat first. Build civilization after."
Oliver laughed, surprised by how much he needed to. "Yes, sir."
In the bowels of the Ministry, another memo was born to disagree with Madam Bones. It did not ask for time. It planned a raid under the fig leaf of inspection. It proposed seizing a crystal if one could be found.
Tonks read that memo too. She folded it in half, put it under a paperweight, and looked at Kingsley.
"Lunch?" he said.
"Lunch," she said. "And then we'll go to Hogwarts—politely."
"Good," he said. "I hate impoliteness."
They ate sandwiches, talked about Quidditch, and decided that if they were going to be used for theater, they would at least perform their lines with dignity.
Evening settled blue over the castle. In Oliver's classroom-home, lanterns glowed over piles of parchment. The "Use and Safety" sheet had grown into a tidy booklet with a plain cover and a clear spine: Crystal Network – Public Guidelines. The last page carried a line Oliver wrote and rewrote until it felt right:
This network exists to make the world smaller and kinder. If it is used otherwise, it will not be used at all.
Perenelle read it and did not change a word.
Nicholas sealed packets for the Wizengamot, MACUSA, and the French Ministry; another set went to Gringotts with a terse cover note reminding them that treaties were only useful when remembered. A third set, thinner, went into a drawer labeled simply: Trouble.
Oliver leaned back, rolled the stiffness from his shoulders, and realized he had not played a single note on his guitar all day. He picked it up, strummed exactly three soft chords, and stopped before music could pull him anywhere but here.
Nyx, who had dozed all afternoon through laws and letters, opened one sky-blue eye, then the other. She climbed up his hair, wobbled like a tiny queen, and chirped a proclamation.
"All right," Oliver said, laughing, voice a little hoarse. "We'll sleep."
They did. For an hour.
Then an owl tapped the pane, bearing a line in Madam Bones's hand: Thank you. Twelve more.
Across the river, Fudge tore a fresh sheet from his blotter and wrote now. Across the hall, Umbridge sharpened a quill and composed a smile. In the Auror Office, Kingsley packed his dignity like a shield and Tonks put on her most neutral face. In Paris, Étienne Duval drafted a statement with the particular relish of a man who loved diplomacy and detested bullies.
And at the Delacour estate, a young witch stared up at a sky gone very modern very fast and decided that curiosity, properly directed, could be a kind of courage.
The storm gathered. The network hummed.
Britain took a breath to step badly.
France, America, and half a dozen other places exhaled to make something work.
Oliver slept through the hinge between those two motions, a phoenix chick pressed warm to his cheek and a stack of drafts under his pillow, as if the words could keep the world steady while he took one more hour to be twelve.
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Author here, this may be a little too late into the future, but to be honest it Is what it is because I forgot about giving Oliver a birthday. Well settle on December 31st I want him to be older than everybody else, but still be reasonable to be in the same year as the Canon Trio. Just wanted to throw that out there so that later on when I referred to him as older than everybody else, it's understandable. If I mess up in the future about his age, just know that right now he should be 12 because the new year has already passed.