Two years passed by in an almost blur of repetitive training only broken by Cassius's continued living of a triple life.
The diligent student, the Muggle Visionary, and the Genius Recluse.
Two years of his involvement was all it took to begin to erode the arrogance and stubbornness of the british magical world.
A subtle tilting of the axis, one innovation at a time, until what had once seemed impossible started to become a regular subject of discussion.
By seven years old, Cassius—no, Arcana—had already altered the trajectory of wizarding Britain.
The name had become something whispered with awe and suspicion alike.
Some thought Arcana was the alias of an eccentric master alchemist who simply preferred privacy.
Others were certain he was an anonymous collective of experimenters, perhaps a family long-hidden from the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
Only Grindelwald knew the truth: that the mind behind every paper, every spell, every recipe was a boy who still could not legally hold a wand, whose inventions were simply techniques refined through ghost-casting.
And yet, no one denied his brilliance, some tried at first but after repeated releases of new brilliant spells in The Future of Charms, even appearing in Daily Prophet periodicals, before an entire spellbook of the Arcana appeared for sale.
The cosmetics had been his first stepping stone.
Potions that altered hair color without permanent damage, salves that made skin glow, deodorants that resisted even the sweat of a Quidditch World Cup.
The pure-blood matrons scoffed at first—until they saw how smoothly the younger witches embraced them.
Within months, applications to rent the recipe that had been submitted like a patent began to flood the potion shops.
The profits from those "trivial" luxuries became the seed money for Arcana's true works.
The spellbook was far more popular over the entire magical world, new spells are always valued highly and for not just a single new spell but an entire tome of them to appear at once was to some like a godsend.
With versitile charm that quickly solved many issues adult witches and wizards had with traditional charms that required too great a magical cost or control to perform, while students were hooked thanks to the new jinx's and hexes within allowing for a much larger range of pranks to be conducted.
Aurors of course tested and confirmed the potential dangers of each spell contained within its bindings before giving their seal of approval that the contents fall into the line of normal spellcasting and contained no elements of dark magic.
The old guard hated it, as the spellcraft that had exist for centuries was being overwritten in an instant.
Which only made it spread faster, among the regular wizardfolk, or muggle-borns who learnt the spells knowing the high and mighty purebloods couldnt be bothered, while quickly becoming ashamed to be the only ones unable to perform the spells.
Then came the Arcanum.
Cassius had long since known about the issues with the magical words education system, starting with homeschooling children until they were 11, before dropping them into a full-time middle-highschool, but once that was over, aside from auror training or apprenticeship and self study.
After Hogwarts, there was nothing—no higher education, no structured path for magical research.
Wizards who dared to innovate found themselves suppressed by Ministries, pressured into conformity, or ridiculed until they went quiet, or worse still discovered and then never unveiled their success.
So Arcana offered them sanctuary, within his Arcanum.
The Arcanum was created after a year of Cassius releasing fairly regular papers to the magical communities, building its own small magical community out in the middle of the english countryside, where the main Arcanum could be surrounded by simple modular housing for the scholars, along with a pub allowing them to remain onsite for longer, the site was heavily warded, being protected by Aurirs.
Within a year, it had expanded into a campus hidden under layers of charms, built to mimic a muggle university.
Cassius designed it with Grindelwald's guidance: lecture halls, laboratories, collaborative libraries with enchanted quills that recorded every experiment, and saved the information for future generations to build off of.
The Arcanum was a place where collaborative study was welcomed, though it was not frowned upon to solo inovate, but for those not blessed gifts of knowledge could band together bringing pieces of a puzzle to meet and compound into success.
The ministry attempted to interfere, just like they would try with hogwartz but as a privately funded venture the best they could do was send Aurors for regular inspections to confirm no forbidden, or dark magic was being created.
Using an illegal portkey provided to him by his mentor, Cassius could make regular visits to his condo in London to collect news on his investment.
The magical world was starting to shake off the rust that had been built up, students at hogwarts no longer only had the dreams of muggles when thinking about graduation.
Before the rise of the Arcanum, wizarding students normally dreamed of getting a job at the ministry, perhaps advenurering around the world, but really finding a job and travel is that all wizards dream of?
On the muggle-technology front, growth of influence was more subtle, but equally effective.
Ministry committees, once dismissive, had begun discussing the reintroduction of enchanted television.
Automobiles were being reconsidered as a form of mass travel for those unable to apparate, or when travelling from or two locations not connected to the floo network, but requiring space greater than a broom.
Arguments raged about Statute secrecy, but the fact that debates existed at all was proof enough of Cassius' hand.
Still, none of those triumphs compared to his latest creation.
The Morwens.
They were a marriage of transfiguration, with magical puppetry theory.
At their core, a simple enchanted stone or totem.
But once the spell was complete and imprinted into them, the Morwen came alive with the activation of the wizard—stone flesh folding outward into the shape of a beast.
Horses, wolves, serpents, even occasional magical beasts.
Not alive in the traditional sense more like a magical means of creating a mount when one is not readily available, as it was an extension of the wizard or witch disillusionment charms could be cast upon it, and due to their creation method you could create a beast that suits your needs, something small and fast for a solo user, or larger capable for group travel.
For the first time in centuries, wizards had mounts that did not need to be fed, trained, requiring a good relationship with, unlike brooms that could be tempermentals, Morwens were of the wizards own magic so you only required the will to move it, to make it go.
They could be folded back into inert stone when no longer needed, safe in a pocket or satchel.
Cassius had presented the theory and materials to his mentor who within a single hour took that theory and made it a reality, though just what his created mount was Cassius couldnt really say, it was a creation of Grindelwalds mind, so perhaps the beast was something of his nightmares, or perhaps an ancient creature now long forgotten from the world.
The Morwens spread quickly once Arcana released the simplified version of the spell to the public, and received a passing mark from the ministry.
Those who could not learn disapparation, finally had a means of travel beyond brooms, the knightbus, or even the floo network to travel the world, and thanks to the adaptation of it, trips to the countryside or abroad would be easier to do.
Cassius reveled in every report.
Not because he sought wealth—though vaults of gold piled higher each month—but because every new spell, every new recipe, every new invention was a crack in the dam of stagnation.
Yet for all the triumph, he never forgot Grindelwald's warnings.
He was only seven.
His core had grown, his pathways strengthened, but still he held no wand of his own.
The puppetry training continued, now refined to near perfection.
With threads of will, he could guide Grindelwald's hand through intricate dueling sequences, simulate battles against three enemies at once, and experiment with Sindarin incantations no textbook had ever seen.
Failures still came—one botched word had created a storm of frostfire that nearly collapsed an entire practice hall—but Grindelwald's wards and laughter always endured.
And Cassius learned.
Always, he learned.
But more than that he was growing stronger, thanks to the passage of time, and the magic riot training his total number of idle slots was now in the multiple, but beyond that Cassius had unlocked a set of new skills.
Chief among them was Thinking, a skill that upon reaching the next level allowed his thoughts to increase and memorization skills to also receive a boost.
Magic control allowed him to have greater control over his magic riots which in turn allowed him to train harder and in doing so boost his potential growth.
He was still limited to only otherwise expanding his Charms or learned charms spells thanks to his training wand but now, learning spells was secondary to his theoretical growth potential.