The task force was formed quietly.
No public announcements.
Press statements.
Formal declarations of crisis.
Officially, it did not exist.
Unofficially, it became the largest coordinated investigation the magical world had organized in centuries.
Representatives from multiple Ministries gathered in a secured underground complex beneath Geneva. The location had been chosen for neutrality, ley-line stability, and minimal historical interference. Protective wards wrapped the facility in layered concealment, sound isolation, and memory-resistant enchantments.
Inside, long tables filled the central hall. Scrolls, enchanted parchments, crystal recorders, and modern projection devices shared space uneasily.
The group called itself the Inter-Ministerial Magical Anomaly Task Force.
The name sounded confident.
The situation was not.
Senior Investigator Helena Roth stood at the head of the room, reviewing the compiled reports.
"Over the last eighteen months," she said, "we have confirmed the disappearance of over three thousand restricted texts, artifacts, and private research collections."
A holographic map appeared above the table. Points of light marked locations across the world.
Libraries.
Private vaults.
Family archives.
Black market repositories.
Forgotten ruins.
"There is no common spell signature," Helena continued. "No residue pattern. No traceable wandwork. No witnesses who remember anything unusual."
A French delegate frowned.
"That's statistically impossible."
"It would be," Helena replied, "if magic were the only tool involved."
Murmurs followed that statement.
Teams had tried everything.
Seers were consulted. Their visions contradicted one another or dissolved into uncertainty.
Time-based spells returned empty impressions.
Tracking enchantments led in circles.
Memory audits found nothing but clean gaps.
Even goblin record keepers normally precise to the point of obsession reported no signs of intrusion into their deeper vault systems.
One British auror summarized it bluntly:
"It's as if the knowledge chose to leave."
No one liked that explanation.
A younger analyst activated a projection showing several proposed theories:
coordinated dark wizard network
pre-wizard ancient order resurfacing
mass illusion covering large-scale theft
internal Ministry corruption
Each theory collapsed under scrutiny.
Dark wizard groups lacked the reach.
Ancient orders left signatures.
Illusions decayed over time.
Internal corruption always left patterns.
This situation had none.
"What we're looking at," Helena said carefully, "is a level of planning that avoids magical detection entirely."
A German representative crossed his arms.
"Then whoever did this understands magic better than we do."
Helena shook her head.
"Or they don't rely on it."
The room fell quiet.
There were a few details the task force could not ignore.
In multiple locations, protective wards remained intact despite missing contents.
Some vaults reported lower magical background noise after the thefts, not higher.
Several stolen texts appeared to have been scanned rather than physically removed.
One analyst pointed at a chart.
"These readings resemble… cataloguing."
That word stayed in the air longer than anyone liked.
After weeks of analysis, arguments, and failed field tests, the task force reached an uncomfortable consensus.
They had no suspect.
No direction or method.
Helena closed the session.
"We continue monitoring. We expand observation. We wait for a mistake."
Someone at the table asked quietly:
"And if there is no mistake?"
Helena did not answer immediately.
Finally, she said:
"Then we are not dealing with a criminal."
The meeting adjourned.
Alone in her office, Helena reviewed the data again. The absence of chaos bothered her more than any sign of violence would have.
Everything about the thefts felt… controlled.
Measured.
Purposeful.
She wrote a private note in her personal log:
> Whoever did this is not panicking.
They are not rushing and
Reacting to us at all.
She closed the file and leaned back in her chair.
For the first time in her career, she suspected that the world had already changed
and the investigation was simply arriving too late to notice how.