Sagres had been rather bored these past few days.
Days of observation and intrusion had made him feel as though he were being pressed against a filthy mirror, forced to look only at the most decayed and ugly sides of human nature.
The greed and malice of curse peddlers, the contempt for life shown by necromancers, the madness and cruelty of flesh-stitchers, the despicable hypocrisy of wizard thieves... and those ordinary souls struggling and twisting in the narrow space between religious fanaticism and the greed of Dark Wizards.
Through Legilimency, he had touched too many corrupted minds and felt too much meaningless malice and chaos.
He was beginning to feel tired.
It was not a moral judgement, but something closer to aesthetic fatigue.
These dark things were certainly real and bizarre enough, yet they also seemed so... monotonous.
There was no novelty in them, only endless repetition and base desires.
Sagres felt like a traveller who had trudged through a swamp for far too long and had begun to long for clear air and clean scenery.
He wanted to go back.
As for the crisis at Durmstrang?
He had no intention of interfering.
That ancient castle had foundations that could not be easily shaken.
It had survived trials far worse than this. Its walls were saturated with the magic of generations of wizards, and its barrier was certainly not something that could be destroyed so easily.
The professors and Headmaster within the school, wizards who had inherited the essence of northern magic, were hardly incompetent either.
They might already be planning a counterattack, waiting for the right opportunity, or perhaps they possessed trump cards unknown to outsiders.
For Sagres to force his way in and play the role of a saviour descending from the heavens would not only be reckless, but could also disrupt their plans and trigger even more unpredictable consequences in the future.
As for simply sweeping away the rabble outside with overwhelming force, whether they were from the Church's Witch Hunting Squad or the Dark Wizards entrenched nearby, that would indeed be easy enough.
A sufficiently powerful area-of-effect spell could temporarily "cleanse" the entire region.
But then what?
It would be like throwing a boulder into still water. The resulting ripples would spread far beyond the incident itself.
A wizard of unknown identity, possessing power far beyond normal limits, suddenly appearing and disappearing would be enough to alarm the Church's upper ranks and draw even more Witch Hunting Squads to the area.
It would also make the Dark Wizards lurking in the shadows more cautious, perhaps even forcing them into a temporary alliance, or attracting more opportunistic hyenas eager to investigate.
That would simply tie another knot into an already tangled ball of thread, leaving traces of interference that were far too obvious and crude.
It ran completely against his goal of minimising his impact on the future.
It's time to leave, Sagres thought.
There were only souls wallowing in the mud here.
Nothing worth staying for.
He raised his left hand.
The rune on the back of it, an Ouroboros encircling a Möbius strip, quietly emerged, flowing with a tranquil and profound light.
He no longer looked at the forest buried beneath snow and malice, nor paid any attention to the petty struggles within the village.
With a thought, magic surged wildly.
The rune suddenly blazed with light.
The surrounding air began to hum, while space itself rippled and twisted around him like water.
The next moment, Sagres vanished completely from that cold northern land, leaving no trace behind, as though he had never been there at all.
...
Hogwarts Castle welcomed a new school year, but the atmosphere hanging over the school was completely different from previous years.
Every student, and even the professors, felt as though they had stepped into a castle bound by invisible shackles.
The Triwizard Tournament, which should have ended spectacularly at the close of the previous term, had instead turned into a farce that began with great fanfare and ended in disappointment.
And all of it was "thanks to" the Ministry of Magic's newly appointed Senior Undersecretary, Security Supervisor, and Professor of Advanced Magical Theory and Practice, Dolores Jane Umbridge.
From the second task of the Triwizard Tournament onward, Umbridge had issued a series of utterly absurd decrees under the pretext of "safety".
Claiming that she wanted to "ensure that the life of every young champion was never placed in danger", she imposed extremely strict restrictions on the contestants.
She limited the types of magic they were allowed to use and even demanded that every event in the competition undergo her personal "risk assessment" before it could be approved.
The most outrageous incident involved the delegation from Uagadou School of Magic.
Umbridge, citing "the unknown risks posed by flying vehicles not certified as safe by the British Ministry of Magic", forcibly confiscated Uagadou's traditional magical flying carpets.
The action completely enraged Uagadou's elderly Headmaster.
After several rounds of failed negotiations, Headmaster Hariyah Sandra openly denounced Umbridge and the British Ministry of Magic for their bureaucratic conduct in front of all the teachers, students, and international guests. He then led the entire Uagadou delegation in withdrawing from the competition in fury.
This made it impossible for the Triwizard Tournament to continue and ultimately escalated into a serious diplomatic scandal.
The stone walls of Hogwarts Castle seemed to silently absorb the growing atmosphere of oppression.
Dolores Umbridge's influence was no longer limited to ruining an international event.
Her unpleasant pink presence was beginning to seep into the very fabric of the ancient school.
Using the authority over "curriculum reform" granted to her by the Ministry of Magic, she began interfering with the teaching of professors across the school.
She declared that, in order to "standardise instruction and prevent dangerous practices", Hogwarts's curriculum had to undergo "modernisation".
In practice, this meant that classes focused on practical magic were greatly reduced and replaced by lengthy theoretical memorisation and lists of "safe and harmless" spells approved by the Ministry of Magic.
Practical spellwork involving "potential risks" was gradually restricted or even cancelled altogether, and the classrooms became increasingly lifeless.
What angered everyone most, however, was her decision to cancel duelling classes.
Umbridge announced, "Duelling inherently encourages violence and runs contrary to Hogwarts's goal of cultivating sound and peaceful personalities in its students."
The decision not only infuriated students who enjoyed competing within proper rules, but also provoked resentment among the professors.
Even Professor Flitwick, usually one of the mildest members of staff, uncharacteristically erupted into a fierce argument with her over dinner and eventually stormed out after Professor McGonagall intervened.
Umbridge's desire for control even extended to the floating duelling platform beside the Quidditch pitch.
When she discovered that no matter what she tried, she could not leave her own memory imprint within it, she took it as a deliberate humiliation.
In a fit of anger, she declared that "the facility presents uncontrollable magical safety risks and may cause irreversible harm to curious students" and permanently sealed the once-lively space with official notices and magical barriers.
The reason Umbridge could act with such impunity was the full support of Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge.
And behind that support lay one crucial factor: the disappearance of Sagres Greengrass.
Rumours claimed that, following a magical accident, the former Hogwarts professor had vanished completely without a trace.
The Ministry of Magic's official position was that he had suffered an accident while conducting an extremely dangerous and undeclared experiment involving time magic and had been permanently lost within the fissures of time, with almost no hope of returning.
The news hung over the castle like winter fog.
The students, especially those who had personally experienced his teaching, felt a profound sense of loss.
They missed Professor Greengrass's distinctive classes and the calm strength he seemed to possess whenever difficulties arose.
The professors also privately expressed deep regret over the loss of such a talented colleague.
Within the Ministry of Magic, however, and especially in Minister Fudge's eyes, Sagres's "disappearance" was nothing short of a gift from Merlin.
He still clearly remembered Sagres's unyielding attitude towards Ministry authority and the humiliating situations in which he, the Minister, had repeatedly been put on the spot.
Now that this major problem appeared to have removed itself, Fudge secretly rejoiced and decided to go one step further.
He issued a nationwide magical arrest warrant for Sagres.
The warrant accused Sagres of "illegally conducting high-risk magical experiments, severely endangering public safety within magical society, and absconding after the incident."
Fudge's calculations were shrewd.
On one hand, he wanted to permanently condemn Sagres in the public eye, shifting all past disputes and unpleasant incidents onto a man who was no longer present to defend himself.
On the other, he hoped to present himself as a "firm guardian of law and order in the magical world" and salvage a public reputation that had been steadily collapsing after a series of previous events.
And so, Hogwarts's fifth school year slowly began beneath the suffocating control imposed by Umbridge and the shadow of a professor who had officially been turned into a villain.
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