The impact had rattled Graves thoroughly, and Tom had followed it up by casting an augmented gravity charm on every book that tumbled off the shelves, so they came down on Graves one by one like a procession of small, literary judgements. The man was thoroughly dazed but stubbornly, infuriatingly conscious.
"Since when does running a business require permission from some international committee?"
Tom turned back toward the room, a smile of easy amusement on his face, as Fudge stared at him in stunned silence. "Since you've gone ahead and accused me of conspiring with Grindelwald, I might as well lean into it. What are you going to do, send someone to arrest me?"
"Minister Fudge. What's your position on that?"
"I..." Fudge stumbled over the words. "Riddle, Graves didn't mean it like that. He only, he just doesn't want you supplying the enemy. Your alchemy could have a significant effect on how this conflict plays out."
"Cutting off a man's livelihood is like killing his parents," Tom said pleasantly, then paused and shook his head. "Well, I suppose I don't actually have those. But anyone who gets in the way of my earnings is my enemy. Headmaster, your thoughts?"
"Mr. Riddle," Dumbledore said, with a quiet look in Fudge's direction that communicated rather more than the words, "why don't you head back and rest. I'll handle what remains here. You have my word the outcome will be satisfactory."
Tom nodded. He did not so much as glance at Fudge on his way out. The door closed behind him.
As he walked back through the corridor, he reflected that Graves had been even more unpleasant in practice than the version he had glimpsed through his temporal sight. His ability to read the future clearly still had room to grow.
"What an absolute handful that boy is," Phineas said from his portrait frame, watching Tom's retreating back with an expression of gleeful appreciation. "But that is Slytherin for you. High-blooded and unapologetic about it. What's wrong with a little arrogance when you've earned it?"
Someone in a nearby portrait muttered that Tom was actually Muggle-born on both sides.
Phineas waved the objection aside. At Tom's current rate of achievement, a few generations down the line he would be the founding ancestor of a renowned old family. Who would dare question it then?
With Tom gone, Dumbledore left his desk and crossed the room to crouch down beside Graves, his expression attentive and considerate. "Mr. Graves. Are you alright?"
"Dumbledore." Graves shook his head slowly and dragged himself back toward coherence, his voice hot with suppressed fury. "I want an explanation."
"Of course. But first I think you need a moment's rest."
Dumbledore passed one hand gently before the man's eyes. Graves went out completely.
"Dumbledore, what exactly are you doing?!" Fudge's voice climbed several registers.
He was beginning to feel that Hogwarts as a whole had lost its mind. A student had assaulted a government official. The Headmaster had then rendered that official unconscious. What was this, some kind of conspiracy to silence witnesses?
Fudge's hands and feet had gone cold. He deeply regretted not bringing thirty Aurors as a personal escort.
This was sedition. Dumbledore had seditious intent!
"Cornelius," Dumbledore said, perfectly equable, "Mr. Graves was allowing his anger to govern him. I thought it best to give him a moment of quiet before things became less productive than they already were."
In truth, it was Dumbledore who had needed it managed. He had been sitting on a building pressure for weeks, and his meeting with Grindelwald had done nothing to relieve it. The decades of cultivated patience he was famous for were close to their limit. His approach lately had hardened in ways that would have been uncharacteristic not long ago.
Fudge was persuaded into a silence that was not entirely voluntary.
"Cornelius," Dumbledore continued, beginning to pick up the fallen books one by one and return them to the shelves, "I am not sure what you were hoping to accomplish tonight, but your relationship with Tom was reasonably cordial before today. After this, I suspect he will have something of a grievance."
"Why make an enemy of a young man with that kind of future ahead of him?"
"How is this making an enemy?" Fudge's tone took on an edge of genuine frustration. "Are you telling me you want him selling alchemical equipment capable of deflecting Killing Curses, and that messaging platform of his, directly to Grindelwald? Do you have any idea what kind of advantage that gives them? Grindelwald's been able to rush reinforcements to his weakest points in hours. We've lost more than twenty Aurors because of it!"
He had been waiting for a legitimate grievance to use against Dumbledore, and now that he had one, the words came more freely.
"I do not want Grindelwald receiving any advantage." Dumbledore straightened another row of books without looking at Fudge. "But your approach is entirely wrong. To Tom, Grindelwald and every other Ministry are identical. They are all customers. He is not selling contraband. On what grounds do you ask him to sacrifice his own profits, antagonise his paying clients, and do you a favour for nothing in return?"
He set the last book back in its place.
"And even if he agreed, you know as well as I do that there are ways around any purchasing restriction. Polyjuice Potion alone makes that laughable. You could limit the volume of transactions. You could never actually prevent them."
Fudge's indignation deflated under the weight of questions it could not answer. "Then what would you suggest? We can't simply sit still and let the acolytes arm themselves without doing anything."
Dumbledore shook his head slightly. "I know very little about commerce, but I know that Tom manufactures most of what he sells himself. If you want to limit his supply from reaching the other side, buy it all yourselves. Purchase everything. Why resort to antagonism when there is a straightforward transaction available to you?"
He turned and looked at Fudge directly.
"We need to be making allies of talented people, not pushing them toward the opposite side."