"Tsk. So much for someone claiming he knew Dumbledore."
A rare good day had settled over Hogwarts, the kind that felt like a mistake in February. Twelve degrees and a light wind, enough warmth to coax students out of the castle in loose groups, scattered across the lawns in pairs and threes, talking about nothing in particular. The kind of afternoon that made school feel temporarily bearable.
Tom was among them, sitting on the grass with Cho, giving roughly half his attention to keeping her entertained and the other half to delivering a sustained critique of Grindelwald inside the learning space.
"Isn't this the same person who assured us that Dumbledore would never cooperate with Babajide? And yet here he is, cooperating, very cooperatively."
"Ah, Tom, just leave it."
Ariana had been holding back laughter for some time. She had her arm through Tom's and was performing sympathy for Grindelwald while preparing to make things worse. "Grindelwald only believed he understood his brother. Believing you understand someone and actually understanding them aren't the same thing, are they? Especially from that particular angle?"
"Look on the bright side," Andros offered. "Stop making promises in the future and you'll be fine."
Andros himself didn't say much else. He was too busy appreciating Grindelwald's face, which was cycling through expressions at a rate that would have impressed a theatrical troupe.
"You..." Grindelwald's chest felt tight. The problem was that the three people currently enjoying themselves at his expense were all people he couldn't reasonably antagonize.
He settled on blaming Dumbledore.
He had been completely confident: a few hundred Aurors would walk into a trap of their own construction, Babajide would orchestrate something self-important and predictable, and Dumbledore would stay out of it because Dumbledore never initiated direct confrontation. Certainly not at the head of an Auror column.
The universe had disagreed with him, loudly.
"He's only coming because he's afraid I'll kill everyone," Grindelwald said, finding an explanation that he could almost believe. "If he doesn't show up, I slaughter several hundred Aurors and the political situation becomes untenable. He has no choice."
"Ah yes, of course," Tom said, with the flat tone of someone reading from a script.
"I will make Dumbledore pay for this."
"Ah yes, of course."
"Can you say something else?!"
"Fair enough."
Grindelwald had reached the limit of what he could absorb with dignity. He exited the learning space in visible indignation. The moment he was gone, Tom and Ariana abandoned all pretense, and the laughter that had been held back for the better part of an hour finally came out. Andros went with it.
Tom's foreknowledge of the situation hadn't come from Dumbledore. He'd seen it through the Precognition talent, an image: Fawkes arriving in a column of fire, the old headmaster descending into the middle of what could only be described as a storm of several hundred very angry wizards advancing on a single target.
What he couldn't confirm was which side of that exchange was Grindelwald. The figure engaging Dumbledore in the vision had been unclear.
Once the laughter settled, Ariana's expression turned quieter. "Tom, if my brother is going to be there and you're also going to be there, isn't there a risk of exposure? He might not recognize you, but Fawkes certainly will."
"It's fine." Tom shook his head. "In what I saw, Dumbledore arrives late. As long as I don't overstay, I have a window."
Several hundred Aurors descending on one target wasn't exactly a common training exercise. He was genuinely curious whether fighting at that scale, against that kind of coordinated pressure, would produce anything resembling difficulty.
Ariana didn't press the point. Tom had clearly already thought about Fawkes and made a plan. He was significantly better at this than she was.
The ICW and the cooperating Ministries moved their people into position without public announcement. The news that made the papers was different: Dumbledore would be traveling to North America. The stated purpose, which Tom had no objection to being used as cover, was to personally verify the book collections that several wizarding schools had agreed to hand over as his condition for withdrawing from the tournament. Dumbledore was going to Ilvermorny and Castelobruxo to inspect the deliveries.
Tom had even made a specific request before the old man left. "Professor, I don't want standard books. I want things with genuine regional character. Books that couldn't have been written anywhere else. I trust your judgment on that."
"Exposure to different magical traditions does help," Dumbledore said, nodding. "But stay grounded in your own principles. Use what you find to strengthen your thinking, not to replace it. Don't let the exposure unsettle what you've built."
"I'll keep that in mind, Professor."
Tom was, briefly, more moved by this than he expected to be. There was something straightforward about how Dumbledore had said it, unpretentious and direct. The kind of advice that didn't announce itself as important.
For approximately two seconds, he felt genuinely bad about the whole scheme to use Dumbledore as a decoy. The feeling evaporated.
Grindelwald hadn't done anything specifically harmful since breaking out. Dumbledore had chosen to wade into this particular situation. That was on him.
By the end of the week, McGonagall and Lupin had finished the selection criteria. Starting that Sunday, two year groups per week would hold internal trials to determine Hogwarts' representatives for the Junior Dueling Championship.
Second year was essentially decided before it started. Ginny's current level put her above both Hermione and Daphne, and Tom had no real concern about her making the cut. In the actual tournament, she would almost certainly take first in her bracket.
Third year was less certain.
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