March gradually drew to a close in an atmosphere that was friendly and peaceful.
There were no surprises in the students' classes. They continued enjoying the ever-growing mountain of homework Moody assigned them.
Tver, meanwhile, was more than happy to take it easy and enjoy this rare stretch of idling.
He had once asked Moody out of curiosity why, with three months still left in the term, he had already finished setting not only all the remaining assignments, but extra ones as well.
Moody, or rather Barty Jr., had looked constipated, glared at Tver with aggrieved fury, and declared that he had originally only intended to teach for one year and did not want to leave any regrets in his teaching career.
Tver knew very well that was definitely not his real reason, but he also knew that if he kept pressing, Moody would not mind hitting him with his cane.
As for the Defence Against the Dark Arts Club, that would still need more polishing.
Imp Magic had already reached a point where simple study alone was not enough for these students. It required a certain degree of personal talent and accumulated experience.
Otherwise, there would not be so many ordinary wizards in the magical world.
Of course, most of the club members were not short on talent. What they lacked was research into the soul, so running straight into such a difficult branch of magic and hitting a few setbacks was exactly what Tver had expected.
So he was not in a hurry. While teaching them, he was also slowly refining his own Imp Magic, shaping it into as much of a trump card as possible.
It might look a little cute on the surface, but cute could be combat power too.
Like most wizards, Tver's relatively short time spent studying magic meant that his weakness in large-scale attack spells was becoming more and more obvious.
Especially when compared with wizards on Dumbledore and Voldemort's level. Now that his single-target strength was no weaker than theirs, and perhaps even stronger, this shortcoming was becoming harder and harder for him to accept.
So this year, Tver had focused on studying Dumbledore's Gubraithian Fire. Although he had not yet mastered the true essence of Firestorm, it had already made up for a fair bit.
Once he had three powerful large-scale spells under his belt, even if Voldemort resurrected ten Herpos... no, forget that. Even if Voldemort gathered all the Death Eaters together, it still would not be enough for Tver to deal with alone.
Of course, that friendly and peaceful atmosphere only existed in comparison to the murky, dangerous currents running through the magical world.
Outside school, Tver had been keeping a close eye on Voldemort's research regarding Herpo.
He was becoming more and more certain that the clay jar was Herpo's Horcrux.
According to what Salazar had once said, the information that Herpo had died in the mortal world was absolutely correct.
But as Tver's own research in Limbo went deeper, he had suddenly discovered a problem.
A Horcrux left behind in Limbo might, just might, allow its creator to avoid truly dying when both the main body and the Horcrux were destroyed, or rather, leave them in a state worse than death.
An ordinary wizard obviously could not manage that, but then again, what wizard capable of making a Horcrux had ever been ordinary?
So what Tver was worried about now was that Voldemort might resurrect Herpo, who was very likely trapped in exactly that sort of worse-than-death state.
Two evil dark wizards joining forces was something even Tver had to treat with caution.
Luckily, he liked to make several preparations in advance.
Reviving Marvolo, drawing Dumbledore to his side, and inviting teacher back out had always been things Tver was pushing forward.
By then, the top combat strength on their side would double outright. Even if Voldemort and Herpo came at them together, Tver would dare slack off on the battlefield.
Of course, the truly strange atmosphere in the magical world mainly came from the Ministry of Magic.
"So Fudge agreed?" Tver asked lazily from his office, enjoying a pleasant afternoon tea while speaking with Cynthia.
"That's right. Umbridge has already taken office as the Director of the Department of Magical Education."
In terms of rank, a Director actually outranked a Deputy Minister.
A Deputy Minister was generally just the Minister's right hand, something like a high official close to power, but their actual authority depended heavily on the Minister.
A Director was different. The Ministry of Magic did not have many functional departments, so a Director was already the highest position below the Minister himself.
But the Department of Magical Education...
Britain only had one school, Hogwarts, that needed educational oversight. It was a post so idle it could not possibly be any more idle.
Wait. Umbridge had become the Director of the Department of Magical Education?
Tver suddenly felt an odd sense that the timeline was snapping back into place.
On the other side, Cynthia had no idea what Tver was thinking and continued reporting on Ministry affairs.
"...Also, Percy has already caught his attention. He's still being observed to confirm his connection to us."
"But are we really going to make Percy into Fudge's spy?" she asked hesitantly.
After all, Percy was only a recent graduate. Sending him on such a difficult task, one that even carried a certain degree of danger, naturally worried her.
Tver only chuckled.
"When you entered the Ministry, and when I stole the Philosopher's Stone at Hogwarts right under Dumbledore's nose, hadn't we both just graduated too?"
"Besides, we have people inside the Ministry watching over things. Even if Percy were exposed, Fudge would not dare do anything to him."
Compared with the Ministry under Voldemort's control, Fudge's government was far friendlier.
And Percy had managed to escape from Voldemort's Ministry in the original course of events. After several years of Tver's guidance, there was even less chance of anything going wrong.
Cynthia did not know any of that. It was only after hearing Tver's reassurance that she finally relaxed.
To put it bluntly, the strongest force Fudge could command right now was the Ministry's best Auror, classmate Marvolo...
Thinking of that, she suddenly realized that aside from Umbridge, Fudge really did not have anyone he could trust anymore.
The pure-blood families he had associated with in the past were now tightly bound to Tver through shared interests.
The Ministry subordinates under him were either rallying around Barty in opposition to him, or had already been won over by Cynthia and were maintaining a surface neutrality.
And the assistants and Aurors Fudge usually relied on were, quite simply, their own intimate allies.
"Come to think of it, dealing with a single Fudge, or even taking control of the Ministry, doesn't really require this much planning, does it?" Cynthia asked curiously.
If they had wanted to seize control of the Ministry and hollow out Fudge's power, they could have done it starting from the incident at the World Cup.
But Tver had never seemed particularly anxious. If anything, he had deliberately slowed them down even while pushing things forward.
Tver could not explain too much. He could hardly say that he had long known Voldemort would help him throw the Ministry's balance of power into chaos.
"Teacher is already contacting the subordinates he still has left in the Ministries of Magic of various countries. If we act rashly, we'll only expose ourselves to the eyes of magical Europe."
"So we still need to wait a while longer. At the very least, until we've planted our own pieces inside the Ministries of Magic across Europe, we can't make any careless moves."
To be honest, teacher had not contacted Tver recently, and he had no idea how far his plans had progressed.
But at a time like this, no news was the best news of all.