After hearing Marvolio's story from the past few days, Tver found himself at a loss for words.
So basically, because he'd once been caught in the rain, now he wanted to hold an umbrella over someone else.
Tver was glad to see Marvolio change like this, of course, but that still wasn't a proper reason to suddenly decide he wanted to become Superman.
"I really didn't expect a little girl to be what made you realize all this, but I have to remind you, under the laws of any world, this sort of thing is forbidden!"
"Can you stop being so disgusting? Catherine and I just have a pure friendship!"
Now it was Marvolio's turn to get annoyed. Three people in a row had reminded him of that today, making it sound as though he were some kind of creep.
"Yes, yes, of course," Tver drawled teasingly.
"But without my permission, you meddled in Muggle affairs, and it just so happened to involve those IRA terrorists..."
The Prime Minister had previously used the Chief Minister to pass along a request, hoping Tver could help solve the problem of the IRA.
Tver had refused outright at the time, on the grounds that wizards were not supposed to interfere in major Muggle affairs.
And today, what Marvolio had stopped just happened to be a bombing by that very group.
That immediately gave Tver a headache.
It wasn't that he was wary of the Prime Minister. The problem was that they had already agreed not to interfere, and now they had quietly dealt with a terrorist attack anyway. That could easily send the wrong signal to a Prime Minister who was far too fond of overthinking.
For example, it might make the Prime Minister think Tver feared him and had no choice but to handle these matters behind the scenes.
"What? Was that the wrong thing to do?"
Marvolio froze for a moment.
He had always assumed Tver liked using this sort of method to subtly show Muggles the reliable side of wizards, gradually shaping their view of them.
And that really was true. If this situation hadn't been so sensitive, Tver would have loved nothing more than to have Aurors handling terrorist attacks out in the streets every day.
"Not exactly. At its core, this sort of thing is still very good for our image. That's precisely why I've been trying to expand the office's functions."
Tver snapped out of his thoughts and turned his attention to Hagrid's letter.
"In any case, welcome back."
"But why is this letter with you?" he asked curiously as he opened the envelope.
"Isn't it because you've hidden your location, so the owl couldn't find you?" Marvolio shot back irritably.
"This letter changed hands several times. Lupin finally tracked down Dawlish, and that's how I ended up finding out about it!"
Tver clicked his tongue in surprise. He knew hiding his location would cause some trouble, but he had no intention of changing that.
After all, he now had to do questionable things from time to time. If someone used an owl to track him and connected the dots of what he was doing, that would be even more troublesome.
Dumbledore was much the same. Except when he was at Hogwarts, he always hid his location as soon as he left the school grounds.
So Tver paid no attention to Marvolio's grumbling and pulled out the letter. But a very polite knock interrupted him.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Come in."
Evans pushed the door open, wearing a strange expression.
"Mr. Fawley, the Prime Minister asked me to ask whether what happened in Canary Wharf had anything to do with you."
At the beginning, Mr. Fawley had told him that this office existed to handle major trouble caused by wizards and to eliminate disruptions to normal social order caused by magic.
And yet although the trouble had indeed been eliminated, information about magical matters had gradually leaked to more and more people.
And now they had apparently started helping handle terrorist attacks too?
Evans himself had no objection to that. He was just an ordinary soldier, and he found himself increasingly unable to understand what this office was actually supposed to do.
"Of course. I imagine only a wizard, and a particularly powerful one at that, could have stopped an explosion like that, wouldn't you say?"
Tver jerked his chin toward Marvolio.
"Well... how are we supposed to explain this to the Prime Minister? Our office has no reason to be involved in affairs like this, does it?" Evans asked worriedly.
Even without magic, if you stepped into another department's territory without clear authority, then even if you were doing something good, meddling in other agencies' work was still a major taboo in government.
Tver raised a brow. He had not expected the Prime Minister to be this anxious.
Of course, the shockwave from the explosion had been strong enough that even he had felt it from the office. It was only natural that London residents would be curious, and that the Prime Minister would urgently need some sort of explanation.
"We acted at the Prime Minister's request, and out of humanitarian concerns, to stop that terrible explosion," Tver said after a moment's thought.
"And tell the Prime Minister this as well. I'm very satisfied with the office's recent operation and the resources we've received. This incident is a symbol of the friendship between us."
"Friendship?" Evans repeated in surprise.
Tver gave him a meaningful smile.
"Yes. Friendship."
Evans felt even more confused, but seeing that Tver had no intention of elaborating, he could only leave with his head full of questions.
He had long since grown used to not prying into the secrets of important people.
Marvolio, meanwhile, slumped back in his chair with open disdain.
"You politicians are such a nuisance. Even when you do something good, you still have to frame it as self-interest just to make yourselves seem mysterious and profound."
Tver could only give a helpless smile. When you dealt with old foxes like these, saying one thing and meaning another was perfectly normal.
"So you'd better just go be your Superman."
He lifted the letter again. This time, finally undisturbed, he easily unfolded a relatively short piece of parchment.
"Oh, it really is about Voldemort." He skimmed it once and quickly grasped the important information.
"Isn't the only reason Hagrid would write to you because of the forgotten memories of that Giant called Grawp?"
Marvolio took a casual sip of pumpkin juice, as though he had become the owner of the office.
"What has Voldemort been up to lately? He wouldn't even spare the effort to kill a few Giants, and instead had to use a Memory Charm to wipe their memories."
"Because he doesn't have enough people," Tver explained as he read through the letter more carefully.
"Voldemort has hidden away the Vampires and the completed Giant Inferi. As for Voldemort himself, after scattering the surviving Giants around the country, he disappeared too."
"That tells us basically nothing," Marvolio said dismissively. "Inferi are one thing. If we run into them, we deal with them. But Vampires look just like ordinary wizards in daily life. How are we supposed to deal with that?"
"And as for Voldemort's movements, it's obvious he's plotting something. Otherwise, he wouldn't have released Giants just to distract us."
"Grawp is just an ordinary Giant. We were never expecting him to give us any crucial information."
Tver had never had particularly high hopes for that in the first place. Otherwise, he would not have left Grawp in Hagrid's hands.
"The only good news is that, for the moment, I'm free to deal with a few other matters."