Abernathy, a man whose soul was forged in the fires of Gellert Grindelwald's global revolution, was not easily fooled. He had spent decades clinging to a fatal conviction, a belief that magic was the ultimate authority and that wizards were the rightful heirs to the earth. He had prepared himself for a cataclysmic battle against Dumbledore, the man who had shattered his master's dream. Yet, as he stood on that windswept hillside, a mysterious, masked Death Eater whose name remained a shadow in the ranks sensed something fundamentally wrong.
The companion beside Abernathy, a specialist in the delicate and invasive art of Legilimency, had attempted to pierce the mind of the boy standing before them. He found no thoughts, no memories, no flickering spark of fear. He found only an abyss—a silent, impenetrable ocean that swallowed his magic whole. To the dark wizards, the conclusion was inescapable: Dumbledore had pulled a classic bait-and-switch. This was no Muggle child; this was a master of the mental arts disguised by Polyjuice Potion or a sophisticated illusion.
"Dumbledore has made a fool of us!" Abernathy had hissed before vanishing into the grey sky. To him, this was no longer a simple matter of a prophecy written in a book; it was a manifestation of some mysterious, unknown, and terrifying ability that defied the laws of the magical world.
On the hillside, the silence that followed their departure was heavy and suffocating. Dumbledore's gaze shifted from the six receding streaks of black mist to Arthur Silas. His expression, usually lightened by a hidden mirth, grew profoundly solemn. The more composed Arthur became in the face of near-death, the more uneasy the Headmaster grew.
"How exactly did you do it, Arthur?" Dumbledore asked, his voice low and resonant.
"Perhaps it is simply because I am good at thinking," Arthur replied, his voice devoid of the adrenaline one might expect. "I like to imagine all sorts of fanciful ideas. It helps pass the time in a quiet library."
Arthur closed his battered notebook with a faint, visible hint of regret. The encounter had been intense, but in his mind, he was already editing the scene. What had just transpired wasn't enough to sustain a full novel; at most, it would serve as a single, gripping chapter to raise the stakes before the second act.
"Mr. Silas, I am asking you a serious question!" Dumbledore's tone sharpened, the weight of his authority finally pressing down on the eleven-year-old boy. "How did you make men like Abernathy—men who have spent their lives in shadow and war—believe that you were not yourself? How did you compel them to leave in such a state of anger and confusion?"
The events of the last few minutes prompted Dumbledore to question the boy with a sternness he usually reserved for the most dangerous of students. An ability that could clearly determine the immediate outcome of a confrontation was almost beyond the realm of prophecy. It caused Dumbledore to suspect something truly reality-warping. He looked at Arthur Silas and saw a boy who did not merely foresee the future, but one who seemed to possess the terrifying potential to change it.
As long as Arthur wished for a specific narrative path, it seemed the world was forced to follow his pen. What originally occurred would vanish, replaced by the logic of his plot.
"I... I don't really know, sir," Arthur said, looking up at the sky. "I just thought they seemed overly cautious. Men like that are often superstitious; they look for patterns where none exist. It seemed like the perfect moment to use their own traits against them. I just drafted a mental plot outline for an 'Empty City Strategy.' If I acted like I wasn't me, their own paranoia would do the rest of the work."
Dumbledore studied Arthur's clear, water-like eyes. They were deep and dark, looking into them felt like plunging into an abyss. He searched for even a trace of a normal human emotion—fear of the wizards, terror at the explosion, or joy at being saved. But those emotions seemed never to have existed within the boy.
Dumbledore felt a rare sense of helplessness. In his hundred years of life, he had observed thousands of souls, from the brightest heroes to the darkest villains like Tom Riddle. Yet, someone like Arthur Silas was a first for him. Arthur did not seek power or glory; he sought a balanced ledger.
"Mr. Arthur... please," Dumbledore said, his voice dropping to a weary plea. "Stop writing about real events. Your ability, whatever its true nature, is far too dangerous. It is a hundred-thousand times stronger than any prophecy I have ever encountered. And you must know... every use of great power carries a corresponding price."
Dumbledore did not know what price Arthur might be paying for his "fiction," but he feared it was unimaginable. Even though the old wizard had once harbored a desperate desire to know the future—to save those he loved—he did not want Arthur to wield that power again. A pen that can rewrite reality is a burden no child should carry.
"I understand, Mr. Dumbledore," Arthur said.
The circling crows in the sky, sensing the departure of the dark magic, returned to the withered trees. They whispered to each other in harsh croaks, their black, beady eyes fixed on the two unexpected guests. Arthur slipped his diary back into his jacket, turning his gaze toward the elderly man who, despite his sternness, gave him a sense of immense reassurance.
"Actually, I still don't fully understand what ability you're talking about," Arthur continued. "But you say it's dangerous, so that must be correct. You are the expert in these matters."
Arthur paused, watching the wind ripple through the grass. "But I am an orphan. St. Mary's Orphanage has no money to pay the electricity bill. We cannot afford Sister Maggie's heart treatments... I want to help her. I want to help this big, broken family I live with."
His voice stayed calm, but the content was heartbreakingly earnest. "I am just an ordinary boy. I don't have Tom's talent for making people buy the roses he holds on the street corner; I don't have Jerry's knack for reading people and collecting tips from the diners in the city. I thought about it for a long time... and I realized the only thing I have are these images in my mind. So, I turned them into novels. I did it because I wanted us to survive. Is it because I wrote your story that my books will be banned?"
Dumbledore stopped stroking his beard. He watched Arthur, who had spoken more in the last minute than he had in the previous hour. He felt a stir in his heart—a profound, aching sympathy. It was a sincere confession, pure and devoid of the manipulative layers Dumbledore often found in the words of powerful people.
A cool August breeze carried the scent of distant floral gardens past them. Dumbledore's long, silver beard fluttered in the wind. The breeze passed through Arthur's thin, yellowed linen shirt, causing the slender boy to shiver.
"This matter is complicated," Dumbledore explained softly. "If a wizard publishes secrets in the Muggle world, he is prosecuted for violating the Statute of Secrecy. The books would be confiscated, and anyone who read them would have their memories erased by the Ministry. It is a messy process."
Arthur's face fell slightly, but Dumbledore continued. "But you are not a wizard. We have no legal right to interfere with your freedom as a Muggle. However, some very powerful people are worried that your 'fiction' could expose our entire way of life. They are afraid of the truth hiding in plain sight."
Noticing the boy's shivering, Dumbledore performed a subtle movement. He seemed to fetch a heavy, warm cloak from the very air itself and draped it over Arthur's shoulders.
"Oh," Arthur said, pulling the warm fabric around him. "That's good. As long as the royalties don't disappear, the orphanage will have its money. That is all that matters to me."
Arthur smiled—a pure, genuine smile that reached his eyes for the first time. The dark, abyssal quality of his gaze was replaced by a gleam of simple, childish joy.
What a pure and kind child, Dumbledore thought to himself, though a part of him still whispered a warning about the boy's potential.
"Father Hughes said that Aunt Theresa will be coming to the orphanage this afternoon," Arthur said, looking back toward the distant city. "Could you take me back? I shouldn't be late for a business meeting."
"Of course," Dumbledore smiled. He gently grasped Arthur's frail hand and raised the Elder Wand.
The return to St. Mary's was not as silent as the departure. When the Ministry's Aurors had arrived following Dumbledore's alert, they had found the orphanage in chaos. The black-robed wizards, in their earlier frustration, had destroyed a quarter of the historic building's eastern wing.
Now, the yard was filled with wizards in various states of disguise. Some were waving their wands in synchronized patterns to repair the shattered stone and splintered wood; others were moving through the halls with specialized charms to find witnesses and erase the memories of the terrifying explosion.
Minister Fudge stood in the center of the yard, his face grim. His gaze was fixed on the wand in Dumbledore's hand as the Headmaster and the boy reappeared. He desperately wanted to take Arthur Silas into custody for questioning—to put him in a cell in the Department of Mysteries until they understood how he knew their secrets. But Dumbledore never put his wand away. The message was clear: the boy was under the protection of Hogwarts.
"It is not that I am breaking our agreement, Albus," Fudge said, his voice tight. "But the council... they are demanding answers. My proposal this morning passed, yes, but at a considerable political cost. I am under immense pressure."
"Cornelius," Dumbledore responded coolly, his eyes scanning the busy Aurors. "I will find those responsible for the attack. You do not need to worry about the boy. He is exactly what he appears to be: an author."
Fudge sighed, knowing he couldn't win a confrontation with Dumbledore. He directed his gaze toward the window of the director's office, where Arthur was already sitting across from a middle-aged lady in a professional suit.
"He truly is a monster of a different kind," Fudge murmured softly, watching the boy calmly discuss contracts while wizards rebuilt the wall behind him.
________
Inside the office, the atmosphere was far more grounded.
"Arthur, you are a genius! A literal genius!" Ms. Theresa, the editor, exclaimed. She was nearing forty, with a kindly face and light-green eyes that sparkled with professional adoration. "Did you know the United States has already contacted my boss? They want the North American rights to the novel immediately. The advance they are offering... it's unheard of!"
Seeing the composed, polite boy before her, Theresa felt a wave of vindication. She had fought her board of directors to publish a book by an eleven-year-old, and her perseverance had paid off.
"Thank you, Aunt Theresa," Arthur said, bowing his head in a gesture of sincere gratitude. "Without your belief in the story, it would still be sitting in a drawer in the library. I am very glad we can help the orphanage together."
His expression remained calm, yet he exuded a comforting, sincere aura that made Theresa want to protect him from the world. She didn't see the wizards outside; she only saw the boy who had saved her career and his home with nothing but his imagination.
Arthur placed his right hand over his heart. To him, the rhythm of his life was no longer a mystery of biology. Every beat was a debt he intended to pay, and every page he wrote was another brick in the fortress he was building for his family.