Unfortunately for Aurelian, his desire to remain anonymous and avoid trouble went up in smoke in a matter of days. The consequences of his destructive raid on Area 51 exploded on a global scale unprecedented in the wizarding world.
None of the people he had rescued from that underground hell were "ordinary people."
The burly, scarred man he had freed from the cages turned out to be the supreme Alpha of the strongest and most numerous werewolf pack in all of America. No sooner had the werewolf reunited with his pack than the howl crossed borders, oceans, and mountain ranges. The news reached every pack in the world within a couple of nights. From the dark forests of Siberia to the Scottish Highlands, an unbreakable edict was sealed with blood. Aurelian Gaunt—and anyone bearing his surname—was, from that day forward, a sworn friend of the wolves.
An exactly similar phenomenon occurred among the Veelas. When the main coven in Europe welcomed back their missing sisters and heard the heart-wrenching story of their imprisonment and torture, fury mingled with a strange sense of gratitude. The great leader of all the Veelas did not hesitate to raise her voice to proclaim Aurelian Gaunt a protector of their kind, someone who would always be welcome in their lands.
But the masterstroke—the true scandal that shook the very foundations of the world—came from the relentless propaganda machine funded by Victor Van Droombeeld. True to the promise he had made to his butler, the wizard pulled every string, wielded every influence, and spent every gold coin at his disposal to achieve this in the shortest time possible.
Within seventy-two hours, there was not a wizard, witch, goblin, or magical creature on the face of the planet who did not hear about what had happened in that desert. The front pages of every newspaper carried the chilling accounts. The macabre events were described in great detail; readers learned about the interrogation chairs, the cruel experiments, the dissections, and the magical blood spilled on the steel tables of the Muggle scientists.
And, of course, in every front-page headline, printed in bold letters, stood out the name of the heroic person who, expecting absolutely nothing in return, had descended into the shadows to save them from that hell: Aurelian Gaunt.
Hysteria gripped the magical population. It became painfully clear to everyone that the damned "non-magical" not only knew of their existence, but were using them and hunting them down like mere rats for their own amusement.
Shock and heart attacks were not long in coming.
In the heart of London, inside the gloomy office of the Minister of Magic, Lord Voldemort sat calmly. He had just emerged from a routine and very boring meeting with the members of the Wizengamot. Tom Gaunt, relaxed in his large chair, smiled slightly to himself as he calmly munched on some butter cookies, enjoying a rare and well-deserved moment of peace in his busy schedule.
The door to his office swung open with a sharp thud, marking the end of his peace.
Bellatrix Lestrange burst into the room. Her eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed, and she was pressing her lips together in a superhuman effort to stifle her laughter.
"My Lord, you must read this immediately!" Bellatrix shouted, tossing a stack of newspapers from various publishers onto the desk. "The news is spreading all over the world!"
Tom paused his snack. He raised an eyebrow curiously, brushed the crumbs off his fingers, and picked up the first newspaper from the stack. In giant letters, the headline screamed: Aurelian Gaunt, "The Savior." The boy who destroyed the slaughterhouse.
Voldemort read the article for several long minutes. When he finished, he slowly lowered the paper.
Honestly, he didn't know how the hell to feel about it. His son had told him—had sworn to him—that he was only going on vacation with his wives to rest and celebrate their marriage. "A family trip," he'd said, as if it were nothing. And now, out of nowhere, it turned out he'd barged into a secret base in North America, blown it up, and exposed the Muggles' worst filth before the eyes of the entire world.
Bellatrix, who had already lost the battle against her own self-control, leaned on the desk, bursting into fits of laughter.
"There you go, my lord… It's just that boy… Aurelian never ceases to amaze me, hahaha! What a spectacle!"
Tom ignored his colleague's excitement. He stood up slowly, walked over to the large window in his office, and looked down at the Ministry's main entrance.
Chaos was beginning to take over the place. Dozens of owls were swooping down, dropping special editions onto the heads of all the Ministry employees. He could hear the indignant shouts of his staff cursing the Muggles and the cheers praising his son's bravery.
Voldemort let out a long, deep sigh, rubbing his temple. That boy, with his absurd need to make the world revolve around him, was just giving him more and more work; he was really beginning to hate his job.
Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, in the frigid and inhospitable mountains of a fortress in Romania, Gellert Grindelwald was also holding a copy of the newspaper.
Seated on his throne, the old Dark Lord was finishing reading the article recounting Aurelian's heroic, relentless, and bloody rampage as he slaughtered hundreds of Muggles in that place. As he read the last paragraph, Gellert threw his head back, and the echo of his laughter filled the empty corridors of the fortress.
The sound of Vinda Rosier's footsteps interrupted his moment of amusement. The witch entered the room with a tense expression.
"My lord…" Vinda began, "I've just received an urgent message. The Van Droombeelds have severed all ties with us. They will no longer help us; they've withdrawn their gold from our cause."
Gellert stopped laughing, but his broad smile remained on his lips.
"I've already heard about their sudden change of allegiance, Vinda," Grindelwald replied with astonishing calm, holding up the newspaper in his hand to show her. "And that's fine. It's perfectly fine… At least their betrayal served a truly historic purpose."
Vinda frowned, confused by her leader's passivity.
"What for, sir? We've lost one of our greatest supporters; we'll sorely miss their influence."
Gellert stood up, his eyes blazing with fire.
"So that, finally, once and for all, everyone on this damned planet will realize that the true enemy is the non-magical," declared Grindelwald. "So that our race will know, without a shadow of a doubt, what kind of disgusting beings humans are. Fear will unite them under a single banner."
The old wizard clenched the newspaper in his fist, crumpling the printed image of Lord Gaunt. His gaze drifted into the shadows of the room, wondering when fate would give him the chance to see that boy face to face again.
The cataclysm that shook the wizarding world soon breached the ancient walls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
During breakfast, hundreds of owls burst into the Great Hall, dropping copies of The Daily Prophet and international newspapers onto the tables. As they read the horrifying articles, the students went from horror to outrage. But among the reports, there was one detail in particular that caught everyone's attention and ignited a spark.
One of the people working for the Muggles—the scientist who headed the facility and whom Aurelian Gaunt had brutally murdered—was also a wizard. A wizard born to Muggles who, driven by hatred for his own magic and resentment, had allied himself with non-magical people to eradicate his own kind.
That single detail was what caught the students' attention the most.
Like a house of cards collapsing in a gust of wind, in just under a week, the fragile and newly discovered unity among the four houses crumbled completely. Mistrust spread through the hallways like poison. The Slytherins, feeling vindicated and emboldened by the "heroic" massacre of their former King, returned to harassing and bullying the Muggle-borns with far greater intensity and cruelty than before.
The worst part wasn't the insults from the Slytherins; what was truly painful was the silence of the others. Many students from Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and even some from Gryffindor didn't join in the taunts, but they did look at their Muggle-born classmates with open annoyance, suspicion, and paranoia. The fear of having traitors among them had turned them cold.
One afternoon, with the atmosphere in the castle more tense than ever, the Golden Trio was walking down one of the second-floor corridors.
Hermione, who had been unusually quiet and downcast in recent days, was shuffling along, clutching her books to her chest as if they were a shield. She was so lost in her own sadness that she didn't pay attention as she rounded a corner and bumped head-on into someone, dropping a scroll.
"I'm sorry," Hermione whispered immediately, crouching down instinctively.
When she looked up, she met Pansy Parkinson's scornful gaze. The Slytherin girl jumped back as if she'd just bumped into a sick animal and shook her robe dramatically.
"Don't touch me, you hideous Mudblood!" Pansy shouted at her.
The words hit Hermione hard. The lioness curled into herself, lowering her gaze and biting her lip to keep from bursting into tears right then and there.
But before Pansy could hurl another insult, Harry and Ron immediately stepped forward, placing themselves between the Slytherin girl and their friend. Harry glared at her with silent fury, while Ron clenched his fists, ready to draw his wand if necessary.
Finding herself outnumbered and sensing the hostility in Potter's eyes, Pansy clenched her jaw in frustration. She took a couple of steps back, but not before shooting them a hate-filled glare.
"I'm sure Aurelian will wipe all of you out someday…" Pansy hissed under her breath, a cruel smile playing on her lips. "He'll exterminate you just like he did those stupid Muggles. It's only a matter of time."
Without another word, the Slytherin turned on her heel and disappeared down the hallway.
Once the girl was gone, Ron quickly turned to his friend, trying to soften his tone.
"Don't pay any attention to what she says, Hermione. She's just a frustrated idiot. You're ten times the witch she is."
But Ron's words of comfort didn't have the desired effect. Hermione let out a stifled sob, tears finally spilling from her eyes and streaming down her cheeks.
"It doesn't matter anymore, Ron… nothing matters anymore," Hermione murmured in a broken voice, clutching her books tightly to her chest. "Now it'll be even harder for us… Everything we'd made progress on has been destroyed. Everything… all because of that scientist wizard. Idiot… damn idiot!"
Repeating a muttered phrase that revealed her helplessness and pain, Hermione could no longer bear the shame and ran down the hallway in the opposite direction, disappearing from view.
Ron cursed under his breath and took a step forward.
"Hermione, wait!" he called, getting ready to go after her.
But Harry's hand clamped firmly on his friend's shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.
"Leave her alone, Ron," Harry said in an unusually mature and resigned tone. "Give her some time."
Ron turned around, frowning, his face a mask of pure confusion and helplessness.
"But Harry, we can't leave her alone when she's like this—we have to tell her that…"
"There's nothing we can say to her," Harry interrupted, slowly shaking his head. His green eyes reflected a deep understanding of that loneliness—one he himself had been feeling much more acutely in recent months. "You don't understand. We don't understand how Hermione and the other Muggle-born students are feeling right now. They're being blamed for something they didn't do. We can't fix this, and if we go after her now, we'll only make her feel even smaller."
Ron looked down the empty hallway where his friend had disappeared and let his shoulders slump, letting out a heavy sigh.
"This is really hard, Harry. It's unfair."
Harry nodded, leaning his back against the wall.
"Yeah, it is," Harry agreed in a bitter whisper. "The world changes in the blink of an eye, Ron. And it's almost never for the better."
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