“There are wizards whispering sweet lies about equitism - telling you they’ve got a spell to make everyone share and enjoy. But let me tell you, there ain’t a charm in the world that can conjure prosperity out of thin air. Equitists’ll promise you a full vault, but mark my words, when the spell’s done, you’ll have a pile of leprechaun tin that vanishes when you blink. All equitism’s ever managed to summon is a line of empty bowls and a room full of folks blaming each other for why the meat’s gone missing."

  - President Kingfisher Longchamp, State of the MACUSA Address, January 20th 1946.

  The lecture hall in the Academic Wing was rarely used - a semi-circular theater with worn wooden benches rising in steep tiers. Tall, narrow windows let in the afternoon light.

  Fifty-nine sixth-years filed in like sorted mail — Ravenclaw to the far-left, Gryffindor center-left, Hufflepuff center-right, Slytherin to the far-right.

  No one had ever officially assigned these places; they were simply understood, like so many things at Hogwarts.

  The room formed a four square row of black robes bordered in blue, red, gold, and green. Jack and the other Gryffindor boys took their seats above and behind the girls, as tradition dictated.

  As he dropped onto the bench, Lavinia glanced back at him over her shoulder. She gave him a small smile and a quick wave.

  Jack felt his brain stall.

  Then, like a flywheel catching the clutch, Cassandra reengaged it.

  She walked past the Gryffindor section with a cluster of Ravenclaws, taking her seat in front of Montfort, who rested his foot on the back of her bench with detached possessiveness.

  Jack indulged in a satisfying fantasy of blasting him out of the nearest window.

  Professor Whitby stood at the front next to a large cardboard box, animatedly chatting about Muggle tanks with a few of his more obsessive admirers — known around school as the ‘Whitbites.’

  Behind him, Professor MacLeod was using his wand to write increasingly ominous words on the board with several pieces of chalk simultaneously: Second Muggle Big War, Jet Aeroplane, Blitzkreeg, Poison Gas, Stratee-jik Bombing, War of Annihilation.

  "Well!" Whitby beamed up at them, sending the last of the Whitbites to their seats. "Isn't this exciting? All of us together, discussing the vital questions of the wizarding world in the modern age!"

  A few unenthusiastic murmurs answered him.

  Jack slumped as low as he could in his narrow space between Henry and Teddy, wondering how many snide cracks he'd have to endure over the next hour.

  The American kid in a British lecture about magical integration. It was almost too perfect.

  “The Second Big Muggle War,” Professor Whitby began the lecture, immediately silencing the remaining chatter in the room, “occurred from 1939 to 1945, overlapping the most pitched fighting of our own war. As the competing Muggles poured all the resources of their states into the fight, the world witnessed increasingly unprecedented levels of destruction."

  He paused to take a drink of water. "There has been remarkable mirroring over the past four hundred years between conflict in our worlds, demonstrating the intangible links that bind us together as humans."

  Whitby raised an eyebrow at the classroom.

  “One might also argue that we wizards have an unfortunate habit of simply copying Muggle fashions and adding magic.”

  A few Ravenclaws chuckled.

  Whitby's wry smile vanished. "The most modern Muggle fashion being the wholesale slaughter of each other like livestock based solely upon national origin."

  Silence.

  "Take a look at these."

  He flicked his wand over the box and a collection of Muggle press clippings fountained out into the room. They floated briefly before forming into an enormous collage of devastation.

  “What began as a limited conflict over territory in Central Europe turned into what the Muggles call a 'total war,' consuming the entire planet.” Whitby selected one of the clippings. “Amplificare.”

  It expanded into a six foot-tall black and white photograph of a bombed city.

  “Rotterdam, 1940. 1,150 dead.”

  He expanded another, this one showing the damaged dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  “London, 1941. 40,000 dead.”

  A third, showing a barren skeletal plain bisected by a river where a city had once stood.

  “Stalingrad, 1943. 2,000,000 dead.” Whitby stepped in front of the pictures. “The war came down to the question: ‘How much are you willing to sacrifice to destroy your enemy and prevent your own destruction?’ And for the Muggles involved, the answer was ‘All of it.’”

  A Hufflepuff boy raised his hand, “Professor, how many Muggle countries were involved in the Second Big War?”

  “All the ones that mattered,” Whitby replied grimly.

  There was a pause.

  “And the ones that didn’t got caught up in it anyway.”

  Horrified stares from the audience.

  Jack had walked into this expecting a political science lecture. He was starting to wonder if it was something else entirely.

  “This war escalated until the first use of the American Muggle superbomb!" Whitby continued, his enthusiasm undamped. "A device of unprecedented destruction using a-tom-mick power!"

  With a flick of Whitby's wand, blackout curtains slithered across the windows. In the dark, the whir of a projector started up behind them.

  Jack started at the familiar sound - he'd seen newsreels before back home.

  But not this one.

  The black-and-white image flickered to life on the wall. "FIRST PICTURES - ATOMIC BLAST!" blazed across the screen, accompanied by brassy music.

  A murmur rippled through the hall as the footage showed animals being loaded into cages on target ships. Goats, sheep, pigs, rats - all destined for the hecatomb.

  Jack heard Lavinia's sharp intake of breath in front of him.

  "The Bikini fleet stands ready..." the narrator's crisp Mid-Atlantic accent filled the darkness. Steel ships – sacrificial offerings – dotted the placid coral lagoon.

  An aluminum-skinned B-29 Superfortress came flying into frame. Its moniker gleamed in the Pacific sun: 'Dave's Dream.'

  Its bomb bay doors yawned open like a grave.

  Jack watched Cassandra put a hand to her mouth, her face ghostly in the flickering light.

  Montfort's face had lost its smirk.

  "The bomb's away.” The narrator’s voice was terrible in its calm.

  The Muggle sailors huddled and hid their faces. Frightened worshippers facing a wrathful god.

  The priest-caste stood in white and khaki, goggles gleaming.

  Introibo ad altare Dei.

  “It's falling………the seconds tick away…"

  The explosion blossomed.

  Seawater instantly flashed to steam.

  A mushroom cloud unfurled like blood dropped into water, towering and majestic, dwarfing the vessels below.

  A shockwave rippled through the bay, lifting and smashing the huge warships like bath toys.

  It didn’t look like a spell. It looked like the air itself was tearing apart.

  Ecce Agnus Dei.

  "Up! Up!” the narrator exulted, “Seven miles into the sky the awe-inspiring cloud billows and surges, blotting out the destruction below!"

  Someone made a small, choked sound.

  The narrator's final words fell into deathly silence: "The lessons learned here today will mean a reshuffling of man's strategies of national defense."

  The projector clicked off.

  No one moved in the darkness.

  Jack realized he was gripping the edge of the bench so hard that his fingers hurt.

  "That," Whitby's voice broke in, "was one bomb. The Americans have more."

  Jack felt heads shift towards him.

  He kept his eyes locked forward, pretending he was back in his dorm with the curtains drawn around his bed.

  MacLeod stepped forward. "This is why we're here today. The barriers between magic and Muggle are being tested in ways we have never seen before."

  Light returned to the room as the curtains drew back. Jack saw faces watching him out of the corners of his eyes - no longer with curiosity but with fear and hostility.

  "And we think we can stop that?" someone muttered from his right.

  Jack wanted to say something, to explain that there was no way MACUSA supported this, that he was as horrified at this superbomb as they were.

  But what could he say?

  Cyprian was looking at him too. The Slytherin's expression was sympathetic, as if he'd been expecting this.

  "Now then!" Whitby bounced back into the lecture, yanking all eyes back to him. "Let's discuss what this means for us."

  Henry gave Jack’s back a pat.

  Whitby first attempted to explain the atom bomb’s inner workings with a mixture of wild speculation and magical analogies (“Imagine millions of blasting curses stuffed inside of an air-dropped fin-stabilized Chest of Holding!”)

  Jack shifted uncomfortably.

  Their description of the bomb's effects was much more accurate.

  They'd both personally witnessed it.

  "Nagasaki, Japan," MacLeod said grimly. An animated, black and white aerial image of a destroyed city was enlarged and levitated in front of the class. Jack could see tiny people picking through the rubble like ants. “Professor Whitby took this photograph on August 29th 1945. Two weeks after the bomb was dropped.”

  “We were the first from Britain to investigate,” Whitby explained. “MACUSA and the Japanese Ministry obviously had gotten there before us. We went there to check on the wizarding enclave of Mahōjima, in the port of Nagasaki.”

  "Mahōjima was founded by Portuguese and Dutch wizarding merchants in 1577,” MacLeod continued. “We found it completely destroyed. No survivors. The atom bomb flattened the city. Wizard and Muggle alike."

  Dozens of eyes fell back on Jack, marking him as complicit.

  “That’s impossible,” a Hufflepuff boy said. “Wizarding enclaves are protected against all sorts of Muggle attacks!”

  “You are correct, Mr. Whitworth,” Whitby replied. “But the atom bomb is not an ordinary explosive. Mahōjima withstood the initial heat and blast wave, despite severe structural and ward damage. There was an unknown follow-on effect that caused all twenty-three inhabitants to become extremely ill and die within days. MACUSA reported that no potions or countercharms worked.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “W-what?!” Whitworth spouted, followed by a chorus of consternation.

  “That’s impossible!” “Was it poison gas?”

  "Why are Muggles even allowed to have such weapons?" A Ravenclaw girl squeaked with fear. "We should take them away!"

  “Take them away?” Henry scoffed in a murmur, “How? Shall we go to war with the United States?”

  "That's exactly what Grindelwald wanted," a Slytherin boy countered. "Controlling Muggles 'for their own good', we all saw how that ended."

  "We must withdraw completely," Cyprian Venge agreed. "The Statute doesn't go far enough. We need absolute separation - deeper enclaves, stronger wards, and..." he adjusted his glasses, "Exploration of extra-terrestrial possibilities."

  Snickers rippled through the left side of the room.

  "Oh yes, let's all run away to the moon!" Montfort mocked in a sing-song voice. "While we're at it, why don't we build underwater cities? Or tunnel to the center of the Earth?"

  "Better than 'guiding the Muggles to a brighter future,'" a Slytherin shot back. "Are you really expecting that Muggles will just join hands with us around the campfire and bang on drums?"

  "No one is suggesting that," Eustace Grymes spoke up from the Gryffindor section, "We cannot stand idle while they develop new ways of finding our hidden places and weapons that can pierce our strongest defenses–”

  “The barriers between our worlds must come down,” Montfort interrupted him, “Controlled integration is the only path forward."

  "Controlled by whom?" Cyprian asked.

  Montfort’s eyes blazed, “By those with the brains to lead!”

  "The gentleman from Ravenclaw suggests he simply march into Westminster and announce his imminent coronation," Cyprian commented dryly.

  "Better than cowering in a dungeon like frightened rabbits!" Harrison Haverford launched back, one of Montfort’s most loyal toadies.

  There was a hiss of disapproval from the right wing. “Equitist rabble-rouser!” someone called out.

  “No personal attacks,” MacLeod stopped that talk sternly. “Five points from Slytherin.”

  Martin Mossflower raised his hand, "Perhaps we could strengthen the existing framework while maintaining–"

  "This isn't about finding some comfortable compromise," a Ravenclaw girl snapped. "This is about survival!"

  "Precisely!" A Slytherin boy stood up. "Our survival! Which means getting as far from Muggles as possible!"

  Jack and the Gryffindor boys shifted uncomfortably - they were soldiers, not politicians. This kind of fight was not their strong suit.

  "Are we supposed to vote?" Teddy whispered.

  "Shut up Marshy," Oliver shushed him. "Don't draw their eye or they’ll make us take sides."

  Jack glanced across the divide at Cassandra. She sat rigidly still, hands folded neatly on her lap, her expression as blank as a wall.

  Montfort was behind her, gesturing emphatically about "decisive action."

  Their eyes met.

  Jack gave her a weak, commiserating smile.

  No acknowledgment, not even the flicker of a reaction.

  "...They were gassing each other to death in the last war," a Hufflepuff was saying, "Burning each other alive in this one. Now they’re killing us too? What will they think of next?"

  “The American Muggles killed those Japanese wizards by accident,” a Slytherin boy barked. “What if they find Hogwarts?”

  A rustle of horrified whispers and nudges.

  "If only the Americans have this bomb, they'll dominate all the other Muggles," Eustace Grymes observed, studiously not looking at the American sitting two spaces down from him. “They’ll rule the planet.”

  "What if they find out about us?" squeaked Arabella Pemberton. "What if the Americans decide we're a threat, and turn their atom bombs on us?"

  "MACUSA must have helped develop it," Caeso Montfort stared directly at Jack. "No Muggles could achieve this power without magical assistance."

  Jack felt a surge of cold dread spread through his chest. "That's not true!" he burst out.

  The truth was that he had no idea. And that was frightening.

  “I know MACUSA would never do something like that!”

  What if they did?

  Montfort didn’t acknowledge him, instead addressing the lecture hall at large. "It’s well known that MACUSA openly supported their Muggles against Hitler and the Japanese."

  "We had nothing to do with this!" Jack protested.

  "Oh? Then how do you explain it, Yank?" Haverford called back. "Are your Muggles smarter than ours?"

  A chorus of laughter from the left wing.

  “The Americans have always been flexible about the Statute of Secrecy whenever it suits them,” a Slytherin boy commented from the back row of the lecture hall.

  “Anything to stop the scary Muggle Red Menace,” another Slytherin added sarcastically.

  Another round of laughter, this time from the right wing.

  Jack seethed helplessly in his seat.

  “You mock," Cyprian's level voice stopped the joking, "but while we debate American motives as they actively help us, MaChK is doing Merlin knows what." He cleared his throat. "We must think about which threat is more immediate to British magical sovereignty."

  “How about the threat that’s in the room with us right now, Venge?” Montfort stood, jabbing his finger toward Jack.

  “That’s enough!” Professor MacLeod barked. “We do not make accusations or point fingers at fellow students, Mr. Montfort. Take your seat and mind your tongue.”

  Montfort sank back into his chair, face stormy.

  "Aye, Heaven forbid we question our American masters," Haverford said too loudly from the back into a sudden quiet.

  "OUT!" MacLeod's roar shook the windows. "Twenty points from Ravenclaw an' a week's detention Mr. Haverford! Outta mah sight before I make it fifty and a month!"

  The door slammed behind Haverford's hasty exit.

  Silence reigned.

  Jack felt so consumed by second-hand embarrassment that he wanted to hide under the bench. At Ilvermorny, even thinking of speaking to a professor like that…his throat was dry.

  He should say something. He should defend himself. Defend his country.

  But he didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make things even worse.

  Instead, he impotently balled his fists.

  "So, er– what about our Muggles?" Henry jumped in, his voice carrying in the stunned hall.

  “Caught between America and Russia." Eustace Grymes said grimly.

  “Haven’t they divided Europe between themselves?” Martin Mossflower asked. “What’s even happening in the East?”

  "Excellent question, Mr. Mossflower!" Professor Whitby pulled down a giant map of modern Europe from a thick roll above the chalkboard.

  A tall, three-dimensional black wall ran through Germany, cutting it in half between a red east and a blue west. The line continued south from the Baltic Sea around Czechoslovakia, bisecting Austria, then along the borders of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria before coming to a stop in the Black Sea near Constantinople.

  The map popped off of the wall and loomed over the gathered students like a specter.

  "Beyond what the Muggles call the 'Iron Curtain,' a new magical order is taking shape," Whitby said, his wand tracing a path over the eastern states. "Grindelwald’s forces shattered both the Reichzauberamt and the Hexarchate during the Black Reformation. In their wake, the surviving wizards who fought against him formed MaChK — the Magical Extraordinary Commission. And now, with remarkable speed and efficiency, MaChK has emerged as the dominant magical power in Central and Eastern Europe."

  "What about Durmstrang?" Eustace asked, his voice ringing out. The name hit the room like a guillotine blade.

  It wasn’t just the name of a school, but a warning.

  "Officially shuttered since 1927 and only just re-opened," MacLeod stepped over. "MaChK is in the process of ‘reforming it’ and rooting out all traces of dark magic. Calling it a model of progressive education now. Open to all countries and blood statuses, and very eager to share their success."

  Whitby sat on a tall stool to rest his leg, "I assume you've all seen the notice about Comrade Volkov's visit next month?"

  A murmur went through the lecture hall.

  The upcoming visit of MaChK's ambassador to the Magical United Kingdom had been the talk of the Daily Prophet for weeks, especially since Hogwarts had been added to his itinerary.

  "A friendly cultural exchange," MacLeod explained, his face showing that he wasn’t even half-convinced by that line. "Nothing at all to do with their new educational programmes."

  Jack watched his classmates' faces.

  The East wasn't silent anymore - it was speaking with a new voice, one that promised change and progress.

  He noticed several Ravenclaws nodding thoughtfully at the mention of ‘cultural exchange’, and wondered how many other things were crossing the Iron Curtain besides radio signals and distinguished visitors.

  "The Statute of Secrecy," Whitby continued, clearly relishing his students’ discomfort, "was designed in a simpler time, when Muggle weapons meant swords and bows and arrows. Look what they have now."

  He flicked his wand and phantasmal forms filled the hall: tanks, bombers, jet fighters, half-tracks, trucks, and goose-stepping soldiers…

  "So what do we do?" Mina Mulholland's voice was tiny as the bone-crunching sound of hob-nailed boots filled the room. "Just hope they don't find us?"

  The bell tolled half past four.

  The seminar was over.

  Everyone gathered their things. As they filed out, Jack could hear the arguments between the Ravenclaws and Slytherins continuing in fierce whispers.

  Jack and his friends walked alone, the other students shifting away as if being near the MACUSA boy might be contagious, spreading atom bombs.

  "It's not fair," Jack said to the others as they headed for the Central Hall for Quidditch practice. "I didn't ask for this."

  "Some are born to trouble, Semmes, and others have trouble thrust upon them," Cyprian Venge had fallen into step beside them, looking thoughtful.

  Freakin’ Venge.

  Jack stared at him. "You really know how to cheer a fella up, you know that?"

  "Your American Muggles have achieved what Grindelwald couldn't,” Venge continued, his tone fascinated. “That was the lesson of that moving picture. They have the power to reshape the entire world in their own image. And we wizards, for all our might and magic, can only watch and worry."

  "What should we do then?"

  "Pray." Cyprian’s mouth was a thin line.

  Great. Just great. Jack swallowed hard. So that’s it? We’re doomed? That makes me feel way better.

  But he didn’t say that out loud. What would be the point?

  Cyprian's face twisted into a wry smile. “But that’s not the only question you should be asking.”

  “What do you mean?” Jack demanded.

  “Did you notice that nobody brought up the Dark Arts?”

  Jack blinked. That was odd.

  None of the Slytherins had said a word about them, despite their house’s reputation.

  The Ravenclaws, for all their talk about 'guiding Muggles', hadn’t mentioned it either.

  Cyprian tapped his temple. “Grindelwald made the Dark Arts a public cause. The hardliners left Hogwarts in the ‘20s and '30s to join him. The ones who survived are left with nothing but a lost war and an untenable position.”

  “Ok so what?” Jack shivered. “Where'd they go?”

  Cyprian chuckled humorlessly. "Anywhere they could. Argentina. Brazil. Underground..."

  Jack had the unpleasant feeling that the conversation had shifted onto something even bigger than atomic weapons.

  "A peculiar thing about the English, both wizard and Muggle,” Cyprian continued. “We prefer not to confront a problem until it becomes impossible to ignore. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,’ that’s what we always say.”

  Jack let out a sharp exhale.

  Awesome.

  So we’re just waiting until it’s too late. Again. Just like 1926.

  Genius strategy.

  Thank you Britain. Very cool.

  He realized he was lagging behind the others. He shook his head, trying to clear it. "Sorry, Cyprian, I gotta run. Quidditch practice."

  “Don’t get sunburned,” the Slytherin marched off towards the dungeons.

  Jack paused for a second by the great doors.

  He could skip practice today. Hide in the dorm. Say he wasn’t feeling well.

  But instead, he squared his shoulders and followed the others out, one foot in front of the other.

  The air outside was sharp, the sun sinking low. Jack joined the drills with mechanical focus, the rhythm of flying a small comfort. But his thoughts spun in circles, even louder than the wind in his ears.

  The accusations echoed: MACUSA helped the Muggles develop the atom bomb, Americans can't be trusted, they’re only here to make the British Muggles do what Washington wants.

  What are you doing here, Jack Semmes?

  Are you an accident? A coincidence? Or something else...something you have no idea about?

  Who are you?

  WHOOSH.

  A Bludger zipped past his face.

  "Merlin’s sake, Jack, come on!” Henry called, narrowly avoiding it too. “If it’s not one thing it's another with you!"

  "Sorry!" Jack shook the intrusive thoughts off and tried to focus.

  He voiced his concerns to Henry during a water break, pitching his voice under their teammates' chatter.

  "Do you think it's possible?" he asked, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his glove. "That MACUSA could be...I don't know, spying on the Ministry? Using MaChK as a cover for something else?"

  Henry lowered the water dipper from his mouth and looked at Jack like he'd suggested the moon was made of meringue. "You're being ridiculous. America and Britain are allies. We defeated Grindelwald together."

  "Allies can still spy on each other."

  "Listen to yourself!" Henry made an exasperated sound, "You sound like bloody Montfort." He slung an arm over Jack’s shoulder and pulled him in close to rumple his hair.

  "Don't let him get in your head, he's a toff with too many opinions and too little sense. Someday we’ll take him down a peg, but we’ve got plenty on our plate already.”

  Henry raised his voice to include the rest of the team. “Namely, the game against Hufflepuff. They've got a new first-year Seeker who's supposed to be quite good. Right, Teddy?"

  KIEV FALLS TO DARK LEGIONS

  The Daily Prophet, December 18th, 1932

  Front page, right beneath a photograph of a burning cathedral engulfed in flame, in the foreground a white-robed, bearded man lies sprawled beside a broken icon, half-buried in snow.

  Sources within the International Confederation of Wizards have confirmed the fall of the Celestial Cathedral — ancient seat of the Hexarchate of Saint Ognevlas and All the Rus’ — now reduced to smouldering ruin. Witnesses report wandfire crackling across the Dnieper before dawn, as ranks of Inferi marched beneath black banners marked with the Eye of the Eclipse. The reliquary of Saint Ognevlas has been seized. The Hexarchal records, containing over nine centuries of enchanted scripture and oath-bound spells, have been ransacked. The body of the Hexarch himself was cast from the bell tower.

  "When the Reichszauberamt fell in 1930, its ancient archives were burned with wandfire by Grindelwald’s own hand. The blaze lasted three nights, fed by dragonbone shelves and the vellum scrolls of Carolingian conjurors. The archivists who hid there in vain hope of shelter were sealed in and burned alive.

  The Hexarchate endured two years longer. A thousand years of liturgical magic extinguished in a single week. Hundreds of cloistered scribes, cantors, and wardens were executed at the foot of the altar. Children from the monastery school were forced to watch. The great bell of Saint Ognevlas was torn from its tower and used as a cauldron.

  For Grindelwald’s regime, the old magical orders — Imperial and Orthodox — were forms of a world that had to be erased: a world where power was bound by tradition, scripture, and morality.

  Their destruction was not collateral. It was foundational.

  To build his future, Grindelwald had to burn the past. Monasteries, ministries, and memory became kindling. Rome and London would have been next, if his legions had not been stopped."

  - Tim?theos Schneider, The Bloodlands of the Great Wizarding War, 1926–1945, 1971 – Chapter VII: “Frost and Ashes”