It turned out that the French Minister was a rather easy-going guy once he managed to get over the fact, at least temporarily that his daughter was nearly assaulted. It must have helped that one of them was lying there, bound and trussed up for him and the others were no longer part of this world. Darius and Madam Bones spoke to the Minister in detail but kept the conversation short as the two officials had a lot of work to do after this. It was mainly Darius telling the French Minister of Magical Law about the attack and how he had gone about averting it. Amelia Bones and the Minister both agreed not to make a big deal out of it and blow the matter out of proportion.
The French Minister could have easily pressed charges and convened a sitting in an official ICW court which would have looked extremely bad for Britain while Madam Bones could have also done significant damage to the French Minister and his family, especially Fleur if this news was leaked out to the general public. Bad press was every official’s nightmare and Fleur’s reputation would be irretrievably damaged by the press, especially the British one once they found out that she was not completely human. The two came to a quick understanding and Darius got his own advantage out of the deal. He would have been in a lot of trouble with the society at large if it came out in the open if he was the one responsible for the deaths of those ‘fine, upstanding members of society’ and an easy target for the press.
It would also sic both the light and dark side on him. The light side would see it as him going dark and Dumbledore would keep up his refrain of using stunners and other non-lethal means to take out the dork lard’s wankers. While the Dark side would set a target on his back and bring the attention of Voldemort upon him too soon for his liking.
The entire event would be swept under the rug and the death of the death eaters would be attributed to self-defense by someone. And it also gave Amelia an opportunity to start looking at the previous death eaters a lot more closely. In the canon storyline all the death eaters had gotten away with their portkeys before they could be apprehended but the tables were turned on them now. Ex-death eaters, who had managed to escape because of the Imperius defense had been caught in full death eater regalia at the scene of the crime. Of course, Fudge being the incompetent boot-licker that he was, he would probably try to hide things as far as possible, but this would be a severe blow against his administration. And Amelia was definitely making plans already to have the budget of her department increased again, which had been steadily cut down since the time of the last war, likely due to Lucius Malfoy’s machinations.
While Amelia was off to the side, talking to the flunkies from the DMLE and the Aurors, Darius struck up a conversation with the Minister of Magical Law of France.
“I just wanted to say that I am immensely grateful for your help. I shudder to think what might have happened to both my daughters if you hadn’t been there on time. A magical instrument that I have tells me when either of my daughters are in danger. I was just heading in their direction via a blood-based tracking charm included in it when the instrument told me they were no longer in danger. You have no clue how relieved I felt at that moment.”
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“It was pure and simple luck that I happened upon Gabrielle stumbling out of the thicket. She looked so woebegone and lost at the moment that I believe anybody with a heart would have sought to help her out.”
“That may be true, but it was you who made the effort and also took out those bigoted scum. And I am very grateful that you left one of them for us. I believe I shall be able to persuade Madam Bones to have him handed over to us, there is an extradition treaty between the countries after all.”
And he gave such a blood-curdling smirk that Darius could only imagine what the fate of that poor unfortunate fool would be.
“But these bastards, these Death Eater. They were the followers of Voldemort, yes? Why are they active again now? Is there a new Dark Lord on the rise who has reached out to them?”
“Yes, they are Voldemort’s followers. And I haven’t a clue regarding the rise of another Dark Lord, but my personal feeling says that there isn’t one. And why do I feel you are so dismissive of Voldemort. Though I do not share the almost crippling fear of the man that the rest of Britain holds for him, there is reason to fear him.”
“Bah! He is barely worthy of being called a Dark Lord. The man throws around the unforgivable like they are going out of style but does little else. He is little more that a terrorist and knows nothing of the true fear that true Dark Lords can inspire. Dark Lords are way ahead of the curve than this Voldemort and they rule with both their charisma and their control.
Now, Grindelwald, he is someone to be truly feared. The man was wanted across all the countries of the ICW, managed to escape the MACUSA, wrought terror in the heart of his enemies, inspired his allies with a charisma never seen since his time and lead from the front with a truly awe-inspiring power which is evident from the duel he had with Dumbledore, even when he was in a weakened state after being on the run for a long while. The man would have single-handedly overturned the Statute of Secrecy and torn down the walls between our world an the mundane, and he would have succeeded in America if not for the actions of Newt Scamander.
Voldemort is a mere blip on the radar compared to him. The man has not even attempted to reach beyond his own country, for Christ sakes. And that ridiculous name of his Vol-de-Mort, or flight from death in French, the man has fear in his very name. And then he went and fell at the hands of a baby, likely the most embarrassing death any Dark Lord has ever experienced.”
That was enlightening, extremely so. While Darius may know a lot of things due to the HP books, his knowledge was restricted to Britain. He never knew about how the rest of the world at large perceived magical Britain. And from Pierre Delacour’s rant, he had a pretty good idea of how they did so. It only firmed up his idea of going for the customary around the world tour when he came of age and keep at it even after the first year was over. There was just so much he could learn. Just the few and limited books he had gotten in the Hogwarts library gave him so much to work with. Not to mention, there seemed to be some sort of embargo on foreign goods in the country, because he could barely find any international books or material in Dagon Alley. Likely because it would have exposed just how backwards and undeveloped the nation is with respects to the rest of the world.
Darius had finally set his priorities straight, he hadn’t come to this world to just straighten out the canon story. As far as he could tell, he was here for good and that meant he had to make the most of his life. He was going to get this Voldemort farce over as soon as possible. He had destroyed most of the Horcruxes anyway. Only the ring and the snake remained. And they wouldn’t for much longer if he could help it. It was time to live his life free of this shackles he had carried all this while.