After almost an hour of heated discussion about the possibilities that the fidelius truly offered, Grandfather leading the discussion due to it being his expertise, we finally came to a conclusion.

Namely that while it was true that the fidelius could be cast on any piece of information, and a ritual casting of the spell was indeed theoretically possible, in the grand scheme of things, every single one of my suggestions was not feasible. The power required to hide even the simplest of the secrets, 'the Malfoys served the Dark Lord', was impossible. What was possible however, was casting the fidelius on the most damning evidence leading people to that conclusion, since it was only a subset of the larger truth.

For example the unmasking that Lucius had experienced in a rather heated fight at diagon alley, which had been the event that had caused the cascade effect resulting in his apprehension. Or of course we could cast the fidelius on his dark mark, which had other interesting implications when one considered the fact that Voldemort was not dead.

Suffice to say that while my whole point had been largely shut down, I wasn't too bothered. It had been just a thought after all, and all in all, it was decided that I would not be the one to carry the secret of our library.

To my surprise what had come to pass at the end of the discussion was mother choosing to take on the secret and to also learn the fidelius. The discussion had truly highlighted the immense usefulness of the charm, and I suspected, since it had been Grandfather to bring it up, there was also some fear that with one death our family would lose most of our newfound expertise on the piece of magic.

Grandfather had written a journal that outlined his journey towards learning the thing, but a more hands on approach was always better. A hands on approach that I myself would take into consideration in a few years.

-/-

The idea of making the very existence of magic a secret wouldn't let me go, it never strayed far from my mind throughout the next days, weeks. It was simply, too perfect.

The concept to be held secret was too broad for it to affect anyone but muggles, who had no resistance against mind manipulation, but this was fine, since, well, muggles were kind of the problem.

I might have been one in my last life, sure, but I was very much a wizard now, and had only to lose when muggles finally discovered the existence of magic in the future and do what they did best. Namely, fear, hate, exterminate, and if that did not work, then it would be a process of industrialization or commercialisation. I didn't know which option I dreaded more.

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It would probably only become an issue sometime in the mid 2000's, but being a wizard, that would be the time when I would be entering my mid-life crisis. Thus it was evident that planning for the eventuality now was a good idea.

Only that I couldn't, plan now, that was. I was incapable of even understanding the underlying theory of the fidelius, let alone the ritualistic and arithmetic knowledge needed to apply it on a world-wide scale. Thus I was very grateful when a fruitful distraction offered itself up to me, allowing me to shelf my incessant ideas of eternal magical supremacy for later.

I was even more overjoyed about the distraction being, you know, a positive instead of a negative.

Grandfather had managed to get his hands on the memory of Grindelwald's duel with Dumbledore, and Lucius had managed to get his hands on a pensieve.

The combination of the two was truly a wondrous conclusion to my woes of not having an easy way to gain experience. Now while watching others have epic magical battles would not so much teach me how to do so myself, it would definitely help having a subconscious repository of 'experience' to draw from when I actually attempted to learn the craft.

The variety I would have access to was great as well, Lucius had been a talented duellist in his youth and had then went on to become basically a member of the magical I.R.A, my mother and Grandfather were also far from innocent in the regards of how many heads they'd knocked.

Wait, didn't I also have a bunch of other relatives? Sure we'd distanced ourselves from the Blacks quite a bit after their disastrous handling of the aftermath of the blood war, but surely some of them would be amenable to making a small deposit into the Malfoy cinematory combat experience repository.

Well, gathering the memories was good and all, but while we now had a pensieve, Grandfather wanted to test it out, it wouldn't make much sense to throw the only heir at a previously obscure piece of magical equipment after all.

The wait... was fine, and just like that my thoughts of the fidelius were replaced with anticipation for the interesting pieces of magic I would witness in the duel between two giants. It was also great to know that that particular duel would then be followed by me spectating an even grander one. Dumbledore had after all had about 30 years to train himself up, and had also gained the allegiance of the death stick by the time he faced his next Dark Lord, Voldemort.

Voldemort, I let the name roll off my tongue, he must indeed have been something special to stand against an old wizard in possession of a deathly hallow.

But for a few more weeks, as Grandfather thoroughly examined and experimented with the pensieve, I would have to content myself with the books in the library that had previously been inaccessible to me.

As odd as it sounded, I actually continued my study of history, although now it was more of a specific interest. I wanted to know the historical contexts of the Great War, to truly understand the duel I was soon to witness.