Albus Dumbledore's POV

Albus Dumbledore sat in his chair and thought. Now it was clear how the enemies had dealt with Fawkes. The enemy was even more dangerous than he had thought. How, how did Voldemort subdue the phoenix? After all, for someone like him, it was impossible! Or had Albus missed something? The only answer was that the phoenix was a Horcrux. And that was too bad; the phoenix was hard to kill even without a Horcrux. But if the phoenix was a Horcrux, why expose it? Especially when saving someone other than himself? What a pity that he had only one cut memory from Horace Slughorn (which he had sent him by mail a year and a half ago), where Tom Riddle asked him about Horcruxes!

No, Albus was absolutely sure that the probability that Tom Riddle would seize on any way not to die was equal to one, but how many Horcruxes did Tom plan to make? But now he had to think closer to the current problems. He was no prophet, but he could already see the headlines in his mind: "Department of Mysteries Robbery. Dark Wizards Get Away with It! And It All Happened in the Ministry of Magic!" Scrimgeour would be trashed. And him too. Moody and the Aurors would get it. The public would panic... And there was no need for a reshuffle in leadership positions now! Frankly speaking, there was no one to replace Scrimgeour; the others were no better. At least Scrimgeour had some experience and he was trying, although Rufus sometimes got carried away.

And Moody kept talking and talking. "Albus, are you listening to me?" Alastor said, waving his hand in front of Dumbledore's face. "I was thinking for a moment and missed it," Albus admitted. He looked at Moody and realized that he had never seen Moody so happy.

"Albus, I understand—constant vigilance. Secrecy and all that. What two know, a pig knows. I've said it many times. But you could have told me. I would never have told anyone. I'm a grave, no one, never and for nothing. If you had told me, I would have forgotten everything right away," Alastor was saying. "I could have made any oaths."

"Alastor, what are you talking about?" asked Albus.

"I'll repeat it again. After the alarm, our main forces were waiting for the Death Eaters in the Atrium of the Ministry, blocking all entrances and exits from there. A single Death Eater tumbled out of the Department of Mysteries. Identified as Augustus Rookwood, he's already wanted. But judging by his protective charms and the shape of his wand, she was a student of You-Know-Who. We attacked in such a way as to take the target alive for interrogation—with such a balance of forces it was impossible to lose, even if there had been trainees instead of Aurors, and there were no golems at all," Alastor said, smiling with his mutilated face. "It's a pity You-Know-Who didn't come to save her; they would have captured both of us."

"I don't see what there is to be happy about," answered Dumbledore.

"What do you mean? We took You-Know-Who's right hand alive! She must know a lot! Besides, there is a chance to figure out what they do with werewolves. Albus, I want to be present at the interrogation," said Moody.

"What makes you think we captured her?" asked Albus.

"But the phoenix took her! Albus, this is unbelievable! To leak misinformation that the phoenix was killed! And everyone believed it! And what a game—you grieved so sincerely, mourned over the grave; even I believed it! And all this in order to weaken the enemy's vigilance and capture a valuable prisoner!" Moody's smile grew wider with each word.

Albus remembered how it all happened. The body, holding back cascades of attacks under the Cruciatus in the last seconds, was grabbed by a phoenix, hung with protective artifacts (alas, not all of them had time to turn to dust), and they were transported away. After this, Alastor Moody immediately took Dumbledore away to discuss the results of the operation.

"Alastor, Fawkes is really dead. We did not see my phoenix today. It is a female. And I am not sure that it is a phoenix. The bird felt different somehow. That is, it was not my phoenix that took the target. The enemy escaped."

Moody's expression began to change slowly, finally showing extreme anger and disappointment. He then began to walk in circles around the office, swearing and shouting about his ass and constant vigilance. A minute later, Moody began to demand that the phoenix movement be blocked for all rooms in Wizarding England and for every Auror. Alas, this is impossible. Although I will have to put protection on your office and house; otherwise, you will not leave me alone.

Albus was thinking again. Something did not please him. A system of magical rune traps had been hastily set up at the exit from the elevator. They did it quickly and unnoticed. But the object did not react to it. As one of his Japanese acquaintances used to say, if a water dragon gets into the network, you lose the network. By the way, now the situation with the Japanese is clear, because Albus was very surprised when he was accused of the death of the curse-breaker team. Apparently, Tom was pretending to be Albus, using a phoenix and a dummy wand.

Then there was a fight in the Ministry. Someone is definitely an idiot. It's obvious—you don't fight a crowd; you just need to run away from a crowd. But this someone tried. And he almost succeeded! His Hellfire flew almost half the way, as did several different Dark Curses of increased lethality. Yes, it did not help him. But at the same time, someone cast a cascade of Avad—if not for his golems, there would have been losses.

And the enemy did all this while flying under fire from almost two hundred wizards! No one could withstand such a number of spells, even if they were quite simple and less than a second and a half. More precisely, he could—he, Grindelwald, before he sat in Nurmengard, and Lord Voldemort. That's it. Another ten wizards in the world could simply defend themselves in such conditions, but not attack.

Albus does not believe that he does not know all the wizards with such abilities. It's a pity that we couldn't assemble a team from these mages to eliminate Tom, but alas, great mages can be anything but selfless, and you can't interest such people with money.

And trying to convince them to work together is like gathering cats into a flock.

During the fight, the enemy missed his spell "Rebellious Magic." It would have killed a normal wizard. A wizard with Elena's level of magic should have been stunned by this spell, despite all the protection; however, the target got off with a temporarily paralyzed hand. This suggests that the target has more magic than it shows.

Strange—usually, wizards behave like peacocks; they try to look stronger than they are. How did someone guess to defog the channels in his left hand? Was it luck? A luck potion? The target withstood all attacks, even his, pumped to the limit with magic. The wounds received were due to some of the object's protection bending inward and damaging the body.

Even having sustained open wounds, the target did not lose blood. Hence, the conclusion that the target controls his blood reflexively—the main thing is to be conscious, even under the Cruciatus! These are years of practice in Blood Magic at the level of very subtle manipulations. Is this Voldemort?

So, the power of Dark spells does not reach Voldemort. The bias in the arsenal of spells toward Dark Magic is not so noticeable. But the rest of the facts...

The answer suggested itself—it was Voldemort. The most disgusting thing was that the painting-prison was already ready and it was with him, but he did not use it because he thought it was not Voldemort! During his life, he preferred to learn from other people's mistakes.

Okay, next time he would be smarter. He would check the painting not only when meeting Voldemort but also when meeting Elena Ivanova. And if he sees a wand like Frank Longbottom's, or just one like it, curved like a snake, he would be prepared.

They needed to talk to Snape. Thoroughly.

Alastor Moody approached Dumbledore. "Albus, let's go to the Minister. I want him to sign this document." While Dumbledore was thinking, Moody scribbled down a memo, signed it, and stamped it with the seal of the Head of Auror.

"I authorize the immediate elimination by any means necessary, including Dark Magic of any level, of the Death Eater known as Elena Ivanova," Albus Dumbledore read aloud.

POV of the Head of the Department of Mysteries.

The Head of the Department of Mysteries inspected the rooms where the Death Eaters had gone. There had been no casualties among the employees, and the corridors had suffered the most damage. That was good news. Rookwood was really missing. Was it the Imperius? A traitor? But he was most worried about something else.

The Room of Reason—everything was gone. The Room of Time—everything was gone. And that was very bad. The Ministry now had almost no Time Turners, except for those that had been issued and those that were being repaired.

In the Room of Planets, they had stolen the Earth. They had barely managed to catch the Moon before it fell into the Sun! The balance of gravity had been upset. They needed to urgently make at least a temporary replacement for the Earth, or the guys would get tired of keeping the system in equilibrium.

The Arch of Death—why did they take the Arch of Death? Why? Did they really figure out what to do with it? The Artifact Vaults had probably lost a third of their contents, although the volume was still being clarified. That was bad. Almost the entire open part of the Department of Mysteries had been looted. The workers would have to be given one extra paid day off per week—there was simply no work. Some would be transferred to other jobs altogether.

Of course, the rooms to which Rookwood had no access were not damaged, but those studies had long been half frozen, and it was better not to let the unprepared in there. As for the closed part, they had already built an enclosure for Tlautlipuzli; it would be a very valuable exhibit. But it still needed to be caught, and Alastor Moody had said outright that no one would catch this creature—only extermination.

By the way, it was very interesting how the Death Eaters made the phoenix obey. Where did they pull Tlautlipuzli from? Maybe the Nameless One, like Godric Gryffindor, enchanted his hat?

Having examined everything, he returned to his office. So much needed to be decided. But his thoughts were interrupted by Broderick Bodey, who showed up for the report.

"I have messages for the Head of the Department of Mysteries from the Dark Lord," they told him. "I am under the Imperius Curse." He wanted to call the guards and the healers, but he decided to listen first. With an effort of will, he activated the office's defenses and the eavesdropping blocking system.

There were two meters between him and his guest, but Broderick couldn't get past them. In an extreme case, he would have enough time to escape. He also activated the Confidentiality and Interference Charms. The Unforgivables wouldn't get him—he had a very fast chair.

Broderick began retelling other people's words. In short: the Death Eaters would lead them to a Bright Future. "Magical England must solve important issues, find answers to the challenges of our time," Broderick spoke as if from a script. "The Ministry is discussing duties on imported cauldrons. The rest of the wizards are discussing fashion. And another Wizarding War must be prevented."

Albus Dumbledore was an old man who had played with the Time-Turner. Who would lead magical England forward after his death? England had suffered little in the war with Grindelwald; many of their neighbors considered this unfair and would be glad if Wizarding England was reduced to ashes in the sunset. When it was time to act, Ministry employees just passed the buck. In a situation like this, it was better to invite Voldemort right away; at least they would be able to admire the faces in the International Confederation of Wizards. There was a chance that he would start doing business and not try to figure out where the Mirror of Erised had gone, like Albus.

The Department of Mysteries had been promised freedom of research, a relaxed regime, material support, and a lifting of the ban on the use of Muggle inventions. Broderick knew that the Department of Mysteries was apolitical. This ban had its roots in the nineteenth century when the current Minister of Magic decided to close the Department of Mysteries, but the Unspeakables simply ignored his decree. After that, the Minister of Magic resigned, unable to cope with "work fatigue."

As a gesture of goodwill, Broderick continued, "I will now give you the coordinates of two places where there is a diagram of a working flying saucer with a minimum amount of magic and a diagram of a ritual without human sacrifice for measuring necroenergy. I also have several spells from the time of Salazar Slytherin that are considered lost."

"Necroenergy? What is it?" asked the Head of the Department of Mysteries.

"It is what accumulates when using Dark Magic and murders in magic. Especially if you combine Dark Magic and murders. It affects mental stability, and when it accumulates excessively, it gives obsessive ideas," they explained.

"Ah, ereghu," the Head of the Department of Mysteries thought to himself. It was strange; he was hearing the word "necroenergy" for the first time. "We have a part of the Closed Department that deals with it. It turns out that the Dark Lord is self-taught if he even has to come up with the names himself?"

Grindelwald once offered him practically the same thing. He refused. Then he became the Head of the Department of Mysteries. And he knew the answer that he would give now.