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A secret kept by one person is still a secret.
When two people know it, it becomes information.
When more people learn it… It turns into gossip.
For Dumbledore, however, he would have preferred that particular topic of conversation never existed at all.
Isabella had reported everything to Sanchez without holding anything back. There was no point in secrecy.
Everyone involved knew exactly how serious the situation was.
At first, Sanchez had thought Isabella was telling him a joke.
He had even teased her, asking whether spending too much time around Hogwarts had caused her to pick up Dumbledore's brand of dry humor.
But after different professors independently confirmed the story, Sanchez spent the entire night in silence, smoking through ten cigars.
Before dawn had even broken the next morning, he was already standing in the Headmaster's Office at Hogwarts.
The moment he arrived, he felt much better.
After all, happiness wasn't the only thing that could be shared. Pain, worry, and anxiety worked just as well.
Watching Dumbledore wear the exact same agonized expression he himself had worn all night was strangely comforting.
When the sky falls, the tall people hold it up. And wasn't the tallest one standing right in front of him?
Dumbledore failed to notice the subtle change in Sanchez's mood.
At the moment, he felt only exhaustion.
Really, really exhausted.
At some point, he'd almost gotten used to it...
No, forget that. How was anyone supposed to get used to this?
Voldemort wasn't even dealt with yet, and now the original inventor of Horcruxes, Herpo the Foul himself, had suddenly reappeared.
Did Merlin genuinely want to destroy the world and wipe wizardkind from existence?
Dumbledore desperately wished this were all a dream.
But after giving his thigh a firm slap, the sharp sting reminded him that he was very much awake.
"Wait, Jeanne d'Arc..."
Suddenly, Dumbledore, who was decidedly not illiterate, noticed something important. "Sanchez, are you saying that the incredibly powerful young woman called herself Jeanne d'Arc?"
"That's right. Isabella and the other professors all said the same thing. So did Mr. Riddle's dragon."
"If that dragon truly is unique in the world, then I think it's safe to say those two are connected somehow."
Exactly. Riddle was also one of the "tall people." Let him help carry the load too.
Sanchez immediately felt lighter.
"Dumbledore, this situation is completely beyond anything I or Castelobruxo can handle."
"The best I can do is fully cooperate with whatever you need. If there's anything at all, don't hesitate to contact me."
With that, Sanchez got up and left, happily dumping every problem onto Dumbledore's shoulders.
Old habits died hard.
Even after decades of talking about retirement, Dumbledore still instinctively viewed every crisis from the perspective of the entire wizarding world.
It wasn't until after seven o'clock, when most students should have been awake, that he asked Fawkes to bring Tom to his office.
The moment Tom entered, before Dumbledore could even ask a question, he spoke first. "Professor, I know what you want to ask. Even if you hadn't called for me, I would have come to see you."
"Tom," Dumbledore said, skipping the usual pleasantries, "is the woman calling herself Jeanne a friend of yours?"
Tom nodded. "That's right. By the will of God, we met in a church and became friends who understand each other very deeply."
Dumbledore's eyelid twitched.
Please remember you're a wizard, my boy.
"Then is she really Jeanne d'Arc?"
"Hmm..." Tom thought for a moment before answering. "You could say that her soul belongs to Saint d'Arc, but her body and her mind are those of a completely new Jeanne."
Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully.
He understood exactly what Tom meant.
In other words, she really was Jeanne d'Arc.
"May I ask how the two of you met? And how she managed to survive into the present era?"
"Sorry, Professor. That touches on some of my personal secrets." Tom smiled faintly. "But you can rest assured. Jeanne will never betray me. Everything she does is for my sake."
That seemed to bring the topic to a dead end.
There were already too many unanswered mysteries, and Dumbledore had little interest in untangling every single one.
Instead, he moved on. "What do you think about Herpo? According to the professors from Castelobruxo, the power he displayed wasn't inferior to mine."
"Well... Professor, he's definitely stronger than you," Tom corrected.
"At least in terms of magical research, he probably went farther than I have. Farther than the Four Founders, too."
Dumbledore's brow immediately furrowed hard enough to crush flies.
That single statement contained far too much information.
Herpo had reached a level no one had anticipated.
A Dark Lord more terrifying than Voldemort had emerged.
No, Voldemort couldn't even compare—the level of danger wasn't even close.
"Can Usaki track down the Horcrux's current location?"
"No." Tom shook his head. "If Sanchez told you everything, then you already know it was Ares's belt. A genuine divine artifact."
"It seems Herpo has found a way to wield it. Once he escaped far enough away, he completely concealed all traces of his presence. If we want to find him now, the only option is to force him to reveal himself."
Dumbledore let out a weary sigh. "Thank you, Tom."
"Today, the only good news I've received is that Usaki had forced Herpo to run away. Perhaps we'll still have a period of peace ahead of us."
Tom nodded. "I think so too."
"So let's not let our enemies dictate our pace. We should keep doing what we were already doing and simply stay prepared for the worst."
With that, Tom didn't linger in the office. He headed downstairs for class.
After years of missions and a lifetime spent carrying countless secrets, Tom had long since developed a remarkably detached outlook.
If a problem could be solved, he solved it. If it couldn't, he focused on becoming stronger.
He refused to let the current situation control him.
In that regard, Dumbledore was nowhere near as good as he was.
The two men simply thought differently. Tom embodied the idea of remaining unmoved by either fortune or misfortune. His goal was simple: protect himself and the people around him. With modest goals came greater flexibility.
Dumbledore, on the other hand, wanted to prevent upheaval throughout the entire wizarding world. The more things one tried to protect, the harder it became to accept anything less than perfection.
...
..
In the headmaster's office—
"Herpo… Voldemort… Sun-chasers… vampires…"
Dumbledore kept muttering under his breath, weighing the scale of each threat.
After a long while, he finally calmed himself, though another thought lingered in his mind.
"Jeanne d'Arc… was she resurrected somehow, like Ariana? If so, then by whom… or by what? And what role does Tom play in all this?"
"And Andros from the Sun-chasers… could it really be that Andros the Invincible? Was he resurrected as well?"
One question after another kept spinning through his mind.
.
.
.