This time the International Confederation of Wizards had prepared more than adequately.
They chose to meet him at a country manor rather than the Ministry, and for good reason. First, to contain the scope of the damage. The Ministry sat in the middle of a crowded city, and if Grindelwald turned savage there, the fight could spill into the Muggle world, and cleaning up that mess afterward would swallow enormous manpower and resources. Second, sheer numbers. More than twenty nations had sent Aurors, and together with the Confederation's own forces, the ambush now numbered over four hundred, every one of them a seasoned Auror, not a novice among them.
That alone was more than the entire staff of the Bulgarian Ministry of Magic combined.
Many of those who suddenly sprang into action that day were operatives disguised with Polyjuice Potion.
Figures kept dropping from the sky. The Aurors had already divided their duties: fifty to maintain the anti-Apparition wards, fifty to guard them and keep the fighting contained within the manor grounds, intercepting any large-scale magic Grindelwald might unleash, spells on the order of Ten Thousand Deaths.
"Grindelwald, you're far too arrogant. You knew this was a trap and you came anyway. Your own conceit will be the end of you. Dumbledore is on his way!"
A woman shouted this even as her feet carried her backward, keeping the other Aurors shielded behind her.
Tom raised a hand, cradling a sphere of light pale and pure as the full moon. It climbed and swelled at once, scattering a hazy glow across the field. The light looked almost too faint to matter, yet it held like a castle wall. Curses that struck it went spinning wildly off course, far more effective than any Ironclad Charm.
"Dumbledore?" Tom's mouth curled in contempt. He layered one speed charm over another until a single stride carried him several meters, and crossed the distance to the nearest Auror almost before anyone could track him. His wand traced a light arc through the air, and a line of blood opened across the man's throat, welling up in a bright rush.
"By the time he arrives, you'll all be dead." The words were barely out before he'd moved again, flashing to another flank. Dozens of curses grazed past him as he went, and the ground behind him erupted into a chain of craters.
The field dissolved into chaos. Guests who had no idea what was happening were still scattered among the crowd, Obalonsk chief among them, utterly in the dark. Some Aurors broke off to subdue and secure the bystanders before rejoining the fight against "Grindelwald."
...
Meanwhile, far off in the Amazon rainforest, inside the ruins known as Castrobuche.
Dumbledore, who had been picking out books for Tom, received an urgent call from Babajide. The head of the International Confederation of Wizards sounded frantic, his voice strained thin. "Dumbledore. You were right. Grindelwald saw through our plan, and he came anyway. Alone. The guests who traveled with him have already fled."
"I'm on my way now," Dumbledore said calmly. He'd expected as much. Pitting schemes against Grindelwald? These people weren't fit to try. Their grandfathers' generation had been led around by the nose by that man, so what hope did wizards raised in peacetime have, growing softer and more toothless with every year that passed?
But what choice did he have. Hundreds of lives hung in the balance, and his will bent under that weight, carried along to clean up after Babajide and his reckless Ministries.
He ended the call and summoned Fawkes at once, dissolving into flame to begin the journey.
Traveling by phoenix gave Dumbledore an advantage no ordinary wizard could match, in distance and in speed both, but what held him back now was his own aging body. He couldn't push himself to his limit; he had to arrive still fit to fight, or the whole journey would only deliver another gift to Grindelwald.
While Dumbledore pressed on, Babajide received a second piece of terrible news. Durmstrang was under siege by the Saints, no, by the time the message reached him, the school's defenses had already fallen. However many messages he sent after that, nothing came back.
He understood then that this had gone thoroughly wrong. Grindelwald hadn't simply walked into a trap he'd seen coming. He'd turned their own maneuver against them, striking Durmstrang while every eye was elsewhere.
Hold Hogwarts, and all of Britain's magical world would think twice before moving against you. Hold Durmstrang, and most of Northern Europe would know no peace either.
Send help now? Never mind whether they could gather enough hands in time. With more than a thousand students held hostage, no Auror alive would dare so much as lift a wand.
"Dumbledore... it's all on you now."
Babajide realized all he could do was pray that Dumbledore and the ambush force would bring Grindelwald down. Beyond that, there was nothing left in his hands.
"A few hundred Aurors... surely that's enough to hold him."
He told himself that, for whatever comfort it offered.
His prayer wasn't entirely wasted. Grindelwald, no, Tom wearing Grindelwald's face, really had been held.
Aurors weren't scarecrows, and they weren't target dummies. Monsters aside, they were the backbone of the wizarding world, the elite among elites. Even a Hogwarts professor, faced with five or more Aurors at once, would think first of running, not of fighting them off.
Surrounded by more than three hundred of them, Tom felt something for the first time in his life: real pressure, something close to mortal danger.
And strangely enough, that was exactly what excited him. This whole road had gone far too smoothly. Without quite noticing it, he'd become a top academic-track wizard, and what he'd lacked all along was a battle he could throw himself into completely, without restraint.