Nicolas Flamel was, at heart, a traditional wizard, and given that he'd lived more than six hundred years, no one should expect a man that age to suddenly rewrite his worldview.
Certain kinds of transactions simply didn't trouble his conscience at all. If anything, he treated them as the natural order of things.
"I'd say twenty or thirty ought to cover what you need here." Nicolas eyed the size of the pocket world. "Buy them in advance and start their training early."
"That's..." Newt looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Nicolas, that doesn't sit right with me. The environment we're building here isn't fit for humans to live in at all. Even wizards would struggle in it, let alone ordinary people."
"What of it?" Nicolas waved the concern off without a second thought. "Supply's steady, we can get as many as we need."
Seeing how firmly Nicolas held his ground, Tom raised no objection either, which left Newt with little room to argue further.
Newt really was too soft-hearted for his own good. With something as terrifying as the golden apple involved, there was no chance Nicolas would ever let word of it leak. The moment they stepped out of that pocket world, he'd probably drag Tom straight into his laboratory for study.
Still, some things were better left unsaid to Newt. No point putting him in an awkward spot over it.
"Then I'll leave it in your capable hands, Master," Tom said, smiling.
Nicolas shot him a sour look. This boy had the loyalty of a dog when he wanted something, sweet as honey right up until he'd gotten his way, and the moment he'd scored a little success his tail went right back up in the air.
Still... that was exactly the kind of thing Nicolas had a soft spot for. A man had to be realistic about how the world worked, and the young were allowed a little arrogance now and then.
With the growing ground's preparations handed off entirely to Nicolas and Newt, Tom had one more chore off his plate, though not without cost. In exchange, he'd spent the whole evening helping Nicolas study the sacred power now running through him, and they'd come away with essentially nothing to show for it.
Nicolas found that this power corroded enchanted materials far more aggressively than ordinary magic did, and none of the alchemical substances on hand could withstand it. He gave up the attempt, reluctantly, for the time being.
...
When Tom showed up at school the next day, word had finally reached Britain: Bulgaria had thrown in with the Saints, and Grindelwald had crushed several hundred Aurors single-handedly.
Countless people were left speechless. Once again, they felt, in a way that reached right down to the bone, exactly how terrifying the Dark Lord truly was.
Not even two Britains combined could have fielded that many Aurors, and Grindelwald had walked away without a scratch, taking over three hundred prisoners, with barely a hundred managing to flee.
People suddenly realized their fear of Voldemort had thinned considerably by comparison. Even at his worst, Voldemort had never come close to a record like that.
Lucius Malfoy sat frozen over his newspaper at home for a long while, his mind churning with possibilities. Out of habit, he turned to Narcissa for her thoughts.
"What do you say I reach out to Grindelwald? We could stay in Britain, act as his inside contact, feed him intelligence on Dumbledore. The man's clearly built for great things. Once he brings Dumbledore down, the Malfoy name in Britain would rise higher than it's ever stood."
Narcissa knew her husband well. His ambition outstripped his actual ability tenfold, maybe a hundredfold. He was either stirring up trouble or on his way to stirring some up, and just as quick to lose his nerve the moment things turned serious. It was exactly why, in Britain's magical circles, the Malfoy name always seemed to be busy about something, and never actually accomplished anything at all.
"Lucius." Narcissa sighed, her tone heavy with meaning. "Grindelwald has fully come into his own now. He wouldn't so much as look at us."
Lucius went pale with shock and indignation. "How could that be? The Malfoys carry a thousand years of pure blood behind our name, in this country—"
"That's exactly it. In this country."
Narcissa cut him off before he could finish. "The Saints number in the hundreds now, easily into the thousands, and with the Ministries he's brought to heel behind him, he has a steady stream of manpower flowing in besides. Do you really think he's still working with scraps the way the Death Eaters used to?"
Lucius's face flushed red at the harsh truth of it. "But we have an advantage. He has no foothold in Britain, and his greatest enemy is here too."
"And then what?" Narcissa shot back. "You know exactly what kind of relationship you have with Dumbledore. How would you even manage to watch him? Send Draco to get close to him at school?"
"Lucius, I'm telling you now, I won't stop you from chasing whatever you want to chase. But the moment you drag our son into it, you and I are finished."
Lucius flinched at the sudden fire in her voice and hurried over to smooth things over, promising he'd never use Draco for anything of the sort.
Whatever else could be said of the Malfoys, when it came to protecting their own family, they still had some measure of decency left in them.
In the end, Lucius let go of the idea of throwing in with Grindelwald, though only for the time being. The moment the political winds shifted clearly enough, he'd be first in line to switch sides.
Because the Malfoys, as a rule, always stood with whoever was winning.