Fabricating History from Behind the Scene

The pub was dimly lit, wooden beams sagging like tired shoulders, the air thick with the scent of aged whiskey, spilled beer, and the dull hum of disbelief.

They'd found a booth near the back—half-hidden by smoke and shadow, as if trying to retreat from the night before.

Griffin sat with his coat still on, a half-empty glass of scotch sweating between his fingers.

Laurance Everhart leaned back with his arms sprawled over the booth cushions, shirt half-unbuttoned, and a half-drained pint in front of him.

Across from them sat Dante, impeccable as always, jacket crisp, one gloved hand resting over a glass of untouched red wine. Beside him, Alpha—still in her neat black attire—stared silently into nothing, unmoving.

"Well," Laurance said, lifting his glass in a mock toast, "cheers to the end of the most expensive disaster I've ever witnessed."

Griffin didn't return the toast. He swirled the scotch once, watching the amber light catch along the rim.

"You're really not going to say anything?" Laurance asked, grinning. "Come on, you saw that. Wizard. Knight. Telekinetic Men in Black. The sword actually glowed. I wasn't hallucinating, was I?"

"No," Griffin said.

"Then admit it!" Laurance leaned in, voice just shy of shouting. "Magic's real. Freakin' magic. Not metaphorical magic. Not sleight of hand. Real. Power. Light and fire and all that wizard crap." He looked between Griffin and Dante. "We saw it with our own eyes."

Dante simply sipped his wine.

Alpha didn't even blink.

Laurance turned back to Griffin. "I'm just saying… we should form a club or something. A little cabal of our own. You know, get ahead of the next supernatural market crash. Or at least figure out who's summoning ghosts next."

Griffin didn't answer. He tilted the glass back and let the rest of the scotch burn its way down.

He didn't need to joke. He didn't need to speculate. He just needed to leave.

"Alright," he said, setting the glass down. "I'm heading out."

Laurance looked offended. "Already?"

"I've work in the morning," Griffin said smoothly.

"Boring," Laurance groaned. "You're seriously thinking about work after all that happened."

Griffin gave a polite nod and stepped out into the night.

He checked his phone again. Still nothing.

Then it buzzed.

A sleek black sedan idled near the curb. No license plate. Tinted windows. Griffin opened the door and climbed in without hesitation.

Two men in suits flanked him inside. One silent. One holding a tablet and reading data.

There was no small talk or explanations, just routine.

The streets passed in a blur of sodium-yellow light and cold mist. The ride was long enough for Griffin to wonder if they were taking the long route on purpose. He stared ahead.

Finally, they pulled into a parking structure beneath a nondescript Ministry building. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. He was escorted past two security checkpoints and into a fortified elevator.

Up. Then down again.

Finally, the doors opened into a sealed briefing chamber. Neutral gray walls. No windows. A long table, three chairs, and a screen already flickering with aerial footage from the auction site. Griffon recognized the infrared heat signatures. Dozens of them—guests, guards, and a trio of heat anomalies mid-combat.

Waiting for him were two officials. One in standard issue. The other older, sharper, his insignia more subtle—intelligence brass, with a face carved from stone and eyes like frost.

The older man spoke first.

"Agent Griffin," he said. "Sit."

He did.

The screen shifted to shaky footage taken on a phone—uploaded, no doubt, by one of the fleeing guests. Dissimilar to the one he had capture using his hidden cam. Magic flaring. A blade shining like the sun.

Griffin said nothing. His fingers drummed once on the tabletop, then stopped.

Finally, the older man looked at him directly.

"Your assessment?"

Griffin hesitated.

He should have said what they wanted to hear—that this was smoke and mirrors, a spectacle arranged by zealots or cultists with enough money to rig a disaster. A hoax gone too far.

But he couldn't say that. Not truthfully.

"…I don't know," he said.

The older man tilted his head slightly.

"I've seen war zones," Griffin went on. "Deep ops. Ritual sites. The weird end of things. But this? It didn't feel like illusion."

"And this… Durandal?"

"The blade's been mentioned in old records," Griffin said carefully. "And it was stolen from a sanctuary in France last year. The timing fits. The glow, the reaction of those factions—it wasn't theatrical. They were fighting for it."

"Hm... if that blade was supernatural, then why doesn't the goddamn French know what they had? Why was it sitting in plain sight until it got nicked by who-knows-who and ended up in London?" the older man growled to himself, hatred evident.

Agent Griffin stayed silent, eyes steady on the image frozen on the wall—Durandal, hovering between two blurred figures in mid-duel. The room reeked of confusion, of questions nobody was ready to answer.

"France had it under lock and key," the younger officer added, scrolling through a file. "But not deep enough. The Rocamadour site barely had national oversight. Just local clergy, historical curators, maybe one rotating gendarme. No red flags, no federal registry tags on the blade itself. It was practically forgotten."

"Until it wasn't," the older man snapped.

Griffin leaned forward, voice low. "What if that was intentional? Keeping it in plain sight to avoid scrutiny. Hide a miracle in a museum case—no one asks questions."

"Except someone did ask," said the older man. "And now we've got wizard duels, collapsing ceilings, and three mystery factions showing up like bloody theater troupes."

The younger officer looked up from his tablet. "Sir, we're not the only ones asking. Langley pinged us this morning. The Americans are requesting full access to our footage. They've flagged over a dozen online recordings already spreading. Every attempt to suppress them failed."

Griffin raised an eyebrow. "Failed how?"

"We're unsure," the younger officer said plainly. "Scrubbing the uploads doesn't work. The videos come back under different names, different formats, different platform. It's like something's making sure they stay up."

The silence lingered. Long enough that Griffin could feel the weight of it.

The older man exhaled sharply through his nose, then muttered, "Bloody perfect."

He turned to the younger officer. "Set up a task force. I want more intelligence on this matter."

"You mean a domestic paranormal unit?" the younger man asked, blinking.

"I mean a national security project. Compartmentalized. Report directly to me. We're not letting this spiral into another public panic or foreign leverage point. Give it a name. Something boring. Hell, call it Archive 9 or whatever the Yanks aren't already using.

He turned to Griffin. "You're point on this. Field liaison. You're the only one who saw it unfold firsthand."

Griffin hesitated. "Sir… with respect, I don't even know what it was."

"Neither do I," the older man admitted, voice quieter. "But you're our best hope."

He paused.

"And the Americans are watching. Like they always do."

Griffin glanced back at the footage, still looping in the background: the sword flaring in mid-air, the knight lunging with radiant steel, the wizard muttering glyphs beneath breath. "Then I suppose it's our job to figure it out before they do."

The older man gave a grim nod.

"Find out where that sword came from. Who had stolen it. And if magic's real, I want Hogwarts to be open by the end of the year."