Triple Thief

Many hours after Kali had escaped with Harry and Nanthisk, many people wearing robes and belonging to different groups begin appearing around the now completely destroyed Ice Palace. One person leading the investigation, in particular, was Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. The elderly yet spry man paces back and forth through the snow while deep in his own thoughts.

He was unsure, anxious, and somewhat terrified at what they might find here, this was especially so since some of the magic detected here mirrored the magic that'd been used to set young Harry Potter's house on fire, even if it wasn't an exact match.

Almost every magical organisation in the world had noticed the huge magical fluctuations occurring in this area, some had just ignored it, thinking it a natural phenomenon involving the Aurora Borealis since such a thing wasn't uncommon, only the amount of magic involved being the strange thing.

Then, those with specialized devices that detected magic sensed the second burst, a type of magic that made his skin crawl and had him temporarily hallucinating that something was waiting for him in the shadows. There were few words that could accurately describe the feeling of such magic, some saying it felt like 'Despair', 'Disgust', or even simply 'Sin'... But Albus personally saw it as 'Power'. Pure, and raw, power.

This was not to say that he'd be willing to adopt and use such magic, he more than anyone knew what such dark things could do to someone. But that didn't mean he couldn't ignore it either, if only to discover just what'd happened to young Harry.

He's brought from his deliberations as an Unspeakable approaches, "What have you found?" he asks, curious at just what they were looking at. His opinion on the Unspeakables was somewhat neutral, they were essentially the magical equivalent of Muggle secret agents combined with scientific researchers. No one was allowed to learn of their identities, which made their more unethical research more difficult to stop or track.

"Sir, the structure dates to somewhere around the tenth century, though, getting an accurate date will be difficult due to its current state... It appears to have self-destructed, for what reason, we don't know. But we are hoping to unearth whatever was held within to see if it would shine any light on things." the robed Unspeakable states, flipping through some papers on a clipboard.

Albus slowly nods in understanding, he himself not bothering to investigate since the Curse Breakers and other specialized people were paid to do just this. No point taking a janitor's job, even if he wanted things done quickly. "And, the other magical signal? What of it?"

"The unidentified magical signature originates around this area, a mile or so away from the actual structure. Theories have been thrown around, but the most popular one is that two Wizards were fighting. But, with the age of this structure, I suspect something more consequential had occurred..."

"As do I... Keep me apprised on the excavation efforts, if you would." Albus says, nodding to the Unspeakable as they walk off.

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"W-we've found something!" someone in the excavation group suddenly shouts, heaving as he pulls out a chunk of ruined wood that had many scorched books held within.

Albus rushes over and sits next to it, quickly looking over it while waving the Elder Wand over it. Unfortunately, despite all his efforts, the books were completely and utterly destroyed, and not even the overpowered magics of the Elder Wand had any hope of bringing them back to legibility.

Some kind of magical mechanism had specifically destroyed them. Making sure no one could ever lay their eyes upon the pages again. Albus lets out a sigh, wondering what wonders had been kept here, especially since this structure had apparently been standing since around a thousand years ago.

After the first discovery, more and more things were beginning to be pulled out from the ruined palace... The most prominent of which however were corpses... Bodies of almost every race were found, though, most were not in one piece. Indeed, even some previously thought extinct creatures had been discovered, and then quickly preserved so that they could be displayed in magical museums... That, or used in experiments.

Albus himself was hoping that he wouldn't find Harry Potter's frozen corpse amongst them, the very idea caused his heart to burn. He'd come to the child's death years ago, and he'd moved on by finding a new 'Chosen One' in Neville Longbottom, even if he hadn't alerted the public to this as of yet. He wouldn't do so until he was sure Harry Potter was dead, or until Neville Longbottom was properly situated in Hogwarts.

The elderly wizard's ears perk up as something far more precious than corpses was discovered... "I-I've hit gold! There's gold here!" a woman almost shrieks in happiness, despite the fact that any good collected here would be taken by the many officials dealing with this place. The North Pole is international territory, so what went to who was determined by the power of the organisation.

Most powerful of all organisations was the Internation Confederation of Wizards, in which Albus was the Supreme Mugwump, allowing him to take most of the important spoils... Unfortunately, due to the many agreements, the Federation had with the Goblin Nation, which included the many banks they'd set up in numerous countries. This meant that around 70% of the gold found would automatically go to them.

Wizards and Witches could only reluctantly accept, primarily due to the fact that they'd lost the last Goblin Rebellion, and were forced to take these harsh agreements to secure peace... Not that such things were written into the history books, magical society's pride simply would stand such a thing.

In the end, most of the things contained within the Ice Palace had been destroyed, with only hundreds of thousands of corpses and ungodly amounts of gold being found.