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Dumbledore frowned at the letter in his hand as if trying to divine more information. He didn’t recognize the letterhead at all nor any of the names in the letter. “‘The Academy’, Academy of what?” he asked Fawkes in frustration as he read and re-read the letter. Exchange student? he thought and shuddered as he realized the student in question was American. He immediately fired off a memo to the Educational Office of the International Confederation of Wizards, the wizarding world’s group that provides oversight and accreditation of magical schools.
The response was almost immediate, a memo appeared in the In Basket on his desk and Dumbledore’s hands began to shake as he read it. Not only was the Academy known to them they stressed it was of the utmost political importance to host one of their students. Apparently this ‘Academy’ was incredibly ancient and had never reached out to the wizarding world before.
He picked up the original letter and saw the establishment date in a format he didn’t recognize, it was a string of zeros and ones. Dumbledore walked to his bookcase and peered intently at the titles. Pulling one from the shelves, he opened it to the section on alternative calendars and his eyebrows shot up to his hairline. There was a converter listed in the appendix and he turned to that page, entering the string of numbers with the tip of his wand. He stared in shock at the date that was returned. There must be some mistake he thought as he carefully re-entered the number in the converter. The date was the same and he slowly sank into his chair. Incredibly ancient is an understatement he thought numbly.