Chapter 1

Thomas was watching Harry as he went back to his room for the night. He was proud as Harry was as much a genius as his mother and the education that he was giving the child was not stifling his potential. Sure, Harry loved Quidditch, but it was a way for him to feel a link to his real father, while knowing that he wasn't the greatest of individuals as Thomas took his time to warn Harry that James did things during his school life that one should not do.

Thomas turned to Elyse before asking the question that needed Harry to be out of the room and inside his bed, sure the next day he would have to study however that was but an excuse to speak freely.

"So… What do you believe Dumbledore will do to force the child to go to Hogwarts ?"

"I don't know Thomas… if we are to believe the books in the school's library, Hogwarts really was the best before Dumbledore became the Headmaster… I mean, forbidding ritual magic while pretending it's too dangerous and should be banned ? This is clearly an attack on the pure-bloods and not a subtle one."

"Well, you can't fault him for trying. After all, muggle born like us don't know anything about the wizarding world when we entered it, which was supposed to be the objective of muggle studies and why it was inside the main curriculum before the War against Grindelwald : explaining how the world of wizard works to muggle born."

"Wait… you mean that Hogwarts does not teach how the wizarding world works !?"

"Indeed, it does not."

"C'est de la folie pure ! It is simply utter foolishness and more than dangerous to do that ! This is what causes most pure-bloods to go back to the darkest of arts !"

"Tainted magic is not a Dark Art, there are no Dark arts dear."

"Tainted magic is what prevents us from curing half of the ailment of our world, it is Dark because we know next to nothing about them and you know it ! Merlin's beard, you are a Thaumaturge, a magical engineer !"

"Dear, please, no swearing."

Elyse glared at her husband while Thomas was clearly amused, he did not change. While he gained more and more knowledge about rituals, divination, alchemy and runes, he is still the childish individual that looks upon anything new or unknown as an enigma to solve. She sighed before continuing.

"Anyway, he should go to Beauxbaton. By Morgana, Durmstrang would be better in his case, despite him being a 'half-blood' by today's standard."

"Language. Durmstrang… no that is a bad idea, there are still too many followers of the ideas of Grindelwald there and this is without even mentioning Voldemort. So either Beauxbaton or Hogwarts, if he chooses Hogwarts I'll use my contacts to become a teacher there and I'll do everything I can to twist Dumbledore's arm to restore the glory of Hogwarts. I mean, if more than two thirds of the classrooms are not in use then it means there is an issue."

Elyse looked flabbergasted by Thomas's information, how could the best world in Europe and thus of the world during that era, could fall that low ? It was almost as if someone wanted to put the muggle born under a heavy veil that would severely limit their ability to be useful to the wizarding world.

Thomas sighed before getting up, he had to prepare to write letters and influence Hogwarts starting now. Before he had no hope as he was simply a young graduate without a network, but now he traveled the world and made many friends in many places and he was a worldwide recognized Thaumaturge, it was time for him to act so that his adopted son would have a good instruction and that he would be able to face the many dangers of the world.

"Sorry dear, but tonight will be a long night, we will have to speak with Harry to make sure of where he wants to go and as such I'll have to prepare for the worst."

"I just thought about it, why not Ilvermorny ?"

"Because they are controlled by the MaCUSA who is a cesspool of paranoïd imbeciles that are stifling the muggles and the first generation wizards' growth because they were tracked and killed by the muggles after they abused their power to dominate them. I will not send Harry to a place that is clearly a brainwashing factory for the supremacy of magic and its secrecy."

"That was a rant if I've ever heard one… and the African school ?"

"They believe foci are crutches. Needless to say that I could wipe the floor with them all at the same time like they are simply wet towels. It's like they are allergic to magical progress, either that or they are too mentaly slow to understand what it means to use a focus… Probably the latter as they use hand signs, meaning a somatic focus, to cast their spells and like that they barely achieve their objectives.

I mean, sure they did magic, good for them, do you know what they can't do though ? Cover an entire town with a ward with simply the act of putting a staff at its center for twenty five seconds. Forget a town they are unable to do that for a single individual that has to protect himself against a spell casted through a focus."

"So… you leave Beauxbaton, Durmstrand and Hogwarts… why not the smaller schools ?"

"the Britannic Isles don't have them and it would be suspicious to go there, it would expose the fact that we don't want Dumbledore meddling with the life of Harry. I know, then we should send him to Hogwarts, but it should be his choice in the end, he is smart we will have to explain everything to him and let him choose."

Elyse and Thomas sighed, it was hard to educate a child they know will have to fight a dark wizard after barely leaving school, even Aurors train for five to ten years before leaving the status of cadet and beginning to track down criminal wizards, and Harry would have to go head to head with the second most dangerous man of the century. It was madness and worse than that was the fact that he knew Dumbledore had his responsibility in that, he just lacked the evidence.

While he went to his office on the third floor, his wife went to the kitchen to wash the dishes. She rarely does so because she can use magic to do it, but still did sometime as it helped her think about what was happening in her life. He got in his office which had every wall covered by bookshelves, filled to the brim with books of history, magical theory, medical theory and other subjects that could be useful to have at hand in an investigation. There also was an enchanted cabinet that had every file of the wizarding branch of the family of which he was the first member.

He went to the center of the room to his Victorian era desk, a legacy from his muggle family, and he began writing letters to his different friends on the governor board of Hogwarts, He would become a teacher of Hogwarts before Harry goes there and even if Harry don't go there it would at least begin to correct the decisions of Dumbledore.

Thomas sent letters to the governor board about four subjects, one letter for each subject : first the restoration of muggle studies as a core subject and the correction of the subject so that instead of studying muggle it would teach muggle born how the wizarding world works, he suggested in that letter to rename the current muggle studies as muggle's society study and update it.

Then he wrote a letter about the absence of duel training, the wizarding world is not kind and if you don't learn to cast spells in a fight, even if said fight is controlled, then you'll end up dead before being able to say magic.

The next letter was about the need of teaching the practical side of runes and its application to alchemy that should also be a subject taught in school, while admitting to the fact that the lack of general students may also lead to a lack of students that take it as an elective.

Afterward he wrote about the need to correct the Divination elective that was going downhill fast, as the art of divining has rules and they are not taught by Sybill Patricia Trelawney and the fact that she is a true seer does not mean she is competent to teach the subject.

Finally he wrote about the subject of ritual magic that should be learned at Hogwarts as every single family has rituals and they have to be taught to muggle born to avoid horrible mistakes and creation of new creatures like Chimaeras, Sphinx or Manticores that were either horrible fusions of wizards and creatures or alteration of creatures when testing a ritual.

Afterward he began studying the curse of the Defense Against the Dark Art teaching role, see if it was real or not, and if it was, when did it happen, whom may have casting it, why was it casted, how was it casted, how is it still in effect and finally how can we remove it.This was another problem entirely and one that should be studied at the earliest time possible as if it is a natural event and not one born out of spite of someone, the curse could very well spread.

So, to start he went through the public records of when the curse was claimed to begin. around 1965. No student was noted to bear a grudge against the teacher of then, nor were the teachers, the only detail of note was that the teacher wanted to retire and two were veering for the post, the detail of note was that Tom Marvolo Riddle was rejected for the second time then.

The first time was by Armando Dippet and was two to three years after his school years, he was rejected for being too young. The second was by Albus Dumbledore, the detail noted was that he was tainted by Dark magic… which could only mean that he had done something that Dumbledore judged as too Dark even for a teacher of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Thomas looked at a sealed box that was heavily enchanted and warded on his desk, the box was made out of zinc with an inner lining of lead. Thomas had made that box to house a gem made out of a crystalized song of a phoenix that was used to prevent Harry from becoming an Horcrux and thus making him a simple soul vessel. The crystal was thus housing and purifying a shard of the soul of Voldemort.

Thomas had suspicions that Voldemort and Tom Riddle were one and the same before, one wizard cannot simply disappear without any traces, especially not one as talented as Tom Riddle. Now that all but confirmed his suspicions as he could not see any other arts that would cause Dumbledore to refuse someone, it was his proverbial line in the sand : soul magic.

"Yup… that checks out, if Voldemort almost made a child a Horcrux involuntarily, that can only mean he did so too many times in too short of a time frame that it made his soul unstable. It is even speculated in the book that explains their creation, which is why nobody dared to make too many as we can't know how many is too many. As such, he probably already had some at the time."

He sighed, there was a motive, there was a way and he had the opportunity, now the question is : did it happen ? Because, every instance of depiction of either Tom Marvolo Riddle or Voldemort were speaking of someone proud to the point of arrogance. Talented, brilliant but all that power went right to the inflation of his head. The only part upon which he clearly did not do things by half was his contingency against death.

Thomas began his research on every other teacher of Defense Against the Dark Arts, which led to quite the interesting elements. There was evidently no jinx or curse as there was not a single teacher that had issues during their time nor did they have some now for those that lived through the war. The funny part is that most of them were muggle born who were hunted by the Death Eaters, while the others simply left the country during the war against Voldemort.

It was like the Bermuda triangle which was believed to be dangerous for ships, but when put back into perspective, any part of the ocean as large as it is would have that many ship sunk in it, and it was the same here : of course most teacher that teaches the art of fighting against dark wizards would be targeted by the most active one of the time, especially when said wizard is openly at war and that this war is recognized by the authorities, and even more so when the teacher is already a target before being a teacher. For the recent times, the reason is that Death Eater, while being hunted and less active, still are active and Hogwarts is still the only school in Great Britain and Ireland, so that painted a massive target on the teacher of Defense Against the Dark Art.

Thomas blinked multiple times while reading his conclusions for the fourth time. When written down and said out loud it seemed obvious and yet people believe otherwise, it was mind boggling what irrationality could cause. A self-fulfilling jinx ready to appear, a natural curse that needed to be avoided. Thankfully the different books that describe the history and magics of Hogwarts specify that there exists a ward specifically to avoid natural curses, and Thomas being the diligent scientist that he is, decided to search for said ward to know if it exists or not.

Thomas looked at his pocket watch and saw that it was two in the morning, he then put down his goggles of quick reading and decided that it was time to go to bed. His research materials would not go anywhere and he still had time before his job, the one of teacher of Rituals, would be back once more at Hogwarts.