Chapter 133: Effing Politics

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Hogwarts Castle, Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands

January 1743

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"Now, old friend, please report to us what is happening in the castle."

Erik asked the Baron's ghost and he did his report. After the signing of the treaty that obliged all magical to hide magic from the normal population and the formation of the Ministry for Magic in England the old noble families divided themselves into factions inside the newly created Wizengamot accordingly to their ideologies. Three factions were created. The dark faction, who believed in the superiority of the wizards and witches, and that they should rule the 'mundane' because of that, which was bulshit in Erik's opinion since a normal human could get much stronger than a wizard with enough effort. And, with the kind of powers that existed in the World, saying that wizards were superior was the same as running around while holding a knife. The white faction, who wanted peace and to protect magic by hiding it away from the 'mundanes'. Hypocrites in Erik's opinion, since they were as bigoted as the dark faction in their ideals. And the grey faction, who was formed mostly by neutral houses that only wanted to profit. They were the kind of people that would only join a side in a fight when they were certain that it was the winning side.

Since the creation of the Wizengamot together with the Ministry for Magic, these three factions were fighting for supremacy so they could pass their own laws that would certainly favor them. That was a normal thing in any ruling body but the problem was that their fight had extended to outside the walls of the Wizengamot. Sabotage, blackmail, assassinations, etc. Each faction had employed their own means to get their hands on power and some small families were even wiped out entirely during the span of one night. The situation was bad and it didn't take long for their fights to reach the walls of Hogwarts.

It all had begun when the professor of history for magic decided to retire next year. The faction saw in that an opportunity to put their own people inside the school. Their objective was to 'mold' the students' opinions to their liking while they were still in school. The fight for the position was a thought one. All three sides sent their own candidates for the interviews and, in accord with the Baron's ghost's words, the side that sabotaged more their rivals won the office. After that, a lot of money traded hands between the staff and the new teacher, who belonged to the dark faction and was the guy that Erik had just 'disarmed', and he managed to get hold of a lot of sway inside the castle, being appointed as a Head of House, a position that usually went to the more senior staff members, while being a greenhorn. As soon as he got the position, he began to show favoritism to the children from families of his allies while giving random detentions and prejudicing to the children from families of his rivals. Things were still civilized at least but that changed after the last Yule break. After getting home for the break, the children complained with their parents and families about what was happening at school, and to say that they were not happy about it was an understatement. The families were furious and started to go low in their 'sabotages' by involving the children in it too. It was then that random assaults started to happen on the corridors. Some of them could be considered harmless pranks, while others could very well pass as attempt murders. And the staff was lost on what to do about it. Their headmaster, together with his deputy got mysteriously sick and were isolated inside their chambers, leaving the school's command in the hands of the Head of Houses, two of which were in cahoots with the newly appointed teacher and Head of House.

When the baron finished his 'report', to say that Erik and Selena were angry was another understatement. The Ravenclaw couple were furious. The first thing that they did was to reconfigure the wards of the castle. From now on, spells were prohibited on the corridors without a very good excuse. It was just a quick patch to the problems of the assault before Erik could develop a better solution. While Erik was doing his job with the wards, Selena was interviewing the staff. The interesting thing about the job contract signed by every staff member was that it prohibited them from lying to their bosses when ordered to tell the truth, meaning that they could not lie their way out of this mess. When Erik was back from the Heart Stone Room, Selena had already ordered half of the staff to pack their belongings for their participation in these schemes. The massive lay out of the school's staff would certainly affect classes, but it was something that had to be done.

The couple's next step was to write a public letter to all wizards and witches that had children inside the castle since newspapers were not something that was already in circulation. In it, they identified themselves and asked forgiveness for their late action on the happenings inside the school but they had a politic of only interventing when no more options were left for the current staff. To say that everyone was shocked that the Ravenclaws were still alive and were well was yet another understatement. After all, the founder's family of the magic school was not been seen since the last time that a Dark Lord had tried to 'conquer' Hogwarts and everyone imagined that they had died out while leaving the school without an owner. In this letter, they too had listed the names of everyone who were responsible for the problems inside the school. This move turned the normal public, who were not part of any faction, against the three factions as a whole since they all were responsible for prejudicing the education of their children. But since they could do virtually nothing inside the governing body, they did what they could outside it. The business from the families who were part of the problem suffered huge losses due to a conjunct boycott. In some businesses where the goodies were of high turnover, they had to close the doors since they lost all their tock due to it going bad since in most cases stasis charms could not be cast.

It was then that the three factions 'united' and tried to pass a law that made the magic school of Hogwarts a public property that would be controlled by the government. Erik and Selena were not happy about that and things ended with Erik having to remember the Wizengamot why he was compared to Merlin when he was still the acting Headmaster of Hogwarts. Three honor duels later and three families had three Heads without their heads. Erik was using some of their archaic law against them.

The duels were a very public demonstration of power where Erik stood in his place while his opponents hurled spells after spells at him with all of them just impacting his shields harmlessly. Two of the three opponents had been finished by Erik with a simple chopping curse to the neck cast by a wave of his hand, which was a stronger version of the cutting curse. The last opponent, who was the Head of the House which the young master, the man who started all this mess, belonged was utterly humiliated by Erik inside the duel's arena. Everything that the man sent at Erik was batted away by Erik's bare hands, which were not really 'bare' since he had a magic barrier enveloping it, with some of the curses being reflected to its casters.

When the man saw no hope in his efforts, he started to cast darker and darker curses with no avail, as Erik batted away every single one of them. It was then that he made the mistake of casting the killing curse at Erik. The green ball of light was yet to be considered an Unforgivable, but its use was heavily frowned upon due to the circumstances that were needed for the caster to cast it and because it gave its victim no chance to defend. When Erik saw the green ball of death coming his way he simply sidestep it, letting it harmlessly pass by him and splash on the arena's walls. But his response was instant. Erik summoned to his hands his Lord Ravenclaw's dagger, which he had asked to be made by goblins when he was still a Headmaster of Hogwarts, and got close and personal with the 'offender' by plunging it in the middle of the man's chest. No words were necessary to be said while doing this since the glare that he was giving the man already said everything that he could say at that moment.

After the duels were done, Erik addressed every viewer with a passionate speech. In it, he remembered the wizards and witches of England exactly why Hogwarts was founded: to offer children a safe environment to learn magic without the intervention of things happening in the world. And that was exactly what the three factions had done, they involved the children, their children, the future of their houses, in their political squabbles. They were doing exactly what their forefathers had fought against since before the founding times of Hogwarts. Some 'smart' people tried to argue with Erik that it was 'x' person's fault but Erik shut him up by pointing out that instead, at the moment that they retaliated in the same way, they had lowered themselves to the same level, meaning that they were no more different than their rivals and just had different names. Erik finished his speech with a warning.

"I don't care if you end killing each other during your petty squabbles for meaningless power. But the moment that any of you, or the next generations, try to mess with Hogwarts, will be the moment that your entire family will enter the school's blacklist. That is after I have gone through the perpetrator first."

Erik said clearly and as a shown that he was serious about it, he let go of any constraints that he had when holding down his magic energy. The entire place was inundated with Erik's thick magic energy. It was just for ten seconds, but it was the longest ten seconds of those people's lives.

It had taken the rest of the school year for Erik and Selena to restructure the school. Erik added new wards to the already existing system while Selena interviewed new teachers for the posts that were missing people. All of that while teaching some of the classes that were missing teachers. Good thing that Erik still had favors to call inside the wizarding world and managed to get some substitutes to help while the post was being filled. It was during this time that Hogwarts had the famous Flamel couple as teachers for three months. Nicholas and Perenelle were eager to help their friends with Hogwarts, just like they had helped them when Beauxbatons was in need.

When the couple left the school to its own, one year after the summon, Hogwarts was again working like a well-oiled machine with new countermeasures in place that included, and were not exclusive to, the revamped ward system that counted with a lot more new wards. Erik knew internally that fate would make a way to mess things up again just because some things had to happen in one way or another.

Yes, fate was a bitch sometimes.

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