In Hogsmeade, the fire in the public fireplace spun around as Felix appeared, and patted the dust off his body. The sky looked grey-orange, with a red evening sun faintly visible through the clouds.
The ground was covered with a thick layer of snow that crunched as Felix made his way through, the wizards that were returning home for the night greeted him. A skinny old wizard stopped to talk to him for a while, to discuss whether there is a lack of guts in wizards these days, before realizing that he had approached the wrong person and that his friend had gone home early for dinner because he couldn't bear his yapping anymore.
Madam Rosmerta of the Three Broomsticks was posting a discount poster, "Mr. Hap, why are you out so late, would you like to come in for a drink?"
"Oh, no, got something to take care of ..."
"Are you going to visit your branch outlet? I bought a chair to lie back in for a while before my shift every night."
Felix made the turn to enter a side street, the light dimmed, the street is near the shrieking shack, so not many people would walk near this place, he stopped where he was and traced his fingers on a coin, and after a moment the sound of bouncing footsteps appeared from behind him.
"Mr. Hap."
Bondi the house-elf jumped out and gave him a bow, his nose brushed the snow on the ground as he straightened up. He then pulled a crumpled letter from his person and respectfully handed it to Felix.
Felix took it and asked, in a seemingly casual tone, " Bondi, who is your master?"
The house elf's body stiffened for a moment, and he bowed his head and said, " Bondi was offered to Mr. Grindelwald by his master to look after his daily life."
Was it by a certain faithful acolyte?
"When did this happen?"
"Two years before."
Felix glanced at him, "Mr. Grindelwald is in poor health?"
Bondi took a deep breath and said pointedly, " The winter is heavy in Nurmengard Castle."
"And his magic?"
"Mr. Grindelwald has not been allowed to cast spells since 1945."
Certain magic is possible, Felix thought. He had seen Bondi on October 27, and it was clear that there was another man's will attached in his mind. There must have been some restriction placed on Grindelwald after the failure - not just a confiscation of a wand, which is not necessarily that much of a problem for wizards like Grindelwald - so there must be other harsher restrictions.
An Unbreakable Vow, for example.
The history is rather vague and not clearly documented, as if everyone had coincidentally and deliberately forgotten about this hidden problem, leading to the obvious holes that people like him would always find when they try to interpret it from the perspective of a spectator.
Why did Grindelwald give up everything because of just a duel? Were all his tens of thousand followers a pretence? Even if only one-tenth of them were loyal, these people could knock any Ministry of Magic in the world out of existence.
Felix didn't continue with that line of questions, and asked Bondi about other things, "Do you usually live in Nurmengard Castle?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is it possible to keep owls there?"
"Wh, what?" Bondi looked up in astonishment.
"It's too much trouble to solely rely on you to deliver the mail; From this year, Hogwarts' protection magic will repel other house-elves, but it does not place any restrictions on owls." Felix explained that it would certainly be a lot easier to send mail through an owl, saving him from having to run out every time.
Bondi the house-elf bowed his head deeply, "Oh No, it's not possible, Nurmengard Castle is sealed off by a strong spell and no one can find it ... only the International Confederation of Wizards' dedicated officers have permission to open it."
Felix was slightly surprised, Grindelwald seemed to be much more restricted than he had previously thought.
He opened the letter, which was, as usual, not very long, and in summary, it stated that he had agreed to "discuss certain issues" with him. Other than that, it was nothing more than sarcastic remarks, such as "I have read all your books, and they are very shallow", "too passive and not as courageous as Carlotta Pinkstone" or, in an instructional tone, he advised Felix " Read up the history of magic from the 14th to the 17th centuries," and so on.
At the end of the letter, he also requested some parchment, ink, and a quill.
"I've added a lot of snow to the ink bottle to write this letter. Also, those blokes will check Bondi's mind every two to three months, so you have to sort out that problem."
Felix looked at the faint ink marks and smiled broadly, he had managed to catch some inconsistencies in the letter, but he wouldn't assume Grindelwald had gone senile without a proper check-up.
Grindelwald claimed that he had read his books, so who had given them to him?
To put it politely, Felix had never mentioned his plans or expectations for the wizarding world in his book, so to some people, he is just a pro-muggle and muggle sympathizer; or, an opportunistic businessman, grabbing wealth by carrying novel ideas from muggle society. But the truly insightful person - like Dumbledore, or Grindelwald - can perfectly see his unfinished meanings reflected in those books. That is:
Felix Hap believes that the fusion of wizards and muggles is inevitable, but he is a non-aggressive mild-mannered person - or at least pretends to be so - who tries to subtly influence wizards to accept the idea and prepare them in advance.
If he showed this theory to ordinary wizards, they would probably frown at it. They are used to the existence of the Statute of Secrecy, so telling these people that the Statute of Secrecy will eventually be broken would be like telling muggles that they all would eventually walk around naked in the freezing temperature.
As for bringing his views to the radicals, they likewise would dismiss it, probably because they would find his views too soft and not sufficiently sharp and straightforward. Take, the witch Carlotta Pinkstone mentioned in the letter, as an example, she is a social campaigner, born in 1922, famous for advocating the repeal of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, and has already been imprisoned several times for the blatant and deliberate use of magic in public.
Incidentally, she is about to be released from prison next year and is expected to make another splash when she does.
Grindelwald was also a radical, but again he was different because he was a failure. Taking Felix's book to him is akin to telling Grindelwald that there is a similar but more moderate ideology like yours out there that has achieved some success, and here's the book for you to check out ...
Felix could easily discern a strong preaching flavour in this kind of approach.
He guessed that the man was Dumbledore.
If it really was Dumbledore, then the restrictions imposed by the International Confederation of Wizards would pose no trouble at all, as there are multiple ways for him to get around the restrictions of Nurmengard Castle, and the easiest one is to send a mail through Phoenix Fawkes.
Felix gave Bondi some stationery as for how it would bypass the inspection ... Felix didn't take the bait, the fact that Grindelwald could even attach himself to Bondi and watch the battle at least meant he could use some memory magic, so he figured he might be testing him.
But Felix isn't going to take the bait.
...
Over the next few days, Felix spent some time brushing through the 14th to 17th-century history. The Hogwarts library provided a wealth of information, including magical handwritten journals, travel journals from that period, and in particular, he found several books in the Restricted Section from that period - that has no curses placed on them, and merely a historical record, the sort of book that he would not normally read.
Felix read them all to the hilt with a heavy heart.
All the historical records in Restricted Section are more real, with more gory truths.
The letters he had started to receive during this time began to pile up as well, with all sorts of invitations to join raining down on him; Felix hadn't even known there were so many magical organizations before, with over thirty different alchemical and ancient runes societies alone.
There were also many letters from individuals, the most notable of which was from Jura Edmund of Ilvermorny, whose correspondence perfectly reflected the current mentality of young people in the United States magical community in his description, like.
"...
The performance of the MACUSA has been disappointing. The officials don't seem to realize the seriousness of the problem.
I spoke to some of the older people at the school, and they told me that in the 1960s there was a group of people who were attracting members under the guise of 'pure blood' and 'glory', however, there was no market for such concepts in America at the time - -Because under the standards of the British magical community, no one except the few families that had migrated here was qualified to advertise themselves as pure-bloods.
So that group didn't succeed in its objectives. I'm sure something similar may have happened in other countries, but because at that time people had just experienced the bitter lessons brought by Grindelwald, such ideas were strictly discouraged and instinctively rejected by people, to the point that no new cults developed.
Now almost another thirty years have passed, a new generation of wizards has grown up and new dissatisfactions are starting to build up, our biggest conflict is caused by the forced division between wizards and muggle society, which although has improved in the last two years, is still not as good as it should be. Sooner or later the false illusion of peace that we treasure so much will explode.
I was deeply affected by the death of Professor Agilbert Fontaine, a man who had sheltered me, but now he is no longer present.
So, Mr. Hap, I have departed from Ilvermorny.
I have decided to join the emergency squad that the Magic Congress is planning to form, which in my opinion is just for show, but I still decided to sign up. For now, I will remain active in my country, but there may be a chance for us to meet in England in the future.
I wish a smooth journey ahead of us."
Felix closed the letter, and after pondering for a while, he took out a parchment and wrote a reply.
"Dear Jura.
I see the hope of the next generation of the United States magical community in you. There are some problems that are difficult to deal with, which we will all encounter sooner or later, so it is impossible to turn a blind eye to them.
I have likewise thought deeply about the issues you mention in the letter and my thoughts are as follows.
You are faced with two problems, one because of the public upheaval, social unrest, and the potential threat of the Voldemort forces that stem from the death of Headmaster Fontaine, and the second is caused by the dissatisfaction that has erupted from this matter and the negative attitude that you, the Renovation Society and all other visionary people have towards the Magical Congress.
The former is an emergency and a major focus of everyone's attention at this time, while the latter is more distant and seemingly less urgent, but more tricky to deal with.
I couldn't agree more with your decision to join the Magical Congress, it will give you a realistic experience of the struggles and moral dilemmas faced by those in power, and if you can't be confident that you can do better than they can, the result will inevitably be negative and counterproductive, no less damaging than the devastation caused by the death of Headmaster Fontaine.
I also see that you have proposed some other solutions, such as working with Future World to replicate some of the proposals we made in our correspondence last year, but I must point out that you and I are not exactly in the same situation.
Almost three hundred years have passed since the Statute of Secrecy was created; in other words, no one alive today has ever seen what a completely non-secrecy situation would look like. The results of a rash change are bound to be both good and bad, and while people certainly will cheer for the opening of a door to a wonderful world, they will also inevitably be hurt by the thorns beyond it and thereby develop an aversion to it.
If one wanted to count the conflicts between wizards and ordinary people, they could never be summed up in a single sentence.
The Hogwarts collection contains a wealth of relevant documents and materials, starting with the witch hunts in the fourteenth century to the frosty relationship between the two in the years before the birth of the Statute of Secrecy in the seventeenth century.
During these three hundred years, wizards lived in near semi-public circles in the early days, and the best of them (or ambitious wizards) were often able to become guests of the royal nobility.
But the lower classes of wizarding families still led a double life, when public opinion was controlled by secularism and religion, when wizards and magic were still considered mysterious, cunning, and evil, when witch-hunting was considered legitimate, and when the idea of the elimination of heretics blossomed under the propaganda of some, thus creating a highly visible division between top and bottom; This period saw a concentration of thought-provoking cases, from good and dedicated wizards who were betrayed by the neighbours who they had helped, by the people who they had loved with all their existence; and from the bad and evil wizards who loved to experiment and slaughter others, and their widely spread tales of terror.
It was in this environment that the book "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" was created, where opposing views and ideologies collided violently.
If you ask me what my opinion is, I would say that any attempt to characterize a large group of people based on a handful of individuals is undoubtedly a bad idea. Especially if you have already chosen a side beforehand.
But it must be admitted that ordinary people far outnumbered wizards by a ratio of nearly 3,000 to 1. Because of this - even if only a small percentage of ordinary people had a more violent attitude towards wizards - the result would be disastrous.
Wizarding families back then were all particularly prone to losing their children, as the children were not able to control their magic and would frequently attract the attention of witch-hunting muggles, and were powerless to resist. We are accustomed to reading about mature, self-preserving wizards who saw pitchforks, hoes, and crosses as nothing, but the true history was not that rosy.
The newly formed British Ministry of Magic (formerly the Wizarding Council) had sent a special delegation to contact the Muggle monarchs, William III and Mary II, in the hope that Muggle law would recognize and protect wizards. When this attempt to gain official recognition and protection failed, it forced wizards to voluntarily move in the opposite direction - to go underground and keep their secrets.
Thus, the Statute of Secrecy was born.
This law effectively divided wizard society from muggle society and over time, some common ground was developed. For example: the fact that the parents of young wizards from Muggle families are excluded from this act of secrecy has certainly eased the conflict, especially compared to the harsh laws of the US Magical Congress.
As far as I know, the US magical community and the non-magical government have always been in a state of hostility, and there is no cooperation between the two, which is due to a dark, and bloody history, when a part of those in power had authorized attempts to crack the secrets of wizards, resulting in fierce confrontations and several moves of the headquarters of the Magical Congress of the United States of America.
These all needed to be taken into consideration in advance ..."
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