I, Hogwarts Second Time Around.

Chapter 322 The Trial, but the trial is of the Ministry of Magic.

Dumbledore!

The greatest wizard in the world.

However, little is known about his past.

Aside from the information on the Chocolate Frog picture card, the young wizard knew very little about the headmaster.

Of course. Harry was certain that Owen knew a great deal.

Because it was he who revealed the complicated relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald.

He later wanted to write a biography of the principal.

The title is already decided: "The Enchanted Beauty – The Legendary Wizard Dumbledore and His Rumored Lover"

However, after Dumbledore confiscated the manuscript of this book, nothing more was heard of it.

Irving has been indignant about this matter.

He said that the principal felt he had reversed the dominant-submissive relationship in the book.

But Irving kept emphasizing that an offensive player would wear all purple, knit sweaters, love lemon-flavored drinks, and blink.

In short, the young wizard was quite curious about Dumbledore's past.

Today I was able to glimpse the principal's memories.

Wow!

It's so exciting just thinking about it!

"It should be." Ron pointed to a familiar face not far away.

That was Albus Dumbledore. And Moody was beside him.

At this point, the old headmaster was almost no different from Dumbledore today.

The same gray beard and gray hair.

Harry followed Ron's gaze.

A slight sense of disappointment welled up inside me.

It seems this is one of the principal's most recent memories!

Seriously—why not the Godric Valley section from seventy years ago!

They just wanted to see Dumbledore when he was young, cough cough—the kind of thing that can't be written about.

In contrast, Harry wore his disappointment on his face.

Ron, on the other hand, was in high spirits.

The wizards passing by simply walked through their bodies, as if they were ghosts; it was truly amazing.

It felt as if I had been detached from this world, watching everything that was happening from the perspective of an absolute bystander.

This is a rare experience.

Also—he is not a member of Grindelwald's fan club!

As a pure-blood wizard, his upbringing instilled in him a lack of affection for the legendary first-generation dark wizards.

Only wizards like Harry, Hermione, and Justin, who live in the Muggle world, would admire and yearn for Grindelwald, the once-powerful superstar who dominated Europe and fought against three continents!

They even set up a fan club or something.

This was something Ron couldn't understand or accept.

The three then arrived together in the world of memories, next to Professor Dumbledore.

"Hey! This is really fun!" Ron raised his hand and waved it in front of Dumbledore—no, inside his head—his hand passing right through the old headmaster's face. "I wouldn't dare do this outside!"

"Um?"

He was playing when suddenly a chill ran down his spine from behind.

Ron stiffly turned his head away, and then saw Hermione glaring at him.

That expression—he'd seen it often on Professor McGonagall's face.

He immediately withdrew his hand.

"Just—let's try it out!" He smiled awkwardly, then stood obediently to the side, saying nothing more.

Hermione didn't speak; she turned and followed Dumbledore's gaze to the historical events unfolding in the courtroom.

The door at the corner of the dungeon opened, and three people walked in.

More precisely, at least one of them was a human being, being held hostage by two Dementors.

Even in their memories, seeing those two Dementors brought back some unpleasant recollections.

In fact, it's not just them.

In the courtroom, everyone except Dumbledore was more or less affected, their faces showing fear.

Watching the two Dementors, two monsters with their faces hidden by hoods, slowly walk towards the central armchair, their deadly hands gripping the arm of a criminal who looked like he was about to faint.

They locked him in a chained chair and then left the room.

Harry could feel that the moment the Dementors left the room, the people in the room came back to life as if they had been pulled out of the water.

Then, the armchair, its handles seemingly coming to life, or like metal vines, bound the criminal's limbs.

"That's Karkaroff!" Harry recognized the panicked man at a glance.

When Irving was showing off to him that his grandmother was the principal of Durmstrang, he had compared this man to him.

What a disgrace to the principal, a complete waste, a former Death Eater who led Durmstrang to reverse its course, a benefactor of other magic schools in the world (because of him, other schools rose in the rankings), and so on.

In any case, none of them were kind words.

He even found a newsletter from the Daily Prophet from over a decade ago, which included a photo of Karkarov when he was imprisoned.

That photo was originally intended by Irving to humiliate Durmstrang's young wizard—"Your headmaster is a prisoner."

Unfortunately, it was ultimately useless—before, he was afraid of being beaten by his maternal grandfather, and now he's afraid of being beaten by his maternal grandmother. Sob sob, he's so pitiful.

"Karkaroff? That traitor among the dark wizards, a complete waste, a former Death Eater who led Durmstrang toward reverse progress, and a benefactor of magic schools in other worlds?" Ron opened his mouth and the title belonging to that guy just slipped out.

A hint of disdain flashed in his eyes.

After comparing the photos with those in my memory, I recognized the person in front of me.

"Yes." Harry nodded. "Owen said he might be dead in some unknown corner. Voldemort is back, and he certainly won't let this traitor get away with it."

"That's true," Ron said, and then the sound of gavel striking the bench echoed.

"Quiet!!!" Mr. Crouch, who was sitting in the middle of the judge's bench, stood up.

"Igor Karkarov," he announced loudly.

His serious face carried an extremely imposing air of authority.

This should have been the most glorious period of his life.

Harry guessed.

Karkaroff's appearance immediately revealed to him when this memory occurred.

It must have been shortly after Voldemort's defeat and death.

As for Crouch's life story, the Daily Prophet had already reported on it in detail last year when he took over as Minister of Magic.

He knew, of course, that Crouch's tough stance against dark wizards had won him popular support during the recent war, and everything was moving in a positive direction; the position of Minister of Magic was beckoning him.

No one expected that a sudden turn of events would severely damage his career!

"Karkaroff, you were brought out of Azkaban to testify before the Ministry of Magic," Crouch said sternly, waving his hand. "You told us you had important information to report to us."

Upon hearing this, Karkarov straightened up as much as possible, even though this would tighten the bonds around his body.

"Yes, sir," he said, though his voice was filled with fear, his familiar, slick tone still ringing in the ears. "I am willing to serve the Ministry of Magic. I know that the Ministry is hunting down the Dark Lord's remaining followers, and I am willing to do everything in my power to assist you."

He gave a fawning, silly grin, looking utterly ridiculous with his disheveled appearance.

Like a clown.

A murmur rippled through the room. Some wizards eyed Karkaroff with interest, while others looked at him with obvious distrust.

Harry and his two friends even heard a wizard behind them curse aloud, "Damn scum!"

Dumbledore did not give a clear response to Karkaroff's statement; he remained expressionless.

Mad-Eye Moody, sitting on his other side, had a different expression, one of intense disgust.

Of course, at this time, Moody did not have so many scars on his face, and both of his eyes were normal.

It seems the battle that would cost him an eye has yet to occur.

"Crouch is going to let him go," Moody whispered to Dumbledore. "They made a deal. It took me six months to catch him, and now Crouch will let him go if he can give up another name."

A dismissive snort escaped his nose. "If you ask me, why not just shove some truth serum into his mouth, get the truth out of him, and then throw him back to Azkaban!"

"What he did was enough for the Dementors to give him the kiss of death."

Hearing Moody's words, Harry and Ron, who were standing to the side, immediately nodded in deep agreement.

In their view, Moody's proposed solutions were all too friendly.

Why waste truth serum?

If it were Irving, he would definitely use Legilimency and then mercifully give him a green light.

However—Harry noticed that Hermione, like Dumbledore, had a momentary change in expression after Moody mentioned Dementors.

"Oh, I forgot, you don't like Dementors, do you, Albus?" Moody asked with a mocking smile.

"Yes," Dumbledore said calmly, "I don't like it. I've always felt it's a mistake for the Ministry of Magic to associate with these monsters. We'll suffer sooner or later for letting those monsters guard the dark wizards. Besides, it's inhumane, even if..."

Harry knew that Hermione thought the same way.

However, she did agree with the death penalty for dark wizards, but the Dementor's Kiss was too cruel in its method of execution.

It is said that when the soul is extracted, a person will recall the screams of the people they killed in their lifetime.

Compared to the others, the Killing Curse is more benign.

"This scum," Moody said with disgust. "Don't you know this guy? He has several pure-blooded Nordic families backing him. Although they don't explicitly support the Mystic, what they do behind the scenes is even more ruthless than some Death Eaters."

The International Wizarding Federation is tightly controlled by Rozier. They let those families grow powerful and then profit from it. I really don't understand, is your position as president just a figurehead?

"You know I have no interest in power. I was chosen by them, which was not my choice," Dumbledore said calmly.

“But if you don’t do anything about it, they become aggressive, I…” Moody wanted to say something more, but Crouch had already struck the gavel.

He looked around, his gaze lingering briefly on Dumbledore.

"Kakarov, you said you know some people's names." After a moment, he looked away. "Now, tell us about them."

"You must know," Karkaroff said urgently, "that mysterious man always acts in a very secretive manner. He wants us, I mean his cronies, and I deeply regret ever associating with them."

"Stop talking nonsense," Moody said sarcastically, raising his voice.

"We never knew the names of all our accomplices; only he knew who we were."

"That was a wise move, wasn't it, Karkaroff? It prevents people like you from betraying them all," Moody sneered.

"Didn't you say you knew some people's names?" Mr. Crouch said, somewhat annoyed. He ignored Moody's sarcasm and continued to look at Karkaroff.

He knew perfectly well that this guy wasn't worried about revealing those names and attracting Voldemort's followers to ambush him; he was bargaining with him, wanting more than just freedom!

What a greedy guy!

After understanding all this, Mr. Crouch's gaze became filled with disgust.

He was able to kick Karkarov out of Azkaban just to get a few names out of him and expand his prestige.

The current situation is that since Milison Bagnor publicly declared that she would defend the right of British wizards to indulge in pleasure, her career has been questioned by the Magical Union.

The story goes back to the night of October 31, 1981, when Voldemort "died" in Godric's Hollow. The next day, wizards all over Britain were celebrating the victory in the war, which naturally led to many violations of the International Law on Secrecy.

What can Minister Millison Bagno do about these celebrating wizards? Have the Aurors arrest them all?

Unless she wants to be kicked out of the Ministry of Magic the very next day.

She could only defend the illegal acts on behalf of all British wizards, which in turn drew condemnation and questioning from the International Federation of Wizards.

In the past few months, Milison Bagno has been scrambling to deal with these illegal issues, while his prestige among the people has temporarily reached a peak because the Aurors won the right to use Unforgivable Curses on Death Eaters during the war.

Everyone knew that he would be the next Minister for Magic; it was a foregone conclusion.

Now all he needs is to take one more step forward!

A fiery glint flashed in Crouch's eyes.

He could already see a throne beckoning to him.

"Blinded by power, no wonder they failed in the end," Miss Granger suddenly said after being silent.

She and Owen would often discuss matters concerning the Ministry of Magic.

He seemed to really enjoy telling her about power and what lies behind it.

It was as if she could actually become the Minister of Magic.

They had discussed Barty Crouch's failures.

Her views at the time were the same as those of the general public and those reported in The Daily Prophet.

Crouch, known for his opposition to Death Eaters, had a son who was one, leading to a huge crisis of public trust in him. Furthermore, his cruel act of sending his son to Azkaban further cemented his image as an extremely ruthless figure.

This led to his loss of the position of Minister of Magic.

But Irving told her another reason.

A deeper reason.

Ultimately, there's only one decisive factor that led Barty Crouch to lose his chance to become Minister for Magic: the war ended.

The reason he was able to regain his high position after Fudge's death was simply the same—the war had started again!

Yes—Barty Crouch Jr. being a Death Eater was merely the trigger for public backlash.

It does not have a decisive impact on the outcome of things.

Because the public's thoughts are like the Black Lake at Hogwarts.

Sometimes the sea is calm, but sometimes undercurrents are surging.

The end of the war was the direct cause of the decline in Barty Krach's prestige.

Anyone with a basic understanding of history knows that Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during World War II, also lost the election because the war ended.

The reason is very simple.

During wartime, people can tolerate harsh foreign policies and endless interrogations and questioning, but once the war ends, these become a burden.

Barty Crouch's failure to properly adjust his governing style led to his defeat.

Imagine—if the war had continued, even if he had sent his own son to Azkaban, people would have thought he was just and incorruptible, putting the greater good before family.

His son's affair will not diminish his prestige among the people; on the contrary, it will greatly enhance it.

They would think that a Minister of Magic who could send his own son, a Death Eater, to Azkaban, would surely lead the British magical community to defeat the dark wizards and give those executioners a fair trial!

The real reason that led to Barty Crouch's exclusion was...

It is institutional.

This is caused by the chaotic functional relationships and unequal power distribution among the various departments of the Ministry of Magic.

The reason for this is that the wizards did not establish a complete set of power institutions for governance according to law, but simply assembled a management team to violently maintain the "Secrecy Law".

From a Muggle's perspective, the Ministry of Magic has all sorts of imperfections, irrationalities, and even absurdities.

But in reality, it's because we have a preconceived notion that the Ministry of Magic is an institution similar to the Muggle government, a quasi-governmental department that leads wizards to prosperity.

However, after carefully studying the seven departments under the Ministry of Magic, namely the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the Department of Magical Accidents and Disasters, the Department of Magical Creatures Management and Control, the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the Department of Magical Transportation, the Department of Magical Sports, and the Department of Mysteries.

You will easily see that the Ministry of Magic is an institution that exists under the Act of Secrecy, and its focus is entirely on how to build a stable world and how to hide the magical world and various magical creatures from Muggles.

It neither promotes the development of wizarding magic nor reforms the wizarding economy. It is not even responsible for national defense; Aurors are not an army.

It was Gellert Grindelwald who truly established the first wizarding army.

This is why resisting the Secrets Act would inevitably be opposed by the Ministry of Magic worldwide.

They exist precisely because of the Secrecy Law.

Without the "Secrecy Law," they would have no reason to exist.

This is why Irving is so hostile to the Secret Service Act.

Because if Miss Granger were to take office and reform the Ministry of Magic, she would be completely destroying this simple team that originally existed to uphold the Act of Secrecy.

She wanted to formally grant the Ministry of Magic functions similar to those of a Muggle government, with its primary aim being the interests of all British wizards and improving their living standards.

She should create a brand new magical world, instead of continuing to adhere to the old wizarding ways.

(End of this chapter)