"So what's going to happen to them?"
"Probably going to get a slap on the wrist and fined. Rich kids, mostly, though if they're so rich, I can't tell why they can't just buy themselves clothes that actually fit ." Moody wrinkled his nose. "Not to mention take a bath every once in a while. I'm sure you'll get an earful from Belby and his friends tomorrow."
Dumbledore nodded as he processed that information. "Actually, I think they're pureblood children whose families are declining. A lot of the old families are slowly vanishing. The Cromwells are almost gone, I think, except for their daughter Lisbon. Most of them aren't doing that well anymore these days."
"That's what they get for frittering away their family fortunes without ever bothering to earn any of it back," Moody commented neutrally.
The headmaster of Hogwarts nodded in agreement. It was an unfortunate fact of life that those with money more often than not chose to frivolously spend it without regard for tomorrow. That rarely ended well, and most ended up with next to nothing. Sadly, these days, your name bought you nothing. Money, however, did . It had been the downfall of a lot of families, especially over the last hundred years or so. Many prominent old families had vanished into obscurity that way, enough that there was a growing fear among the remaining families that the same could happen to them.
"The usual going on, kids blaming the Muggleborn for all their misery and taking it out on those who support integrating Muggleborn into our world," Moody shrugged and took a bite of his dinner. "Excuse is flimsier than a Sarmanic peelskin, but they keep using it."
Leaning back in his chair, Dumbledore closed his eyes wearily. "I know. It saddens me to see that they make that choice so soon after leaving school. I was hoping we had taught them something, at least." It had happened often enough in the past few years that they referred to these incidents as "the usual," though it wasn't something that Dumbledore was proud of. Young witches and wizards, especially those from families that had been struck hard by the downturn of the last decade, had a tendency to go out and blame whoever was available to them. It was a fault in their education, the headmaster surmised, probably the inborn arrogance of their former station - since this particular ailment seemed an all-too common occurrence among purebloods especially - and the arrogance born of their powers.
"You're teaching them. They're choosing not to listen. Not your problem."
"I wish it was that easy, old friend." The last decade especially had been hard on the wizarding world. In fact, it had started even before the rise of Grindelwald. World War II had taken a much larger toll on the wizarding population that anyone would have thought possible. For all their centuries of stealth, all their magic wards and notice-me-not spells that enabled them to hide a wizarding town in the heart of London, their relative isolation had been their undoing. They had been ignorant of the events in the Muggle world, had not cared of what they had developed, what advancements they had made, so long as they were left alone.
And then Nazi Germany had declared war, and begun bombing England. London had been hit hard, but so had the rest of the countryside. And for all their magical protections, nothing could have saved them from the hundreds of bombs that rained from the sky. Even though they were invisible to Muggle eyes, wizarding towns and villages were struck and decimated, and they had had no defense against it. London had taken the worst of the bombing, and consequently, so had Diagon Alley, the Ministry, and the government complex. Almost the entire wizarding government and infrastructure had collapsed within days. And the wizarding world had been completely unprepared for such an occurrence.
Muggle weapons didn't care who was underneath, didn't care that there were charms and wards. Their bombs dropped and exploded, simple devices that they were. Bullets fired into seemingly empty air passed through the wards and struck wizards cowering behind invisibility charms. And when the war had finally been about to close, Russian tanks had rolled over the countryside, decimating entire villages without ever seeing them.
Amidst that panic and chaos, the dark wizard Grindelwald had made his bid for power, rallying Muggleborn and pureblood supporters around him with the promise to rebuild a better wizarding world, one more tolerant to Muggleborn and squibs, and magical creatures that were being cruelly suppressed at the time. And that war had cost even more lives. In the aftermath of that, with their population decimated, the wizarding world had had a much harder time rebuilding its economy and society. The Muggle world had the advantage of technology. War advanced technology, which drove their economy to new heights after the war, but the wizarding world didn't have that. In contrast, the wizarding world's economy was rather weak.
And it showed in the aftermath of the war. Even now, thirty years later, their economy still had not fully recovered, while most Muggle countries had advanced leaps and bounds beyond their pre-war state. Since much of the wizarding world's economy was based on the gold reserves of the old families and what Muggles would call the "service" sector, there wasn't much that could improve the current state of affairs. War and decades of spending had left their marks on even the deepest coffers, and now, there was an entire generation faced with knowing that their families had once been held in the highest regard, had been the richest of the rich… and they, themselves, had nothing.
And that was only part of the problem. Before the war, there had been many purebloods. Most rural settlements were entirely comprised of pureblood families, even. The war had decimated them, cut the wizarding world's population almost in half. They were in desperate need of new people, to replenish those they had lost, which had led to a large sudden influx of Muggleborn into their society. A lot of the older families had taken offense to that, while others argued that it was either accept them, or die out. Despite that, there had been put in place a great many laws that restricted the freedom of Muggleborn witches and wizards. Some were placed there out of fear, some out of contempt. Whichever had been the cause, the damage was the same. Many Muggleborn decided to leave behind the shackles imposed on them by the wizarding world and return to their own.
That sudden exodus had left the wizarding world doubly crippled once again. The careful balance between coming and leaving had been precarious at best, and many of the older families had taken this as a sign that Muggleborn were unreliable and could not be trusted to become a stable part of their society, something they had passed on to their children. The sentiment had only grown ever since the end of the war.
"Something interesting, though," Moody commented, jerking Dumbledore from his thoughts.
"Was there?"
"Yeah." Moody coughed and gulped down his ale. "The fight was broken up by a stranger before it could get too bad."
Albus Dumbledore wasn't a man who believed in coincidence, and ventured to take a vague guess. "I don't suppose it was some young fellow by the name of Ashworth?"
Moody arched a curious eyebrow. "Indeed. I talked to him at the scene."
"And?"
The auror grumbled with a mixture of suspicion and humor. "He seems too innocent and casual to me."
"How so?"
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