Chapter Fifteen: Power Struggles

The early morning sunshine streamed through the cracks of the boarded up windows of the shack, and Remus woke up on the splintery floor, not quite as freezing as usual and with time to haul himself upstairs to bed for a short while before Madam Pomfrey arrived to take him back to the castle.

Once he was comfortably settled into the Hospital Wing, with fresh pajamas and the stinging orange paste smeared on the worst of his cuts, he was given a beakerful of Hipworths Healing Tincture and told to get some sleep. Feeling exhausted from his night of rampaging and violence, he had no complaints with these orders and snuggled down into his pillows, and was snoring peacefully five minutes later.

He was awoken at break time by the noisy and exuberant arrival of James and the others. The door banged open, footsteps thundered through the Infirmary and then a heavy James-shaped lump jumped on his bed. 'You'll never believe what's happened!'

Remus peeled open one bleary eye and peered at him, 'You've become a kind and considerate person and decided to allow me to sleep?'

'Better than that! Look!' and a copy of Sabrina13 was shoved under his nose. 'It's Evans,' James continued. 'She's wrestled control of the magazine back from Petra and she is not taking any prisoners!'

'It is actually quite good news,' Sirius said, 'and not just James getting overexcited because Evans's hair is so shiny…'

'Oi!'

'How are you feeling?'

'Well, I was almost well rested, until three idiots crashed into the room and ruined everything.'

'How was last night?'

Remus smiled, 'I've had worse – really,' he added, when Sirius still looked concerned. 'You know they're better when the days get longer.'

'We should let him rest some more,' Peter said, eyeing Madam Pomfrey nervously. 'I think we're about to get kicked out anyway.'

Sure enough, the matron was heading towards them, a fierce look on her kindly face and so – throwing the magazine at Remus and yelling goodbyes - the three of them beat a hasty retreat.

…

Hidden behind a set of curtains, just across the Hospital Wing, where she had spent the night after being hexed, hitting her head and being knocked unconscious, Bertha Jorkins lay very still and listened in to all that transpired between the four boys. Sickly Lupin was here; this was where he must have been headed when he had hexed her. And the conversation between Black and him was as interesting as it was mystifying.

She itched to tear the curtains open and demand answers, but she knew he would refuse to give them – and Madam Pomfrey would probably eject her from the Infirmary for causing a disturbance. So, instead, she wrote down everything she heard in her little book, planning to take it to Malidictus and hoping he could make head or tails of it.

…

Now he was awake, Madam Pomfrey had given him a big block of chocolate, and Remus settled himself in for the afternoon, munching his chocolate and reading the magazine. James was right, Lily was not holding back:

Beware The Wolfman!

The headline of the very first article read. What followed was an excoriating exposé of Professor Malidictus's personal history, which Remus read with a growing sense of everything suddenly sliding into place.

In the height of summer, 1924, the sleepy muggle village of Much Dark'ness, in Norfolk, was violently disturbed one night by terrible screams which echoed through the streets and left the inhabitants too afraid to leave their beds. The next morning, the bodies of three young men were found out on the fens. They had been ripped apart and half eaten. The first muggles on the scene witnessed a shadowy figure running away into the trees and told the police (muggle law keepers) what they had seen.

The police followed the trail and came across a house, which - unbeknown to them – was a wizarding home. They found a 16 year old boy washing blood off his shoes and arrested him for murder, on the spot. That boy was none other than a teenaged Professor Malicius Malidictus.

Professor Malidictus was held in custody for these crimes for many hours. Meanwhile, The Daily Prophet was also reporting on the three men's deaths, as they knew what the muggles did not: that this was a particularly vicious werewolf attack.

Professor Malidictus was eventually allowed to go, however the damage to his reputation had been done and, among the muggles he counted as his neighbours, he was forevermore seen as a dangerous murderer and given the nickname "The Wolfman".

The Daily Prophet was able to name the werewolf whom they believed was actually responsible for the attacks. Torstan Burnblade was a leader among his kind and feared above all other werewolves, and it was he who was named as the young men's killer within the Wizarding World. He continued to be the leader of the werewolves until 1951, when a power struggle between him and a younger werewolf resulted in Burnblade fleeing Britain for Continental Europe.

But this was never enough for Professor Malidictus. He joined the Ministry as a freshly qualified wizard and eventually joined the Werewolf Capture Unit, rising to be the Head of Department and going on to write much of the legislation around werewolves that exists today.

His entire life's work is a vendetta, a personal grudge against one werewolf in particular who destroyed his reputation at home.

Torstan Burnblade may indeed have been all the things Malidictus accuses werewolves of being, but he is only one werewolf, just as the Dark Lord is only one wizard. And, as we are not responsible for what the Dark Lord does, neither are any of the other wolves responsible for Burnblade's behaviour. And it is Malidictus's own personal hurt and anger over the past that blinds him from this truth.

And yet, in the name of this short-sighted grudge, Professor Malidictus has you attacking other students in the castle. He is teaching you it is righteous and honourable to torture those who dissent. He is wreaking his vengeance on a shadow; using you as a personal army to take revenge on a man who left these shores over twenty years ago. It is his own personal demons he is having you fight, but those demons are not real and so instead you are fighting innocent people who stand in your way.

What he is asking you to do, what he is encouraging you to do, is monstrous.

Everyone in this school, signed up to The League, needs to examine their own conscience and ask themselves if hexing first years who disagree with you is really achieving anything in the fight against darkness? Or is it simply turning you into the very thing you profess to be against?

Everyone in this school needs to beware The Wolfman, and beware the dangerous ideas he preaches.

Remus's eyebrows were hitting his hairline by the time he turned the page, but what Lily had written on the next one was no less hard hitting, though it was rather different in form.

When my parents were young, a terrible war raged across Europe, and a charismatic leader convinced ordinary people to do terrible things.

She had written

Later, a man called Pastor Niemoller wrote how he and everyone else had allowed this to happen; he wrote it as a warning to history. I have taken the liberty of adapting his words below:

First they came for the dark creatures

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a dark creature.

Then they came for the bystanders

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a bystander

Next they came for the apostates

And I did not speak out

Because I was not an apostate

Finally they came for me

And there was no one left

to speak for me.

If you are feeling uncomfortable, watching your friends turn on people just because they do not agree with them, or act like them, because they will not tolerate differences, please have the courage to speak out. Just because you stand against the Dark Lord does not make everything you do, in the name of fighting him, ethical and right. The ends do not always justify the means, and it is possible for two opposing sides to both be wrong at the same time.

…

As much as James might be delighted by the contents of Lily's magazine, across the rest of the castle it was like she had taken a lit match to touch paper and then thrown some firecrackers into the blaze for good measure. The fall out of her writing might just be short of all out war, but it was a close run thing, and when Remus left the Hospital Wing it was to find little clusters of students huddled all over the castle, waving Sabrina13 at each other, hissing conversations that became more and more heated until eventually wands were drawn and duels commenced.

Lily, it seemed, had managed to get through to some people but only succeeded in making the rest even angrier, and tempers were running high and hexes were flying thick and fast. It was not unusual to see students suddenly sprouting antlers, or elephant's trunks, or erupting in a face full of boils, or being blasted backwards down the stairs. There was a constant trail of injured people traipsing to and from the Hospital Wing and the library was closed for three days, with Madam Pince actually barricading the door, when she discovered that the school copy of "Hairy Snout Human Heart" had been borrowed from the library under a false name, only to be burned, out in the school grounds.

The almost constant warfare between the apostates and the true believers drove the boys to hide up in their dorm as often as they could. 'What's totally mental is that they're so busy fighting each other that they can hardly find the time to fight the little Death Eaters any more,' Peter said rather gloomily one evening, after he had been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and hexed with a pig's tail.

Though those still loyal to Malidictus may have argued that Peter was wrong, as more and more they were accusing the apostates of being in cahoots with the mini-knights, of being influenced by them and working with them.

'We stand against everything they stand for!' Lily told Ellis Stebins hotly after one Transfiguration lesson, 'we just don't agree with everything you do! Not everyone who disagrees with you is a homogeneous, evil mass!' But he only fired a hair growth charm directly at her face as an answer; her sight obscured by the veil of her rapidly thickening eyebrows, she managed to hit him back with a bat bogey hex and both of them had to be taken to the infirmary by their respective friends.

'It's getting totally mental out there,' Sirius said gloomily, after he and Remus had fallen foul of a tripping jinx, as they left Muggle Studies that afternoon, and nearly broken their necks. They had - of course - responded in kind by hexing Lucien Riffkind and his friends, but they had been the ones caught using magic in the corridors by Filch, and so had ended up with a detention apiece.

They spent most of their evenings lying on their beds and casting the cheering and calming charms on themselves, just to make the darkness go away for a little while.

'The only trouble is,' James cackled to himself, as he lay with his head on his bed, staring glassy eyed and dreamily up at his canopy, 'the trouble… the trouble is that getting all looped like this makes me hungry. Sirius … get me a snack.'

Sirius - no less looped - snorted softly. 'Pete, get James a snack.'

Peter began to giggle. 'Why can't Moony do it?'

Sirius joined in with the laughter. 'Because I'm telling you to do it… go on… get James a snack… or I'll bite you.'

Still cackling softly, Peter rolled off his bed and landed with a thump on the floor. 'Like to see you … see you try…' he muttered, and he struggled to his feet and staggered over to James's nightstand. 'Lemme see…' he opened the doors. 'Not these - can't mess with these…' and he took the animagus potions out of the cupboard and put them carefully to one side. 'What else is there… Bertie… Bottses… Bottoms… Dirty Bottoms, ha!' he collapsed in helpless laughter, his head stuck inside the nightstand, and began to snore.

'I'm still hungry!' James moaned. 'No one cares.'

'I… I care,' Remus said, though speaking seemed like a real struggle.

'I know you do… you're the best, my Moony, Moony mine.'

'Moony's mine,' Sirius said.

'He's ours. '

'Nope.'

Remus began to laugh, 'Moony's mine ,' he said. 'Me - I'm Moony.' They all began to laugh, soft and dreamy and for far too long.

…There was little for them to laugh at when they came down, though, and saw the animagus potions disturbed from their safe hiding place and out on top of the nightstand.

'You idiot!' Sirius smacked Peter around the back of his head, his eyes flashing in a way that suggested he was just about ready to murder Pete. 'They're useless now! We'll have to start again… again !' And he smacked him again.

'Ow! It wasn't my fault!' Peter scowled and rubbed the back of his head. 'You're the one who made me get up, if you'd just done it yourself in the first place…'

'Don't try and talk your way out of it!'

'Don't put all the blame on me.'

'It's your fault!'

'Boys, Boys !' James got in the middle of them and glared between them. 'It's done now. It can't be helped. We'll try again later, but let's just forget it for now - we have enough going on. Let's…' he faltered as he saw the way Sirius was glowering at Peter. 'Let's just listen to the wireless, alright? Take our minds off things.'

But if James hoped the wireless would act as a distraction to the darkness and gloom which seemed to pervade their every waking moment, these days, he was to be sadly mistaken - as, within moments of the Twenty Two Minutes Past Eight News starting, they heard there had been yet another mass muggle killing, this one somewhere near Glasgow.

There can be no question that the giants are once again behind this,

The newsreader said, their voice shaking.

The attack bears all the same hallmarks as the Nailsworth massacre at Christmas, the attack on Melton Mowbray, and the devastation in the Welsh Valleys last year. Several streets have been entirely flattened, scores of muggles killed and those few survivors left homeless and destitute. Muggles are explaining the situation as mass subsidence, a sinkhole suddenly opening up and swallowing the area, however both the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Department for Regulation of Magical Creatures are in agreement that these sprees are being carried out by giants but orchestrated by the so called Death Eaters - hoping to make political gains by creating an atmosphere of terror. Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Harold Minchum, had this to say:

The newsreader's voice changed to that of Harold Minchum. His voice was not shaking, instead he sounded stern but sombre.

Our condolences go out to the muggle communities who have lost so much, and whose very lives are being used as pawns in a game of which they are not even aware. We at the Department of Magical law Enforcement are unflinching in naming the so called Death Eaters as a terrorist group and in stating that they are behind these attacks; that they are using the giants in a bid to force the Ministry of Magic to overthrow the Statute of Secrecy and give into their demands. We will not be held hostage this way and, though we grieve for the innocent lives lost, we will never surrender.

The wireless switched back to the newsreader:

Minister for Magic, Eugenia Jenkins, could not be found this evening and so remains unavailable for comment.

James reached out and turned the wireless off, looking even more glum than before. 'It just doesn't stop,' he said.

'I don't suppose it ever will,' Remus replied. 'Not until Lord Voldemort is history.'

'Then we need to make that happen, look - men,' he looked around at his friends, 'these problems are not going away and we can't hide up here in our dorm, getting looped and pretending it's not happening. Evans is up for a fight - she always has been. We need to be up for a fight too.'

And though Remus felt like he could quite happily cast his charms on himself and float away on a cloud of trouble free bliss forever, he supposed James was right. Knowing James was right did not do anything to make him feel better, however.

…

Perhaps someone had finally managed to track Eugenia Jenkins down, by the following morning, or perhaps they had not even bothered and just made the decision without her, but something must have happened, as Friday's headlines read:

Ousted From Office!

Head of State Given the Heave Ho

'I suppose it was inevitable,' Peter said, reading the newspaper over Sirius's shoulder and receiving angry scowls from the other boy as he got the pages sticky with jam. 'She's been ropy for months.'

'She's been ropy for years ,' Remus muttered darkly, and he could not say that he did not feel a little bit smug as he read about the Minister's downfall.

Increasingly useless Minister for Magic, Eugenia Jenkins, was given her marching orders late last night in the wake of yet another muggle massacre. 'The situation in Britain is becoming increasingly bleak,' said Chariton Nott, member of the Wizengamot, 'and we need a leader who will get to grips with the situation and not hide in a broom closet and tell us everything is fine.'

Rumours abound that Eugenia Jenkins kept that broom closet well stashed with Ogden's Old Firewhisky, and that her softness for the sauce has only increased as the situation spiralled into severity.

'I have no wish to cast aspersions on her character,' says Endeavour Enderby, 32, Senior Undersecretary to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. 'And I do not believe there is yet any purpose in looking back at mistakes the current administration has made. But it is time for a change. We have already lost… too much. It is time for the country to be led by someone who is willing to face facts and deal with Death Eaters, no matter who turns out to be lurking beneath their hoods.'

Enderby's boss, Harold Minchum, had this to say: 'We thank former Minister Jenkins for her service to our nation. Times have changed and new challenges call for a new leader. I hope that, under new management, the country's future can be brighter.'

The coy Mr. Minchum refused to be drawn on whether or not he would throw his own hat into the ring of the leadership contest, however, we will no doubt find out his plans soon enough. Elections for a new Minister for Magic will be held next week. Those wishing to apply for the position must submit their names to the Wizengamot for consideration before Monday.

'D'you think it will make a difference? A new Minister?' Peter asked the others.

James sighed very deeply. 'I hope so, Pete. I hope so.'

…

Over the weekend, The Daily Prophet printed various rumours, predictions and wildest guessworks about who would be putting themselves forward for Minister, and - on Monday morning - they printed the complete list of names. The best odds were on Harold Minchum, who told Rita Skeeter in an exclusive interview that he thought he alone had the experience, grit and determination to really deal with the masked menaces which now threatened Magical Britain and beyond.

That same morning, Professor Malidictus (having received a tip off from Big Bertha) took his silver knife out again, in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and once more passed it around the classroom. Once again, the members of The League took it and held it with that same greedy interest, practising slashing and stabbing the air, while those who opposed them wrinkled their noses and passed it on as quickly as possible.

Eventually, it reached the boys on the back row. 'Of course,' Malidictus was saying from up at the front, as James looked sickened and handed the knife to Sirius, 'the real danger of a werewolf is that they can look exactly like the rest of us, when it is not the full moon. You could be sitting right next to one of these beasts and not know it… unless you had something silver to test them with.'

As he had done before, Sirius passed the knife straight to Peter, handing it across under the table and missing Remus entirely.

But Malidictus's keen eyes saw. 'Make sure everyone holds the knife!' he barked, his voice sharp and agitated. Heads all turned to look at the back row, Remus felt his face flush. Sirius was looking no less panicked.

'Everyone did hold the knife,' he lied. 'We've all held it, now Pete has got it.'

'Do not lie to me Mr. Black.' All eyes were staring. 'I know what you did. I know that -'

'Levicorpus!' Losing his head, Sirius brandished his wand frantically and, before he could finish his sentence, Malidictus found himself hoisted into the air by his ankle, dangling upside down while his robes fell over his head.

'Get me down!' he yelled, thrashing mid air - while The League members looked scandalised, and Lily, Mary and Mandy turned purple from trying to stifle their giggles. James wasn't even trying, he was roaring with laughter - which only made Malidictus thrash harder - which only made James laugh louder.

Sirius, on the other hand, was sitting quite still, wearing the expression of someone who was wondering if he had finally done it, and if this was the line crossed which would get him expelled.

Remus, himself, was feeling lightheaded and dazed - only vaguely aware of the struggling upside down teacher, as his mind screamed at him how close he had come to exposure.

By the time the class managed to get Malidictus down, the lesson was almost over and Malidictus, crimson with humiliation (and the blood having rushed to his head), only had time to yell at Sirius that he would be in detention for a week, before the bell rang and they were dismissed.

…

But the story of what had happened soon travelled all over school. 'Why didn't Black hold the knife?' people asked. 'What was he so afraid of? What is he trying to hide?'

'He does have a foul temper,' Stebbins told everyone who would listen. 'He's a total nutter - don't you think it would make sense if he turned out to be a werewolf?'

Sirius was nonchalant over the whole thing. 'Let them think I'm a werewolf,' he shrugged. 'Let them do their worst. It's better that than…' he left his sentence dangling, but Remus flushed and felt guilty. It was better that than they knew the truth. Sirius could weather this out; if Remus was exposed - he could not. But it still meant Sirius was going to be in for a hard time, and all just to protect him.

Severus was incredulous when he heard the rumours floating around school. 'People can't really think it's Black that's the werewolf?' he said to Lily. 'Don't they pay attention?'

Lily pretended not to hear.

Sirius received his detention slip in the post that evening, a full week's worth of evenings spent writing lines with Malidictus. But he was not the only one; an owl fluttered over to Remus and dropped a note in front of him as well. Malidictus had given him a detention in a week's time, once Sirius's were finished - for refusing to hold the knife.

…

A few days later, the elections were held and Harold Minchum, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, romped home to victory.

'This is the dawn of a new era for the Wizarding Word.'

He told The Daily Prophet.

'Too long have we appeased the Dark Lord and his acolytes, too long have we turned a blind eye - allowed the names of those involved to cow us into pretending this is not happening. But there has already been too much loss and bloodshed, and I will not allow this to continue under my watch. For those who act beneath the Dark Mark, I send out this very clear message: cease your campaign of terror or you shall be given no quarter. A day of reckoning is at hand.'

One of his first acts as Minister was to order the release of the goblin, Bugnug, imprisoned for the murder of Mable Grable, from Azkaban with immediate effect.

The newspaper went on to report.

'No more scapegoats,' says the Minister. 'If we want to set things right we need to find the true answers, not the easy ones. I know people are scared, I know they want to see results but making false arrests helps no one. This will take time, it will be hard. I ask that people be brave.'

Promising to be much more hard-line in his approach than his predecessor, and to not allow ancient pureblood names to deter him from pursuing justice, Minchum says he hopes to make his first Death Eater arrests within six weeks of his entering office. He also vows to find and hold accountable the werewolf who so brutally attacked and killed the wife and child of his undersecretary, Endeavour Enderby.

'This is not the end,' he says, 'it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is - perhaps - the end of the beginning. We acknowledge there is a war on and we are ready to fight it.'

Harold Minchum has been replaced in his position as head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement by Bartemius Crouch.

…

The election of a self described "hard-line" Minister only seemed to encourage The League and, over the next few days, they went into overdrive with their hexing, harming and haranguing bystanders, apostates and mini Death Eaters alike to the point that Sirius actually declared that being in detention with Malidcitus was his favourite part of the day because it was the only time he could get away from the complete mental cases that made up League membership.

Students were jinxed, cursed and left for dead (or at least unconscious) in the corridors, while warnings were painted all over the castle walls. More and more the symbol of a wolf, in a circle with a line through it, was seen scrawled over every surface - and people were even starting to draw it on the backs of their hands or onto their cheeks. A few days later, and there were banners, fluttering from staircases with words like "Bystanders Beware" sewn onto them.

'It's my last detention tonight,' Sirius said gloomily, the next Monday. 'I'll have no escape then.'

Remus thought of his own detention the following night, and tried to fight down a wave of panic at what Malidictus might have in store for him.

Tuesday dawned with a chorus of first years being strung up from the battlements, The League mark painted on the wall beside them. The day proceeded with Regulus being pushed down the marble staircase and then set upon when he tumbled to the bottom. Lunch came with firecrackers being hidden in the Slytherin's soup - which led to half the house being taken to the Hospital Wing with minor burns and their eyebrows singed off. Afternoon lessons were interrupted by a three way battle between NEWT students - with factions from The League, the mini-Knights and the bystanders - duelling in the corridors, and the day finished with "Death to Werewolves" being daubed in six foot high letters down the Charms corridor.

'They might get their wish,' Remus muttered, as he and his friends headed to the Great Hall for tea, 'if Malidictus has his way with me this evening.'

'Maybe you shouldn't go,' Peter suggested. 'Go to McGonagall instead.'

But Remus shook his head, 'if I don't play along with what he wants, he'll tell everyone what I am. He's made that perfectly… Merlin! ' he trailed off as they entered the Hall and saw that it looked like a major political rally was about to take place.

The whole place bristled with banners, and painted faces, and there was a dangerous hum thronging through the crowd - an undertone of violence just waiting to break out.

The boys slid into a seat by Lily, who was watching the crowd intently.

'What's happened' James asked her.

'I don't know… they're just … an angry mob, right now. It's all going to kick off. I can feel it.'

It's like they're waiting for a signal,' Mandy added. 'And then…'

And, as if her words were the very signal they had been waiting for, the crowd suddenly seemed to surge into one, there were yells and shouts and the house tables were tipped over, the benches kicked to the floor and wand pointed at bystanders - suddenly left isolated and exposed - curses flying in every direction… and more screaming, as the bystanders tried to run, and yet more furniture was upended, and the shepherd's pie was hitting the walls in great potatoey dollops and then oozing down to the floor and then…

'SILENCE!' The whole mob went still, mid madness, as Dumbledore appeared on the dais (Remus was sure he had not been in the Hall just a moment before). 'I will not tolerate such behaviour in my school.' His voice was much quieter and calmer now and, although the atmosphere still crackled with tension, everyone was listening.

'I am afraid to say things have gone too far. I try to allow a certain amount of autonomy in the young people under my care, I encourage you to take stands and hold opinions and even take action where you think it necessary. But this…' he looked around the Hall sadly. 'This is not acceptable behaviour.' And the quiet disappointment in his voice made even the most hardened member of The League squirm. 'And so, having seen the very dark turn this situation is taking, I regret to inform you that I am disbanding The Anti-Darkness League forthwith. There will be no more meetings, no more gatherings and - at my request, Mr. Filch has removed The League's charter from its place on the second floor. I trust there will be no more hexings.'

He looked around at the frozen crowd, still brandishing their banners, and his eyes were sympathetic. 'I know these are dark and frightening times we are living through. I know you all want to do what you can to make things better, I know you fear for the future and want answers. But those who seek easy answers to thorny problems are doomed to failure, though great pain and much harm can be caused before one is wise enough to realise that. I cannot give you easy answers. But I can and I will stop you from terrorising your school mates. There is a way for us to fight the darkness… But this is not it.'

He clapped his hands. 'Now - with the disbanding of The League, that means no more banners or paintings…' and, with a wave of his wand, he vanished all "Death to Werewolves" and "Bystanders Beware" placards. The League members blinked at their now empty hands. 'And, we will need to put our Hall right, so you can finish your evening meal.' With another wave of his wand, the tables jumped upright, the benches followed suit and the shepherd's pie flew back into the tureens. 'Heads of Houses…' as if he had just used a summoning spell, Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Slughorn, appeared at the front of the Hall. 'You will oversee the rest of teatime and ensure there is no further outbreaks of scuffling. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some urgent business to attend to.'

And he swept from the Hall, the doors banging shut behind him. He collared Malidictus out in the corridor and, with a very pleasant smile, said 'Malicius, a word in my office, if you please.'

…

Once they were inside his circular office, Dumbledore settled himself behind his desk, steepled his fingers and looked rather sternly over their tips at Professor Malidictus. 'We knew, when you took on this role, that there were dangers involved.' He said. 'We did not know what manner they were and, indeed, I remain grateful that you willingly and knowingly took on such a risk to yourself. I suppose the happy news is that the price you must pay for becoming Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is far lower than that paid by poor Professor Tenebris.'

'What on earth do you mean, Dumbledore?' Malidictus asked, irritably.

'Only that Professor Tenebris died, whereas you escape unscathed with nothing worse than the cancelling of your contract. I know your views, Malicius, and I have disagreed with them for many a year, but I never thought mere difference of opinion a good enough reason to not offer employment. However ,' his voice became as stern as his eyes. 'Having seen the trouble you have caused within these walls, the damaging effect you are having on young minds, I cannot in good conscience allow you to stay. You are sacked, Malicius, with immediate effect.'

Malidictus bristled. 'You can't sack me!'

'I assure you, my dear man, I can. The hiring and - indeed - firing of staff is entirely at the Headmasters discretion. I was willing to tolerate your being here, though I disapprove of all that you stand for, but what I will not tolerate is harm coming to the students in my care. You have created an army, here, Malicius. Out of children . You have caused mental harm to their minds and physical harm to those that disagreed with them. You cannot stay here a moment longer.'

' I have done what you asked me - taught them to defend themselves against the darkness.'

'With respect, you have created a darkness of your very own and taught them to fear it. And in doing so you have unleashed a monster.'

'The only monsters are the dark creatures I stand against.'

Dumbledore narrowed his eyes, looking at Malidictus speculatively. 'No, Malicius, that is not true.'

Malidictus opened his mouth as if to argue, but Dumbledore cut across him. 'You have your reasons for believing as you do, I know that. But your beliefs are causing harm to other people, you are forcing them on other people and punishing those who will not comply - and that is not acceptable in a free society. I hope - as dark as the days that stretch before us may be - that we will remain a free society a little longer. This is the end of the matter. Please return to your office and pack your bags. I can arrange a carriage to take you home, if you wish.'

Malidictus looked outraged, his face turned purple and his eyes flashed dangerously. But when he spoke, his voice was soft. 'You are a fool, Dumbledore,' he said. 'Too forgiving, too many second chances, too many benefits of the doubt - and all for creatures that do not deserve it. You will be proven wrong, in time. Disastrously so, I might add, and in a manner which may destroy your very reputation, as well as the lives of the students you claim to care so much about. You have no idea of the darkness you are harbouring in this very castle, among your own students!'

But Dumbledore only smiled sadly. 'I am afraid I know only too well where the true darkness inside this castle lies,' he said.

With nothing left to say, Malidictus turned, kicked the door open and strode away, leaving Dumbledore alone to draft an advertisement for a replacement teacher.