Part 5
The Quibbler printed the facts as they were presented to Xenophilius Lovegood by sources that wished to remain anonymous. The Prophet was still scrambling to publish something, anything, after more than half its staff lost their magic. The rest were struggling with the fact that they had realized they'd been under compulsions to skew the truth in favor of the Ministry and against whomever the Minister of magic had determined was the most recent enemy.
Every magical in the world had heard "A slave cannot be a master… Magic has judged."
The marked Death Eaters had been burned alive when their slave marks were activated. More than a third of the Noble Houses found themselves without lords or known magical heirs, throwing the Wizangamot into complete disarray as the goblins of Gringotts were 'requested' to research blood lines to find heirs that hadn't had their magic cut off.
The Ministry of Magic was in an even worse state as the Wizengamot. Riddle's slaves and sympathizers had taken nearly all the upper management positions. The slaves were dead and the sympathizers without magic. As to the rest, except for the DMLE, cowardice and the ability to turn a blind eye to corruption and mismanagement was practically in the job description.
The Quibbler printed the list of the known, now dead, Death Eaters and the Houses that had been wiped out. Nearly all of the 'dark' houses had been affected by the deaths and several of the 'gray' houses as well. Nearly all the dark and gray houses and a surprising number of the 'light' houses also lost members due to loss of magic. The Quibbler revealed that those who lost magic had taken an active part in locating and persecuting the non-Purebloods.
A separate article also pointed out facts that the Ministry of Magic and the most recent Hogwart's headmasters had kept hidden for generations. For at least a century and probably more, the brightest and most powerful witches and wizards of each generation had been Newblood or Half-blood: Grindelwald, Dumbledore, Riddle, Lily Evans Potter, Hermione Granger. The list went on. None were Pureblood.
The article described the lengths Albus Dumbledore went to as headmaster of Hogwarts to ensure that Newbloods and those raised in non-magical households were kept ignorant of the knowledge they needed to thrive in the magical world. Even Oldbloods suffered. Outside the Western Isles, a Hogwarts education was sneered at.
The article also described how Dumbledore used his political appointments to outlaw any magic he disapproved of: coven magic, war magic, even vast swaths of rune magic.
He had ordered the burning of books on magical theory, the history of magic, coven rituals, runic rituals, the magical elements, and the sabbats.
It appeared that Dumbledore had been willing to let magic die in the Western Isles rather than allow anyone magic that he himself could not be master of. It was either that or Dumbledore was himself a dark lord. The article suggested that knowing Dumbledore's former relationship with Grindelwald, calling the late headmaster of Hogwarts a dark lord wasn't much of a stretch of the imagination. He had singlehandedly dismantled any defenses the magicals of Western Isles had against the likes of Gellert Grindelwald and Tom Riddle. The fact that Dumbledore's familiar had been a phoenix… well, there whispers of ancient black spells that could force obedience even on a phoenix.