Chapter 423: Changes in Britain

Before he knew it, Schelling had spent three days in Durmstrang, and July had come to its last day. During these three days, he had walked around Durmstrang Castle and had also taken the Sleeping Dragon to fly over the meadows, icy lakes, valleys, and rivers outside the Durmstrang campus.

Unlike Hogwarts, where most students stay indoors to play chess and cards, Durmstrang's leisure activities are more inclined towards outdoor and physical activities, such as flying competitions, fishing and hunting.

Xie Ling had tried fishing several times, and had successfully caught golden salmon a few times, but he had never seen a giant eel or a horse-shaped water monster. As for hunting and flying, he had not yet found the time to experience them.

After all, as mentioned before, he still focused most of his time on studying black magic. Even fishing was something he did just to relax, not something he really loved.

Most of the time in the library, he was reading a book with full concentration, and he copied all the forbidden books of Durmstrang with an alchemical automatic feather pen. In the rest of the time, he also asked the master of black magic, Professor Helmut, for advice on black magic.

Schelling had actually read a lot of books on black magic, but because he had never systematically studied this knowledge and lacked opportunities for research and practice, he had many blind spots in his knowledge. As Karkaroff's confidant, Professor Helmut naturally gave Schelling unreserved guidance, helping him to find out the gaps and make up for them, allowing Schelling's black magic attainments to advance by leaps and bounds in a short period of time.

Professor Helmut had naturally warned Schelling about the harm of being overly obsessed with black magic, but what he didn't know was that Schelling, who had absorbed Gryffindor's "heart of bravery", had a strong resistance to the erosion of the power of black magic in his personality and mind, and he didn't need to worry about the damage to his soul caused by practicing black magic.

It can be said that except for the whereabouts of Narita Vulkanova's secret chamber, his most basic goal of coming to Durmstrang has been achieved.

Conversely, in Great Britain, a lot of big things have happened in the wizarding world since late July.

Although Schelling was far away in the far north of Northern Europe, he still followed the developments in Great Britain - mainly through reports in the Daily Prophet, supplemented by Karkaroff's own intelligence network.

Yes, under Schelling's instruction, Karkaroff has connected with the intelligence personnel of Ni Lin, and the two sides can transmit and exchange intelligence in an efficient and seamless manner.

On the same day that Schelling arrived at Durmstrang, the Daily Prophet published a piece of big news that shocked the entire British wizarding community - Albus Dumbledore, "the greatest wizard of the century", was stripped of his status as an honorary member of the Wizengamot and the British representative of the International Confederation of Wizards.

Losing his membership also meant that he lost his positions as chairman of the two major organizations, and completely lost his influence in international organizations and the British Ministry of Magic.

A few days ago, it was publicly announced that the position of President of the International Confederation of Wizards would be taken over by Babajide Akinbade from Africa.

The position of President of the Wizengamot has remained vacant - this is not because Fudge is kind-hearted. The Wizengamot has always existed independently of the Ministry of Magic, the administrative body, so senior officials of the Ministry of Magic in all generations have not been allowed to become President of the Wizengamot.

When the chairman of the Wizengamot is not decided, his power will be temporarily exercised by the Minister of Magic, so Fudge is actually the biggest winner.

According to the information passed on by Nymphadora, Dumbledore seemed not to care much about the matter. In an internal meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, he even said bluntly that as long as he was not removed from the Chocolate Frog celebrity picture cards, it would be fine.

In fact, he had already begun making arrangements for the future war - he had met with his brother Aberforth Dumbledore and began secretly building a secret passage between the Hog's Head and the Room of Requirement.

If Hogwarts was caught in a war, not only could the Order of the Phoenix quickly enter the castle through the secret passage, but students who were not capable of fighting would also have an extra secret passage to escape. At this point, it must be said that although Dumbledore was never afraid of sacrificing anyone in his plans, he still had to fulfill his responsibilities as a headmaster.

Another big thing is -

Arthur Weasley, Director of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, was reported for illegally modifying Muggle artifacts and abusing his power to tamper with the law for personal gain during his tenure. After an investigation by the Ministry of Magic's newly established Magical Criminal Trial Department, it was found that there was solid evidence and he was eventually found guilty.

The penalty was a fine of 1 Galleons, official suspension from the Ministry of Magic, and blacklisting from ever being employed again.

It is said that when Arthur Weasley learned about this, he was so shocked that he fell to his knees in the Ministry of Magic and almost fainted.

As everyone knows, although they are one of the 28 holy pure-blood families, the Wesley family has always lived in poverty. Although they are not starving or cold, they are not rich either.

1 Galleons was a huge sum of money for them, and the entire Wesley family simply could not afford that much money. In order to prevent Arthur from going to jail, Molly Wesley bravely stepped forward to make the decision, taking out the precious collections handed down by the Wesley family's ancestors, and having them appraised by professional appraisers to offset the value with an equal amount.

What was disgusting was that the person who came to sign for the collateral was actually Arthur's third son, Percy Wesley. It was only then that everyone realized that it was he who reported Mr. Wesley. Percy successfully gained the extreme hatred of the whole family, and even Mrs. Wesley, who had always been the most loving, was completely disappointed with him.

What no one knew was that, under the cover of Amelia and Runcorn, all the Weasley family collections confiscated by Percy were eventually handed over to Sharf in Ella's Cottage. In fact, they belonged to Shailene from then on, waiting for Shailene to return to the country to receive them. Among them were Mr. Weasley's private magic research notes that Percy had worked so hard to collect.

This is not the end. The incident after Wesley was expelled from the Ministry of Magic also triggered subsequent reforms in the Ministry of Magic -

Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Law Enforcement, said in an interview with the Daily Prophet that the structure of the Ministry of Magic was already too bloated and inefficient, and that the Office for the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, headed by Mr. Wesley, was not necessary as a separate administrative unit.

So, after careful discussions with the directors within the Law Enforcement Division, she decided to make drastic reforms to the department.

From now on, the investigation and arrest of all suspects in the field of magical crime will be the sole responsibility of the Law Enforcement Reconnaissance Team.

You know, before this, Arthur had to go out and handle such investigations and the pursuit of suspects who modified Muggle items. Arthur was both a police officer and an administrator. In addition to the overlapping functions with the reconnaissance team, he also had the opportunity to abuse his power for personal gain. And the facts proved that Arthur did so -

When designing the law, he deliberately left small loopholes that were beneficial to himself, and abused his power to settle legal troubles for his friends. There are at least two examples of this that have been discovered, one is the trash can of old Moody's house in the Order of the Phoenix, and the other is the lawn mower of Ludo Bagman's brother. As a result, he received an expensive admission ticket to the first camp of the Quidditch World Cup.

The identification of whether the magically modified items that were confiscated as physical evidence are illegal is handed over to the newly established Forbidden Magic Product Identification Department. This newly established department not only targets illegally modified Muggle items - its responsibilities also cover dark magic items that threaten public safety, counterfeit goods that pose potential risks to users, and maliciously modified Muggle items.

This department will be handed over to the newly appointed Captain of the Magic Criminals Inquiry Team, Albert Runcorn. In this way, Mr. Runcorn will be able to become the first door in the judicial system - all evidence for prosecuting suspects, including testimony from interrogators and reports on confiscated physical evidence, will be submitted to the Wizarding Law Council or the higher-level Wizengamot through his hands.

On the surface, Runcorn is the biggest winner in this round of Ministry of Magic reforms.

But in fact, there are still many forces that can restrain him. For example, although he can manage various evidence, he does not have the power to amend or establish new laws like Arthur.

The real winner, of course, was Sherin who was hiding behind Runcorn. All the confiscated black magic items were eventually outsourced by Runcorn for destruction, and the person responsible for receiving this batch of "stolen goods" was Sherin.

It is foreseeable that Xie Ling will be able to obtain more and more various black magic items in the future.

In addition to the two major events of Dumbledore and the fall of the Weasley family, the Daily Prophet also published some other small news, but they did not cause as much social repercussions as the previous two news.

For example, in the past two weeks, Willy Weddersing had committed three toilet sewage backflow cases again. Before that, he was already a repeat offender who had committed many crimes, and Arthur Wesley, who was in charge of his case, didn't know how many times he had arrested him.

The problem is that with Mr. Weasley being fired by the Ministry of Magic a few days ago, without this threat that had been keeping an eye on him, Widdersing's behavior has become even more serious.

Finally, in the public toilet of Bethnal Green a day ago, his spell went wrong during the casting process and the toilet exploded. After the incident, he himself was unconscious in the ruins. Since he was seriously injured when he was arrested, he was first sent to St. Mungo's Magical Hospital for treatment.

The captain of the Magical Criminals Inquisition publicly announced to the media in an interview that Widdessin's behavior had seriously violated wizard law. After he recovered, he would be sentenced to imprisonment in Azkaban for up to six months.

Schelling vaguely remembered that this guy was a minor character in the original novel. This incident was supposed to happen on the day when Harry was tried by the Wizengamot. After Harry's trial, Mr. Wesley rushed to deal with him. The reason why this incident happened half a month earlier was probably related to Mr. Wesley being expelled from the Ministry of Magic.

Another criminal who was reported by the media was Willy Wagstaff, who was active in the black market of Knockturn Alley.

He ignored the Ministry of Magic's Magical Device Control Department's repeated warnings and continued to sell smuggled wands that had not been tested for safety. Finally, a few days ago, the wands he sold went off accidentally, causing several unlucky buyers who were greedy for bargains to be seriously injured and sent to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magic.

Eventually he was arrested by the investigation team and charged with "illegal business crime" and "intentional injury". Like Willy Weathersing mentioned above, he was sentenced to six months in Azkaban.

When Schelling saw these two pieces of news, he didn't feel much. He just vaguely remembered that this was the plot in the original book, and that Widsing and Wagstaff were two unimportant supporting roles in the original book, so he put the two pieces of information aside without thinking too much. (End of this chapter)