Hogwarts: Harry Returns from Azeroth

Chapter 246, Section 245: I'll be the principal?
“Yes, the only option you can choose to kill the thief in advance as a precaution,” Harry nodded and continued, “but what if the thief is in a space beyond your imagination, a space where you could never reach the end even if you used your fastest means of movement for a lifetime, and such thieves are everywhere in this space?”

No one spoke up then.

"This is what I want to tell you: we can only eliminate the existence of fel energy, destroy those demon cultists, and do our best to prevent them from coming to our world. If they do come, we will drive them away and chop off every claw that the demons reach into our world—that's really all we can do."

After all, even the Burning Legion is gone, but the demons of the Twisting Nether are endless.

"Therefore, when we renovate Hogwarts, we need to further strengthen its defenses," Professor McGonagall said solemnly. "We need to add more enchanted protection, guards made from ancient runes, and a series of other protective measures to ensure that we have sufficient capacity to protect the students in the school should a crisis occur again in the future."

“That will cost a lot of money,” said a Hufflepuff board member. “I’ve seen the repair plan you sent over, Professor McGonagall. Just restoring the castle to its previous state will cost a considerable amount.”

“I think it’s necessary,” said the Ravenclaw school board member. “We already know the world is in a mess because of those elements and Muggles—we have to consider whether Hogwarts can still fulfill its greatest role from a thousand years ago if things really come to that.”

For a moment, no one spoke in the meeting room. They all understood what Hogwarts' mission was a thousand years ago: to gather young wizards in Britain and help them escape persecution by Muggles, so that they could eventually become qualified wizards.

The key point is escaping persecution from Muggles, and Muggles...

Muggles have gradually become aware of the existence of the wizarding world, and even the best efforts of the Muggle government to conceal it have not been able to completely hide it. The more serious the crisis of magic exposure in the international situation, the more serious the expressions of the school board members became.

It's a very real feeling of standing at the crossroads of time, where everyone can clearly see two paths ahead of them, but no one knows which path is the right one—this sense of confusion makes the magical world restless.

"Ahem," Lucius Malfoy coughed twice. He was also one of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, belonging to the Slytherin faction. After drawing everyone's attention, Lucius looked at Harry and said, "Actually, we had a brief discussion before you arrived."

Lucius glanced at the other board members and, finding no objection to his statement, continued:
"Are you interested in becoming the headmaster of Hogwarts, Professor Potter?"

"Headmaster?" Harry's eyes widened.

He hadn't expected Lucius to suddenly give him such a task. Harry looked at Professor McGonagall beside him and found that Professor McGonagall was also looking at him—with that thoughtful expression that had already passed the initial shock.

"Excuse my frankness, but if you want to remove Dumbledore from his position because he has failed in his duties, I have no objection," Harry said seriously. "But I think it's better if I become the headmaster. I'm too young and don't have enough prestige. Professor McGonagall, who has worked at Hogwarts for so many years, is a more suitable candidate. She is not only familiar with all aspects of Hogwarts' work, but she has also proven her abilities."

“Oh, Professor Potter, we all know that Headmaster Dumbledore usually delegates his work to Professor McGonagall,” a Gryffindor board member said cheerfully.

“Uh, actually not,” Professor McGonagall said somewhat awkwardly, quickly trying to cover for Dumbledore. “I only helped a little. As for the matter of the headmaster’s duties, Professor Dumbledore has handled it very well. I believe he just encountered some issues that prevented him from having time to…”

“Please don’t say that, Professor McGonagall,” another Ravenclaw board member shook his head and said, “We are all graduates of Hogwarts, and we all know that Professor Dumbledore is not actually in the school most of the time, and you do most of his work for him.”

“That’s right. We might turn a blind eye to this kind of thing in times of peace, but as you know, the world is not peaceful right now,” another Hufflepuff board member sighed and said. “As the headmaster of Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore should stay at the school and be able to arrive in time to deal with any emergencies that occur. That’s what he should be doing.”

“That’s our thinking. If Professor Dumbledore’s time makes it impossible for him to take on so much responsibility, then he should hand things over to those who are capable and have the time, instead of playing with the lives of students,” a school board member said with dissatisfaction. “And don’t you think Hogwarts has had too many dangerous incidents in the past two years? Let’s not talk about the Basilisk incident, after all, it was a remnant of Slytherin, but there was the Death Eater professor last year and Lockhart this year.”

“Especially Lockhart this year,” a school board member immediately said, “I heard that the demons in Hogwarts were summoned by him? He even wants to use children as sacrifices! Good heavens! What kind of people has Dumbledore chosen to be professors?! Couldn’t he have chosen some more reliable people? What about his Order of the Phoenix? He could have even chosen some retired Aurors!”

The fact that two fragments of Voldemort's soul appeared during this war is still kept secret; it's only said publicly that Lockhart caused everything... which isn't entirely unfair to him.

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, but as an upright woman, she couldn't possibly defend Dumbledore here... In fact, every parent who had picked up their child from the school during this time had criticized Dumbledore as they left, and all Professor McGonagall could do was keep apologizing.

As a result, this conscientious old professor has looked quite haggard lately.

“We all understand the greatness of Headmaster Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall,” the Ravenclaw board member continued. “We also acknowledge that there are some things that he has to do, but as we all know, one’s energy is limited, and you can’t do everything at once.”

“Instead of doing a little bit of everything, it’s better to divide the responsibilities and do one thing well. That’s our consensus,” Lucius concluded. “Don’t rush to refuse, Professor Potter. There’s a reason we didn’t choose Professor McGonagall.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, Professor McGonagall,” a Gryffindor board member said, scratching his head. “If it were still the same situation two years ago, I would definitely vote for you, but the outside world is not safe now… and the inside world is not safe either, so we need a strong headmaster even more.”

“We are strong enough to deal with basilisks, demons, and even Mystic, and can reliably protect the students in the school under all kinds of threats,” the Ravenclaw school board member said seriously. “This is especially important. We must give those students’ parents some confidence, and Professor Potter is the one who can give them that confidence.”

“They are strong enough that they would be considered among the top even among established adult wizards,” Lucius said calmly. “They are also very influential. Those elemental beings played a crucial role in the battle to protect Hogwarts. We have all seen the mountains of demon corpses. We have to admit that we lack experience in dealing with powerful and numerous enemies.”

“Age is not a problem, Professor Potter,” the Ravenclaw school trustee said with a smile. “What matters is always ability, and as a wizard, no one can deny your magical abilities.” “We’ve all seen Skeeter’s reports about you. According to her, you want to spread your shamanistic ways, right?” the Hufflepuff school trustee said seriously. “So you need to stay at Hogwarts to teach those students, and you can stay at Hogwarts to teach them—it’s a win-win situation, Professor Potter, because that way, no matter what happens at the school, at least you’ll be there.”

“That’s right. As for school affairs, I think Professor McGonagall would be very willing to help you out… If you are diligent enough, you can even learn to handle them yourself, and Professor McGonagall would certainly be happy to teach you,” the Gryffindor board member said with a hearty laugh.

The atmosphere in the meeting room became cheerful.

“…I need to think about it.” Without agreeing or refusing, Harry shook his head and said, “The most important thing right now is to find Dumbledore. Don’t you know? He’s missing.”

The discussion about Dumbledore thus came to an end, as it was no longer a secret, especially after so many major events had occurred and Dumbledore had not yet made an appearance.

When the meeting ended, Harry found a moment to meet with Lucius alone in a side room.

“Tell me, what’s going on?” Harry asked. “Why are you suddenly making me the headmaster?”

“I’m sorry, sir, things happened rather suddenly. I only learned about it at the temporary board meeting before you and Professor McGonagall arrived,” Lucius said respectfully. “In fact, this is not only the wish of the twelve board members, but also of many pure-blood nobles and officials of the Ministry of Magic—everyone is very afraid.”

“Scared?” Harry raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Lucius gave a wry smile. “Just like my and Parkinson’s children are now attending Hogwarts, the other board members also have children, they all have their own relatives, and the officials also have children.”

“Nobody wants their child in danger, and nobody jokes about something like this. Even that Pewter who’s always at odds with us—oh, you know, the Gryffindor board member—didn’t object this time,” Lucius explained.

“Even when the Dark Lord was at the height of his power twelve years ago, Hogwarts wasn’t affected much. People say the Dark Lord was afraid of Dumbledore, and that it was Dumbledore who protected Hogwarts,” Lucius sighed slightly. “I don’t deny that, but the problem now is that Dumbledore didn’t protect Hogwarts well—we don’t want Hogwarts to close, but if we don’t do something to stabilize people’s hearts, once the parents have all taken their children away, then Hogwarts will be effectively closed even if it’s not officially closed.”

Harry nodded in understanding.

For the sparsely populated wizards, nothing is more important than the safety of young wizards.

“I understand,” Harry said calmly. “I will talk to Dumbledore about it when I find him—but let’s get to your question now.”

'Found Dumbledore?' Lucius's eyes widened, but before he could ask anything, he saw Harry pull a tattered black diary from his robe pocket and throw it on the table.

"grown ups!!"

As if he had springs in his backside, Lucius immediately stood up from his chair and said nervously.

“Sit down and talk,” Harry said, gesturing with his finger. Lucius sat back down in his chair like a puppet. “So, you actually know what this is?”

"I, I—I know," Lucius stammered nervously, sweat beading on his forehead. "This, this is a dark magic item bestowed upon me by a mysterious person... many years ago, sir."

"And then you secretly gave it to the Weasleys' youngest daughter?" Harry continued.

“Yes, sir, I needed to gain the trust of the other pure-blood nobles, and since Arthur Weasley had led a search of Malfoy Manor, I had to retaliate. So I found this dark magic item in the Malfoy Manor treasury and gave it to the Weasleys—I thought Arthur would find it; he's very sensitive to these things and deals with them all the time—”

Lucius spoke very quickly, as if he was afraid something would happen if he spoke even slightly slower.

Adrenaline was being released rapidly in his body at that moment.

"Don't get so worked up. I already told you I'm not Voldemort," Harry said, looking at Lucius with a speechless expression. "I knew you wanted to take revenge on the Weasleys, and I was the one who told you to stay in hiding. Why are you so nervous? Do you think I'd kill you?"

"Aha, ahaha," Lucius just chuckled dryly, wiping his sweat without saying a word.

"So, you don't actually know what it is?" Harry continued to ask.

(End of this chapter)