Edmund stared at him in surprise then a small chuckled escaped his lips. "Intriguing you say."
Antonio merely smiled in response and chose not to comment.
Edmund shook his head in slight amusement before continuing, "I believe I have made the story of the Dark Lord's rise clear to you and have given you a fair idea of how he operates."
"Now, let me move to the other side," Edmund said. "What has the response been from the Ministry of Magic? From the other pure blood families? And ultimately, from us, the faction that will be supporting you."
Antonio nodded. He did not know much about this part, and he was intrigued to hear more.
"The Ministry," Edmund sighed, "is practically redundant. They have done almost nothing to address this threat. In fact, their focus has been more on suppressing the news, downplaying the danger, and making sure it does not escalate publicly. They have not put half the effort in countering the threat of the dark lord."
"As for action against the Dark Lord? Nothing. Their approach is entirely reactive and responsive. When the Death Eaters launch an attack, they send aurors after they hear the news. And what do they do? Clean up the scene, remove the bodies, the blood, the gore. This is what the aurors has been reduced to."
"The Ministry has made no effort to uncover the Dark Lord's identity. No thorough investigations, no raids on suspected hideouts. They just sit in their offices, wait for news of an attack, and then respond always too late."
"Even on the rare occasion when a few Death Eaters are captured alive," he continued, "what do they do?"
"They simply throw them into Azkaban. No attempt to extract information. No interrogation. No interest in discovering who the Dark Lord really is, what motivates him, or what his next move might be."
"It is like that they are afraid of more news coming out. They are afraid to raise their head against the dark lord. They are afraid to fight it out and let things continue as they are."
"I sometimes think that even if the Dark Lord operated from within the Ministry building, they still would not find him," Edmund added with a look of disgust.
Antonio nodded. It was not very surprising to him. Ministry being active against the death eaters would have been the surprising part.
"Look," Edmund sighed, "I am not saying the entire Ministry is like this. There are many people willing to lay down their lives in the fight against the Dark Lord. But the ones in crucial positions are passive. And I would not say all of them have bad intentions, either."
"It is more like that they do not want any harm to come to their positions. No one wants to be responsible for a major decision, especially if it backfires. Suppose a team of twenty Aurors is sent to raid a suspected hideout, but the operation turns tragic and half of them are killed, even if the raid is ultimately successful. Then who takes the blame for their deaths? As long as they remain reactive, they do not have much to answer for."
"They cling to power like a leech, and it is continuously giving the Dark Lord an advantage. He could plan things, execute them without worrying about a counterattack. He chooses the place; he chooses the time and is he who chooses when to set their plans in motion."
"The inaction of the Ministry has sown more terror in the hearts of common families than Voldemort's actions themselves. People fear him because they know they have no one to rely on," Edmund added in a defeated tone.
Antonio nodded in understanding. This had been highly informative for him. He had always wondered how Voldemort had managed to terrorize the whole of Wizarding Britain without a particularly large army. This was the reason. The Wizarding Britain lacked leadership. A trustworthy and motivated leadership. They had no one in whom they could place their trust.
Although there was the Order of the Phoenix, formed by Dumbledore, it now seemed to Antonio that though better than the Ministry the Order had not achieved anything particularly noteworthy either.
Not that they could have done something extraordinary, given their limited numbers, but even within their limited capacity, their performance had been underwhelming. They too like the ministry have been more reactive and he was still not very sure of Dumbledore's motives. He could not place the man in outright evil or good category.
He needed to understand the man, his thoughts and his plans, before he could make any decision about Dumbledore. But one thing was certain. Based on his knowledge from his past life, there were several actions taken by Dumbledore that did not quite make sense.
The mystery was whether those decisions had really been taken in a fit of carelessness or had they been part of a greater mischief.
"Now," Edmund's voice brought Antonio's attention back to the man, "let us move to the second party, the pure blood families and what their response has been to the rise of the Dark Lord."
"There is no unified reaction from the pure blood families. In fact, apart from a few families like mine or some others, there is not even a unified stance within individual families."
"Some wholeheartedly support the movement and the Dark Lord. They genuinely believe that he will restore pure bloods to their deserved place in wizarding society and are thus ideologically devoted to him. Others see through the reality of the Dark Lord's motives. They recognize that his ideology is a mere façade, a camouflage for consolidating power for himself. And yet, they still support him, because they too want a share of that power."
"Then there are families who are vehemently opposed to the Dark Lord and his movement. I would not say that all of them hold some deep love for half blood or Muggle born witches and wizards, but they understand the Dark Lord's true intentions and, at the very least, do not harbour hatred toward those who are not pure blood."
"And lastly, the majority belongs to a group that has remained neutral in their stance. They neither oppose nor support the movement. They are simply waiting to see which way the tide turns and once it does, they will latch onto it."
Antonio nodded. He was already aware of these general dynamics.
"I will not go into the specifics of which family holds which stance, as that is a matter of detail," Edmund added. "But the lack of unity among the pure blood families has benefited the Dark Lord in more ways than one."
Antonio nodded with interest. He was eager to hear this part.
[This conversation might seem a bit overstreched and I realised this after I had moved ahead in my plot. So bear with it for a couple more chapters and I promise the story gets interesting in further chapters. I have worked hard in the later chapters]
#
#
#
[Add the book to your collection. Send it some power stones. Leave a rating and a review.]
[Access advanced chapter on P@treon. Replace @ with a]
[email protected]/imaginarywriter