Mysterious Journey

Chapter 554: A Little Rudimentary Muggle Knowledge

After afternoon tea, in the office of Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge.

Senior Undersecretary to the Minister Dolores Umbridge, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Amelia Bones, Head of the Goblin Liaison Office Cuthbert Mockridge, Deputy Head of the Auror Office John Dawlish, and a group of other Ministry officials trusted by Fudge were gathered, casually chatting about recent events in the wizarding world.

Over the past month, it wasn't just the non-magical world that had been turbulent; various rumors had been flying around in the wizarding world as well. Gringotts had already warned the Ministry about the impending possibility of a run on the bank last week.

On the other hand, the rumors of the return of the Dark Lord were giving Cornelius Fudge a particular headache. In fact, the most effective response would be for Albus Dumbledore to step forward and help the Ministry stabilize public opinion. However, due to the mortgage conspiracy that Hogwarts was involved in half a year ago, Dumbledore had been reluctant to make public statements recently.

If it weren't for the upcoming Hogwarts school year's teaching reforms, Cornelius Fudge even suspected that Dumbledore might be planning to completely cut off contact with the outside world during this time, stay away from all the disturbances in both the non-magical and magical worlds, and wholeheartedly stay in the peaceful Hogwarts castle, teaching those lively little ones.

"Introducing some non-magical basic subjects into the Hogwarts curriculum, as supplementary or prerequisite courses for some magical courses, and applying to establish a faculty family area in Hogsmeade Village near Hogwarts to solve the daily accommodation and living needs of teachers and staff hired from the non-magical world..."

Cornelius Fudge tapped his thick fingers on the desk, holding the application letter sent by Dumbledore, and read it again. He looked around at his trusted officials in the office and asked thoughtfully,

"What do you think Professor Albus Dumbledore is trying to do..."

"Obviously, Professor Dumbledore has always had a special focus on Muggle-born or Muggle-heritage young wizards. This educational reform is clearly a signal targeting the current situation of the wizarding world. He wants to further expand the proportion of half-blood wizards and Mudbloods - just as he has been secretly doing before, but this time he has changed his method."

Dolores Umbridge put down her teacup, answering in a shrill voice, a slightly eerie false smile appearing on her pale, drooping face. She carefully observed Fudge's expression, and then slowly continued,

"I will temporarily refrain from commenting on Professor Dumbledore's ideas, but looking at this matter alone, after carefully considering it these days, I feel that it is not entirely unacceptable, but it needs to be reconsidered."

In fact, as descendants of pure-blood wizarding families, the vast majority of wizards in the Ministry held the "blood purity" theory. Therefore, upon receiving Dumbledore's subsequent expression, Cornelius Fudge and others directly chose a policy of procrastination... This delay lasted for more than three months, from Christmas all the way to the present.

However, since Cornelius Fudge had brought up this matter again at this time, it meant that his attitude had changed again.

As Cornelius Fudge's closest deputy, Umbridge was naturally most sensitive to Fudge's thoughts. Combining what she had heard in recent days and what Fudge had said before, she quickly understood the problem that the Minister for Magic was hesitating about.

"Hogwarts' courses have always been gradually added over time through historical accumulation. The sudden addition of courses is a huge test for both the wizarding world and the school... According to the current situation, it is bound to occupy most of Professor Dumbledore's energy, leaving him no time to pay attention to the various problems that are occurring in the wizarding world..."

Umbridge said slowly, glancing at Cornelius Fudge who was nodding slowly, and the corners of her mouth rose slightly.

"Admittedly, we don't know much about some non-magical courses, but Professor Dumbledore provided a detailed teaching reform report some time ago, elaborating on the connection between most of the introduced teaching content and the existing magical courses. Minister Fudge and I have read it and feel that it makes some sense."

Unlike the previous vague and rough communications, a week ago, Albus Dumbledore specially wrote a long letter, detailing the teaching reform he planned to implement later, as well as the subjects involved.

Of course, the most crucial thing was that Dumbledore hinted in the letter that if the Ministry of Magic could support his education reform plan, then he could also cooperate with the Ministry to carry out a series of public opinion appeasement work before fully dedicating himself to the new year's teaching. This kind of communication attitude was unprecedented in the previous negotiations.

Faced with Dumbledore's initiative to change, even if Cornelius Fudge was unwilling, he could no longer continue to put it on hold.

Not to mention, Dumbledore's change was precisely the stabilizer that he and the Ministry of Magic needed most at this time.

Of course, this kind of behind-the-scenes exchange of favors was naturally not suitable to be put on the table. They needed a more reasonable reason to convince other Ministry officials who represented the interests of the vast pure-blood wizards and the original wizarding world concepts.

What made Umbridge and Fudge relatively happy was that Professor Dumbledore had already found this reason - or rather, from beginning to end, Albus Dumbledore was thinking from the perspective of an educator, which undoubtedly made the current Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, feel more at ease.

"About the new version of the education reform details, what knowledge do Muggles have that is needed to learn magic?"

Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, frowned, looking at Umbridge with some confusion.

Umbridge glanced at Cornelius Fudge. After seeing the wizard nod, she smiled and gently tapped the blank table with her wand. One by one, common subject names and a small amount of textual explanations appeared on it.

"According to Professor Dumbledore's idea, it is not the kind of new core course we imagined before. In most cases, it is actually a unified common sense supplement for the oversights in pre-school education in various magical families, popularizing a little rudimentary Muggle knowledge, mainly to serve magical learning."

"For example, this math class is just about learning some number symbols and simple numerical calculations. This is also a teaching supplement plan proposed in response to the problems that students have encountered in courses such as Astronomy and Arithmancy."

"Or this chemistry class, it mainly teaches students to recognize what wood is, what steel is, what stone is, and how to properly use glassware... Mainly because before that, many problems had indeed been encountered in Potions and Transfiguration classes. For example, the professor asked to transform a bronze button, but some students didn't know what bronze looked like; or they were clumsy and caused a lot of unnecessary trouble in Potions class..."

"Oh, and this physics class, it's actually just teaching a little rudimentary knowledge about how to boil water..."

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Chapter 3! (Oh my!!!)