## Chapter 1308: Ripples Spreading

In the following days, Lockhart's "I Have a Dream" was recounted again and again.

Major magical publications immediately printed the original text of his speech, along with evaluations from various sectors of society.

As time passed, Aileen was ninety-eight percent certain that it would become a "memorize the whole text" piece in the magical world, even the entire world.

Not only because it was adapted from Martin Luther King's speech, but most fortunately, in the world where Aileen was, that black man named Martin Luther King had not delivered a similar speech. The existence of black wizards made the black-white contradictions in American society less extreme, and some small deviations changed the course of history.

More importantly, the magical world had not seen such an inspirational, personally heroic star figure for a long time.

A week later, even wizards far away in the Serbian magical world saw the speech in the newspapers.

As for the real scenes of the Judgment Day event, they became more and more legendary with each round of retelling.

The amber barrier became the best proof of Lockhart's extraordinary magical attainments. Professor McGonagall's "weak" explanation had difficulty gaining much traction in the mainstream press.

Many wizards swore that they had personally witnessed nearly a hundred Aurors drawing their wands and bombarding Lockhart for half an hour. If Lockhart had not voluntarily withdrawn the protection after finishing his speech, they wouldn't have been able to harm even a single hair on his head. As people continued to retell the story, even those who had witnessed it firsthand came forward to agree, proving that there were indeed a large number of Aurors and officials from the International Confederation of Wizards around trying to interrupt Lockhart's speech.

After Lockhart was imprisoned in Azkaban, the trend of imitating his works and speech content began to become popular.

Aileen now often heard "I have a dream..." or "A thousand years have passed..." at school.

On the other hand, some of Lockhart's previous drafts ensured that the heat wouldn't dissipate quickly.

For example, the three best-selling new books that Flourish and Blotts put on the display shelves at the front of the store:

*Facing Death: Hunting the Dark Lord*, *Bloodstained Galleons: The Goblin Queen's Path*, and *Betting My Life: Dating "Witch's Woe."*

In the books, Lockhart revealed the secrets of Horcruxes for the first time, detailing Voldemort's pursuit of immortality and the price and stages involved.

Voldemort's secret of immortality was made public, along with information about several Horcruxes controlled by the magical government – incidentally, promoting the Special Containment Procedures Foundation.

Of course, the foundation mentioned in Lockhart's books was an "external organization" jointly established by wizards from various countries.

In addition, in *Facing Death: Hunting the Dark Lord*, Lockhart traced the founding time of the foundation back a dozen centuries.

Well... more accurately, it should be traced back in one breath to the "four thousand years ago" that was on the foundation's charter.

Magical civilization and ancient wizards became the important leading forces in resisting anomalies and safeguarding the development of human civilization, which undoubtedly conformed to public logic and cognition. Whether it was an ancient pure-blood wizard or a Muggle-born or half-blood wizard who had just entered the magical world, they were all convinced of the ancient, mysterious wizarding organization described in the book.

As for *Bloodstained Galleons*, it introduced the story of the rise of the Goblin Queen of Gringotts from an observer's point of view.

For the first time in history, wizards were able to deeply understand the bloody storms hidden behind the power transition in Gringotts.

This finally made people realize that goblins were not chaotic and primitive groups like centaurs and werewolves, but intelligent races with a historical depth comparable to humans.

Every coin circulating in the hands of wizards may have been soaked in goblin blood. Lockhart described in the book how he was kidnapped by goblins and, under semi-coercion and semi-voluntary circumstances, participated in the infighting between the new generation of goblins and the goblins of the previous generation, and the games of goblins from various magical countries.

Of course, there was also no shortage of the Goblin Queen who turned the tide in the darkest moment and saved the goblins and Gringotts, which was much better than boring history of magic.

At the end of the book, it even briefly mentioned the cooperation between the Ministry of Magic and the goblins, such as the recapture of the fire-breathing dragons leased to the Ministry of Magic and the subsequent reconstruction and tax accounting.

Even though Lockhart had specially added a statement on the title page of the book this time, "This story is purely fictional, any resemblance is purely coincidental," no one really believed that all the stories were completely false. It should be noted that in Lockhart's novels, even the specific officials who goblins bribed in the Ministry of Magic were described in detail, as well as the considerable wealth that some officials had seized and extorted from the goblins... a certain former senior deputy minister of the Ministry of Magic who liked gemstone rings even appeared four or five times in the text.

As for the truth of those stories that happened deep in the Gringotts vaults, most wizards had no way to verify them, but Gringotts' strong protests were enough to explain everything.

Unfortunately, no matter how fiercely the goblins opposed, or even became so angry that they stormed the Ministry of Magic, they could not repeatedly punish Lockhart who was in prison.

With the reaction of the Gringotts goblins, sales of *Bloodstained Galleons* even rushed to the top of the bestseller list at Flourish and Blotts.

Everyone was curious about the power struggles that occurred among the goblins – after all, such a bloody coup was rare in the magical world.

Compared to the first two books, which were hot sellers as soon as they were put on the shelves, the response to *Dating "Witch's Woe"* was much slower.

However, as time passed, this book jumped past the former two and topped the bestseller lists of major bookstores.

Lockhart's original readership was mostly female, and this book could be said to be the most suitable material for witches to read – a romance novel.

The magical world had always lacked excellent writers, especially wizard authors with delicate writing and good character shaping, and Lockhart's appearance undoubtedly filled this gap: the love story between the wizard Archie and the Muggle researcher Hart became a must-have topic in the social circles and chats of all witches in the following weeks.

In fact, from a literary point of view, in terms of detail description, *Dating "Witch's Woe"* was indeed more wonderful than the first two books.

After all...

Strictly speaking, this book was the only romance novel that was truly written in full by Lockhart.

And the prototype of the story was actually Archibald and himself. Although some plot modifications were added, he grasped the subtle aspects of the emotions very well.

Well, the only problem was that there were no concealments in the depictions of sex in this book, which led to it being labeled with some strange tags later.

In the magical world, high-quality romance novels and erotic novels were equally scarce, which was also an important factor in the subsequent surge in sales of this book.

Many wizards queued up at major bookstores under the guise of buying books for their wives, girlfriends, sisters, and younger sisters.

Of course, as time passed and the story was gradually read by people, the details hidden in the text were finally noticed.

People began to question the gray income of the Ministry of Magic, question whether the magical government also had bloody methods similar to those of the goblins, and the brutal and inhumane handling of Witch's Woe by Umbridge and others and the International Confederation of Wizards also became the focus of society. Society even began to suspect the real reason for Lockhart's imprisonment.

In a panic, Cornelius Fudge almost planned to directly issue a ministerial decree to restrict the continued publication and sale of Gilderoy Lockhart's novels.

But at the last moment, Madam Bones, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, dispelled this terrible idea:

"If you want to make sure everyone reads those books, then issue a political ban."

Madam Bones calmly analyzed, like summer ice water extinguishing Fudge's anger.

In the same week, the goblin analysts at the Ministry of Magic gave the same judgment. In fact, they went a step further on Madam Bones' basis.

As "goblin employees" employed by the Ministry of Magic, these analysts found the best way to realize their value: to conduct a due diligence investigation within the Ministry of Magic as an internal audit of the Ministry of Magic and issue a credible asset and income report to the public to quell public opinion in the magical society.

Cornelius Fudge and others were originally somewhat hesitant about this proposal, but when he saw the first "investigation sample," he immediately agreed.

The salary of the Ministry of Magic was not very high in the first place, and when the goblins skillfully spread out part of the expenses and file losses, the actual income was even lower.

When the goblins released the Minister of Magic's income and asset survey form, Fudge's first reaction was that he was so poor?!

However, under the goblins' explanation, he quickly understood the wonderful difference between the asset assessment report and the actual reality.

In this relatively simple and unsophisticated late twentieth century, when the Gringotts goblins released the detailed asset statistics table and salary statistics down to every copper Knut, it still played a role in stopping the bleeding in time – even if some people still thought it was a false report, at least the Ministry of Magic gave a more perfect answer.

As for whether any wizards will figure out the secrets hidden deep in the financial statements in the future, that is not what Gringotts and the Ministry of Magic have to consider now.

With the response from Gringotts and the Ministry of Magic, the International Confederation of Wizards quickly made a corresponding response.

The International Confederation promised to re-examine the issue of "Witch's Woe" and admitted that they had actually been fighting against it.

This kind of rhetoric was originally very weak, but the latest progress of the healers at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries gave the public and the Confederation confidence.

Judging from the progress of magical research there, it was only a matter of time before wizards conquered diseases such as "Witch's Woe" and "cancer" - theoretical replacement magic and radiation removal had actually completed the magical foundation, and what remained was to organize it into a systematic and effective healing magic, which was too timely for the Confederation.

On the other side, the newly established "external · Special Containment Procedures Foundation" also couldn't wait to stand at the front desk and disclose more Horcrux details to the public.

For example, the several types of Horcruxes that were currently known, and of course, the process of containing some of the Horcruxes -

Lockhart's name appeared again, because Lockhart happened to be on the scene during the containment of the "Marvolo Gaunt Ring."

The local magical newspaper had reported on it, and "Newt Scamander's" authoritative statement gave the containment more legendary colors.

In short, with the remedy of the Ministry of Magic, Gringotts, the International Confederation of Wizards, and the external Foundation, the storm caused by Lockhart's new book finally subsided.

However, the troubles faced by the Ministry of Magic and the International Confederation of Wizards were far more than this.

Under Lockhart's appeal, a massive "equal rights" movement that swept across all fields was set off in the magical world.

Many wizards were competing to be the new leader of the "equal rights" movement, and what worried the officials even more was that wizards were beginning to become interested in Muggle technology.

Although the magical world had closed off the main channels of entry and exit, Muggle creations still flooded into magical society like a tsunami.

Since the Grindelwald and Scamander incidents of that year, the International Confederation of Wizards' warning level had once again soared to its peak.

The "magic exposure" level prompts of the Ministry of Magic in various countries were breaking new highs almost every day.

The Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office had become the busiest agency in the Ministry of Magic, and Arthur Weasley was now running around everywhere every day.

In the second week after Lockhart's speech was published, the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office actually began a large-scale expansion for the first time ever.

In fact, the magical government was discussing whether to separate this department and set it up as a large department.

New types of Muggle technological creations appeared every day, and the Ministry of Magic's list speed couldn't even keep up with half of the Muggles' creativity. Various magic-induced explosions and magically modified Muggle items were scurrying around. Wizards began to share their magically modified creations, although most of them were extremely dangerous and boring attempts in Arthur's view.

However, even without magical modifications, the convenience of many Muggle technologies was quickly recognized – many wizards could even skillfully make phone calls.

Of course, the focus of Arthur Weasley's and the Aurors' work was not on this group of Muggles, but on those who used magic to reprocess Muggle creations.

In the Ministry of Magic's original regulations, the inflow of magically modified objects into the market and unauthorized magical modifications were all considered serious violations.

From past experience, such violations would result in fines in minor cases, and in serious cases, they would even be arrested and tried by Aurors.

Aurors patrolled and verified all over the country every day, eagerly wanting to catch a few violators and teach them a lesson.

But the problem was that there were too many violators now, and the Aurors didn't know how to deal with them.

Some pure-blood families did offer to assist the Ministry of Magic, but the "composition" of pure-blood families was also particularly complicated now.

It was said that the Greengrass family had invested in a potions factory, with assembly lines all over the UK. The small bottles of energizing potions and essence of dittany spray on the market were backed by pure-blood families led by the Greengrass family. Their reason for enthusiastically assisting the Ministry of Magic Aurors was to attack another group of peers who had invested in potions factories.

The potions market was no longer the small workshop model of the past. Industrialization and the entry of family and government capital had turned it into a meat grinder.

Even if the Aurors had some evidence of potions flowing into the Muggle world, they didn't dare to confiscate or ban a certain potions factory at will.

No one knew how many terrible chains of interests were hidden behind a brand of potions.

The Malfoy family was particularly low-key, and they did not join the competition in similar potions markets.

Because their main energy was focused on the "Magic Space" sanitary napkin brand, which allowed them to profit while also becoming a topic of conversation for many upper-class people.

The elegant and ancient Malfoy family had become the newly emerging "magical sanitary napkin" tycoon in the magical world, and this was undoubtedly the only small interlude that made people feel relaxed and bizarre in the chaos. Someone in the Auror office did propose wanting to thoroughly investigate Malfoy's industries, but they were quickly suppressed by angry witches.

The magical world had finally given birth to a stable female hygiene product enterprise, and any behavior that blocked the Malfoy family's expansion would undoubtedly offend the public.

Although the name "magical sanitary napkin tycoon" was not elegant, Malfoy was now extremely at ease.

Lucius was very certain that the Malfoy family could prosper for several more centuries.