Chapter 53 Fear

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Harry felt odd sitting at his study table, this is probably his first time using this table. Harry has not even touched his course books or school supplies while his fellow first-years have probably written hundreds of essays by this point.

It might seem strange that even with magic the wizarding world forces its children to write with outdated quills and parchment papers when pens, enchanted quills, etc are easily available to them. But that is just the surface, one has to look deeper to properly understand what is really going on.

The quill and paper are just one of the subtle ways that Hogwarts influences and teaches its students. The point of using such outdated methods is that's it is difficult to use. When a student spends hours carefully writing long essays with a quill it builds mental disciple from a young age.

The whole school and its education system are built on imparting necessary skills and the right mentality to its students without them even noticing.

Professors will demand long essays from their students fully knowing that the students won't find enough information in their course books to fill the parchment. This forces the students from the start to do their own research and find their own information from the library to solve their problems.

The course books are also written in such a way that the student learns enough to survive in the wizarding world but for everything else students have to go to the library to learn on their own. Of course, the professors are always there to help their students.

This school itself was designed to be confusing and difficult to navigate with all the secret passages and moving staircases, this forces students to constantly adapt to their changing surroundings.

These are just some of the ways that Hogwarts tries to mould its students towards their full potential. This with all of the hidden chambers and its secrets Hogwarts provides the perfect environment for every witch and wizard to achieve their full potential but how much of it can be realised depends solely on their own efforts and dedication.

At first, Harry didn't even notice all of this just like the rest of the students, only decades after graduating did Harry realise how much of an impact Hogwarts had on his growth as a wizard.

Just like Hogwarts, the wizarding world appears to be quite simple on the surface, but most don't even notice what is going on underneath the surface. There are all types of undercurrents flowing behind the calm surface that shape and change the workings of the entire magical world.

During the war, it was pretty much black and white from Harry's perspective. Death eaters against the Order, Voldemort against Dumbledore, Blood Supremacists against the rest, etc. Only after winning the war did Harry realise that it was never that simple.

The problems in their world run far deeper than what appears on the surface. Not everyone who followed Voldemort was bad and not everyone who fought against him was good. Good or Bad, these words are far too limited to ever truly represent what was really going on during the war.

The best way to describe the war would be Voldemort exploiting the fears of wizarding Britain to accomplish his own grand ambitions.

The purebloods in wizarding Britain fear the change that is happening to their world during the last hundred years. A century ago muggle cities still had to deal with plagues, as such muggle-born children were vastly uneducated when compared to pureblood children, due to this most of the positions of power were filled with purebloods. But just in a century, which for an average witch and wizard is just half of their lifespan, things have completely changed.

With muggle-borns and half-bloods quickly catching up with purebloods alongside the developing muggles, and the deaths caused by Grindelwald's war, the pureblood houses started losing most of their influence and power. Now you will find muggle-borns and half-bloods in every position of power which before was mostly held by purebloods.

By the time Voldemort's time came, the pureblood houses lost most of their political influence and power and were left with only knowledge and wealth that their ancestors gathered for generations.

Some of the pureblood houses like Greengrass adapted to this change and thrived by accepting half-bloods and muggle-borns, while others like Blacks, Gaunts, etc blamed the muggle-borns and half-bloods for stealing from them what they think is their birthright.

Voldemort exploited these beliefs to get these pureblood houses to follow him. While Grindelwald actually openly fought a war against his enemies for his cause, what Voldemort did was more like create a terrorist organisation with his death eaters.

It was never a fair fight with Voldemort, he and his death eaters simply caused terror by torturing and killing anyone who tried to rise against the pureblood cause. Death eaters always ambushed their victims when they were alone like cowards.

While Grindelwald was also a powerful dark lord, the man still had morals and codes no matter how twisted they were. There were lines that Grindelwald would not cross no matter what. Most importantly Grindelwald fought because he actually believed in his own cause.

But Voldemort was worse because everything is just a means to an end for him. Pureblood cause, Death eaters, etc are just tools for him to achieve his goals. There are no lines that Voldemort won't cross in his quest for power and immortality.

Voldemort left death and devastation wherever he went in his path to power. Even his death eaters were not immune to the sheer amount of terror caused by the Dark Lord.

That's why even now most of the wizarding world is still afraid to speak his name.