Lies Revealed

paying the piper

Lucius was sitting in the Board of Education meeting that Lady Longbottom and he arranged. The new school wasn't to start for another two weeks but there were a lot of pressing issues. "I thank you for coming on such short notice. We have several issues we feel everyone needs to be made aware of."

"I agreed with Lucius which is why we called for the special session." Lady Longbottom's vulture on her hat was nodding its agreement.

Lucius picked up a scroll. "First order of business, Minerva McGonagall has submitted her retirement notice. She will be done by the end of the year, not the school year but the end of this year. She has put forth the name of Severus Snape as the new deputy with Filius Flitwick assisting." Lucius handed the school to Lord Parkinson. "Minerva's recommendation states that Severus has been assisting her for over a decade in the job especially when Albus hasn't been around to do his own job." Lucius ignored the grunts and grumbles as he was aware that many were tired of Dumbledore. Dumbledore sealed his fate in many of their eyes when he was busy pushing his slight misunderstanding about Ronald Weasley's actions in Hogwarts, the sorting issue, and the lack of filing numerous reports. "Severus will remain as the Potion Master, Head of Slytherin, and the potion instructor."

"It seems like a bit much." Ted Tonks passed the scroll to Lady Greengrass.

"Sadly, it's been the situation in Hogwarts for decades which brings up the second issue." Lucius picked up a thick stack of parchment paper.

"Shouldn't we address the first issue?" Ted wondered.

"The second issue, as well as our third issue, will help with the first issue." Lady Longbottom patted the thick stack of parchment paper. "It is a bit surprising what we will be revealing but it is vital."

"Yes, it is. I have here the yearly OWL and NEWT results for over the last fifty years." Lucius picked up a single piece of parchment and waved his wand making several copies. "Here is a summary of the results by year. The year is in the first column, the OWL results in the second, the third is the NEWT results, and the last column is the percentage decrease you can see each year. At the bottom is the certified seal by Gringotts. The stack in front of me is the certified results from the Ministry."

"Oh, my...it has a list of classes being removed too. It shows on average that every three to five years one or two classes were removed." Ted Tonks looked shocked. He was the only muggle-born on the Board but always believed the information Dumbledore provided.

"Yes, and we have the requests showing the removals as being no one signed up for the classes, however, we have a list of students who wrote to the Ministry and the Board over the years wondering why they were removed or questioning why a class wasn't offered any longer. As you can see from the exchanges of letters, the students were informed the classes were removed by the Board and Ministry were informed no student enrolled."

"Wait, I wanted to enroll in the spell crafting and was informed that the Ministry deemed it unnecessary." Ted lowered the parchment he was reading. "Are you saying, Dumbledore has removed all of these classes without board approval?"

"Yes." Lady Longbottom opened up a chest sitting on the floor next to her. She pulled out the top scroll. "I was reviewing the different meeting notes to confirm if what you stated was true or not. I found no minute meetings for the last fifty years where any class was removed with the approval of the board without being informed that no student enrolled in the class. Every minute meeting stated that no student enrolled and how it would save the school money." She put the scroll on the table in front of her. "This scroll lists the dates of the meetings, the topics of the meeting, and the scroll number with the meeting details."

"Oh, dear." Lady Greengrass picked up the scroll and reviewed the dates.

"Yes, now back to the issues. The decline, the missing classes, and the budget mishandling have to lead to the staff at Hogwarts being responsible for numerous jobs instead of the one job they were hired to do. Dumbledore hasn't been able to hire a DADA professor until now. The current professor is a board hire. The rest of the staff, well, we have a few problems which will need to be discussed also."