Headmaster's Office.
Albus Dumbledore sat behind his great oak desk, a tray of breakfast untouched at his elbow. His half-moon spectacles slid low on his crooked nose as he leaned forward, eyes fixed intently upon the newspaper in his hands.
It was not every day the Daily Prophet reprinted a piece from the Wizarding World News. And certainly not a piece like this.
"Redefining Pure-Blood: The Rosier Lineage"
(This article, originally published in Wizarding World News, reflects only the views of the author. The publisher claims no responsibility.)
In 1926, the British wizard Cantankerus Nott published the so-called "Pure-Blood Directory," declaring that only twenty-eight families could be considered the "Sacred Twenty-Eight," the last of the 'true pure-bloods.'
From then on, the rhetoric of the Sacred Twenty-Eight became the shield and banner of Britain's pure-blood elite, a mark they wielded to separate themselves from others, a doctrine spread not only through Britain but across continental Europe and even into North America.
But the truth, as this writer argues, is that the Sacred Twenty-Eight is utter nonsense. For centuries, Muggle blood has blended irreversibly into our lines. Strictly speaking, all wizards alive today are mixed-blood.
Take Cantankerus Nott himself: his great-grandfather married a Muggle author, from whom he seems to have inherited his literary flair—how else could the Notts have become so influential in the publishing trade?
The Gaunt family, descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself, insisted on inbreeding—siblings marrying siblings—until the line choked itself into extinction. Isolt Sayre, founder of Ilvermorny, was herself a Gaunt, and she married a Muggle. Every Gaunt in North America today is mixed-blood.
The Weasleys have never denied their own Muggle ancestry. And yet Nott conveniently ignored their statements in his Directory.
In conclusion: by such strict definitions, "pure-bloods" have already gone extinct. Thus I propose a new standard: three generations of activity in the wizarding world, with both parents being magical, should be sufficient to count as pure-blood. By this measure, even Harry Potter—the Boy Who Lived—is pure-blood, not half-blood.
But among pure-bloods, too, there are differences. The Sacred Twenty-Eight classification is obsolete. We need a new, more accurate, more detailed, and more objective system to measure a family's contributions to wizarding society.
This series will introduce one hundred and twelve families, organized into Twelve Chronicles, Thirty Houses, and Seventy Accounts.
This issue: the Rosier family of France.
…
The article went on to detail the Rosiers' history with painstaking precision:
Clovis Rosier, an eighth-century wizard, court sorcerer to Pepin the Short, granted lands and title, raising the Rose Estate from which the family took its name.
Their centuries of dominance in magical flora trade. Their split during the Hundred Years' War, birthing the English Rosiers. Their migrations into Spain and Italy. Their prominent scions—famous duellists, potion-masters, even disguised pseudonyms of wizards long thought unrelated, now revealed as Rosiers.
Even Dumbledore, with all his knowledge, found himself learning new details, reassembling the family's tapestry with fresh clarity. From an academic standpoint, the work was… brilliant.
But brilliance was not what worried him.
Why had Tom Riddle written it?
The opening salvo alone—the blunt demolition of the Sacred Twenty-Eight—was dynamite. Tom had stripped away the pure-blood families' proudest banner and declared it worthless. He had laid bare truths long whispered but never shouted in print.
And he had not published in a minor pamphlet. He had forced it into the Prophet. That meant strings had been pulled, editors persuaded, money moved. This had taken deliberate effort.
Why? For what purpose? Surely not just "academic research."
No, there was something more. Dumbledore could feel it, but the boy's true aim eluded him.
The difference between a prodigy and a schemer, he reflected, was that one could be predicted, and the other… never.
For the truth was simple: Tom had done all of this for credit points and achievement marks in his system of power, a concept the Headmaster could not even begin to fathom.
And yet, knowingly or not, Tom had also seized something else.
In the Muggle business world, there is a saying: first-rate companies set the standards, second-rate companies build brands, third-rate companies sell products.
Tom was setting a standard. He was grasping the reins of language, of definition. When enough people repeated his terms, believed his words, then his words would become truth.
"God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."
That was power.
By contrast, even Dumbledore—esteemed, respected, beloved—had seen his credibility toppled by a smear campaign when he spoke of Voldemort's return. The Ministry had whispered, the Prophet had mocked, and the world had doubted.
But Tom? Tom was weaving authority with every line of print.
…
In the Great Hall below, breakfast chatter had died away.
Students hunched over their papers, lips moving silently as they read. Professors lowered their forks and exchanged wary glances.
At the Slytherin table, the effect was electric. Students leaned forward, breath caught, eyes devouring every word of their House's rising star.
And in Tom's mind, a familiar sound chimed.
[Ding!]
Quest Triggered: The Struggle for Voice has begun.
[Main Quest: "My Words Are Truth."]
Expand the influence of "The Records of Wizarding History."
Ensure the wizarding world adopts your bloodline standard.
Secure recognition of your evaluations of the great pure-blood families.
[Quest Progress: 0% → 2%.]
[Completion Reward: 1,000 Achievement Points, 5,000 Study Credits, and one Special Tier Lottery.]
…
The page seemed to glow faintly in his hands.