Any work of fiction or non-fiction that depicts interbreeding between wizards and Muggles should be banned from the bookshelves of Hogwarts. I do not wish my son to be influenced into sullying the purity of his bloodline by reading stories that promote wizard–Muggle marriage.
My refusal to remove the book from the library was backed by a majority of the Board of Governors. I wrote back to Mr Malfoy, explaining my decision:
So-called pure-blood families maintain their alleged purity by disowning, banishing or lying about Muggles or Muggle-borns on their family trees. They then attempt to foist their hypocrisy upon the rest of us by asking us to ban works dealing with the truths they deny. There is not a witch or wizard in existence whose blood has not mingled with that of Muggles, and I should therefore consider it both illogical and immoral to remove works dealing with the subject from our students’ store of knowledge.4
This exchange marked the beginning of Mr Malfoy’s long campaign to have me removed from my post as Headmaster of Hogwarts, and of mine to have him removed from his position as Lord Voldemort’s Favourite Death Eater.
1 Professor Beery eventually left Hogwarts to teach at W.A.D.A. (Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts), where, he once confessed to me, he maintained a strong aversion to mounting performances of this particular story, believing it to be unlucky.
2 See Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for a definitive description of this curious beast. It ought never to be voluntarily introduced into a wood-panelled room, nor have an Engorgement Charm placed upon it.
3 Professor Kettleburn survived no fewer than sixty-two periods of probation during his employment as Care of Magical Creatures teacher. His relations with my predecessor at Hogwarts, Professor Dippet, were always strained, Professor Dippet considering him to be somewhat reckless. By the time I became Headmaster, however, Professor Kettleburn had mellowed considerably, although there were always those who took the cynical view that with only one and a half of his original limbs remaining to him, he was forced to take life at a quieter pace.
4 My response prompted several further letters from Mr Malfoy, but as they consisted mainly of opprobrious remarks on my sanity, parentage and hygiene, their relevance to this commentary is remote.
3
THE WARLOCK’S HAIRY HEART
There was once a handsome, rich and talented young warlock, who observed that his friends grew foolish when they fell in love, gambolling and preening, losing their appetites and their dignity. The young warlock resolved never to fall prey to such weakness, and employed Dark Arts to ensure his immunity.
Unaware of his secret, the warlock’s family laughed to see him so aloof and cold.
‘All will change,’ they prophesied, ‘when a maid catches his fancy!’
But the young warlock’s fancy remained untouched. Though many a maiden was intrigued by his haughty mien, and employed her most subtle arts to please him, none succeeded in touching his heart. The warlock gloried in his indifference and the sagacity that had produced it.
The first freshness of youth waned, and the warlock’s peers began to wed, and then to bring forth children.
‘Their hearts must be husks,’ he sneered inwardly, as he observed the antics of the young parents around him, ‘shrivelled by the demands of these mewling offspring!’
And once again he congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his early choice.
In due course, the warlock’s aged parents died. Their son did not mourn them; on the contrary, he considered himself blessed by their demise. Now he reigned alone in their castle. Having transferred his greatest treasure to the deepest dungeon, he gave himself over to a life of ease and plenty, his comfort the only aim of his many servants.
The warlock was sure that he must be an object of immense envy to all who beheld his splendid and untroubled solitude. Fierce were his anger and chagrin, therefore, when he overheard two of his lackeys discussing their master one day.
The first servant expressed pity for the warlock who, with all his wealth and power, was yet beloved by nobody.
But his companion jeered, asking why a man with so much gold and a palatial castle to his name had been unable to attract a wife.
Their words dealt dreadful blows to the listening warlock’s pride.
He resolved at once to take a wife, and that she would be a wife superior to all others. She would possess astounding beauty, exciting envy and desire in every man who beheld her; she would spring from magical lineage, so that their offspring would inherit outstanding magical gifts; and she would have wealth at least equal to his own, so that his comfortable existence would be assured, in spite of additions to his household.
It might have taken the warlock fifty years to find such a woman, yet it so happened that the very day after he decided to seek her, a maiden answering his every wish arrived in the neighbourhood to visit her kinsfolk.
She was a witch of prodigious skill and possessed of much gold. Her beauty was such that it tugged at the heart of every man who set eyes on her; of every man, that is, except one. The warlock’s heart felt nothing at all. Nevertheless, she was the prize he sought, so he began to pay her court.
All who noticed the warlock’s change in manners were amazed, and told the maiden that she had succeeded where a hundred had failed.
The young woman herself was both fascinated and repelled by the warlock’s attentions. She sensed the coldness that lay behind the warmth of his flattery, and had never met a man so strange and remote. Her kinsfolk, however, deemed theirs a most suitable match and, eager to promote it, accepted the warlock’s invitation to a great feast in the maiden’s honour.
The table was laden with silver and gold bearing the finest wines and most sumptuous foods. Minstrels strummed on silk-stringed lutes and sang of a love their master had never felt. The maiden sat upon a throne beside the warlock, who spake low, employing words of tenderness he had stolen from the poets, without any idea of their true meaning.
The maiden listened, puzzled, and finally replied, ‘You speak well, Warlock, and I would be delighted by your attentions, if only I thought you had a heart!’
The warlock smiled, and told her that she need not fear on that score. Bidding her follow, he led her from the feast, and down to the locked dungeon where he kept his greatest treasure.
Here, in an enchanted crystal casket, was the warlock’s beating heart.
Long since disconnected from eyes, ears and fingers, it had never fallen prey to beauty, or to a musical voice, to the feel of silken skin. The maiden was terrified by the sight of it, for the heart was shrunken and covered in long black hair.
‘Oh, what have you done?’ she lamented. ‘Put it back where it belongs, I beseech you!’
Seeing that this was necessary to please her, the warlock drew his wand, unlocked the crystal casket, sliced open his own breast and replaced the hairy heart in the empty cavity it had once occupied.
‘Now you are healed and will know true love!’ cried the maiden, and she embraced him.
The touch of her soft white arms, the sound of her breath in his ear, the scent of her heavy gold hair: all pierced the newly awakened heart like spears. But it had grown strange during its long exile, blind and savage in the darkness to which it had been condemned, and its appetites had grown powerful and perverse.