"When I was really little my uncle resented my very presence because I was a drain on their resources, what if they had been abusive? I mean the beat you, starve you, won't spend a penny sort of abusive. Would Dumbledore have stepped in? I doubt it. I think that man wanted me downtrodden and believing I shouldn't question him. That I should be enthralled by magic, rather than seeing it for the tool it is. Why else leave me in ignorance? And before you tell me he didn't, I want you to think about something. McGonagall does all the contacts for the muggleborn. Now, while I'm not muggleborn, the amount my aunt could teach me about the magical world could be written on the head of a pin. So why was it that my guide into the magical world was Hagrid?"
Harry glanced at the first Baron. He was smiling and nodding in approval. So Harry continued, "Don't get me wrong. I like Hagrid. I think he's a nice person. But the man is thicker than a tree trunk in the Forbidden Forest, and he believes exactly what Dumbledore tells him to."
"On my first visit to Diagon Alley there was no plan for me to find out anything from the goblins about my accounts. Hagrid was to take me to the bank, help me get just enough money for the basics, and then to hustle me through my shopping so I couldn't find out much. Unfortunately for Dumbledore I was raised to question things, knew enough to know what questions to ask, and my aunt came along with me. Between the two of us, I suspect I learned way more than the Headmaster intended, and my aunt and I took steps to remove his control of me."
"That is just his questionable actions towards me before I started at Hogwarts. Next, I want you to think of his actions towards the magical world. He holds two of the four most influential posts in the magical world. He used to hold three, but what has he done with them?
"He claims to want equality between the races. However under his tenure as Chief Warlock more anti-creature legislation was passed than in the two hundred years prior."
"But he allowed me to come to Hogwarts!" Remus protested.
"Yes, and how many werewolves have attended since? And it's not like you haven't been properly grateful to him ever since. After all, he told you that it would be less confusing for me if you had no contact with me while I was growing up at my aunt and uncle's. Didn't he? And what did you do? Precisely as he told you to.
"He claims to want greater equality between muggleborns and purebloods. From what I can tell with the exception of the auror department where there are a token three muggleborn, there isn't a single muggleborn in the ministry who is above a simple clerical worker or janitor. And even there, they are outnumbered twenty to one. Not one member of the Wizengamot is muggleborn, and although the Muggle Protection Act was passed, it is nothing but a good intentioned and poor attempt at protecting muggles. But nothing substantial has been done to help equalize wizarding society. Purebloods have more rights and power than halfbloods and muggleborn.
"As Chief Warlock one of his duties was to see that proper trials occur. I know of at least two instances where they have not. There are probably a dozen more I'm not aware of yet. You, Mr. Black, surely as a member of Dumbledore's order, you should have had a trial. Lucius Malfoy is the other. The evidence that he somehow bribed his way out of his trial at the end of the last war is overwhelming. Which makes me question what did Dumbledore have to gain, or was it lose?
"I don't know enough of international magical politics to speak on his performance as Supreme Mugwhump. I do know that Magical Great Britain is fairly isolated and Diagon Alley strikes me as being less prosperous, having a predominance of British goods, unlike Rue de Magie in Paris which has a larger variety.
"Then there's Hogwarts…" Harry sighed. He wanted to convince these men that Dumbledore was a dangerous man to trust, but what to say?
"My first year at Hogwarts… I heard how he wanted unity between the houses. Like that would happen with the level of prejudice his policies encourage. Then there's the fact the Gryffindors are allowed to get away with anything short of murder, and Snape is allowed to get away with retaliatory point taking. There's the fact that I was effectively ostracized by almost the entire school for the first half of the year. I was relentlessly pranked by a pair of Gryffindors and not one punishment was given to them, but when I got sick of it and pranked them back I was given detention.
"And there's how much grief Neville was given for daring to be friends with a Slytherin. McGonagall, herself, told me that I should distance myself from Neville to protect him, one time while he was in the infirmary. Because some older boys had beaten him up and thrown him down the stairs to the dungeons for daring to be friends with me.
"Then there's his claims that Hogwarts is the safest place in the magical world. In my first year in addition to being mercilessly pranked for more than half the year, I encountered and fought a troll, I was nearly reductoed at point blank range by a dorm mate. Although to be fair, I did half provoke Malfoy into it and he was punished for it. There was the detention into the Forbidden Forrest where we were looking for what was killing unicorns.
"Then there was the "philosopher's stone" that Dumbledore brought into the school to "protect" it. How safe can a school be when at the opening feast the students are given a warning: "don't go near the third floor corridor on potential pain of death".
"That also leaves out the Voldemort possessed Defense professor. He at the end of the year kidnapped Neville to force me through the gauntlet of protections Dumbledore put in place to protect the "stone". Mind you it was a gauntlet designed to test the abilities of a first year. A cerebus, devil's snare, a flock of charmed keys, McGonagall"s giant chess set, a troll, a potion/logic challenge and finally a charmed mirror. The last was probably the only one that truly would have offered a challenge to any good adult wizard. I managed to get the stone, get Neville away from Quirrellmort, and escape. The teachers took two hundred points from Slytherin for doing so.
"The ironic side of it all was the "stone" wasn't even real and I already knew that. Having figured out what was in the castle, written to Oncle Nic, and found out it was a decoy."
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