And then there had been his own House Ravenclaw, and the realisation how badly he had let his students destroy the very qualities of Lady Rowena along the last decade. Not that he could do a lot to remedy to this situation. With the headmaster busy to hold three positions at the same time, the real work of making sure the school functioned day after day was Minerva McGonagall and Filius responsibility. When one added to this phenomenal amount of paperwork the job of Senior Professor of Charms, the grading of papers and diverse other things like teaching the Choir of Hogwarts, there was little time to ensure the prefects of the Ravens did their job correctly and seriously.
Which they definitely had not.
If Filius had had any doubt in the subject, seeing the Ravenclaw common room ravaged by a short and violent battle on the first day would have reminded him how the House of the Wise had fallen. Just because one student having a dark family past had been chosen to enter their ranks.
Filius had really wanted to expulse these students having had the temerity to attack an eleven years old girl at twenty against one. It bore too many similitudes with his childhood as the child of an interspecies union for him not to feel enraged and furious at this situation. He still wanted to, for that matter. But he had been overruled. In the words of Dumbledore, expulsing these teenagers would "lead them to a dark path". And Dumbledore, acting in his persona of Headmaster of the school and Chief Warlock, had not only refused to cast out the culprits but had too forbidden Filius to talk to the press about the incident or inflict severe punishments. The contract signed the day he was hired being still binding, Filius had been forced to agree. One of his own students had died because he couldn't stop his quest of revenge. The others had one by one learnt their lessons. In blood, pain and detentions.
Nevertheless, it had forced him to consider him three things on that dreadful night. First, because Filius obviously hadn't done his job of Head of House properly here at Hogwarts, it had pushed him to consider who in the staff could share the blame. The list was long. Of the Senior Professors, Kettleburn was an infirm. Snape was busy protecting his Slytherins all year from the consequences of their bullying and abuse, all the while treating the rest of the children, teenagers and young adult like piles of dragon dung. Minerva was like him too busy with her role of Deputy Headmistress and Senior Transfiguration Professor to deal with the internal problems of Gryffindor House. Trelawney was a drunk. Muggle Studies, the program and the teacher were decades out of date. Binns had never taught anything worthwhile when he was living, and the tradition continued while he was dead. The real prize was going to Dumbledore in the end. Holding three prestigious positions, the man who was widely known thorough the world as the Defeater of Grindelwald had passed fifty-three complete days in the castle this year as its Headmaster. Under his watch this year, two teachers and a student had died. Not been sent to Saint Mungo's. Dead. Nevertheless, it had all been brushed under the carpet, and Filius doubted any kind of inquiries would ever been opened in the years to come. None of the three persons deceased had any family left alive that he knew of, after all.
The second thing had been that if he wanted something done, he had better do it himself. It was a lesson that been forged to him when he had begun to take his first steps in the duelling circuit, but he had allowed it to slip back in the recesses of his mind. With his dear colleagues unwilling to intervene in any way in the rapidly deteriorating situation of the magical school, he had decided to intervene in the magical education of a certain Alexandra Potter by teaching her duelling. Filius had not once regretted doing so. The girl was the perfect picture of her mother Lily Evans when she was angry or vindictive. The Potter Heiress was quite gifted in offensive spells , not to mention she had quite the gift to derail the little plans of Albus Dumbledore by her simple presence and little tolerance for the bullies and those who abused their authority in the castle. The cases of the mountain troll and the baby dragon were the most striking examples.
And the third... the third was the small chessman he had currently lying in his hands. From the outside, there was nothing extraordinary about such an object. In other circumstances, it would not have attracted his attention. Undoubtedly there were hundreds of such chess pieces owned by wizard families inside and outside Hogwarts. But this piece, this pawn, had been found on Devkins corpse when he was extracted from the rubble Alexandra Potter had used to indirectly kill him. As he had been the first on the scene, Filius had been able to examine the pawn and see the revealing spells casted by his wand signal a Protean Charm, a Life-Tracking Charm and dozens of other obscure incantations terribly difficult to cast even for a confirmed Charms Master like himself.
Filius long career on the Duellist circuit had introduced him to several quite famous duellists and a lot of infamous people around the years. It had given him a number of contacts which had made salivate the former Potions Master Slughorn. It had also taught him a huge number of rumours and legends surviving in the stadiums and taverns frequented by the circuit. Thousands upon thousands of things which were useless on a day per day basis.
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