As Harry followed Hermione and rushed forward, what flashed before his eyes was not the furious crowds on both sides.
It was the face of Hogwarts' caretaker, Argus Filch, with its large hooked nose.
He remembered how, before Nick invited him to his five-hundredth deathday party in his second year, Filch had dragged him to his office for dirtying the floor.
There, he had discovered that Filch, a well-known "Muggle-born," was planning to enroll in a "Quick-Spell Correspondence Course."
It was specifically meant to teach Muggle-borns how to cast spells.
When he later told Ron and Hermione about it, Ron had laughed at Filch for it.
But everything happening now made Harry understand why Filch, already so old and with no risk of losing his job, had still gone to such lengths to learn magic.
Muggle-borns had a status so low in wizarding society that it was outrageous. They were even worse off than the Mudbloods those pure-blood families so often spoke of!
The Ministry of Magic's Hit Wizards stationed in Diagon Alley were all wizards who had survived the brutal war a few days ago.
Under different circumstances, Harry would undoubtedly have called them heroes.
Yet these Hit Wizards, who had dared to fight Death Eaters and Dark Wizards loyal to Voldemort, were attacking a group of weak civilians in full view of everyone—though they had indeed been provoked—
"Don't, don't attack them!"
Hermione screamed as she rushed forward, but the enraged Hit Wizards would not listen.
"This is dangerous, kid. It's not somewhere you should be!"
The Hit Wizard whose arm Hermione had grabbed shoved her away, then viciously swung his wand. A red beam shot from its tip and knocked one of the protesters unconscious.
The resentment in these workers' hearts had clearly been building for far