No one knew whether Albert's words had had an effect or whether there had been other reasons, but the relationship between wizards and goblins worsened.
They heard that the source of all this trouble was Voldemort, who could not even rest in peace after death.
The goblins believed Voldemort had also been a wizard. During his brief rule over the British magical world, he had inflicted considerable harm upon Britain's goblins, causing some of them to believe that the British Ministry of Magic should pay a price to compensate them for their enormous losses.
The outcome was predictable.
British wizards had suffered badly enough at Voldemort's hands. How could anyone be willing to clean up the mess he had left behind? Naturally, they could not accept the goblins' "extortion," decisively rejecting such unreasonable demands and arguing that wizards had been victims as well.
The goblins, naturally, could not accept such an "absurd" excuse. After all, Voldemort had been a wizard too. In the goblins' view, the Second Wizarding War had been an internal problem among wizards. Since it had severely affected the goblins and caused their race immense losses, compensation and concessions in certain matters were only natural.
The two sides remained deadlocked over the matter, and their relationship deteriorated further.
Without question, this was an outcome many people were happy to see. The only question was whether anyone had been secretly pushing things along.
In any case, wizards who had never held much goodwill toward goblins began calling internally for a hard-line response to the goblins' unreasonable demands.
No one could tolerate being harmed by Voldemort, only to be forced to pay for the evil he had done. No matter what, such nonsense was unacceptable. Even Kingsley publicly expressed sympathy for the goblins and said they were victims too,