"Because legally speaking, the Forbidden Forest is woodland attached to Hogwarts, and Hogwarts receives dedicated subsidies from the Ministry of Magic for its annual day-to-day operations."
Douglas leafed through the regulations as he spoke casually.
Sirius glared at him. "Whose side are you on? You haven't really started thinking of yourself as Fudge's adviser, have you?"
Douglas looked up, rolled his eyes at him, and ignored him.
"Don't get worked up, Sirius. They've already formally sent the Hogwarts governors' families requests for statements on the legality of their family assets' sources over the past century, along with notices requesting cooperation in investigating the Board of Governors' historical financial transactions."
Dumbledore spoke with a chuckle, seemingly quite appreciative of those young people's courage.
"I've heard from some old friends that Cornelius has spent quite a lot recently on renovating Azkaban and certain other expenditures. The annual funding allocation from Gringotts has been stretched rather thin. Percy happened to show him the results of their exchanges with the American Ministry of Magic..."
At this point, Sirius understood. So the American Ministry of Magic had spurred him into action.
Those of them who frequently dealt with the other side knew that MACUSA really did have ample funding. After all, the North American wizarding community had an active commercial sector. As a Muggle metropolis, New York had a thriving trade in commercial alchemical goods, abundant tax revenue, and a thoroughly orderly fiscal system.
By comparison, MACUSA operated a modern bureaucracy in an urban skyscraper, while the United Kingdom Ministry of Magic still occupied an old, multilevel underground building and retained a Victorian-style bureaucracy.
Its regulatory oversight fell even further short of theirs, to say nothing of its funding.
"He just wants to make some visible changes to the wizarding world during his term," Douglas