"Harry, what is this?"
After dinner on Thursday, Fred had just climbed into the common room from the passage behind the Fat Lady's portrait when he immediately spotted Harry hammering a parchment notice onto the Gryffindor notice board. Out of curiosity, he approached, only to see that Harry was posting a parchment notification—
"A notice for the Duel Club—"
Having just finished pinning the parchment, Harry spoke, although an explanation was unnecessary; after all, Fred wasn't blind, his question was more rhetorical, as he soon began to read out the notice on the board word by word—
"Notice: As decided by the champion of the 372nd Great Britain Wizard Duel Tournament and Hogwarts Charms Professor—Professor Filius Flitwick, the Duel Club that was originally scheduled to be held every Friday evening in the Great Hall after the start of term is hereby officially canceled the following day... huh?"
"Huh?"
Fred's voice was quite loud, and naturally, what he read out attracted a lot of attention; the little wizards in the Gryffindor Common Room had already gathered around, and after confirming that Fred wasn't making his usual jokes for attention, continuous murmurs of surprise arose.
For a moment, the Gryffindor Common Room seemed like it suddenly had five hundred ducks storm in, the noisy chatter causing Harry to pause his actions subconsciously.
"Is it true, Potter?"
Upon asking Fred and learning it was Harry who pinned this parchment, almost everyone turned their gaze on the skinny boy in the center of the crowd, as a few sixth-year boys urgently asked.
The Duel Club, after all, was a good opportunity for everyone to train in combat, as the school rules prohibited little wizards from dueling in private, and the Duel Club was the only chance to improve practical skills during normal times—
Actually, it's no wonder William felt the students' combat skills were declining each year; after all, a hundred years ago, there was a student-hosted Duel Club at Hogwarts, and even Dumbledore won a championship one term. Back then, students could freely duel in designated areas if they wanted.
But over time, problems with this student-hosted Duel Club surfaced—the referees weren't strong enough.
Because of the houses, the first thing clueless little wizards did upon entering Hogwarts was "Sift for houses, then settle scores"—Gryffindor and Slytherin House having lingering animosities was purely a historical leftover, and each headmaster seemed to have no intention to resolve it, allowing an ancient and eternal hat to sort them.
Every little wizard entering Slytherin or Gryffindor grew to hate those from the other house under the indoctrination of their seniors—of course, this doesn't exclude some genuine grudges. Overall, a large-scale brawl suddenly broke out upon bearing grievances long-held and having no other outlets—
The cause was a Gryffindor fourth-year student who acted too forcefully in a duel, nearly crippling a Slytherin wizard. This led the Slytherin students' friend to initiate another round of dueling, using forbidden Dark Arts in the club, directly resulting in the crippling of the Gryffindor wizard—
What followed was cliché, as there were no professors present during the Duel Club meetings, and even the referee was just a Hufflepuff sixth-year wizard who was completely powerless to stop it, while hot-blooded Gryffindors and Slytherins fought each other, stray charms dragging students from other houses into the mess.
This brawl, involving multiple participants and resulting in the deaths of four little wizards, ended with the then-newly appointed Headmaster Stuart Hernand resigning out of guilt after Phineas Black's step-down, and the Duel Club was directly shut down.
The next headmaster, Armando Dippet, decided to implement an all-encompassing ban, shutting down every club involving dueling, casting charms, or any risk of mutual harm, even revising the curriculum for Defense Against the Dark Arts Class and charms classes that sometimes involved dueling...
In short, safety first, everything else be damned.
Things developed exactly as Headmaster Dippet envisioned, and besides Myrtle Warren, who died due to the Chamber incident, no little wizard died accidentally on the school grounds during his tenure, with the Duel Club being reduced to a historical anecdote like the Triwizard Tournament—
But with safety came a decline in average combat literacy among little wizards, and the Auror rookies at the Ministry of Magic were nearly disappearing due to the lack of training, with the old Auror Alastor Moody exerting himself for years on the job before finally retiring.
No other way about it, as the school's teaching quality had declined, making it much harder to pass N.E.W.T. exams and earn at least five outstanding certificates (including one in Defense Against the Dark Arts). Not to mention, recent Defense Against the Dark Arts professors were less capable than even a Muggle instructor—
So even with the Ministry of Magic lowering recruitment standards for Aurors, able applicants from Hogwarts graduates were few and far between...
From this angle, the seemingly unreliable Tonks in the Auror team was an excellent graduate.
Dumbledore was aware of these issues, feeling worried yet unsure why Minister of Magic Fudge was the least bit concerned, as the understaffing of the Auror Office was no bad news to him.
Indeed, it wasn't, as Fudge, the former junior minister of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, never saw eye-to-eye with Rufus Scrimgeour, the Head of the Auror Office. Thus, upon becoming Minister, he consolidated power by pressuring the Aurors' side—
As a result, the Auror Office's lack of new recruits was something Fudge was quite happy about.
Thus, he repeatedly leveraged the school board to block Dumbledore's proposals for an additional dueling class.
Regardless, the peaceful state of the world meant we didn't need so many combat-trained individuals, or at least that was Fudge's thought process.
Back then, Dumbledore had no choice but not to insist due to no sense of urgency, until Harry enrolled, and with Voldemort returning using Quirrell's body, the idea of improving combat skills for Hogwarts students was revived, but this time he didn't plan on consulting Fudge—since he realized he couldn't persuade that idiot in English.
Seizing the opportunity as Lockhart wanted to show off, Dumbledore went along and approved the revival of the Duel Club, giving Snape the leading role—no choice, as upon hearing they had to co-teach with Lockhart, the other professors ran off faster than rabbits, leaving only Snape to listen to him.
Initially, things went smoothly, until a certain William unexpectedly emerged, stealing the entire spotlight from the Duel Club.
After giving it some thought, Dumbledore handed control of the Duel Club to William, also assigning Professor Flitwick as the overseeing professor, thereby providing the club with upfront faculty support, allowing any conversation with the school board to not instantly devolve into accountability pursuits.
Naturally, Dumbledore had other motives in these actions, such as gauging William's "ambitions"...
However, William claimed that his ambitions were completely beyond Dumbledore's perception—