But it gets worse. (Or better, I suppose.)
One of the examiners, skeptical as all get out, asks about Hobbit Culture - because they’re obviously civilized creatures, they must have some kind of culture, right? And of course, the inherent coziness and warmth of Hobbit Culture is in every Hufflepuff’s DNA, so there’s a giant crowd of excited hufflepuffs (and a few aforementioned snarky Ravenclaws) telling the examiners everything about Hobbit Culture. Ah, yes. Breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper; parties, politics, pipeweed, peacefulness.
And in Hobbiton, you can’t mention peacefulness without mentioning the Primary Purveyor of Peacelessness himself:
Gandalf the Grey. Mithrandir. Tharkun. Greyhame. Et cetera.
And things get strange from there.
“Who’s Gandalf?” Oh, he’s a wizard.
“A wizard? Who? Never heard of any wizard named Gandalf.”
(At this point, the hufflepuff that started all this is starting to squirm uncomfortably.)
“What did this… Gandalf do, that the Hobbits hate him so much?” one examiner asks suspiciously.
The answer, as a bookish Slytherin fourth-year says into the silence, is as follows:
“In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit.”
And the Slytherin proceeds to recite - from memory, mind you! - the entire first chapter of The Hobbit, as spellbound first-years crowd around and the examiners’ Dictaquills feverishly scribble down every word. They can hardly believe their ears. A wizard? Talked to hobbits? Fascinating! How has nobody heard of this?
When the Slytherin stops, everyone groans. Even the examiners, who came here to simply investigate a possibly-Confounded student and their baffling essay, are dismayed. “You clearly know this… hobbit tale well,” one examiner says skeptically. “Surely there are records of this event? Hobbits are quite civilized people, I suppose.”
Yes. You suppose. (Everyone tries to hide their snickers. Some succeed more than others.)
The Slytherin smiles faintly, and from their bag they pull a thick, battered book the size of a paving stone, bound in red leather.
“This,” they say reverently, “is a copy of the Hobbit world’s records of the Great War of the Ring - as translated and published by the great historian John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.”
The examiners go batshit insane.
(So do some of the less subtle students. This is comedy gold.)
They snatch the book - actually a Muggle book, a copy of the complete illustrated Tolkien legendarium, containing The Hobbit AND all three Lord of the Rings books AND The Silmarillion - from the Slytherin’s hands and zip back to the Ministry to pore over it.
(Of course, this Slytherin has been regaling the common room with tales from that book for well over a year now - holding them under the illusion that All Of The Events In This Story Are True And These Records Are Real. They ripped out the copyright pages and spelled the typed text to look like handwritten letters. Slytherins are nothing if not resourceful.)
Oh, the poor, misguided Ministry. (Specifically the Department of Mysteries and the Department of Magical History. Poor, poor them.)
Because what did they find in this book?
Evidence of a massive war fought over the destruction of a bloody HORCRUX!
Nobody knew it existed! Nobody knew it happened! Pureblood historians are tearing out their hair, trying to figure out who was Gandalf, and where is Gondor, and did our house-elves use to look like Legolas and his kin, and why the bloody hell do all our calculations tell us that Mount Vesuvius was Mount Doom but Osgiliath is somewhere in Spain??
Eventually they decide that Gandalf was Merlin and Aragorn was King Arthur, and all of this is just a retelling of Merlin’s life, but from the point of view of one of these Hobbit creatures. Who live in holes in the ground, but are very good at hiding, and do not like having thirteen dwarves and a wizard suddenly tramping over their property.
(This gets back to Hogwarts. Everyone falls over laughing. Gandalf? As Merlin? Unbelievable.)
(Though these days, instead of saying “Merlin’s pants!” or “By Merlin!”, one might hear “Gandalf’s hat!” or “Gandalf’s staff!” or “Gandalf’s saggy left…”
The Ministry is halfway to getting The Lord of the Rings summarized and put into a history textbook when Fudge accidentally tells the Prime Minister about their “marvelous discovery, old chap, can you believe it! Five thousand years of history that nobody knew of, all written down and preserved by Hobbits!”
“I believe I already said that -”
“You idiot!” the Prime Minister sputters, though in much more colorful language. “That’s a Muggle tale! Tolkien is a bloody national treasure! Someone’s been having you on!”
So they scrap the history books and cancel the expeditions into Vesuvius to find remains of a forge. The pureblood half of the Wizarding World never finds out about Hobbits, and the One Ring, and Gollum, and Gondor and Rohan and Rivendell and Lothlorien, of Smaug and Laketown - of noble tales of friendship and love, of glowing swords and giant spiders, sword and bow and axe against the greatest evil of our time.
“Muggles are bloody clever, I say,” McGonnagall mutters to Flitwick, over great cups full of whiskey. “If Muggles can trick the Ministry into believing that hobbits are real, then mark my words, they’ll find a way to sue the whole wizarding world for copyright infringement.”
