Chapter 1: Hermione’s ALMOST Nonmagical Year
Notes:
If Hermione were told that, if she were to attend Hogwarts, she would need to attend the school till she was almost twenty-three, then would she want to go there? Read on to find out.
Chapter Text
Location: John of Saxony School for Academic Excellence, in south-east London
Monday, 4 September 1995
It’s the first day of Fifth Form for Hermione Granger (it’s the first day of Hermione’s Sophomore year)
Hermione is fifteen days away from her sixteenth birthday
It was the first day of Hermione Granger’s third-to-last year of school (before uni), and Hermione’s first class of the day was about to start.
The class was Calculus, and Hermione was eager to learn this subject. Thus Hermione had come to the classroom before most of the other students had come, and before the teacher, Miss Fahlstrom, had arrived.
Seconds later, Hermione’s friend Eleanor Chamberlain walked into the Calculus classroom, and the two friends began exchanging stories about the summer hols that just had ended. Hermione was relaxed—
—until Scarlett Shotton walked into the room. Shotton had two relatives of some sort who were amongst the Peerage, so Shotton acted as though she were better than everyone else at John of Saxony School.
Now Shotton said (loudly), “So, Granger, where’s your boyfriend Xavier? Did he decide that he didn’t want to be in Calculus class if you were in it?”
Hermione huffed at black-haired Shotton’s attempt to cause trouble. Then Hermione replied archly, “Xavier’s dad was transferred to Australia. Xavier’s family left for New South Wales in early August.”
Scarlett Shotton sneered. “I’m sure Xavier was glad to go, because then he didn’t need to pretend to like you anymore. He didn’t need to ignore you always showing off in class, and need to ignore you being so ugly.”
Eleanor said, “Hermione does not show off in class. She reads the assigned texts, takes notes in class and lets the teacher know she’s mastered the material.”
Hermione said, “Also, I’m not ugly.”
“Oh, please,” Shotton said haughtily, “your hair is ridiculously curly and your upper front teeth are gigantic. You should be attending John of Deformity School for Appearance Lack.”
Eleanor said, “Says the girl who gets her hair ‘styled’ by someone making one powerful swing with a machete.”
The teacher, Miss Fahlstrom, walked into the classroom. “Miss Shotton, Miss Granger, quiet down, please. I could hear you two in the hallway. Students come to my class to learn Math, not to engage in teen-girl melodrama. Save that till lunchtime, do you hear?”
Miss Fahlstrom said Math instead of Maths as the short form of Mathematics because Miss Fahlstrom was American, with accent to match. But last year when Miss Fahlstrom had been Hermione’s Mathematics teacher, the woman never had explained why an American woman was teaching in England instead of teaching in the States.
Meanwhile, there was the annoying Scarlett Shotton. Whilst Hermione pulled out her notebook and a ballpoint pen so she could take notes for class, she decided that whilst it was obvious that Scarlett Shotton lacked the brains that this school expected, Shotton had decided she wanted to attend here for some reason that did not involve learning many interesting things from quite knowledgeable teachers. But too bad for the other students, the Shotton parents were the sort to never refuse their dullard child anything.
****
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In the Harry Potter films, five actresses played Pansy Parkinson. Two of the five actresses were Lauren Shotton and Scarlett Byrne. I know nothing about these two actresses, I just combined their names.
****
Minutes later, still in Calculus class
After Miss Fahlstrom had taken roll and had made beginning-of-year remarks, she began her first Calculus lecture of the school year. Miss Fahlstrom had Hermione’s full attention.
Miss Fahlstrom put a big white-cardboard graph in front of the blackboard, a graph that was held up by the chalk tray so that all the students could see it. “Imagine that some machine has made this continuous graph of a racecar’s speed. The horizontal axis represents elapsed time in seconds, while the vertical axis represents the racecar’s speed in miles per hour. Notice that in this graph, there is no part of the racecar’s graphed speed that is a straight line. Now suppose I mark a point on this graph, representing the velocity v at time t, and I call this point (t,v). If I draw a line through (t,v) that seems to be going in the exact same direction that the graph-curve is going at time t—“
Miss Fahlstrom drew a line through (t,v) that seemed to be tangential to this part of the graph.
“—what would the slope of this line represent? Anyone?”
Silence from the students. Not even Hermione could guess.
“The slope of this line would be expressed in miles per hour per second, and would represent the acceleration of the racecar at time t. If the driver pushed the gas pedal down, thus increasing the racecar’s speed over time, the acceleration would be a positive number. If the driver took his foot off the gas pedal and the engine coasted slower, or if the driver touched the brake pedal, the acceleration would be a negative number. If the racecar maintained a steady speed—which I can’t see any racecar driver ever choosing to do—the graph would be horizontal there, so the acceleration would be zero. But you’ve all ridden in cars and some of you have provisional driving licenses, so you already know about velocity and acceleration, except for the ‘graphing them’ part. Questions?”
Nobody had questions.
Miss Fahlstrom said, “Now consider something else that is interesting about this graph. Suppose I make a left boundary for some part of the graph”—she drew a vertical line from the graph down to the t axis, and labelled the place where the vertical line crossed the t axis as t1—“and I make a right boundary for some other part of the graph.” Miss Fahlstrom drew a second vertical line, to the right of the first vertical line, from the graph down to the t axis; the intersection of this new vertical line and the t axis, Miss Fahlstrom labelled t2.
Miss Fahlstrom continued, “If you consider the t1 line, the t axis, the t2 line and the graph as forming a curvy-topped rectangle, the area inside this curvy-topped rectangle represents the distance that the racecar travels between t1 and t2. But if you want to know the racecar’s travelled distance, you have a problem: Since no part of this graph is drawn as a straight line, nothing you’ve learned so far has taught you how to find the area under the graph between t1 and t2.”
Miss Fahlstrom looked at the class. “Now let’s go from a real-world graph to a generated graph. You already know about functions, in which a certain value of x produces a specific value of y, and you’ve graphed functions. This year, you will learn how to calculate the slope of the line that is tangential to point (x, y) on the function graph, and you will learn how to calculate, between x1 and x2, the area under a curvy function graph.”
****
At the end of the hour, as the students were packing up and leaving the Maths classroom, Hermione thought, I learnt so much today. I am so glad I’m attending John of Saxony School for Academic Excellence, where the teaching always is academically excellent indeed.
****
Fifteen days later: Tuesday, 19 September
Hermione turns sixteen today
Rupert Tring, who was a Fifth-Former member of the John of Saxony School chess club, sauntered up to Hermione and Eleanor (and their friends) in the lunchroom.
“Oi, Granger,” Tring said, “I hear you turned sixteen today.”
Hermione wondered, Is he here to wish me a happy birthday? How strange. After all, he and I aren’t friends.
Aloud, Hermione replied, “Yes, I’m now sixteen.”
“Which means you now can consent to shags. You must feel needy now, since your boyfriend is in Australia. So how about you and I skive off classes this afternoon and get wicked in the Custodian’s Room? I know how to pick locks.”
Hermione huffed. “Rupert Tring, listen well. I am a virgin now, and am content to stay so for now. I don’t know when and with whom I will have sex for the first time, but it won’t be soon, and it won’t be with you. And in the Custodian’s Room, really? Go away.”
Hermione did not tell Tring that neither would she easily shag Dan Cliffarde—Cliffarde who was on the school footy team, was called Goldfoot because he scored goals so often, and who had blue eyes that could see into Hermione’s soul. Hermione had no plans to shag Dan Cliffarde anytime soon, but she would happily snog Dan Cliffarde mightily, if she were given a chance.
****
Four weeks later: Tuesday, 17 October
Again at the beginning of Calculus class, JoSSfAE
Today’s class had not yet started. As soon as Scarlett Shotton and Hermione both were in the classroom, Shotton marched over to Hermione’s chair and ordered Hermione, “Show me how you worked Number 24.”
In this Calculus textbook, homework problems within a chapter ranged from easy to hard to killer. Yesterday, Miss Fahlstrom had assigned the even problems between 2 and 24 as homework. In a few minutes, when class would start, the students would work some of the homework problems at the blackboard, then everyone would hand in their written homework.
Problem 24 had required that Hermione use a trick: the Chain Rule. Until Hermione had thought to try the Chain Rule, she had thought that Problem 24 was unsolvable; so it was no surprise that Shotton had not been able to work Problem 24.
Now Hermione huffed as she looked at Shotton. “In case you’ve forgotten: At the beginning of the year, right here in this classroom, you called me ugly. But now you want to copy my work for Problem 24 that either you were too lazy to do yourself or were too gormless to do yourself.”
Eleanor, as she was taking her seat, smirked at Shotton and said, “I vote for ‘stupid.’ Shotton, I often wonder why you are in this school when you struggle in many of your classes.”
Shotton glared at Hermione. “Why shouldn’t you help me? The only thing you’ve got going for you in your pathetic life is being a mega-swot, and what’s the use of being brainy if you keep it to yourself? Also, the fact is, you are ugly! If you were at a regular school instead of this school for the swottiest of swots, none of the girls would talk to you, and no boy would come near you. Now show me how you worked bloody Problem 24!”
****
Hermione was beyond furious now; and she felt something happening inside her chest. Now Hermione commanded Scarlett Shotton, in a voice full of power: “Leave me! Go to your desk, sit down, face the front, and do not talk to me. Change that: do not speak to anyone in the class except Miss Fahlstrom. Go.”
The front of Hermione’s rib cage painlessly opened up, left and right—or at least, this is what it felt like to Hermione—and the thing that was moving about, within Hermione’s chest, now blasted out the front of her chest. The last time angry Hermione had felt like this, in 1986, the whatever-it-was that had been moving inside her chest, had made the family television explode. But now in 1995, the whatever-it-was blasted Shotton, full force.
Oh, nothing happened that could be seen, and nothing happened that could be heard, but the invisible whatever-it-was really, truly blasted Scarlett Shotton, startling her. The results afterwards?
Without a word, Shotton walked over to the desk she always sat in, sat down—without removing her backpack—turned to face the blackboard and clasped her hands together atop her desk. Shotton now began trembling, but Hermione could not guess why.
By now, Miss Fahlstrom had entered the classroom and had taken her seat behind the teacher’s desk. Hermione had no guess when the teacher had entered the classroom.
Miss Fahlstrom was looking at Hermione with an expression that Hermione could not read.
****
A minute later
After the teacher had taken roll, Miss Fahlstrom said, “It’s time to work homework problems on the board. Miss Shotton, go work Problem 2.”
Problem 2 had been the easiest problem assigned. Hermione wondered, Did Miss Fahlstrom give Shotton the easiest problem to work at the board because Miss Fahlstrom thought Shotton couldn’t work the rest of the assignment?
But meanwhile, Shotton’s trembling now was worse. She said, “Miss Fahlstrom, I can’t leave my seat and I can’t walk to the blackboard. My muscles aren’t listening to my brain! I’m scared, ma’am.”
Miss Fahlstrom again looked at Hermione for some reason that Hermione could not guess.
Then seated Miss Fahlstrom brought both of her arms down, below the top of her desk. If Hermione had to guess, Miss Fahlstrom’s right hand was stroking her left forearm for some reason. Then with both of Miss Fahlstrom’s forearms hidden from students’ sight, the teacher did something—which Hermione could not see.
As Miss Fahlstrom did mysterious things with her hands and forearms, she said, “Miss Shotton, I’m sure your paralysis will end if you calm down. Take a deep breath slowly, then let it out slowly. Then repeat. Deep breaths, slow breaths. Relax your mind. Be c-a-l-m.”
Hermione noticed that all the students were watching Shotton, to see if she could get out of her chair; but Hermione was watching Miss Fahlstrom.
Whilst Miss Fahlstrom mainly was watching paralysed Scarlett Shotton, Miss Fahlstrom several times looked at Hermione with a thoughtful expression. Once again, Hermione could not guess why.
Meanwhile, Miss Fahlstrom’s right lower arm did something that Hermione could not see. Next, the teacher murmured two or three words, too quietly for Hermione to hear.
Shotton gasped, and her clasped hands came apart. She twisted her seated body to the left, then to the right. “I can move again!”
Hermione saw Miss Fahlstrom do something with her right hand to her left forearm, but exactly what this was, was hidden from view.
Meanwhile, Miss Fahlstrom said, “Miss Shotton, I’m glad you no longer have your hysterical paralysis, but I still want you to work Problem 2 at the blackboard.”
****
At the end of this Calculus class, Miss Fahlstrom held Hermione back from leaving. When the classroom had only two people in it, Miss Fahlstrom asked, “Miss Granger, in what city and county do you live?”
“Crawley, West Sussex. Why do you ask?”
Miss Fahlstrom said mysteriously, “You might have a problem this summer. What the problem is, I’m not allowed to tell you now. But I’ll try to find you help when you need it.”
Hermione felt puzzlement whilst she walked to her next class.
****
Six days later
Monday, 23 October, at lunchtime
In the JoSSfAE lunchroom
Hermione, Eleanor and three other girls (Heather, Jessica and quiet Joanna) were sitting at a table together.
Eleanor said, “May I just say it is annoying to waste my money on a bad book, even if the book cost only two pounds?”
Heather asked, “What’s the bad book?”
Eleanor took off her backpack and opened it. She took out a slim book and showed the book to the group.
Jessica read the title aloud: Harry Potter and the Vampire Village by Roy Locke. Then Jessica asked, “What’s the book about?”
Hermione asked, “Why is the book not worth two pounds?”
Eleanor replied, “I found this in a used bookshop this weekend,” presumably in Kent. Then Eleanor went on a rant—
• The hero of the book was a seven-year-old boy who could do magic. He not only could do magic, he had Merlin-level magic, so that the boy had killed an evil sorcerer when Harry had been only fifteen months old. (Alas, Harry’s parents, who had not been given Merlin-level magic, had been killed by the evil sorcerer that same night.)
• The boy now lived in a blue palace in Wales, raised by his father’s magical sixth cousin George Potter, George’s wife Rowena and the family servant Rappy, who was a “house-elf” who talked funny. (However, the book did not explain how a “house-elf” was different from a Tolkien elf or from one of Santa’s elves. This lack of explanation offended Eleanor.)
• Harry’s closest friend was a green dragon. The dragon also was from Wales, was named Firewings, and “spoke the most proper English with a dragonish accent.”
• When the boy was told about a village in Hungary that was being menaced by a coven of vampires, Harry immediately flew to that village on Firewings’s back. George and Rowena Potter were not taken along because young Harry wanted to keep them safe.
• Harry proceeded to serve the vampires a stake dinner. Harry’s only problem in the book was when the leader of the vampire coven, Count TuTenne, kidnapped Firewings near the end of the story.
• Seldom in the story did young Harry even need to break a sweat. The only complications for Harry in the story, other than the kidnapping of Firewings, came when there were things that a seven-year-old boy did not know.
Eleanor ranted, “In this story, life for Harry Potter is too easy. In a good story, the hero must always be at a disadvantage, compared to the villain, the reader must have good reasons always to worry about the hero, and at the end of the story, the reader must fear that the hero will die. But not here—nobody makes threats of death in this book. My first big complaint about this book: Harry Potter is never more than inconvenienced in this story, except when his dragon is taken.
“Secondly, the book addresses readers as though they likewise were magical children, just like Harry Potter. I suppose this makes the fantasy more real to child readers. But whenever the book shows nonmagical people, the nonmagical characters are shown as stupid and murderous. Also, the book calls nonmagical people Muggles.”
As Miss Fahlstrom was carrying her food tray from the serving line to the teachers’ lunchroom, she happened to be walking past Hermione’s table right then. Now she stopped, blinked, and asked Eleanor, “What are you girls talking about?”
Eleanor held up the book as she scowled. “I’m ranting about an utterly wretched book that is a complete waste of both my time and money. Really, the publisher should be ashamed of himself for publishing this.”
Miss Fahlstrom asked what the book was about. Eleanor gave Miss Fahlstrom a brief summary, followed by another Eleanor rant—
“Just because I cannot climb on a broom and ride it through the air, does not mean that I’m a moron who struggles to recite my ABCs. Nor does it mean that if I met seven-year-old magical Harry Potter, I’d try to tie him to a stake, then burn him to death.”
Miss Fahlstrom surprised Hermione—and judging by their facial expressions, she also surprised the other girls at the table—when Miss Fahlstrom asked to borrow the book.
“Borrow it?” Eleanor snarled. “You can keep it!”
Eleanor thrust Harry Potter and the Vampire Village towards Miss Fahlstrom. “Get this written rubbish out of my sight!”
As Miss Fahlstrom took the book, Hermione wondered why Miss Fahlstrom, Hermione’s much-admired Maths teacher, would want the thing. Hermione trusted her friend Eleanor’s judgement when it came to fiction, and Eleanor had said the book was stinky rubbish, not worth £2.
****
The next day (Tuesday, 24 October), at the end of Calculus class
Miss Fahlstrom said, “Miss Chamberlain, please stay after class. It’s about your book I borrowed.”
To show support for her friend—and to satisfy her own giant curiosity—Hermione stayed behind too.
When the classroom was empty except for Miss Fahlstrom, Eleanor Chamberlain and Hermione Granger, Miss Fahlstrom said, “Um, I hope you were serious about not wanting the book back.”
“Why?” asked Eleanor.
“Because when I’d read the book about halfway through, my dog chewed up the book. It’s gone.”
Hermione was sure that embarrassment was the reason that Miss Fahlstrom did not look Eleanor in the eyes.
Hermione said, “ ‘The dog ate my homework’—you mean this actually happens sometimes?”
****
A bit over five months later
Saturday, 6 April 1996
At London Heritage Academy
John of Saxony School students were attending a festival for drama, speech and debate that was being hosted by London Heritage Academy, which was a school for aristocrats’ children.
The drama-club students at JoSS had taken a chapter from Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and had adapted it for the stage, and would be performing their adaptation, competing against other private schools’ dramatists.
John of Saxony School’s hopefully-someday MPs and hopefully-someday captains of industry were at the festival to give speeches. Xavier’s funny friend Henry was doing something in the category of “Original Humourous Speech.”
As for Debate Club, Hermione and the others had come here to win—which meant, out-debating their Debate rivals, Eton College.
****
John Of Saxony School’s drama troupe did middling—they did not win anything, but neither did they suffer any onstage disasters in front of the audience.
Xavier’s funny friend Henry won first place in his Speech category.
JoSS’s Debate Club took first place in the Debate category. Even better for Hermione, she personally had left her Eton College opponent, Justin Two-Names, groaning on the floor (metaphorically speaking).
****
When the competitions had ended, the winners’ plaques had been handed out and the John of Saxony students were riding a chartered bus back to their school, somehow a discussion began about British saints before the Norman Conquest of 1066. Many Anglo-Saxon saints’ names were mentioned, none of whom Hermione knew anything about.
Somebody mentioned Saint Frithuswith, who became the patron saint for the University of Oxford, where Hermione planned to attend in two and a half years.
Hermione contributed what she knew about before-1066 British saints: “I looked up our school’s namesake. John of Saxony was not a saint per se, but he was the confessor for King Alfred the Great, he was the first abbot of Athelney Abbey, and he wrote poems in Latin. Someone who knew him described him as ‘a man of most acute intelligence, immensely learned in all fields of literary endeavour, and extremely ingenious in many other forms of expression.’ So it’s only right that he was whom our school for swots and for geniuses was named after.”
A boy in the Drama troupe said, “The real John of Saxony heard a king’s confessions? I bet that was mad.”
Hermione smirked. “He heard a proactive king’s confessions. Behind the confessional screen, John probably facepalmed a lot.”
This discussion about before-1066 British saints was a completely impractical discussion. At best, Hermione would be able to answer one question on her GCSEs or A-Levels that she would not be able to answer, had she not taken part in this discussion. The only other time this information would be useful for Hermione would be if she somehow were tasked with naming a newly constructed Anglican church.
No, the information being shared was not useful or practical, but it was information that was new to Hermione and interesting, and this was information that Hermione was learning from friends. Also, the topic was being discussed because many other students besides Hermione who were on the charter bus to John of Saxony School, thought that the topic was interesting.
Hermione was smiling. Moments like this showed her, once again, that John of Saxony School for Academic Excellence was the right school for her. Then happy Hermione got a new and happier thought: Oxford will be like this all the time.
****
Almost ten weeks later
Thursday, 13 June 1996
In Miss Fahlstrom’s Calculus class
It was Hermione’s last day of Fifth Form, for all practical purposes. By now, Hermione had sat her GCSEs, and by now, Hermione had sat the final examinations in all her JoSSfAE classes.
The purpose of this particular Calculus class, the very last one, was not to teach mathematical knowledge but to go over the final examination. When all the problems in the examination had been worked, which was about forty-five minutes into the hour, Miss Fahlstrom dismissed the class—
—except she asked Hermione to stay behind.
“Miss Granger,” the American woman said when they were alone, “I suspect that this summer, you will get a surprise visitor.”
Hermione raised an eyebrow. “What sort of surprise visitor?”
Miss Fahlstrom replied, “This visitor will make a presentation to you and to your parents, then will press you to make a choice that he or she recommends. You will not be willing to make that choice, I’m sure. Then your visitor will inform you that he or she will reluctantly accept you making a certain other choice. Both choices will be awful; your choice will be ‘I choose neither! Now leave!’ Your visitor will insist that you make one of the two awful choices, and will refuse to leave until you choose.
“Your visitor’s demand that you choose will create a problem for you. By then you will have been told the secret and you will become subject to the law to keep the secret. You will want your visitor gone, but by then you will know that your visitor is powerful enough that if you telephone the police and the police try to arrest your visitor, all that will happen is that some policemen will be hurt and the visitor will remain in your house. In your despair, you’ll be tempted to make one of the two awful choices. But don’t do that.”
“Why not?” Hermione asked. “Miss Fahlstrom, you’re frightening me! And you’re being maddeningly vague.”
The teacher sighed. “I’m vague because I’m subject to a law that says I can’t tell you a certain secret, so must stay secretive till someone else who is qualified to judge, decides that you are qualified to be told the secret, then he or she tells you the secret. Right now, I’m sure that you qualify to be told, but I don’t have the authority to tell you the secret.”
Miss Fahlstrom pulled a business card out her pocket and handed the business card to Hermione. “Instead of phoning your local police in Crawley, phone this man. He’s a policeman too, and he’s like me. He knows the secret.”
Hermione read off the business card, “Mark Cromford, Police Sergeant, Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement.” Hermione again looked at Miss Fahlstrom with a raised eyebrow.
Miss Fahlstrom explained, “The secret that I’m forbidden from telling you, luckily the president of the Republic of Ireland, Queen Elizabeth and the United Kingdom’s prime minister may tell to anyone they want. This makes it much easier for Police Sergeant Cromford to do his job. Anyway, don’t lose that card—I think you’ll very much need it, very soon.”
As Hermione dropped the business card into her knapsack, she asked, “May I ask you a question that I’ve wondered about for two years? Why are you, an American, teaching in an English school?”
Miss Fahlstrom laughed. “An ancestor of my mother named Antonius Selwyn”—Miss Fahlstrom paused—“had a birth defect, so he was thrown out of the Selwyn family at age eleven—”
Hermione huffed. “He was ejected from the family for having a birth defect?”
“Silly, right? Anyway, Antonius Selwyn lived homeless in Liverpool till he was fifteen, which was when he bought passage on a ship that took him to the English colony of Virginia.
“Centuries later, Antonius’s descendant, I an American, graduated high school, and was given a two-month vacation in Great Britain as a graduation present. The modern-day Selwyn family still is full of despicable people, but Britain is beautiful and it has so much history. Eighteen-year-old American-I fell in love with the British Isles.
“Years later, after I earned a Mathematics doctorate at the University of Minnesota with teaching credential, I came back here to Britain. I wouldn’t have been able to find work here if my degree had been in American Literature or in American History, but ‘two plus two equals four’ is just as true in Britain as it is in the USA.”
“One last question,” Hermione said. “It wasn’t your dog who destroyed the Harry Potter book, was it? It was you, right?”
Miss Fahlstrom grinned at her student. “You are indeed clever.”
Hermione replied, “Ha. I can’t figure out why you would destroy the book. Was it because the book was so badly written?”
“No, I destroyed Harry Potter and the Vampire Village to preserve the secret that I’m not allowed to tell you.”
****
Eleven days later: Monday, 24 June 1996
At the Granger house in Crawley, West Sussex
Hermione was in her family house, reading a book—but this book was a Regency romance, a bit racy, with zero scholastic value.
Hermione heard knocking at the front door. Hermione wondered, Why doesn’t whoever-it-is use the doorbell?
Hermione got a bad feeling about her visitor. She dashed upstairs to her bedroom, grabbed the business card for Police Sergeant Cromford, shoved the business card in the pocket of her jeans, and walked downstairs.
As Hermione was descending the stairs, she heard the visitor knock on the door again. The second group of door-knocks was louder than the first.
Hermione’s visitor turned out to be a woman in her fifties, whose grey-streaked black hair was pulled back into a bun. The woman was wearing a green dress that—even Hermione could see this—was decades out of fashion.
The visit was brief. The visitor spoke with a brogue whilst saying to Hermione, “When will your parents be home, Miss Granger? I’ve information that all three of you need to hear.”
****
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I wish to thank slytherinsal, who was a fount both of knowledge and of writing advice when I was writing this story. This story is fifty times more believable than it would have been, without her help.
****
AUTHOR’S TEMPORARY NOTE, 24 HOURS AFTER POSTING: I changed Hermione from an Upper-Sixth-Former to a Fifth-Former. Her age (fifteen becoming sixteen) stays the same.
Chapter 2: Minerva, Three Grangers and a Magical Cop, All in the Same Room
Chapter Text
Still Monday, 24 June 1996, about 6pm
Still at the Granger house in Crawley, West Sussex
All three Grangers, plus Minerva McGonagall, now are in the sitting room
To Hermione, the visit by Minerva McGonagall, who was a professor of a magical subject at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was fascinating.
At first.
Seeing the coffee table turn into a growling tiger, then turn back into a coffee table, all live in the Granger sitting room (as opposed to seeing the two changes happen on a cinema screen) was something that Hermione would remember on her deathbed.
Part of Hermione fiercely wanted to attend the professor’s school, so that Hermione herself would someday learn how to change something into a tiger.
But Hermione realised that this must be what Miss Fahlstrom had meant when she had warned Hermione about being offered an “awful” choice. Which made Hermione wonder, What are the downsides that Professor McGonagall isn’t telling me?
Hermione being who she was, she question-bombed the professor: “What magical classes do you offer? What nonmagical classes do you offer? Will the students be only nonmagically-raised kids like me, or will there be students there who come from magical families? What are the fees for a year at Hogwarts? What if I say no?”
****
Five minutes later
Hermione was seething.
Her parents were seething too; but it seemed that Professor McGonagall did not care what her parents thought, they being mere “Muggles.”
Professor McGonagall’s snobbery against nonmagicals was part of what was making Hermione angry. But Hermione had other reasons to be angry.
Hogwarts’s magical classes were written down and were (poorly) explained on a parchment (not a paper) that Professor McGonagall passed to the three Grangers. But the Grangers were not allowed to keep the parchment, lest “Muggles” outside the Granger nuclear family see the parchment; so the Grangers had to promise in advance to give the parchment back.
What about nonmagical classes at Hogwarts? Hogwarts had none at all—not even classes on Grammar and Composition, or on Maths. As Professor McGonagall explained haughtily, “We do not teach Muggle subjects, we are a magical school.”
Hogwarts did indeed have “magically-raised” students. In fact, three-quarters of the student body were magically raised. All such students learnt at least a bit about magic from their parents during those students’ sixteen years of life prior to Hogwarts, and some magically-raised students learnt quite a lot about magic from their parents in those sixteen years. Meanwhile, “Muggle-borns” knew only what they were taught in class or what they discovered by library research.
Professor McGonagall remarked that the fact that “Muggle-borns” had to be taught everything explained why the fees for Muggle-born students were higher than for magically raised students: The professors had to spend more time with the Muggle-borns.
Would you repeat that?
Indeed Hermione had heard correctly—Hogwarts fees were set higher for students with two nonmagical parents.
A year at Hogwarts for a Muggle-born would cost almost as much as a year’s fees for Oxford. When Hermione mentioned this, Professor McGonagall remarked that if “any Muggle school” was charging so much, its students were being overcharged for an “inferior” education.
Did Hermione maybe want to say no to Hogwarts? Unthinkable! (According to Professor McGonagall.) But if Hermione indeed made this choice, Hermione’s magical core would be bound, so that she never again would do accidental magic or could do deliberate magic; and all three Grangers would be made to forget all their memories of magic.
Specifically—
The Granger parents would be made to forget today’s presentation by Professor McGonagall, as well as seven-year-old Hermione blowing up the television without touching it, and child-Hermione making books fly off the shelf to her hand.
Hermione would be made to forget those things too, as well as Scarlett Shotton’s paralysis in Calculus class, and everything about Harry Potter and the Vampire Village.
In theory, making the Grangers forget magical things was a sensible precaution, to preserve the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. But who would actually cast the forget-spells, and how careful would he or she be at casting those spells?
Professor McGonagall’s answer tried to convey There is nothing to worry about, because these people are professionals. But what the professor also said, without realising it, was that the assigned Obliviator would be a Pureblood—meaning that if he or she over-erased Granger memories, he would not be sacked.
Miss Fahlstrom had predicted the situation correctly: Hermione now had two horrid choices. Hermione supposedly had to go to Hogwarts because “it’s the law,” and supposedly had to attend there instead of John of Saxony School. If Hermione attended Hogwarts, she would be treated like a second-class citizen whilst at Hogwarts, and her parents would be overcharged for fees.
Worst of all, Hermione could not continue her real education till she was twenty-three.
Or she could say no to Hogwarts, then some magical-government bureaucrat might make her forget Calculus entirely. Or might make her parents forget how to be dentists.
Hermione’s parents were thinking the same as she was. Her dad said, “Professor, you come here claiming that, because Hermione has done ‘accidental magic’ in the past, you can force her to go to a school that doesn’t impress me at all, but which we parents would pay a pretty penny for; and if we don’t agree to this because we’re not fools, we’ll get our memories wiped. You have worn out your welcome, professor; please leave now.”
When Professor McGonagall did not stand up and walk towards the front door, but instead began to repeat her main points as though all three Grangers were morons, Hermione decided it was high time to ring up Police Sergeant Mark Cromford.
As Hermione dashed to the kitchen, with Cromford’s business card in her pocket, Hermione called out, “I need to make a telephone call stat.” Then she looked at Professor McGonagall and added, “Don’t worry, he knows the secret.”
****
With her puzzled parents and impatient Professor McGonagall all waiting in the sitting room, Hermione punched in numbers on the kitchen telephone. After two rings, Hermione heard a man’s voice: “Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement, Police Sergeant Mark Cromford speaking.”
“Erm, hello, my name is Hermione Granger. Miss Fahlstrom gave me your business card. She said you also know the secret?” Hermione whispered, “That magic is real.”
Police Sergeant Cromford asked, “Am I correct that you have a Hogwarts professor in your house right now, and you are being given choices you don’t like?”
“ ‘Don’t like,’ definitely! Attend a horrid school where I’m looked down on for being a ‘Muggle-born,’ or get my magical core bound and my parents and I all get memories wiped.”
“Miss Granger, what’s your address, please?”
“Number 24, Churchill Way, Crawley, West Sussex.”
“I’ll be there in less than a minute from now. I’ll knock on the back door, not the front door.”
****
Forty-seven seconds later
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!
Hermione rushed to the back door (to Professor McGonagall’s annoyance) and yanked the door open. The man standing there was trim and fit, and in his thirties. He was dressed much like some policemen whom Hermione had seen on the telly.
Over Sergeant Cromford’s regular belt, which held his trousers up, was a second belt, black and of much thicker leather. From this second belt hung, on the policeman’s left side, a black police baton that was one inch thick and twenty-four inches long.
On the policeman’s right side, the outer belt held a black-leather pouch that held handcuffs. But these handcuffs were strange, because they had symbols that Hermione never had seen before, engraved all over them.
“Sergeant Cromford?” Hermione said. “I’m so glad you’re here. Dad just told Professor McGonagall to leave, but I don’t think she plans to do so.”
“Lead me to where the meeting is, Miss Granger,” the policeman said.
Seconds later in the sitting room, Hermione introduced Police Sergeant Cromford and her parents, Dan and Emma Granger, to each other. Then Hermione was introducing the professor to the policeman when Professor McGonagall interrupted Hermione—
“Mr Cromford,” Professor McGonagall said, “what a surprise.”
He replied, “Not ‘Mister,’ now I’m Police Sergeant Cromford. I work for Prime Minister John Major. My job is to enforce the laws passed by Parliament when a magical person breaks a law of Parliament, and a magical policeman is needed to enforce the law.”
Staring into Professor McGonagall’s eyes, Police Sergeant Cromford said, “I understand that the owner of this house told you to leave, yet you are still here. That’s civil trespassing.”
Professor McGonagall said condescendingly, “When magical people break the law, arresting them is what the Aurors are for. You don’t need to work for Muggles.”
“My choice for employment is not your concern, professor. Everyone, am I correct that Professor McGonagall gave you the presentation for a Muggle-born prospective first-year Hogwarts student, and the family has declined to send Miss Granger to Hogwarts?”
“Yes!” Hermione’s mum said. “Then this witch threatened to bind something so Hermione would never be magical anymore, and threatened to erase some of our memories!”
Professor McGonagall said primly, “If Miss Granger declines attending Hogwarts, core-binding her and removing all the magic-related memories of everyone in the family is the only possible response. The Statute of Secrecy must be upheld!”
“Actually,” said Police Sergeant Cromford, “since Miss Granger is sixteen, what she is allowed to do under Parliament’s laws is to consent to sex, to obtain a provisional driving license to drive a moped, and she can marry in the United Kingdom with parental consent.
“However, until she is eighteen, she cannot agree to a contract and the contract be binding. Regarding Miss Granger attending Hogwarts on 1 September, the consent must come from her parents to be legally binding.”
Professor McGonagall shook her head. “Their consent doesn’t matter. She is magical, her parents are not, the decision is hers to make.”
“So Miss Granger’s parents, merely because they’re nonmagical, lose all their parental rights when it comes to her magical schooling? How about other situations beside magical schooling? Professor McGonagall, do you think, like many other magicals do, that whenever a nonmagical person knowingly interacts with a magical person, the nonmagical person loses all his rights under Nonmagical Britain law?”
“Of course,” Professor McGonagall said haughtily. “Any situation having to do with magical people, even children, is subject to magical law.
“Nonmagicals who deal with magicals become subject to the magical law—sadly for the nonmagicals, but it’s for the best. What Nonmagical Britain law says, does not matter ever.”
Police Sergeant Cromford snorted. “Nonsense and balderdash, professor. I remind you about the Treaty of Separation of Magical Britain from Nonmagical Britain, signed in 1642. Paragraph 1 states, ‘Where there is a conflict between magical statute law and nonmagical statute law, the nonmagical statute law shall be the statute law in force. Where the judgement of a magical court differs from the judgement of a King’s Court, it is the judgement of the King’s Court that shall stand.’ ”
Hermione’s dad asked, “So how does this apply to some magical man showing up and erasing our memories, just because we want Hermione to go to John of Saxony School and eventually go to Oxford, not Hogwarts?”
Police Sergeant Cromford answered, “By Parliament’s criminal laws, any Obliviator who Obliviates a nonmagical person has assaulted him, the same as though that Obliviator had struck the nonmagical person with a cricket bat.”
“But this Oblivi-person could make Hermione forget, and this would be legal?”
Sergeant Cromford made the rocking-hand gesture. “In this specific circumstance, a Queen’s Court might maybe rule that only magical law applies here, thus allowing for Miss Granger to be Obliviated.”
Hermione saw that Professor McGonagall now looked smug.
Police Sergeant Cromford continued, “But this would not solve the problem with the Statute, because the Queen’s Court would forbid the Obliviators from erasing your memory and your wife’s memory—and what you two remember, you two can tell people about.”
Sergeant Cromford looked at the three Grangers. “You three only heard about the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy an hour or two ago, but believe me, it is a big deal. If anyone who knows the secret that ‘Magic is real and magical people are real’ tells the secret to someone who is not entitled to know, it’s a potential disaster. As a result, breaking the Statute is punished harshly. So Mr Granger, Mrs Granger, Miss Granger, you saying I swear, cross my heart, I will never tell is not an option, because the stakes are too high. I’m sorry.”
“So where does this put us?” Hermione asked.
Police Sergeant Cromford said, “Miss Granger, I spent seven years at Hogwarts as a Muggle-born, starting when what would have been my last year in secondary school if I hadn’t been threatened with my entire family being memory-wiped started, so I’m the last person to tell you that you should attend Hogwarts.”
“Mister Cromford!” Professor McGonagall snapped.
Police Sergeant Cromford continued, “Believe me, Miss Granger, since you’re Muggle-born, Hogwarts is a complete waste of your time and a waste of your parents’ money.”
Professor McGonagall huffed.
Police Sergeant Cromford continued, “But if you don’t go to Hogwarts, you have another choice. Ilvermorny is another all-magical school, it’s in the States. At Ilvermorny, Miss Granger can begin her magical education at age sixteen. However, I must give you a warning about Ilvermorny.”
Hermione asked, “What’s the warning?”
“Most Ilvermorny students start their magical education at age eleven, not sixteen. The school would let you start learning magic at age sixteen, but only a few students would share your situation. The other students would call you a ‘crow’s-feet firstie,’ and your life there probably would be quite lonely. On the other hand, Hogwarts these days is a wretched school—“
“Mister Cromford!”
“—with Professor McGonagall being one of the few good exceptions, so you would get a better magical education if you attended Ilvermorny.”
Hermione huffed. “I could have been learning magic at eleven, if someone had told me I was magical?”
Before either Professor McGonagall or Police Sergeant Cromford could reply, Hermione waved her own question away. “I don’t want to go to Hogwarts at sixteen; I also say no to Ilvermorny at sixteen. To John of Saxony School now and to Oxford in two years, I say yes. Now what?”
Hermione’s mum and dad said, “This matches our own thinking.”
Police Sergeant Cromford sighed. “In that case, you three Grangers must somehow be made unable to reveal the secrets about magic to others. So I’m sorry, Miss Granger, your magical core still must be bound just like Professor McGonagall says, so that you cannot work a wand, and so you never again do accidental magic.”
Hermione felt panic. Someone would be performing life-changing magic on her!
Police Sergeant Cromford gave Hermione a soothing smile. “But in the prime minister’s office, we came up with an alternative to Obliviation: a geas, a special-purpose magical compulsion. This geas on each of you would compel you such that you could not tell friends, neighbours or the rest of your relatives about magic. But if Karen Fahlstrom came to your house, if I came to your house, or if Miss Granger would birth a magical child, you could talk about magic in the presence of your magical visitor.”
“That works,” Hermione said, feeling relieved.
“I would be speaking the geas in Latin: De magia aut hominibus magicis loqui non potes nisi de fabula loqueris aut cum aliquo quem magicum esse scis. In English, this translates to You cannot talk about magic or magical people unless you are talking about a story or are around someone you know is magical.
Hermione’s mum asked, “Do the Latin and English say the same thing?”
Hermione, her father and Professor McGonagall all nodded.
Hermione’s parents briefly “conversed” by use of their eyebrows, then her dad said, “Sergeant Cromford, Professor McGonagall, we who are Hermione’s parents choose for Hermione not to attend Hogwarts school, and choose for the three of us to accept the keep-quiet geas instead, along with Hermione’s magic being bound.”
Less than a minute later, Hermione and her parents each had been whammied with the geas. Hermione felt like she had a guardian in her mind that normally would let her do whatever she wanted, but which would stop her if she started to say the wrong thing.
The core-binding—“Hoc nucleum magicum, arcte liga.”—felt strange to Hermione. It felt like Sergeant Cromford wrapped a corset round something inside her chest, then cinched the corset tight.
****
As Police Sergeant Cromford was putting his wand away, he looked over at Professor McGonagall. “Professor, you have the Grangers’ answer to your presentation about Hogwarts, you have witnessed for yourself that the Granger family no longer endangers the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, and Daniel Granger the homeowner has exercised his common-law right of exclusion and has asked you to leave. Between the time you arrived and now, you threatened the homeowner, his wife and his daughter with assault on their memories. Under Parliament law, you must leave here now. Please stand up, and I will escort you off the property.”
Professor McGonagall stood up—whilst giving Cromford a look that she clearly intended to be intimidating. Police Sergeant Cromford did not seem even slightly intimidated.
Police Sergeant Cromford looked at Hermione and her parents whilst he said with an Austrian accent, “I’ll be back.”
Then he drew his own magic wand, put his hand on Professor McGonagall’s shoulder, then spoke some words.
Bang. Both magical people vanished from the Granger sitting room.
****
An instant later in Scotland, outside the front gates of Hogwarts
As soon as their Side-Along Apparation ended, Cromford yanked his hand off McGonagall’s shoulder, then turned to look at the witch for whom he had felt such disappointment by the time he had sat his NEWTs.
“Professor McGonagall,” he said, “when you remained in the Granger house after you were told to leave, you did not commit a criminal offence then, but you will be subject to arrest if you return there. This would mean trial in a Queen’s Court, not trial by the Wizengamot.”
McGonagall said condescendingly, “And how would you put me on trial in a Muggle courtroom without violating the Statute? For which, Ministry Aurors or ICW Aurors would arrest you.”
Cromford looked at the older witch as though she had come to class unprepared. “Go reread the Treaty of Separation, professor. Right now in 1995, there are three nonmagicals in the British Isles who not only know the secret about magic, but they may tell the secret to any other nonmagical person they choose to tell. Namely, Ian O’Toole, the president of the Republic of Ireland; Elizabeth the Second, Queen of the United Kingdom; and the United Kingdom’s prime minister, John Major, whom I work for.
“If you were brought to trial in a Queen’s Court for Aggravated Trespassing, then Prime Minister John Major would walk into the courtroom at the start, would tell everyone in the courtroom the secret, everyone in the courtroom would be put under a geas to not speak about magic when anyone could hear who was not in the courtroom that day, and only then would your trial begin. A trial, please note, that would not violate the Statute of Secrecy, and that would be legal under the Treaty of Separation. If you were convicted in the Queen’s Court, the Treaty of Separation says that the Wizengamot could not overturn your conviction, and the Minister of Magic could not pardon you.”
Then Cromford added, “Here’s good advice: Stay away from the Grangers.”
McGonagall said, “I refuse to believe that I as a citizen of Wizarding Britain can legally be put on trial by Muggles.”
Now she tried to stare down Cromford as though he were a misbehaving firstie. “I think you are telling me edited truth, Mr Cromford. Why is it, if your law outranks magical law, have I never heard of a magical person being put on trial in Muggle court like what you are threatening me with?”
“Oh, Parliament law definitely outranks Wizengamot law, believe it. And in fact, three Death Eaters have been put on trial in a Queen’s Court in the last quarter-century. They were tried as terrorists, all three were convicted, and they each were sentenced to life without parole in a special prison. ‘Special’ because it was not any regular Queen’s Prison, and was not Azkaban. Why didn’t the Daily Prophet say anything? I think because the Ministry of Magic could do nothing to stop those three Death Eaters’ trials and their non-Azkaban imprisonment. Furthermore, the Ministry would not admit that it had no idea where in Britain those three Death Eaters were incarcerated.”
Then Cromford gave McGonagall the You’re wasting my time stare right back. “You want to know why trials of magicals in a Queen’s Court so seldom happen, even though they legally could? Because of two practical problems. The first practical problem is that the victim of a magical person’s crime must ask a magical policeman to perform the arrest, not a nonmagical policeman and not a DMLE Auror. There aren’t many of us in Britain who are sworn in as officers in nonmagical police forces but who ourselves are magical, and few victims know to ask for us. The second practical problem? Every person in the Queen’s Court must be told the secret about magic before any part of the trial of the magical person begins. That problem can be fixed only by getting the prime minister involved in the magical person’s trial.
“Minerva Kirstie McGonagall, now you have been fully informed. I say again, stay away from the Grangers.”
Cromford pointed at Hogwarts Castle. “Time to go. I’m not leaving here till I see you walk through those gates.”
“You need not worry about me, Policeman Cromford,” McGonagall said coldly. “I am a law-abiding witch.” So saying, she walked to the two golden gates and signaled with her wand for Hagrid to come.
Minutes later, when Minerva McGonagall and Rubeus Hagrid were walking towards Hogwarts Castle, Mark Cromford muttered, “Professor, you believe that you are ‘law-abiding’? I well know that you also are slavishly obedient to Albus Dumbledore, a man who believes that laws don’t apply to him.”
****
Ten minutes later, in the headmaster’s office
Minerva finally was coming down from her rant. The Muggle-born girl and her Muggle parents had not acted properly deferential to Minerva the professor, and the former Mr Cromford had been ill-mannered and threatening.
Albus listened without interrupting, the twinkles in his eyes ever-present.
Albus broke his silence to say, “Core-bindings are reversible, if need be. Now, the girl has all her memories but is under a Say-Nothing spell, correct?”
“Yes, but she can discuss magical topics in the presence of someone she knows is magical.”
“Minerva, I am disappointed in you. During your visit, you did not persuade the girl to study at Hogwarts. The girl is Muggle-born, and Hogwarts needs the extra fees that Muggle-borns earn us.
“Minerva, I insist you go back to the Grangers. Do not worry about the Muggle Aurors; I will handle them.”
****
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In several of my stories, I refer to, or set scenes at, Manchester Magical Academy, which is a second magical school in Britain. MMA is intended for nonmagically-raised magical children; Pureblood children and magically-raised halfblood children are denied admittance to MMA. In stories of mine that feature MMA, MMA is actually the better choice for Harry and Hermione than Hogwarts is.
However, Manchester Magical Academy, for whatever reason, is not an option for Hermione in this story.
Chapter 3: Two Hogwarts Professors Get into Trouble
Chapter Text
Still Monday, 24 June 1996, still evening
Seconds after McGonagall and Hagrid walk through the Hogwarts front gates in Scotland
Cromford Apparated to the Granger back garden in Crawley, West Sussex, England. He knocked on the Grangers’ back door.
Once Miss Granger invited him inside, Cromford explained to the three Grangers the main reason he had hurried back: “Worst-case scenario, I figure we have five minutes before Professor McGonagall comes back here.”
Mr Granger said, “I’m confused. You told her she’d be arrested if she comes back here.”
“I did. But she doesn’t think anything nonmagical can be a threat to her, so she underestimates how risky her situation is. Also, she works for Albus Dumbledore, a man with no scruples, and she never says no to him. Dumbledore would love for Miss Granger to go to Hogwarts, so that Hogwarts can bill you outrageously for her fees.”
Miss Granger asked, “Can we stop Professor McGonagall coming here and bothering us?”
Cromford looked at the Granger parents. “What I want to do is to set up a magical-signature detector, which will alarm me if an unwelcome magical person comes here. On the ‘Okay’ list, I’ll put Miss Granger’s magical signature; either of your magical signatures if you turn out to be a Squib, not a pure nonmagical; and my own magical signature. Can you think of any other magical people you would welcome if they came here?”
Miss Granger replied, “Miss Fahlstrom.”
Cromford nodded. “I know where she lives; I’ll go ask her now if I may read her Hufflepuff Magical-Signature Text. That text will give me a way to uniquely identify her for spellwork.” So saying, he Apparated out of the Granger sitting room.
****
Five minutes later
Cromford again Apparated to the Granger back garden, and again knocked on the Granger back door. This time, Cromford had a slip of paper in his pocket with Karen Fahlstrom’s Hufflepuff Magical-Signature Text written on it.
When Miss Granger answered the back door, she was frantic. “Professor McGonagall is here! She came back!”
When Cromford walked into the sitting room, he already had his wand out and had it pointing forwards. As soon as he stepped into the sitting room, he saw that the Transfiguration professor had her own wand in her hand; but at the moment, McGonagall’s wand was pointed at the floor.
Cromford said, “Minerva McGonagall, drop your wand and put your hands up. You are under arrest for Aggravated Trespass. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand what I have just said?”
****
Less than a minute later
In a place that Minerva never had seen before, since it was both magical and Muggle
But was clearly an office for policemen
Minerva now was wearing magic-suppression handcuffs.
Her wand now was floating out of her reach, as was the Portkey that would have taken Minerva directly into Albus’s office. Once Minerva was in this Muggle-magical office, a policeman’s switching spell swapped the fashionable but dignified green Muggle clothes that Minerva had been wearing, for coveralls like what goblin cart-drivers wore—coveralls with alternating black and white vertical stripes. At least the gaol coveralls were sized to fit her. On her feet, Minerva now wore black-and-white-striped cloth slippers.
Next, Minerva was taken to a room where her face was photographed, both looking straight at the camera and looking sideways. Then Minerva was required to touch a black inkpad with her fingertips, then her inky fingertips were pressed against a white card.
Minerva never had heard of the DMLE doing anything like these procedures to their arrestees.
Once Minerva had been stripped of all magical items, had been dressed like a prisoner, had been photographed and had been fingerprinted, Cromford and two other similarly-dressed policemen led Minerva towards a door.
Cromford and the other two policemen each wore a second leather belt on the outside of his trousers, an outer belt that contained, besides magic-suppression handcuffs, a leather loop from which a black stick hung down. Each black stick was an inch thick and twenty-four inches long.
Minerva had no idea what the black stick’s purpose was, but she figured out fast that if she were hit with one, it would hurt.
The door they now approached had, on the wall just to the right of the door, a painted red handprint. Minerva could not figure out what the painted handprint meant, because none of the three policemen laid his hand on the handprint.
To open the lock in the door, none of the policemen inserted a key and turned that key. Instead, all three policemen drew their wands, and all three policemen cast a spell on the door lock at the same time.
Minerva had never imagined a three-person Alohomora spell. She suspected that furthermore, this Alohomora-variant spell needed three particular magic-users’ magical signatures in order to work successfully.
Once the door was open, Minerva was led into a large space, which Cromford called a “cell block.” The door that they all just had passed through then was shut; it took a spell by only one policeman to lock this door.
Now Minerva was unhappy: she was in a big space with magic-suppressing handcuffs on her wrists and with a locked door behind her. The “cell block” that she now was in, consisted of a central corridor with fifteen empty holding cells on the left and fifteen empty holding cells on the right. These holding cells bore little resemblance to DMLE holding cells, as Kingsley Shacklebolt had described them.
Looking up, Minerva saw that the cell block’s overhead lighting came from disks on the ceiling. Rows and columns of three-inch-diameter disks all bumped up against each other like round tiles. The disks’ colour was the soft white of Muggle fluorescent light, not the yellow-orange of candlelight; runes inside the outer edge of each disk revealed the disk’s magical nature. These soft-white disks lit the corridor and lit each holding cell.
Minerva was escorted to the middle holding cell (eighth holding cell) on the left-hand side. Once again, it took three magical policemen, casting together, to unlock the door of her holding cell. But once Minerva had stepped into the cell, it took only one policeman to lock her holding cell’s door.
Minerva was ordered to stick her hands through a rectangular hole in the bars, so that her magic-suppression handcuffs could be removed. Oddly, the removal of the magic-suppression handcuffs did not restore Minerva’s magic.
As Policeman Cromford was removing those handcuffs, Minerva asked, “What is the penalty for ... Annoyed Trespassing?”
“Aggravated Trespassing,” Policeman Cromford corrected her.
Then he replied, “A maximum of three months’ imprisonment and a £2 500 fine.”
Minerva gave him a blank look. He explained, “Five hundred galleons maximum.”
“Three months maximum? Five hundred galleons maximum? That’s hardly an outrageous crime. So why am I here?” She gestured to mean the thirty holding cells in the cell block, one of which, she unwillingly was occupying.
Policeman Cromford replied, “Outrageous or not, Aggravated Trespassing is a law of Parliament, and you broke this law.”
Then Policeman Cromford said to Minerva, “Give me a Floo address where whomever answers my Floo-call, I can tell them that you have been arrested and how they can hire a Barrister for you.”
“Hogwarts headmaster’s office,” Minerva replied.
****
Policeman Cromford and the two other policemen left through the door out of the cell block—after all three magical policemen cast a spell at the corridor door’s lock at the same time, so they could open the door.
Minerva noticed that on the holding-cells side of the door, on the wall, was another painted red handprint. Minerva wondered what the red handprint was for.
****
Now that Minerva truly was alone—since none of the other holding cells in the cell block were occupied—she examined her holding cell.
Her magic, which the magic-suppression handcuffs had blocked, had not returned when Policeman Cromford had removed the magic-suppression handcuffs from her wrists. A quick experiment revealed that she could no longer cast a wandless Lumos.
She soon discovered the reason why.
In her holding cell, Minerva found eight sets of blue runes-clusters, in the four ceiling-corners and in the four floor-corners of her gaol cell. The runes-clusters were in a script Minerva did not recognise. When she tried to touch one of the runes-clusters, to feel its magic (and maybe perhaps to depower the runes-cluster), an invisible barrier stopped her hand, two finger-widths from the runes-cluster.
The only other things in her holding cell were a bed frame with a thin mattress and pillow, a metal toilet, loo paper for the toilet, and a metal sink with a faucet (but no mirror). Minerva got unhappier when she realised that if someone were put in the holding cell across the corridor from her, he or she could watch Minerva using the toilet.
What the holding cell did not have were newspapers, magazines or even a window to look out of.
****
Meanwhile
In the Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement
In the office used by the magical policemen for their paperwork
Mark Cromford looked at Barnard and at “Goldilocks” (Steve the blond) and said sarcastically, “Now comes the fun part of my job. I have to tell the ‘bearded bloviator’ that I arrested his Deputy Headmistress.”
Barnard smirked. “This is why you are paid the giant pile of banknotes the PM pays you.”
Cromford rolled his eyes—nobody ever took a position in Law Enforcement for the salary. Then he replied, “Truthfully, I more fancy rolling starkers in a snowbank during a Scottish winter than talking to Albus Too-Many-Names Dumbledore.” Then Cromford sighed. “But sod it, right now this is my job.”
****
The Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement had a Floo fireplace, but it was disabled. Nobody could pass through green flames and instantly could go from Point A to Point B; this Floo could be used only for passing objects that were less than one-half metre by one-half metre by one-half metre in size; and for Floo calls, such as—
Cromford threw Floo powder in the Floo fireplace and called out, “Hogwarts Headmaster’s office, is anyone there?”
Then Cromford heard Dumbledore’s voice: “I am Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Who is calling for me, and why?”
“I am Police Sergeant Mark Cromford in the Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement. I’m Floo-calling you to inform you that I’ve arrested Minerva Kirstie McGonagall for the crime of Aggravated Trespassing. She broke a law of Parliament by returning to a place that the homeowner earlier had told her to leave, and for threatening the homeowner and his family.”
Dumbledore said, “Mark Cromford, I recognise your name. You were a Ravenclaw, back in the day.”
“The fact that I attended Hogwarts is irrelevant to the current discussion. A witch who works for you has been arrested and is facing trial—this is what we should be discussing, Headmaster.”
“Mark my boy, you need to release Minerva right now. She intended nothing criminal, because she was revisiting that Muggle-born girl at my request. Perhaps Minerva was overzealous, but she does not deserve to be labelled a criminal for the rest of her life.”
“ ‘Overzealous’?” Cromford repeated angrily. “The first time Minerva McGonagall was at the Granger house, she threatened all three Grangers with assault on their memories unless the Grangers agreed to send Miss Granger to Hogwarts.”
Then Cromford added, “Minerva McGonagall will not be released till possibly after her trial, because I caught her in the act of breaking a law of Parliament.”
“Then transfer her to the DMLE, Mark. Minerva is a magical person, and she was meeting with a teenaged magical girl. A magical court, the Wizengamot, should be handling her trial, not barbaric Muggles.”
“You are aware, aren’t you, Headmaster, that when a magical person Apparates into a Muggle house without the owner’s permission, the perpetrator is considered by the DMLE to be committing only Muggle-Baiting? A low-punishment crime, if convicted. Then, when tried for Muggle-Bating before the Wizengamot, if the accused magical person has any degree of good reputation, the charge often is dismissed at trial. My point is, Miss Granger’s nonmagical parents can expect no justice from the DMLE and from the Wizengamot.”
“So you refuse to release Minerva and you refuse to transfer her to the DMLE? Again I say, Mark, I am most disappointed in you.”
Then Dumbledore said, “There are nuances about this situation of which you are not aware. Step through the Floo and I can explain them to you, in private.”
Cromford thought, So you can Confundus me in private, don’t you mean? So you can add me to the long list of mind-whammied Dumbledore minions, don’t you mean? I don’t think so.
Aloud, Cromford said, “I’m so sorry,” whilst managing to keep all sarcasm out of his voice, “but as a protective measure, this Floo I’m using won’t allow such a thing. I cannot pass through to where you are, and you cannot come here.” And wands aren’t allowed through this Floo at all, Dumbledore, just in case you decide to shove your hand and wand through the Floo fire and to cast a spell at me on the other side.
Dumbledore said, “You attended here seven years, and sat your NEWTs here. I am disappointed that you have turned your back on the magical world and are working for a Muggle politician.”
Cromford made no reply.
Dumbledore tried a different manipulation: “Even worse, every word you or Minerva will speak during her Muggle trial will crush the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy into dust. Mark, you are a traitor to the magical world.”
Cromford laughed scornfully. “I bet the last time you read the Treaty of Separation of Wizarding Britain from Nonmagical Britain, you were still a Hogwarts student in the 1890s. Since then, Muggles have built heavier-than-air machines that fly, Muggles have flown to the moon and back, and Muggles have figured out how to put lawless magicals on trial without violating the Statute of Secrecy. I guess you missed the significance, but I work for Prime Minister John Major.”
Dumbledore sighed theatrically. “Mark, you hate our kind, it is clear. I recall that Professor Snape assigned you a detention for calling Octavius Rosier an Inbred. I was quite disappointed in you at the time, Mark.”
Cromford acted as though Dumbledore had not just tried to guilt-trip him. “Arrestee McGonagall will be kept in her holding cell until her trial in a Queen’s Court. She is allowed to hire a Defence Barrister to defend her at trial, or the Court may appoint a Barrister for her at public expense. I am passing you a list of Defence Barristers ‘in the know’ whom she can hire. I am passing you the list now.”
The list of Defence Barristers who already knew about the magical world was on two A4 sheets of paper that were stapled together. Cromford’s hand passed the list through the Floo flames into Dumbledore’s office, then Cromford opened his hand, letting the list drop. Whether the list fell into Dumbledore’s hands, on Dumbledore’s desk or on Dumbledore’s floor, Cromford did not care.
Cromford pulled his hand back through the flames and ended the Floo-call.
Then Cromford yelled to Barnard and to Steve, “WE HAVE ONLY SECONDS, MINUTES AT THE MOST, TILL DUMBLEDORE SHOWS UP ATTEMPTING TO BREAK MCGONAGALL OUT! BE READY!”
****
Meanwhile, in the headmaster’s office, Hogwarts
Albus turned to his phoenix Fawkes and said, “The Muggles have arrested Minerva for no good reason. Take me to where she is at, so I can rescue her.”
(When the Dursleys had been arrested for child abuse, Albus had found it easy to get them unarrested, to erase all Muggle records and Muggle memories, and to transport the Dursleys back to Privet Drive. Thus Albus now figured that ungaoling Minerva, from wherever Mark Cromford was keeping her, would likewise be an easy task.)
Fawkes flew over to Dumbledore’s arm, grasped the arm with his talons, then lifted his wings. But instead of the phoenix flame-travelling himself and Albus to wherever Minerva was, Fawkes trilled sadly. I cannot go there.
Fawkes stared into Albus’s eyes. By the wordless telepathy that the bird and the man shared, Albus learnt that anti-phoenix wards blocked Fawkes from flame-travelling to where Minerva was.
Albus wondered, Could Minerva’s holding cell be blocked against phoenix travel by goblin runes? Nothing else would explain how Fawkes could successfully be kept out.
Luckily, Fawkes was able to telepathically tell Albus enough about where Minerva was located that Albus could Apparate to her.
Albus waited for Fawkes to fly back to his perch, then Albus Apparated to inside Minerva’s holding cell—
—at least, this was Albus’s plan. But the plan quickly went pear-shaped.
Instead of Albus and Minerva both being briefly on the inside of a door with steel bars, Albus wound up on the outside of the steel-bars door, which put him on the opposite side of the door from Minerva.
Now Albus found himself in a corridor between many holding cells, a corridor whose boundaries were holding cells before and behind, a wall at the right end of the corridor, and a door at the left end of the corridor (with a painted red handprint on the wall next to the door).
Albus barely had time to wonder What went wrong? when instantly the quite Muggleish overhead white light of the big room turned crimson. Not only was everything that Albus saw now bright red (or else black), but on the outside of the door at the end of the corridor, Albus heard a loud BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP...
Because Albus just had Apparated, he now was holding the Elder Wand. Albus pointed his wand at the door at the end of the corridor—the same door that was now so noisy. Albus expected Muggle Aurors to come bursting in through this door. This was not a problem, though—Albus was confident he could handle them.
****
Minerva was startled when, with a quiet sound, Albus Apparated just outside the door of Minerva’s holding cell.
Minerva was startled again, less than a second later, when all the overhead lights—in Minerva’s holding cell, in all the other holding cells that Minerva could see and in the corridor between the holding cells—instantly switched from white light to red.
In the same instant that the overhead lights turned red, the door at the end of the corridor began to make loud and insistent noises.
Meanwhile, Minerva heard an inhumanly-flat voice overhead: “Intruder alert, intruder alert, intruder alert. Unauthorised magical person detected.”
Minerva then saw red-lit Albus take a step sideways. He cast Evanesco on the holding-cell door to make it disappear. Oddly, his wand-tip did not light and nothing magical resulted.
Then the door at the end of the corridor opened, and the three magical policemen rushed in. This silenced the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP and the overhead voice. Minerva was surprised to see that the magical policemen, instead of holding their wands, each was holding his long black stick in one hand. Policeman Cromford, with his other hand, slapped the painted handprint on the wall. Minerva guessed that this somehow locked the corridor door.
Policeman Cromford commanded, “Albus Dumbledore, you are under arrest for ‘Unauthorised Entry into a Forbidden Area.’ Drop your wand and put up your hands. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand what I have just said?”
Albus ignored the magical policemen and again attempted to cast Evanesco on the holding-cell door. Again, Minerva noticed, no coloured spell-light came out of Albus’s wand and the holding-cell door remained unchanged.
Policeman Cromford said to Albus, “Add to your charges, ‘Attempted Unauthorised Release of a Gaoled or Imprisoned Person.’ Drop your wand and put up your hands.”
Albus turned to face the three Muggle-born policemen. “I do not have time to play games. Expello. Stupefy.” Albus cast a (wide-area?) Banishing Charm and a (wide-area?) Stunner Spell.
Except—just like twice before, nothing happened magically.
Then the three policemen ran up to Albus and hit him with their long black sticks.
Two stick-hits on Albus’s wand-arm, from below and above at the same time, broke that arm and made Albus drop his wand, whilst he screamed. The third policeman used the end of his black stick to hit Albus in his solar plexus; Albus immediately dropped.
Seconds later, red-lit Albus was left groaning on the floor, and now was wearing magic-suppression handcuffs. The three policemen calmly collected Albus’s three wands and four Portkeys, which they dropped into evidence bags.
Once Albus had been rendered harmless, every way possible, each of the three magical policemen walked over to the painted handprint by the door and each policeman smacked the handprint with a hand.
When all three policemen had smacked the handprint, the overhead light changed back to white.
Now each policeman shoved his black stick back into its leather-loop holder and drew his wand.
Minutes later, Albus Dumbledore had been pulled away to be face-photographed from front and side, to be fingerprinted and to be dressed in black-white-vertical-stripes coveralls, then he was brought back into the cell block.
Once Prisoner Albus was back in the cell block, he was locked into the holding cell across the corridor from Minerva’s holding cell.
Policeman Cromford said to Albus, “Albus Dumbledore, I’m adding more charges: three counts of ‘Attempted Assault on a Policeman’ and one count of ‘Resisting Arrest.’ ”
But, Minerva decided, there was one bit of mildly good news for “the Leader of the Light”: the blond policeman gave Albus Skele-Gro to heal his broken arm.
****
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The idea of “overhead red lights depower both the good guys and the bad guys, but the good guys expect this, so have made plans ahead of time”—I took this plot point, with a slight modification, from the 1981 film Superman II. The slight modification: In the film, the effect of the red lights is permanent; in this chapter, the effect lasts only whilst the lights shine red.
Chapter 4: Magicrascal Prison
Chapter Text
Still Monday, 24 June 1996, later that evening
Still in the Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement
Immediately after Dumbledore had been arrested and had been processed, Mark Cromford had a long telephone conversation with his boss, Prime Minister John Major.
Afterwards, it was after bedtime. Cromford was sure that even Amelia Bones, the hardworking Director of the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement, would have left work for the day. So rather than attempt to Floo-call Bones, Cromford sent her a message-Patronus: “Hello, I’m Police Sergeant Mark Cromford with the Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement. We’ve arrested McGonagall and Dumbledore. I’ll Floo-call you in the morning.”
****
The next morning (Tuesday, 25 June), 8.07am
In the office of the Director, Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the Ministry of Magic
Amelia Bones was almost an hour early for work, after not having been able to sleep much. Muggle-born policeman Cromford’s news had shocked Amelia last night, and this news had made sleeping difficult afterwards.
Whilst Amelia waited for this morning Floo-call from Cromford, she pulled out the Treaty of Separation and read it.
The last time Amelia had read the Treaty, eighteen years ago, she had been a Cadet in the Auror Academy. Many of the other Auror Cadets had declared their own required study of the Treaty of Separation to be a total waste of time. Amelia had agreed with them, but had been too much of a former Hufflepuff to say such a disrespectful thing aloud.
Now Amelia was reading about what the Treaty of Separation had to say about the Department of Mysteries—Queen Elizabeth can give assignments to the Unspeakables?—when Cromford Floo-called her.
****
The way Cromford told the story to Amelia, at one point in McGonagall’s presentation to the Granger family, McGonagall had said in essence, “If Miss Granger doesn’t agree to attend Hogwarts, all three of you Grangers will have your memories erased of magic and of the magical world.”
To Amelia, this was a statement of fact, nothing to get excited about, and she could not understand why both the Granger family and Police Sergeant Cromford considered this to be a threat.
Cromford explained to her, “Evidently you assume that the Obliviators would be professional and skilled, and so they would be surgical in their Obliviations.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Muggle-born I assume that the Obliviators would be Purebloods without exception, allowed to act on Muggles and on Muggle-borns without supervision. Almost certainly, the Grangers would suffer other memories being erased, due to the Obliviators’ sloppiness at best, and the Obliviators would not receive even a written reprimand afterwards.”
Amelia paused a moment whilst talking to Cromford, then changed the subject: “Let me see if I have one thing straight. For both trials, Prime Minister John Major will walk into the courtroom before each trial begins, and he’ll tell every Muggle there that magic is real and magical people are real; then everyone in the courtroom will be put under a geas that he or she cannot talk about magic or about magical people to anyone who is not in the courtroom at that moment. Have I understood all this correctly?”
“Yes. This will be how we can put magicals on trial in a nonmagical courtroom without violating the Statute.”
Amelia sighed. “Merlin on a mushroom, Fudge will burn Fiendfyre hot when I tell him all this.”
****
Two minutes later
In the Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement
By the time Cromford finished his Floo-call to Amelia Bones, waiting for him in his office were twelve British soldiers. All twelve had been temporarily assigned to the Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement, all twelve were Muggle-borns (with wands to prove their claim), and all twelve were skilled in hand-to-hand combat. John Major had sent the soldiers to keep the two holding-cell magicals under 24/7 sentry guard.
Most of the soldiers grinned viciously when Cromford told the twelve soldiers that one of the two magicals whom they would be guarding was Albus Dumbledore.
****
Meanwhile in Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge’s office
When Amelia Bones walked into the office of Cornelius Fudge, she had in her hand a copy of the full text of the Treaty of Separation of Magical Britain from Nonmagical Britain.
Unfortunately for Amelia’s hope that Fudge would stay calm and would give her news careful thought before reacting to what Amelia said, the Pink Toad was with Fudge at the time.
Fudge’s immediate response to Amelia’s news, after Umbridge’s goading in a simpering voice, was to loudly order the arrest of all three Grangers, “so that I can be seen as doing something.” Amelia flat-out refused to use her Aurors in this way.
Then Amelia walked Fudge (and croaking Umbridge) through some quite interesting parts of the Treaty of Separation. Whilst the Treaty of Separation in theory jointly granted the Muggle queen and the president of the Republic of Ireland the authority to revoke the Treaty of Separation and to end Wizarding Britain’s autonomy, until today the odds of Queen Elizabeth choosing to use such authority were “Chudley Cannons win the League Cup” unlikely.
But after the Ministry of Magic had almost lost the war against You-Know-Who in 1981 if not for Harry Potter, Amelia figured that the Ministry was on thin ice with Queen Elizabeth II. So what might happen if Fudge would add to the Ministry’s many blunders in the war against You-Know-Who, the 1996 travesty of Aurors arresting two Muggle adults and a Muggle-born teenager when the family of three had broken neither magical law nor nonmagical law?
Then, Amelia predicted, Queen Elizabeth II might get angry enough to ring up the president of the Republic of Ireland and to convince him, “We need to call back Britain’s unruly magicals.”
After hearing Amelia out, Fudge proved he had more brains than a flobberworm by cancelling his order to arrest the three Grangers.
Before Amelia left Fudge’s office, she also successfully had talked Fudge out of ordering her to send a dozen Aurors to rescue Dumbledore and McGonagall, and to arrest the Muggle-born police who had dared to arrest the two esteemed Hogwarts professors.
But as Amelia left Fudge’s office, Fudge and Umbridge were talking behind a Silencing Charm. Amelia thought, No good can come from this.
****
Eight days later (Wednesday, 3 July)
It took eight days for Dolores Umbridge, Lucius Malfoy and Senior Auror John Dawlish to attempt to rescue Minerva and Albus.
Perhaps the eight-day delay was because the three “rescuers” were trying to lull the Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement into a false sense of security.
Much more likely, it took the three evil wand-wavers eight days to get organised.
Gaoled Minerva saw Umbridge, Lucius Malfoy and Dawlish Apparate in. Immediately the overhead lights turned red, whilst the ceiling got noisy and the corridor door got noisy. Minerva, whilst thinking Isn’t my life complicated enough?, loudly spoke a Highland profanity.
Red-lit Dolores Umbridge carried a written order from Fudge that commanded the “Muggle Policemen” to immediately release Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall. Umbridge imperiously thrust the written order towards the nearest Muggle-born in the corridor, who happened to be a soldier; evidently Umbridge could not tell the difference between Muggle police and Muggle soldiers.
The soldier named Cooper snatched the order from Umbridge, read through it, then quite deliberately tore the parchment into pieces.
Dolores sputtered, then she made loud demands; the soldiers on duty and the policemen all smirked the entire time.
Red-lit Dawlish then declared “all the mu—Muggle-borns in uniform” to be “under arrest.”
Minerva, behind bars, heard Cromford laugh. “Read Paragraph Two of the Treaty of Separation, dimwit. All of us who are already here but who aren’t behind bars, we work for Nonmagical Britain’s government—we’re out of your jurisdiction, even though we’re magical. But since you three broke laws of Parliament, you three now are subject to our jurisdiction.”
Minerva saw Barnard, one of the other policemen, grin at the intruders. “And you lot can’t say bugger-all about anything the Treaty of Separation has written in it, because Chief Warlock Ares Black, one of you lot, signed the Treaty of Separation in 1642.”
****
During the next twenty-three minutes
Red-lit Umbridge, Lucius Malfoy and Dawlish then attempted to magically resist arrest, using their wands.
The three blood-purity believers wand-battling all the mudbloods would have been glorious—if their wands had worked. But then and there, their wands were mere cooking chopsticks. The three arrogant magicals quickly were subdued.
Then temporarily magicless Umbridge, Lucius Malfoy and Dawlish were handcuffed in magic-nullification handcuffs—in Dawlish’s case, in his own magic-nullification handcuffs.
The three intruders’ wands and Portkeys were “bagged and tagged,” the three intruders each were dressed in stylish black-and-white-vertical-stripes coveralls, then the intruders were photographed and were fingerprinted.
Then the three were put in holding cells: Umbridge in 1-Right, Lucius Malfoy in 15-Right, and Dawlish in 12-Right. Meaning, the three were locked up some distance from McGonagall and from Dumbledore, and were put where it was almost impossible for the three newcomers to talk to each other.
****
Some of the soldiers who had captured Umbridge, Lucius Malfoy and Dawlish remained on sentry duty at the end of the corridor that was by the wall, in case some other magicals tried an Apparation intrusion. But the other soldiers, and all three magical policemen, left the cell block.
Dumbledore had been silent all this time. Now he looked at Lucius Malfoy and said, “It is obvious what your plan was: to come in here and to ‘rescue’ Minerva and myself in the face of weak Muggle resistance, then Minerva and I would owe you favours. A week ago, I had the same expectation: token Muggle resistance when I Apparated here to rescue Minerva.”
Dumbledore paused a second, then raised his voice so that Umbridge, Dawlish and Malfoy could all three hear him: “It stings, does it not, being outsmarted by Muggle-borns?”
****
Five days later (Monday, 8 July)
In the United Kingdom, criminal trials occurred in a “Queen’s Court.” Normally those two words were a mere name; but in the case of the five magical arrestees, Queen Elizabeth II gave the order that the five were to be tried “immediately but carefully.”
The five trials began Monday, 8 July, five days after Umbridge, Malfoy and Dawlish had been arrested.
The first trial, the trial of Minerva McGonagall, took only half a day. After all three Grangers and Police Sergeant Cromford testified against McGonagall, her Defence Barrister argued that what she had said to the Grangers about memory-erasing them was not a threat. Despite the Defence Barrister’s argument, Minerva was convicted of Aggravated Trespass. To her surprise, she was not fined. She however was sentenced to the United Kingdom’s nonmagical government’s (unnamed) magical prison, but only till 31 August.
The reason for McGonagall’s lighter-than-statutory sentencing was because Mark Cromford, of all people, argued on her behalf. “I spent seven years in school with this woman. She is not a criminal normally. She doesn’t go about thumping people, or robbing banks. But she works for Albus Dumbledore, a man with no scruples, and Minerva McGonagall does everything he says. This unquestioning obedience is why she returned to the Grangers after she had been told to leave.”
As for Dumbledore, Umbridge and Dawlish, these three were charged with Unauthorised Entry into a Forbidden Area, one or two counts of Attempted Unauthorised Release of a Gaoled or Imprisoned Person, three counts of Attempted Assault on a Policeman and one count of Resisting Arrest. Dumbledore earnt fifteen years, and Umbridge and Dawlish sixteen years, in the United Kingdom’s nonmagical government’s magical prison because of those crimes.
Dawlish in addition was convicted of Impersonating a Police Office (because in Muggle Britain, Dawlish was not a police officer). Dawlish got a year added to his prison sentence for this crime.
Lucius Malfoy’s trial was quite different from the others’ trials. By the time Malfoy was put on trial, the Crown Prosecutor had discovered that Malfoy was a Death Eater, and the Crown Prosecutor could provide evidence for some of Malfoy’s crimes. Malfoy was tried as a terrorist, was convicted, and was sentenced to life in the United Kingdom’s nonmagical government’s magical prison, without parole.
****
As for Minerva, back on 8 July
Minerva was the first of the five magical arrestees to be put on trial and to be convicted, so she was the first of the five to be taken to the United Kingdom’s nonmagical government’s magical prison.
Minerva was escorted out of the courthouse still wearing the dressy witch’s robes she had worn during her short trial, but now she again was wearing magic-suppression handcuffs.
Minerva was led to a shiny black vehicle that was big for an automobile—it looked like a small lorry. Most importantly, the vehicle had no back windows and, except for the driver and front-seat passenger, the vehicle had no side windows. Once Minerva was led to the back seat, she had only a limited view of the outside Muggle world.
On the wall (dashboard) in front of the driver were gauges that Minerva dimly remembered from her girlhood, and light-shapes whose meaning, Minerva could not guess at all. But one thing on the wall, Minerva recognised instantly: a runes-cluster. But Minerva had not studied Ancient Runes since she had been eighteen, so could not read the runes-cluster.
When the automobile-lorry was started up and began moving, Minerva dared to ask, “Where are we going?”
“You don’t need to know where,” the driver snapped. (These six words would turn out to be the only words he spoke during the entire trip.)
“Bir—Bir—,” the front-seat passenger replied. “Starts with a ‘B’, ends with an ‘m’.”
Birmingham, Minerva thought.
The driver glared at the front-seat passenger, even though this was dangerous to do whilst driving.
****
Ten minutes later
The vehicle was working its way through London traffic when the vehicle came upon a short tunnel, so that, after entering the tunnel, the outside of the vehicle would be dark for a few seconds. Just before the vehicle entered the tunnel, the driver pressed a finger against the runes-cluster.
Minerva asked, “What did he just do?”
The front-seat passenger replied, “I can’t tell you that, but you might figure it out later. But I can tell you that the boffins were clever, how they’re keeping the Statute of Secrecy happy with us, even whilst we’re amidst city traffic.”
****
Sometime later
The vehicle was driving on a special road that was made for high speeds; nothing like this road had existed during Minerva’s girlhood. The front-seat passenger reached down in front of his seat and pulled up a paper (not parchment) bag. He turned round to look at Minerva. “I got a ham-and-cheese sandwich in here. You want half of it? By the way, my name’s Horseradish.”
Minerva had no idea what this man wanted from her, so she went with total honesty: “I would love half a sandwich if you’re offering, thank you. I must say, you’re acting quite friendly to someone who is a convicted criminal.”
As the front-seat passenger handed Minerva the half-sandwich, he said, “Enjoy the sandwich. It’s the last time you’ll get food that’s not on a schedule till you’re released.”
Then he said, “We can’t tell you our real names, it’s against the rules. Just call me Horseradish and he”—Horseradish jerked a thumb right, to mean the silent driver—“is Calico. We’re both under glamours too—these aren’t our real faces and bodies.”
“Why go to all the trouble?” Minerva asked.
Horseradish replied, “Mark Cromford is a straight-up bloke, and he told us you’re not really a criminal, you’re just a witch who got played for a fool by Dumbledore. But the other four in gaol with you? They’re evil, and they have evil friends. Or in Dumbledore’s case, stupid friends. Those four have evil or stupid friends who happily would torture Calico and me, or they’d Imperius us, to tell ’em where our magical prison is, so the evil or stupid friends could break out the evil magical prisoners.“
Minerva nodded. “Yes, you can’t trust Malfoy, Umbridge or Dawlish. For that matter, I now realise it’s foolish to trust Dumbledore. Merlin, he did play me for a fool!”
Horseradish nodded. “But the Prime Minister and the Queen have taken all sorts of precautions—but we can’t tell you about them, sorry—so Death Eaters’ mates can’t find out where Death Eaters are being stored.”
****
During the drive to Birmingham
The vehicle had no clock. Minerva at the moment had no wand and no magic, so casting the Tempus Charm was doubly impossible. Calico did not talk to anyone, and Horseradish soon lapsed into silence. Minerva had nothing to do, other than watching Nonmagical England go by, and thinking.
So Minerva thought.
Minerva had grown up on a farm in Scotland, with magical parents. Minerva’s mother was a Scottish magic-raised halfblood. Minerva’s Scottish Muggle-born father was a farmer and, on Sundays, a Presbyterian preacher. Both of Minerva’s paternal grandparents were nonmagical, and two of Minerva’s maternal great-grandparents were nonmagical—which to Albus, had made Minerva the “obviously” best-qualified Hogwarts Head of House to visit Muggle-borns.
No matter that, before Minerva had been named Head of House Gryffindor besides teaching Transfiguration, the last time Minerva had spent hours in a Muggle house had been in 1938, when Minerva had been eleven. The Muggle world had changed much since 1938—for Minerva, visiting the Granger house in 1996 had been at times like visiting Atlantis.
Minerva’s thoughts continued—
Money sometimes had been scant during Minerva’s girlhood, but she had grown up knowing that her father had loved her and had loved her mother. (Angus McGonagall’s oft-repeated joke: “Of course I love my wife and my daughter! Why else would I let my wife give my daughter such an idolatrous name?”)
Now as Minerva was being hauled to a prison in Birmingham, she recalled her Presbyterian-preacher father saying at the dinner table, many years ago, “Avoid sin, Minerva, because sin causes destruction always.”
Minerva always had felt proud of herself that she had avoided Lucius Malfoy’s sort of sin and Dolores Umbridge’s sort of sin—sin that took joy in causing death, pain and misery.
But there was another sort of sin, Minerva recalled: the sin of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. The Serpent did not kill Adam and Eve, or rape them, or crush them, or bite them. Instead, the Serpent spoke pretty words and lured Adam and Eve into doing something wrong.
Minerva had never acted like the Serpent, but she was shocked to realise that she had acted like gullible Eve—
If not for Policeman Cromford, Minerva would have used every trick she knew, in order to force Miss Granger to attend Hogwarts, which would have harmed Miss Granger’s life because she was Muggle-born. What was worse, Minerva would have done this to Miss Granger for no better reason than that Albus had said it was important that Hogwarts vaults fill up a bit more.
On the heels of that stab at Minerva’s conscience, came another reason for her deep guilt: I never have visited Harry Potter, because Albus always has told me that my staying away was “for Harry’s own good.” But what if the Dursleys have been as horrid to Harry Potter as I told Albus they would be, back in 1981?
Minerva’s conclusion: She had avoided Lucius Malfoy’s sin and Dolores Umbridge’s sin, but she had been caught by Albus’s sin, and was suffering some of his destruction. But how much destruction? Would Minerva still have a job at Hogwarts when she was released from prison?
Then Minerva got a new thought: Even with you going to prison and possibly being sacked afterwards, if you were right about the Dursleys, Harry Potter has suffered worse than you, and he is blameless.
****
Later, in the ugly part of Birmingham
The vehicle approached a brick fence that had two metal gates spanning the gap in the brick fence, with the metal gates held together by a chain and a padlock. The gates, chain and padlock all looked rusted. Minerva wondered whether the padlock even would unlock.
Beyond the fence and gates, Minerva saw a faded sign that said, “Smythe-Hinckley Plastics.”
Horseradish drew his wand and pointed it through the front glass of the vehicle. The two gates, the chain and the padlock all vanished. The moving vehicle did not need to slow down even a bit.
Minerva said, “Won’t local Muggles notice that there’s a gap in the fence?”
Horseradish said, “All that stuff will be gone for only five seconds or so.” He glanced at the left-side wing mirror. “Sure enough, it’s all put back, and looking like it hasn’t been disturbed since 1977. Some other magic happened along with the gates disappearing—”
Calico cleared his throat.
“—but all I can tell you is, the boffins got clever again.”
By now, the vehicle was approaching a big building. Minerva saw that on the right end of one side of the big building was a door that was both quite tall and quite wide. Horseradish aimed his wand through the vehicle’s front glass at the big door. With a clatter, the entire door rose up and disappeared. The vehicle drove into the big building.
Most of the inside of the big building was an open floor of smooth and shiny concrete. At regular intervals, Minerva saw rectangular discolourations in the concrete. Near the edges of the rectangular discolourations, Minerva saw cylindrical holes in the concrete.
Near a corner of the big building, and entirely enclosed by the big building, was a second, much smaller building. The vehicle headed towards this inner building.
Once there, the vehicle stopped.
Horseradish said to Minerva, “We’re here.” He walked round the vehicle and helped still-handcuffed Minerva leave the vehicle.
Calico was out of the vehicle too. He was holding a big, thick, tan, paper envelope that was labelled “Minerva K McGonagall.” The envelope clearly carried many papers, but it also showed a wand-shaped, wand-sized bulge.
Once Minerva was outside the vehicle, she was surprised to see that the formerly-black vehicle now was white, with red-edged pink letters on the side that read, “Annabelle’s Florist.”
(Meanwhile, as Minerva was looking at the pink-and-red words, she heard the tall and wide door that the vehicle had entered through, noisily lower itself and shut.)
Whilst looking round, Minerva saw that the open part of the building’s concrete floor was long enough and wide enough that, she figured, someone could put a regulation Quidditch pitch inside the building—though the Seekers would be limited in how high they could fly.
By the time Minerva was finished with imagining an indoor Quidditch pitch inside this big building, Horseradish had moved between Calico and Minerva. Horseradish had his wand in his hand; but at the moment, it was pointed down.
Minerva thought, Message received: Don’t try to attack Calico to get your wand back. Horseradish, as much as he likes you, will hurt you if you try.
The two sides of the inner building that faced the big building’s vast concrete floor showed only the minimum of opaque walls; mostly the two sides were glass. Looking in through the glass, Minerva saw that the inner building was empty except for a three-inch-thick book on the floor, London Business 1977-1978. For some reason, the book’s paper pages all were yellow-edged, not white-edged.
On one of the sides of the inner building that faced the concrete floor, on the slender opaque-wall part, a telephone was mounted on the outside of the inner building, five feet from the ground. This telephone was different from telephones that Minerva had seen during her girlhood—Calico did not pick up the telephone and immediately begin speaking with an operator, nor did the telephone have a rotary dial. Instead, the telephone had twelve buttons on the front.
Calico pushed some buttons, waited a few seconds, then said into the telephone, “Horseradish and me are here, after quite a boring trip. The prisoner is here too”—he paused to read the name on his envelope—“Minerva K McGonagall.” There was a pause, then Calico said, “No problems to report. Goodbye.” Calico rang off the telephone.
Minerva asked, “What happens now?”
“Now we wait,” Horseradish replied.
Underneath the wall-mounted telephone, and just outside the inner building, on the concrete floor laid a cable spool that had been turned on its side to make a table; next to the cable-spool table was a black metal folding chair. Both the “table” and the chair were dusty. About a minute after Calico rang off the telephone, Minerva heard a quiet pop as a half-foot parchment appeared on the cable-spool table. The parchment had writing on it, but the writing was blurry.
Horseradish said, “You have to pick it up to read it. Calico and I can’t pick it up and hold it whilst you read it. Them’s the rules.”
As soon as Minerva, whilst using both hands, picked up the parchment, the parchment’s words became sharp and readable: “Magicrascal Prison is located within the former Smythe-Hinckley Plastics factory in Birmingham, West Midlands, England.”
Within the big building, the four walls and the inner building rushed away from the centre, and the roof of the big building doubled its height. Where before, only smooth and shiny concrete had been visible, now stood a brick building inside the magically-expanded former factory building; a brick building that was next to the glassed-in inner building.
Minerva still was staring at the brick building when the parchment in her hands caught fire and burnt to ash.
****
Ten minutes later
Minerva now had a “home” in the brick building, in a cell in the second cell block of her life. The ceiling of this cell block was tiled with disks that shone soft-white light; Minerva had no interest in discovering whether those disks ever turned red.
Also, Minerva was back to wearing black-and-white-vertically-striped coveralls. Minerva’s prison uniform was slightly different than what her holding-cell uniform had been: The black and white stripes now were narrower, and the left breast of her new coveralls had a white oval on it, on which “MRP” was written in blue.
Minerva in her new “home” had three new “neighbours”: Death Eaters. Minerva recognised them as former Slytherin students who had not impressed her in Transfiguration class, not one of them.
****
Four days later (Friday, 12 July)
Minerva in her cell heard Horseradish yell, “Shut up, Dumbledore!”
Minerva, by moving up to the left-front corner of her cell, was able to see Horseradish, Calico, a British soldier and Albus Dumbledore.
Magic-suppression-handcuffed Albus was dressed like a long-haired, long-bearded birthday-party clown. Minerva thought, That’s the outfit he wore to court? Is the word ridiculous not in his vocabulary?
Silent Calico was scowling, Horseradish was yelling and the soldier was standing nearby, his arms crossed and a green wand in one hand. Dumbledore looked like a longsuffering grandfather who was enduring unruly children. Which Minerva took to mean Dumbledore demanded something outrageous, and Calico and Horseradish told him no.
Fifteen minutes later, Albus became the fifth inmate in the cell block. He again was dressed in black-and-white-vertically-striped clothing, and Albus did not like this at all.
One of the three Death Eaters sneeringly asked Albus, “So, ‘Leader of the Light,’ what are you in here for?”
“Polonius my boy, I should not be here at all. I am the victim of a dire misunderstanding.”
Minerva’s comment? “Horseshit.”
****
Days later, in the office of the DMLE Director
After Dolores Umbridge’s trial and conviction, during Dawlish’s trial and before Malfoy’s trial, Police Sergeant Cromford Floo-called Amelia to update her.
Afterwards, smirking Amelia walked into the Auror bullpen and said loudly, “Has anyone seen a Pink Toad? Cornelius has lost one.”
Someone asked, “Where’d she go?”
Amelia answered, “Arrested, tried, sentenced, and now on her way to special Muggle prison. For sixteen years.”
The bullpen cheered.
Someone else asked, “What about” Senior Auror “Dawlish?”
Amelia answered, “He’s on trial now. And if convicted and sentenced to special Muggle prison, there’s not a thing his Uncle Cornelius can do to ‘fix’ the situation.”
The bullpen cheered again.
Someone muttered, “Dawlish’s ‘Senior Auror’ rank is bullshit. The berk should’ve stayed an Auror Second Class,” the rank every Auror was given when they first came out of the Auror Academy.
Amelia shrugged. Nothing I could do.
****
When eventually all five magicals in the Prime Minister’s Office of Special Treaty Enforcement’s holding cells had been put on trial and had been transported to Magicrascal Prison, Dolores Umbridge loudly demanded of “the filthy Muggles” that they release her, Malfoy and Dawlish.
Oddly, Umbridge did not demand that Albus and Minerva, or the three previously imprisoned Death Eaters, also be released.
****
Destiny is repaired
Albus Dumbledore was a wizard so hubristic and conceited that he thought that not even Destiny could kill Tom Riddle without Albus managing everything—and everyone.
Albus had set out to herd Harry Potter’s prophetic destiny, beginning before Harry even had been born, so that Tom would kill Harry, then Albus would kill Tom. Why was Albus Dumbledore working to do this? So that with Tom dead by Albus’s hand, Albus would become as famous and as beloved as Merlin, because Albus had defeated two Dark Lords.
But once Dumbledore was sent to prison in July 1996, which meant he no longer could meddle in anyone else’s life, Destiny began to change Harry Potter’s life to match what Destiny had intended, from the beginning, for the Chosen One’s life to be.
Destiny’s first change: July 13, this being the day after Dumbledore was put in Magicrascal Prison, Amelia Bones accidentally discovered that escaped Azkaban prisoner Sirius Black never had been given a trial.
****
Next chapter: Harry Meets Hermione
Chapter 5: Harry Meets Hermione
Chapter Text
A week later (Friday, 19 July 1996)
Finally, almost fifteen years after Sirius had been sent to Azkaban without a trial, Sirius got his trial.
For the three years after his escape from Azkaban, Sirius had been forced to listen to Head of the Order of the Phoenix Albus Dumbledore blather pretty excuses why Chief Warlock Albus Dumbledore could not give Sirius a trial: “Sirius my boy, whenever I try to give you a trial, Cornelius blocks it. I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do.”
But now, six days after Amy had discovered that Sirius had never had a trial, Sirius was in Courtroom Ten. Sirius saw Minister Fudge scowling at Amy’s attitude of “Sirius Black never received a trial, so now I’m giving him a trial; deal with it”—but scowling was all Fudge was doing. Fudge was not ordering Sirius sent back to Azkaban, and Fudge was not siccing a Dementor on Sirius.
Which meant that for three years, Dumbledore had lied to Sirius. (Again.)
Speaking of the Bearded One, Albus Dumbledore was not here in Courtroom Ten today to thwart Sirius’s trial. The “Leader of the Light” was enjoying Queen Elizabeth’s hospitality, instead of making a nuisance of himself here in Courtroom Ten by inventing silly procedural reasons why Sirius’s trial could not happen here and now.
And so, with nobody blocking Sirius getting justice, Sirius’s trial began.
Amelia Bones read off the charges against Sirius, then asked formally, “How do you plead to these charges?”
Sirius replied, just as formally, “Not guilty to all charges—and I insist that I be questioned under Veritaserum!”
Amy simply nodded, whilst everyone else in the room looked and sounded shocked—except Fudge, who looked worried.
****
Twenty minutes later
Sirius was given the Veritaserum antidote, then was acquitted of all charges. Fudge now definitely looked worried.
Whilst the chains-chair’s chains unwrapped themselves from Sirius’s wrists and ankles, Sirius said in a loud voice—
“Everyone, listen to me. The wills of James Potter and of Lily Potter were sealed by Chief Warlock Dumbledore. His stated reasons were excuses, and don’t matter. Dumbledore then claimed magical guardianship of Harry Potter, and with both Potter parents’ wills sealed, no document could be produced to deny Dumbledore’s claim.
“I have met with Harry Potter and I have talked to him, and I tell you that Albus Dumbledore has acted scandalously unfit as Harry Potter’s magical guardian.
“Acting Chief Warlock Greengrass, I ask that the Potter wills be unsealed right now, to prove my claim that Chief Warlock Dumbledore acted unlawfully. Then I ask that I be given guardianship of Harry Potter, as the Potter wills direct and as I should have been given from the beginning.”
The Wizengamot seat-holders and the onlookers, who had gotten noisy when Sirius had pled Not Guilty and had demanded Veritaserum besides, but had since quieted down, now got noisy again.
Greengrass ordered the Potter wills brought to Courtroom Ten, then Greengrass personally unsealed them.
Greengrass did not read the wills aloud in their entirety, but he did read the paragraph in James Potter’s will that mentioned that Peter Pettigrew was the Potters’ Secret Keeper—everyone in Courtroom Ten looked surprised except for Sirius and Amy. Then Greengrass read the part of each will that concerned Harry’s guardianship. In both wills, Sirius was first choice for guardian.
Sirius said, “Everyone, please note: Both James’ will and Lily’s will state that Harry is not to be given to Lily’s Muggle sister and her husband—no, absolutely not, perish the thought, no way in bloody hell—but the great Albus Dumbledore personally left toddler Harry on Lily’s sister’s doorstep on a cold November night. Will the Wizengamot continue to let Dumbledore decide the important parts of Harry Potter’s life?”
Sirius Black had been frog-marched into Courtroom Ten as an accused multiple murderer; Sirius Black walked out of Courtroom Ten as Harry Potter’s legal guardian.
****
Minutes later, in the Ministry Atrium
Sirius called a press conference.
Sirius was asked how he had escaped prison, and how he had evaded capture. As part of his answer, he turned into the Grim long enough to be photographed by the Daily Prophet.
Then Sirius was asked about his plans for Harry Potter. Sirius grinned mischievously.
“My immediate plans are to go to where Harry has been living for the last fifteen years, which was not in Wales and was not in a blue palace. Harry has basically spent the past fifteen years imprisoned, with Lily’s Muggle sister and her family acting as Harry’s gaolers. But Harry will be gone from there, never to return, just a few minutes from now.
“Because of the abuse by Lily’s sister and her family, Harry Potter is,” Sirius paused, “unhealthy. Dumbledore put Harry there, and Dumbledore never checked up on Harry. When Dumbledore walks out of special Muggle prison, fifteen years from now, he immediately should be put on trial by the Wizengamot, for his part in abusing Harry Potter.
“I’ve one more thing to say about Harry. Six weeks from now, Harry will begin his magical schooling. But not at Hogwarts, where education has become substandard because of Dumbledore. Instead, Harry Potter will be attending Ilvermorny as a ‘crow’s-feet firstie.’ ”
The reporters and onlookers all got noisy, hearing this.
Sirius demanded, “Why should Harry go to Hogwarts, just because his parents went there?”
Sirius then ranted about the awful teaching in History of Magic and DADA, the ridiculousness of Muggle Studies being taught by a Pureblood, and about Potions being taught by a bullying Death Eater.
Sirius continued, “Minerva McGonagall is an Outstanding-Plus Transfiguration professor, but as an administrator, she rates a Troll. As Deputy Headmistress, she was so busy doing Dumbledore’s work for him that she neglected her job of Gryffindor Head of House. For the last ten years, Gryffindor students were easy meat for Slytherin bullies and for the bullying Slytherin Head of House, and Minerva did nothing. I declare it, I will not put Harry into the jungle called Hogwarts.
“Final remarks—
“Of course I want to thank Amelia Bones, who got in Minister Fudge’s face and called for my trial.
“I also want to thank a Muggle-born sixteen-year-old girl whose name I don’t know. The Prophet calls her the ‘Mystery Muggle-Born Maiden,’ who told Minerva ‘No!’ about attending Hogwarts, then got Minerva arrested when Minerva came back to argue more. Because Minerva was arrested, and because Albus Dumbledore believes that laws don’t apply to him so he tried to break Minnie out of gaol, the result is that Albus Dumbledore was thrown in special Muggle prison last week. The big reason I got a trial today was because Dumbledore was not here to prevent it. So Muggle-born girl, whoever you are, thank you for starting that snowball rolling.”
****
Meanwhile in Canterbury, Kent
In her apartment, Karen Fahlstrom had been half-listening to Wizarding Wireless Network’s live coverage of Sirius Black’s press conference.
Now Karen stared at her radio in shock.
****
Ten minutes later
In Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey
Harry had a vicious grin as he walked out of the upstairs bathroom. Sirius, who was waiting just outside the bathroom door, said, “You forgot to flush, Pup.”
Harry, still with the nasty grin, said, “My not-flushing is deliberate.”
Harry gestured to a paper sack at the top of the stairs. In the paper sack were Harry’s few possessions that were not Dudley’s old clothes. “You said to take what’s mine with me, but leave Dudley’s clothes here in the house, right?”
“Yeah. So?” said Sirius.
Harry walked into the upstairs bedroom that he grudgingly had been given, only after he had outgrown the cupboard under the stairs. Seconds later, Harry walked out of the bedroom with a big wad of old clothing.
As Harry walked into the bathroom, he explained to Sirius, “The toilet bowl now has shit on it...”
Harry packed all of the wad of clothes into the toilet bowl.
“Now Dudley’s old clothes have shit on them. And whoever pulls the clothes out of the toilet will get shit on their hands and arms.”
Harry walked to the top of the stairs and picked up the paper sack. “Shall we leave here forever, godfather?”
“One more thing to do, Pup.”
****
Sirius and Harry found Petunia in the kitchen. (Vernon was at work, and Harry had remarked to Sirius that he was sure that Dudley was in the play park, dealing drugs.)
Petunia scowled, seeing the clothes Harry was wearing. They were Dudley’s clothes, because the Dursleys never had bought Harry any clothes of his own, but now thanks to Sirius, Dudley’s old clothes fit Harry, and the worn and holey parts of the clothing had been repaired and made new.
Harry smiled in triumph at his aunt.
Sirius pulled a parchment and a rectangular piece of paper from his pockets. “Sign here and here,” Sirius said to Petunia.
As Petunia picked up the quite nonmagical pen, she said, “You know we never wanted him.”
Sirius stared Petunia in the eyes. “That’s obvious, just from looking at him. If Dumbledore hadn’t interfered, all three of you Dursleys would be guests of Her Majesty for child abuse.”
Petunia shrugged.
****
As soon as Petunia quit writing her name the second time, Sirius felt the blood-wards collapse. Sirius said nothing to Petunia.
Instead, Sirius asked Harry, “Got your property?”
Harry picked up his paper sack, Sirius pocketed the parchment that Petunia had signed, then Sirius laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder.
Sirius Side-Apparated Harry and his paper sack out of the kitchen of the Dursley house.
Sirius and Harry made a brief stop at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, then it was on to Gringotts.
****
At Gringotts, in the goblin hospital
Goblin tellers, when they get angry, sneer. Goblin warriors, when they get angry, brandish weapons. But until now, Sirius never had met an angry goblin healer—
“The young wizard has a to’iglekvi’eng in his scar! Why has it not been removed before now?”
Sirius asked. “What does to’iglekvi’eng mean?”
This was how Sirius and Harry learnt that Harry had had a horcrux in his scar for fifteen years. Sirius was willing to bet money that Dumbledore had known this horrid fact during the entire fifteen years.
Now Harry choked when the goblin healer quoted the price (G20 000) for the healing ritual—
Harry blurted, “A hundred thousand pounds? That’s too much! Maybe we can find another way—”
“Twenty thousand galleons is fine,” Sirius said to the goblin healer. “Get the abomination out now, even if this costs extra.”
It did not cost extra, so Sirius and Harry decided to “splurge” on healing potions. Each of them would need many such potions.
After the ritual removed the horcrux from Harry’s scar, the healer examined Harry’s forehead-scar again. “How odd. The scar has no more Dark magic in it, but the scar is not magically empty as I expected. Instead, the scar has some sort of Light magic there. The magic is harmless, so I shall leave it there.”
Sirius said, “I bet it’s Lily’s magical protection. Which, during the last fifteen years, prevented the horcrux from possessing Harry.”
****
Sirius’s and Harry’s next stop was Harrods Department Store. Sirius knew that, because of the healing potions, new clothes that fit Harry today would be an ill-fitting waste of money in two or three months. Still, for those two or three months, Harry deserved clothes that only he had owned and only he had worn.
****
In Harrods Department Store’s food court
Karen Fahlstrom could not believe it. There at the food court sat a man and a boy, and she recognized the boy. The teen boy had messy black hair, round black glasses, and green eyes that glowed like emeralds.
The man had black hair and was handsome, but Karen barely looked at him.
Karen walked up to the two males at their table and murmured, “Excuse me but has anyone told you, you look just like Harry Potter?”
The man grinned at Karen and said, “Not me, they haven’t.”
As soon as Karen heard the older man’s voice, she said, “You must be Sirius Black.”
Both wizards looked at Karen in confusion. Sirius Black said, “You have the advantage of us, Miss. For one thing, you’re American, so you shouldn’t know us.” For another thing, you’re clearly a witch, but why would you be in a nonmagical place like Harrods?
Karen gestured to a vacant chair at their table. May I?
Sirius Black’s gesture said Please sit down. As she took her seat, Black drew his wand in a sneaky manner, then cast privacy spells.
Now Karen replied both to the asked question and to the unasked question. “I’m an American teacher in a British private school. I’m a first-gen—what you call a Muggle-born. Speaking of Muggle-borns, I know who the ‘Mystery Muggle-Born Maiden’ is: she’s one of my students.”
“Whoa,” Harry said. “She’s Gryffindor-brave, even though she’ll never go into Gryffindor.”
“Her name is Hermione,” Karen said.
Sirius Black laughed. “Yes, she definitely must be magical with a name like that. Let me guess: Her full name is Hermione Farmerbailiff.”
“Pretty close, yeah,” Karen said with a smile.
“So how did you recognise me?” Harry Potter asked Karen.
She replied, “A friend of Hermione’s, a nonmagical friend, bought Harry Potter and the Vampire Village in a nonmagical used bookstore.”
Sirius Black hissed.
Karen continued, “During lunch, Eleanor was ranting about what a terrible book it was. For one thing, the ‘Harry Potter’ of the book was a seven-year-old Merlin. As I was walking by, I overheard Eleanor use the word Muggles. She thought it was a word that the book had made up, not a real word. Anyway, I asked to ‘borrow’ the book, planning to destroy it. Eleanor shoved the book into my hands, ranting, ‘I never want to see this book again!’ ”
Harry Potter nodded. “I can relate. Get those ‘Harry Potter’ books away from me!”
Karen said, “Students at the school where I teach, they are finicky about their fiction books. But before I Vanished the book, I looked at the cover enough to recognize your messy black hair, bright green eyes, and round glasses when I saw them just now.”
Harry Potter said, “When I was seven, I looked like you described. But I also was small for my age, starved all the time, and was worked like a Caribbean sugar-plantation slave—I’ll bet the ‘Harry Potter’ of the book didn’t have those problems.”
****
As Karen Fahlstrom was talking to Sirius Black and to Harry Potter in the Harrods food court, Destiny whispered in Karen’s ear, “Here’s a suggestion: Host a party tomorrow night, and invite Sirius Black, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger to the party.”
****
Now Karen said to Sirius Black and to Harry Potter, “Would you come to my apartment tomorrow night, if I can get Hermione to come too? I heard you say on WWN that Harry will not be going to Hogwarts. I think Hermione would love to talk to magicals who would not be pushing her, ‘Go to Hogwarts, go to Hogwarts.’ ”
Sirius Black asked cautiously, “Hermione isn’t a Boy-Who-Lived fangirl, is she?”
“Not hardly! What she knows about the magical world is only what that Hogwarts professor told her. Hermione probably doesn’t know that ‘Harry Potter’ is a real person.”
Harry Potter looked at Sirius Black with a pleading expression. “I’ve never been invited to a party before.”
****
The next night (Saturday, 20 July)
Karen had managed to put together a party, and to get people to come, on one day’s notice. Even more amazing to her, Karen had invited a “dream team” of party guests, and they all had agreed to come.
(However, to invite the magical guests, Karen had had to rent two postal owls, which had added to the party’s expense.)
Invited, and now here in Karen’s apartment: Hermione Granger and both her parents; Sirius Black and Harry Potter; Police Sergeant Mark Cromford; and DMLE Director Amelia Bones.
Amelia Bones was the last to arrive. Karen introduced herself—because she and Director Bones never had met—then Karen gestured to where a table held Ogden’s Finest firewhisky, beer, wine, butterbeer, and a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola.
Then Karen introduced the guests to each other. This took a while, both because each person in the room was well-accomplished at something, and because each person in the apartment’s living room was in the presence of at least one other person whom they did not know at all—
• Amelia Bones knew Sirius Black well—they had dated at Hogwarts and had dated whilst they both had been Aurors. Mark Cromford had Floo-called Amelia twice, but she never had seen him before in the flesh. Amelia knew Harry Potter only by his public image, and Sirius had insisted to Amelia that Harry Potter’s public image was all lies. Amelia never had heard of Karen Fahlstrom till she had received an owled party invitation from the American witch, but Amelia had gotten “a feeling” that she should accept the invitation. The name Granger meant nothing to Amelia. Amelia had imagined that the “Mystery Muggle-Born Maiden” had to be some sort of radical, but the teen-girl Granger did not look radical at all.
• Mark Cromford knew Sirius Black and Harry Potter only through newspaper articles. Mark was willing to bet that the Daily Prophet’s articles about those two wizards were wrong more often than they were right.
• Hermione Granger knew Karen Fahlstrom professionally, as her Maths teacher for two years, but never had socialised with the American teacher witch. Dan Granger and Emma Granger had spoken with Karen Fahlstrom only twice, and this had been about Hermione’s schooling, nothing else. Likewise, the Grangers knew Police Sergeant Cromford, but not well. The other three people at the party, the Grangers did not know at all.
Hermione Granger found it difficult to believe that the teen boy named Harry Potter was the boy about which Harry Potter and the Vampire Village had been written. This green-eyed teenager was supposed to be almost sixteen? He had the height of a thirteen-year-old, and he was so gaunt, he looked like the poster boy for famine relief.
• Harry Potter knew his godfather and had an acquaintance with Karen Fahlstrom. The other five people were complete strangers to Harry Potter, though Sirius had spoken often about Amelia Bones.
Harry Potter looked at the Granger girl and fiercely hoped that she was not a Boy Who Lived fangirl. He was also eager to know if her reasons for turning down Hogwarts were similar to Sirius’s reasons for sending Harry to Ilvermorny instead of to Hogwarts.
• Sirius Black knew Amelia Bones well, was getting to know Harry Potter again, and was acquainted with Karen Fahlstrom. Sirius Black looked at the teen-girl Granger and thought she had the same quite-intelligent face as Lily Evans.
****
After introducing herself, Karen’s introduction turned quite unusual—
“Now let me introduce the Grangers and tell you about their limitation.
“Everyone, these three are Dan and Emma Granger and their daughter, Hermione Granger. Dan and Emma are nonmagicals, and Hermione, besides being my student two years ago, last year and next year, is a first-generation witch. Or she was a first-generation witch, before she got her core bound when she said ‘No!’ to Hogwarts.”
Amelia Bones nodded, as though confirming a theory.
Karen continued, “The Grangers did not get their memories of magic wiped. Instead, the Grangers are under a geas—they cannot talk about magic or about magical people except when discussing fiction or when they’re around someone they know is magical. So for future reference, I ask Sirius, Harry, and Amelia each to draw your wand and to levitate the Daily Prophet newspaper that is on my coffee table, for a few seconds.”
Karen said as an aside to the Grangers, “The Daily Prophet is the newspaper for Wizarding Britain. Don’t expect the London Times. No, the Daily Prophet is much more like the Sun, though without Page 3 Girls.”
Sirius Black drew his wand, then made the Prophet rise above the coffee table for a few seconds, then he made the newspaper slowly drop down. Amelia Bones did the same in her turn, except she used a blue wand.
Harry Potter said, “I don’t have a wand yet. Sirius, may I borrow yours?”
Karen expected Sirius Black to teach Harry Potter the words and wand-movements to the Levitation Charm; but no, Sirius Black simply passed over his wand. Next, Karen expected Harry Potter, now with wand in hand, to incant Wingardium Leviosa while swishing and flicking the wand.
Instead, Harry Potter simply pointed Sirius Black’s wand at the newspaper, then the Daily Prophet shot up, hitting the ceiling. The Prophet made a whap sound when it fell from the ceiling to hit the coffee table.
Amelia Bones said, “Merlin on a mushroom, he did that wordlessly. Showing power! And he’s not yet sixteen.”
Karen saw Hermione give Harry Potter her I do not understand, and this is unacceptable glare. Karen smirked.
Sirius Black said to Harry Potter, “Need to learn control, Pup.” But the man was grinning at the boy as he said this.
Karen said, “The reason I have a copy of the Daily Prophet here is because yesterday Sirius Black announced that Harry Potter won’t be attending Hogwarts, Harry Potter’s magical school will be my alma mater, Ilvermorny in the USA. Anyway, since Sirius Black’s announcement, Wizarding Britain truly has come unglued. Yesterday, everyone and his magical cat had something to say to the Prophet about Harry Potter not going to Hogwarts.”
“Why the interest?” Hermione asked Harry Potter, looking puzzled. “You’re just a teenager, like me.”
Harry Potter said to Hermione, “Bless you for not already knowing the answer to that question.”
****
Ten minutes later
As soon as Karen the hostess finished her lengthy and thorough introductions, Harry headed to the table with the beverages on it. The Hogwarts-rejecter, Hermione Granger, headed to the same table at the same time.
Once both of them were at the table, Hermione said to Harry, “You don’t look like the Harry Potter in the Vampire Village book.”
He snapped, “True. And why? For the same reason I never lived in Wales in a blue palace, with a house-elf servant and a dragon friend.”
Hermione looked shocked. “You didn’t? But they wrote that! It’s in print!”
Harry gave her an annoyed look. Are you really so thick? “How many books would they sell if they wrote that I lived in a forgettable part of Surrey, and my life had been ten types of misery till Sirius rescued me yesterday?”
Then Harry took a deep breath. “Excuse me for snapping at you, but you struck a nerve. Let’s start over. Hello, I’m Harry Potter, and if my godfather doesn’t tell you himself, you’re his hero.”
As the teenagers shook hands, Hermione looked puzzled. “Why am I your godfather’s hero?”
“You told McGonagall to leave, because you weren’t going to Hogwarts. McGonagall came back—”
“Professor McGonagall, Harry. She was a professor at the time.”
“—then Professor McGonagall got arrested. Then Pretender-Headmaster Dumbledore tried to break her out of gaol, he himself got arrested, and now he’s in special Muggle prison. Dumbledore was the one keeping Sirius from getting a trial. Yesterday, Sirius got his trial, he’s free now, he is my legal guardian, and our better lives started with you telling Professor McGonagall to go pack sand.”
Hermione looked like she did not know how to answer Harry’s praise. So Harry changed the subject—
“If Professor McGonagall came to visit you, it means you’ve done ‘accidental magic’ when you were younger. So what have you done?”
She replied, “Once when I was seven, I was much enjoying a video, and my parents told me to turn everything off and go with them somewhere. I didn’t want to, I wanted to finish the video! So I got angry at my parents, and the television blew up without me touching it. Oh, oh, and when I was four, there was a book my parents didn’t want me to read, so they put it on a shelf that was just below the ceiling. The theory being, even if little four-year-old me stood on a chair, I couldn’t reach the book.” Hermione smirked.
Harry smirked back. “So...?”
“I didn’t need the chair. I really wanted the book—really, really—so I put out my hand, and the book slid off the shelf, then floated down and across the room to my hand. This happened twice—the first time, my mother saw it; the second time, both my parents saw it. My father was worried that the government would take me away and would experiment on me. I should’ve known.”
“What should you have known?”
“My parents were worried that I was something strange and new that Her Majesty’s government did not know about, and the government would want to know more. By experimentation.”
Then Hermione chin-pointed at Cromford, the Muggle-born policeman. “It turns out that Her Majesty’s government has known about me—about us—about everyone in this room except my parents—since 1642.”
Harry smiled at her. “If it makes you feel better, I doubt that the prime minister has a manila folder anywhere with Karen Fahlstrom’s name on it. And your folder probably says only that you told Professor McGonagall to go b—go pack sand.”
Hermione asked Harry, “So what accidental magic have you done?”
Harry shrugged. “Once when I was seven, my bully cousin and his bully friends were chasing me. I wound up Apparating—teleporting—up to the roof of the school building. When I told my godfather Sirius about this, three years ago, he stared at me. ‘You Apparated at seven? That’s impossible!’ ” Again Harry shrugged.
“Erm,” Hermione said, “Your godfather Sirius, did I hear his name right? Sirius Black?”
Harry smirked. “Sirius Orion Black. He’s a real SOB.”
“But isn’t he an escaped mass murderer?”
“Escaped, yes. He escaped from Azkaban, the magical prison, in August 1993. Sirius found me in Surrey a week later. But the mass murders? It turns out that a wizard named Peter Pettigrew was who committed the murders, and Pettigrew framed Sirius.”
Hermione crossed her arms and gave Harry a You’re a moron look. “An escaped murderer told you that he was framed and he committed none of the murders, and just like that, you believed him?”
“Well, yeah. The previous week, I’d befriended what I thought was a stray dog. A big and black stray dog. Something made me trust that dog, because of memories my brain tried to remember. Anyway, during that week, there were several times when we were alone in the play park, just me and the dog, nobody else round. But did the dog kill me? Obviously not. Did it attack me? No. Then after a week, the dog turned into Sirius and he told me he was a friend of both my parents.”
Now Hermione was not angry, she was confused. She repeated, “The dog turned into Sirius.”
“Uh-huh, it shocked the sh—daylights out of me.”
Then Harry looked across the sitting room to Sirius. “Oi, Snuffles, show Hermione your trick.”
Sirius’s hands on the armrests of his chair pulled his body forwards; two seconds later, Sirius was on hands and feet, on the floor in front of his chair.
Then Sirius turned into the Grim. Hermione gasped.
The dog ran cross the room, jumped up on seated Amelia Bones, and licked her face.
Amelia Bones pulled her face back, but she was laughing, not angry. “Siri you clown, stop that!”
Sirius changed back to human. Now he had his feet on the floor in front of Amelia Bones’s chair, his hands were on her shoulders, and his face was just inches from hers. In a deeper voice than Harry ever had heard Sirius speak with, Sirius said to Amelia Bones, “Amy, nobody from the DMLE is in this room. Cut loose.”
Amelia Bones replied in her own deep voice: “Siri, you are so right. Freshen my firewhisky, then let’s talk.”
When Amelia Bones handed her glass to Sirius, Harry saw that her fingers brushed against Sirius’s.
Hermione said, “I think Madam Bones likes your godfather.”
Harry replied, “And he likes her.”
****
At the end of the night, Harry asked Hermione for her Royal Mail address, just in case owl mail did not work with her.
Hermione smiled widely. “Yes, I would really like it if you take my address and write to me!”
So saying, she hugged Harry (which startled him).
Then she asked, “But what do owls have to do with you sending me letters?”
Harry had to break up Sirius’s and Amelia’s flirtfest so that Sirius could explain owl mail to the Grangers.
****
During the next six weeks, during July and August
Despite the fact that Harry and Hermione lived in different parts of England, the teenagers managed to date.
Sirius would Side-Along Apparate Harry to the Grangers’ back door, then the parental Grangers would drive Harry, Hermione and Sirius to a cinema. The teenagers would leave the car at the cinema and would go see a film. Meanwhile, the three adults would go to a restaurant. An hour and a half after the film had begun, one of the Granger parents would leave the restaurant for the cinema. Harry and Hermione would be picked up at the cinema and would be brought to the restaurant. The driver-Granger would rejoin the other two adults at their table, whilst the teenagers would sit in a different part of the restaurant. An hour later, the adults and Harry would pay their restaurant cheques, then everyone would be driven back to the Granger house.
Between the time when everyone arrived back at the house and the time when Sirius Side-Along Apparated Harry home, Hermione would drag Harry into some part of the house that was not the sitting room.
Or else the three Grangers would be invited to dinner at Potter Manor or at Grimmauld Place, with Sirius and house-elves providing transportation. Either before or after the meal, Harry would escort Hermione to the manor house’s library.
By the third date, Emma Granger noticed that Hermione was looking at Harry much more hotly than Hermione ever had looked at Xavier, Hermione’s one previous boyfriend. After Emma noticed this, the Granger parents and Sirius came up with three new rules: No hands allowed under clothing; no clothing may be unbuttoned or unzipped; and if both teenagers are in Hermione’s bedroom or in Harry’s, the bedroom door must be fully open.
Hermione agreed that her parents’ new rules were sensible. Then she went upstairs and changed clothes. Beginning that night, with that date, Hermione wore shorts or miniskirts, combined with sleeveless tops.
****
At the end of the summer: Saturday, 31 August 1996
Magicrascal Prison
Minerva McGonagall was released from her holding cell and was taken to pre-release processing. As soon as she again was wearing the dress robes that she had worn at her trial and she again had her wand, she Apparated to the gates of Hogwarts.
Minerva soon discovered that Hogwarts was quite a different place on 31 August than it had been on 24 June, which was when Minerva, whilst following Albus’s orders, had left Hogwarts, intending to browbeat the Grangers.
But then, Minerva herself on 31 August was much changed from the person she had been on 24 June.
Chapter 6: An Eventful Seven Days
Notes:
Judging from your comments on Chapter 5, some (many?) of you believe that Hermione will follow Harry to Ilvermorny and will learn magic at this American magical school, beginning when Hermione is age sixteen.
That ain’t happening, folks. Hermione after Chapter 5 still fiercely wants to attend the University of Oxford someday, just as she wanted in Chapter 1. If her nonmagical education pauses between age sixteen and age twenty-three, and she cannot explain to nonmagicals what she was doing between sixteen and twenty-three, choosy Oxford will never accept Hermione’s undergraduate application. Never in Hermione’s twenties, never in her thirties, never ever. For Hermione, Oxford forever rejecting her is an unbearable, unthinkable tragedy, so she attending any seven-year school of magic is unacceptable.
Harry is the last of the Potters, which is a Noble and Most Ancient family; he must attend a magical school. Hermione, on the other hand, can choose between magical and magical schooling.
If Hermione ever seeks to learn magic, it will be only after she has graduated from Oxford and is earning a paycheck. And then, her magical education will not happen by attending Hogwarts, Ilvermorny, Manchester Magical Academy or any other magical school; she will learn magic by tutors and by reading magical textbooks.
Chapter Text
Minutes later (still Saturday, 31 August 1996)
In the office of Acting Headmistress Sprout, Hogwarts
When Minerva walked into what had been Albus’s office, the first thing Pomona said to her was, “Minerva, if the Weasley Twins had been running a book on which Hogwarts professor would be the first to be arrested, tried and sentenced—with Albus for some reason not interfering with the arrest, trial and sentencing—Severus would be at the top of the list and you would be at the bottom. So please end my confusion—what the bloody hell happened with you?”
Minerva replied, “Just like with Harry Potter’s kidnapping in 1981, whenever there was something that Albus wanted done but it was dodgy, he sent a minion to do it. This time I was the minion, and I was arrested for it.”
Pomona’s jaw dropped. None of the Hogwarts professors or staff ever said anything truly bad about Dumbledore.
Minerva added, “The reason that Albus himself was arrested for trying to break me out of gaol, instead of sending a second minion, was because Albus didn’t see any risk in his Apparating into the cell block. Anyway, may I please wait to tell everyone the story when we’re eating in the Great Hall? The reason I came to this office was to ask you, What all has happened here since Albus and I were arrested?”
Pomona replied, “When you were arrested, then a few hours later, Albus also was arrested, we weren’t worried for you, we were startled that the Muggles had done something so rash. All of Wizarding Britain expected that Fudge would growl at the Muggles, ‘Release them if you know what’s good for you,’ then you two would be released, with only a few hours passing. Imagine our shock a week later when not only were you and Albus still not released, but Umbridge, Malfoy and Dawlish went to talk to the Muggles, then they were arrested too.”
Minerva laughed scornfully. “Can you imagine Lucius Malfoy ‘talking’ to anyone without making threats? In any case, those three didn’t plan to talk, they planned to break Albus and me out of gaol, the same as Albus had planned to break me out of gaol a week earlier. Lucius Malfoy & Co had the same amount of success that Albus had achieved—none.”
Minerva smirked, then asked, “Okay, so those three were arrested. What happened outside?”
Pomona replied, “Fudge said, ‘The Ministry is considering our options.’ Translation: We tried brute force and that didn’t work, so now we’re stumped. Fudge got No-Confidenced soon afterwards, and now he’s in Azkaban, but the No-Confidence was because Cornelius took bribes, not because he didn’t take a hard enough stance with the Muggles.
”Meanwhile, a Muggle-born Hogwarts student wrote an anonymous letter to the Prophet that said that the only reason he/she agreed to attend Hogwarts was because the letter-writer was afraid they would be memory-wiped otherwise, and all the Muggle-borns he/she talked to at Hogwarts said the same. Furthermore, if the Muggle-born letter-writer could get Professor McGonagall, ‘the liar,’ arrested by Muggles again, he/she would cheer. The letter-writer called the ‘Mystery Muggle-Born Maiden’ a freedom fighter, which the Prophet explained was a type of hero.”
“I was called a liar?”
Pomona sighed. “If you implied to Muggle-borns and to their families that the situation for Muggle-borns wasn’t dismal and hopeless, both whilst the Muggle-borns were at Hogwarts and afterwards—then yes, Minerva, you lied to them.”
Whilst Minerva felt shame, Pomona said, “Continuing the story—
“After Malfoy, Umbridge and Dawlish were arrested, a week passed, and nobody in Wizarding Britain knew what the Muggles were planning next. Then you were put on trial, were convicted and were sent to ‘the special Muggle prison for magicals.’ That’s the only name the Prophet ever gives your prison. Doesn’t the place have a name?”
Minerva tried to answer, coughed several times, then said, “It has a name, but I can’t say it.”
“I don’t suppose you can tell me where the prison is?”
Minerva coughed several times, then said, “I can’t even tell you whether the prison is in England, Scotland or Wales.” Minerva chose not to drop any hints about Birmingham.
Then Minerva said to Pomona, “Go on with your story. I was tried, convicted and sent to”—cough—“prison.”
Pomona replied, “All of Wizarding Britain worried then. Because if you could be sent to Muggle prison, then Albus could be, and who would be headmaster of Hogwarts on 1 September? Then when this very thing happened and Albus was sent to prison, all of Wizarding Britain lost their calm, and things got wild.”
“How wild?”
“Most people in the Wizengamot were saying the next headmaster should be me, though a few argued for Filius; they claimed either of us would ‘continue Albus Dumbledore’s legacy as headmaster.’ But the Dark Faction of the Wizengamot was arguing that Thaddeus Nott should be headmaster, even though he has no Mastery.”
“Why did the Dark Faction think Nott was qualified to be headmaster?”
“He has eight NEWTs, and he once ‘made a joke’ that if he were headmaster, he would expel all the Muggle-borns with the flimsiest of excuses. Those Muggle-borns who had not sat their OWLs, their magical cores would be bound; and they and their families would be Obliviated about magic.”
“So those were Hogwarts’s choices for headmaster? You, Filius or Thaddeus Nott?”
“Plus Cyrus Greengrass of the Grey Faction. He technically qualifies, because he has a Mastery.”
Minerva searched her memory. “A Mastery in what?”
“Estate Management. But oi, it’s a Mastery.
“Anyway, for a week, the debate raged, ‘Who should the next headmaster be?’ But then, a week after Albus was sent to prison, out of nowhere, the Wizengamot held a trial for Sirius Black. His first trial, believe it or not. Black was acquitted. Then in Courtroom Ten, he verbally flayed Albus something awful and demanded that he, just-acquitted Sirius Black, be made the legal guardian for Harry Potter, because Albus was ‘scandalously unfit’ as Harry Potter’s magical guardian.”
Whilst Minerva nodded her head in agreement, Pomona continued, “James Potter’s will and Lily’s will were unsealed—Albus had sealed them—and those wills named Sirius Black as first choice as guardian. So Sirius Black was granted guardianship of Harry Potter, he bad-mouthed Albus some more, then Black announced that Hogwarts was ‘substandard’ as a school, so Harry Potter will be attending Ilvermorny instead of Hogwarts.”
Pomona looked Minerva in the eyes. “Black announced this about Harry Potter in mid-July. Black was, pardon the pun, quite serious. Merlin, the Boy Who Lived will not be attending Hogwarts!
“Suddenly everyone realised that ‘Albus Dumbledore’s legacy,’ when it comes to Hogwarts, was that Hogwarts was where History of Magic, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Divination and Muggle Studies were worthless courses, Potions was a worthless course to everyone who was not Slytherin, the biggest bully in the school was the Slytherin Head of House, and Slytherin Purebloods could bully all the other students however they pleased.”
“So what does this mean about Hogwarts now?”
“The Board of Governors has decided that no hidden Death Eater will become the next headmaster, so Nott is out; but the next headmaster won’t be someone ‘tainted’ by Albus—so Filius, me and even Cyrus Greengrass are out. The Board of Governors now is looking to hire a foreigner to be the next headmaster—American, Australian, Canadian or New Zealander.”
Then Pomona sighed. “I might have pushed Black into saying what he did. An hour after the Prophet reported that Albus had been sent to prison, Severus handed me his letter of resignation. I refused to accept his resignation; I told him I would pass on his letter to the permanent headmaster. So because I did not let Severus resign, a week later, when Black made his announcement about Harry Potter, Severus still was a Hogwarts professor. And Sirius Black and Severus Snape—well, I don’t need to tell you about their hatred for each other.”
Minerva gave Pomona a crooked smile. “What’s done is done. And however Sirius Black decided to make the announcement about Harry Potter that he did, his announcement was a wake-up bucket of water for Hogwarts. This is good for the school, I think.”
****
One second later
From somewhere on the Acting Headmistress’s desk came the deep voice of the door-announcer: “You have two visitors.”
One second later, Minerva heard knocks on the Acting Headmistress’s door. Then the unknown door-knocker, without waiting for Pomona to invite the visitors in, opened the door.
Aloysius Farley, who was a Governor amongst the Board of Governors, was the door-knocker. With him was a man in his fifties who was wearing a Muggle man’s suit.
Farley said, “Professors, good morning. With me is Sam Houston Kellner, the freshly-hired Headmaster of Hogwarts. He’s formerly the Deputy Headmaster at Ilvermorny.”
Kellner smirked as he said, “I’m also a first-generation wizard who is descended from German emigrants to Texas. My background is very different from Albus Dumbledore’s.” Kellner spoke with an American accent.
He continued, “Now I ask you two to introduce yourselves to me, starting with the Acting Headmistress.”
Pomona said, “I’m Pomona Sprout, Herbology professor, Head of House Hufflepuff and Acting Headmistress as of 24 June.”
Minerva took a calming breath, then said, “I am Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration professor, Head of House Gryffindor before my imprisonment and Deputy Headmistress before my imprisonment.”
Farley said to Kellner, “She’s the one I told you about.”
Kellner looked at Minerva. “I’m confused about the details, but apparently Dumbledore sent you back to a prospective first-generation student’s house after she already had declined your invitation, then she called the police on you.”
Minerva nodded.
Kellner continued, “Aloysius has explained to me the Board’s former policy of charging first-generation students much higher tuition, a policy set at Dumbledore’s insistence. The Board revoked this disgusting policy yesterday, after I told them I would not work here if they didn’t revoke it.”
Now Kellner looked hard at Minerva. “Back in June, if you had convinced this girl to attend Hogwarts, it would have been good for Hogwarts—or at least, good for Dumbledore’s vaults. Professor McGonagall, looking back, did Dumbledore have a reason that was good for the potential student when he ordered you to go back and to ‘convince’ her to attend this school?”
“No,” Minerva replied, eyes downcast. “If she’d come to Hogwarts as a Muggle-born in Dumbledore’s castle, the next seven years of her life would have been hell, and probably her life after those seven years would be horrid too.”
Kellner looked at both women and said, “Dumbledore embezzled from Hogwarts. The Gringotts Director has promised that all the diverted funds will be tracked down and will be returned to Hogwarts vaults by September 2. I suspect Dumbledore wanted you to push this girl into Hogwarts not for her sake, but so he could steal more from the school.”
Pomona’s hand was covering her mouth. “Albus stole from the school?”
Minerva said, “I don’t know that he did, but he had expensive tastes, Pomona, and a high opinion of himself. I believe it.”
****
Pomona asked the question that Minerva herself was too nervous to ask: “Headmaster Kellner, what are your plans for Minerva and for me?”
Kellner turned to look at Minerva and said, “The Deputy Head won’t be you. With the Board’s permission, I’m bringing here Broderick Bailey, who retired as Assistant Principal at the Rocky Mountains School of Magic.”
“Another American,” Minerva said, trying to keep annoyance out of her voice.
“An American I know is good at school administration,” Kellner replied, sounding annoyed. “Broderick will consider doing the same job that he did at Rocky Mountains, at Hogwarts, to be a promotion. Also know that while he is a former Charms teacher, he won’t be teaching Charms here, or any other course. Deputy Headmaster will be his only job here.”
Farley said, “Same with Head of House.”
Kellner nodded. “As quickly as I can, I’ll be hiring four husband-and-wife teams to jointly serve as the Head of House for each House. Those Head of House couples won’t teach either.”
Pomona asked, “What will their qualifications be? Will one of them need to have a Mastery, like a professor needs?”
“No Mastery. They’ll each need some NEWTs, but mostly I’ll be looking for happy marriages. For each couple, at least one of the spouses must be a former member of the House they head.”
Kellner looked at Pomona and at Minerva. “Within a week, two weeks at most, teaching classes and grading papers will be all you do here.”
Kellner now smiled mysteriously. “As for my other plans, let me just say that I’m not Albus Dumbledore, I have no wish to be Albus Dumbledore, the Board of Governors gave me full authority to fix what he broke and, beginning September 2, I’ll have the money to fix what he broke.”
****
Kellner looked at Minerva and said, “Now I respectfully ask you to leave, Professor McGonagall. Mr Farley and I need to confer with the Acting Headmistress about ‘What do I need to know to be the headmaster of Hogwarts’?”
Pomona sighed. “My short answer? You’ll need to fix everything. Listen, everything that Albus touched as headmaster, he ruined.”
Minerva stood up, then she looked at the other three people in the Head’s office. “I’ve one last thing to say before I leave: I renounce Albus Dumbledore utterly. Now I am ashamed of all the times in the previous decades in which I acted as Dumbledore’s house-elf and apologist. If Albus is sitting in prison right now and he believes I will continue any of his practises, he is wrong, wrong, wrong. His Greater Good always, in the end, turned out to be evil.”
****
Speaking of Albus Dumbledore
The next day (Sunday, 1 September 1996)
In Magicrascal Prison
Albus Dumbledore was in his cell in the cell block. Indeed, he had never been allowed to leave his cell during the month and a half since he had been brought here. (The prisoners were not removed from their cells to take showers. Instead, the guards cast Scourgify on each prisoner, once a day.)
A few hours after breakfast was served, one of the guards walked into the central corridor. “May I have your attention? Today’s date is 1 September, the time is 11.01am, and the Hogwarts Express now is leaving Platform 9¾ for Hogsmeade.”
Then the guard looked into Albus’s eyes and added, “Harry Potter is not on the Express now. He’s in the States, and tomorrow he’ll be at Ilvermorny, getting Sorted.”
Albus Dumbledore, age 115, reacted to this news by suffering a heart attack and dying. The fact that he had been separated from his magic for the past month and a half, had not helped his health.
That afternoon, Prime Minister John Major informed Minister for Magic Cyrus Greengrass about Dumbledore’s death.
****
The next day (Monday, 2 September 1996)
John of Saxony School for Academic Excellence, in south-east London
It’s the first day of Lower Sixth Form for Hermione Granger (it’s the first day of Hermione’s Junior year)
It was the first day of Hermione Granger’s second-to-last year of school (before uni). Her third class of the day was Non-Euclidean Geometry (geometry when geometry gets weird). Hermione and Miss Fahlstrom smiled big smiles at each other when they first saw each other.
At lunch, Hermione sat with her friends Eleanor, Heather, Jessica and Joanna. The others talked about how they had spent their summer hols, though quiet Joanna did not say much. Hermione confirmed by experiment that the most interesting part of her summer hols, she could not speak about at all.
****
A few hours later (still Monday, 2 September 1996)
Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Mount Greylock, Massachusetts, USA
Harry was Sorted into Wampus, the House of warriors. Harry was given a choice between Wampus, Thunderbird (the House of the adventurous) and Pukwudgie (the House of the kind and caring). Harry chose to be a warrior, one who defended those who could not defend themselves. James and Lily Potter had been true warriors for years before they had been killed; Harry was resolved to follow their example.
Only two other sixteen-year-old, British “crow’s-feet firsties” were Sorted besides Harry. The rest of the firsties, who were American ten- and eleven-year-olds, nervously watched Harry and the two others, the same way that mice watched cats.
Harry thought, Oi, kiddies, things could be worse for you. Yes, I’m sixteen, but also I’m skinny, and I’m short for sixteen. Of us three “crow’s-feet firsties,” I’m not much of a threat to a ten-year-old.
Up in the gallery, the sixth-year sixteen-year-olds literally looked down on Harry and the two other Brits, whilst these sixteen-year-old sixth-years smirked.
****
Four days later (Friday, 6 September 1996)
In the Ministry of Magic
Minerva McGonagall was summoned before the Wizengamot, to talk about her experiences on and after 24 June.
Minerva was asked questions about the “special Muggle prison.” She could not answer some questions—she coughed when she tried to speak information. But for some questions about the prison, such as the prison’s protections, Minerva faked a cough when she “answered.”
Why was Minerva not answering Wizengamot questions about the prison? At the moment, Magicrascal Prison had four Death Eaters in it; Minerva was determined to say nothing to the Death Eaters in the Wizengamot that would help them break out the four Death Eaters in the prison.
Then came the “fun” part of Minerva’s Wizengamot questioning. Wizengamot seat-holder Thaddeus Nott demanded that Minerva say the name of the “Mystery Muggle-Born Maiden,” and say where the “Mystery Muggle-Born Maiden” lived.
****
Minerva refused both demands for information, arguing, “The Maiden has earnt a peaceful life, a life unbothered by us magicals. This girl looked into the eyes of a witch—me—whom she had just seen turn a piece of furniture into a tiger and back again, a witch who had shown power this girl didn’t have, and the girl said to the witch, ‘I refuse to do what you want.’ This is bravery such as Godric Gryffindor had.
“I do not have such bravery. Twice Albus Dumbledore told me to do something that went against my conscience; and instead of saying no, I said yes. Going to special prison doesn’t shame me, but the other time I said yes to Albus when I should have said no, that choice shames me to this day.”
Minerva did not say publicly what those two occasions were. One of them, listeners could easily guess: When she had gone back to the Granger house on Albus’s orders. The other occasion was when she had expressed a desire to check up on Harry Potter in Little Whinging, but the twinkle-eyed headmaster had forbidden this. Albus had claimed, “You staying away is for Harry’s own good.” Which Minerva had not believed, then or since, but Minerva had obeyed Albus and had never revisited Harry’s house.
Now Minerva continued to answer Nott: “If I tell you the true name of the ‘Mystery Muggle-Born Maiden,’ or tell you where she lives, then ‘Imperiused’—wink, wink—Death Eaters will hunt her down and will kill her and her family, for having the cheek to say no to a magical person. The girl never had a wand, and now she furthermore has no magic; the Ministry and the Wizengamot have no good reason to know anything more about her.”
Minerva looked Thaddeus Nott in the eyes and said, “Only Death Eaters plotting murder want to know more about her. I will tell you nothing more about her.”
“We can send you to Azkaban if you withhold information we require!” Nott thundered.
Minerva shrugged. “I’ve already been in prison and my reputation is rubbish; what’s another stay in prison?”
Thaddeus Nott turned out to be bluffing; Minerva was not sent to Azkaban.
****
During the next two years (September 1996-August 1998)
Harry was in Massachusetts, both whilst school was in session and during school holidays. Hermione was in England. The two teens kept in touch by US Mail and by Royal Mail. The teens still found each other to be fascinating, so they regularly wrote letters to each other.
****
Harry learnt about magic during his first two years at Ilvermorny School. There was nothing unique, dramatic or dangerous about Harry’s days as a student. The reasons? Harry was in the USA, and Voldemort was unable or was unwilling to come to the USA; also, Albus Dumbledore was dead.
Harry had started his first year at Ilvermorny as a sixteen-year-old who had been no taller than a fourteen-year-old, and had been thin besides. But thanks to a continued potions schedule, Harry ended his first year at Ilvermorny being no longer thin, and Harry was tall at almost-seventeen, just as Harry’s father had been tall.
****
By September 1996, Hermione had decided that she wanted to be an electronics engineer in her adult life. Music systems, intelligent burglar alarms, computers—if electrons made something work and the electronic thingy was not easy to design, Hermione wanted to design it.
In September 1996, it would be two years before Hermione became an Oxford “Fresher” (first-year student)—and it would take two full years for Hermione to achieve this feat. Only a small percentage of Oxford-admissions applicants received offers from the university, and Hermione was determined to be one of those few.
If Hermione wanted to be an Oxford Fresher in October 1998, Oxford required her to apply a full year early: 15 October 1997. Sometime after this date, but most likely in December 1997, Hermione would be summoned to Oxford to give two interviews in one day.
Since Hermione planned to earn a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering, her two interviews would be about maths, physics, and plenty of surprise engineering questions about things she had not been taught yet.
When those interviews happened, Hermione planned to do much more than to sit in a chair and to chatter about how smart she was and how electronic engineers made good money. No, she wanted to have an electronic gizmo to show the interviewers—a gizmo she had designed, had built and had tested, unassisted, then the gizmo would perform for the interviewers, exactly as Hermione had intended.
Hermione was a pre-uni teenager, so she would not have access to a chip-burner when she built her electronic gizmo. This meant she would have to make her gizmo by an older and simpler method: designing and etching a printed circuit board, drilling the holes in the circuit board where the transistors and other parts would go, then soldering everything together.
As for what her gizmo would actually do?
Almost everyone in Britain hated dentists’ drills. But Hermione planned to use a dentist’s drill, and some clever electronic engineering, to amaze her upcoming Oxford interviewers.
****
January 1997 at Hogwarts
This was the beginning of Sam Houston Kellner’s second term as headmaster of Hogwarts. During his first term and during the Christmas break (the Yule hols is what the British magicals called the time off from school), Kellner had changed much at Hogwarts. The returning students, and their parents, were in for a shock.
Argus Filch, who was both a Latent/Squib and a very angry man, had been forcibly retired. His job as Custodian now would be performed by the Hogwarts house-elves.
Sybill Trelawney, who had been chronically drunk, had been fired without a reference. From now on, if Gringotts tests revealed that a child had some kind of Sight, Hogwarts would pay for tutors for the child.
Kellner had accepted Severus Snape’s letter of resignation. None of the other professors had argued that Kellner should keep Snape on staff. The new Potions professor was Trankenmeister (Potions Master) Gerhard Übersuppe.
Cuthbert Binns, the spectral History of Magic professor, had been exorcised. He had been replaced as History of Magic professor with the very-much-alive Émilie Lamontagne, who was a bilingual French-Canadian witch who had attended Beauxbatons. Émilie enjoyed listening to French-language Country & Western music, which had outraged the French-native Beauxbatons students while she was there. (Émilie enjoyed listening to English-language Country music as well, but for some reason, this fact had not scandalized her fellow Beauxbatons students as much.)
The “DADA Curse,” so a team of goblins had discovered, had been caused by runes carved into the doorframe of the DADA classroom. Back in September, the DADA Curse had been lifted when the goblins had chiseled the runes so as to deactivate them, then the runes had been sanded away.
Remus Lupin, who had earned a DADA Mastery in the USA in his twenties, last September had been hired by Kellner to be DADA professor. Lupin also was a werewolf, and Kellner had received angry letters about that fact, including a Howler from someone named Thaddeus Nott. Kellner’s response to every complainer had been, for all of the reply’s polite phrasing, “Lupin stays; deal with it.”
The job of Head of House for the four Houses was now held jointly by four happily married couples. The Slytherin couple, the Warbecks, were in their seventies, and remembered Tom Riddle but were unimpressed by him. The youngest married couple, the Bernards heading Hufflepuff, were each thirty-four.
Muggle Studies had been completely revised—except that the Wizarding Examinations Authority had insisted that Hogwarts keep the course name. Muggle Studies now was being taught by a first-generation witch, Heather Tidwell. Kellner and Tidwell already had written letters to the WEA, demanding that the examiners revise their Muggle Studies OWL and NEWT examinations, which were “outdated to the point of absurdity.”
Beginning Summer 1997, it would be the Muggle Studies professor, not the Deputy Headmaster/Headmistress, who would visit prospective first-generation-magical students when the Deputy Head was not first-generation magical.
Beginning next school year (September 1997), Muggle Studies would be mandatory for all first- through fifth-year students who were magically raised.
Wizarding Culture class, which Headmaster Dumbledore had discontinued in 1948, now was being taught again. The professor for this class was Narcissa Black Malfoy, and Kellner had been told that nobody in Wizarding Britain knew the subject better. The course was optional for first-generation-magical students this year, but would be required for first-generation-magical students beginning September 1997.
Broderick Bailey, an American, was now the Deputy Head. Minerva McGonagall was not the Deputy Head. She actually acted happy to be relieved of the job.
Beginning September 1997, and running through June 2002, Hogwarts would have a double-size first-year class of eleven-year-olds and sixteen-year-olds. Kellner knew that he and Deputy Headmaster Bailey would be hit with many discipline problems during the years 1997 to 2004, but the switchover to eleven-year-old first-years needed to be made.
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