Rights to Harry Potter are held by JK Rowling. Those to Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, et al to DC Comics/Warner Bros. Rights to Once Upon a Time is held by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Joe 90 is owned by the estates of the late Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson, ITC, etc. Rights to Scooby-Doo are currently held by Hanna-Barbera/DC/Warner Bros. Rights to other franchises used are owned by: Marvel Comics; NOW Comics/Moonstone Books; the BBC; Susan Cooper; Jim Butcher; Charles Addams; Terrance Dicks; the estates of Ian Fleming, Peter O'Donnell, C.S. Lewis, Malcolm Saville, Enid Blyton, and Anthony Buckeridge; amongst others. This is a non-profit attempt to play with favourite franchises.
Christmas Eve 2017, 23:00, Azkaban Prison
"Hem! Hem!" Delores Umbridge coughed. "Mr…?"
"Neron," the tall, blonde man in the strange green, white and gold costume said again. "Both you and Mr Malfoy wished to be free and restored to prominence in your wizard world. During those wishes, you both expressed a desire to give anything for it.
"As it happens, I am in the business of granting wishes, well, for the right price. So, I provided you both with candles, matches and notes. You lit them, and I can now give you what you wished for. All it will cost you is your mortal souls."
"Yes, we got that part!" Lucius Malfoy added. "I have fallen foul of Yanks in fancy dress before, so you must understand if I am suspicious. Can you give us some guarantee of your part of the deal?"
The cell doors sprang open. Wands appeared on the floor in front of them. "I can free you and your friends, give you all new wands and transport you all to the central atrium of the Ministry of Magic."
Malfoy picked up his new wand. It felt powerful. He cast a lumos spell several times brighter than he had ever done before. "Mr Neron, you have a deal…"
"Oh, my dear boy," said Umbridge with her usual sickly-sweet faux-politeness, "you really do seem to be able to keep your end of a bargain. I'm willing to take the deal too!
"Lucius, we can reshape the Ministry to make it great again!"
"Certainly, my dear Delores. For respectable British purebloods, anyway…"
Harry Potter was relaxing in the lounge at 12 Grimmauld Place. The children were finally asleep and the five adult members of the Potter household were counting down the last few minutes to Christmas Day. Ginny was snuggled up on one side, grumbling about Albus' behaviour yet again. Their mutual spouse of just over four months, lover of eight-and-a-half months and friend of over seventeen years Wednesday Friday Potter nee Addams was spooning up against his other side. Harry still chuckled at the thought that only the three of them could have found themselves prisoners of war on an alien planet and end up having a passionate three-way to keep warm overnight in their prison cell. To be fair, if Wednesday hadn't snogged both Ginny and he senseless a couple of times shortly before with what were clearly True Love Kisses, they would have kept things platonic. Once reunited with their families, Ginny and he had asked Gomez for Wednesday's hand and then proposed to the lady herself. The wedding on Themyscira had gone perfectly, as Queen Hippolyta would marry anyone allowed to visit by the Six Goddesses. Since all the male Potters and Weasleys (not to mention all the females) were in that select band, this was no obstacle.
The other two women who could call themselves Mrs Potter were in a warm embrace on the other sofa. In late July 2016, an assignment from Kingsley Shacklebolt had seen Harry, Ron and Hermione (plus Ginny and all the children) embark on a regular check of various magical items dotted around the United Kingdom (including the magical-electronic prison guards known as "Rover" and the magical robot called Metal Mickey). During that tour, they had managed to capture Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini, plus some of their acolytes. Millicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson had been bullied by their former classmates into getting involved. Following an intervention by the interdimensional entity known as Aslan, Millicent had changed sides and assisted a team assembled by Harry from his address book (including Wednesday and her elder brother Pugsley). After learning of the horrors inflicted on the Slytherin females under the Carrows' reign of terror at Hogwarts and carried on by Zabini, Nott and Gregory Goyle after their schooldays, Harry arranged with Diana Prince for Millie, Pansy, Tracy Davis and Daphne Greengrass to have a few weeks of therapy and training on Themyscira, where the two had fallen madly in love. Now Millie was Harry's blood-rite adopted sister, the Auror department archivist and the civilian identity of the superheroine Wonder Witch. Pansy was her wife and Ginny's PA. The couple lived in a converted flat in the loft of 12 Grimmauld Place and Harry had donated the sperm that was the cause of Pansy's now very noticeable baby bump.
All three children were fast asleep in bed. Lily required her beloved Auntie Millie to recount more of Wonder Witch's latest exploits than usual before nodding off. James had been whistling Christmas carols and other Yuletide songs. Albus had been, well, Albus. Harry loved the boy, of course he did, as did Ginny, but the boy's persistent grumpiness never went away, however much Harry grounded him or Ginny spanked him.
"How are you finding your first Christmas as a married woman, Wednesday?" Pansy asked.
"Well, it's not Christmas for a little while yet, ma chère fille," her friend replied. "I'm sure we'll make a toast at midnight, before Harry and Ginny take me to bed for a private celebration…"
"…Or several!" Ginny finished with a grin.
"Le gingembre vixen est en chaleur!"
"That sounded so romantic, Weds!" Ginny gushed.
"The ginger vixen is in heat!" Pansy translated.
"Only for my True Loves!"
"And we don't object!" Harry added with a laugh.
"Bien sûr que non! Qui s'opposerait à cela?"
"Pansy?"
"Of course not! Who would object to that?" Pansy interpreted again. "You have a keeper there, Gin. Gin?"
Ginny had leaned over Harry and was proceeding to kiss Wednesday very passionately indeed.
"The ginger vixen is most definitely in heat!" Harry commented. "Weds and I are in for a good night!"
23:45
Several other prisoners had been released and provided with new wands. Most were former Death Eaters, such as Amycus and Alecto Carrow and Corban Yaxley. Theo Nott, Blaise Zabini and Gregory Goyle had been imprisoned for various charges of bullying, sexual assault, even rape and in Nott's case murder. They had enjoyed the harsh measures used to keep the older Slytherin girls under the Carrows' thumb at Hogwarts. Some of them, anyway, as the Greengrasses, despite not being of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, were known to be independently-minded and politically powerful. On the other hand, the Parkinsons, who were, were very low in the Death Eater hierarchy. Pansy was thus subjected to the worse horrors of Slytherin life during that year and Daphne and Astoria untouched.
Not all the released criminals were Death Eaters or even Slytherins. Cormac McLaggen had received "help" from Lucius Malfoy in covering up his own sex crimes. Blackmailed into helping Malfoy with his plan to take over the ministry at the start of the year, the truth had come out. McLaggen was now serving a ten-year prison sentence, or had been until fifteen minutes earlier anyway.
"So," Neron said with a laugh, "Now to take you to the Ministry Atrium! Let the fun commence!"
With a flash, they all vanished from Azkaban. The remaining Dementors felt something had changed and alerted the Aurors on site. The cells were checked. Alarms were sounded. Too late!
With a flash of light and a loud bang, Neron and the escapees arrived in the Atrium at the Ministry of Magic in London. The place was deserted, save for a small magical maintenance team and a few duty Aurors. Armed with both their new wands and the element of surprise, the ex-jailbirds quickly forced both sets of people to flee. They were now the de facto Ministry of Magic.
One Auror, however, before leaving the Ministry, tapped a mirror with his wand. At that instant, the noise of tinkling bells could be heard in many homes across the British Isles. The evacuation of what was to be the British Ministry of Magic in Exile was about to begin.
One of these alarms sounded in 12 Grimmauld Place. Within a few minutes, Ginny and Pansy were preparing the children for evacuation to Potter Island, an island near Themyscira the Six Goddesses had given Millie and Pansy as a wedding present. Kreacher was levitating as many items as he could into magical bags and trunks. Millie was casting the charms on a full-length mirror in the main lounge, activating the portal to Potter Island's main house. Wednesday was mirror-calling various contacts to let them know that they would soon be receiving guests for the "duration". Harry used his magic mirror to liaise with Kingsley Shacklebolt about the ongoing evacuation and the setting up of the Ministry in Exile.
"All sorted!" Harry called. "Are we ready to leave?"
"Just about!" Ginny told him. She kissed him, before she and Pansy led the children through the portal. Kreacher followed, conducting hovering foodstuffs, bottles, furniture, trunks and bags with the air of a maestro finishing a particularly gripping performance. Harry, Wednesday and Millie activated all the security spells protecting 12 Grimmauld Place, before crossing through to Potter Island.
After a few last-minute checks, Harry activated the runes to seal the portal. "Now no-one can either use the portal or trace the location of Potter Island without casting the appropriate charms on this side. The spells on 12 Grimmauld Place should keep Stephen Strange, Harry Dresden, even Endora out, let alone a few thugs, each with a bad tattoo! We're safe!"
The Potters weren't the only people on Potter Island. Molly, Arthur and all the other Weasleys, apart from Charlie in Romania, were there, as were Andromeda Tonks and Teddy Lupin.
"All our homes are locked down and everything that can be brought here has been," Ron said. "The Scamanders and Longbottoms are at the evacuee processing site set up at MACUSA headquarters. I'll take Hermione to join Kingsley in helping get them set up in their new homes."
"Ginny, Harry and I shall join you," Wednesday agreed. "Pugsley is one of the MACUSA liaison officers, so I'll get paid for talking to my brother at Christmas!"
"I doubt the Ministry will be paying any of us for some time, my dear," Arthur told her.
"I work for the White Council," Wednesday said sweetly, "and if they don't want to answer to Harry Dresden, they'll keep paying me!"
"Harry has said we can work for the Council," her husband said, "so we can earn a living.
"Come on, all who are coming. Millie, Pansy, Mum, Dad, could you…"
"Look after the kids, son?" Molly finished. "We'd be delighted!"
MACUSA Headquarters
"My grandad-in-law was here," Luna Scamander noted, "back in the 1920s. He and my grandma-in-law were nearly wrongly executed together in the Death Chamber. Not that anyone could be rightly executed of course. Even we have stopped the Dementor's Kiss since the fall of Voldemort."
"Quite right too!" Hermione agreed.
"MACUSA are putting us up!" Neville Longbottom pointed out. "My gran always told me that being a good guest was as important as being a good host. Saying our hosts are uncivilised barbarians isn't exactly courteous.
"Besides, we are wizards and witches. Petty Nationalism is beneath us. You should know better, Luna. Hermione's a muggle-born, but you…"
"OI!" Dean Thomas protested. "I fail to see how being pelted with banana skins by some of my less enlightened fellow West Ham supporters in the 1990s for the crime of being black is worse than being imprisoned by Death Eaters for being a magic thief. They are both equally bad as far as I'm concerned, Neville. Mages having outgrown racism doesn't make discrimination by blood purity right."
"I'm not saying it does, Dean," Neville replied. "I don't care how pure your blood is. You are as much a mage as I am. All I am saying is that the wizard world doesn't discriminate on skin colour, gender, religion and generally sexual orientation. Lucius Malfoy of all people regards Blaise Zabini as being a genuine pureblood wizard and only disparages homosexuality in purebloods, even that more due to the possibility of a magical bloodline dying out than to simple homophobia."
"That's true in Europe and Asia, mon vieux," Wednesday pointed out. "There are mage Klansmen over here, as there many wizard white supremacists in southern Africa. Most mages even there aren't and many of the worst offenders are of recent muggle descent. That in turn gives pureblood supremacist and separatist movements evidence as to what happens if muggle-borns infect our world with muggle ways…"
"Let's not start this now!" Ron interrupted hastily. "We are here to sort out our accommodation for the duration, not debate wizard culture."
"Quite right, Ron!" Kingsley Shacklebolt approved, emerging from a meeting room. "MACUSA has approved our request for sanctuary, as have Storybrooke, Themyscira, Pellucidar and other places. Canada and other Commonwealth countries have also offered to take refugees, as have a few European ones.
"We are preparing a statement thanking all of our sanctuaries for their generous welcome. Then we shall try to establish a full Government in Exile.
"In the meantime, Harry, contact the Secret Circle. We need to get the most powerful mages around involved. I wonder how Lucius Malfoy would relish taking on Stephen Strange or even Jason Blood…" Kingsley's voice dropped to a whisper, as if saying normally the very name of Jason Blood would prompt the man in question to appear.
British Ministry of Magic
"We have fully occupied the Ministry of Magic building," Lucius Malfoy noted. "Our agents have been sent to take control of St Mungo's and Hogwarts. The Daily Prophet is being taken into hand.
"Ah, here she is! Ms Skeeter, it's lovely to see you again."
"Likewise, Minister Malfoy," Rita Skeeter replied, peering at him through her thick spectacle lenses. "What can I do for you today?"
"Several prominent wizards, particularly those not of established pureblood lineage, appear to have mysteriously vanished into the ether. I am sorry to have to inform you that the current editor of the Daily Prophet appears to be out of the country.
"We therefore require a new editor. Since Gomez Addams is clearly not a fit and proper person to own the major British wizard newspaper, it has been taken over by the Ministry of Magic. That makes the decision on who to appoint mine. Would you be interested in assuming the position?"
"Thank you, Minister Malfoy. I'll be delighted to accept the position."
"The gratitude is all mine, my dear Rita."
"Lucius, I'm looking forward to working with you.
"Now, I have a bone to pick with the Potters, Weasleys and Addamses. I take it that you have no objection to me publishing the truth about our absent friends...?"
"None whatsoever, Rita. Shall we discuss your contract?"
"Hem! Hem! Lucius, we have still been unable to enter the homes of our runaway mages.
"There are rumours Kingsley Shacklebolt may be establishing a "British Ministry of Magic in Exile". Is there anything we can do…?"
"I'll try and persuade the White Council and the International Confederation of Wizards that we are the rightful Ministry of Magic for pureblood British mages. If the lesser wizards wish to have their own government abroad, well, as long as they stay out of our way…"
"We have no objection! Fair enough, Lucius. They may be able to be reasonable if their precious half-bloods and worse can have their own government overseas.
"I take it that the Ministry, St Mungo's and Hogwarts are for purebloods only now?" She saw Malfoy smile and nod. "Perfect, Lucius!"
Unseen by them, Neron smiled thinly. That should give at least some of those who wronged me in the summer a taste of their own medicine. Enjoy your exile, wizards!
