Disclaimer: I should point out the obvious at the beginning here that I own nothing recognizable and gain nothing from writing this. I have no connection what so ever with Tolkien or Rowling beyond enjoying the characters and worlds that they wrote into existence.
Chapter 1
8 May, 1998/TA 2992 Hogwarts
There was a great shaking throughout the castle as Voldemort's curse finally struck using the very wards of Hogwarts, which still half held, as a framework to do its intended evil. For a moment, which seemed to stretch out much longer than a single second should, the castle was still and then everyone one in the castle or on the grounds felt a yank just behind his or her navel. The castle wards were used to hold all the people and material exactly in place however the people themselves that could see outside the wards were able to watch a show few have ever seen or will ever see again.
After a time these brilliant flashes of light were reduced to being what appeared to be stars that became more distant as time passed. With a thud the castle felt like it had been dropped from two feet up, needless to say almost everyone fell over.
Everyone was at least a little out of sorts from the travel. Those on the grounds were the ones to first notice that the landscape looked completely different. However it was the Malfoys that confirmed it; they had went to leave quickly and had walked outside and gone to apparate. That attempt failed and all three of them fell over. They found out later that it had failed because the place they were trying to apparate to was nonexistent in the world they found themselves in. It was Andromeda who took charge in these precious few minutes after the discovery.
She directed Septima Vector, Filius Flitwick and anyone else that either of them felt would be helpful to analyze the cursed ward stone and find out what happened. Everyone else she set to work at various jobs, cleaning up rubble around the school, moving the dead back from the great hall to various classrooms nearby, finding a living death eaters or suspected death eaters and putting them in the dungeons, etc. It was really her putting people to work that saved them as everyone was too busy doing something to easily mourn or to be very scared of what was to happen. Additionally, they discovered that while it was the witches and wizards that primarily travelled it was not only them. The Ghosts all seemed to be left behind while the House-elves and Peeves came with the castle along with the animals on the grounds. (The next day Luna confirmed that mermaids in the Black Lake were also there but the Centaurs seemed to have already gotten farther into the forest than the section that came with them.
Andromeda called Harry over and had him take little Teddy from her while she went to go find something about dinner, hence moving the dead out of the Great Hall. When he Harry had heard of what she was looking for he volunteered to show her to the kitchens where the house-elves had likely retreated to during the brief respite. He told her how Kreacher had led them in battle against the death eaters in the name of Regulus.
After showing her how to find enter Harry called for Kreacher while Andromeda made plans for the elves to clean and have brunch ready in the morning. Already she was planning out how they would ration the food in order to last as long as possible.
After Kreacher popped over, still wearing the fake horcrux around his neck, Harry looked down at him smiling. Teddy was still curled in his arms asleep, thanks to Andromeda's charm, and so Harry awkwardly squatted down to the elf's level so Kreacher could see the baby and Harry could be at the Elf's own eye level. "Kreacher, I want to introduce you to my Godson, Edward Remus Lupin, through his mother's line he is a Black, and as my Godson you will treat him as such. Understood?"
Kreacher looked down at the baby, whose hair changed colour even in his sleep, and then back up into Harry's eyes before he bowed so low the locket nearly hit the ground and as he did so he responded, "Yes, master. He is your family of course he is part of my family to serve."
Harry smiled again as Kreacher righted himself, "I'm glad you feel that way." He glanced over to see Andromeda looking at him rather strangely.
"Given Walburga's extreme views on blood purity I am quite surprised you can get the elf to stand working for you, let alone Teddy." She explained.
Harry grinned sheepishly as he stood back up and explained, "It was actually Hermione's idea that worked. I was still mad about Sirius' death."
"I see," She replied, assuming that there was more to the story but it would take too long at the moment to be told. "Well, I must be off to find Minerva. Do look after my grandson and while I try to find her." She turned to leave when Harry called her back.
"Wait a second, I can find her easily for you. Could you take him back for a mo, "Harry lifted his arms a little to indicate the baby. Once Teddy was safely in his grandmother's arms again, Harry reached into the mokeskin pouch and pulled out a grubby piece of parchment. He tapped his wand and muttered the password so Andromeda couldn't hear it. Once the map was there he explained a little about it, "Back when my father and his friend's were in school they made this map of Hogwarts, it shows the location of everyone inside the castle's wards. Well except a few places, but they're not usually used all that much." As he was giving the brief explanation his eyes were flying over the parchment scanning for his Head of House's name. He finally found it above a moving line of people in the Great Hall. "She's in the Great Hall right now, but it looks like she's directing the people moving the bodies."
Harry led her back out of the Kitchen's and they made their way back up the Great Hall. The closer they got to it the more people they saw out working on something. The three of them reached the door and saw that Harry had guessed rightly, Minerva McGonagall was indeed directing the final removal of the bodies from the hall.
Andromeda handed Teddy back to Harry and thanked him, "Please take Teddy, I do need to speak with Minerva about what is to be done. "
Harry hastily shoved the map into a pocket as his arms found themselves full of sleeping baby. Even though he doubted it was what Ms. Black had meant when she asked him to look after Teddy so she could talk to Professor McGonagall he followed her to join in the conversation.
"Minerva," Andromeda called out, "I have gotten the elves to prepare a small meal to be brought up here tomorrow rather later than is normal for breakfast. But what of housing, if these people cannot leave we must find beds at least and a place to house them."
"Yes, true. Well we can always conjure mattresses and blankets and settle people down in here," the Professor gestured in the Great Hall."
Harry spoke up, "Um Professor, Ms. Black, most of the students are gone, right? So can't we just use the house dormitories?"
Both of the older women turned to look at him in surprise. Andromeda, as she hadn't realized he had followed her and Minerva as it was a brilliant if simple idea that should fit everyone.
It was nearly an hour later everyone was once more gathered in the Great Hall. Due to Andromeda's talk with the elves earlier they had sent up tea and biscuits to all the tables. So everyone had something to occupy their hands with, and as every Englishwoman knows, tea was something completely necessary in any event of emotional turmoil.
Professor McGonagall stood and the noise level in the room dropped, "Thank you. Now, after conferring with friends and colleagues it has been decided that because there is no obvious way home it would be best if we all stayed within the castle. In an effort accommodate this all students and staff will be using their current quarters. The remaining people here will be accommodated in the dormitories of one of the four houses. The house from which you graduated might be a good place to start." She looked grim as she surveyed the people gathered there; unfortunately she estimated their number at only one hundred souls.
"Now for married persons or adults who extremely prefer not to be in the student dormitories there are a small number of unused guest rooms and staff quarters. If you feel that these would be better suited to you please see Mr. Filch. Otherwise follow one of the heads of house to their respective house's common room." It was the need to see Filch that sent all of the couple's instead toward an empty boys' dorm to use, as both the men and women could use their stairs, as opposed to the girls that really were female only.
(The castles defenders were divided as below.)
The next morning everyone rose a bit later than they would have earlier. A few of the members of Order of the Phoenix or the older members of the DA had volunteered throughout the night to keep watch on the dungeons holding the captured death eaters.
Harry thanked his lucky stars that no one had come to find him for that job. His plan for the day was to sit with the Weasleys and mourn Fred. It was thrown off a bit when Andromeda called him up to the Head Table.
"Harry, you were there when you-know-who cast the curse at the ward stone weren't you?" She asked. When he had confirmed that she continued, "Very good, you need to talk to Filius and Septima about what you saw and heard. The more they know about what occurred, the faster they will be able to identify what exactly he did and how to reverse it to get everyone home."
"Er, uh, sure. Who is, er, Septima?" Harry asked, inwardly cringing as he stumbled through his reply.
Andromeda smiled at his lack of wit in the morning, "Professor Vector; her given name is Septima."
"Oh, alright. Wouldn't a Pensieve memory be better, though? Then they could just see it all themselves."
"Yes that would be useful but where exactly are you to find one when we can't get home?"
"Snape. He there's one in his office, I used it yesterday."
"I see. Well then finish eating and put the memory in it. I will fetch them up there soon."
Harry recognized the dismissal and left to do just that. By the time he had finished eating briefly kissed Ginny and made it up past the broken gargoyle to the Headmaster's office he saw Andromeda, Flitwick, Vector and surprisingly Hermione gathered around the desk with the Pensieve waiting for him.
"Wonderful. Good Morning Mr. Potter. If you could put the memory in then." Flitwick began in his always chipper sounding voice.
"Yeah of course Professor." Harry raised his wand to his temple and concentrated on his memory of the fight with Voldemort, starting from the rebounding curse. He slowly drew his wand away and when he had finished playing through the memory in his mind he held it out over the Pensieve and flicked the single white memory strand off his wand so fell into the many others in the device. "That it. It's everything I remember from the rebounding curse to when we... landed, I guess."
The three gathered for the research nodded, Hermione even thanking him, before they each reached out and put a hand into the swirling mist like substance.
Once the bodies of the three had disappeared to study the memory Andromeda spoke to him again. "Now Harry could you call Kreacher and order him look after Teddy? I have here with me but it would be much easier to do with the elf looking after him."
They had just finished getting that squared away, with Teddy staying with Kreacher in the Great Hall for now since Harry didn't quite trust the elf to look after the baby, when the other three reappeared in the office.
It was Vector that broke the silence, anticipatory on one side and glum from the other, "The spell was silent so we can't get anything from there. His wand was on the ward stone so there was no flash of light to see either. All in all, the only thing we learned is that it likely wasn't a massive portkey and we knew that already anyway."
"Wait, your saying we're stuck?" Harry burst out.
Hermione fielded that one, "Not necessarily, just that we're starting completely blank we don't have a lot of information from which to base even a guess from. So it'll take us longer, years maybe, to find out what Riddle did to send us here. " She paused for a moment, "Where ever here is, I mean."
When neither of the professors contradicted her statement and thus implicitly confirmed it, it took Harry and Andromeda both a moment to digest the bad news, "Alright, thank you. All three of you. Let me know if there is anything else we can do to help you." Andromeda finally replied.
They were left alone in the office when the three researching the problem headed back to the library to find any reference they could to anything similar to the situation that they found themselves in currently. "Years. Okay, Harry, do you realise what this means? If we're here even for just one year we need to organize our own society here in this castle."
Given the way Harry's last year had gone it was unsurprising that his first thought was, 'At least we don't have to deal with the Ministry.' He didn't voice that out loud, instead what he said was, "That's true but how exactly do you mean organize? I don't think we have enough people to make building a ministry necessary and it's not like we'll have any new students coming in September."
"No, and with as bad as the ministry was with its Muggleborn Registration I wouldn't want any version of it either. But that isn't what I wanted to talk to you about. Harry, do you realize that almost half the people here are students and that all of them look to you as a leader? If we were to elect a leader you would be a very competitive candidate right now."
Harry was aghast, "What? No, I don't want to lead anything. I didn't even want to lead the DA, Hermione and the rest kind of forced me to lead it."
At his rather vehement reaction she smiled before explaining, "I didn't think you did Harry, no there are two reasons I brought it u and I like your help with them if you would." She stopped him before he immediately agreed, "Wait; listen to all of it before you agree. First, I'd like you help make sure my sister, Narcissa, can go free. She's all I have left of my family and especially now that Nymphadora is gone, I can't just throw away what's left. But the second reason, will hopefully make the first easier, I want your help to be that leader we elect, I found yesterday and this morning that I rather like having everyone listening to me and that doing something important distracts me. I can forget that when I go to sleep Ted won't be there and that when little Teddy cries his mother won't be there to calm him down."
Harry was rather shocked at her requests; he still couldn't understand why someone would want to be the one in control. Maybe it was just because he had always been singled out as different, at the Dursley's as a freak and in the Wizarding World as the Boy-Who-Lived, but he just wanted to a normal average person. Of course, he knew it could never happen now that he had defeated Voldemort. It didn't take him long to answer, "I'll gladly help with the first one, she saved my life in the forest. As for the second one, I trust you more than I would anyone from the Ministry of Magic. Plus it'd be nice to have the person in control of me one, right?" His smile as he finished made obvious that he had meant it more as a joke than in any seriousness.
Before they went their separate ways they talked for a short while on how they might accomplish the two tasks that she had laid out. It was then that Harry realized that Andromeda really was a Slytherin with the cunning and ambitions to match.
That night at dinner the news was broken to everyone, although a few had already heard various versions from someone else. McGonagall had gotten up and rather straight forwardly told everyone that they'd have to get comfortable with where they were as it would likely take months probably years to get home if they even could. After this she asked everyone who was of age to stay for a meeting after dinner was over.
A number of students that had fought in the battle and were muttering at being excluded and it was then that Dennis Creevey stood up on the bench and yelled toward his Head of House loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear, "So what we're old enough to get cursed and fight but not old enough to even listen to what decisions are being made? That's bull shit, ma'am!"
Harry saw Andromeda nodding in agreement to Dennis' words and she caught Harry's eye just down the table from the standing boy. Hoping he understood what she wanted, he spoke up as well, "I agree with Dennis. Everyone in here fought. We are all equally victims of His last curse and I say we equally responsible for what we do now. Think about what the DA did this last year, do you really want to try and order the students about without a say, like Snape and the Carrows tried?"
Professor McGonagall had gone from her thin lipped anger to a shocked expression when Harry had spoken up. Especially when he drew the connection between her current actions and the Death Eaters that had run the school the last nine months. Upon looking at her colleagues and seeing no obvious disagreements she acquiesced "Very well. In thirty minutes time we shall have a meeting concerning what we will do for the foreseeable future."
During the meal Harry caught a few questioning looks from people that were surprised he had spoken out against McGonagall in so public and argumentative a fashion. He ate quickly and really only spoke to the Weasley's and Hermione, who were sitting near him.
When the dishes disappeared and it was clear that they were to be starting the meeting now, Augusta Longbottom rose from her seat at the Gryffindor table and looking imperiously across at the adults in the room, "Now then, I had thought it obvious but those who are of age should elect a minister so that there is a head to make executive decisions and this person will appoint those under them to allow for a distributed work load."
The murmurs around the room that McGonagall had created before dinner were restarted when she mentioned the words 'of age'. It was then that Harry again stood and caught her eye before speaking, "Madame Longbottom, I cannot help but disagree with you on two points, first that any of us want a Minister. I at least have had problems with the Ministry of Magic since my twelfth birthday. I have also seen that a ministry run in such a way is full of corruption. Secondly, we cannot say to those students that are under age, 'You're old enough to die fighting, but to young say anything about we are going to be doing.' We just cannot do unless you want to be as controlling as Umbridge was two years ago." With that he smiled around, specifically at Andromeda and Augusta.
Andromeda then spoke before anyone could say anything, "I think we can break this into the two points for now keep just to how we will govern ourselves and when we get to any sort of election we can revisit the topic of who has a say."
After that a few more people stood up and things either in favour of or against the idea of a ministry. Finally, Andromeda again spoke, "We spent nearly half an hour discussing whether or not we like the idea of a Ministry. I propose we go back to before the Ministry. The Wizards' Council and the Wizengamot predate the Ministry and indeed go back as far as advising William the Conqueror after his victory in 1066. This indeed would allow for those who want to avoid the bloated bureaucracy and its inherent corruption of the modern ministry of magic as well as provide that stability and tradition for those who want a government similar to that of the one we will find whenever we eventually return to Great Britain, whenever that might be."
Another round of useless debating was entered into before nearly everyone agreed that a Wizengamot would be best. It was at this point that Horace Slughorn entered into the conversation. The walrus like man stayed seated at the head table but everyone heard him as he said, "I know many great witches and wizards that are here but how are we to decide which of them receive seats and how many seats there should be? Traditionally the Wizengamot had a rather fluid membership of around fifty members, but surely we don't need so many now?" With that he said everything meaningful that he was going to and began trying to regal everyone with the different students he'd had that were on the Wizengamot of high ministry officials.
It finally became too much for Flitwick and the small made stood up, "Yes, thank you, Horace. You made a good point earlier; we don't need fifty people to sit on the council. We can, however, not just run through simple maths to find a proportionate amount as the Wizengamot no longer performed the full duty and range of the functions we will be requiring of our own. I think that we would not want less than 6 people but also we would not want as many as twenty as that would be to many. We should put nominate and elect a pool of around 8-10 witches and wizards tonight and allow them fill in the remaining members as they see fit."
Surprisingly, no one disagreed with the small man, unfortunately that didn't mean that someone didn't stand and say anything, it was Blaise Zabini that rose from the back of the Slytherin table, "I agree with Professor Flitwick. In an effort to not diverge completely from tradition, we should recognize those here who are the members of old lines that traditionally have a seat on such a body. Likewise, in times of old, a recent victor over national threats, such as our own Mr. Potter, would commonly receive nominations to such a body." Blaise had put his ideas in that order so that people would be thinking of Potter's nomination and not the fact that agreeing with it put the Pureblood's in almost automatically.
And he was right, the next three people to be recognized to say anything all started off by saying something along the lines of 'Obviously, Harry Potter should be on the Wizengamot, he is amazing'. All of the people that is, until Andromeda.
She stood and looked across the rather empty tables before she began, "I think the young Slytherin gentleman has a fine idea; however it will not do in practice. Down in the dungeons right now are a number of people that hold hereditary seats on the Wizengamot and thus agreeing to recognize traditional seating allows the accused death eaters to have a seat upon the Wizengamot." After pausing momentarily to allow that sink in she continued, "To rectify that obvious problem let us agree to recognize hereditary seats only of those we find to be not guilty of the despicable crime of being a Death Eater." That notion shot Zabini's plan in the foot while actually not hurting Andromeda's desires at all.
The plan went round and round and was eventually agreed upon, but not until after it was pointed out that the only claimants of hereditary seats in the Great Hall were Andromeda Black(although Harry could be an alternate claimant), Sullivan Fawley, Neville Longbottom, and Ernie Macmillan.
The knowledge of and experience of the Heads of House were trumped about as reasoning as why they each should have a seat by Hermione. When she finally stopped trying to convince everyone that the teachers should have seats she found there wasn't anyone disagreeing with her; at least no one willing to stand up and disagree with her.
McGonagall stood at that point to ask if there was anyone not among the eight already agreed upon that deserved a seat. Neville rose, and looking very much the man that stood in defiance of Voldemort, he said stated plainly, "I was under the impression that we all agreed that Harry deserved a seat. Wasn't that brought up earlier as the first person we agreed upon?" His statement made Ron yell out in agreement and that in turn spurned most of the DA and a number of other people to do so as well. All of them pushing for Harry to have a seat caused Neville to smile as he bent back onto a bench.
McGonagall called for silence and had to perform a spell to release a burst of noise before she had gotten the calm she wanted, again. "I suppose you are correct, Mr. Longbottom. Very well, as for the Chief Warlock position, I will go down the list of nominated persons and ask that each of you raise a lit wand for the individual you would like to see as Chief Warlock. Now, -"
"Um, Professor McGonagall, before you do that I have something to say." He watched her lips thin at the interruption, and his lack of protocol but he ploughed on regardless, "I just wanted to say to anyone planning on voting for me that I don't want the position and would ask anyone that was planning to vote for me to instead vote for Andromeda Black. She would make a much better Chief Witch than I would."
At that George came out with, "Yeah, for one thing, she's actually a witch!" The laughter that followed provided a good outlet for the many people that been stuck in the hall for so long already.
When it had quieted down once more, McGonagall spoke up again, "Thank you Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley. In the interest of fairness, is there anyone else on here that would like to say something before we begin?" None of the others people said anything and thus she began again, "Then as I was saying, I will read down this and ask each of you to raise your lit wand after I call the name of the person whom you wish to be recognized as Chief Warlock or Chief Witch. The Heads of House will count the votes at their own tables; Mr. Filch will count the Head Table."
She read through the names in reverse order of the way she had written them down. Thus she started with Pomona Sprout (4 votes), and finished with Andromeda Black (43 votes). The end result being that there was a tie between Andromeda and Longbottom. In order to solve this problem they would vote again with this winner being declared the Chief Witch or Warlock as the case might be. The old Scot called out her colleague's name once more and watched the just short of the entire Ravenclaw table and a scattering of others raise their wands. When she called out for Andromeda however she saw a mass of wands from Slytherin and clusters in amongst the other tables lit skyward. Without even counting she knew that Andromeda had won. "Very well then," she said, "Our new Chief Witch, Andromeda Black." She gestured to her right at the newly christened Chief Witch.
Andromeda rose from the seat she had somehow snagged at the Head Table and thanked the mass of people, "I promise I will do my best to see us all home safely and hopefully quickly. Failing that however, be assured that I will make sure that we are protected and that we can maintain an independent society free from whomever else may inhabit this place. I will keep this short so we can all head off however, I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels that we've been here for quite a while."
And thus began the reign of Chief Witch Andromeda Black.
Gryffindor
7 Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas, and Seamus Finnegan; Hermione Granger, Pavarti Patil, Rionach O'Neal and Fay Dunbar 6 Percy Weasley and Oliver Wood; Ginerva Weasley 5 Arthur and Molly Weasley; Romilda Vane 4 Dennis Creevey, Jimmy Peakes, Nigel Wolpert, and Ritchie Coote; Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Katie Bell 3 Aberforth Dumbledore; Augusta Longbottom 2 Lee Jordan, Charlie and George Weasley; Rose Zeller 1 Cormac McLaggen; None
Hufflepuff
7 Ernie Macmillan, Wayne Hopkins, Zacharias Smith; Megan Jones, Hannah Abbot and Susan Bones 6 Mr. McHavelock; Madame Puddifoot 5 Vladimir Plot; Leanne Tietsoort 4 Kevin Whitby, Owen Cauldwell; Orla Quirke, Eleanor Branstone, Laura Madley 3 Euan Abercrombie, James Tuckett II, Luca Caruso; Alice Tolipan 2 Bill and Fleur Weasley; Alys Dinsmore 1 None; Madame Scrivenshaft
Slytherin
7 Blaise Zabini; Millicent Bulstrode, Tracy Davis and Daphne Greengrass 6 Derek Harper; Madame Rosemerta 5 None; Mafalda Prewett and Astoria Greengrass 4 Graham Pritchard and Malcolm Baddock; None 3 Dominic Maestro; None 2 Archibald Bennet; None 1 Viktor Krum; Ivana Stanevski and Kalina Stanevski
Ravenclaw
7 Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner, Stephen Cornfoot, and Terry Boot; Mandy Brocklehurst, Padma Patil, Sue Li, and Morag MacDougal 6 Rolf Scamander; Luna Lovegood 5 Geraint Ollivander; None 4 Justin Pippin; Madame Potage 3 None; None 2 Ambrosius and Seraphina Flume; None 1 Kingsley Shacklebolt; None
Staff Quarters
Andromeda Black and Teddy Lupin; Argus Filch; Irma Pince; Bathsheda Babbling; Filius Flitwick; Septima Vector; Grawp and Rubeus Hagrid; Horace Slughorn; Nurse Wainscott; Minerva McGonagall; Pomona Sprout; Poppy Pomfrey; Aurora Sinistra
Dungeons
Narcissa Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, and Alecto Carrow; Gregory Goyle, Theodore Nott, Lucius, and Draco Malfoy; Amycus Carrow, Fenrir Greyback, Walden Macnair, and Augustus Rookwood; Jugson, Travers, Selwyn, and Yaxley; Nott Sr., Crabbe Sr., Rudolphus, and Rabastan Lestrange; Goyle Sr., Mulciber, Thorfinn Rowle and Albert Runcorn; Marcus Flint, Graham Montague, Miles Bletchley, Cassius Warrington