Okay, I know there's still one person reading this, but don't know what's happened to everyone else.
Sorry, there are more changes to the previous chapter, I should have checked Bill's birthday before I wrote him into the story because he won't start at Hogwarts until September 1982 as he was born in November, so he's now gone to the Lodge with the rest of the Weasley kids.
Luna is five and a half months older this time to tie her in better with Harry and Hermione growing up (yes, it will be the three of them together again), so her birthday is on the Twenty Eighth of August. Story line is that the Three Musketeers (Lily, Pandora and Alice) were all pregnant at the same time, but Pandora was a bit behind the other two. Neville may end up with two red headed partners in this one.
NB: If you're an AD fan, you won't like this chapter, so please just skip it.
Usual disclaimers, no rights to anything from JKR's stories.
Immediately after Pettigrew and Molly No-Name's trials, it was suggested, and everyone agreed, to break the fidelius that Dumbledore had cast on the Potters' cottage and then immediately cast a new fidelius with one of them as the Secret Keeper. Gringott's original plan had just been to irritate that old bastard Dumbledore, but when he stopped to think about it, he realised that a far more important consideration was safeguarding Harry's memories by preventing Dumbledore or anyone else doing anything to interfere with the cottage where his family had lived, and his parents had died, and that cottage had great historical value in Magical Britain.
It was Tuney who had suggested the perfect Secret Keeper and they called Efa to ask whether she'd safeguard the secret for the Potters' cottage in Godric's Hollow…. As they all knew, that had been a superfluous question as she and Emyr would do anything to protect Harry and the Potter family. Anyway, with the decision made, they did it straight away, before it occurred to Dumbledore to raid the cottage to see what else he could steal, and it seemed that they hadn't done it a moment too soon because ten minutes later the monitoring devices they had mounted outside the cottage showed Dumbledore wandering around Godric's Hollow, looking for something (the cottage, obviously).
Whether he was there because he had been trying to visit the cottage or because he suddenly forgot where it was though, Dumbledore couldn't resist trying to cause more trouble…. Because as Regent for the House of Potter, Pandora received a demand to turn over the cottage to the Ministry for it to be made into a National Monument to mark their triumph over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The demand to surrender the cottage claimed that Dumbledore had cancelled the fidelius over the cottage so that it could be turned over to the Ministry, but she had illegally cast another fidelius over the cottage before he could do so, so she was ordered to cancel the fidelius and release the cottage to the Ministry.
While the urge (if not the need) to hex the ones who made the demand into the next century was almost overwhelming, cooler and wiser heads prevailed and they had Rhys, Fawley, Fleamont and Tonks formally accuse Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic of both making false charges against the Regent for the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses and attempting to steal Gryffindor Cottage, a very significant historical property which had belonged to the Potter Family for nearly eight hundred years and was valued at over Fifty Million Galleons. Bagnold was bright enough to have made sure that she wasn't left holding the bag, so it would be interesting to see which senior Ministry officials got thrown under the Knight Bus to make this go away.
A key family in their group who had had a remarkable change of fortunes over the month of June was the Longbottoms. While Dumbledore was reeling from the events of the day he was banned from Gringotts, the current Lord and Lady Longbottom had been pulled out of St Mungo's (where they'd been since a week after James and Lily Potter died because Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange and Bartemius Crouch Junior had been let through their wards and tortured them into a state where they reportedly had no awareness of the outside world in an attempt to find out where their master, Voldemort, had gone to) and taken to Gringotts to be given proper healing. Gringotts' healers managed to free them from being imprisoned in their minds in less than a week and another week had healed them of most of the effects of being trapped inside their heads and being given inadequate care for seven months.
Frank managed to shock the Wizengamot chamber into silence in the next scheduled Wizengamot session when he used the Stone of Truth to confirm that he was indeed Earl Francis Alfred Longbottom, Head of the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Longbottom and its Associated Houses (effectively returned from the dead in the minds of many in the chamber), and then formally changed Augusta's position from Regent to the House of Longbottom to Steward of the House of Longbottom, because both he and Alice had both gone back to the Aurors...
As had Lord Sirius Black, who had actually gotten enough of a wake up call from his betrayal and seven month ordeal with the Dementors in Azkaban to start growing up.
The Weasleys had moved into Weasley Manor (after the goblins replaced the wards with much stronger ones which restricted access to trusted people only) by the end of June, and the new wards prevented others learning that Amelia and Susan were rather frequent visitors. Most of the children were young enough to accept the story that it was so that Susan wouldn't be lonely, but while shielding their younger siblings from their mother's machinations had made Bill and Charlie grow up too fast, it also meant that they were mature enough to be happy for their father and 'Auntie Ami'.
On the other hand, Barty Crouch Senior learnt that the new Baron Weasley wasn't someone to cross when he tried to force him to return everything that had been stolen from his Aunt Muriel, and that the penalties for the Head of a Minor House attacking the Head of a Noble and Ancient House and the Regent of a second Noble and Ancient House that he had direct familial connections to were quite severe. Crouch had refused to see Arthur as anything but what his Aunt Muriel described him as, the bumbling idiot his cousin was married to, so he never dreamed that there could be serious ramifications for attacking him in public. He quickly discovered two things to his peril, the first being that the Noble Houses are bound to stand together when it comes to dealing with their inferiors, and the second that it's dangerous to call attention to yourself when politicians like the Minister are looking for someone to throw to the dragon to appease them.
Millicent Bagnold watched how much support Baron Weasley was getting from the ones who now held the balance of power in Magical Britain in the arguments over Crouch's claims that he had stolen Weasley Manor from the previous Lady Prewett and decided to use this to try and get the Druids and Progressives on-side, while at the same time appeasing the House of Potter about the cottage debacle, which she hadn't been told about until it was too late to stop that letter of demand being sent.
That was why Bartemius Crouch Senior, Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, Horace Branxton, Director of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and Cornelius Fudge, 'Junior Minister' for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes (who was just a political appointment put there to clean up the Pure-Blood houses' messes for them) were selected to be the ones sacrificed to appease the House of Potter. Crouch had been the one who pushed to throw Lord Black straight into Azkaban to give them some good publicity at the end of the war, so between the trouble that caused, the issue of his son being one of the ones who put Lord and Lady Longbottom into St Mungo's and the latest embarrassments he had caused by interfering with the DMLE and making patently false accusations against the surprisingly assertive Lord Weasley, he was definitely going to be the first head on the chopping block!
The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and Cornelius Fudge in particular, had also been an embarrassment since the truth about the extremely suspicious circumstances of Lord Sirius Black's arrest came out, and she knew that Bones would be watching that department closely after what happened with Black anyway so she was hoping that sacrificing Branxton and Fudge along with Crouch would be enough to keep the people who mattered at the Ministry safe.
That was why, when the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Potter demanded satisfaction from Dumbledore and the Ministry for attempting to defame and steal from the House of Potter, the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Longbottom demanded that the Houses of Lestrange and Crouch pay proper compensation for their attack which had left Lord and Lady Longbottom incapacitated in St Mungo's for seven months and the Junior Noble and Ancient Wizard House of Weasley demanded compensation from the Minor House of Crouch for its unfounded and untrue accusations against the House of Weasley, she instructed her people prepare cases to throw them all to the wolves to address the items scheduled to be presented by the three houses at the next Wizengamot session.
The Noble Wizard House of Lestrange forfeited all its titles, holdings, properties, belongings, monies and vassals to the House of Longbottom. Frank promptly turned around and offered to return any items in the possession of the House of Lestrange which rightfully belonged to the House of Black to them, an offer that Duke Arcturus graciously accepted. The Minor Wizard House of Crouch also forfeited a third of its total worth to the House of Longbottom, and the Head of the House of Crouch forfeited his position as Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation (a significant asset in a world which still worked on the principle of buying commissions) to the Head of the House of Longbottom.
In the case presented by the House of Weasley, the House of Crouch forfeited its Baronetcy, the holding supporting the title (which included their pretentiously named residence Crouch Hall) and two thirds of their remaining total worth to the House of Weasley. They could see that Crouch was worried about this development and thought that it was because after what he'd lost, he was just about broke, but they found that the House of Crouch was worth a surprising amount as nearly half of the Crouch fortune had been enough for the House of Weasley to recover to almost the position they had been in before Arthur's grandfather bankrupted the family.
In the case presented by the House of Potter, the Dumbledore Family forfeited half of its total worth (excluding Aberforth Dumbledore's personal holdings) to the House of Potter, Bartemius Crouch forfeited half of his remaining worth, and Horace Branxton, the Director of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and Cornelius Fudge, Junior Minister for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, both forfeited their positions at the Ministry and half of their total worth to the House of Potter. After a brief consultation between the Regent for the House of Potter and their allies, the positions of Director and Junior Minister for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes were formally ceded to Baron Weasley, Head of the House of Weasley, who indicated that he would be assuming the position of Director and eliminating the Junior Minister position, allocating its salary and official duties to others in the department, as well as issuing directives similar to the ones the Director of the DMLE had issued after the Gringotts debacle for this department. This last sent a message to the Pure Blood Houses, the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes would no longer be cleaning up their messes for them, and what they were donating to the Ministry to fund that position was being forfeited as a reminder and penalty for their actions.
Bagnold was beginning to see that she'd underestimated these people, but shrugged philosophically, as it was too late to worry about now that it was done.
They found out why Crouch had been looking so worried when the Weasleys arrived later that day to claim Crouch Hall (before Crouch could hide things that were supposed to be forfeited to them), because the supposedly dead Barty Crouch Junior was being held there under the imperius curse. The Crouch elf Winky put up a surprisingly furious defence of her 'young master' until they got it through to her that she now belonged to the House of Weasley and she was bonded to Arthur.
An emergency Wizengamot session was called the next day and Crouch Senior and Junior were both tried. When they were questioned under Veritaserum, it came out that Crouch Senior's dying wife had made him promise to swap her for her son in Azkaban and she'd died there, polyjuiced as her son a few days after he'd left, polyjuiced as her. Barty Senior hadn't changed his attitude about the vicious Death Eater he had for a son but he had promised his wife to look after him, so he kept him under the imperius curse to prevent him escaping and getting his father into trouble by showing himself to still be alive. Barty Junior was confirmed to be a rabid animal and the mandatory punishment for escaping Azkaban was death, so he was sentenced to be put through the Veil of Death. Barty Senior was given the mandatory punishment for use of the unforgivable curses other than under the war legislation for the Aurors, a life sentence in Azkaban, and everything else that still belonged to the House of Couch was forfeited to Sirius Black for Barty Senior instigating his being thrown into Azkaban without a trial and then helping his own son escape from Azkaban.
Bagnold didn't make any attempt to stand in the way of the Crouches' punishment because the fact that she was Baroness Bones, Regent for the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Bones wasn't the reason she had been pushed to replace Crouch when he was pushed out in disgrace for having a rabid Death Eater for a son, it was just the reason that it wasn't worth trying to fight her appointment. While she was higher up the food chain in Magical Britain than anyone else in the DMLE, the reason she was put forward by Master Auror Moody as the best person to take over the DMLE was the fact that she was the only Auror that he'd ever rated high enough to take on as his apprentice, and she'd lived up to his expectations quite well.
She had to admit that when it came to the job, Baron Moody had never let Noble House politics influence him, Bones had caught his eye as an angry, driven and extremely capable Auror trainee and earned enough of his respect for him to officially take her on as his apprentice after she became an Auror. Living up to Moody's standards had made it easy for her to earn her Defence Against the Dark Arts Mastery, even though they pushed her harder than anyone else, purely because she was the only apprentice the legendary Alastor Moody had ever taken on. Bones had already shared Moody's unwavering views on integrity and the law of the land before she became his apprentice, but after years with him she was almost as unbending as he was, so arguing for leniency for the Crouches would have been a waste of time and favours that would be better spent elsewhere.
Remus Lupin's (the last member of James Potter and Sirius Black's group of close friends at Hogwarts called the Marauders) situation didn't change immediately, because even after they tracked him down and had all of the compulsions and memory manipulations removed from him, it had still taken proof that his real name was in fact John Remus Lupin (Lupin family tradition was to give their children wolf related middle names, like the Blacks and their constellation related names), not Remus John Lupin, and that it had been the Great Albus Dumbledore who had changed his name to Remus John Lupin at the Ministry right after his parents were killed and he had been turned by Fenir Greyback under very suspicious circumstances when he was five, to begin to break him free of his mindless devotion to Albus Dumbledore. When he finally started thinking though, Remus took a big leap of faith to change his life.
While it wasn't commonly known, the goblins had a hideously expensive, painful and dangerous process to cure Lycanthropy. Even where the one suffering from Lycanthropy had an incredibly strong will there were no better than two to one odds for their surviving the treatment and the goblins didn't give refunds, but Sirius used the money he got from Crouch and Arcturus covered the rest of the payment for the treatment because Remus was just about all he had left of his old life.
After he had been cured and magically accepted as Baron John Remus Lupin, Head of the Junior Noble and Ancient Wizard House of Lupin, Remus retook his OWLs and NEWTs with the ICW and took his Defense Against the Dark Arts Mastery exams to gain his mastery…. Then he became Steward of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell and their Associated Houses in November to take some of the load off Pandora, because she was still an active Unspeakable.
He was still Remus in private but he was Baron John Lupin in public. Wiping out all official records of Remus John Lupin in Magical Britain had effectively removed him from existence because with the attention span of goldfish, most of the sheeple of Magical Britain didn't make any connection between the raggedy orphan who finished at Hogwarts in Seventy Eight and the polished Lord Lupin who re-entered Magical Britain's Noble society from Europe four and a half years later as a Vassal of the House of Potter.
Around this time, a baby, two more little girls and two more witches as minders were added to the group at the Lodge…. Astoria and Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis and their mothers Celeste Greengrass and Elana Davis. The Senior Noble and Ancient Wizard House of Greengrass had been aligned and friendly with, but not actually allied to, many of the major Druid Houses for centuries, and seventy odd years ago they had forged a mutually beneficial business alliance with the Minor Ancient Wizard House of Davis (most of the successful Wizard Families bought Baronetcies to elevate their status and give them a voice in what was happening in the rather elitist Noble House run Magical Britain). This business alliance had quickly developed into a close family friendship and the House of Davis became vassals of the Noble House of Greengrass to bring them under the protection of a powerful Noble House.
They were brought closer into the fold when Godfrey Greengrass agreed to become one of Magical Britain's new representatives to the International Confederation of Wizards after Frank became Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation and a comment about wishing the girls had more friends to play with because they were running Celeste ragged with the new baby led to them being introduced to the children at the Lodge. The Greengrasses and Davises swore the same oaths of secrecy in regard to the Lodge and everyone in it that everyone else who interacted with others in the Magical world had, and Celeste, Elana and the girls fitted in with everyone else at the lodge quite well.
Aside from Celeste, Elana and the older children, life at Chase Lodge was pretty much removed from what was going on in Magical Britain most of the time. What it came down to was that they had a baby, a dozen toddlers between one and three and another seven kids between four and thirteen to look after most of the time and that was quite enough to keep the adults occupied (it also made it necessary to bring the Potters' Bedford JJL Midibuses with all the Knight Bus' enhancements added down from the Potter Manor garage because they wouldn't have been able to explain how that many kids fitted into the Lincoln with their minders).
One of the warders' more important jobs at the Lodge in Tuney's opinion was getting snakes to stay at the other end of the chase from the Lodge, because the woods came right around the Lodge (part of what made it so private) and after she saw a snake in the woods she wouldn't allow the toddlers to run around outside until she was sure that the area around the Lodge was completely snake free. This meant that it was another week before Harry and the other little kids were allowed to play outside, and in that time the entertainment room the goblins had created for them got a good workout.
Whether through human intermediaries or directly, using glamours, the Goblin Nations interfaced with the Muggle world far more than the Wizarding world did, and they adopted new technologies of the Muggle world before most Muggles did (some of which would be a nasty surprise for the Wizards if they ever tried to start another war with the Goblin Nations). This meant that the entertainment room at Chase Lodge had been set up with the latest quadraphonic sound system and the best NTSC video projector available (which was connected to a LaserDisc player and both VHS and Betamax VCRs and plugged into the sound system), as well as a large screen PAL rear projection TV that was also hooked up to a LaserDisc player and VCRs.
This equipment allowed them to listen to music and watch movies from all over the world, as well as getting all the local television broadcasts. The much bigger size of the rear projection TV and projection screen and better picture and sound quality of the LaserDisc movies meant that it wasn't too difficult to get the Grangers over for movie nights, so they had more chances to get to know them.
Of course it wasn't only the Grangers who were amazed by the entertainment room, because the ones who had been raised in the Magical world couldn't believe that things like movies and record and CD collections existed…. For that matter most people in the Muggle world would never believed that private LaserDisc, record, CD and audio and video cassette collections the size of theirs existed for that matter, but the Grangers never got to see the expanded library rooms in the basement where their full disk, record, tape and book collections were stored in stasis, they only saw the transfigured copies of the originals that were brought out each time to choose from…. The Weasleys probably spent more time watching movies than anyone else, and it took Amelia punching him every time he did it for quite a while to stop Arthur asking about everything he saw.
Bill, and to a lesser degree Charlie and Dora, didn't have as much free time to watch movies as the others though, because Tuney and Arabella and the others helping out with the magical subjects were trying to get them caught up on their non-magical education and prepare them for their magical education….. And as the one who was starting Hogwarts in three months, Bill was working hard. On the magical side, Arabella was mainly focussing on Potions because Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Pomona Sprout on the teaching side and Hestia Jones from the students' perspective had all told them that the new Potions Master Severus Snape (or Snivellus as Sirius and James called him) refused to teach anyone but his Slytherins properly and in particular seemed to hold a grudge against all Gryffindors. None of them were at all surprised that any complaints about his behaviour or demands that he be made to behave like the professional he was paid to be were fobbed off with empty platitudes by the Great Albus Dumbledore.
Since the anti-snake wards were established, the little kids spent a good deal of their time playing outside, making the most of the weather. The Lodge was located at the northern end of the chase, but the woods extended right to the boundaries in every direction, with little more than the short driveway to the Lodge and the grounds around the Lodge itself cleared, so while they could be seen from above, they were generally screened from the outside world. The toy broom Harry had been given on his first birthday was upgraded to a more serious broom on his second birthday, and the other kids got brooms that were suitable for their ages too so they had great fun flying about the grounds and in the woods around the Lodge. This was one of their major departures from a 'normal' childhood, because they were generally just running around and playing in the pool like any kids their age.
Watching cowboy movies exposed something rather unexpected about the two year old Harry though, because when they were running around shooting finger guns at each other and gleefully shouting 'pew', 'pew', 'pew', what Harry was 'shooting' at started blowing up. Harry had been displaying magic since he was a few months old, so they all knew he had strong magic, but this wasn't just calling a toy or the cat to him or changing his appearance to match the person holding him…. Or even flying across the room to his Godmother…. this was non-verbally and wandlessly casting blasting curses. Luckily they were weak ones, but it was still something that most witches and wizards twenty or thirty years older than him couldn't do, and he shouldn't be learning about blasting curses for another twelve or thirteen years either.
They brought in the Unspeakables' best mind magic expert to gently probe his mind and he confirmed what they'd suspected and feared, that while Voldemort's dark presence had been successfully removed along with the soul anchor, his memories had remained in Harry's mind. This meant that most of the spells and rituals that the fifty five year old Dark Lord knew and memories of what he'd done were in Harry's head, but they were too intertwined with his own memories to try and remove them all, as that would almost certainly change who their beloved Harry was.
In the end, the Unspeakable became a frequent visitor over the next couple of years as he slowly worked through Harry's memories to try and locate and lock away anything he found from Voldemort. What the family found even more frightening was the fact that Harry managed to share quite a few of the spells he used with Hermione and Luna. Aside from passing on some to Bill, Dora, Charlie and Hestia Jones (Hestia was another orphan in their group who'd just finished her Second year at Hogwarts, she spent most of the holidays at the Lodge because her guardian, Emmeline Vance, was in the Auror Investigations office with Alice Longbottom), none of the other kids managed to pick them up, but Hermione and Luna were as precocious as Harry, brilliant and amazingly powerful for their age (they were comparable to weak adult witches and wizards as toddlers).
As they didn't believe that they'd be able to get all of Voldemort's spells out of Harry's or the girls' heads, they took a different approach, with Pandora and Patty Rakepick getting him, Hermione and Luna to show them what they could do and making them understand how they could hurt their friends by using these abilities carelessly. Luckily 'don't hurt my friends' was a concept that would stick in a toddler's head and aside from a very rare tantrum they didn't use any of the spells or charms against any of their friends or family. Of course this meant that the fact that their daughter was magical, and so were they to some extent, had to be explained to Dan and Jean, but by that stage they'd seen enough little things from Hermione and around the Lodge to start wondering so they didn't have as much trouble accepting the idea as they would have if they'd just been slapped in the face from out of nowhere with 'your daughter is a witch' .
Due to the fact that Gringott had told them that the goblins' life records were showing that Tom Riddle (the real name of Lord Voldemort) wasn't actually dead, probably because of those soul anchors he made, they knew that Harry in particular was still at risk. That was why the magicals in the 'family' agreed that Hermione, Luna and him building up their magical capacity by exercising their magic would be a good thing so they encouraged them to play with it rather than trying to stop them, they just tried to make it a fun game which had to be a family secret.
Tuney was slowly getting a better grasp of what they were discussing about Harry and the other kids' magic because Arabella had been teaching her about magic ever since they started on this adventure, and Celeste and Elana had been helping since they joined them at the Lodge. Tuney's goal was to learn enough magic to pass her OWLs in a year or two, and her NEWTs a year or two later so that she would be accepted as a witch by the time that Harry and Danny (she hadn't liked the idea at first, but letting them change their memories so that she and Dudley thought of themselves as Tunisia and Daniel Morrissey had made it much easier than trying to remember what their name was supposed to be) started being involved in the Wizarding world.
Pandora had allocated one of the Potter Baronetcies to the Ifan Family, so she and Danny were now the Minor Ancient Wizard House of Ifan, vassals of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Potter… As it was explained to Tuney, this meant that they now had higher status and the protection of a powerful Noble House in Magical Britain, even if most people didn't know about them, and Danny had been so happy to be told that he was now Sir Daniel Robert Morrissey, Heir to the Minor Ancient Wizard House of Ifan. He was learning to put his jealousy of Harry aside but he was just a little boy, and being Sir Daniel Morrissey, Heir to the Ancient Wizard House of Ifan sounded as good to him as hearing Harry being called Lord Potter, Heir to the Most Ancient Druid House of Potter so that was helping negate many of his jealousy issues.
Albus Dumbledore got another slap in the face soon after the Wizengamot session where he was fined half of his total worth for trying to coerce the Ministry into stealing the Potters' cottage in Godric Hollow in a fit of pique… Because the new Director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, Lord Longbottom…. Jumped up little idiot, he'd one of his students student five years ago and loyal member of the Order of the Phoenix up to the end of the war but that bloody title had obviously gone to his head!…. Had dismissed both him and Julius Parkinson, Magical Britain's other representative to the International Confederation of Wizards….. And while Parkinson was furious that he'd lost the opportunity to make money by setting up exclusive trade agreements for his associates, as far as he was concerned what he'd lost was far more important, because when he stopped being Magical Britain's ICW representative he would stop being a member of the ICW and lose his position as its Supreme Mugwump. He'd spent a considerable amount of money and influence on hanging onto that position for over thirty five years, not to mention the mind magic and blood magic he'd used on key members of the ICW to ensure their support…. So to lose the Supreme Mugwump's position after all that was an outrage, not to mention the fact that he wouldn't be able to do what he had to to prevent the ones he'd manipulated discovering that they'd been interfered with if he didn't have access to them.
He knew that there would be no point trying to convince Lord Greengrass or Contessa Zabini to refuse to accept the role so he could hang onto his position because neither of them had ever supported his ideals, so he decided to attack the issue head on, explain to Longbottom that it was imperative for the Greater Good that he remain as Magical Britain's ICW Representative and the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, and remind him of his oath as a member of the Order of the Phoenix…..
Albus wasn't at all impressed when he was made to wait half an hour before being shown into Frank Longbottom's office, and he was even more put out to find Alice Longbottom, Sirius Black, Alastor Moody, Emmeline Vance and Amelia Bones in there when he was finally ushered in. "Alice, Sirius, Alastor, Emmeline, Amelia, I'm afraid that I need to speak to Frank privately, if you will just wait outside you can return when we have finished."
None of them moved an inch and Amelia looked at him coolly. "Is this a sensitive personal matter Mister Dumbledore, or does it relate to official matters in any way?"
He came back with, "I am afraid that I cannot discuss that with you Amelia as it is, as I said, private..."
But Frank cut him off. "Well if it isn't a sensitive personal matter, and just in case you haven't worked it out yet I don't swing that way so it better not be, you will address us by either our professional or family titles Mister Dumbledore, and I trust Lady Longbottom, Lord Black, Lord Moody, Madam Vance and Lady Bones implicitly so they will remain for any discussion I have with you! Now you have requested a meeting with me, so either tell me what you came to say or leave!"
Dumbledore tried again, hoping to at least get rid of Bones as she was the most experienced of them other than Alastor and most likely to trip him up. "Well part of this involves something that is covered by previous oaths of secrecy that some of you have given…." He didn't like the look of the wolfish smile that Longbottom gave when he said that.
"Ah yes, that is in fact part of the reason I requested Director Bones' presence at this meeting, to act as the official Ministry witness to the fact that the five of us are permanently severing any connection with your Order of the Phoenix as we refuse to remain part of an organisation whose leader betrayed us and almost caused our deaths….. Director Bones, are you still prepared to act as the official witness to our vows?"
Amelia nodded with an evil smile. "I am indeed Lord Longbottom."
"Thank you Director Bones…." He held up his house ring. "I, Earl Francis Alfred Longbottom, Head of the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Longbottom and its Associated Houses, hereby permanently cancel any and all association with Albus Dumbledore's unofficial organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix due to life threatening betrayals by Albus Dumbledore!"
There was a flash as magic accepted his decree and he nodded to Alice.
She held up her rings and said. "I, Countess Alice Mary Longbottom nee Dearborn, Wife of the Head of the Senior Noble and Most Ancient Druid House of Longbottom and its Associated Houses and Head of the Minor Ancient Wizard House of Dearborn, hereby permanently cancel any and all association with Albus Dumbledore's unofficial organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix due to life threatening betrayals by Albus Dumbledore!" There was another flash and she nodded to Sirius.
He raised his house ring. "I, Sirius Orion Black, Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient Druid Houses of Black and Gwynedd and their Associated Houses, hereby permanently cancel any and all association with Albus Dumbledore's unofficial organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix due to life threatening betrayals by Albus Dumbledore!" He nodded to Alastor as his ring flashed.
"I, Baron Alastor Robert Moody, Head of the Junior Noble and Ancient Druid House of Moody and its Associated Houses, hereby permanently cancel any and all association with Albus Dumbledore's unofficial organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix due to life threatening betrayals by Albus Dumbledore!" His house ring flashed and he nodded to Emmeline.
"I, Dame Emmeline Agnes Vance, Head of the Minor Wizard House of Vance, hereby permanently cancel any and all association with Albus Dumbledore's unofficial organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix due to life threatening betrayals by Albus Dumbledore!" Her house ring flashed and she looked at Amelia, who gave Dumbledore a menacing smile.
"I, Baroness Amelia Susan Bones, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement of the Ministry of Magic of Magical Britain, formally acknowledge that I have witnessed the magically accepted vows of Earl Francis Alfred Longbottom, Countess Alice Mary Longbottom, Earl Sirius Orion Black, Baron Alastor Robert Moody and Dame Emmeline Agnes Vance to permanently cancel any and all association with Albus Dumbledore's unofficial organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix due to life threatening betrayals by Albus Dumbledore."
Frank nodded to her. "Thank you Director Bones."
With that he looked at Dumbledore, who was a little shocked at what had just happened. "Now that we've prevented you using our oaths as members of your Order of the Phoenix to pressure any of us into anything Mister Dumbledore, as I said, tell me what you want or get out…. And no, none of the people I trust in this office will be leaving before you."
Dumbledore struggled to push his anger down, how dare they treat him like this? But he had to make his pitch before the petulant child threw him out. "You do not realise what you have just done Mister…." He corrected himself as Longbottom went to respond. "Lord Longbottom, but I cannot explain it to you now. What I am here about is this. I need you to reinstate me as one of Magical Britain's representatives to the International Confederation of Wizards because I cannot remain as Supreme Mugwump of the ICW unless I am an official representative to the ICW. It is imperative that I remain as the Supreme Mugwump for the Greater Good!"
Longbottom swore as Alastor barked a laugh, then pulled a bag of coins out of his drawer and handed it over to Alastor. "I should have known better, but I thought that he would have been distracted enough by our vows to leave the order for good…. Damn you Dumbledore, couldn't you have lasted even a minute?"
"Quit ye bitchin' Laddie, it was naught but our standard bet on anything relating to Dumbledore, thirty pieces of silver..."
"But couldn't you be wrong about him at least once in a while?"
Alastor smirked at Dumbledore. "I could if he was a clever as he thought he was, but he's always been predictable."
Dumbledore was getting angry again. "What are you talking about? And what's this thirty pieces of silver you keep going on about supposed to mean?"
Alastor snorted again and Frank glumly got another bag of coins out of his drawer to toss to Amelia.
"Okay, I will admit that that one was a sucker bet, but in my defence I thought that someone would have looked it up and told him by now, especially since you came out and told him that it would be related to what was behind his losing access to the Potter gold."
Amelia gave him a slight bow and then turned to Dumbledore. "Seeing as you seem to be incapable of asking anyone who knows anything about the Muggle world, I will tell you Mister Dumbledore. Legend has it that Thirty Pieces of Silver was what Judas Iscariot was paid to betray Jesus of Nazareth, the one identified as Christ in the popular Christian religion…. So it's traditionally been associated with the wages of betrayal…. And as we've just had confirmed, those who fought at your side and supported you through the war obviously believe that you betrayed them."
"That is not true, I have not betrayed anyone!"
Alastor grabbed Sirius to hold him back as Frank started to speak in a colder voice than most of them in the office had ever heard him use. "Even if we just restrict it to those present in this room, that's a lie and you know it Dumbledore! You must have known that Pettigrew was a Death Eater but you didn't warn James and Lily about him so they were murdered by Voldemort, then you waited until the killing was done before you turned up and got angry when you found out that the wrong ones had died... You then obliviated Sirius and made him hand over Harry and go after Pettigrew, warning Pettigrew that Sirius was coming so he could set a trap for him, lied to everyone about Sirius being a Death Eater and the Secret Keeper and personally signed the order to send him to Azkaban without a trial..."
"Then there's the fact that there was only one written copy of the secret and passwords to get into Longbottom Hall, the one that you insisted on being given because you needed access 'for our protection', so it had to have been you who gave the Lestranges and Crouch a way to get into Longbottom Hall to attack us…."
"Uncle Alastor lost Auntie Beth because you insisted that he had to stand watch on a house where you had supposedly been assured that most of Voldemort's inner circle would be gathering that night and you promised him that Auntie Beth would be well protected, but they were at his house that night and there was no sign of anyone doing anything to stop them getting to her…. If I were a suspicious man like Uncle Alastor, I might wonder whether you had deliberately engineered his beloved wife's torture and murder! The Death Eater raids where Emmeline lost her family and her ward Hestia's parents, Amelia's niece and ward Susan lost her family, Sirius lost Marlene and her family and Alice's brother Caradoc and his family were killed were all suspiciously similar situations…"
"So as I said, if I were a suspicious man I'd be wondering whether you were trying to make sure that most of us didn't have anything left to live for so we'd make the glorious spectacle of sacrificing ourselves in the battle against evil, thereby making it possible for our fearless Leader of the Light to play on our sacrifice to guilt Magical Britain into giving him anything he wanted after the war…. But Lily ruined your plans by managing to set a trap that destroyed Voldemort when he came after Harry, didn't she?"
"I suppose you thought that there was too much risk of my family saying something that would give some of your plans away so the idea was to get rid of us and give you one final spectacular arrest to end the war… It's a pity for you that Uncle Alastor ignored his orders and rushed to Longbottom Hall as soon as he heard about the attack, otherwise we would probably have made wonderful martyrs for your cause….. If I were you I'd stay out of the shadows Mister Dumbledore, as there are an awful lot of good people who have come to the conclusion that Voldemort was the lesser evil of the war and the souls of their loved ones are crying out for vengeance..."
Dumbledore was wetting himself, and he desperately turned to Bones, saying. "You're the Director of the DMLE! Are you just going to stand there and let him threaten me like that?…." But he trailed off because it was obvious that she wanted to kill him too.
"I don't know what you're talking about Mister Dumbledore, Lord Longbottom was just pointing out some coincidences that might appear suspicious to those who chose to look at them that way, he has made no threats... although it sounds as though whoever it was who people came to believe was the greater evil of the war should be making peace with his gods."
Frank spoke again in the same cold voice. "Your request to be reinstated as one of Magical Britain's representatives to the International Confederation of Wizards is denied Mister Dumbledore. Whatever your political agenda involving your nebulous Greater Good is, it has obviously interfered with your duties to represent the interests of Magical Britain in the ICW, because both of Magical Britain's new representatives have been presented with numerous complaints about both yourself and Sir Julius in the short time since they have taken up their duties. You will not be representing Magical Britain in the ICW again for as long as I am Director of the Department of Magical International Cooperation, or ever for that matter if I have anything to do with it…."
"Concentrate on restoring Hogwarts to what you keep claiming it to be, the Premier Magical School in Britain if not Magical Europe Mister Dumbledore… Many of us on the Wizengamot are currently debating whether we regard the right to sit on the Wizengamot to be sufficient reason to inflict attending Hogwarts on our children when they can go to Beauxbatons, Durmstrang, Ilvermorny or other schools for a proper education and have their Stewards and allies vote for their houses…. Of course this would not have been an issue if it wasn't for that change to the Wizengamot regulations you got put through earlier this year which made attending Hogwarts a pre-requisite for holding a seat on the Wizengamot…. Some of us hope to be able to carry on our family traditions though and we will be claiming our rightful seats on Hogwarts' Board of Governors so that we can monitor what's going on at the school more closely and eliminate any obstacles in the way of Hogwarts improving before they become a problem.… For example…. The Wizarding Examination Authority has advised us that there was a marked drop in the Potions OWL and NEWT scores at Hogwarts this year. If that is not rectified next year you and your pet Death Eater will have a lot of explaining to do Mister Dumbledore! And get someone who can do a proper job of teaching History of Magic and Muggle Studies! Those two courses have been a joke for decades! Make no mistake Mister Dumbledore, unless there is a marked improvement in how the students are taught at Hogwarts for most subjects, something is going to change, and you don't have any other jobs to fall back on now."
"And that's another thing, stop claiming that Hogwarts is the World's Premier Magical School, because you are making a laughing stock of both yourself and Magical Britain. How you wish to portray yourself is your own issue, but it becomes an issue for the Wizengamot to address when you damage Magical Britain's image. If everyone at Hogwarts spends the next five or ten years working hard to restore it to its proper state it may be able to become the Premier Magical School in Europe again, but there is no real hope of it ever becoming the World's Premier Magical School. Good Day Mister Dumbledore. I strongly suggest that you refrain from demanding any further meetings with me in my current capacity as I will not be so hospitable again!"
Sirius sniffed and barked a laugh as Dumbledore scuttled out of the office. "I think you could have made him shit himself if you pushed a little harder Frank, but as it was you only managed to make him piss his pants."
Amelia swatted him across the back of the head. "A bit of decorum please Sirius Black! There are ladies present!"
His words were appropriate as he bowed to her… "I forgot myself Baroness Bones, please accept my deepest apologies, and you as well Countess Longbottom and Dame Emmeline..." But his shit eating grin made a lie of his contrition.
Alice just shook her head at him, because his incorrigible nature was a large part of Sirius' charm. "Does anyone believe that Dumbledore will do anything about the issues that Frank raised at Hogwarts?"
Frank sighed in frustration and pulled her into his lap. "He'll try to tell himself that I was just trying to frighten him, until he comes to address the Hogwarts Board at the next meeting and finds that Sirius, Pandora, Amelia, Godfrey Greengrass, Griselda Marchbanks and I have taken our seats on the board as I said. I dare say that should be enough to get him to make an effort to get Snape into line by the time the school year starts. I hope he does manage to scare Snape into acting professionally because Hestia and Bill Weasley will both be there in the coming year. I don't see much hope of getting him to do anything about Binns or that Pure Blood idiot who probably believes that the shite he's teaching them about the Muggle world is accurate though."
Alice looked at Amelia. "What about Auntie Gris? Couldn't she use her official position to force it through?"
Amelia shook her head. "No, unfortunately the curriculum comes under the Department of Magical Education, not the Wizarding Examination Authority, and the old fool in charge of Magical Education is firmly in Bagnold and Dumbledore's pockets… Though she may be able to provide the History of Magic results which prove that a ghost is totally inadequate as a teacher if Dumbledore refuses to get rid of him and one of us raises it in the Wizengamot."
She shook her head. "While tearing strips off that old bastard about what he did to our families in the war was cathartic, I'm sure the parchment is piling up in my office and unfortunately Lord Longbottom, my Aurors have work to do, so kiss your wife goodbye because we need to get back to it."
Frank grumbled good naturedly but kissed Alice and let her go, as his inbox had been growing as well while they were there.
A/N: Godric's Hollow had to refer to Godric Gryffindor, so he presumably lived there at one point. Given that the Potters are accepted in many stories as the heirs of Gryffindor, it only seems logical to me that their cottage in Godric's Hollow would have originally belonged to Godric Gryffindor.
Remus Lupin always seemed an excessively redundant name for a werewolf to me, so with my love of conspiracy theories, it seems much more likely that some manipulative old bastard would have have twisted his real name around to make his condition too obvious to miss.
