I Know Your Secret
Victory is never a Secret
Dumbledore called to arms again as he noticed nothing changed. However, again no fight broke out and he looked around to see aurors were around the hall turning on each other, some now sporting commonwealth auror uniforms with the new commonwealth badge over their right chest of gold and silver entwined on a green world.
Not just that but members of the wizengamot and audience turned on each other, a lot of which wore the new commonwealth symbol of unity.
"Looks like you've lost Albus Dumbledore!" Ginny commented as she had switched out her camera for her wand, standing at the ready to fight side by side with her girlfriend and love, Luna Lovegood, and yes, she did love more than good.
"YOU BITCH TRAITOR!"
She turned, surprised to see her brother's Ronald and Percy at commonwealth wand point, hands above their heads in the audience section of the hall looking down into the pit as if she had ever had any loyalty to anyone but her dear friend Kairi.
"Albus Dumbledore is a great wizard, and we will beat you!" Ron roared down angrily. "Good always triumphs over evil like you! Hanging out with filthy Slytherins, and now, look, a Dark Lord, two of them!"
Hope and Tabitha looked at themselves before checking each other with quick scans, frowning.
"I took the mental illusion off ages ago and everyone just accepted it," Hope commented with a frown.
"Well, I can't detect any traces, and mine aren't up either!" Tabitha said with a shrug.
"I pick up nothing!" Hope agreed with a nod.
Hermione chose to scan them both. "Nope, no illusions, at all," she agreed with them. "But I have heard of some psychosis' where people like Ronald just can't handle the raw truth, and believing Albus Dumbledore is always right is likely messing with his mind so he had been told Hope and Tabitha were male by Albus Dumbledore, so he just believes it on such blind, unconditional faith, even with proof to the contrary – I don't think that's healthy believing in the old man like he is a god."
"Professor Dumbledore is a god among normal men!" Ron shouted out in pride.
"So... where do I get one of those lovely commonwealth patches?" Lucius Malfoy asked as he stepped away from where he had been supporting the ministry and Dumbledore, mainly to get in the way of Potter, because he had nothing better to do, but now he knew crazy when he saw it. "M-Master," he said looking down at Tabitha. "You'll vouch for me won't you? I can do things right from now one, please for the love of the goddess save me from them!"
"You ran away hiding while I had to hide away as less than a GHOST!" she said coolly. "At least that idiot Pettigrew came and found me, but then I did kill him! I have to prove myself, so too would you!" she shrugged non-committing.
"H-he just admitted he was a Death Eater!" the minister Fudge cried out in anguish as if he didn't already know that.
Lucius snorted. "Honestly, I didn't want to be a Death Eater!" he retorted, turning his nose up at the idea. "I wanted to be a healer, but I never had that kind of talent, so I tried something else. My mother was an excellent cook, and I had her talent so I wanted to open a bakery. But my father never allowed me to learn, and go to as he put it: 'a filthy muggle school'.
"The magical world didn't have bakery schools!" he continued looking depressed. "I wanted to make pastries when I left Hogwarts. But the magical world doesn't have bakery school as I said. I had to hide my real desire at school to protect myself from people in my house who were likely doing the same, ironically. Then we had to deal with the rep that we never earned for being evil, and getting bullied for it.
"We were just kids!" he said rubbing his tired eyes. "Dumbledore never helped while I was at school, and my father certainly wouldn't have. To protect ourselves we've always had to do stupid things! I wanted to go to pastry collage in the muggle world, and you know what, Draco, my son may not know I know, but he wants to be a dancer. I've caught him at it, and he's pretty good, so if that's what he wants to do then I'm not going to force him to be a stupid lawyer like my father forced me! I want him to stop pretending to be a little prick and get a life like I wish I could have."
"Oh-kay...!" Tabitha said while everyone was staring at one of her former generals in utter shock. "That was-."
"Really odd," Hope commented with a nod. "So, are you going to say next that Bellatrix Lestrange is just misunderstood? That she wanted to be an auror?"
"No, she is bat shit crazy!" he replied with a shrug. "But it does have a somewhat reason. I'm not sure what the whole story was, but she was thirteen when your mother, Lily Evans saved her life when she fell down some stairs, which was a goodie-two-shoes thing most Gryffindor's would never do for a Slytherin, but she did without hesitation.
"Bellatrix got obsessed with paying Lily Evans back, walking her to class, doing homework together, and other things, and Lily enjoyed the extra company, not afraid to be friends with Slytherins. It got worse and worse, and Bella started having, extra feelings that weren't returned; it got to the point that Bella was stalking Lily, and rumour says during forth year that she got your mother drunk, and well-.
"Then there was one of your mothers best friends. She was from Japan, and a half-blood; her witch mother got a job for the ICW in London, so she went to Hogwarts. She was in Hufflepuff, and she and your mum with Alice Longbottom met on the train and became best friends, even though one was in a different house.
"Eventually things got bad, and Bella was deep in her obsession," he said with a shrug. "If she couldn't have Lily then no one could. It was the end of year seven. Kairi Sakami saved Lily's Evans's life and took the killing curse for her. Dumbledore swept her death under the carpet, and it would be two weeks after that that there was a huge battle between Lily and Bella, and not even Dumbledore could stop them when they attacked him together to keep him from interfering.
"Bellatrix ended up fleeing with insane cackles. Lily was said to have taken the last moments of Kairi's life to her death, her thoughts, feeling, her everything, and forced them onto Bella, torturing her day and night with her crimes and the guilt of betraying the one person she loved... Lily Evans!"
"Well that explains a lot!" Sirius mumbled from within the commonwealth soldiers next to Remus Lupin. "I don't know the full story either, but I can say that Kairi died for your mother, and Lily and Bella waged a battle that put any I had seen to shame. Watching the two trounce Dumbledore is a little fudgy though, and before I wouldn't have mentioned it... another one of his charms no doubt. Anyway, Lily and Bella were both two powerful and gifted witches, and neither scrimped on the dark magic, but again, Dumbledore swept it under the rug."
"But then all of the headmasters liked to do that!" Hope said coldly. "They couldn't stand the thought of change! It scared the shit out of them when in truth it should have excited them because change and progress are good things!"
"No girl!" Dumbledore growled out. "This is not change, it is conquest!"
She smiled up at him. "Yes I suppose it is, but conquest is change. All great empires fall when they wrong their people!"
"The end is neigh brother!" Alberforth shouted and fired. The battle was surprisingly depressing, and seriously one sided, and amounted to lots of people being stunned, and Albus Dumbledore grabbing some of his radicals and using his new common tactic of running away while Alberforth tried to cut him down just like a silly fool who won't except that he had lost and people knew that he was the bad guy this time.
"Wow!" Hope said, looking to Hermione she looked just how she felt. "That was kind of anticlimactic! I never even got to draw out my lightsabre!" she said, sighing as she pulled it out. It lit up blue like a sword and she shrugged, it seemed to have been accidently flung overhead, into the stands, spinning and everyone seemed to follow its path with their eyes. It swished through the air towards where Ronald Weasley had been left by Dumbledore as worthless, and hadn't been stunned as he was considered that pathetic.
Ronald had his wand drawn and aimed at his sister. Ginny hadn't even noticed until he roared out in his hate and everyone turned to him. Flicking his wand, the spell blazed into a wall as his hand at the wrist came off in a buzz of blue light, spinning to the floor with his wand as he cried out in agony, grabbing his bloodied stump and the lightsabre sliced into the wall behind him buzzing and sticking put.
"Oops!" Hope said while Ron, handless was dog-piled while he was crying. "I must have sweaty hands; tell him I said sorry!" she said not sounding sorry at all.
"Hope, for the love of-," Hermione said with a sigh as Hope did something with the watch on her left wrist and smirked as she disappeared in a beam of white light. "Stupid teleporter!" she said with a groan as it was annoyingly genius how it worked.
"Didn't Anakin Skywalker start down the road of Sith Lord after losing a hand?" Tabitha surprisingly asked, shocking them. "Hey, Star Wars is a classic, and so I might have while still an evil wraith watched the new movies, so sue me."
Hermione sighed before shrugging. "I suppose we shouldn't complain about everything being anticlimactic if it meant no one dies."
"Umm... it isn't quite over with Dumbledore still around!" Ginny interrupted, bringing down the mood.
"Ginny has a way of bringing down a girls buzz!" Luna commented. "Except in the bedroom... I heard you like being spanked, Tabitha. Ginny likes to spank me, and I don't mind, but maybe you could visit our room and I can watch her spanking you over her lap instead?!"
"Oh Merlin I don't want to hear this!" Hermione said, hurrying away. "I need one of those transporter watches!"
"Hey Hermione...!" Hope called from in the stands where she had reclaimed her lightsabre, turned it off and put it away, waving happily. "Do you think a pulse reactor engine driving on magic would be best or a phase transition engine? Because I can't for the life of me figure out which one would be best for my starfighter. They both hold so many good points and lots and lots of potential!?"
Hermione sighed as he rubbed her eyes. "I'll see you later and then we can discuss the pros and cons of each engine design, okay?" she said, giving in to her best friend as she always did, and always would because she had the imagination and drive to win at everything she did, even if it should have been at the very least improbable.
Anyway, if Hope did build a working space craft, she didn't want to miss being a part of the magical world's first ever space programme. Some idiots like Ronald believed that wizards could fly to the moon on brooms, but maybe, Hope was clever enough to put a ship around her broom and move their people into a brighter newer future.