We are getting close to the finish line here, one chapter to go. I apologize for my absence, this chapter has fought me tooth and nail for several months.
Sorry folks, I accidentally gave the unfinished chapter. Here is the real one.
Nothing recognizable belongs to me.
XXXXX
The first Hogwarts Family Day was a mixed success. On one hand, families that had never had the opportunity to see the school or their children performing magic had come to visit. On the other, the bigoted members of society decided that it was time to make their protest known against the changes and the visiting families.
The day started well. The families that had no access to floo travel had been given a portkey that took them to the gates of the school where carriages waited to bring them up to the school.
An exhibition quidditch match was played with mixed house teams, a demonstration by all year levels in charms and transfiguration and then lunch was served where students had a chance to introduce their families to their newly discovered relatives.
And that is when the trouble started.
When an obviously non-magical family sat down for lunch at the Slytherin table with a newly discovered cousin it became clear that not everyone was happy with the situation.
"Can anyone else smell that?" Cassius Warrington asked his classmates innocently as he pushed his plate away.
One of the other boys made a show of sniffing the air in the direction of the non-magicals. "Smells like mud scum to me." Adrian Pucey replied.
"Exactly. Who can eat with that stench here." Warrington said, standing up.
"Mr. Warrington, where are you going?" Professor Sinestra asked.
"Somewhere I don't have to suffer from the air pollution Professor." He replied politely.
"Please sit back down. There is nothing wrong here, except perhaps a bad attitude and lack of manners?"
"I do not wish to eat with those people, if you can even call them people!" Cassius exclaimed. "I am sick and tired of this. My family has avoided those sort of people for over twenty generations and now you are telling me to cuddle up to them? Give up my magic to be like them? No thank you! My ancestors would roll over in their graves." Several students murmured their agreement.
"Everyone here is either a student, teacher or invited guest that..."
"So what?!" Cassius yelled. "This is OUR school of magic and OUR magical world. I hate seeing my world contaminated by these… people! It's bad enough to have to deal with their freaks of nature that don't deserve to be among decent magicals, let alone being taught here. But I refuse to keep pretending that I am happy that my world is being destroyed. If you or anyone else here don't like that then go live like a muggle! Stop changing everything." He whined petulantly.
"Mr Warrington! I think that you fail to see the problem you are wanting to create." Professor Dumbledore said gently. "You see, we are here to educate ALL magical people, not just the select few that you feel are worthy of knowledge. We are trying to give ALL of you the information so that you do not have to be bound to our world if you choose. I, personally, don't care if someone is new to our world or if their family has attended Hogwarts for fifty generations. All will be treated equally. If I were to do what you suggested and only have students that have no non-magical ancestors whatsoever, then the school would be empty. All of us have a muggle ancestor somewhere on our family tree, even if it was a very long time ago.
"I can understand that you dislike the changes that have been made here, however, there is a time and place for airing such grievances. During the meal and in front of our invited guests is not one of them. You will serve detention with Professor Sinestra and myself for your outburst tonight and we will discuss this like rational people then. This is not for your words or opinions. It is for the disrespect that you are showing these guests today."
"Yes Professor." Warrington said sullenly as he sat down and sulked.
Professor Dumbledore walked back to the teachers table and faced the hall. "Despite that outburst, I believe that today has been a great success. As such, I am announcing that this will be a twice yearly event. It will be held at Halloween and again in March. I hope to see many of your families joining us then." He said before sitting and finishing his meal.
XXXXX
Hermione Granger had been thrilled to see her parents and even happier to see her Aunt Willow accompanying them. She would be able to get some answers!
Both of the Doctor's Granger were very happy to be able to see the school that their daughter had been waxing lyrical about all term. It was beautiful and, even to those with no magic, you could feel the magic in the air. Willow was happy to return to her old school and see her precious niece.
They had all been worried about a letter that had arrived a few days prior. Hermione was bullying other students about their homework? That didn't sound like their girl.
After meeting with Professor McGonagall and hearing Hermione's reasoning for her behavior, the adult Grangers turned to Hermione in surprise.
"Hermione, we encouraged you to study hard, yes. But when you had troubles socially, you took it on yourself to study more, to not play and so on. You never had friends to show you how to play like a child and we were too busy getting our dental business up and running in the early years to play with you. By the time we did have the time to play with you, you had no interest in it. That is why we so rarely do anything together. You never seem interested." Mr. Granger said
"We are proud of your high marks and want you to do well, but we still love you even if you fail. That is a part of life too." Mrs. Granger added.
"I know you will love me, but when I didn't get good marks in my last sports exam… Dad, you didn't talk to me for three days! And Mum, you just said try harder and walked away. What am I meant to think other than you were disappointed and didn't like me for not doing well?" Hermione cried.
"When was tha… Oh!" Mr. Granger said in realization. "Honey, that wasn't about you, I mean, I was trying to figure out how to deal with a new practice that was threatening ours. Not just undercutting our prices, but they had started to subtly threaten to destroy us by having us deregistered and worse. We tried to keep it from you to protect you from it all."
"Hermione, I agree with your father and will just say that you may know what you have learnt in your books but there is more to life than book learning. You need some lessons in life." Mrs. Granger said sadly.
"I agree." Professor McGonagall said. "I have restricted the amount of time that Hermione is allowed to study each day and I am also restricting the amount of 'help' she can give to others. Unfortunately, some have been taking advantage of her consistently good marks."
"But what am I supposed to do instead?" Hermione asked in confusion.
"There is plenty to do other than study. Read for fun, play a card or board game with the other students or just sit and talk about things that interest you all. Do you have any non-educational hobbies?" Professor McGonagall offered.
"No…" Was admitted reluctantly.
"Well then," Aunt Willow spoke up for the first time. "I have an idea that could be both fun and educational. What if you started making a list of your class mates and their families? Research how they live and where their magic comes from. When you have finished with your class, ask others the same questions and you could start to write a book about the differences in the families of the magical world. It would be more useful than that 'Pureblood' propaganda book 'Natures Nobility'."
Hermione smiled at the thought and nodded.
"Now that that is sorted," Aunt Willow said, "Why don't we take a walk and I can tell you a bit about our magical family? I seem to remember that there are a few portraits of some relatives here somewhere."
XXXXX
In mid-December the magical world was yet again rocked by the headlines of the Daily Prophet.
'Death Eater Terrorists Uncovered! Imperious Defense Debunked!' it cried.
But how had this been discovered?
After Peter Pettigrew's trial and sentencing, he had been taken to a holding cell and questioned extensively as the Wizengamot had ordered, as his initial questioning had been rushed due to time constraints.
One of the questions asked was if he had been imperioused to take the Dark Mark.
"It doesn't work like that. You have to truly believe in the cause and want to serve the Dark Lord for the Mark to stick. If you have any doubts or any disloyalty to the Dark Lord then it won't work and you would be killed." Peter had answered.
That started the ball rolling.
Amelia got the names of all Death Eaters that Pettigrew knew and quietly started to have them brought in for questioning, cursing the previous administration for their mishandling of the matter. 'What were they thinking?' she thought bitterly, after bringing in the twenty-fifth person. 'They probably were thinking with their bank balances!'
Simultaneous raids on so many houses was draining to say the least. But by early December they were ready to start prosecuting the 'alleged' criminals.
Lucius Malfoy awoke in a holding cell. He recognized the room from his many tours of the ministry. Only, on that occasion he had been on the other side of the door and able to walk away.
He had no memory of arriving there and was, understandably, confused. The last thing he remembered was leaving his new house and then… Here.
'Crap!' He thought grumpily. 'I would bet anything that Black is behind this.'
Musing over Black annulling his marriage, evicting him from his home (seeing the aurors there he had just apparated away without packing anything) and confiscating so much of his wealth. By doing so, it had forced him to live in a hovel that Lucius didn't even think fit to house his house elves. And then that little chit demanding to be his heir for the foreseeable future… Lucius sighed. After several days of solitude, he was finally honest enough with himself to realize that he was the only person could be blamed for his situation. He had wagered and lost. Now it was a matter of if he would live long enough to try again.
XXXXX
In the following days the headlines kept the community up to date with the shocking news that it had been confirmed that many prominent citizens were, in fact, criminals. It would be a very solemn Christmas for many students.
Time and life, however, continued to move forward.
Over the next few months the school for non-magical students opened and was an instant success.
The idea of having their children limited to only a small fraction of the world because of ignorance was repugnant to many parents after the new non-magical studies class was shown to them. Most wanted to see what else the wider world could offer their children in the future and pushed for more classes to help them all to integrate.
The Ministry for Magic actually took notice of the growing distrust from the voting population and began a voluntary employment evaluation review of themselves based on job knowledge and competence, not just their 'Blood purity'. It did lead to some redundancies but also led to better people being hired on merit. Cronyism in the ministry was soon a distant bad memory.
The accused Death Eaters were given fair trials using truth serum and most were convicted and sentenced to prisons for various lengths of time, the minimum being ten years. The remaining families were cleared of wrongdoing and lived their lives as best they could.
Professor Quirill, who had been hosting the shade of Voldemort, was scared. He had tried to object to all of the changes with no real success. He watched helplessly as his followers were arrested and he had no power to gain more. The situation was, to him, untenable.
So on the orders of Voldemort the possessed man made a final stand. At dinner on the final night of term Quirill stood and allowed his master to take complete control of his body. Several students were struck with curses before the teachers banded together and captured them both. The last anyone ever publicly knew was that the Department of Mysteried had taken them away.
And for years the Magical world continued to grow and prosper.