CHAPTER 11: SEVEN YEARS IN HEAVEN
Wizarding England had slowly but surely reinvented itself, despite the best efforts of Lord Malfoy and Dumbledore to prevent changes. Black Mod had managed to slip the newly developing Muggle Born Division of the muggle government under their noses.
The muggle-born who had returned to the mainstream world now handled the accidental magics and muggle born children's protection and education entirely. Black Mod Enterprises was a legitimate business conglomerate operating rather successfully in the Muggle world as well as the Wizarding English Isles.
Their education division, Black Mod Primary was a school operating entirely in the muggle world; it provided training and education facilities for children of muggle background. But many of the Grey families had begun to send their children there. It started as a political show of faith but soon the youngsters were educating their families about the muggle world. Starting from ages as young as four, magical children were being schooled all the way to ages of ten, resuming their studies at seventeen to blend into the muggle society.
Parents were informed earlier than Hogwarts normally practiced and better prepared to handle magical tantrums, illnesses, maladies and special needs. Their muggle born division in the Children's welfare department monitored the families and intervened in situations of medical emergencies and the rare but present, cases of abuse.
They had to mount an occasional rescue for an abused or orphaned child who was nearly always blood adopted and absorbed into grey families with nary a word to elicit public attentions. In the past five years, they had discovered and rescued no less than seven children, all absorbed into the wizarding world, with none of the persnickety factions even getting a hint of it.
Ministry was involved only as far as the corresponding department heads being in the know but sworn to secrecy with their associates completely unaware.
Minister Montgomery had a brilliant first term as the minister, with unprecedented peace and new business and growing real estate in his first five years. He had started his second term in office, rather pleased to announce a pleasant peak in population, economy and business, indicating an overall progress in their society.
Products cultivated and processed in the greenhouses and manufacturing units run by the wolf packs were at an all time high demand, although the vendors assumed they came from the Black and Longbottom farms. The profits were often pumped back in, catering to the needs of their communities. That was how a chain of mini-clinics had cropped up all over the country, operating seamlessly, handling most health concerns for the so-called marginalized members of the society.
Traditional properties and villages had slowly been absorbed into gated, warded communities that were locked up as tight as the Goblin Vaults. Businesses had slowly split their operations from exclusivity at traditional points like Diagon Alley to sharing sale points within protected gated communities, buildings that looked like regular muggle office spaces from outside as well as private properties.
Diagon Alley still continued as a charming retro style place to shop, mesmerize and be a lost tourist in. Gringotts still had their branch there, and that alone brought a lot of foot traffic to the shops thereabouts.
But Life in Wizarding England had slowly changed while people weren't looking. Even fashions had slowly evolved in such a way that, wizards could freely wander the muggle streets and only their reactions of shock and bewilderment would make them stand out in a crowd. Most wizarding fashion had gradually begun to make the wearer look like posh, elegant, theatre goers on weekends.
The grunge look had been a huge hit with the wizarding teens, as had muggle music and fiction. Technomancy was being introduced and slowly machinery, technology and enchanted mirror callers were planned to replace knee-cracking floo calls although floo travel had retained its purpose and popularity. Mirrors were presently inhibited by physical distance and Aiden and Cassie had taken it on as a project, going much further than the marauders ever imagined.
All residential communities leased by Black Mod Enterprises boasted bicycles and charmingly old fashioned horse drawn carriages for public use. Any passing muggles would consider such communities like a green conscious, slightly Amish group who believed in healthier and simpler lives.
Wizards and witches would floo into floo reception halls assigned to any community block and, from there, rent a bicycle or a carriage manned by squibs assigned to each community, for personal use to travel to muggle towns and cities nearest.
Elves would ensure maintenance and return of the bikes and carriages to the nearest community centers. The muggles never detected anything different.
Parents of newly discovered muggle born children were directed to any of these properties nearest to their own residence and invited on a cross country tour and shopping expedition. Not only did this bring in more revenue, it added a color and zing to their first experience of the magical community. Unlike the Diagon Alley, muggle born kids or their muggle parents weren't treated with scorn but mostly indifferent welcome.
It was an excellent time to be a minister. England was shaping up into a veritable heaven for magicals and Felix was proud to have had a part in shaping it thus.
Aiden and Neville were growing into quite the daredevils. There were large intervals when Aiden completely forgot his past life and fully merged into being a rambunctious little rapscallion.
In a moment of utter madness, Arcturus and Frank had the bright idea of introducing two mischievous boys with extraordinarily high magical core indices to brooms and snitches. Alice, Augusta and Wallie had begun to grow immune to the weekly injuries and just shake their heads in bewilderment at the foolishness of the males of their species.
Dobby was just as bad. Kreacher, Maggie and Ivy had begun to trot after the two little imps like their shadows, ready to intervene at the drop of a feather.
Secretly, the adults had been rather proud however, of their accomplishments. Neville had taken to spend a nearly unhealthy amount of time in the greenhouses, without the lure of quidditch, and Aiden and his potions were no better. So, hair-raisingly wild games and these semi-dangerous maneuvers were an unexpected grounding.
It was a thrill to watch Aiden and Neville engage in intelligent banter with full grown werewolf adults about the merits of drip irrigation and grafting and pH balance of the soil when mixed with dragon manure. But the children had to experience being children too. It wasn't very often that they could freely mingle with the other kids of the alliance.
It was just as fascinating to observe the little rapscallions charm an Eskimo into buying ice. Growing up surrounded by old souls, both the boys had taken to thinking and approaching everything and everyone with a whimsy of adult maturity, old school charm, sharp wit, and observation skills to match. The after dinner hours of chess, political discussions and everyone eagerly pontificating on theories of magic were a much favored time for the whole family.
But their days were spent training hard in combat, magical core enhancement exercises, mental acuity enhancement tests and reading and discussing magic, politics, business, economics and ethics, with history and news from every corner of the world. The monthly grey Alliance Ceilidh had given them a chance to develop a strong network of friends, ready-made support system for when they would eventually attend Hogwarts.
The Black Hall Ceilidhs had become all the rage ever since the first Summer solstice of 1982 and the informal, noisy and energetic party spirit had become a great way to hold covert discussions as much as simply get together and deepen their friendship and camaraderie through light hearted fun.
The only dark times had been the passing of Walburga in her sleep one quiet Autumn night in 1986, uncomfortably close to samhain.
Aiden and Neville had been hollow eyed with grief as they had been the closest to her. She had been the fun gran, always ready with wicked jokes and endless prank ideas, some of which were near impossible to undo.
But that too passed and Alice took over Wallie's share of responsibilities at Black Mod while her share in the business reverted to Black Family Holdings, under Aiden's inheritance assets. Wallie's portrait had come alive a week after her passing, and life continued in the castle as hectic and exciting as always.
Eight years had slipped by like a slice of heaven as the two boys grew up in a castle full of love, and strengthening themselves on the finest training and tutors they could find. Neither boy attended the Black Mod Primary although they visited frequently until Aiden had a panic attack on campus when he had been seven and half.
The day after their seventh birthday party had seen a drastic shift in the tone of life around them. The upcoming war was slowly beginning to remind them of its silent presence in the background. Alice had vanished for a week only to return, hard eyed and angry. Aiden remembered that Alice would have received his letter, discovered his true identity, and the full extent of the perfidies of Albus Dumbledore.
He had wondered if she would share the news with Frank and Augusta, but weeks passed by with no change in the demeanor of the latter two and he concluded that Alice had kept her own counsel. He approached her one night, when she came to tuck him in and bluntly asked if it really mattered to Mama Alice if he were Aiden or Harry.
He pointed out that even Grandfather who never had his memories hidden like Mama Alice, had forgotten that Aiden had once been Harry. Aiden himself no longer thought of himself as Harry. Alice had hugged him fiercely and said love needed no name to be love, and Aiden or Harry, he would be her boy just as much as Neville was. That would never change. And that had been the end of that vein of thought.
The topic was never raised between them again for the next couple of years. Aiden had mentioned the incident to Grandfather Arcturus who had then invited Alice to join their discussions. Their focus now had shifted, thanks to involvement from Alice. From rebuilding the English Wizardry at a mad pace they had turned their attentions to gathering the horcruxes.
Aiden was of the opinion that they shouldn't be destroyed blindly but stored securely until the right time. By the previous timeline, Voldemort had been lured to Hogwarts by Dumbledore planting a Sorcerer's Stone at the school. Nagini had been made after the first year incident at the very least, not before.
And they set to resource hunting and gathering.
Every other horcrux except the diary, it had fortunately turned out, had been spectacularly easy to recall through the skillful stealth of Dobby and Kreacher. Even accessing the property at Little Hangleton had been a tricky but rather profitable business in the end. Without actively provoking the suspicions of the old man Dumbledore, especially.
The spook factor of multiple murders had de-valued the property as rather undesirable and Arcturus had been able to pass it off as a great steal for quality land right over a previously undetected lei-line. Since the Blacks had already been acquiring property all over the country, building gated communities and leasing it out to witches and wizards, sometimes selling as well, this purchase did not raise any dark flags.
Although Dumbledore had bemoaned the loss of a known bolt-hole for the dark wizard. Every rant from the headmaster was masterfully reported by the portrait of Phineas Black who was witness to practically every scheme that Dumbledore concocted from his office at Hogwarts.
Lord Black had acquired the lands around Little Hangleton, and under the pretext of building a gated community, had dug up, de-warded and de-cursed the entire length and breadth of the sixty hectare land and created a protected woodland and orchard and introduced lesser creatures of magical and non-magical origins.
The woods became a beautiful haunt for does, hogs, rabbits, unicorns and gryphons and many, many other creatures. Little Fae settlements turned magically grown trees into Dryads and Naiads. It became a delightful, enchanted forest as well as a great picnic spot for a right price. Vampires and Werewolves took turns guarding the property from any and all invasions.
It took Kreacher four months of courting a female elf in the Malfoy household to gain access to their property and Aiden had been right to guess that Malfoy had strong wards around this dark artifacts but nothing to protect the space against elf magicks.
And just like that, the Riddle diary was now in their possession. The Diadem had been just as easy enough to re-call given that Aiden was the heir to two founding lines; Hogwarts elves had been eager to offer all kinds of help. The cup and the Locket were already in their possession.
Everything recovered from the Hangleton property had been carefully sorted and not even staff working on the project noticed as a ring was removed from the pile and deposited with other horcruxes in a strong-room deep inside the bowels of the Black castle dungeons. Each horcrux had been individually wrapped in acromantula silk and stored in separate compartments of a pure iron strongbox to completely suppress the oppressive black aura.
Even with so many precautions to protect them from the influence of potently evil magickes, Alice and Neville, the lightest of all the residents in the Black castle, had begun to feel the effects of the vile things buried deep in their property.
Finally, Arcturus discussed the problem with Ragnok and together they agreed to create a vault just to store dark artifacts under specifically created magic suppression wards and the strongest protective runes they could draw.
Lady Hadhes offered to add her own protective enchantments to keep the things from affecting Goblins as well. That would be as secure as secure could get, and the foursome was thankful that the Celestial Sisters continued to watch, support, help and train them.
Each passing day, the aspirations of the Celestial Sisters had begun to look more and easier to accomplish. But everything wasn't smooth as Elysian Fields in the coming days.