It was while they were eating breakfast that Hermione did some mental arithmetic with the dates, "Harry, you know it was your birthday last Saturday don't you."
"Huh? So it was."
"Doesn't it bother you?"
"No, why would it?"
"It's your birthday, you're supposed to have parties and presents."
"Last year was the first time I remember celebrating my birthday, and it was fun but it was also very expensive."
"Right, that's it, you're doing your bra shopping at the weekend, I'm going to contact some of the girls and Karen and see if they can come too and we'll turn it into your birthday party and a bra shopping experience. I know that Petunia isn't around, but that doesn't mean you can't have fun. Maybe we can have the party here so that Lily can be involved too."
"I'd like that thank you." Lily said.
"Yes Mione.", Harry acquiesces.
"If you were anyone else, you'd be getting hexed for saying that name."
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Sirius's came out of his house, and wasn't that a strange thing, he actually had a house that he could call his own in a magical area. What caught his attention was the coach that had drawn up on the other side of the road. Currently it was disgorging a load of young men and women. A woman with sky blue hair caught his eye as she struggled with a large suitcase.
Sauntering over, he pulled his wand, "Do you need a hand with that Miss?"
"Oh, would you mind, I'm Victoria. They've told me I'm going to be living in number 13."
"Certainly my lady, I believe it's this way." With a swish of his wand her suitcase was bobbing along behind them as he led her down the street to her new home.
"My name is Sirius, though you'll find I very rarely live up to that name."
She eyes the suitcase suspiciously, "Erm, pleased to meet you?"
"Would you like me to introduce you to Lily once you're settled. She and Harry live next door to me, and they've got guests staying to look after them. I'm sure you'll meet them. While the Library is open, we don't yet have enough people living here for any of the shops to be open yet. However, they've set up an apparition point in Guildford if you want to do any shopping. You can also Floo to the Leaky Cauldron if you want to visit London.
"Well, here we are, is there anywhere you'd like your suitcase?", with another flick of his wand the door opened for them.
"Oh, um, on the landing upstairs?"
As he sent the suitcase upstairs she tried the lights in the hall, to find none of them turned on.
"No lights yet, huh?" Sirius commented,
"Doesn't look like it."
"Come on then, I'll introduce you to Lily, and if the others are around them too."
Numbly, but hiding it well, she follows the man that can make things happen with a wave of a stick. When they said they were sending them out on a special assignment, and that they needed to keep an open mind, she certainly wasn't thinking that it needed to be this open. She wasn't ruling out drugs just yet, but from what she'd heard this was a little too coherent for most psychedelics.
When they arrived at number 4, Sirius rang the doorbell. A moment later a ghost appeared next to them.
"Afternoon, Sirius, it's unlike you to ring the bell."
"Lily, I'd like you to meet one of our new neighbours. Victoria, this is Lily Potter. Temporarily disembodied, though we're hoping that can be rectified at some point. I just helped her get her suitcase to her house, but the electricity isn't working yet. So I figured that I'd introduce her to you and blag a cup of tea."
Victoria tried to decide how best to greet a ghost, and settled for a slight bow, "Um, pleased to meet you?"
"So, Sirius, your offer to help had absolutely nothing to do with the fact she's quite pretty and has blue hair then."
"No, of course not." He replies with an expression that clearly says that's precisely why he noticed her.
Victoria decided to take it as a compliment, "Regardless of his reasons, he was a perfect gentleman, and even gave me a little information about the area."
"Well, come on in. We'll need to sit in the dining room as it's the elflings time in the living room. Unless you particularly like watching Sesame Street that is. What do you like, tea, coffee?"
"Erm, tea please Mrs Potter."
"Lily, please."
Sirius opened the door with a wave of his stick.
As they're sitting down chatting over a pot of tea, a teenager with blond hair walks in through the back door.
"Hi Lily, are Harry and Hermione around?"
"They went to the library earlier, before you go, do you want to see if your Mum and Astoria would like to go Bra shopping on Saturday, and also make it a birthday outing finishing up here, as it was his birthday last weekend."
"It was?" She ticks the days off on her fingers,
"So it was, sure I'll be right back."
She promptly disappears, and Victoria can't help but gape.
"I take it that means you're not actually magical." Lily says holding her hand up to forestall Sirius's reaction.
"Er, No? I'm a junior ambassador and we've all applied for a new position opening up."
"Oh, yes, I'd heard about that. I guess this is the first stage of your interview process then. Welcome to Little Whinging, the first purely magical settlement in 160 years." While she was saying that Lily flashed her wards twice to indicated that she wanted to talk to someone important, but it wasn't urgent.
"What was that light?"
"I can't actually use the phone or leave this area, so we've arranged a code for when I want to talk to someone, a bit like a pager. Oh and video cameras don't work around me either."
Sirius joins in, "I hadn't heard about that Lil's. Any idea why?"
They think it's to do with the fact that I'm made of very concentrated magic, so I can't get to close to the TV in the front room either otherwise it starts doing strange things. They're currently looking for some scientists that are allowed to know about this to try and work out what's actually going on."
Victoria gets over her surprise at seeing someone just disappear, "Ok, there's obviously more going on than we've been told, which is normal. However, I feel lost here."
Sirius turns to her, "There is one fact that you need to accept, and it will make everything easier. Magic is real, and it always has been. Back in the 16th century we lived side by side, although even then we were drawing into our own communities. Over the next hundred years the church started hunting and killing us. Oh, they got far more innocent people than they caught magicals, but that's only because we've always been a far smaller population than non-magicals. Because of this we started to develop spells to hide our presence from your people. In 1692 the convocation of warlocks and wizards, as it was known then, passed a worldwide law that we now know as the Statute of Secrecy. In the following year we separated from the non-magical world completely, and also removed any direct evidence to our existence. From what I've seen over the last week or so, we seriously need to start updating our protections as we won't be able to rely on magical interference on electronics forever."
"How did you know all of that?" Lily asks.
"You know what my home life was like before I moved in with James. I spent as much time as I could out of the way, which meant either the Library or my room."
"I'm sorry, I forgot." Lily lays her hand over his shoulder.
Victoria starts a question, "So, why would they be bringing a load of Junior Ambassadors here if… Oh. But this should be a job for a more experienced Ambassador."
"Not if they're expecting you to be part of this new community. And I mean an active part.", says lily.
Sirius looks confused, "Wait, how could she be part of this community?"
"Petunia, Karen, and Dudley were all non-magical a couple of years ago."
"Oh. Oh! Shit, they really don't want that getting out into the wider magical world."
Victoria asks, "Why wouldn't they? Wouldn't it be amazing news for your people that they could bring non-magicals into their world?"
"You'd think that, but there are quite powerful sections of our society that believe in magical superiority, and that magic is inherent in our blood. These are the same people that believe that muggleborns steal magic from the established families. If this knowledge becomes widely known, it could well spark a new wizarding war, this time one that seriously threatens the statute."
"So, a bit like racism then?"
Lily adds, "I don't know what it's like now, but if it's anything like it was in the 70's that would be a good comparison. Except add on that there's now a way to make the 'Wogs' that came over to drive our busses into white lords."
"I'm not familiar with that word."
"You shouldn't be, it's an old racist term that people of my grandparent's generation, and the older people in my parent's generation used to describe people of African descent. Much like muggle is actually a racist term, even though it's accepted as the normal vocabulary in the wizarding world. You may be familiar with the Gollywog. When Harry was born people were just starting to object to their existence, claiming that they're racist. Which looking back I can see why, as it's akin to blackface except for dolls and children's stories."
"You talk like you lived through the 70s, but you can't be older than me."
"That's because I've been dead for 11 years."
While Victoria's brain was rebooting, Sirius said, "You know, I had a similar reaction when I found out too."
"You were dead?"
"Yep!" Lily says cheerfully.
"But how?"
"You don't know enough to understand, but suffice to say it was a ritual that I undertook willingly."
The teenager reappears in the Dining room, "Mum said sure, she's looking forward to it, though she'll need some help picking out a wardrobe. I'm off to the library."
And then disappears again.
"Sirius, who owns your old family house?" Lily asks.
"You know, I really don't know. One mo. let's find out. Kretcher!"
With a pop a, what did she call them… House-elf, appeared.
"Blood-traitor master calls for Kretcher?"
"Yes, who owns Grimmauld place these days?" A quiet pop sounds as the house-elf from the front room appears behind him while Sirius is talking.
"You do master." Kretcher grinds out.
"Why is Kretcher speaking so disrespectfully to his bonded?" the ancient looking elf behind him says.
"Revered Matriarch, Kretcher not know you's here. Kretcher has not been bonded for 7 years."
"What sort of bond would Kretcher like? Or like being free?"
"Kretcher family elf, want family bond."
"I thought you were bound to the family?" Sirius says with a questioning tone.
"Black family not trust family bond, always personal bond passed on to different family heads."
Sirius puts his head in his hands, "I don't know, I just don't know. I… You were a large part of the abuse I went through as a child, and I've been out of Azkaban for less than a month. I don't even know what a family bond is."
It looked like he was about to say something very cutting, but he glances up at Lily before changing it to something less biting, though his tone is still bitter and more than a little acrimonious.
Kneeling down in front of Kretcher, Lily speaks to him kindly, "Kretcher, I've learnt a lot about house elves since I came back, you must have been suffering badly stuck at Grimmauld Place. I know you want a family, but I don't think either of you are ready for the talk that needs to happen before that can happen. Would you consent to going to Hogwarts and asking the elves there to show you to the Sanctuary. If you're worried about your house, you can ask the elves there if they would mind looking after it for you while you recover. Then in September when you've both had a chance to heal you can come back here and talk with myself and maybe Sirius' mind healer to come to an agreement."
"Bright Lady… Lily speaks right. You heal in Sanctuary then decide." The matriarch changes her term of address when Lily glares at her.
Sirius says brokenly, "Go on. She's right. I… I'm more than a little broken at the moment. So, go, do your own healing and I'll do more of my own. I'll see you in September."
"Kretcher will. Heal well blood traitor master." Kretcher disappears with a pop when he finishes talking.
Victoria looks at everyone confused, "So, what you're an escaped convict?"
"I prefer to say that I removed myself from my involuntary confinement."
Lily pointedly clears up any possible confusion, "What Sirius is trying to deflect from is that he was wrongfully imprisoned without trial and now has political asylum from his own government. I am a witness to show that at least one of the crimes that he was accused of was manifestly false."
"Yeah, that."
Victoria looks at him sympathetically, "While I've not had to deal with that sort of case, we're all required to read about them, and how other Ambassadors resolved the situation. I'm sorry that it happened to you."
"Yeah, well that's our government for you. 'Need to be seen to be doing something'. Doesn't help that there's just so many ways to hide the fact that a crime's even taken place. I was a decorated Auror, police officer, before they threw me away. Both James and I were.
"No, because I was only 3rd in line for the Black family I didn't matter." He laughs bitterly.
"Even the Death Eaters got a trial, farcical as it was for most of them. Bella wouldn't shut up about how most of them got declared innocent because 'They were under the imperious curse'." Lily's expression which was patient and understanding turns black.
"Sirius, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but would we be able to put this conversation on hold until Sir Connolly gets here. As there is absolutely no fucking way that Malfoy or Nott were imperioused."
A little intimidated, Victoria asks, "Just for context, who were the Death Eaters?"
Lily sneers, "Think IRA Nazi's and you won't be far off."
A few minutes later Sir Connolly and a few police officers charged in the back door.
"What's the emergency." He panted.
"Sirius just brought up some very important information that you need to know, and probably have recorded."
Victoria puts her hand on Sirius' and speaks gently taking the position as his advocate automatically, "Would you be able to start from where you were talking about how your government needs to be doing something, I promise that no matter what, I won't let them take you or hand you back to your government."
Taking strength from her support, Sirius starts again, "Erm, I think I said something like, 'That's our government for you. Always need to be seen doing something.' Right?"
"That's right, you then told us how you used to be an Auror."
Sirius' eyes go distant as he falls back into his memories, "Oh yes, both James and I were. We brought in a lot of Death Eaters over the 3 years we were active. Most of them were freed or released though, friends in high places and Voldemort you see. It didn't help that there's so many ways to cover up a crime in the magical world, commit a murder, turn the body into a log and warm yourself by the bonfire. Buy the time the transfiguration wears off the body is spread so far and wide and also burnt beyond all recognition that it's impossible to tell that it was even there. Or you could turn it into a bone and bury it under a tree. Hell do a Barty Crouch and Polyjuice your dying wife and swap her for her son and just walk out with the prisoner. I heard her crying out praying that Barty had made it out safe before she died. Weirdest thing ever when you hear that in the wrong voice. Then there were the screams when the dementors came and she felt their terror and changed her mind. She died calling for her husband saying she'd changed her mind and she didn't want to die. I guess her body gave out too, as they carried out a dead body that looked like Barty Jr. But we all knew. Oh, yes, we all knew." He laughs bitterly and brokenly.
"It's not like Jr got off lightly though, she had that glazed look in her eyes that you never forget once you've seen it on one of your teammates before they throw a cutting curse at your head. The worst of the unforgivables, the Imperious curse. It was war time, so we all had to have it cast on us once so that we could recognise it and try to fight it off. But there's no defence against it except willpower. Even the weakest wizard could control Dumbledore if they could cast it on him and they had more willpower than he did. Makes you feel high as a kite and like you're in a dream as your body does and says things on its own. Some people say you can learn to fight it off, me I think that you either can or you can't. I think it was Rodolphus that said that a lot of the Death Eaters were pleading the Imperious curse and being declared innocent. Apparently, St Mungo's got a brand-new wing just before Malfoy's trial. Convenient that.
"But here's me, 3rd in line to the Black family thus not actually important enough to warrant even the farce of a trial given that Grandfather Arcturus was ailing and no longer had the political power to rain on anyone's day, let alone defend someone that was widely considered to be scum. It didn't help that my dear old mother, may she rot in peace, blasted my name from the family tapestry. Though given that the house is now mine, Grandfather can't have
made it official. It also means that he's dead, and I'm the last Black by name.
"Morgana, they didn't even have the decency to tell us."
"It's Ok Sirius, we'll make some enquiries and find out what happened to him OK?"
"Thank you."
Sir Connolly checks his notes and coughs lightly before speaking, "I know that this is hard, but you said that a lot of the Death Eaters got off by pleading the Imperious Curse, why would this be the case?"
Victoria added, "You don't have to answer if you don't feel up to it, we can always come back to it another day."
Sirius gave her a wan smile, "No, it's ok, better to get it out of the way now. It's because there's no legally admissible method of proving that they were wrong. That's not quite true, there are, but it either requires the defendant to be willing to submit to it, or for a majority of the court to vote that it is used. Even then, whether it's truth serum or unbreakable vow, you can't guarantee that what they say matches with the facts, only that they believe it to be true.
"Couple that with the fact that the truth serum ensures that you answer any question put to you, but someone with good enough occlumency can give half answers, there's also a potion you can take that reduces the effect for a day or so. Nobody ever votes for the potion to be given, as the court is the Wizengamot, and none of them ever want to run the risk that awkward questions could be asked while they're under the effects of the potion. The unbreakable vow can only ever be taken voluntarily and has the same inherent problems as the potion.
"We used to use the potion in interrogations if the suspect was uncooperative, but the transcript was then treated as Hearsay. You can probably understand why when magic can be used to create, modify and erase memories."
Looking back at his notes, Sir Connolly asks, "You said that the imperious was the worst of the unforgivables, what were the others?"
Lily answers before Sirius can, in order to give him a break, "The Torture Curse, it causes unimaginable pain without leaving a single mark on the body. Too much exposure has been known to drive people into permanent unconsciousness or even insanity.
"Finally, the least worst, or the worst depending on your point of view, the Killing Curse, and the only one of the three that every magical knows the incantation for, Avada Kedavra. This is because you can't actually cast it unless you mean it, and like the other two curses, it's completely unblockable by magical means. Put something in the way or dodge and you're fine. As to what it does, it kills you, that's it. You're just dead, your body will live for a while longer, but you won't. It's like the Dementors kiss in a spell."
"I think that we need to conclude this interview for today as both of them are clearly distressed and need time to recover." Victoria interjects
"Very well Miss?" says Sir Connolly
"Miss Morris, Victoria Morris."
He makes a note, "Very well Miss Morris, I'll leave these two in your care and get back to the paperwork. Good job."
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"This is impossible." One of the ICW examiners said throwing down his wand and the work onto the desk.
"Hardly, you've seen the memory, Flitwick was doing it with a wand in the dining room. Are you going to tell me that he is better than the ICW charms examiner? Or how about that first year that was in the Daily Prophet?" Joanne said with exasperation.
"Yes dammit, I can't even thread the flaming needle."
"I've done it, I've done it!" came a cheer from the DADA examiner, who was levitating a threaded needle.