A/N: I have no idea what magical plays are like, so i will just summarize since I will start after the first task of the magic vs muggle style competition. Basically Hermione did her best to put on Macbeth by Shakespeare, as a classic everyone should love, and if you can't tell, me myself and I , aka the author, fits into the category of the two shakespeare plays I have already read are more than enough for a lifetime (well, I read Julius Caesar, my 7th grade class acted it out. Romeo and Juliet I used sparknotes for).
This is also the chapter where things start really going AU.
Update: I decided to change where the story is going, so this chapter has been updated. Some of the big reveals that were previously here no longer apply. So please re-read otherwise things will be confusing. I did edit out a big chunk of Aberforth's story as well. And made sure stuff from the previous chapters also matches up. BUt it's not very big there, but it is in this chapter.
Hermione was so mad, it won't even describeable anymore. This was not how it was supposed to go. This foreign girl had just barged in and started showing off. Bluffing or not, this was not fair. Hermione was the brightest witch of her age and she would rather have a meet and greet with fluffy than admit defeat to someone else, even if she had so much more training. She took back everything she had said about them when they arrived, She didn't want to learn anything from these foreigners. Hogwarts was good, thank you very much, At least here, when Malfoy called her a mudblood, even if he didn't get punished it was obvious to everyone except him that by ignoring him she had the moral high ground. Here, Grey was considered so high and mighty. Why? She got Sirius away from the ministry to a country without extradition treaties with britain. Anyone could do that by throwing Harry's name and a few galleons around interchangeably. But then, at the first show-down task Hermione had chosen, she had been beat again. How was she supposed to know that magiclas didn't have established theatres because a talented 17 year old witch could get a magical device that took the memory of a group of people who made a play, and put it into something called a projector pensieve and have everyone watch that, no effort required. It just wasn't fair!
Harry was supposed to stand up for her, possibly Ron, depending on whether or not his jealousy flared up. Then they would just take the moral high ground, ignore the foreigners, especially those overly proud French, who cared that the Flamels had founded beauxbatons? Then, together, they would use some kind of convoluted logic that would never make sense to the purebloods, who were below her intellect anyways, and modernize the wizarding world by using muggle technology, because muggles were far superior. Everybody knew that, the purebloods were just scared to admit it.
She huffed again. Now, things just weren't right. She would just have to wait until the next task. Maybe her dad could get some professional scuba gear and jetpacks for the underwater and aerial obstacle course. It wasn't as if these outdated purebloods could fly without broomsticks, which she could just destroy with a knife near instantaneously. They would regret crossing the smartest witch of her age.
After the play, it was extremely obvious who had come ahead in that competition. While Hermione kept huffing and puffing all the way up to the castle, the audience dispersed to enjoy the wonders of Hogsmeade. The group that Regina had given front row seats to, mainly her international friend group meandered over to Rosmerta's pub. Following Regina Grey were Leo Black, Nym Tonks, Chadwick Calderon-Boot, Josephine Estrelle, Viktor Krum, with the recent additions of Fleur Delacour, Cedric Diggory, Harry Potter, Ron and Ginny Weasley,, Roger Davis and his Slytherin sister Tracey, as well as a personally invited Neville Longbottom.
Entering the Three Broomsticks, Regina walked up to Rosmerta, and got the group a private room in the back, overflowing with lunch, as well as a bottle of firewhiskey ad butterbeer for the younger ones. Magicals may have a dozen times the alcohol tolerance of muggles (hence the serving of very low proof beer to teenagers) but Ogden's Firewhiskey had proof high enough to get a muggle drunk after a single shot.
The group settled into the room, conversation springing up. Neville Longbottom approached Regina Grey. "Grey… Where did you get those photos? That's the first I've seen of photos of my parent's Hogwarts days."
"Really? I just gemino-ed an old photo album I had. I gave it to you because, well, most of those photos I knew you wouldn't have, they were my mother's. It's my mother's old photo album, she was dormmates and best friends with Alice Fortescue, and from what I remember her telling me, she was childhood friends with your father, something about family alliances. I don't remember that bit for sure." she mused.
Neville furrowed his brows, talking to the older girl. "What was your mother's birth family? Gran taught me about some of the family alliances.""
"Selwyn. My mother was born Amara Selwyn"
Neville nodded. "Gran said we've been allied with the Selwyn family on the wizengamot for ages, until the last branch left the country."
"As you can tell by the fact I'm an Ilvermorny student and not already in Hogwarts, she left for America. Was practically adopted by my paternal grandmother, from what I've heard, made the mistake of coming back here about five years ago." She shook her head, and then reinforced her occlumency shields. Her father was right, emotions were to be left out only in privacy, especially in britain. She just hoped coming back here wouldn't have the same results for her as it was for her mother.
Neville caught the slight reinforcement of her occlumency. His gran did the same whenever he asked about his parents, his father especially. He moved around to socialize with the other students. After a while, Regina walked up to Chadwick.
"Chad, did you forget we were going to visit Uncle Abe?" His eyes widened. He had forgotten before Regina had reminded him. The youngest of the group, however, was listening in. Ginny Wealsley, for all she was sneaky and could listen in on conversations inconspicuously, was still very much a Gryffindor, with all the short patience that comes along with it.
"Chad, you never told me that you had family here. I thought you were American, born and bred?" she asked her new friend, parroting back words he had told her before.
"Ginny," he sighed.
"Come on! What kind of family do you have here that is so important to keep a secret?"
"Ginny, fine, you can come, but certain things might be mentioned that you have to promise you won't mention. There are secrets that could ruin a certain very influential person, and they will come out, but the timing has to be just right. It's probably the reason we came here, not the tournament, but a certain person has a few dark secrets that will come back to haunt him, but to do it without nasty repercussions for us, we can't have these things spreading beforehand."
Ginny nodded. "I promise. My curiosity can be sated without needless gossip. I'm not like Brown Vane or any of those other rumor mill queens."
Chadwick sighed. In the short time he knew her, he realized that if they didn't let her come, Ginny would follow anyways.
A few minutes later, when Regina bought another round of butterbeer for everyone and the three snuck away during all the partying, walking out of the three broomsticks, until they left the anti-apparition wards, then Regina side-apprated with Ginny and Chadwick followed as they made their way down the street. They landed right outside the wards of a creepy-looking pub whose decrepit sign proclaimed it to be the Hog's Head. Looking extremely out of place, the three students nevertheless entered the pub. At the front, there was a girl in her early teens and Ravenclaw robes with shining platinum blonde hair talking to an older man with closely cropped grey hair and a short beard. Regina smiled. The exact people she had come to meet were there, and there were no other customers there at the moment.
A smile spread on her face as she sped up, walking to the bar counter where the two were talking. "Lu, Uncle Abe! Both of you are here, what are the chances!"
Luna Lovegood rushed into Regina's arms into a tight hug. When the hug ended, Luna smiled when she saw her neighbor and childhood friend at the entrance to the bar and swept Ginny into an equally enthusiastic hug. Regina smiled at her great-uncle and hugged him as well. "I missed you Uncle Abe. And you and grandma were right about Albus. Ugh." she cringed. Ginny had already ended her hug with Luna and walked up to the reunion.
"Hello, I'm Ginny Weasley."
Abe shook her hand. "Aberforth Dumbledore"
Ginny had a look of surprise on her face. "Any relation to…"
"Don't mention that traitor, please. My brother, yes, wish that were false."
Ginny was confused, but decided to stay silent for now. She had never known Albus Dumbledore had any siblings. Or any family for the matter. They switched to more benign topics, but afterwards, after they left, Ginny couldn't bear it anymore.
She asked Chadwick to tell her why nobody in the general public knew that the Headmaster had , hearing, decided to tell her.
"Ginny, let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, well, in the end of the last century, there were three siblings. When she was but six years old, the youngest, Ariana, was playing with some muggles near her home, and when she showed them some magic, being a powerful witch, she could exercise a measure of control over her magic, instead of having it come out accidentally. But the muggles, when she tried to teach them, being too young to realize that they did not have the capability for magic, they tried to replicate her feats. The next day they were playing, she tried again. But some of the older teenage boys, who were playing nearby, got upset that she was teaching their younger siblings magic, which the muggle's church labels as evil, as bad as the unforgivables. When she was leaving, they decided to punish her for it, they attacked her and hurt her badly. Unable to call for help, her magic came in on itself. Normally accidental magic would have healed her, but the downside of such control over her magic was that it was unable to heal her on it's own, and she, being six years old, does not know how to do it on her own. So her magic, magic having an innate sense of the self-preservation of the magical it is located in, turned on the magical part of her subconsciously blocking her from healing itself. The magic turned on itself, and it did end up healing Ariana. But during that healing, the magic changed. It hurt for Ariana, of course it did, magic isn't supposed to change, especially within a person, that's what the worst of dark rituals do, and that's why they are banned by every single magical government. Her father came to get her right at the end, and seeing the muggles laughing over hurting the witch, muggles call all they believe to be magicals witches and it has bad connotations for them, after quickly checking to see that his daughter was healing herself, he exploded with rage. Her father, being a senior hitwizard, knew a variety of curses, and being very protective of his daughter, attacked and killed the muggles who had so severely hurt his daughter. A few years later, he was caught, and sentenced to three months in Azkaban, a month for each of the muggles, where he later died. Ariana, however, healed herself with astounding speed. But her magic was forever changed. Her older brothers each went to Hogwarts, but on Ariana's eleventh birthday she never got a letter. Two years later, when her mother was teaching her magic at home, as though her magic was not like it should have been, she could still use it, although the ministry labeled her a squib after the absence of her letter and promptly forgot about her. But something happened, possibly a trigger, possibly danger, something happened and thirteen year old Ariana's magic exploded. It killed her mother, and injured herself. Her magic, previously simply wild, wass now like that of an obscurial. When her oldest brother Albus came home after finishing Hogwarts a day later, he realized he was now in charge of taking care of Ariana. He begrudgingly took up the role, although he made it perfectly clear to Ariana that he had no wish to be burdened with her, and it ended up being her other brother, Aberforth that watched over her and helped her reign in her even harder to control got lucky, however, the Dumbledore family was not particularly old, but they had a very unique, although often useless bloodline gift. They had the gift of strict control of magic, which beforehand had just been sued by her older brothers, Albus and Aberforth, to do more with the relatively average amount of magic they had. But for Ariana, it allowed her to reign in her obscurus magic, and become the oldest living obscurus. Years later, her aunt Honoria's son Aurelius Dumbeldore would use it to, even as an obscurial from age eight, live on until his fifties. But while Aberforth and Ariana were learning how to control her magic, a new resident moved into their region. Their neighbor Bathilda Bagshot's nephew had just gotten expelled from Durmstrang, and had come to live with her to finish up his magical studies. The by then seventeen year old gellert Grindelwald and eighteen year old Albus Dumbledore became fast friends, and after a while, lovers. But at one point, they had a disagreement, and nobody but the two of them knew what it started from. I doubt I'll ever know, as one of them is holed up in his own prison of Nurmengard and another in his Hogwarts castle. But it escalated into a full blown duel, with all sorts of lethal curses, from bone-breaker's to cruciatus curses, and possibly a killing curse or two. It was mayhem, and Ariana and Aberforth were in the water right next to the beach the duel was happening on.(1*) Aberforth and Ariana tried to get out as quickly as they could, but a shield that Gellert cast to redirect a spell Albus sent at him, flew towards and very nearly hit Ariana. But to escape it, she dove beneath the water. She didn't resurface. Except she didn't drown, didn't die beneath the waves. Her magic, that had come to her rescue when she was six years old and attacked, and again when her mother died. Her magic, it apparated her out of what would have been a fatal situation. When the duel ended and both Albus and Gellert fled, Ariana was officially dead. However, the thing about obscurial magic is that while it is extremely dangerous and just about always uncontrollable, it is also extremely powerful. Magic is a give and take like that. But instead of apparating her home, Ariana's magic somehow took her to her maternal uncle, Jacob Canard (2*), a muggleborn like her mother. Scared to come back to Britain, not knowing her brother didn't end up siding with his by then ex-boyfriend in his world domination plans. Not that Albus fought him until forty-five years, two world wars, and millions of casualties later. (3*l). Ariana stayed in America with her maternal family, who were the shamans of their native American tribe, squibs except for Ariana, her uncle, and his son who were magical. Ariana ended up, with her Dumbledore family magic and years of determination, perseverance, and grit, learning to control her obscurus magic, to, in everyday life, disguise it as normal magic, with a decoy wand. After her slightly younger cousin finished training from his father, she was no longer needed as a shaman and healer, so she went traveling, and sating her curiosity of magical creatures. She ended up traveling the world to learn about magical creatures. But the point of this story is not my sister's biography. The point is that Albus is not the man you think him to be. Be careful Ginerva, I do not know how he does it but he has a way of getting people under his thrall, and many good, free independent thinkers have been lost to become his mindless obeyers."
Although consciously surprised, deep down, Ginny knew that she had long since lost blind faith in the headmaster, and this cemented her opinion. "Well, if you need any more dirt on him, talk to Harry, once you can get him to realize the headmaster isn't flawless." She shook her head. "Although, i'm not really surprised. You would think the supposedly infallible Hogwarts wards under the direction of Albus Dumbledore would detect a dark artifact that nearly sucked out my soul, a basilisk the size of the Express, block out several hundred dementors, and, according to ron, allow in a cerberus, a dragon egg, which my other brother Charlie had to snuggle out after it was born, and, again, according to Ron, the mirror of erised and Voldemort possessing a teacher."
All four turned to Ginny. The expression on Regina's face was one of both awe and careful calculation. Chadwick shivered. He had seen that expression on twice before, and knew that for all that Regina went by the motto of the bluff is more important than the cards you hold, he knew she was capable of far more than many believed possible, and the cards she held close to her chest were ones that would win no matter what. After that expression came off her face, Regina focused on ginny, her face resuming a polite but aloof expression. "Ginerva Weasley, you and I are going to have a very good talk. If you can get me all the details of the rumored events I've heard about in Hogwarts over the last three years, I will…" she whispered the last part in Ginny's ear.
A calculating smile lit up on Ginny's face, similar to the one she had one whenever she 'redirected' one of the twin's pranks. The thirteen year old looked at the older girl and stuck out her hand. "Deal."
*1 A/N a good fan film to show this scene very nearly how i describe it, except the end result,, on youtube called "Dumbledore and Grindelwald - The Greater Good - Crimes of Grindelwald Prequel" by Broad Strokes
*2 A/N: According to google, "Kendra Katherine Dumbledore (nee Canard) (18 November, 1851 - 3 July, 1899) was a Native American Muggle-born witch, wife of Percival Dumbledore and mother of Ariana, Aberforth and Albus Dumbledore."
3* A/N: Ariana died 1899, WW2 ended 1945. I'm going with the theory that Grindelwald was behind the war, therefore it ended when Albus won their due
4* Plausible canonically, so please excuse my other reason. I live within half-an hours driving distance of the city, that is withuttraffic. IN reality about an hour and a half by car to the Big Apple from where I live, and where I grew up. My dad used to work there for a decade and a half, and well, it's NYC, people fly halfway around the world to see it. So yeah, I go there at least a dozen or so times a year, pre-covid. I've mostly been in Manhattan where my dad worked, and Brooklyn, where my great-grandparents lived out the last few decades of their lives. But I have been to all the boroughs, and the city is amazing if you find yourself in the area, or going on vacation, make sure to visit. "New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, significantly influencing commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports, and is the most photographed city in the world. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, and has sometimes been called the capital of the world."
A/N Afterword in this chapter . Anyone who can guess what Regina offered Ginny (possible to guess if you pay close attention in canon) will get everybody two chapters next weekend instead of one. Which story, i cant promise, but i will do my best to make one of them for this one, although Dark Marauders is long overdue and update. So that's that, hope you enjoyed this chapter and sorry for the minor cliffie.