A/N For those of you that can figure out what blackmail Regina had on the Weasley twins (mentioned in canon, date guesstimated) and Draco Malfoy (very canon-like, also hilarious) will get an excerpt from the next chapter of any of my in-progress stories. I will, however, reveal it in the next chapter as well. Also, for those of you that have read Morrigan returns, that little junior unspeakables segment in Harry's letter to Ted Tonks will come up here as well, and the Part about Ray being Harry's Head of House also will. This Regina is also extremely competent, much like a 17 y o Harry Potter could have been if he had ray's heritage and upbringing and an eidetic memory. Not to overpowered, can't just be like, "oh, no, Voldemort's an annoyance" poof, and he's gone and so are his horcruxes (though they are easier to deal with here than in canon). Also, a bit of British wizarding world bashing. Any insults to countries, ethnic groups, etc. are only included for plot purposes, and not meant to actually offend those people. Furthermore, this isn't one of those stories where muggle can solve all the problems with a few shots of a gun. it's the wizarding world for a reason. It's completely independent of the muggle world. The minister of magic is the minister because it's the minister to the King or Queen, but not the muggle one. No, the King or Queen of House Pendragon, Arthur's descendants. In this story, Arthur and Guinevere did have children, Gwen didn't cheat on him, and both Morgana and Salazar were actually good people who disagreed with me majority, but just argued with others a lot, and not Dark lords. Also, muggle logic and wizarding logic are two different things. And while wizards can't conquer the world with any stick of wood, and they can't just go enslaving muggles willy-nilly in their first year of school, they also don't need to learn the periodic table of elements or study physics. Also, this is very hard for me, but it is better for the plot with a stubboorn, muggles should take over the wizarding world mindset hermione, with an immature but supportive Ron.

Also, I am sorry I didn't post anything yesterday. I'm not gonna use the valentine's day excuse, I know, I'm sorry (it was my uncles' birthday tho). I will make it up with another chapter post, though, so I hope my dear readers can forgive me. Now, onto the story

Harry was cold. So very cold. And none of the other schools had arrived yet. Thankfully, only a few minutes later, a giant carriage flew down, pulled by very large horses, and a woman Hagrid's size stepped out, followed by students in light blue robes. Beuxbatons had arrived.

Then came the ship, rising out of the lake. A gruff headmaster stepped out, followed by students in fur-lined blood red robes, walking past the surprised exclamations of Victor Krum fans to stand next to the blue robes french near Hogwarts doors. Durmstrang was there.

After that, there was a flash of flame, and a purple limousine rolled out, a dark-skinned woman stepping out, her beautiful middle eastern almond eyes sweeping across the grounds. Behind her came students in pale, creamy yellow robes with purple lining. They stopped by the Durmstrang and Beuxbatons contingents. The Salem contingent had entered.

Last came Ilvermorny. There was a very loud pop, which was really a few dozen small pops at the same time, and there was a middle-aged man with coppery tanned skin that spoke of long time in the outdoors but gelled back hair that thoroughly refuted that claim. He was followed by a group of students in blue robes with cranberry piping and fastened by a golden gordian knot.

Hermione excitedly hissed to Harry and Ron, "If I didn't know better than to bte, I'd bet on Ilvermorny. The entrances were obviously coordinated to the elements. I've read about this tradition. We're earth, the home team. Beauxbatons are air, they flew here. Durmstrang is water, hence the ship. Salem is fire, they made some sort of portable floo. And Ilvermorny is magic. They apparated. They apparated across the Atlantic ocean! And the other schools are saying that Ilvermorny is the most powerful!" Hermione practically squealed with excitement.

Ron sighed. "Bloody Hell, 'Mione's turning into a fangirl for those Americans." Harry and Ron tuned out Hermione, who was going on and on about how they could maybe learn something from the Americans, how they were obviously good at magic, and maybe Ilvermorny taught stuff Hogwarts didn't. "Bloody Hell, Mione should have been a Ravenclaw. No idea how she tricked the hat," Ron muttered.

As they all walked back into the hall, each of the other schools chose a house table to sit at. To many people's surprise, Durmstrang, which entered first, walked down the idle of the hall and chose the Hufflepuff table. Really, it was just Krun choosing the house that shouldn't have people who would try to make connections with him, be rabid fans, or over analyze every quidditch move he had ever made. Then Beuxbatons chose Ravenclaw, unsurprisingly. Really, it was Josephine Estrelle choosing the table whose uniforms would match her school's. Then Salem chose Gryffindor, though only Hermione noticed the student leading the Ilvermorny contingent make a couple hand signals to the boy leading Salem. And Ilvermorny followed the girl in the front of their contingent to the Slytherin table, where the drama unfolded, before Dumbledre could even speak to welcome Hogwarts' guests. The girl at the head of the Ilvermorny group was walking up to the head of the Slytherin table, and Cassius Warrington, already sitting at the head of the table, was not willing to get up. To most Gryffindors this was insignificant, but many saw the clear power play, and Salem already had money changing hands, though they all agreed on one outcome. Warrington was going down, because the magical America's unofficial Princess did not back down, especially to the likes of Warrington. And they were right.

"What do you want, you bloody american bitch?" Warrington spat at the witch who had attempted to usurp his spot as the leader of Slytherin House.

"Oh, I just want that chair. Not too much is it?" she smiled sweetly, reminding Elora Dunnn, sitting nearby, of the Minister's senior undersecretary, except much, much worse.

"Go get fucked somewhere else." he spat at her, and Elora shivered from the gaze. Even her mother, the famed Black Widow of Magical Europe couldn't do that, and her half-brother Blaise Zabini had her gaze as a boggart.

The girl smirked. Then she hissed. And the seat glowed. And the table glowed. And the Slytherin crest everywhere in the castle glowed. And Cassius Warrington was flung out of his seat, only to land neatly upright, right in the middle of the Gryffindor Table on the other side of the hall. Whoops.

The girl smirked, cast a symbolic scourgify at the chair, then gracefully plonked down on it, her friends filling in the seats around her, as the more cowardly snakes left for further down the table.

Dumbledore got on with his speech, about an age line, etcetera. There was a feast, Ron drooled over Fleur Delacour who came over for the Bouillabaisse. Dumbledore made a short dramatic filibuster about the goblet of fire. The tables then disappeared, and the time to put names in the goblet began. Beuxbatons lined up to insert their name, followed by Durmstrang, thenSalem. When Ilvermorny's turn came up, they all remained sitting except the girl who was at the head of the Slytherin table. A boy from Salem walked up to her, asking, "Cuz, you do know you shouldn't be able to make it across the age line?" Harry, Ron, and Hermione's jaws dropped. That Salem boy, Chadwick Calderon-Boot, who was actually quite nice, and had answered as many of Hermione's questions as he could decipher with her talking speed, was related and friendly with the girl who had taken over Slytherin house in under a minute?The only thing harder to believe was that Bellatrix Black (now lestrange) used to have a crush on James Potter (jellatrix is one of my fav marauder-era fanon ships).

When the trio's mouth finally closed, they continued listening to the two cousins' conversation. "Chaddie, how many times have I told you that for me, the word impossible is just I'm possible? Watch me."

The Weasley twins got there first. With their twin peaks, after a few moments of deciphering people understood what they meant with the ageing potions being so simple it would work. The Ilvermorny girl just chuckled and conjured a chair, plopping down to watch the show. Chadwick turned to her and asked, "A dozen galleons, they get ejected dramatically?"

"No bet. You know I don't bet unless I'm going to win." She was right, of course. They got ejected very dramatically. The girl banished the chair, again silently, and flounced over to the grandpa-like twins. "You do know there's an easier way." She smirked. "I turn seventeen November 19th, yet you can bet as many galleons as you want, I'm getting chosen as Ilvermorny champion."

"Not"

"Possible," The twins replied.

"Watch and learn," she called over her shoulder. She took a piece of parchment out of her pocket, and pressed her wand tip to the paper. A little bit of her blood leaked from her fingers, and it curled into an elegant signature, the words swirling on the paper, until the words Regina Morrigan Grey stood out visibly in the red ink. She flounced over to the cup, dropping her name into it. None of the other Ilvermorny students even tried to insert their names.

Hermione bristled, turning to the older girl. "Blood magic is illegal. Nobody can bribe their way out of those charges, plus it's cheating to get into the tournament, and that's wrong!"

Regina Grey turned to the little fourteen years old British girl who thought she could tell what was wrong or right. "For your information, even though I was born less than seventeen years ago linearly, time isn't linear, you should know that, shouldn't you? But then again, I've been cheating, if that's what you call it, since I had a staring contest with a basilisk when I was eight. You need to go and learn wizarding laws and stop believing your little pet ministry blindly. Muggle raised probably."

Hermione glared. "So Ilvermorny doesn't have muggleborns?"

"Muggles don't go to magical school. We have Rapports laws that make most contact with muggles illegal anyway. We have a squib family with a magical child once in a few years, but they're brought back into our world as soon as the first accidental magic happens. Squibs usually take jobs like accounting for those with a muggle education, or teaching, herbology, ward design, secretaries in MACUSA, and just about anything else that requires little to no magic. Are you trying to tell me you have muggle parents?"

"Yes. So you're another one of those death eater blood supremacists."

"Those hypocrites? No. Blood is magic. If you're powerful, you're a witch, even with such unfortunate parentage. Swallowing books won't gain you any points, we aren't muggles" Grey turned away from Hermione, walking towards Neville. "Here, Longbottom. You'll definitely like this, and you deserve it." Grey said, holding out a photo album for Neville.

He took it gingerly, asking carefully, trying not to stutter, "What is it?"

"A photo album. If the world were perfect, we would have grown up as friends. That has a lot of my mother's photos from her school days. She went to Hogwarts for her first six years. Those are the photos that have her fellow Ravenclaw dorm mate Alice Fortescue, later Longbottom. Some of them also have Hogsmeade photos with Alice's boyfriend Frank Longbottom. A few of them have some other friends of our mothers, or my mother's boyfriends. One of them might have one or both of Potter's parents as well." Nevile Longbottom, speechless with awe, didn't say thank you, but it was spelled out on his face very clearly.

Draco Malfoy decided to come by and ruin the moment, as was his habit. "What have you got there, Longbottom? Of, pictures of your parents. Boohoo, little squib wants to cry over his mummy and daddy."

Regina glared at the annoying little boy who had been a pest in her side all night. "Go fuck off Malfoy, before I make you. Just because my mother was friends with your aunt, not the one that incapacitated Nevilles' parents, does not extend the same priveleges to you."

Malfoy tried to glare at the American girl, but she had a staring contest with a basilisk at age eight, she just ignored him. "Another blood traitor. My mother only has one sister, and she was kidnapped by the ministry and is suffering for a worthy cause."

Regina scoffed. "No, your father's cousin. Marlene Rapport, formerly McKinnon. One of my mother's friends, also escaped your blood war to America."

Malfoy glared. "I'm no family to those blood traitors"

"Oh, you'd be surprised," Regina answered cooly, checking over her dark violet manicured nails.

Chadwick had walked up, and mumbled, "Malfoy, even i'm worried, and I've been on Regina's side since I could think for myself, which admittedly happened later in life than normal. She's in her blackmail stage, and nobody has more blackmail than her."

"Like a foreigner knows anything about the best school in the world."

"August tenth, 1991, you decided on a new best friend." She raised her carefully manicured brows. "August 24th, 1994. The fate you are trying to escape. August 25th 1994, the start of the master plan of escaping legal justice. Hold the wand in the wrong direction, wasn't it?" Draco paled (not that it was very visible on his albino face), and backpedalled. He ran away, Neville's photo album forgotten.

The Weasley twins were awed, but still not giving up to this strange girl. "As if anyone"

"Could have"

"More blackmail"

"Material"

"Than"

"Us"

"Two twenty seven in the afternoon, August fourteenth, 1986. Exploding Weasley."

"We stand corrected," they chorused, though the cheerful attitude was not reflected in their faces.

Ron looked at the girl who somehow knew the twins best kept secret, that he had to keep lest he get bombarded by illusions of spiders. He stood corrected. Snake or not, he might learn something from this girl.

"Oh, and Potter, if your pet bookworm hasn't told you yet, you have a bloodline gift from my family, well, a family I'm Head of House for. So tell that little mutt of yours Amara Selwyn still remembers being girlfriend number twenty six, so he'll have to wag his tail a bit harder if he wants any help from the Grey family, even with House Grey's ancestral alliance to his little brood"

"What?" Hermione asked the girl, who just raised an eyebrow at him.

"And I thought Hogwarts bred the muggle out of the witch. So much for the best magical school in the world."

Hermione glared. "I think I'm prouder of my muggle heritage than of the magical side, if these are the people I'm supposed to be like."

"So you think muggles are superior, do you?" Regina asked the little witch who acted more muggle than magical, even after four years of magical education.

"Of course they are. You're just another blood supremacists death eater who thinks you can rule the world with a stick of wood!" Hermione ranted at the older witch who thought to undermine her as he brightest witch of their age.

Regina raised her eyebrow at the fourteen years old frizzy haired witch. "uh-huh. Alright. Prove it."

"I'm sorry what?"

"Prove it. Give me any kind of challenge, any at all. I'll do it with magic. You will do it without. But like a muggle, we'll have an impartial legilimens, say, Madame Maxine, lock away your knowledge of magical abilities until the end of the competition. You know magic is real, and you'll remember everything after we're done. But you can only use muggle things, and I'll use magic."

"But it's not fair. You're older and in seventh year."

"Trying to back out little girl? Alright. You can have another muggle born, anyone, as long as they agree to the conditions. What kind of challenge do you want?"

"Three parts. Theatrical performance, underwater obstacle course, and aerial obstacle course. I'll be joined by… Dean Thomas."

Dean backed away. "No thanks. I'm perfectly content to leave my muggle heritage behind. Found out over the summer my mum's a squib, she's got a job in accounting for Tom in the Leaky. Pays a whole lot better than her old muggle job. I'm gonna do an inheritance test over the break, my mum thinks my dad was a wizard not a muggle,"

Hermione glared at her yearmate. "Justin Finch-Fletchley?"

The boy sighed, but agreed. He was another one of the few muggleborns happier in the muggle world. But then, he and Hermione were also some of the few muggleborns with rich parents who could transfer them to a muggle school in an instant if worse came to worst.

"Deal. First part in the Hogsmeade theatre, next Saturday, November 5th" She took out a piece of parchment, a quill, wrote down a note, and got a sizable pouch of galleons from her pocket. "That should be enough to rent it for the day. Missy" she snapped her fingers, and a house elf dressed in a small dress with several crests embroidered on her chest popped in, took the letter and money, popped out, and returned a minute later with a letter. "Good. Saturday, from twelve to three you're on, then another three hours for me."

Hermione glared. "Deal. Finch-Fletchley, come on. We need to find a script," she huffed, pulling the Hufflepuff boy alongside her.