Chapter 108

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.

I wish everyone the best in this time. Please stay safe and keep your distance, stay at home if you can and keep in contact with family and friends on line, take care of your mental and emotional well being and seek help if you need it.

"For the next order of business the Wizengamot recognises the Duke of Gryffindor," the Chief Warlock said.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Wizengamot, I propose that laws number 347 and 832 be stricken from the Law of Wizarding Britain and a new law instituted that makes it illegal to discriminate against any witch or wizard suffering from Lycanthropy provided that they are able to prove that they have a secure place to lock themselves away from the rest of humanity during the full moon and are willing to take wolfsbane potion if it is provided to them with exemptions given to those who are allergic or cannot access the potion through no fault of their own," Hadrian read out the proposal. It shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone there, the notification had been made days ago when the final agenda for the meeting was published. It seemed that many of his peers hadn't read the agenda however since his proposal was greeted with exclamations of shock and anger.

Neville officially seconded the proposal.

"Werewolves cannot be trusted, they're monsters who will kill us all given the opportunity," Ernest Harkworth yelled.

"Any werewolf that requested to be bitten so they could come and infect you should certainly be considered suspect but I have never met such a man or woman. Without exception every single witch or wizard that I have met with lycanthropy was infected as a result of being attacked against their will, and most of them go to great lengths to do their best to make sure that they never attack another person. I believe that we should be helping them to achieve that, not punishing them for being attacked. They've already suffered enough without their government making it worse," Hadrian argued.

"Wolfsbane is a difficult and expensive potion to brew," Draco Malfoy commented.

"Not that difficult, I can brew it. I know that Hermione Weasley would also have the skill, it doesn't take a potions master, there is no good reason that some of the ingredients be so restricted in this country," Hadrian retorted.

"The argument holds that it must be brewed by a licenced potions master and most werewolves cannot afford the potion," Draco replied.

"Here in Britain where the ministry confiscates their property and the discrimination and bigotry of this society prevents them from continuing the professions they are trained for or finding another well paid job you might be right. But in other parts of the world the majority of werewolves either purchase Wolfsbane or brew it themselves for their friends and family, and as a result there are fewer witches and wizards killed or turned in werewolf attacks," Hadrian stated. "Lord Longbottom is willing to provide the statistics if anyone is interested."

Several Lords and all of the reporters present held up their wands and indicated that they wanted the information and in a show of power Neville replicated the bundle of information containing various international laws regarding lycanthropy, the percentage of lycanthropes in full time education or work, the number of those who routinely took the wolfsbane potion and the infection rates in those countries.

"As you can see, the rates of infection in Britain are amongst the highest in the world in spite of the fact that we have some of the toughest laws regulating those who suffer from lycanthropy. Countries where people are given the chance to take responsibility for making sure they aren't a risk to others and the ability to live normal productive lives actually have much fewer new infections and their population of lycanthropes are actually maintained mostly through emigration from Britain and Western European countries where the discrimination is similar to Britain," Hadrian reported.

"I would be willing to provide wolfsbane potion to those who cannot afford it until they manage to find work to support themselves if the registration restrictions are removed. I am not willing to be part of the regulations forcing sufferers of lycanthropy to be registered with the ministry and discriminated against. I would also be willing to assist with visa applications and the cost of moving countries for any lycanthrope who wishes to leave Britain for a country whose laws are more accommodating to their illness."

"There are countries that want more werewolves?" Brunhilde Stoke exclaimed. It was difficult enough for even a British born werewolf to enter the country if they'd left it, particularly if they'd been bitten overseas.

"I wouldn't say that any country is actually recruiting werewolves but many countries are willing to help anyone escape what they consider the unacceptable bigotry and discrimination they face in Britain. That includes muggleborns, werewolves, the children of werewolves, and anyone else who feels they cannot live the life they want due to unfair or unequal government restrictions, in many countries it's illegal to discriminate against a werewolf many of them are sought after for careers that take physical strength or better than average senses and reflexes. I've worked with several Aurors in various countries who suffered from lycanthropy and they make excellent colleagues," Harry replied. He wasn't at all surprised that the proposal failed, but all of the reporters except for 'The Daily Prophet' had taken an information package so he hoped that the word would get out that not everyone believed that the way lycans were treated in Britain was fair or just, and there were alternatives to having to put up with it. There were countries out there where werewolves could live a normal life without the discrimination they faced in Britain, and that Lord Potter was prepared to help any lycan who wanted and needed assistance to resettle in one of those countries.

For the next agenda item, Lord Longbottom has the floor," Percy Weasley announced.

"I wish to open a magical primary school to better prepare students for Hogwarts, I propose to tach wizarding customs to the muggle raised and social ethics as well as magical theory, wand safety and ethics, handling herbology plants and potions ingredients and to start those who are ready with some simple wand spells in line with what children that age learn in other parts of the world. I am willing to bear the entire cost of setting up the school but to be successful I would need access to the Hogwarts enrolment book and permission for students who have passed the basic wand safety and ethics course to have early access to purchasing a wand," Neville stated.

Hadrian immediately seconded the proposal and raised his wand to indicate he wished to speak.

"I think that this is a very good idea, it will make up for the shortfall of the Hogwarts curriculum and put British education back on par with the leaders of the wizarding world."

"Hogwarts is the premier school of magic in the world," Ernie MacMiilan declared.

"Actually no, it hasn't been for well over fifty years now. Salem, Ilvermorny, the Japanese school, the Australian school and the Argentinian school of magic make up the top five magic schools in the world in the last three yearly surveys. All of them run a ten year program incorporating nonmagical subjects and the majority of their students will leave school with the equivalent of one or two British masteries as well as a nonmagical high school diploma enabling them to work in both worlds," Harry replied.

"As a member of the Hogwarts board of governors, I have been trying to make the changes needed to put Hogwarts back in the running to be one of the best schools of magic for several years now, but even if I could make all the changes I wanted it wouldn't make up for the fact that our first years are already three years worth of education behind much of the world," Neville added.

"It isn't necessary, Hogwarts can teach our children all they need to know," Amos Diggory said dismissively.

"The only way I can see to fit in that much more education other than to start school earlier, would be to halve the length of all the term breaks and summer holidays and add an extra hour of classes to each day with additional elective classes on a Saturday morning for students above third year and most of the professors would resign in protest if we tried to do that without dramatically increasing the number of staff and therefore the cost of tuition. I'm sure that all parents will agree that we are not ready to send our eight year olds to boarding school and Hogwarts isn't equipped to house three extra years of younger students or to run a day school for younger students in the castle, without a lot of the older students also wanting to go home at night or for weekends, so a separate primary school or perhaps several local day schools are the most sensible option," Neville said calmly.

"Access to the Hogwarts enrolment book has always been carefully guarded. We need to protect the future students," Madam Marchbanks stated.

"I would be willing to swear an oath not to use the list of names I obtain from the book for anything other than inviting those children to attend my school, and give my word to make their attendance a safe as feasible," Neville replied.

"You cannot argue that Lord Longbottom is any more of a risk to these children than several of the past Headmasters and Deputy Headmasters of Hogwarts," Hadrian stated annoyed.

Hadrian thought that Neville's arguments, and the evidence that Hogwarts wasn't even considered to be in the top ten schools internationally would be enough to sway at least the parents and grandparents of young children, but they were too set on the way things had always been done. Hadrian blamed part of it on Dumbledore's reputation of being the one people depended on to make decisions for so many years, if he hadn't wanted to change the way Hogwarts taught their children then in most people's opinions it obviously didn't need changing. Even before it was put to a vote Neville and Hadrian could see the proposal wasn't going to be successful. Neville was disappointed that his children weren't going to have as good an education as Hadrian's unless he sent them to America to live with Hadrian for the school year, which he couldn't see himself doing even though he knew Hadrian and Tim would be more than willing to have them, and to have he and Hannah visit as often as they could as well. He would feel uncomfortable taking advantage of his friend that way and he couldn't bear the thought of his children so far away, even if it were possible that he could see them more often than if they'd gone to Hogwarts.

This time it was only 'The Daily Prophet' and a few Wizengamot members with school aged children who accepted the packets of written information he and Hadrian had prepared.

There were several hours of further proposals put forward and either Hadrian, Neville or both of them managed to speak against or in favour of about half. Hadrian was interested to note that almost none of them were successful and the ones that were made very minor changes to operating budgets or the wording of laws. All in all, it was a tiresome afternoon and Hadrian was very glad of the bladder emptying spell his healer had shown him the week before in order for him to be somewhat comfortable on the train across the country. He felt that the meeting was a colossal waste of his time and actually pitied Neville who attended these regularly. At least he knew Neville would've attended to vote his own seats even if he wasn't Hadrian's proxy so he didn't have to feel guilty about it.

At the end of the meeting the motion was passed that since all sitting members were present it would be a good time to reaffirm house proxies. Hadrian looked at Neville to confirm he was still willing to represent all of Hadrian's houses and got a firm nod. As the Duke of Gryffindor he was able to go first.

"The proxy for all of my seats will continue to be held by Lord Neville Longbottom," Hadrian declared firmly.

There were some who looked like they wanted to protest that the seats of Slytherin and Black which had been traditionally aligned with the darker pureblood voting block being managed by such a light oriented wizard but Hadrian's glare quickly prevented anyone from objecting.

"Will you appoint a secondary proxy, in the event that Lord Longbottom is also not able to be in attendance?" the clerk asked.

"Head Auror Davin Robbards," Hadrian declared.

"Davin Robbards, or whoever holds the position of head Auror?" the clerk clarified.

"Mr Davin Robbards, if he is willing?" Hadrian replied.

Auror Robbards agreed and they moved down the list.

Hadrian had to admit that it was interesting to see exactly who each member named as proxy, which he guessed was why someone had put this on the agenda in the first place. Then they got to Neville.

"Lord Hadrian Potter, Duke of Gryffindor for my primary proxy and Auror Davin Robbards for my secondary proxy, provided that they both agree," Neville said clearly.

Hadrian and Robbards both nodded to the clerk.

"Don't you think you should name a proxy that actually attends the meetings more than once in a blue moon?" Susan Bones asked waspishly. She had been Secondary Proxy for the Longbottom seats until today and had believed that as Harry never came to Wizengamot meetings she was effectively the proxy, now she was angry at being replaced by Potter's choice in proxy.

"Hadrian would make every effort to attend if I weren't here to cast his votes for him, if for no other reason than that he wouldn't wish to put his boss out by making him cast our votes for us," Neville said reasonably.

Hadrian nodded, he definitely would make the effort, and Robbards would happily contact Clancy and demand his presence if that's what it took.

-o0o-

Finally the meeting was over and they were free to leave, Hadrian hung back not wanting to be caught up in the crowds rushing to exit the chamber.

"Malfoy knows about the babies," Hadrian said as his friends joined him in his box to wait for the room to clear before escorting him back to the exit.
"What makes you say that?" Neville asked.
"He identified himself as a member of the house of Black, not an heir. Even if he assumed I've managed to make Teddy my primary heir, he was the secondary heir until the goblins accepted both the babies as viable heirs last week. Now if they're both boys they'll be the secondary and tertiary heirs. He knows, he's no longer sure which heir he was so he couldn't claim any," Hadrian explained.
"He may have been informed by Gringotts that he's no longer considered an heir to the house of Black, since they know that we were concerned compelling you to attend this meeting could be an attack on your pregnancy or lordships and he was one of the people with the most to gain if you lost the babies. That doesn't mean he knows that they haven't been born yet, let alone that you're the one pregnant. Especially given how rare it is for an heir to be declared before they're born," Neville tried to reassure his friend.
"I can see the goblins being eager to tell him he'd been removed from heir status," Hadrian said grinning.
"He was incredibly helpful today, we wouldn't have got the agreement from the Dark faction without him," Neville commented.

"Do you question his motive?" Kingsley asked.
"Not with the vow, I think he genuinely wanted to prevent people from getting away with killing their children just because they didn't receive a Hogwarts letter, enough to work with whoever put up the best option to achieve that. He lost his mother and siblings over the squib murders. Even if he may not have interacted much with his siblings he did adore his mother, he accepted the mark just to keep her alive. And you know he might have known some of his siblings depending on how much older or younger than him they were. They probably wouldn't have been separated until he started showing signs of accidental magic and they didn't," Hadrian said.
"I still didn't think he would ever support anything we put forth," Neville said.
"He's changed a lot since the end of the war. I don't know if it was getting out from under his father's influence or the reality check from actually living in the same house as Voldemort and seeing what an insane monster his father was encouraging him to follow, but since then he's kept out of pure blood politics and concentrated on his family and his business concerns. He got out of anything involving dark magic, or partnerships with other Death Eaters, even though it must have cost him financially. Especially after the amount of fines and reparations the Malfoys had to pay," Hadrian reminded his friend. "Remember that Draco willingly vowed not only not to kill his own children but not to kill any child magical or not. He wasn't just copying the vow like most of the others did, he started it and I believe he chose his words carefully and deliberately made the vow that way."

"He was so keen to rebuild the family's reputation, that he dumped Pansy's marriage contract as soon as he became head of house for a witch from a neutral family," Neville agreed. "Pansy was livid, I wonder if she's still somewhere plotting revenge on him."

"She was caught kidnapping muggles and helping dispose of their bodies after her brother and cousin tortured them to death, she was handed over to Sir Geoffrey and probably received a life sentence," Hadrian said.

"Well the bill didn't pass thank Merlin, but I think that the oaths made today will have a dramatic impact on squib deaths without removing children from parents who want them," Neville said.

"Yes, enough of an effect to leave this bill dead in the water beyond hope of resurrection, since many of the old families who would be suspected of being willing to kill a squib child have taken the oath, let's hope it flows through the rest of society," Hadrian agreed.

"Do you think it will?" Neville asked.

"I think that any woman hearing of Narcissa Malfoys fate would demand a vow or oath like that before she agreed to marry a wizard," Hadrian replied.

"Now we just have to find a way to address the low birth rates for the survival of the British Wizarding World. I imagine fear of birthing a squib is one of the reasons that most couples stop as soon as they've produced a magical heir?" Hadrian said.

"If you're right we may have just made the birth rates situation worse, people will be even less willing to take a risk once they have their heir," Neville said groaning.

"I know but preventing children from being murdered by their parents was more important than the potential impact it will have on birth rates, and having more squibs enter the muggle world may well result in more 'muggleborns' being born from their descendants in the future," Hadrian said.

"That's true but do you have any idea how to increase birth rates?" Neville asked.

"We could release some of the studies done on squib births in America, apparently it is exceedingly rare for a squib to be born into a family that have produced a magical child without ritual or potions and almost unheard of after two magical births, even muggleborn children with a magical sibling rarely have a younger sibling not also born magical unless something has gone wrong with the health of the mother during pregnancy," Hadrian suggested.

"Anything else we can do. Things are going to reach a critical state within twenty years if we don't act now and I don't want to have to propose an emergency act in the Wizengamot forcing people to marry and have more children," Kingsley said.

"That would depend on how many families are limiting the number of children for financial reasons. Not everyone loves children as much as the Weasleys that they're prepared to impoverish themselves to have as many as they could. If you could provide a financial incentive for additional children or even just reduce the costs it might help. Perhaps rearrange the Hogwarts' fees to be per family instead of per child so the fees would go up for single child families but there would be no extra cost per year for additional children."

"I don't know if we could afford to do that, unless we doubled the fees," Neville said frowning.

"Families like myself and the Weasleys would still end up paying more than a single child family because of the age gap between the children. Bill graduated at least three years before Ginny started so they still would have paid at least seventeen years worth of school fees. It would encourage parents to have an extra child or two not a whole quidditch team," Hadrian replied.

Kingsley laughed. "You've only got five even with the twins, does that mean you intend to keep going?"
"We are going to wait at least three years before deciding if we want more children. By then we might be ready to appreciate not having a baby in nappies," Hadrian replied.

"You know advertising that Harry Potter has five children and wants to have more might increase the birth rate," Robbards said not quite only joking.

"Are you suggesting that young witches and wizards would have more children just to be more like me or are you insinuating that the majority of British families would be having children to increase their chances of having a child marry into the house of Gryffindor or Slytherin?" Hadrian said sighing.

"Probably a bit of both," Robbards said heartlessly.

"If the goal is to try to marry off one of their children to one of mine that might cause problems with Hogwarts enrolments, if parents would send their children to school in America just so they'd meet my children," Hadrian said.
Neville groaned but Kingsley and Robbards just laughed. "Not for several years, and not unless you announced which school you send your children to," Kingsley said.

"It would solve the birth rate problem in the meantime, and having more children come home from the American schooling system so far ahead of their friends and relatives at Hogwarts could help cause the peer pressure needed to eventually bring about the educational changes Lord Longbottom was proposing," Robbards said, looking at the big picture.

"Not soon enough. I had hoped to be able to improve things in time to benefit Franklin and Ellison," Neville said bluntly.

"You would send them overseas for their schooling?" Kingsley asked concerned.

"No, which is why I proposed to try to introduce that type of schooling here. I cannot get Hannah to agree with sending an eight year old to live with Harry and Tim during the school year, and I must admit that I don't want him to leave us but sending him to America each day is too much for my elves and the time difference would be too much for him, even if he only came home on weekends, and I'm afraid what it would do to him emotionally to be sent away like that when his friends here are still being home-schooled," Neville replied.

"You could try to hire an American tutor," Robbards suggested.

"I've considered it but teaching him all the things that Teddy is learning would make it difficult for him when he starts at Hogwarts," Neville said.

"You could just stick to the things Hogwarts doesn't teach like magical theory, ethics and I'd probably choose potions theory and ingredient preparation unless the curriculum's been overhauled since Snape left, and if you're worried about him being ostracized for being the only one ahead of his age with this knowledge ask his friends to join him for lessons. Hopefully if Hannah talks about the lessons enough it will become popular," Harry suggested.

"You realise that will leave the muggleborns even further behind their classmates," Neville said.

"I do but then we can campaign for them to have an extra lessons to catch up on the theory everyone else has already learned so they're not holding our children back," Hadrian replied.

"Except that no matter how popular magical theory lessons become, not all families will bother," Neville said.

"Then make it a class that students have to test out of if they've already done the work," Hadrian said as if he didn't see the problem with it, though Neville knew Hadrian was well aware that it would be far more difficult to get it past the school board like that.

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.

I wish everyone the best in this time. Please stay safe and keep your distance, stay at home if you can and keep in contact with family and friends on line, take care of your mental and emotional well being and seek help if you need it.