Chapter 26 - Laws Are (Not) Meant To Be Broken
July 7th, 1992 (Tuesday)
Location: Granger's House - Heathgate, Hampstead
Meissa stares at the circle as she lays on her back, glancing between it and her notes. It matches up perfectly with what she has drawn from the tome. She'll need to check on the four points at some point but so far it doesn't seem like there's a legitimate reason for the ward to automatically block everyone unless welcomed in by the Heart. The incantations gave no clear answer as to the weirdness of the wards - she can safely say she followed the instructions to the letter.
Unless the tome didn't include some kind of vital information…
That's a venue she'll have to explore once she has the opportunity.
"Meissa!" she hears call down to the cellar. "Mail's here!"
"Okay! Be there in a mo!"
She picks herself up, taking a brief moment to dust off her clothes before heading up the steps.
"Find anything?" Hermione questions as she hands a small bundle of letters to Meissa, having retrieved them from the owls while Daphne fed them bread and water.
"Nope. Everything looks precisely how it should - according to my notes."
"Why can't we just bring in a professional?" the Gryffindor questions as Meissa takes a quick look at the names on the letters.
"Well," Daphne starts as she secures herself a bowl of cold cereal, "there's a few reasons. The Ministry regulates the wards - specifically wards on non-magical properties."
"What?"
"There's a law that states that a ward cannot be placed on the property owned by non-magicals. A very tiny loophole permits the ward being placed if a first generation - a muggleborn - is a minor resident," Daphne explains, placing the bowl in front of a pre-occupied Slytherin, nudging her slightly as she hands her a spoon.
"Okay - so, what's the issue?"
"The extreme rates," Meissa answers, putting aside the letters after the third nudge. "I think it's roughly a thousand Galleons for a non-magical to have the wards placed - granted, it'd be the basic ward to discourage burglars and nothing high powered like the ones on the Black estates." After the fifth nudge she accepts the spoon that's been poking her and starts on her cereal.
"Wait - how much is a Galleon equal to again?" Hermione injects.
"Mm… ten British Pounds?" Daphne looks at Meissa in askance. She gets a shrug from her lieu of an answer since she had a mouthful of cereal.
"Ten thousand pounds?!" Hermione shouts, startling the Slytherins. "It'd cost us ten thousand pounds just to do a basic ward?" she demands.
She was mad, furious really, and seconds from storming off to write a letter of complaint to the Ministry.
"For a muggleborn's family," Daphne grabs the Gryffindor by the shoulders to keep her in her seat, "that's the average price. It goes up another ten to twenty Galleon for every acre."
Hermione pauses as she turns partially to look at Daphne. "They add a fee for that?" she asks in low disbelief.
"Among other things," Meissa remarks once she has swallowed the food in her mouth. "There's also the worker's fee, renewal fee - you'd have to get it renewed every so often or else it'd just fail, and… Am I missing anything?" she looks at Daphne in askance.
"How much would it cost altogether?" Hermione mutters, blinking as her mind tries to process the extraordinary amount of money being exhorted.
"It'll probably be another five hundred if not a thousand on top of the wards itself." Meissa pauses to think it over. "So… close to two thousand galleons."
"That's…"
"Only for the first generations."
"What?"
"It's much cheaper for a pureblood to get their homes warded - a mid-level type of warding that is - in comparison to what you'd face to get your home warded," Meissa elaborates as she carefully watches Hermione's expression.
"… This is prejudice against non-magicals!" the Gryffindor exclaims loudly.
"No. Just against first gens."
The expression on the Gryffindor's face turns thunderous, prompting Meissa to move her bowl out of reach as a precaution.
"That's - what. Why," Hermione was fuming mad to the point where she couldn't speak clearly.
"I think you broke her," Daphne remarks from the safety of the kitchen island. Meissa shrugs in acknowledgement of this fact.
"How… how could it be so bad?" Hermione mutters dejectedly. "This is… prejudice - discrimination against -."
"Hermione," Meissa interrupts gently, drawing the Gryffindor's attention to her. "I know. We know," she keeps her voice mild as she maintains eye contact with the other witch. "I know that it's all bad - I can't promise that it'll get better but we can try." She glances at Daphne who gives her a long-suffering look before nodding. "All three of us can try to improve things not just for you but everyone else following in your footsteps."
Hermione frowns before nodding begrudgingly.
Meissa takes this opportunity to slowly return her bowl to the table.
It seems safe enough.
She shifts her chair a little to make room for Daphne, rubbing her face as she covers up the yawn attempting to force its way out of her. She doesn't really feel like eating but, at the same time, she doesn't feel like arguing with them.
"So," she looks back up to find Hermione frowning at her, "this whole thing was because of these… laws?"
She blinks tiredly before nodding.
"Yes," she groans and rubs her face in an attempt to wake up. "Sorry, yes, its because of the laws we've spoken about."
"So that's one of the things we need to change, right?"
"One of them yes."
"Does this mean we're going to be digging up books on archaic laws?" Daphne pipes up, poking Meissa with a spoon. "On top of the other laws?"
"Other laws?"
"Er," Meissa mock glares at Daphne for even mentioning it. "It's a side project."
"And…?"
"There's nothing promising yet."
"It'd probably go a lot faster if you were helping," Daphne remarks as she gets elbowed by the raven haired girl. "What! It's not like it was some grand secret!" the blonde huffs as she returns the elbow.
"You are both being mysterious," Hermione points out to them, scooping up another spoonful of her cereal.
"Not my intention," Meissa defends before sighing as she took in the determined look in the Gryffindor's eyes. "You just had to say something," she grumbles to the blonde.
"I stand by the 'go a lot faster' point."
"There's no point in saying anything right now when there's no proof - no evidence." Meissa pushes back her seat to go dump her bowl in the sink. "Besides, we didn't make much headway in our research so -."
"And what's the research on?"
"Child abuse."
"Daphne!"
"Meissa!"
Hermione glance between the two Slytherins, partially amused by their mutual exasperation with each other while still reeling from the casual drop from the blonde.
Child abuse.
That's - that's quite the subject to focus on.
It's a whole different level of systemic suppression of 'first generations' - as Meissa likes to say it.
"What on earth brought up that," she finally manages to say.
"Potter."
Hermione couldn't even try to respond to that as Meissa exclaims loudly from the sink.
"Daph!"
"Don't 'Daph' me," the blonde waves her spoon at her fellow Slytherin. If her parents saw her now, she'd get a hiding of the life time.
"I'm sorry," Hermione interrupts before they could start bickering. "Are you implying that Harry's being abused?"
Meissa huffs from her place at the counter while Daphne did a half shrug.
"Like Meissa said earlier, there's no proof or evidence," the blonde admits with Meissa agreeing with her audibly. "But there's… red flags - I think that's the right term?" Hermione nods her head hesitantly - she understood what she's trying to say.
"In any case, if he's not being abused, he's at least probably being neglected," Meissa injects, returning to the table with the bundle of letters.
"That's… well, I can't say I agree or disagree but - you'd need a lot of evidence for the non-magical courts to take it seriously," Hermione comments lightly.
"I thought as much," Meissa sighs. "Well, it's only been a month? Two months?" She checks with Daphne who only gave her a half shrug.
"Um…"
"Yeah?"
"When was the last time you've spoken to Harry?"
Meissa frowns and looks at Hermione before sharing a look with Daphne.
"The station."
"Same."
"…"
Meissa frowns at the worried Gryffindor.
"Have you asked Weasley?" she finally suggests. It was more likely Potter would keep in touch with him, right?
"Ron hasn't said anything - he indicated that he was getting the same silence too though."
"… Lovely," Meissa mutters as she rubs her forehead.