Daphne smiles as she walks up the path to a nondescript house in the middle of Kanas while listening to one of the stories in "The Mysteries of London". In her hands she has a fruit basket along with a book rest she made.
Once she reaches the door, she waits for a pause in the story before ringing the doorbell. A broad smile comes to her face when the reader apologises for cutting the prayer short, as there's someone at the door.
It takes a few minutes, but an elderly man eventually opens the door while leaning on a walking stick.
"Hello, what can I do for you young lady?"
"Hello Mr Carr, I just wanted to say thank you for reading to me since Hurricane Andrew. It was a great comfort during the long days following both that and the following disaster."
Ewan Carr blinks at the young woman in front of him, "Oh, um do I know you miss?"
"We've never met, but you were just reading me one of the instalments from The Mysteries of London. I thought I'd bring you a fruit basket, and I made you a book stand, to say thank you."
Ewan steps backwards, "You are a goddess. I… I used to… Come in, come in, would you like a drink?"
Daphne smiles politely, "Only if you were already making yourself one. While I'm here, is there anything you'd like help with around the house?"
Ewan slowly walks to the kitchen, "Nothing that's important enough to bother you about goddess. My grandchildren try to visit occasionally, and help with the upkeep on the house, and Mrs Snyder down the road helps with the bookshelves that my grandmother kept her books on."
Daphne reels back as though struck as Ewan's subconscious prayer comes through, 'Please let my grandchildren come before the roof starts leaking into the books again'.
Daphne smiles, "I understand, and I will see what I can do."
Hesitantly, Daphne lets her magic out around the house as she holds onto that prayer. As she does, she feels a slight pull to somewhere in the Otherside, something not quite formed but almost ready for her if she chooses to claim it. Resolutely, she ignores that feeling, and instead concentrates on the house around her. The termites eating through the rear foundation posts. The storm wracked roof with patched holes, and the peeling exterior walls that are starting to succumb to the weather. Inside the house she can feel the rickety bookshelves, held together with rusty nails and tape because the windows are no longer completely airtight, and a tired old bed with a sagging frame. In the kitchen, the drawers, cupboards, and counters have all seen better days.
Her eyes widen in understanding and surprise as all of the knowledge people have been praying for, and giving over the last few months coalesces inside her. As it does, she loses control of her magical suppression, and it encompasses the entire house. As it does, every single issue that she can feel is not only repaired, but also improved with protection against the problem occurring again.
From metal cladding around the wooden supports to prevent termites from getting into the base of the house, to ceramic roof shingles that will resist weathering far better than the shingles that were there already. Upgrading the roofing joists to handle the increased weight is merely an afterthought. On the walls, the panelling is repaired and repainted with modern insulation fitted behind them.
Inside the house, the bed is repaired as well as the shelves not only repaired but also extended around the entire room they're in. The windows are also upgraded to the latest in energy efficiency. Finally, a brief tug on the mist of the Otherside sees the entire building imbued with a tiny amount of mist that is tied to the life of Ewen Carr, so as long as he calls the place home, it will not succumb to the wear and tear of the weather, no matter how incremental. As she finishes, she fades away into the mist, and deliberately ignores the pull on her magic, instead tiredly heading back to Hogwarts with a smile on her face.
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Amelia sighs as she turns the TV off in Scotts flat, "Moody, you get to inform Croaker…" She continues when no unspeakables unveil themselves, "Croaker. Scotts, swear out an arrest warrant for Mr Dumbledore for an egregious breach of the statute of secrecy."
Scotts quails slightly, "Uh, Madam, what about the, um, goddesses?"
Amelia nods, "It is a valid concern, however, in none of the interviews that we've seen have they ever revealed the existence of our community. That makes it a lesser offence of revealing magic to the mundane populous, which is technically a local problem. Besides, we don't actually know who is responsible for those breaches. And if you want to try and arrest Morgana for being The Morrigan, be my guest."
Scotts looks at Amelia as though she's mad, "I'm sorry, I'm still just a Trainee Auror. That's not the sort of call that I can make."
Moody laughs good-naturedly before he starts to stump off. Turning back to the group he looks over at Amelia, "Don't forget that I'm not in tomorrow as I'm getting fitted for a new leg in muggle London. Before you say anything, I'm not ready to approach Airmed about healing yet. Come on Scotts, we have training to do, and if you don't complete the course in 5 minutes, you'll be doing the filing for the office this afternoon."
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Albus sits, on an uncomfortable chair, in the pit at the ICW. Arrayed around the pit are the sitting members of this august body.
The council member acting as inquisitor looks down at them, "Captain, please walk us through the circumstances that led to your most egregious, no, the most egregious breach of the Statute of Secrecy in living memory."
The captain stands up from his own chair in the pit that has been placed ahead of the others that were involved in this task, "Honoured council member, the operation itself started once Unspeakable Croaker from the British Department of Mysteries alerted us to the existence of the visual footage of an unknown magical providing services to NoMaj people in the United States of America after a devastating storm. This information was immediately passed on to the MacUSA authorities who started preventative measures while also trying to research the identity and location of the offender. A task that was stymied by the fact their magical detectors have yet to pick up any trace of this persons magic. As they are also not using a wand, we have been unable to even check the trace logs to see which wands were in the area at the time."
Albus looks up alarmed at this declaration, the trace is supposed to be something that is removed on ascent to adulthood, not a pervasive tracking tool. The inquisitor seems to share the same alarm, "Excuse me Captain, would you kindly explain what these trace logs are?"
The captain inclines his head, "In the wake of the Grindlewald war the ICW SoS task force worked with the national Unspeakables around the world to implement an automatic log on every single wand used in their nations. This uses a special ritual and runic array to determine the exact, frequency, that those wands work on. With this log we couldn't tell you who cast a spell, or what the composition of their wand was. However, we can tell you where that specific wand has been used by that particular person, and when. Due to the amount of information that is produced, these logs are only kept for a maximum of 10 years, and a minimum of 5 years. May I return to my explanation?"
The inquisitor waves his hand in ascent.
"As we were unable to locate the magical who has been doing these things."
The Russian council member speaks up, "Why do you say magical rather than witch?"
"As you are aware, witch and wizard are a specific class of magical human, or near human, who have the right to use wands. As we have yet to see any evidence that this magical is qualified to use a wand, we cannot be sure they are a trained witch or wizard rather than a magical from an isolated community on one of the unmonitored islands."
"Continue."
"As we were unable to locate the magical who has been doing these things. We instead sought to minimise the damage by locating the hubs where this information was being shared. Initially we reactivated ICW security members, such as the Supreme Mugwump behind me, and attempted to tackle each hub in turn, along with playing up the amnesia epidemic that the NoMaj had been reporting. It quickly became clear that the number of wands we had available wasn't going to be enough after dealing with each hub twice. That is when we drafted resources from each nations Department of Mysteries, in addition to tabling an emergency motion to use the Imperious Curse on key NoMaj individuals in each hub in order to locate and destroy any additional records of the breach they have stored."
The temporary Supreme Mugwump looks at his notes, "Yes, due to the absence of the Supreme Mugwump, that vote passed with a single vote majority and three abstentions."
The captain continues, "With that arranged, our next step was to hit the 5 major hubs at the same time and then split up and hit each of the minor hubs that we identified. As you are aware, on the 31st October, four out of five of the hubs were hit successfully. During our entrance to the largest hub the NoMaj turned off the electricity in the building. Moments later most of us were driven to our knees as a vast magical presence appeared in the building. This persisted for several minutes before it disappeared as fast as it appeared. At that point it felt as though we were under a confundus charm combined with a babbling charm. When the NoMaj asked me questions I found myself unable to think of a good reason not to answer, or dissemble my own answers. I believe that the same would be true of everyone else involved.
"Once we had all been lead out of the building, I made the decision to try and bring down whatever magical effect had been placed over the building. The Supreme Mugwump declined to partake of this, citing a lack of information on what we were dealing with. In hindsight his decision was the correct one, as everyone involved in probing the effect, or trying to dispel it was brought under the same effect. The Supreme Mugwump was then able to activate our portkeys on mass."
The inquisitor nods, "Do any of the other defendants have anything to add to the testimony?" When there's no answer he calls out, "Bailiffs, escort the accused back to the cells."
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Daphne flops down on the sofa in the Danann mansion, "Morgana, I've been wanting to ask. What happened at Halloween, I sort of know what we did, but I was dragged out of bed when it started and this is the first chance I've had to talk to you since then."
Morgana looks up from her marking and sighs, "A few weeks ago the management of NBC News prayed to me as a group. During that meeting they explained what happened a few days before when the studio desk were playing some archive video and the presenter at the time stated that they didn't remember making that interview. I was going to turn them down, but they asked me for the means to defend themselves. I couldn't then turn them down, so I called in Skye and had them promise not to broadcast her name on TV."
Daphne nods tiredly, "I get that, I mean why was I even involved. I'm not a goddess."
"Daphne, like it or not, they believe that you are a goddess. That is a magic all on it's own. I've read many of the history books from the magical community, as well as the actual Statute of Secrecy. It's clear that someone involved in drafting the law understood the different ways that gods could be created. Which is why they have a stipulation against setting yourself up as a god."
"But what if I don't want to be a goddess?"
"Do you honestly believe that would stop them from praying to you?"
Daphne pulls her knees to her chest, "No?"
"Daphne, what's happened?"
Daphne's silent for a long while as Morgana leaves the question hanging while she goes back to her marking. Eventually she says, "I took a fruit basket to Ewan Carr, who reads to me every afternoon. While I was there I heard one of his unsaid prayers and let my magic out around the house. I was just going to see what I could do to patch stuff up, but everything just sort of came together inside me and I understood. I fixed up his house, and since then, there's something in the Otherside that is pulling to me."
Morgana nods, "I'm pretty sure you know exactly what is going on. When you're ready, I'll be here to listen. But until then…"
Daphne smiles sadly, "Thanks."