Predestined
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
Summary: The actions of their ancestors force two enemies together. Through the story of their ancestor's ill-fated love they begin to understand why they are not so different after all.
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Many generations ago, the wizarding world was going through a period of great turmoil. For centuries the wizarding community had been focused on protecting themselves from the curious and often violent intrusion of muggles. The muggles, going through very dark times had looked to the church for the reasons behind their suffering. The church, among many other excuses, had offered them one of their favorite scapegoats, us. Mostly, the church's manhunts had caught nonwizards, for our ancestors knew how to hide themselves well. But, we were also going through tough times and as the centuries past more and more of our numbers were being caught. Gradually, with the invention of new, more powerful wards and memory charms coupled with the progressive improvement of both muggle and wizarding welfare the threat from muggle hunting seemed to pass. Years of muggle persecution had left their scars, however, and in absence of a real threat from muggles some of the stronger pureblooded families seemed to find one in an old idea.
During those times our family was very prosperous and well regarded in the wizarding community. The patriarch of our family was deputy minister of magic and had a reputation of being fair and unbiased in his decisions. Unlike most pure blooded families in those days, and even now, our family was known to be neutral politically, mostly due to our ancestor's reluctance to voice his opinions publicly. But our ancestor's policy of never giving an opinion on an issue unless it was a proposed law did not sit well with his only son. His son, a manchild of great moral fiber, was particularly upset with his father's perceived lack of concern over the pureblooded movement that was just beginning to gather steam. The son felt his father should use his particularly great power, his privilege, to do not what was necessary, as the father was wont to preach, but what was, in the son's opinion, right. He felt all mention of pureblooded dominance should be banned, which was an unlikely stance for a pureblooded wizard such as himself and a particular source of strain between father and son.
One night over dinner, the tension between father and son came to a head. The son challenged the father to do something about the pureblooded fanaticism that had been building up in the wizarding community. The father, in turn, challenged the son to show him what he should fix.
The son, incensed, began to talk. And soon he found that he couldn't stop. He talked for hours; he talked of all of the ignorance and hate that the pureblooded movement was causing. He talked of the unease and confusion it caused in among the masses. Late into the evening, after everyone else in the household had retired, still the son spoke, and the father listened. He listened raptly to every word out of his son's mouth, and when his son finally fell silent he considered the son's words, and his own thoughts, and after an hour of silent contemplation from both men, the father spoke.
He too, the father said, did not believe that the idolatry of the pureblooded fanatics was right. It was dangerous, he agreed, but what was illegal in snubbing those who did not meet a certain pedigree? What was illegal about the gatherings they organized, or the pamphlets they distributed? It would be far more dangerous, he argued, if the ministry, which was created to protect the rights of all wizards and witches, were to ban them from their meetings. Not only would it set a precarious precedent for future abuse of the ministry's power, it would only fan the flames of hatred and the issue would become one hundred times more severe.
The son, unsatisfied with his father's answer, posed a question. If the father would not fight the fanaticism with laws, should he not still publicly speak out about an issue that was so wholly against his beliefs? Could he not fight the idea with logic and understanding and tolerance? The father was a respected man; his word would go a thousand times farther than that of the son.
But, the father replied, that was exactly what he was doing. The father said the son believed the best way to fight the movement was by preventing the spread of its ideas. The father believed that it was to promote the extinction of them. The same men who led the movement, he said, who believed they deserved special treatment because a hundred years before they were even born their ancestors were magical, they were the same men who voted to increase the funding for Hogwart's. They were men who loved their families and paid their fair share and more of the taxes. Although the son might not be able to believe it, the father believed that those men were just as capable of love in their hearts as he or the son. You, he told the son, chose to see only the one side of these men, the political, the ideological side. The father saw their whole beings and through logic, and understanding, and especially tolerance the father proposed to chip away at their ideas and eventually he believed that the men would begin to see the error of their ways. If those men, the father said, the most fervent of supporters of the cause, could not be dissuaded then the father believed that the idea would always live on.
And finally the father presented the son with the final challenge of the night. He dared the son to spend one month living with one of the most passionately devoted families of the cause. To try to understand their logic, and to try to change the family's views, not through arguments as the son would naturally want to do, but through actions which the father believed could persuade people a thousand times easier than words.
The son, convinced of the futility of such an action but too proud to turn his father down, agreed.
The father's challenge would set off a chain of events that would have far stronger and long lasting implications than even he could have fathomed. It would be the start of a heated feud between two families that is still present today. It would forever change the path of the son's life, and, it would have a great impact on your destiny.
Yes, these events, though long gone, have affected you greatly. You may not know it yet, but I am merely borrowing this story. It is yours, and eventually, you will no longer need me to tell it to you, for you already know it by heart.