The establishment wasn't quite what Liz had expected. Arranging to meet with Cynfelyn's cousin, well, the Eirsleys might not be typical of British nobility, for various reasons, but they did still have money — though she didn't know how much money, to be fair, some families were supposedly rather less filthy rich than others. And Liz hadn't exactly spent all that much time hanging around with the nobility. (Or at least not outside of Hogwarts, which didn't count.) She'd been told it was a place they could talk, have some tea or whatever, so she'd been thinking ridiculously fancy, like something out of one of those silly period dramas she'd catch glimpses of back at the Dursleys'. Some shite like the Hogwarts' Entrance and Great Halls, you know, big and open and shiny and polished, all granite and bloody gold everywhere. Hogwarts was a school and it was like that, she'd assumed restaurants and shite for the nobles would be even more over the top.
Though, she hadn't been completely certain about that. She and Gwenfrewi had traded a few letters, she'd been given directions of where to go — it was in Charing, unsurprisingly, but was rather far off the high street, which was unexpected. The high street running from the Leaky Cauldron to Gringotts (Liz refused to call it "Diagon Alley", because that was a stupid name), and then continuing on at an angle from there through a residential area (hence, diagonal), was the nice part of town. The shops along the first section and the houses along the second were...well, not luxury places, but sort of the magical equivalent of Little Whinging, or the area of Guildford Petunia would bring them clothes shopping and stuff at. Things for people in highly-skilled, well-payed professions not so filthy rich as the nobility but comfortable enough. And also well-educated — it hadn't occurred to Liz until just this summer that the use of English for everything would actually exclude a lot of the working-class mages, who all spoke Cambrian and Gaelic. There were a few fancier-looking places dotted here and there for a higher-class clientele, but mostly mixed up at random and not cordoned off, because apparently the high street was nice enough for the nobles to hang around in just in general and not get too much peasant on them.
There was a lot more to Charing than just the high street, obviously — there was a decent-sized town crammed in here, with all kinds of shops and residential blocks and everything. Since there was relatively little space, the housing was mostly all flats and stuff (with the exception of the rowhouses on the north end of the high street), it was pretty common to have a shop facing the street and to have flats one, two, three storeys above that. Liz had explored around the place a little — she'd lived in Charing for a short time back in '91, the inn she'd stayed at had been a couple blocks off the high street — and she'd noticed there was a clear trend of things getting less nice and pretty, the people poorer, the further you went from the high street. Most of it was still fine, not bad enough Liz felt unsafe wandering around — it was just a more working-class neighbourhood, you know, the streets narrower and the buildings taller, almost seeming to lean in overhead from both sides, and the shops less polished-looking, sounds of people working on one thing or another leaking out through the open doors or windows of workshops. There tended to be a lot of kids of all ages running around, playing card games or whatever just outside of doorways, just hanging around chatting, sometimes kicking a football back and forth in the street to occasional scolding from neighbours or passersby for getting in the way. (Magical Britain was still Britain, after all.)
As you went deeper the place got poorer and sketchier, a lot like the town around Severus's house, and eventually it got so bad it was basically a slum. Liz had never actually gotten as far as 'Knockturn Alley', as the place was called — she'd turned around when she'd started getting funny looks from the locals a couple streets before that — but she'd heard a bit about it by now. The magical economy could be very shitty for some people — if you weren't from a family who had a trade or couldn't get into the guilds, and didn't feel like selling yourself into indenture with one rich arse or another, you were pretty much fucked. It wasn't like you could just go get a job, because a lot of times there simply weren't any. Since they had magic and everything, mages needed less labour to begin with...and a lot of the shitty low-skilled work was done by indentured bondsmen anyway. And it was literally illegal to hire some kinds of magical being, so they were double fucked. Knockturn was where you could find a lot of these super poor people, as well as wilderfolk and hags and vampires and stuff.
Since it had a nasty reputation due to all the poor people living there, it was also where the not-poor people decided to put all their less-than-respectable businesses that wouldn't be tolerated in the nicer parts of town. A lot of smuggling went through Knockturn, either in controlled goods or just people trying to get around the tariffs and stuff, and there was a steady trade in drugs and cursed objects and potions that, while not necessarily illegal, would definitely get you unwanted attention from the authorities. And also brothels — the, er, employees were mostly locals who didn't have any better options to get by, but they tended to be owned by well-off people and even nobility, skimming off the top. Some of them were even relatively fancy, targeted at wealthy clientele, though were often very secretive. Because prostitution was perfectly legal in Britain, but being seen participating in it was crass.
(Liz really hated magical Britain sometimes.)
When Liz first saw that the directions had her turning off the high street and going several streets down, she'd assumed there was an island of fancy shite down there she hadn't stumbled across or something. Turned out, yeah, not so much. It wasn't in the bad part of town, no, more like... Well, she guessed, sort of comparable to the neighbourhood the carpenters' Sirius had brought her to were in — middle-class professional types, but, like, lower-middle-class professional types. Liz had been paying more attention to this stuff recently (she was blaming Tamsyn and Daphne and Dorea, all the politics talk), and she'd noticed there was an obvious, immediately visible difference between the people in the more intellectual professions — like, wardcrafters, healers, attorneys, academics, money people, Ministry officials, that sort of thing — and the people in trades that still took some skill and training, but was more practical stuff, more working with their hands, a lot of actually making shite. Kind of a white-collar, blue-collar thing, you know — this neighbourhood was definitely the latter, Liz could tell instantly by the fabric their clothes were made of (all cotton and wool, no silk or anything, still dyed vibrant colours but less elaborate), the additions on some of the buildings overhead looking somewhat haphazard, the street narrowed and twisting, the alleys noticeably less meticulously cleaned, glimpses of dogs and cats and ferrets and ducks around, the signs over shopfronts all in Cambrian, no English to be seen, most accompanied with pictures for the benefit of illiterate locals. It was a bit louder, pounding and clanking of work being done seeping out of one warehouse or another, constant low chatter from this or that clump of people, some of them getting kind of loud as arguments broke out.
It wasn't a shitty part of town, no — the inn she'd stayed at a few years ago now wasn't so far away, the place Sirius had taken her to get some of her pots and shite was across the street right over there — just not what she'd expected. She had to wonder if Gwenfrewi normally hung out in places like this, or if she was trying to send some kind of message.
Her directions led her to an establishment on the bottom floor of a block of flats, what looked very much like a restaurant of some kind visible through the windows facing the street — an array of tables crowded with people, chattering over drinks and plates of food. Mostly drinks, looked like, she thought the food was just snacks or whatever, so kind of like the cafés in Paris. It looked like there were a fair amount of people in there, which was slightly ridiculous at ten in the morning. Liz lingered out on the street for a couple minutes, psyching herself up to deal with all the noise and the press of too many minds in too small a space.
It actually wasn't quite as bad as she'd expected. The inside was somewhat dark, the light given a vague orangish tint from reflections off the wood furnishings everywhere, the air turned rather hazy in places from smoke — which was a new one on Liz, she hadn't seen much smoking in the magical world yet. The minds around her were a bit much, she couldn't help grimacing at the feelings and thoughts pelting at her, but the noise wasn't that bad. Actually, with all the people she could see around, it wasn't nearly loud enough in here. Maybe there were enchantments to muffle sound or something?
Liz was standing in the entryway looking around for maybe thirty seconds before someone approached her. A man in trousers, a shirt with somewhat baggy sleeves under a waistcoat thing — all in browns and reds, the waistcoat embroidered with a curly, weaving, Celtic knot -looking pattern done in white — a towel and a couple little tools she didn't recognise hanging from his belt. Waitstaff, obviously. Sauntering over toward her, he called in Cambrian, "Hey there, sweetheart, you looking for someone?"
She felt her eyebrows twitch at the term of endearment, but decided to ignore it. A quick glance around the room, literally everyone else here were all adults, Liz the youngest by a significant margin — he probably assumed she was here to track down a relative for some reason, just meant the "sweetheart" in a generic I'm-talking-to-a-child way. "Um. I'm meeting Gwenfrewi Eirsley. Is she here yet?" Liz was a few minutes early, but...
The waiter looked a little surprised, maybe wondering what someone her age was doing meeting someone here, but he didn't say anything about it. "No, I don't think so. Eirsley like the Eirsleys?"
"Yeah. I am a little early, so." She shrugged.
"Right." He was definitely curious now, giving her a look-over head to toe — seeing how far the place was off the high street, she'd dressed rather normal, in one of her nicer muggle dresses that could probably pass for magical to the casual glance and one of her school cloaks (just plain black, not distinctive), using a Slytherin quidditch -themed scarf to keep her hair back. His eyebrows ticked up a little when he noticed the scarf, obviously putting together she went to Hogwarts, and was therefore most likely a special rich person. "I can ask around to make sure, and if you want to sit down while you wait...?"
"That's fine, I'm a little early. I can wait here."
With obvious hesitation — Liz was willing to bet inconveniencing noble customers was a good way to get yourself fired — the waiter left her where she was, quickly disappearing deeper into the coffeehouse. (She'd assumed the place would be a teashop, but she definitely smelled coffee.) Liz got a few curious glances from waitstaff and customers, a group of men even paused on their way out the door to ask if she needed help with anything (what's your dad's name, we'll come drag him out here for you, love), because apparently just standing by the door wasn't nearly as inconspicuous and out of the way as it'd seemed. The weight of the minds all around, people's attention clinging at her now and again, this was seriously starting to make her uncomfortable, her skin crawling and her throat thickening.
Thankfully, she didn't have to wait too long. Liz had maybe been here for five minutes at the most before a woman came sauntering through the door, steps smooth and quick — she'd never met Cynfelyn's cousin before, but she instinctively knew this was Gwenfrewi (Seer thing). She was in duelling clothes, boots and trousers and a wrap-around tunic thing, fingerless gloves poking out of the sleeves of her knee-length jacket, everything done in cotton, leather, and wool — cheaper materials, but held combat-strength defensive enchantments better — the leather left in its natural brown, the rest dyed in greens and whites. Liz noticed the jacket didn't have any fastenings at all, apparently intended to be worn open. She was rather plain-looking, jaw a little too square and nose a little too long, long straw blonde hair tied back with a green ribbon stitched with knotwork in white. Didn't look like much, Liz could have passed her on the street in this part of town without a second glance, definitely didn't look like fancy magical nobility.
Or maybe she couldn't have passed her on the street without a glance — as she got closer, Liz felt a faint crackle on the air. It wasn't just for the look of the thing, her clothes were pretty seriously enchanted.
Gwenfrewi's eyes almost immediately found Liz, her head tilting a little. "Your Grace?"
She tried not to grimace. "'Liz' is fine. Gwenfrewi?"
"Ffrewys," she said, swishing closer and holding out her hand. A little reluctantly, Liz reached for it — she'd seen mages interacting enough to not be surprised when Gwenfrewi grabbed her by the wrist instead of shaking her hand normal. "Pleasure to meet you and all that. Come on, let's go sit down."
Gwenfrewi waved down one of the waitstaff — it happened to be the same bloke who'd spoken to Liz earlier, she suspected he'd been keeping an eye on her — said they needed a private table in the back. He went off, and a minute later a boy came up to bring them back. And Liz did mean "boy" — he couldn't be older than twelve, but was wearing the same uniform as everyone else. On the way through the place, slipping between the rows of tables, the boy kept sneaking her glances. She initially assumed it was the piercings, but she caught the thought that people his age didn't come in here very often, wondering what this was about (not that it was his business, he'd been lectured at about that a few times already). Of course, he was actually younger than her, she was almost certain, but he'd underestimated her age like people did all the bloody time.
At one point, they passed through a cloud of smoke, Liz frowned, glancing back over her shoulder at the table it was coming from. That smelled...off...
Anyway, taking a corner and through a door toward the back of the building, there was a separate dining room, the noise cutting down significantly once they passed through the threshold. And not just the noise, she couldn't help letting out a little sigh when the weight of too many minds all at once pressing against her abruptly lifted — there must be some pretty decent privacy wards in here. It was rather darker, away from the windows and the lamplight partially absorbed by the heavy red and black curtains framing the tables. There were actually people in here, relatively well-dressed men and women — not like super-fancy noble rich, but more formal wear and stuff, Liz guessed professional types on businesses meetings or whatever the magical equivalent would be — but she couldn't feel their minds at all, blocked off by... The curtains, they must be enchanted with privacy spells, projecting the field around the whole tables despite not actually closing them all the way off. Neat.
The boy led them to one of the open tables, offered to take their cloaks. Liz remembered being told this was a thing people just did, that it would be rude to refuse, so fine. It was just her uniform cloak anyway, she didn't really need it just now. As Gwenfrewi shrugged off her jacket, Liz caught a sparkle of metal, her eyes drawn to it — hanging at her hip, half-hidden under a red and yellow sash tied around her waist, was a long knife in an engraved sheath. Not a knife as a tool, she meant like a dagger, or whatever the proper term should be.
It wasn't entirely surprising that Gwenfrewi had one. Cotton and leather held battlefield-ready enchantments better than, say, silk, but not as well as metal — the strength of the defensive spells you could get into proper steel armour was kind of absurd. For all intents and purposes, properly-armoured goblins and even muggle knights and shite had been immune to most direct battlemagic. You could get around that with big spells, like elemental magic and the like, or using transfiguration to try to tie them down (though the armour itself couldn't be transfigured, the environment could be), but actually cursing them was very difficult...and the big stuff usually took more time, so there was a good risk of getting nailed with an arrow or stabbed in the back while you were busy. Back when fighting muggles and goblins had actually been a regular concern, it'd been all but universal for mages taught to fight to carry blades — sometimes full-length swords, but mostly just daggers. They'd close in with something like quick-step, use transfiguration or something to put their armoured opponent off-balance, and finish them off with their knife at close-range, the messy way. The nobility used to practise fencing and stuff for that reason, and some still did, but it wasn't nearly as common now as it had been before Secrecy.
And, well, the people designing the armour weren't idiots, so they'd started coming up with modifications to counter the mages, who'd then added enchantments to their knives to deal with those, so then the armourers had altered their work to counter those, and so forth and so on. There'd been a slow-moving arms race going on for basically forever, especially between mages and goblins — though it was at least paused for the moment, since it'd been a while since they'd really needed to worry about going to war again. The magic she felt around Gwenfrewi might be more from just the knife than her clothes, the enchantments on them tended to be pretty fucking absurd.
One of the few things she knew about the Eirsleys was that they were a big military family. Also a weird religious commune thing, if in a different tradition than the Greengrasses — the Mistwalkers were specifically derived from the old Celtic priesthoods on Anglesey, Liz thought the Eirsleys were from further north — but they thought it was important to all be able to fight, it was a whole thing. Presumably something to do with their beliefs, Liz didn't know, she hadn't asked. Still carrying blades was rather old-fashioned, but it wasn't that out of nowhere. Just meant Gwenfrewi was prepared for a real fight if necessary.
After he took her jacket, Gwenfrewi handed the boy something, Liz caught a glint of silver. And then they were left alone, sitting across the little table from each other, Gwenfrewi's fingers tapping against the wood.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, her mind abruptly going smooth and hard, Liz thrown a little off-balance as she was kicked out. "Oh, sorry. I didn't realise I was doing that." She honestly hadn't — it was very constricted and quiet inside the curtains, Liz had reached for Gwenfrewi's mind by reflex.
"No offence taken — I have relatives who are mind mages, I'm aware of how it can be. I only know too much about our wards to let you in even that little. Not to say I have reason to suspect you, just in case, you understand."
Right, that made sense.
Silence lingered for a moment, Liz idly tonguing her lip ring, not really sure what to say, before a waiter showed up. They did sell tea, obviously, but they also had coffee — coffee was seen as somewhat low-class in Britain, for some unfathomable reason nobody had adequately explained to her, so she'd expected they would. Except, they had multiple different kinds of coffee, and different ways of preparing it or whatever, and Liz wasn't familiar with most of the terms. She cheated with mind magic a little, picking up what it all meant from him — the waiter had stepped inside their circle of silence, and didn't seem to notice her presence at all — got through it without too much stumbling. Liz didn't order any food, though (breakfast hadn't been that long ago), Gwenfrewi shot her a glance, muttered something to the waiter, and then he was gone.
"I'm not much for smalltalk," Gwenfrewi said once they were alone. "So how about we get straight to it?"
Liz was starting to suspect Cynfelyn had put her in contact with Gwenfrewi specifically for a reason. "Fine by me."
"You're looking for a proxy to represent you in the Council." She meant the Wizengamot — "Wizengamot" was the English word, Gwenfrewi was directly translating from the Cambrian.
"Yes."
"The thing I don't get is why you're talking to us about it. My family and yours, we've never had anything to do with each other. Cenfw tells me you're mostly close with Via kids — Black, Greengrass, Bones, that lot. One of them would make far more sense. If you're leaning more toward Via these days, the Greys or Bellchants might be a good pick, or maybe the Dunbars. We've never been each other's kind of people, to put it mildly."
...There was a low drawl on Gwenfrewi's voice that was definitely suggesting something, but with her mind closed off Liz couldn't even begin to guess. They'd probably been on the opposite side of a war at some point, something like that. "I know. But I'm not a Potter, at least not in any way that counts. I wasn't raised with all that stuff, you know."
"Good point," Gwenfrewi said, her eyebrows twitching a little. "Even so, coming to us is a...big step. And if you do mean to change your family's loyalties, this is a good time for it. But even so, our people may not be a good fit."
That was fair enough, she guessed, Liz didn't actually know as much about politics as she probably should. "Why is this a good time? And why not?"
"We're just about to have a major realignment, such a drastic change in your family's allegiance will pass with less attention than it might otherwise. And why not us, well, how much do you know about politics?"
"Honestly? Very little. I know the factions, and some of the basics, but..."
Gwenfrewi let out a sigh, her eyes tipping up to the ceiling.
Before Liz could say anything to defend herself (not that she had any idea what to say), the waiter returned with their things. Gwenfrewi had gotten some kind of herbal thing — Liz hadn't been paying attention to the order, but she could smell it — and also a platter of these little cake things. There was a little bit of silence then as they fixed their cups, Gwenfrewi disgusted badly enough by Liz skipping the honey and adding a little lemon juice to her coffee instead that her control slipped and Liz actually felt it. She realised her taste was bloody weird, honestly, at least the woman didn't comment on it.
"You can have some of the buns, if you want," Gwenfrewi said, nudging the plate with a finger. "I got extra."
"Oh, um, I don't eat sweet things."
Her eyebrows twitched again. "Not at all?"
"Nope. Can't stomach them."
Gwenfrewi nodded, her eyes flicking to Liz's coffee for a blink. "Ah, I guess I should have asked first. They'll have sausages and mash, if you like..."
"I'm fine. Breakfast wasn't that long ago."
"Alright. Anyway, politics. How should I... Here." Gwenfrewi pushed the platter aside, right to the edge of the table, leaving an open space between them. As she started drawing with a finger, painting on the table with a soft greenish glow, she said, "I don't know how much you know about the history, Binns is bloody useless. The Council weren't meant to rule Britain, not at first. With the fall of the Empire, the islands were something of a mess, and with things being as they were, some mages of the time thought it were a good idea to have some means to manage disputes between us, to come together to punish the worst abuses of magic. Blood feuds can be nasty, and a sorcerer with too much talent and not enough conscience can do a lot of damage very quickly — the Christiains could be, hmm, sensitive about magic then, it were wise to be cautious. We weren't one nation, then, the members of the council holding loyalty to different kingdoms, sometimes were kings themselves. It was diplomacy, not government.
"But the origin of our modern politics goes all the way back to that time." Gwenfrewi had drawn two designs — one a dragon from the side, surprising detailed, must not have drawn every line individually; the other was a complex bit of angular knotwork, contained within a plaited ring — a thicker straight line drawn between the two of them. "The south of Britain had been occupied by Rome for some centuries, and was in large part Christian; the north had not been, and was not. The Council were divided from the beginning, but it wasn't a matter of politics, as it wasn't yet a government, but one of culture. You will find, if you go back far enough, the oldest Light families were Romans, in whole or in part, and the oldest Dark families resisted Romanisation, or were from north of the Wall or Ireland — not in every case, but it's a pattern." Tapping the dragon, "Ars Brittania," and then the woven circle, "Ars Publica.
"The influence of certain old priesthoods in the Council soon began to form a third circle." As she spoke, Gwenfrewi drew two more thicker lines, up at an angle, forming an equilateral triangle. At the third vertex, she started drawing another design — it took a little while for there to be enough for Liz to recognise it, but eventually it resolved into a triple-spiral thing, very similar to the one she'd seen at the Wizengamot Hall. "The chaos of those times weakened the old cults quite a bit, their ways shifted over time until we have the Mistwalkers you see today. But they were not the only ones, there were other groups, my ancestors among them. In time this group came to be called Via Communis, or Common Fate in the English.
"These weren't the factions we know today, just..." Gwenfrewi let out a sigh, her head bobbing as she thought, chewing at a piece of one of the cakes. "Britain was not and is not one nation, there are cultural differences. And these families, they had similar traditions and religion, they had ties going back, and so they were drawn together for those reasons. The attitudes and beliefs they shared did give them similar politics, but that wasn't what brought them together. That didn't begin to change until Secrecy, when the Council was forced to truly govern a country for the first time."
Liz was vaguely familiar with that whole business, the retooling of the Wizengamot as an official legislature and the creation of the Ministry, blah blah. Binns was a shitty History teacher, but how the government came to be would be on the OWL, Liz had been reading on her own. "Yeah, I know the basics about all that happening, for the most part."
Letting out a hum, Gwenfrewi nodded, making a little looping gesture with her fork as she took a sip of her tea. "I'm sure, but all of our politics go back to that time, you see. You had some who were enthusiastic about this new project, and all that comes with it — and so Via Communis grew to be the greatest supporters of the Ministry, to break the authority of the old clans and bring us all into one community. Via Communis, common way. And then you had others who did not wish to submit themselves to this new government, to allow some outside authority to meddle in their families' affairs, so we were united in that. But those cultural divisions still existed, and these different ways of thought led to disagreements about how the affairs of our new country should be managed — and so Ars Publica and Ars Brittania came to be political factions proper. And those disagreements, in a way, all come back to Rome."
"I don't know anything about Rome." Not really, anyway. It came up some in history stuff, but not really in enough detail to know why this should be relevant at all.
"I'm not surprised, there's much, well. Rome was very much a human society — they did not tolerate other beings as anything other than slaves. The categorisation of magics into classes with different restrictions that we have now is not the same as the Roman system, but is descended from it. We have different ideas about property, personal morality. Even the place of women in society — the Romans did not think much of women, an attitude you'll find sometimes in the Light. There are many differences between us, and many of them go back to Rome, or Christianised Germans, who also had more influence on the Light. Not all, but many."
Liz was assuming that when Gwenfrewi said "Germans" she was including the English, Daphne and Susan both did the same thing. "Okay. And why does that make switching to Ars Publica a bad idea?"
"I'm getting to that. The Potters split off from the Longbottoms, long ago. At the time, the Longbottoms were of Ars Publica, and when the Potters were raised to the Council they were with Ars Brittania. When the Ministry came to be, they both joined Via Communis, but the Longbottoms remained more Dark, and the Potters more Light. And remember, how I said this was not always about governance, but common culture, and family, and now business. The Potters were of Ars Brittania and Via Communis for generations upon generations. All of your history is with them, all of your business relationships are with them. Turning away from these relationships would be...difficult. Before you do this, you will want to be very certain it is what you want, because it will be no minor thing. Who knows what you might lose on the journey?"
Well, that was...irritating. Liz hadn't even considered that all her money stuff might be wrapped up with Light families — though, that was obvious when she thought about it. She didn't care about the cultural and family history or whatever, since it didn't really have anything to do with her, but... To be blunt, she did like the idea of never actually needing to worry about money, she definitely didn't want to do anything to fuck things up that badly. "And joining Common Fate wouldn't be a problem the same way?"
"It wouldn't be a change. The Light isn't—" Gwenfrewi let out another hum, taking a sip of her tea while she thought. Drawing on the table again, "Ars Publica, Ars Brittania, and Via Communis represent the major divisions within British society, but there have been other factions in the Wizengamot. But they are always ephemeral, reacting to whatever might be going on at the time, and will quickly fade, trending back toward the major three. The Light," she said, tapping at a new drawing halfway between the spirals and the dragon, of a bird with wings spread and– fire, that was a phoenix, "formed in response to the Revolution on the Continent. In part arguing for greater involvement, but also, there were communalists in our country, especially among Gaelic nationalists — the Light pushed for reforms, greater rights for commoners and muggleborns, bring in certain ideas from the muggle world, in an effort to take the air out of the Revolution here. They grew slowly at first, but came to dominate the Wizengamot for a brief time after Dumbledore was raised to Chief Warlock. Their membership came most from Via and Ars Brittania
"And then the so-called Allied Dark," she said, tapping at another new drawing halfway between the knotwork circle and the dragon, a snake sleeping curled around a five-petaled flower, "or the Knights of Walpurgis, or whatever nonsense they like to call themselves. The Dark Lord's followers were pulled from Ars Publica and Ars Brittania."
...Liz would say she was surprised that some of the Death Eaters had been from the traditional light, but she wasn't really. The only person from Ars Brittania she'd had much contact with was Lavender, and she really didn't like muggleborns and nonhumans very much, and was a bit of a stuck-up rich bitch, so. Oh, and Cedric too, she guessed, but they'd never talked about anything other than quidditch, he could be a complete arsehole for all she knew.
"This is why Ars Brittania is so small at the moment, if you wondered, over the last century they had two big bites taken out. But, the thing about these two, is that they're fragile — they've already shrunk from their peak. There was a time, briefly, when the Light was numerous enough, with some allies in Via Communis, to dominate the Council with little opposition. We are still stuck with a few annoying laws from that brief time of unopposed Light rule, though they didn't do that much more damage than had been done already throughout the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries — the Light has been in power for some time, only diminishing in these last generations. And the Allied Dark has shrunk a good deal with the defeat of their Lord—" She gave Liz a little nod, probably in acknowledgement of her (negligible) part in that. "—and the politics of the decade since. Neither alliance has much life to them, were always temporary.
"So, going back to Via will not be so much of a change — the Potters were of Via Communis before the Revolution, not so long ago. And there is much overlap in the culture of Via and the Light, it is not so foreign as Ars Publica. There is little chance that moving back to Via will have much effect at all. Doubly so, at the present moment, as the Light isn't going to exist soon anyway, many of them will be moving back to Via Communis."
"Wait, really? I haven't heard anything that big." She'd heard a lot about there being shake-ups in the Wizengamot and the Ministry, but she hadn't been paying that much attention. She guessed it would make sense if the Light ceased to exist — they had formed around Dumbledore, after all, and he'd been pretty much kicked out of politics at this point — just, she hadn't heard anything about that.
Gwenfrewi raised one eyebrow at Liz. Turning back to her drawing, she started sketching lines over her little triangle in red, Liz guessed representing the share of the Wizengamot each faction had — Common Fate, Ars Publica, and the Light were all more or less even, the Allied Dark getting a noticeably smaller piece, and Ars Brittania only a tiny sliver. She glanced up at Liz, giving her a flat look. With a finger she adjusted the border between Ars Publica and Common Fate, moving it a little closer to the top corner — a few seats flipping from Common Fate to Ars Publica, apparently. Then, with a motion like brushing something away, the phoenix of the Light vanished, plus its border with Ars Brittania, the one with Common Fate adjusted partway down, the Light split between the two factions. And then the snake-and-flower symbol was removed too, the border with Ars Publica gone, the one with Ars Brittania moved halfway across. And then Gwenfrewi reached for one of her little cakes, turning away without saying a word.
For a few seconds, Liz just blinked down at the altered drawing — okay, apparently the political shake-up she'd been hearing about was a rather bigger deal than she'd realised. Maybe not that big of a deal, if they were just going back to the way things had been before Dumbledore and the Dark Lord, but. Except, Gwenfrewi had said before that the Wizengamot had leaned toward the Light side before, but, "Is the Dark about to get control of the Wizengamot?"
Lifting one shoulder in a casual shrug, Gwenfrewi said, "Hard to say. Things aren't settled yet, there are talks going on as we speak. It depends how many in the Light return to Via, and how the Allied Dark splits. Ars Publica will be the largest of the three, but I don't know by how much. Not enough for a majority, certainly, but with allies in Via we may be in power soon. It's possible, at the least."
"Right. So, the Light isn't even going to exist soon, and things are kind of a mess right now, that's why you said now would be a good time to switch if I'm going to."
"Yes, you have good timing in that way. But it would still be a problem. It's not certain that Light families will want to cut off their relationships with you if you come to the Dark, but..." Gwenfrewi let out a sigh, her fingers tapping idly at the side of her cup. "I don't know, maybe it won't be that big of an issue. Most of your wealth is in agriculture, and patents. Those won't be affected, of course, but I'm certain you don't do the shipping yourself. I don't know how much of the sellers you have a hand in, but people will still need the products you grow — it's safe to say you'll still be able to find buyers. Things might be...unsettled for a while, but the more I think on it, the less I think it will matter. You have someone handling your estate on your behalf, right?"
Liz nodded. "Daedalus Diggle."
"Diggle. Vassals of the Greys?"
"Um, I think he said something about that last time we met, I'm not positive." He'd definitely said his family were vassals of someone, she just wasn't a hundred per cent sure who. It might have been the Greys, that sounded right.
Gwenfrewi hesitated for a moment, her eyes narrowed, before saying, "Keep this to yourself, but I've been told the Greys are in talks to join us. So you won't be facing sabotage from your secretary. If you do decide to come to the Dark, you will need to warn him first — he will need to be prepared to handle any consequences. And I would ask him about it, were I you, put your proxy in contact with him, to identify any arrangement that might be in danger, prepare alternatives in the Dark. It's likely not as much of a risk as I thought at first, but you should still be cautious.
"But it still isn't worth the risk if you're not certain this is what you want to do. What makes you think you want to come to the Dark anyway?"
"Well, I'm not sure," Liz admitted, shrugging. "That's kind of what I thought we'd be talking about here? It's just a feeling I've gotten, at school, you know. Mostly the Light kids are just completely insufferable."
It looked like Gwenfrewi was trying to hold it in, but she couldn't quite help a little smirk. "I see. Insufferable about anything in particular?"
...She wasn't sure what to say, honestly. A lot of it was just that they were ridiculous about the Girl Who Lived stuff, and Ars Publica kids didn't really make a big thing about it, but she was pretty sure wouldn't be a politics thing. That's how it'd started out, anyway, but... "I don't know, a lot of them are racist arseholes. Like, wilderfolk, there was a thing about that at school..."
"What about wilderfolk?"
"The caretaker at Hogwarts, you know, his..." Honestly, Liz didn't know what they were, exactly. Just saying his cat didn't seem right, and she was pretty sure they slept together, in the those two totally have sex sense, but. "His wife, I guess? Or his girlfriend, at least, I don't know if they're married..."
"You're speaking of Filch and Norris?" Gwenfrewi waited for Liz's nod. "Yes, I heard about that. 'Wife' is technically wrong, at least — wilderfolk can't legally marry."
"Wait, what? Are you serious?" How had no one ever brought that up before?
With an odd quirk to her lips Liz couldn't read — definitely not a smile but, ugh, Liz wished her mind wasn't blocked off... — Gwenfrewi nodded. "It's true. Marriage is only recognised between humans. If a wilderfolk were a member of a House, perhaps they could slip it past the Office of Records, but it would be a gamble."
"That can't be right. I was told my great...great-grandmother was wilderfolk." She thought that was the right number of greats. Gwenfrewi gave her a look, Liz just shrugged back at her. "She was a swan, apparently? That's what Millie Bulstrode's dad told me."
"Ah, Bulstrode. There are some families who have close ties with local wilderfolk, and sometimes mix with them. But even if they pair off for the rest of their lives, are seen by the locals to be husband and wife, they cannot marry under British law."
"...Well, that's fucking stupid."
Chuckling under her breath, Gwenfrewi said, "It is that, sure. If you think humans and wilderfolk should have the right to marry, that does put you with us more than anyone else — I think Ars Publica are the only faction who would support such a thing, though Via are probably close." Dispelling her drawings, she pulled the platter closer, started picking apart another of the little cakes. "There are many communities who manage themselves differently in that way, how things are done on their lands not always in line with the law. The Ministry can't be everywhere, and in the past there have been some allowances made for local traditions. Some want to put an end to this tolerance, send Ministry officials into these enclaves to enforce the law."
Liz scowled. "As far as I can tell, the Ministry is full of shite and the law is stupid, so fuck that."
"Mm. We're in negotiations right now to found a public education system, did you know?"
"I heard something about it — and it's about bloody time. You know, a bunch of people around here can't even read."
"Many people don't need to be able to read to get by, so it isn't a priority. From what I've heard, these schools are only going to be available to humans."
"Ugh, of course, bloody stupid..."
One of Gwenfrewi's eyebrows ticked up. "Perhaps wilderfolk and nymphs have no interest in pursuing a human-centred education."
...Oh, well, that was a good point, actually, Liz hadn't thought of that. "You can still teach them to read — I guess everything they'll be reading was probably written by humans, but you're not going to fix that if you never teach any of them to read in the first place. And, do they do magic different?"
"It depends. Wilderfolk can learn our magic without any special difficulty — so long as they have taken their human form, they are human enough, in the eyes of magic. Nymphs can learn some human magics, but struggle with others. Goblins can't use wands at all. And all three have their own native traditions as well, of course. On the Continent, there are different versions of the major qualifications for people from different backgrounds."
"Sounds reasonable. Why don't we just do that?"
Gwenfrewi gave her a dark, rueful sort of smirk. "Go out of our way to accommodate nonhuman beings? You would never get a majority in the Council."
"I hate this country sometimes."
"The trouble is the nobility — the commons tend to be more reasonable. Not universally, of course, but. The poor have more important things to worry about. How do you feel about Gaelic independence?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Why not, indeed." Raising her cup to her lips, Gwenfrewi paused for a second to give Liz a suggestive sort of look. "Where do you put the border?"
Liz blinked. "What?"
"The Highlands and the islands are largely Gaelic-speaking, and the east north of the Firth of Forth. But the border region is very mixed. Edinburgh through to Northumberland is mostly British — note I say mostly — but Strathclyde is split almost even. No matter where you put the border, half the mages of Glasgow will be on the wrong side. Also, Hogsmeade — or Scáthachluain, as the Gaels call it — is in a Gaelic-speaking area, but the town itself is British, not to mention the question of what to do with Hogwarts. And what of the Northmen, in the Orkneys and Shetland? Which country do they wish to be a part of?"
...Okay, that was actually way more complicated than Liz had realised. "I don't know. I guess you'd just have to not split the country, and have more local government stuff instead, so they don't get ignored." As far as Liz knew, magical Britain didn't really have local government of any kind, it was just the Wizengamot and the Ministry.
"And you imagine the British nobility would be willing to diminish the power they hold over the populace of this country in such a way?"
Well, no, not really. Liz didn't think that was fixable, or at least not easily. "You know, I haven't gotten to reading it yet, but I just got a copy of The Bremen Prison Diaries..."
Gwenfrewi let out a sharp, surprised laugh, shaking her head and smirking to herself. "I'm going to stop you right there — that is not a conversation you have in public." Maybe not, but Liz thought that Gwenfrewi's response to an indirect suggestion that the solution was to just murder all the nobility who wouldn't get out of the way was ha, very funny, but don't say that here meant that the rumours about the Eirsleys being communalist sympathisers were almost certainly true. "Skeeter should ask you about politics the next time she has you in a room. That'll be a hell of a thing..."
Yeah, Liz guessed the Girl Who Lived turning out to be a communalist would make almost as much of a scandal as her article about the Dursleys. Not that she was saying she was, necessarily — some of what she'd heard (mostly from Tamsyn) actually sounded halfway reasonable, which was a first for mages, but she didn't know that much about them yet — she was just saying, that was probably what Gwenfrewi was thinking. "I actually have another interview scheduled with her while I'm in Romania, for the duelling thing. Advice from Narcissa — um, Lady Malfoy, I mean — trying to get her to like me so she won't write shite about me without asking first, you know."
She grimaced a little at the mention of Narcissa (no surprise there), but nodded. "Not a bad idea. Anyway, yes, maybe you will be a much better fit with us than I thought at first — say some of what you just did a moment ago to someone in the Light and you might spark a screaming fit. I guess Dumbledore not taking a hand in your upbringing screwed himself there, didn't it."
Liz blinked. "What?"
"I'm not surprised if you haven't put it together," Gwenfrewi started, a bit of a drawl on her voice, "as it isn't spelled out, as such. But it's a common assumption that the spread of the whole story of what happened that Ysbrydnos—" She meant Hallowe'en, in Cambrian — "Samhain" was Gaelic. She didn't hear Ysbrydnos very often, since the sort of conservative mages who still celebrated the old pagan holidays were more likely to speak Gaelic (or have their own holidays with different names, like the Mistwalkers), but it'd come up in Cambrian class. "—was a scheme on Dumbledore's part, to prepare the ground for you to succede him as leader of the Light when the time came."
"...Well, that's fucking stupid. If he wanted me to take up his shite he should have actually taught me himself. I've barely even spoken to him a handful of times, how is that supposed to work?"
"At a guess? He thought having a humble, muggle childhood would set you up with the right values, and when you rejoined our world, lost and overwhelmed, you would naturally gravitate toward the people who've been trained since infancy to venerate you. He likely planned to begin training you properly when you were more of an age to deal seriously with the concepts involved."
"Okay, that still sounds stupid to me, but I'm not an expert with this stuff, maybe it would have worked if those humble muggles didn't turn out to be abusive sacks of shite. Whatever, he can still go hang."
One of Gwenfrewi's eyebrows turned up, giving her a look. If Liz had to guess (and she did, bloody occlumency), she was surprised Liz had just come out and flatly said the "abusive" part — she'd gotten the impression people didn't expect abused kids to admit it. Which was fair enough, Liz wouldn't have until pretty recently, Severus got her used to the idea. And besides, thanks to Skeeter everyone already knew anyway, just using the word didn't actually change anything. Gwenfrewi kept whatever she was thinking to herself, though. "Children rebel. I suspect that, even had everything gone as planned, that you might well have resisted the course that had been laid out for you, simply because it was what was expected of you — Dumbledore was leaving more to chance than I would have, too much blind trust in people's better nature.
"But, the matter that brought us here. I can't be your proxy — I have my own responsibilities to attend to. And you might have noticed, I'm not the most politic of people." Yeah, Liz had noticed, but she honestly preferred blunt and to the point, which Cynfelyn must have realised when he'd recommended she talk with Gwenfrewi. "I have a few ideas, I can help you write some letters. Do you prefer to work with a man or a woman?"
"Um, it doesn't really matter, I don't think." Which sex someone was didn't make that much of a difference to her, for most reasons. Her friends were mostly girls, but only if you didn't count quidditch and duelling teammates, which made it way more even, and she suspected that was just because other people tended to care about that sort of thing, for reasons she didn't really get. The only exception was healers — she and Severus had been talking about finding a blood alchemist for next summer, and she'd rather healers be women, for what she suspected were Vernon-related reasons. (Except Severus, but even with him it was easier if she took a sip of calming potion first.) If they were pretty she might get distracted sometimes, but that wasn't a big enough of a problem to make an effort to avoid it.
"Right. I'm thinking maybe Sylvia — Silviana Slughorn, that is. An old friend of mine, you might get along, and she just wrapped up her Mastery, early enough to not be too deep into guild stuff, so she has the time. Do you have any interest in enchanting?"
Liz blinked at the apparent non sequitur, but just shrugged. "Yeah, sure. I've been playing around enchanting things a bit in my spare time, so."
Gwenfrewi snorted. "I bet Ashe Babbling just loves that." The use of "Ashe" suggested they knew each other somehow — Liz was pretty sure that was what friends and family called her, she'd only ever heard it from Severus — she was distracted enough wondering how that she almost missed Gwenfrewi going on. "Sylvia is an artificer, so, I'm sure you'll find something to talk about between the business parts. The Slughorns are one of— Hmm, as I said before, the factions are more a matter of tradition and association, we don't all agree on everything, politics-wise. There's a more populist group, following the Inghams, and a more traditionalist group, following the Monroes — my family and the Slughorns are both in the first one. The Slughorns were big in the guilds before they were raised to the Council, and still are, their sympathies tend to lean that way. And Sylvia herself, well, she's read certain books she can't talk about in public, let's put it that way."
So, it sounded like Gwenfrewi was thinking of setting Liz up with a nerdy class traitor. Neat.
"There are a few others who might work, but I think we should check with Sylvia first. I could help you write a letter to her, but I know her home floo address — we can drop in and talk about it with her now if you like."
...Well, might as well get it out of the way, she guessed. "Sure, just let me finish my coffee first."
"Alright. Cenfw was telling me about the duelling team, have you considered practising deflection? It is a bit risky, much more than just shielding the thing, but he thinks you mean to duel professionally after school, and that's as much performance as anything else — if you want to get invitations to events, you'll need to be able to put on a good show..."
Woo, hope that wasn't too confusing...
Anyway, while writing the previous chapter, I decided to institute a maximum word count for a chapter — if it breaks 20k, it gets split up. I know how much of a strain it can be to read massive chapters in one sitting, and it's not any easier to proofread. This chapter was, once again, meant to be a pair of scenes, and it isn't actually quite finished yet, but it's definitely going to break 20k. It should only take one more writing day to have the second scene, maybe two if it goes long, so I'll be posting that tomorrow or the day after.
Right. Weird fantasy politics shite, joking about revolutionary purges, and Liz actually doing a networking for once, what fun. Until next time.