Harry Potter and the Refugees of Time
Chapter 6: Semper Fidelius
Disclaimer: The usual, no claims of ownership, nothing, squat. Some characters based on work by JKR and some not. Blame me if you don't like it.
Rating: K
Synopsis: AU (so don't gripe about historical inaccuracies), Post-Hogwarts, mostly from Harry's POV. No shipping
August 2028, Gringotts', Honeblade's Office
Once more, we gathered in Honeblade's office. The three goblins, myself and the former Russian imperial family. As the meeting's topic would also affect the Ministry and the Crown, Hermione, Luna and 'C' also attended, as were the permanent undersecretaries (abbreviated PUS) to the Foreign Secretary (FS) and the Home Secretary (HS). The FS and HS that we had met with a decade earlier had been replaced a couple of times in the democratic pinball we call elections, as well as due to repercussions from the mess that was Brexit and its aftermath. There was a bit of a shimmer at the side of the room, so I suspected that one or more Unspeakables were also in attendance.
Actually, having the PUS's there, rather than their political bosses, was a plus in my rather jaded opinion. A PUS was a long-term civil (so to speak) servant (same comment), with decades of experience and expertise in their field, while the Cabinet minister might have a few weeks at best. The PUS actually ran things, and, in the most part, really knew what they were about.
I was there representing the British domestic secret services even though my agent number was SIS ('C' looking after the foreign operations), as well as providing some friendly support to Nick and his family which now included three young children whose future might be adversely affected by the current events. One kid was my own granddaughter, as Jamie and Stacy (as she now preferred to be called) had gotten busy with the marital mathematics (one and one equals two with one to carry). Thus, this was both personal and professional to me.
Lately, I had been working as a liaison between the domestic and international versions of the services, having had operational experience in both areas. The office scuttlebutt was that I worked for MI5 ½ (or MI5 ¾ for those magically aware).
Honeblade looked to Nick and his family and said, "I am afraid, sir, we have a bit of a problem. Actually, a few problems. Your secret has been uncovered. Two different groups have currently become aware, or at least are highly suspicious, of the truth. However, it is still sufficiently unknown to the public, so we may be able to do something about it. I saw, 'may', as it may prove difficult or impossible. For one group of issues, Gringotts should be able to handle on our own. However, others are more problematic and possibly disastrous. We called this meeting to discuss options and damage control."
"There is also the issue that the current dictator of Russia has just declared himself to be the new Tsar and demands that all assets owned by previous Tsars and imperial family members be immediately turned over to him. He is gathering substantial armed forces to put this into affect. Our St Petersburg offices have upgraded our security and resumed battle training for our staff there, given the possibility of attack."
"As such, the pretenders to your 'vacant' throne have demanded that Gringotts hand over your vaults or at least move the contents of yours and theirs to another branch outside Russian control but under their control. We had not informed them that this had already been done for yours some years ago, as we at Gringotts saw the direction that the politics were going. We did agree to move their holdings and this is being done."
"In moving the accounts to new vaults outside Russia, this required that new contracts be put in place on the new units. Therefore, your 'relatives' will no longer be getting bank statements on your accounts. They, and the Russian authorities, will still be aware of the existence of the accounts, which could be a lingering problem."
"They have also demanded that the vaults be turned over to them, but we have informed them that the status of the owners of the vaults is still in dispute. They have stated that the skeletons of you and your family have been found and buried with full honours, and so you are officially dead, in Russia. Gringotts has informed them that we have our own criteria, and that they would have to provide us with certified pieces of the subject skeletons so that we can run out tests on them to confirm the identities in accordance with our policies. We do not believe that this will occur any time in the near future."
Honeblade nodded to me, so I took over.
Looking at the ex-Imperial family, I asked "Have any of you received security training, or even gone through a security clearance?"
Nick answered, "I have, as part of my army training, both in the old days and now with the British Army."
I smiled sadly. "Any others?"
Solveig responded "There was never a need to do so. My husband was the Tsar, and so was entitled to every secret in the empire. Alexei, as the Tsarovitch, was of course similarly expected to be able to know everything – it was his right! Our daughters would never be expected to be privy to any such secrets, as they would never be expected to be in the government in any significant way. I know that time have changed, but this was the way it was then."
Within the 'in-the-know' group, we might still use their original names but intentionally got into the habit of using their new ones to prevent giving away their identities accidentally where it could become a problem. A minor security measure, but better safe than sorry. The only exception was Maria, as she had married a Spanish nobleman and used the Spanish form of her name, which was of course the same as her Russian one.
I nodded. "So other than Nicholas, none of you were training in keeping secrets. Of course that is, other than Luthor's medical condition. I didn't think so."
Nick looked puzzled. "Friend Harry, why these questions? Why are these things important?
I looked at my friend sadly, and answered. "Nick, you may have been entitled, as Sunny said, to know everything and anything, but that does not mean that you did. There are many things where the requirement goes beyond 'ultra-secret' to being on a 'need-to-know' basis and even to 'eyes only' which means that any document must be burned immediately after reading. Also, looking at your history and your refusal to even countenance any sharing of your power and authority, there may have been many things that your staff just didn't inform you about, because you would have refused to listen to them."
The former Tsarina became furious. "They had no right to ask Nicholai to share his power. He was Tsar, Emperor and Autocrat! The rights were his and his alone! Those people had no right to ask for what they demanded!"
Luna looked to her sadly and responded, "And Madame, how did that work out for you? That attitude is what got his grandfather assassinated, and you and your family taken to the basement room in Yekaterinburg!"
The shock on Solveig's face would have been funny under other circumstances. Nick put his hand on hers, and said "Be at peace, my love. They have a good point. Unfortunately a valid and very important point."
Nick nodded to the rest of us. "I was taught that our principle was 'Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality', meaning obedience to the Church, obedience to the Tsar, and the supremacy of the Russian language and culture. It is ironic that the soviets basically used the same ideas, except of course the Church was replaced by the Party. Although I think that they were even more ruthless about obedience than we were in our day, and we were bad enough."
"In the preparations for my courses at the military college, I have had to re-examine our history. Sadly, our destruction started well over a hundred years before 1918. The world had passes us by, and we refused to see it."
"Now, how are these things relevant to our current situation? We understood that we were granted sanctuary and protection."
I paused to think for a few seconds, then began. "You all must be aware that most people are inherently curious. Some of the most curious are employed by their governments to collect information that might prove valuable, either to gain advantages for their own situations, or to prevent others from gaining advantages. We call these people diplomats, or in other cases where their work is purely of strategic use, spies. Spies are intensely curious, often very or extremely paranoid, and obsessed with not having their true functions discovered."
Stacy smirked at me and said, "But Papa Harry, you are a spy yourself. No?"
I smiled back. "My dear, how do you think I became so familiar with their characteristics?"
"Now not all curious people become spies. Some become scholars and scientists, and some are just normal highly intelligent people. Some are satisfied with the world as it is, and some prefer to look more intensely into why things are as they are."
"These lead to our current problems."
"A couple years ago, Maria and her husband Don Julio attended a party in Madrid for foreign dignitaries, hosted by his government. At some point, Maria was heard stating an old Russian proverb or saying. One of those who heard this had studied Russian dialects for his diplomatic posting, and commented that he last heard her pronunciation on old recordings of the dialect used only in pre-revolution diplomacy."
Maria nodded as she remembered the interchange. "When he said that, I told him that I have learned the phrase from my grandfather whose distant ancestors were of the nobility. Madrid is over three thousand kilometers from St Petersburg, which I thought was sufficiently distant to make it true."
I nodded. "Well done. However, he was actually in his country's intelligence service, and was suspicious as is an occupational hazard. He obtained pictures of you and back at the embassy, ran facial recognition software to identify you are being in all likelihood, at an extreme confidence level, the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna who was supposed to be dead over a hundred years before."
The ex-empress frowned and asked, "What is this facial recognition software Lord Harry?"
The Foreign Office PUS glanced at me indicating he would put an official face on it. "Madame, most people have some ability to recognise other people from the shape of their faces, to a more or less degree. Computer analysts have developed programs which make it much more precise than human senses, by very accurately measuring the proportions of faces, the relative distance between the eyes and the width of the mouth, distance from the eyes to the chin, and such. Using this kind of program or software, some governments can examine people coming off an airplane and rapidly identifying each and ever person as they walk past the camera. The Chinese have been using this kind of thing for years. Law enforcement departments do the same."
I continued. "In another case, Holly has become widely known as an expert in clothing styles of the late 1800's and early 1900's and has a name for accurately clothing actors for period films and television. Sometimes her precision has confounded other experts in this field. Some have wondered how she came to this depth of knowledge and looked into her background. They found no evidence of her having attended any school of fashion design or colleges with courses on the clothing styles of various periods. They became suspicious, and we have seen articles in the trade magazines wondering about this fashion prodigy and her background. That is as far as it has gone so far, but it is possible that foreign agencies have also seen these articles and started asking questions."
Holly smiled, "I have told people who asked that my great-grandmother and grandmother and so on back several generations had been seamstresses to noble families who were extremely fastidious, or as my coworkers put it 'bloody picky', so they had to be very precise."
I nodded to her, and thanked her, then continued.
"We have detected searches of various kinds of records, both by personal searches and computer analysis. Although we had made some entries into the public records to cover your tracks, so to speak, we had not thought it necessary to go back as far as might now have been prudent. In previous cases, such as Operation Mincemeat in the Second World War, a few months alterations were more than adequate, but in these days of computers, we went back a decade and a half. This appears to have been insufficient."
"When we checked the records of who was searching and what they were searching for, we found that some carefully and intentionally unidentified people had gone back farther. Much farther. They found that there was no record of the Nicholson family existing before 2004, with no immigration documents, no birth records, no school records, or so on. Now that there are a number of commercial services for looking into ancestral records, these kind of records are readily and easily available."
"In most cases, these kinds of enquiries are innocent. The fact that some of the searches went to great effort to remain anonymous, which is not typical of people looking up their ancestors, we are suspicious that foreign operatives, or perhaps even criminal organizations, have discovered the truth of your continued existence."
Stacy asked nervously, "And what do you, our family spy, suspect is their purpose?"
Smiling, I nodded and said, "I and those I have spoken with about this, have not yet seen any specifics, but there is the possibility of blackmail, extortion, opportunities for bribery, or even plans for assassinations. Some of those we suspect are in governments, and some in criminal organizations, although in some countries the distinction between these is hardly noticeable. Given that your family has a fair bit of property and money that others are eager to acquire, by theft or inheritance, assassination is not out of the question. We have become officially worried."
Nick frowned. "And what is being planned to deal with these threats? Are you altering our 'paper footprint', or planning assassinations yourselves?"
The PUS for the Home Office spoke up. "It was decided, at the highest levels, that adjusting paper or computer records is just too late. As they say, the cat is out of the bag, the horse has left the barn, the ship has sailed, and so on."
The PUS-FO added "Given the number of people we suspect are privy to the information, it is felt that the number of removals that would be required could never be covered over, and in some instances involving government officials would be considered acts of war."
As his family looked more and more worried, Nick stated, "And from a national and military point-of-view, if it a choice between us and war, we are expendable."
The PUS nodded. "I am sorry, but just so. However, that applies to all of us, even myself. In such a war there are no bystanders, only survivors. But I will tell you this – you and your family are not a bargaining chip. We do not play the hostage game, and our response, to anyone threatening war if we don't hand you over, will not be what they expect or want! If the gloves come off, they are off!"
"One thing we are suggesting is that your entire family immediately take some training from our secret services on how not to be seen. We have a school for agents, which unfortunately has unofficially been dubbed the 'Monty Python School', who provide lessons in minimizing your public signature. Unfortunately, this may be too late in some cases, and certainly in the case of the children, may prove ineffective."
Luna spoke up for the first time. "What about using the Fidelius charm, and erase what you call their public signature?"
A look of hope came over the family, and the officials. The PUS's asked Luna eagerly "What is this Fidelius charm? I have not heard of it before, in spite of having been briefed on magic. It sounds very interesting, very interesting. Could it be used more generally to maintain secrecy more widely?"
Luna looked over at the shimmering by the wall, which I assume hid one or more of the Unspeakables, and shook her head. "I suspect not. We have studied the Fidelius charm as much as we have been able to do, but there are not many instances where it has been successful. The spell hides a secret in the soul of a person who is called the Secret Keeper, and has to be cast by a powerful wizard or witch. Where the secret has to do with a building or location, the spell is linked and continues to be powered by the magical ward stones which are typically part of the building's structure, making it effectively eternal. Only the Secret Keeper can reveal the secret to others, either verbally or by writing the secret down and passing it to the recipient."
"You were speaking before of something being on a 'need-to-know' basis. With the Fidelius, this is very much the case. If you have not been told or shown the secret, you cannot know it. Note I said 'cannot', not 'do not'. If you heard someone, other than the secret keeper, speaking about it, the words would be unintelligible. If the parchment that the secret was written on were dropped, and you picked it up rather than being handed it directly, the words would be blurred or make no sense."
"If the secret keeper forgets the secret, the secret is lost forever, until it becomes irrelevant. If the secret keeper dies, the secret may cease being secret, or others who know the secret all become secret keepers themselves. There are so few cases of successful Fidelius charms where the secret keeper died that this point is still being debated in the Department of Mysteries as there were several other protective wards in place at the location in question and it is difficult for even the experts to determine which wards are still effective."
"The secret has to be very specific and relevant. For example, if you tried to say that this office was in London, but not where, no-one would be able to find anything in London. The power needed to cast a spell covering that large an area would probably kill the person casting it."
Looking at me sadly, she continued, "In one case, the secret keeper betrayed the secret to an enemy. As far as we have been able to determine, the secret was that a certain family lived in a certain building. The parents were killed but the baby survived, and the protection of the secret failed, because there was no longer a family living there."
The people in the room who knew my history all nodded sadly with me.
"Casting the Fidelius on magical people would require a high level of magical power, but the secret keeper does not need to be magically powerful themselves. The spell would continue to be power by the magic of the people themselves who are hidden by the spell. The lower the magical index of the people being the secret would not need to be high, but the caster would need to be sufficiently powerful to link the spell to them."
Looking at me again she said, "Fortunately, we have one of the most powerful wizards in Europe in the room with us."
"A further complication is deciding who needs to know the secret, and having the secret keeper be able to meet with them to pass the secret. I assumed everyone in this room needs to be informed once the spell is cast, and we may want to list those others who need to be notified as well, so that they can be told."
Honeblade smiled. "I can reduce the number to be informed a bit, as my people are immune to human mind magics and this is one of those kinds of magic as it affects the minds. By the way, this secret of my people is not to leave this room." With this he smiled at me, which puzzled me for a moment."
The light came on. "Friend Master Honeblade, some thirty years ago, I and a couple friends entered Gringotts in disguise, and cast the Imperius curse on a senior teller, in order to break into a vault so that we could destroy a cursed artifact. Are you now telling me that this master subterfuge was completely ineffective?"
He nodded and smiled. "Friend Harry, you are correct. Remember the times we were in. We were at war with the Dark Lord who called himself Voldemort. His plans were to exterminate the goblins and any others he considered beneath him, and seize the Gringotts vaults for himself. We knew of the cursed artifact, as you call it, but by our laws, and contracts enforced by magic, could not ourselves enter those vaults to destroy it."
"You and your friends had already been captured once by Voldemort's minions and managed to escape with help from your house-elf, who died as a result. Our High Council estimated your chance of winning the war was only about 60%, and your chance of being captured again was around 80%. Voldemort was a master of mind magics and if you have been captured again before his artifacts were destroyed, it could have been disastrous. If you had known then that goblins could not be put under the controlling spells, he would have ripped the information from your minds, and rather than trying to subvert our forces would have just killed them outright. We needed you to believe that you managed to get into the vault through your own deception. It was war."
I nodded and smiled back at him. "I understand. I may not like it, but given what I do for a living, I certainly understand."
Turning to the others in the room, I said "Okay, it seems like I am going to get voluntold to cast the Fidelius spell on Nick and his family. If so and given what Luna just told us, we need to work out the precise wording as well as a list of who gets told. And also, I understand that the Fidelius on stationary objects or locations are anchored by the wardstones and so last essentially forever barring accidents, but how does it work for a group of people who are not going to always be together in one place?"
Luna shook her head a little. "I think we will need at least three separate Fidelius charms, Harry. One each for the vaults in St Petersburg and Zurich." She looked at Honeblade who nodded (presumably to confirm the location of the vaults outside Russia). "Then the one on the family. Perhaps we should figure out who would need to get told first." She looked around the room.
The PUS's looked at each other. The Home Office PUS grumbled a bit. "As the offer of sanctuary came directly from the Crown, I think the Royal family will have to be told about the one for the family. I know His Majesty expressed an interest in how this matter is proceeding. Given that, I think Lady Hermione should be the Secret Keeper, as being the Royal Witch she will have best access to the Family."
Honeblade nodded his agreement. Looking to the two goblins with him, and murmuring softly to them, who then nodded, he added "We don't think anyone outside of the family here really needs to know of the existence or location of their vaults. One point on that is that we will have to word the secret carefully, as it should be known only to this branch of the former Imperial family, and as such, the secret keeper should be one of the family. As Gringotts manages inheritance matters for the magical world, Gringotts would consider the other branches as part of the wider Romanov family. I would assume that, as they are trying to claim control of the contents of the same vaults, you would rather they not be informed."
"Another point is that the secret should pertain to only the contents of the vaults, as the physical vaults themselves are property of Gringotts. If you stated the secret as being something like the vaults being their property and being part of the protected secret, the spell would likely fail as it would not be accurate and therefore invalid."
I shook my head. "This is getting more complicated every minute."
Nick chatted briefly with his family. "We agree with Master Account Manager Honeblade's statement. Our property is only what is contained within the vaults, and those items, documents and moneys are ours. They do not belong to the cadet branches of the imperial family, unless our own family ceases to exist or wills the valuables to them at some later date. If we all leave this world somehow, I suppose it will fall to Gringotts to assess who then owns them, as your spell should then fail because our family would no longer exist. I don't mean to sound greedy, but they didn't inherit the vaults or their contents two centuries ago, so they don't get them now."
"We think that our eldest daughter Olga, excuse me Holly, should be our secret keeper for the vaults. As Maria is in the public eye due to her marriage to Julio, Toni is in the military and Stacy is married to someone related to a spy, she would be the safest person for this job, and as eldest it is perhaps her due. Our son is in the medical field, and as became apparent with the diseases a few years back, medical people are not in the safest professions.
I asked, "If the spell on the vaults has to be powered by the wardstones located where the properties are, does that mean that Holly, and I assume me, have to go to St Pete's to affix the spell on those vaults to the stones? Do we even have to go there to cast the spell? I don't think it wise for Holly or any of the family to go there, and I have a problem entering, or rather leaving, Russian territory."
Stacy grinned. "Does that have to do with the story what you told me about last year, of one of your missions from twenty years ago?"
I nodded. "There nothing like an 'in absentia' death sentence waiting for me that inhibits your love of travel. Not the best item for sight-seeing trips."
Honeblade consulted his colleagues briefly. "I think we can work around those issues. If the secret keeper writes out the spell and gives it directly to one of our staff, who then goes to St Petersburg and inscribes it on the stone, that should work. If it is written in a way that the goblin would have trouble reading it in spite of knowing the secret, that should maintain the secrecy, in spite of our immunity to the spell. I supposed a translator would have to be let in on the secret."
Luna spoke up. "What if it was written down in old Nordic runes? The term 'Russian' comes from a thousand years ago, when Viking traders called 'rus' went through those territories up the Neva and down the Volga to Constantinople. My family has Scandinavian roots and I can transcribe the spell into the old runes quite easily. As these runes can't be read anymore by very many, outside of Iceland, that should add even an extra layer of security. Also, from our research, as long as you are very specific as to which vaults are to be affected, we should be able to cast the spell here, and have it work there – it is more typical to go to the location to be protected, but that is only so you can cast the spell and adjust the stones at the same time and only have the people it protects be present to be told the secret."
I smiled and said, "Okay then. That should be good. Now, do we do the spell for the Zurich vaults now, or do the spell for the family and then head over to Switzerland? The Alps should be nice with all the summer flowers."
Luna shook her head. "Two problems with casting the spell on the family first. I assume that the vaults are under the names of the Romanovs. Yes?" Looking at Honeblade who nodded, she continued "All right then. We would need to lock down the vaults with the names of the original owners, and then change the recognition of the names. Otherwise, the vaults would be linked to people who may not be recognised as really existing anymore. Magic is funny that way. So, Zurich? I don't really have any need to be there for the casting, other than making sure that Harry doesn't muck it up. Given the power needed to the family's charms, Harry would be too tired to do it right afterwards. So do we apparate or take the Chunnel?"
"Besides, I have a week or two of holiday coming up, and I haven't recently checked out how the Tyrolian yetis have been handling the reduction of the glaciers. I think I am overdue to a visit with them."
The 'Nicholson' family stared at Luna, while those of us who have known her for years merely smiled. We had introduced her to the old television shows of the Beverly Hillbillies, and she found that the reactions to Ellie's critters so similar to many people's reaction to her quests for elusive animals (which she now referred to as 'crypto-critters'). We love the girl, but she is still a bit weird for most people – at the BEW she fits right in.
The FO-PUS frowned. "You say that casting the spell on the family will take sufficient magical power that Lord Potter (overly-formal idiot, even if he is my ultimate boss) would be too weak to the second spell. How much power does it take, how much power will it cost him and will he be unfit for duty because of it? He is a rather important agent."
Luna looked over to the shimmer, and a hand reached out of it to hand her a file. She flipped it open to read, and her eyebrows rose.
She grimaced. "Our Department of Mysteries has conducted some tests on Harry over the years, on the quiet mind you, as well as looking into the power needed for the Fidelius charms itself. They are still undecided about the possibility of two or more magicals combining their forces to cast such as spell, so they suggested relying on Harry on his own, so that we don't screw it up."
"The test would indicate that casting the charm on a family of seven, being a magical number, would take significantly less than casting on twelve if we included the current children and spouses. Is the plural of spouse not spice? Mouse, mice, whatever. It is advisable to include the children as young folk are seldom able to keep secrets on their own, particularly if someone asked them what their parents told them not to say. An American telly host used that trick a lot some years ago."
"If or when more children make their appearances, they can be added to the charm with little effort, as the main spell will be active. I would assume that the family would want to make them aware of their heritage."
"All right. Given all these caveats, and our assessment of Harry's magical power, he could safely and with little consequence cast the charm to cover a period of twenty-five years. If he pushed it to thirty, he would be out of commission for a week, which we estimate would be acceptable. At thirty-five years, he would need a month of recovery time to be fully functional, and forty years would kill him. I assume that would be unacceptable to all, particularly Harry."
The FO-PUS nodded at his information. "A week off duty is acceptable to His Majesty's government."
We all looked at Nick and his family. They were quietly discussing the matter and it implications.
Nick turned to me and smiled. "We would accept the twenty-five year charm, but would prefer the thirty year period if it is acceptable to everyone, but especially Harry as the cost of casting it would be on him. I am now sixty-years of age, and my children are grown and making their way in the world. A pause of thirty years in recognition by others, combined with the 'disappearance' of our vaults, should suffice. If necessary, a second application of the charm could maybe be done, if that is possible."
I nodded my acceptance as Luna smiled and said "I don't know that a second spell has ever been tried. But this would give us time to research it." Looking around the room, everyone else seemed to be in agreement as well.
I have a family of good friends, but I can't tell you about them, even if I wanted to do so.
A/N: I have assumed that the current occupant of the British Throne will have retired (one way or another) by 2028. If this upsets you, tough. It seemed reasonable.
