Empire
.:OOO:.
BOOK ONE
.:OOO:.
ONE
Born with Magic
Childbirth was not easy. Logically, Oberon Granger knew this. He was, after all, a smart man, and a dentist to boot. Childbirth was also painful. Very painful. He also knew this with as much certainty as he knew that performing teeth extractions without the use of any anesthetics would be agonising, maybe less so, but it would still be in that same realm of extreme discomfort. Yet, no matter how logical he told himself he was, he could not stop himself from pacing a hole through the hallway floor in front of the bedroom. How could he, when screams of unimaginable suffering emanated from within, ringing across the quaint two-bedroom cottage, knowing that it was his wife that was screaming bloody murder? He could even occasionally hear her scream for his murder.
Another anguished cry ripped across the room and into the hall. Oberon ran a hand through his head and down his face. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, halting his leaden steps. Oberon turned tired eyes towards the cause of his arrested pace, only to look into the amused eyes of his brother.
"You look terrible, mate," Elliot said, laughter colouring his tone. "Why don't you go sit down and have a cuppa?"
Another horrible cry of pain ripped through the house once more.
The other man winced and added, "We'll even add a shot or two of whiskey in it, eh?"
Hours to an eternity later, the sound of a mewling baby reverberated and bounced along the walls of the two storey cottage. Oberon was up from his seat and up the stairs in record time, just as the door to their bedroom door opened and the midwife emerged, looking harassed but triumphant.
"Margaret, is everything—"
"It's a girl, Oberon."
Oberon skidded to a halt, his heart bursting inside him before promptly making a break for the door to their bedchamber. A girl!
Inside, on the large bed in the middle of the room, his wife reclined against a mountain of pillows, exhausted and far too pale; but when she saw him coming, the most brilliant smile graced her beautiful face. In her arms lay a small bundle wrapped in a thick pink blanket.
Oberon slowed to a halt and swallowed, his heart pounding.
"Look, Hermione," Helen Granger whispered, voice soft and gentle, as she lifted the tiny thing she cradled in her arms, greedily sucking on her breast, "it's your papa."
Hermione.
"Hullo, Hermione," the new father murmured, enthralled at the sight of the round pink face of his daughter, a small tuft of brown hair on top of her head. He ghosted a finger down her smooth, downy cheek, wondering and amazed. He shared a smile with his wife, exhausted as she was, and he found that he'd never experienced joy as pure as this.
.:OOO:.
Life at Clytemnestra was simple and uncomplicated. Safe. Every day that the settlement remained hidden and free from the Empire's clutches was another day they could remain free men.
Since the rise of the Magical Empire in the late 1920's, the people who had escaped the witches' and wizards' subjugation of non-magicals had found solace and safety within Clytemnestra. Aided by other wizarding sympathisers who opposed the Emperor's rule, they constructed a forcefield of magic that provided non-magicals a place to regroup, recuperate and, more importantly, survive. Located in a vast valley in Cornwall, their territory was hidden by magic. No one in possession of magical capabilities could enter within their territory, and any stranger not known to the inhabitants were quickly dealt with using weapons enhanced by their own man-made technology. They were Freeman, proud and resilient, and they refused to bow to people who relied on a wooden stick to survive.
As such, time and life passed blissfully for the Freemen of Clytemnestra, especially for the Grangers who doted on their daughter since her birth. They had been struggling to conceive for nearly a decade since their marriage, so when Hermione was born, they saw her for the gift she was. She was their ray of sunshine in a life where they were persecuted and enslaved for being born without magic, in constant fear of the day the Emperor would discover their refuge. She was their pride and joy, and they would die for her. No one would ever take her away from them.
Until something did.
Until Magic did.
.:OOO:.
Hermione had just turned two when she performed her first accidental magic.
Already very bright for her age, Hermione toddled about their cottage with the picture book her Uncle Elliot had given her about a girl as tiny as a thumb. It was her favourite bedtime story and her mother would read it to her every night. That night was no different. She carried the book to where her mother sat on her armchair by the fireplace and climbed into her lap, eager to begin.
Helen Granger smiled and picked up her book. Entranced by the story, the little girl gasped and cried at the appropriate times, and when her mother began to read the part where Thumbelina flies away with the sallow, it happened: the image of Thumbelina and the swallow rose from the page and flew around the room, the paper figure of the little girl on the back of a paper bird bidding them farewell.
Hermione giggled at the sight, delighted by the amusing surprise.
Helen, however, was horrified. She gasped and goggled at the spectacle before. She stared at the charming display of magic and paled.
"Oberon!" the Misus Granger all but shrieked, her horror mounting.
"Helen?" Her husband called out in concern, the sound of running footsteps echoing around the house. He raced into the salon, his eyes landing on his wife and his daughter, seated together on their usual spot by the fireplace. Hermione was giggling, eyes wide and enraptured. It was the sight of his wife, however, that made dread creep into the pit of his stomach.
Helen turned to him with terrified eyes, a shaking hand coming up to point at something hovering by the ceiling. The sight of the paper figures made his blood run cold in his veins.
No.
No!
.:OOO:.
The Freelands functioned as a society that lived in the shadows of the Empire. Like Clytemnestra, there were numerous settlements for non-magical people all over the world, and there were a handful of them in Britain alone, the closest one being the non-magical settlement of Castor. Out in the open, non-magical people we hunted, persecuted and enslaved without question by the Magical Empire. But there were magical people, too, who opposed the Empire's rule. These witches and wizards also lived in similar settlements scattered across Britain and around the world, similarly concealed within valleys, mountains, marshlands, and even underwater, protected by similar protections that kept their non-magical counterparts safe from the Empire's gaze.
The nearest magical Freeland settlements were Helen and Pollux. Living separately, not only from a common foe, but from each other, was a necessity that the first Freemen had decided was a wise thing to do. The smaller the number, the easier it was for them to avoid the Empire's clutches.
Over half a century had passed since the rise of the Empire, and the Freemen have survived their rule for just as long. But there was a price to pay for their survival. Magic moved in mysterious ways not even witches and wizards could predict, and occasionally, a magical child would be born from mundane parents — muggleborns. Similarly, though rare, a child without magic from magical families — squibs, as they called them — would be born. In order for their segregation to fully work, children with magical abilities must be sent to the closest magical settlement as soon as they manifested signs of magic. Children without magical abilities born in magical settlements would also be sent to non-magical settlements as soon as it became evident that they had no magic by the age of seven.
Separate, that was the Freemen motto. Separated but free.
.:OOO:.
"You can't let them take her away, Oberon, you can't! I won't let you! Not my baby!" Helen cried — no, begged, her distress evident in the way her long chestnut curls hung limply down her shoulders, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen from the tears that had not stopped falling ever since her daughter performed accidental magic.
Hermione had been taken to her bedroom where she promptly fell asleep, the excitement of the day, and perhaps the manifestation of her magic for the first time, taking a toll on her young body.
Oberon was just as heartbroken as his wife. He gathered her in his arms, to support her, to keep himself from falling apart. They had to give her up. They had to give their baby girl up, his pride and joy.
"Please, don't make me give her up," Helen whispered through her tears, clutching him tightly.
Unable to say anything else, he whispered comforting words to her, wishing he believed them.
.:OOO:.
Though she never performed accidental magic again after that fateful night, Hermione became cognisant of the fact that she could make special things happen by the time she was three years old. On a gloomy winter day in December with the rain falling in thick sheets across the valley, Hermione was staring morosely out the window, watching the ceaseless fall of the rain, bored and restless at being stuck inside her house for what felt like days with no one to play with. Then she remembered the new books her father had given her a few days ago.
Excited at the thought of new things to read, she ran from her room, down the stairs to the living room, and skidded to a halt in front of the large bookcase that sat opposite their fireplace. Hermione loved books, and already quite advanced for her age, she could read them all by herself now. She lifted her gaze up, up, up, until it sat on the bundle of books that sat at the top shelf.
Her mama had not wanted her to read them until she finished all the other books she hadn't finished, but the new books looked so shiny and pretty and so very big!
She pushed an armchair against the bookcase and climbed on top of it, arms reaching up as far as they would go for the books.
No luck. It was too high.
Trying again, she reached up higher, standing on her tiptoes, eyes screwed shut and straining with effort. It was still too far! Oh, how she wished the books would just fly down!
Then, the most amazing thing happened…
All four of her new books flew right off the shelf! They circled around the living, their book covers flapping as if they were wings, and Hermione stared at them with eyes wide with amazement. She scampered down the seat and walked to the centre of the room, her enraptured gaze never leaving the books that fluttered about lazily. She giggled when one of them floated down to her, the others following suit.
And that was how Helen Granger found her three-year-old daughter, happily sitting on the carpet of their living room, reading a large unabridged version of Grimm's Fairy Tales with a...a flock of other books hovering like fanciful butterflies around her.
.:OOO:.
By the time Hermione was four, she knew the one basic, most important rule: never let anyone know she could make special things happen.
"Or they'll take you away from us," her papa had once said, his voice so sad, all Hermione could do was hold on to him, "and we'll never be able to see you again."
The special things happened by themselves, though, and she never knew when they would suddenly occur. Much to her parents' relief, however, they happened so rarely, and only when Hermione was at home or out of sight. Of course, it helped that she was a very studious child, whose nose was so often stuffed in a book that she rarely interacted with the other children unless she deemed it necessary to do so. It was obvious from an early age that she was a precocious little girl, more advanced academically than the rest of her peers, and though her socialisation skills seemed to fall behind, her preference to keep to herself had kept her safe from discovery.
Though Hermione remained obedient to her parents' warnings, it wasn't until she was nearly seven years old that she discovered the truth in her father's words. Four-year-old Timmy from the mill by the river was found to be able to make special things around him, too, when he'd apparently caused the lambs grazing on the hill fly over the river.
The village had been in an uproar. Apprehensive whispers floated around the town and by next summer, Little Timmy was being escorted by his parents, the village governor, and a handful of the men to the walls of the village. Little Timmy's exile from Clytemnestra had been the talk of the town for days, if not weeks. They hadn't had a magical child born in the settlement in nearly a decade.
"Did you see them take Timmy away yesterday?" Hermione heard her cousin Alfie ask one of his friends at the playground one day. She had been wondering the exact same thing, but she said nothing.
"I did!" exclaimed one of the kids, excited. "I heard they were taking him away because he did something very bad."
Dorothy, the baker's daughter, gasped. "Did they…" she dropped her voice to a loud whisper, "take him to jail?"
Hermione lost track of the book she was reading and looked up to eavesdrop on the other children standing nearby. An exasperated sigh interrupted the murmurs, and her cousin Charlotte looked over at them with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. She jumped from the swing's seat she'd been sitting on, and the nine-year-old surveyed the rest of the kids with an air of superiority.
"You babies don't know anything!" she said snootily. "They gave Timmy to the Clobs, you dumdums."
"Clobs?" Hermione couldn't help but pipe in, her book Little Women now forgotten. She stood from where she sat under a tree and approached the other kids with a curious tilt of her bushy mane. "What are Clobs?"
The word tasted foreign on her tongue.
All the other kids turned to Charlotte, also curious.
The older girl stood tall and told them, "They're people from Beyond the Vale. Dangerous people."
A collective gasp of surprise erupted from the children. Hermione was also taken aback, aghast. Everyone in the village knew that they were never, ever to step foot outside of The Vale, outside the shimmering walls of protection that surrounded the village, and children were especially forbidden from going near it. Bad things happen Beyond the Vale. Bad things with bad people. No one ever came back from Beyond the Vale. No one.
"Why did they give Timmy to the...the Clobs?" Alfie wanted to know, voice laced with fear.
"Was it because he was bad?" six-year-old Jim asked in a frightened whisper, silently promising to himself he'd never steal a biscuit from the container ever again.
"No, it's because he has magic." Charlotte shrugged, now bored with explaining things to stupid babies. "And that's why he couldn't stay with normal people like us."
And with that, the older girl sauntered off, leaving a bunch of nervous children, and a frozen, fear-stricken Hermione.
.:OOO:.
Magic.
Hermione had magic, and her daddy was right. If anyone ever found out she could make special things happen, they were going to take her away and give her to the Clobs, too.
Hermione ran all the way home that day, so frightened at the thought of being given to strangers who could hurt her, or, or eat her just because she could make things happen without even meaning to. She burst into tears the moment she reached the safety of her home. Her outburst caused the ceiling lights to blow-up and she cried harder, screaming for her mother, her fear mounting.
Helen came running through the hall, panicked, and when she saw her distraught daughter, she fell to her knees and gathered the wailing child into her embrace. "Hermione!" She ran her hands up and down her daughter's arms, trying to see if she'd been hurt anywhere, worriedly noting the broken glass littered on the floor a few feet from them. "What happened?"
"Don't...don't let them!" Hermione hiccupped through her tears.
Helen's brow furrowed, unsure of what she meant. "Hermione, darling, what—"
"Don't...don't let the Clobs take me, mummy!"
"Oh, honey," her mum whispered, her voice warm and comforting. "I won't let them take you. Never."
Hermione sniffled, tears still streaming down her face, her chest still hot and tight. She hiccupped, through her stuffy nose. "But I can make strange things happen like Little Timmy. I have magic." Hermione added the last word in a whisper, as if speaking it out loud would unleash the magic she had.
"I know, honey, I know." Elizabeth bit her lip, her heart breaking and the constant fear she felt at being separated from her child once again resurfacing. She wiped away the tears from her child's cheeks and pushed the unruly mass of hair back. "And this is why no one can ever know. You must learn to control it. We'll find a way."
They would. Somehow.
.:OOO:.
It was very rare for inhabitants of non-magical settlements to leave their territory, without good reason. Everyone knew the risk of going out into the world, the risk of being out in the open, where any Clob from the Empire could snatch them up without mercy. But even in a fairly self-sufficient hidden society like the Freelands, a running economy would not be possible without some form of trade. That was where the travelling merchants and traders came in, magical and mundane both. Moving under the Empire's nose, these Freemen traders were a fundamental link between all the other settlements within the country, bringing trade and information.
Once or twice a month, a travelling caravan would come through Clytemnestra, bringing with them food, services, products and knick-knacks from other non-magical settlements; and it was during these events that Hermione's mother would purchase any book she could find that involved any mention of magic. She couldn't outright ask for books written by actual Clobs, that would not only raise suspicion, but the act itself would be nigh impossible. Anyone and anything with a magical residue was instantly burnt to dust the moment they passed through the walls that surrounded the Vale. So she bought books from fairytales to books on magic tricks and meditation.
It was with irony, really, that Helen realised that Hermione would have an easier time of it if she really were taught by people who actually knew what they were doing, but she would be damned if she had to give her daughter up to the very people who had driven her own underground, even if they were the so-called "good wizards" and strongly opposed the Empire's rule. They were still Clobs, and as far as Helen was concerned, they were all the same.
.:OOO:.
In the months that followed Little Timmy's exile from Clynemstra, Hermione and her parents learned about magic and the art of meditation. But while the books on meditation helped Hermione learn to control her emotions, volatile as they were at a young age, the books on magic were not as useful. Her mother thought there had to be something to gain from the stories, something about there being a grain of truth in every story, but Hermione didn't think she would ever want to turn mice into horses or create an all powerful ring of destruction. Well — yet. In the other books, the witches were always evil. She didn't want to be evil, she just wanted to be good and normal; she didn't want to learn from evil characters that ate children.
And then, then, Hermione came across the book Matilda, and suddenly, inspiration struck.
Matilda could do special things, like she could. Matilda had powers, and she could control them; if Matilda could do it at five years old, surely she could, too, at almost seven! The idea had merit, even if what Matilda had wasn't technically magic. It was the things that she could do that mattered. And so, Hermione set about doing what Matilda had done when she had been learning to use her powers, and that was defining what she wanted to do.
At first, she started small: getting her crayon to float. Everyday, after coming home from school, Hermione would run up to her room, sit on her bed and try to will her yellow-green crayon to float. Her parents had been puzzled, unable to do anything but watch their daughter stare intently at the crayon in front of her. They had tried to give other suggestions, but Hermione was undeterred. She wanted her crayon to float!
Come on, come on, float!
Floatfloatfloatfloat—
Please float!
And float it did!
It took her longer than she thought it would to do it, and it left her exhausted every time, but by the end of the week she was able to make it glide about her bedroom. The flush of satisfaction that coursed through her was nothing short of euphoric. She did it!
As she grew, Hermione's control of her magic grew with ease. She could make anything do just about anything by the time she was eight years old, from getting the light to turn on at will, to making the kitchen utensils dance a jig for some family entertainment at dinner! Her imagination was the limit!
It also hadn't taken Hermione long to realise that magic moved with intention, and that it was easier to control when she touched upon it gently, nudging her intentions along her mind and through her magic, instead of forcefully pushing for the special things to happen...like when potters moulded clay with gentle moulding fingers.
Magic, she was beginning to realise, was just the most wonderful thing in the world!
Unfortunately, Hermione knew her parents didn't see it that way. Hermione knew she was a smart, perceptive and with a vocabulary that left most of her peers dizzy; and she could see that her abilities didn't cause her parents any small amount of apprehension. She noticed it whenever she would show them what she could do, see it in the slight shift in their bodies, their strained smiles. They would always praise her, tell her that they were proud of her, but they would always remind her of the Golden Rule. Never let anyone know.
Hermione knew why, of course. Everyone in Clytemnestra hated Clobs, and everyone hated the Clob Emperor.
Being at the top of her class, she had managed to skip two grades after the age of seven. And it was in school that she learned history, the tragic truth. She learned about the foundation of Clytemnestra, the Freemen, the Clobs and the Empire from which every Freeman, magical or otherwise, was hiding from. She knew why everyone hated the Clobs. But even when there were Clobs that called themselves Freemen, they were still Clobs and therefore, not to be trusted.
But, surely, they couldn't be all bad… She was, after all, a Clob, too. A muggleborn, as the books called them.
Nevertheless, Hermione kept her gifts to herself, exploring and experimenting with her abilities within the privacy of her room. The archive building within the settlement that doubled as the library and community centre provided her with an abundant source of information and inspiration. She was never without books to read, though any of the books she took home were never about magic. Her mother had been explicit about that — she was never to borrow any books that had any mention of magic in them, afraid that any special interest in the topic could be a cause for suspicion.
And so, life went on peacefully in Clytemnestra, its inhabitants unaware that a brilliant young witch lived among them.
Until one fateful day.
.:OOO:.
Author's Notes:
A special thanks to Sociially-Diisoriiented for being the most amazing beta ever - even putting up with last-minute edits! She also helped me coin the term 'Clobs' as a term muggles use for wizards and witches. I thought it only fair that non-magical people have a "less than flattering" term for magical people, since "muggles" came from the word "mug" which apparently means a gullible person. "Clobs" came from the noun "clobber" which refers to clothing or personal equipment, and since magical people "dress funny", I thought it would be appropriate...if a little on the weak side. But we thought it was catchy anyway. ;)