HARRY POTTER AND THE SECRET ENEMY
Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.
CHAPTER 25: Family Dysfunctions (Pt 2)
Harry, Theo, and Blaise were headed towards the Great Hall for Sunday breakfast when they were accosted by Jim Potter, whose eyes were practically bloodshot with anger. Trailing behind him were most of the Second Year Gryffindors, half of whom seemed to be trying to calm him down while the rest were apparently just along for the show.
Before Harry could say anything, Jim was already in his face. "Look, I told you last night that I had nothing to do with that graffiti or the cat! I've kept my side of our truce! Now give it back!"
Harry blinked. "What in Merlin's name are you talking about, Little Brother?" He was mildly surprised when Jim practically growled at the phrase Little Brother; Harry had thought that Jim was immune to that little dig, but apparently it still had the power to annoy him after all.
"The cloak, Harry! I know you've got it. I know you think that's a cute way to get revenge on me. But you've had your laughs so give it back!" Fire burning.
At that, Harry did a double-take. "Someone stole a Potter family heirloom? No, let me rephrase that. You let someone steal a Potter family heirloom?"
Jim's whole face twitched violently."I didn't let anyone do anything. You took it while I was asleep. And I know it was you because you left a note gloating about it!"
"Jim, calm down," said Neville urgently, but the boy ignored him. Fire raging.
"A note," said Harry disdainfully. "Why would I ever leave a note if I stole something from you?! That's ... amateur-level."
"GODDAMMIT, HARRY!" Out of control. By this point, a crowd was starting to gather. Inside the Great Hall, Professor Lockhart interrupted his discussion with Professor Sprout about Mandrakes to investigate the commotion.
"Jim," said Hermione, "Please. Get a hold of yourself."
"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!" Jim bellowed. Instinctively, Hermione took a step back. Pressure building.
"And besides," said Harry with a hint of ice creeping into his voice, as he was now growing irritated with his brother's belligerence, "why would I need to steal the cloak when I've already proven I can just trick you into giving it to me whenever I need it?"
Jim's head snapped back around towards his brother. He was too angry to respond, to angry even to think about anything except the red haze that began to stain his vision.
Boom.
With a roar of unrestrained fury, Jim hurled himself at Harry before anyone could react, knocking the other boy to the ground. Then, he began raining blows down on his brother's head while yelling incoherently at him.
"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I WISH YOU'D STAYED WITH THE DURSLEYS AND DIED THERE!"
After a few seconds of shock, Neville and Theo each grabbed Jim by an arm and dragged him away off of Harry. Immediately, Jim's martial arts training kicked in, and he quickly threw the other two boys off of him and turned back to his brother. Instantly, he noticed three things. One, Harry's nose was bleeding. Two, Harry now had his wand in his hand. Three, Harry's eyes looked even greener than usual.
"FLIPPENDO!" the Slytherin intoned in an icy voice. The magic slammed into Jim, flinging him up into the air in a somersault to land hard on the marble some fifteen feet away. Instantly, both boys scrambled to their feet, Jim drawing his own wand as he did. Most of the students jumped back in surprise, but Neville actually planted himself between the twins with his arms extended towards each.
"STOP THIS! BOTH OF YOU!" he yelled. Neither Potter lowered his wand.
"I quite agree. EXPELLIARMUS DUO!" There was a flash of light, and both Harry and Jim's wands flew out of their respective hands to land at Professor Lockhart's feet. "Now, will someone explain to me what in the name of Merlin's saggy Y-fronts IS GOING ON?!"
"The Psycho-Who-Lived just attacked me, sir, and I defended myself," said Harry.
"Yes, with a jinx that could have broken your brother's neck, not to mention how many other students could have been hurt had he landed on them. And what's your excuse, Gryffindor Potter?"
"The snake stole something that belongs to me," said Jim.
"That's a lie!" interrupted Harry.
"Enough!" said Lockhart. He rubbed his forehead in annoyance. Then, he sent minor healing charms to both Harry and Jim, along with a Scourgify to clean away the blood off of Harry's shirt. "You two and I are taking this to the Headmaster's office. Now!" Then, the professor paused. "Oh, and Longbottom? One point to Gryffindor for bodily imposing yourself between two armed combatants in an effort to stop a fight. Courageous, but in the future, I'd recommend a Protego instead."
Fifteen minutes later, the brothers were back in Dumbledore's office, along with Lockhart, McGonagall, Snape, and the boys' parents. James looked like he'd just woken up. Jim stared at the floor in a daze, as if he were coming out of a fugue state. Harry's Occlumency had reasserted itself, and his face was a bland mask that mirrored that of his Head of House.
"So, in summation, Jim," said the Headmaster, "you awoke this morning to discover that the Potter invisibility cloak was missing. You say that there was a letter left behind implicating your brother but it self-immolated. You then confronted your brother, and when you were unsatisfied with his response, you attacked him physically. Is that about the size of it?"
Jim nodded without looking up.
"Harry, do you have anything to add?"
"Only that, for the record, I do not have the cloak. To be honest, I'm somewhat flattered that Jim thinks I'm skilled enough to sneak across the school in the dead of night, bypass the security on Gryffindor Tower, and break into his trunk without waking Jim or any of his dorm-mates, but to repeat, I do not have the cloak." He turned towards James. "Although now that the topic's been raised, I am curious. Is the cloak magically entailed? Because if so, I would think there would be a few legal complications if you just up and gave it to your second son in place of your Heir."
James stiffened at the implied rebuke. "The cloak is entailed, Harry. Your rights to it will vest after you become Heir Apparent. Until then, it's mine to lend as I choose, and since Jim is the Boy-Who-Lived, I made the decision for safety reasons to lend it to him even though he's not the Heir."
"Mm-hmm. With the end result that he's lost a priceless Potter heirloom."
"I haven't lost it!" Jim said angrily. "It was stolen."
"Enough," said Dumbledore. "We will put the matter of the cloak aside for the moment. Right now, I am concerned with your punishments. Jim, you were punished very harshly last month after injuring your brother once. Now, you have done so again. Harry, I understand your impulse to defend yourself, but we have very strict rules against using magic to settle fights here at Hogwarts, rules that must be obeyed. Do you both understand?"
Jim nodded without answering.
"To be honest," said Harry, "It was less about defending myself than protecting Neville Longbottom and Theodore Nott. Jim apparently knows ... kung fu or whatever he's been learning."
"Taekwondo," Jim quietly corrected.
"Don't care," Harry snapped at him. "Anyway, he was fighting back against their efforts to hold him back, and I was worried that they would be hurt. That said, I realize now that the Incarcerous Spell would have been a far better and safer choice. I apologize for acting rashly and letting my anger get the better of me, and I will, of course, accept whatever punishment you think appropriate."
"Ahem," Lockhart spoke up. "As I was the professor on the scene who broke up the fight, Headmaster, might I request that both the boys be assigned detention with me? Clearly, polishing trophies and paintings for a month did not make a deep enough impression on the younger Potter. I have some thoughts on how I might help these two fine lads to overcome their differences."
Dumbledore looked towards McGonagall and Snape, neither of whom objected. "Very well, Gilderoy. I am assigning both the Potter Twins five hours of detention per week each for the next four weeks. Afterwards, Jim, since you were the instigator and this is the second time we've had to punish you over an attack against your brother, you will have additional detention for the remainder of the term. Boys, I sincerely hope that you will take this opportunity to seriously work through your differences. Brothers, and especially twins, should not suffer this degree of acrimony." From Dumbledore's tone, it sounded as if he had some experience with sibling rivalry. Jim continued to look down at the floor. Harry returned Dumbldore's gaze impassively, as if to make it clear that he no longer had any interest whatsoever in "working through his differences" with Jim.
"Jim," said Dumbledore without his customary twinkle, "violence against a fellow student is not acceptable at Hogwarts. While Harry is receiving punishment for using a potentially dangerous jinx, it was nevertheless an act of self-defense that you provoked. Your association with this school will continue for now partly because after almost fifty years as Headmaster I have never expelled a student and partly because as the son of an Ancient and Noble House you benefit from certain privileges that most students lack. If there is another such incident, however, I will take this matter before the Board of Governors and seek suspension, if not outright expulsion. Do you understand?"
Jim nodded again. His eyes blinked repeatedly as if he were fighting back tears.
"Now then," the Headmaster continued, "as for the missing cloak. There will not be a Hogsmeade weekend before December, so no student will be able to leave campus without being detected by the wards. Thus, the cloak must still be on the premises. I will announce its disappearance at lunch and give the thief one week to return it. After that, there will be a search of the entire castle by both professors and the Hogwarts house elves. Anyone discovered with it then will have detention with Mr. Filch for the remainder of the school year plus a loss of fifty House points. Is that satisfactory, Lord Potter?"
From the look on James's face, it didn't seem very satisfactory, but he nevertheless nodded. With that, the disciplinary meeting ended.
Five minutes after that, Jim was in a boy's lavatory, vomiting into a toilet from stress.
2 November 1992
The next night, Harry and Jim arrived for their first detention with the DADA instructor. To Harry's surprise, there was a ping pong table in the center of the room. He knew about Lockhart's odd obsession with the Muggle game (which he was aware of but had never played himself) and that the professor had made it the focal point of "Team Counterstrike," but he was surprised to see it a part of his detention.
"Ah, gentlemen, right on time. Now, Gryffindor Potter, you're familiar with this game, so I'll ask you to wait patiently for a few minutes while I explain the basics to Slytherin Potter." And with that, Lockhart spent a few minutes explaining the rules to a bemused Harry before playing a few practice rounds with him until he got a feel for the game.
"Do you think you've got the hang of it now, Slytherin Potter?" The boy nodded. "Excellent! Now there's just one final thing." With that, he pulled out his wand, touched it to the ping pong ball, and uttered a brief incantation. Then, he picked up his ping pong bat and made a fast serve to Harry before the boy could react. The ball slipped past Harry's defense, and instantly, he felt a quick jab of pain in his left buttock, as if someone had stabbed him with a pin.
"You'll both find that the ball now carries a minor curse on it. If your opponent scores a point on you, you'll experience a very mild Stinging Hex on a random point on your body. Not enough to harm or to even leave any lasting pain. Just enough to be ... annoying." With that, he handed the bat off to Jim who gave Harry a predatory sneer.
"Sir," said Harry in a betrayed voice. "May I remind you that we're here because Jim physically assaulted me? And now you're giving him the opportunity to torture me as part of my detention?! He's been practicing this game since September! This is totally unfair!"
Jim sniggered at that, but Lockhart simply stared up at the ceiling while tapping his chin thoughtfully with his wand, as if he were considering the matter. "Hmm. I suppose you do have a point about that, Slytherin Potter." Then, Lockhart flicked out his wand and tapped it against Jim's bat. The bat transfigured in Jim's hand until, to his own surprise, he was holding a narrow ten-inch rod with a much smaller paddle at the end, one that was no more than three or four inches in diameter. Now, it was Jim's turn to look betrayed and Harry's to look like a predator.
"Begin!" the professor said. The boys commenced an hour-long session of ping pong, punctuated by grunts, hisses and whispered expletives whenever a point was scored against either of them. Initially, Harry held the upper hand, and he took cruel delight every time Jim flinched in response to the Stinging Hex. After thirty minutes, Harry's own grunts of pain were growing more frequent, and he finally figured out why: his bat was shrinking.
"Um, Professor Lockhart? Is there something I should know about my bat?"
"Ah, you've finally noticed! Yes, Slytherin Potter. Your bat is enchanted so that at certain intervals, it will shrink slightly until eventually it matches the dimensions of your brother's bat. The level of shrinkage is determined by how many unanswered points you score on your brother, but points don't count against you unless Gryffindor Potter is actively trying his best to return each serve. That way, he can't just let you win in order to shrink your bat down to his size." Both brothers glared at Lockhart who simply smiled back at them. "I've always found that sibling rivalry can be a powerful motivational tool, don't you agree? ha-Ha!"
The twins continued playing for another twenty minutes until their detention was over for the evening, but both were quite perturbed to realize that this would be a nightly occurrence for them over the rest of the month. Harry and Jim left without speaking to one another.
As soon as the door closed, Lockhart waited for a few seconds and then cast a Finite at the back corner of the room, dispelling the Disillusionment Charm that had shielded his guest from the Potter Twins' view.
"Well, Miss Lovegood? What are your observations?"
Luna Lovegood looked up from the notes she'd been quietly taking for the last hour. "There's something wrong with Jim. Actually, I think there's something wrong with both of them, but something's really wrong with Jim. It's like there's one giant wrackspurt in the pit of his stomach that's growing fatter and fatter on the fury-flies that he's been dropping down his own gullet to feed it."
Lockhart stared at the young Gryffindor, giving no sign as to whether her words troubled or merely confused him.
6 November 1992
After his first detention, Harry grabbed every chance he could to practice ping pong, shanghaiing Draco, Cedric, Justin and anyone else in Team Counterstrike with whom he had the slightest relationship to help him quickly master the game. Jim might have had an extra month of practice, but Harry had far better connections. Indeed, Jim's reputation at this point was so poor that most of Team Counterstrike refused to practice with him, and he was forced to teach Ron the game just to have someone to play against in his spare time. Harry also spent time pumping Justin for ideas on how best to practice alone. Although mildly annoyed to have one more person bugging him for ping pong tips, Justin considered Harry a good friend. More importantly, while the rest of Team Counterstrike was eager to have Justin as a tutor-slash-partner, Harry was the first person to come to him for self-teaching tips, and for that matter, the first person clever enough to ask about things like putting spin on the ball without Justin explaining the concept first. Justin was also grateful for the advance warning about "shrinking ping pong bats," so he was not overly surprised when he showed up for a practice round to find that his own bat (like those of several other of the better players) was reduced in size to match Jim's. While Draco and Cho groaned at the added difficulty, Justin was quite delighted at how magic could take his game play to the next level.
By Friday, Harry was annoying half the Slytherin dorm by walking everywhere while constantly bouncing a ping pong ball on a piece of wood transfigured into a bat shaped like Jim's. He'd also gotten Flint to transfigure the table in the Prince's Lair into a ping pong table. The runespoor was outraged, but the other snakes were oddly amused, particularly the krait once Harry explained about his detentions and the fact that he could inflict actual (if minor) pain on his brother by beating him in a competition. Nidhogg greatly approved of what it referred to as "dominance games."
Harry's study group met on Friday. Before sitting down, Harry passed a parchment to Justin. "A little something to pay you back for all your help this week," he said.
Justin opened the parchment and crooked an eyebrow. "Ablenken?"
Harry smiled. "Ablenken is an obscure German Charm from the mid-19th Century. I found the basic spell in Quidditch Through the Ages a few days back and adapted it. The original idea was that you could enchant a Beater's bat to function on its own for pickup games in which there weren't enough people to cover both Beater's positions. Unfortunately, it didn't work well for that purpose, since the enchanted bat couldn't move as fast as a player on a broom. But it works quite well on a small bat-like object that only has to move a few feet to parry something headed towards it. You can also use it for fencing and I'm pretty sure for tennis if you're interested in that. And it parries with the same level of skill as the wizard who cast it, so basically, you can play ping pong against yourself."
Justin grinned in delight. "That's brilliant, Harry!"
"All I ask is that you don't share it with Jim... or with anyone who might share it with Jim."
Justin tapped the tip of his nose with his finger. "Right-O."
"Ahem," said Hermione. "If we can move on from ping pong follies, we have a lot to cover today."
With that, the group spent the next two hours reviewing the course material covered so far that week. At the end, Hermione asked if anyone had any questions, and naturally, the topic of the Chamber of Secrets came up.
"Well," she began, " we managed to get Professor Binns talking about the Chamber of Secrets on Wednesday. He said that the Chamber itself is a myth but there were some incidents back in 1943 in which several students were petrified in some unknown fashion. There were rumors that it was due to some creature known as Slytherin's Monster which was unleashed by the so-called Heir of Slytherin, but it was never definitively proven. One student died and the petrifications stopped after that. Does anyone have anything to add?"
Theo glanced at Harry who nodded. Then, he began to speak. "Actually, we found some additional information in the bound Daily Prophet issues from that era. The names of the affected students were not provided, but four students, all Muggleborn, were petrified between January and March of 1943. A fifth Muggleborn was both petrified and killed, and she was the last victim. It was a female Ravenclaw, but her name was omitted, supposedly out of respect for the victim's family. The newspaper accounts speculate that the whole thing was just a series of pranks perpetrated against Muggleborns, most likely by a bigoted Pureblood. The Prophet at that time had swung around to being relatively pro-Muggleborn and anti-Pureblood because of the Grindelwald Conflict, and the girl's death was believed to have been an accidental result of a Pureblood prank gone wrong. The papers also say that an unnamed Third Year Gryffindor was expelled not long after the girl's death. The articles do a good job of insinuating that the expelled student was the one responsible for the petrifications without coming out and saying it."
"A Gryffindor?" exclaimed Anthony Goldstein. "Who was also the Heir of Slytherin? How does that work?"
Theo shrugged. "The Sorting Hat sorts however it chooses. I don't think there's any guarantee that the descendant of a Founder will end up in that Founder's House."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Susan Bones rather archly. "Frankly, I can't imagine how Zacharias Smith got into Hufflepuff except by being descended from our Founder."
"Be that as it may," said Hermione, "if we take the writing on the wall across from the 1st Floor girls' lavatory at face value, then there's an Heir of Slytherin among us who has access to the same petrification technique used in 1943, whether it's a curse or some creature. Harry, if anyone knows, I'd expect it to be you. Does Slytherin have any heirs who might be at Hogwarts?"
Harry smiled. "I'll defer to Blaise, who has been researching that question since Sunday."
Blaise took a second to organize his notes. "Well, the first thing to understand is that, of course, Salazar Slytherin had heirs. The man died in the 11th Century at the age of 187 having outlived three wives by whom he had sixteen legitimate children plus an undetermined number of bastards. Of the legitimate children, seven were girls who would have married into other families, but the boys would have preserved the family name which, in fact, endures to the present day."
"If that's so," asked Padma, "why haven't there been any students named Slytherin to attend Hogwarts for the last four centuries? I've looked into that and there's no record of any students with that surname at Hogwarts since late 16th century."
"Right," Blaise continued. "Specifically since 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada."
"The what?" asked Hermione in surprise.
"In 1588, King Philip II of Spain attempted to invade and conquer England with what was at that time the largest naval armada in history. Through a variety of factors – bad planning, unexpected weather, and magical intervention from English wizards and witches – the invasion failed."
"I know all that!" she said testily. "Well... not the part about magical intervention, but the story of the Armada, definitely! British Muggleborn, remember? But what does it have to do with the Slytherin family?"
"Well, what Muggleborns probably don't know is that before the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, Muggles and wizards were a lot more closely intertwined than one might imagine today. What Muggles call the Spanish Armada was actually a joint venture between the Spanish monarchy and the Spanish wizarding government which was dominated at the time by Duke Esteban de Cortez y Slytherin. The deal was that the wizards would help the Muggles conquer England and install a Catholic monarch while the Muggles would help the Spanish wizards seize control of Hogwarts and force the entire Wizengamot into vassalage to the Spanish House of Slytherin. Fortunately for British wizardry, the Armada failed."
"Hang on a minute," interrupted a dubious Justin Finch-Fletchley. "Phillip II was allied with wizards?! The man was in charge of the Spanish Inquisition during his reign!"
Blaise shrugged. "Justin, part of the reason our History teacher is a 200-year-old ghost obsessed with goblin revolts is so that wizards and witches aren't really taught just how much actual history was rewritten after passage of the Statute of Secrecy. The fact that Esteban was an influential member of the Spanish nobility wouldn't have been considered the least bit controversial before the Statute of Secrecy wrote that fact out of both the Muggle and wizarding history books. The real Spanish Inquisition was concerned with forcibly converting Jews and Moors to Catholicism and didn't care at all about wizards and witches so long as they were loyal to both the King and the Pope in that order."
"The Pope was okay with wizards and witches?!" exclaimed Justin even more dubiously.
"He still is," said Theo. "The reason you don't see many students here from predominantly Catholic countries like Spain, Italy, Brazil or Ireland – Blaise and Seamus Finnegan aside – is that most young wizards and witches from those nations usually attend magical schools run by various magical orders consisting of Catholic priests and nuns who are also wizards and witches."
Most of the Muggleborns and Halfbloods were astonished to hear for the first time about wizards and witches officially sanctioned by the Holy Church, but Neville merely nodded sagely.
"That makes sense," said Neville. "Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor House ghost, says that he was the court wizard for Henry VII before his execution. And no one had a problem with him openly practicing magic among Muggles. He was actually executed not for being a wizard but botching a spell he cast at the request of one of the other courtiers. I guess St. Mungo's Hospital predates the Anglican-Catholic split, which is why it's called that even though British wizards generally don't recognize saints."
"We're getting a bit off track," said Harry. "If we start talking about wizarding religions, we'll be here all day. Let's get back to the Armada and its effect on Slytherin's family."
"Right," said Blaise. "Anyway, the Armada failed, and in revenge against the Spanish Slytherins, the Wizengamot passed a law – the Inheritance Act of 1588 – that, among other things, magically stripped all of Slytherin's heirs of any rights over Hogwarts. It also levied an actual curse against anyone bearing the name Slytherin who set foot on the British Isles. The descendants of Slytherin who were still living in Britain at the time were forced to change their family names and disclaim any rights over Hogwarts or else emigrate."
"So there are heirs of Slytherin in Britain but only in the biological sense," said Hermione. "None of them are legal heirs. Do we know the names of any of these families?"
Harry spoke up. "For those families who officially renounced their Slytherin heritage, the records of the name changes were magically expunged. Everyone outside the Slytherin families themselves forgot that those families had ever been related to the Founder, and most wizards within those families hushed up their affiliation because being related to Slytherin was at that time considered a mark of treason. Unless a particular family kept meticulous records, there's no official way to prove today that they was descended from Salazar Slytherin."
There were, of course, unofficial ways. First, the magical tapestry in the Prince's Lair kept a perfect record of every wizard and witch with an unbroken line of descent from Salazar Slytherin, including the ones who changed their names. Second, any Parselmouth was presumably descended from Salazar Slytherin, though whether that could legally support a hypothetical inheritance claim was unclear. Neither matter was something that Harry wanted to share with the study group right now no matter how much he trusted his non-Slytherin friends.
Susan Bones, who was usually somewhat quiet in the study sessions, suddenly perked up. "Hang on a minute!" She rose and darted up the stairs to the second floor of the library, returning a minute later with a heavy book bearing the title Hogwarts Rolls: 1925-1950.
"The school keeps public records of student admissions, graduations, and each year's OWL and NEWT results. I found them last year," she paused, looking sad for a moment, "I wanted to look up my Mum and Dad." She coughed with slight embarrassment. "Anyway, if our mystery Gryffindor was a Third Year when he was expelled in the Spring of 1943, then he must have been Sorted in September of 1940 and would have been set to take his OWLs in June of 1945. Anyone who was on the first list but not the second must have been the student who was expelled."
"Good show, Sue!" exclaimed Justin.
Susan smiled and then flipped to the page listing the 1940 Sortings before copying that page with the Gemino Charm. Then, she did the same for the 1945 OWL results before comparing the two.
After a minute or so, her eyes widened. "Wow."
"What?" asked Harry. "Found a match?"
"Yeah," she said in obvious surprise. "The only person Sorted into Gryffindor in 1940 to not sit their OWLs was ... Rubeus Hagrid!"
The group sat in shocked silence before Blaise finally spoke up.
"Got to admit – Not my first choice for an evil mastermind."
The next chapter will be posted on December 18, 2015. "Quidditch and Mayhem ... Again" details the highly eventful 1992 Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match.
AN 1: Nobody please flip out over Catholic wizardry. I'm not going to make a big foray into wizarding religion in the immediate future, but it seems clear to me that British wizards and witches recognize Christmas and Easter at least as much as British muggles do (that is, as generally secular holidays with Christian overtones). Nothing ever indicated that Molly was sending Harry a sweater for Yule or Saturnalia or the Winter Solstice, and I don't see much sign of pre-Christian pagan mysticism in the magic practiced at Hogwarts. Indeed, the fact that most spells use bastardized Latin strongly implies that pre-Christian pagan mysticism in Britain didn't survive the Roman legions (who probably had wizards of their own, which is why there are so many Latin names like Lucius, Severus, Minerva, Filius and Septima). Finally, we only ever see three European schools: Hogwarts (limited almost entirely to British magicals), Beauxbatons (apparently an all-girls school [UPDATE: No, apparently, it is NOT an all-girls school as twenty or so eagle-eyed readers have informed me within the last 8 hours.:)]), and Durmstrang (about which little is known except for the attitudes of Hogwarts students towards it - basically, it's where all the evil kids go - which may be the result of propaganda). Certainly, I can't imagine Irish Muggleborn wizards and witches going to a Scottish school under the authority of a London Ministry while the Troubles were at their height. My solution is a network of parochial wizarding schools run by a secret magical wing of the Catholic Church that for ideological reasons dating back to Henry VIII just doesn't have much to do with British wizards. After all, it is repeatedly stated that every major world leader knows about magic, and like it or not, the Pope is a world leader. If I ever deal with this in-story, it won't be until Year 5 or later. Probably Year 6, actually, since in canon almost nothing happens until the last few chapters except moody teenagers being moody teenagers. The important part here is the bit about the Duke of Slytherin trying to conquer Britain in 1588, which is about 90% of why Slytherins have such a bad reputation among the British.
AN 2: The bit about Sir Nicholas is canon. He held the official title of court wizard under Henry VII (apparently a position of some importance), and he was executed for bumbling a transfiguration on an important courtier. The usual trope is that the Statute of Secrecy was invented in response to witch burnings. My subversion is that "witch burnings" were fabricated after the fact to discourage wizard-Muggle interactions and that the real reason was that wizards were tired of getting drawn into Muggle political and military affairs. After all, it's not like any actual witches died during the Salem Witch Trials. In this 'verse, more witches and wizards were probably killed for being Catholic under a Protestant regime (or vice versa) than for being found out as magical.