A/N - It's update time. Nothing much to say so we'll just get to it. The chapter title pretty much says it all.
Disclaimer: The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and belong to Marvel Comics. Harry Potter was created by and belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this and the only thing that's mine are the original parts of the story.
24) JANUARY EVENTS
It was a new year. For many people a new year can mean new beginnings, new projects, new friends, new many things, and especially happiness. Is not the traditional greeting and wish to someone on New Year's Day for them to have a "Happy New Year?" For one family in Little Whinging, Surrey, the new year would not be very happy at all.
It all started in the evening of Monday, January 9th of 1995. Vernon was home from work after a long day of making deals to sell drills. He was sitting in the livingroom of the house after dinner watching the news while Petunia was washing the dishes. Dudley had gone back to Smeltings a few days earlier so it was just the two of them in the house when the front doorbell rang.
"Who would be visiting us now?" said Vernon before calling out to his wife, "Pet, would you get the door?"
Petunia dried her hands and went to open the front door. Standing on her front step were four people. One was an elderly man dressed in a business suit carrying a briefcase. Next to him was another man who looked a good deal younger but was dressed in a similar manner and also carried a briefcase. Behind them were two men wearing black suits and sunglasses. Petunia didn't need to be a genius to realize that they were security people.
"Petunia Dursley?" asked the older man.
"Yes" said Petunia, "I'm sorry but we're not buying whatever you're selling so you can take yourselves off my front doorstep right now." She began to close the door but the man stopped her.
"You are mistaken" he said, "we are not salespeople." He took out a card and handed it to Petunia. It said "John Hurt, Esq., Law Firm of Hurt and Payne."
"I am with the law firm that represents the Potter family" he said, "my colleague here is with HSBC Holdings plc and is the Potter account manager. We have some business to discuss with you regarding your nephew Harry Potter."
"No" said Petunia fiercely while turning pale, "there's no Harry Potter here. There never has been! I insist leave right now."
"Mrs. Dursley" said Mr. Hurt, "we're not fools. We know very well that you raised Harry and that you have received a monthly stipend for him for years. We contacted you about that but have heard nothing from you."
"You're with them!" shrieked Petunia, "you're all freaks like my nephew!"
"So you do acknowledge your nephew" said Hurt, "I think we should come inside and discuss things with you there. After all you wouldn't want the whole neighborhood to hear about your business, would you?"
Petunia looked up and down the street and saw that some people were looking out of their houses at them.
"Get inside quickly" she said and stepped back to let them in the house.
"Thank you" said Mr. Hurt. The four men entered the house and Petunia closed the door behind them. She ushered them into the livingroom where Vernon looked at them in surprise.
"Who the ruddy heck are you?" he said to the guests.
"Mr Vernon Dursley I presume?" asked Mr. Hurt. Upon receiving an affirmative answer the solicitor repeated what he'd told Petunia. To say Vernon was not happy would be putting it mildly.
"I don't know what you freaks mean by coming here" said Vernon getting to his feet and trying to look threatening, "But I won't have it. You get out of my house at once before I call the police!"
"Please do" said Mr. Hurt with a predatory smile, "I would be delighted to see you try to explain your abuse of your nephew over the years."
That stopped both Dursleys cold. They knew that if a true investigation of how they treated Harry ever occurred they would undoubtedly be arrested.
"What do you freaks want?" demanded Vernon.
"That's better" said Mr. Hurt, "please sit down again Mr. Dursley and we will get down to business." Vernon reluctantly sat down on the couch. Petunia sat next to him. Mr. Hurt and the younger briefcase carrying man both sat in chairs facing the Dursleys. The two security men stood near them.
"My colleague here" Mr. Hurt indicated the younger man, "is the Potter Account Manager at HSBC or rather their affiliated bank Gringotts." Petunia gasped. Mr. Hurt looked at her in an inquiring manner.
"You're one of them?" she said in a small voice, "what are they called? Goblins?"
"Yes Mrs. Dursley" said the younger man speaking for the first time, "I and my two security people are all goblins. We wear glamours to make us look human whenever we need to enter the muggle world for any reason. My name is Sharpshard and I have been the Potter Account Manager for many years. It was I who sent you the stipend from the Potter Estate every month while you were Mr. Potter's legal guardians. After Mr. Potter's guardianship changed I sent you two letters asking for any receipts and records you had showing how that money was spent on Mr. Potter's behalf. To date I have not received an answer from you."
"What letters?" Vernon tried to bluster, "I never saw any letters. Pet did we receive any letters about this?"
"Certainly not" said Petunia, "I would have told you if we had."
"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley" said Sharpshard looking hard at both of them, "as my colleague said earlier we're not fools. Whenever Gringotts sends out important letters we always attach trackers to them. We know when they arrive. We also know when they are opened and even who opened them. We know very well that you received and read those letters."
"We have both talked to young Mr. Potter at length" said Mr. Hurt, "regarding your treatment of him. He told us that you often complained about how much he was costing you. Mr. Potter's new guardian asked for an audit of the Potter accounts after he took over Harry's guardianship. Our records show that you were sent 1,000 pounds sterling a month for over thirteen years specifically to help you raise Harry. In light of your treatment of Mr. Potter, both your abuse of him and your using him as unpaid labor, we are tracing exactly how that money been used. We asked you for those records so that we could ascertain that the money was in fact being used for Mr. Potter's benefit.
"You have not sent us any spending records for Mr. Potter. This fact, combined with what he has told and shown us regarding your treatment of him over the years leads us to the inescapable conclusion that you did not use that money for Mr. Potter's benefit but kept it for yourselves."
"Well why shouldn't we keep it?" demanded Vernon, "we gave that freak shelter, food, clothes. Why shouldn't we get something back for it?"
"Mr. Dursley" said Mr. Hurt sternly, "with that statement you have just confessed to embezzlement. That's a serious crime for which you can go to prison. And make no mistake, you will go to prison, both of you, unless you can meet our terms here and now."
Both Dursleys looked at their guests in disbelief. Both of them knew that their guests' words were true. If they were arrested and tried for what they had done they would go prison for a long time.
"What do you want from us?" asked Petunia in a small voice. She couldn't bear the thought of their reputations being destroyed in such a manner.
"I will ask you one last time" said Sharpshard, "can you produce any spending records to show that the money you were sent was used for Mr. Potter's benefit in any way?"
There was a long silence before both Dursleys shook their heads in defeat.
"I see" said Mr. Hurt, "the only way you can avoid prison is by giving all of that money back, plus interest, just as if it were a loan."
"The sum you received over the years" said Sharpshard as he opened his briefcase and took out some papers, "amounts to 154,000 pounds." The eyes of both Petunia and Vernon bugged out at the sum named. They were ruined. They just knew it.
"We can subtract some of that to account for food" said Sharpshard, "since obviously you had to feed Mr. Potter just for him to be alive at all but that won't be much as we know you never fed him the way a growing boy should have been fed and often you didn't feed him at all for extended periods of time. I will subtract 4,000 pounds from the amount you owe, which is extremely generous under the circumstances, and the sum you must pay back, not counting interest, will come to 150,000 pounds."
"How can we pay that?" asked a very shaken Vernon Dursley, "we don't have that much money in the bank."
"I know" said Sharpshard, "you have a choice. First, we can put you on a payment plan. We'll assign a certain amount you will have to pay every month. It will be assigned to you based on your income and will not be beyond your means to pay although you'll have to cut back your expenses to the basic necessities. That means no more frills like new cars or expensive vacations and such. And you'll have to send your son to a cheaper school."
"And the other choice?" asked Petunia in dread. Sharpshard smiled a nasty smile.
"The other choice is quite simple" he said, "we seize your house, your bank accounts, and everything you own. If it covers the amount you owe you'll be free and clear and any excess will be returned to you. If it doesn't you'll have to pay off the rest on a payment schedule. What you have now might be enough. You live in a good neighborhood. The sale of your house might cover the debt – but it might not. What do you choose?"
The Dursleys argued and blustered for a while but in the end they were forced to capitulate. They chose the payment plan. They felt that there was nothing else they could do. Before their guests left Mr. Hurt and Sharpshard both made it very clear to them that if they missed payments then the second option would immediately be activated.
When the Dursleys went to bed that night they were both sobered by what had happened. Even now they didn't think that their treatment of Harry had been wrong. Nevertheless it was clear that their sins were finally coming home to roost and there was nothing they could do about it.
Convincing Minister Fudge to back the creation of a magical Danger Room for the Auror Academy was surprisingly easy. As Arthur Weasley had said back in August Fudge liked the X-Men. After seeing the aurors' memories of the Danger Room demonstration and with the support of Director Bones he was willing to put the proposal in front of the Wizengamot for debate and approval.
The issue came up at the next general meeting of the Wizengamot in the middle of January. When Dumbledore, acting in his capacity as Chief Warlock, asked if anyone had any new business they wished to bring to the body's attention Amelia Bones stood up.
"Director Bones" said Dumbledore, "you have the floor."
"Thank you Chief Warlock" said Bones, "I come to you with a proposal on behalf of the DMLE – "
"Not another appeal for more money" Lucius Malfoy interrupted her, "we've been over this enough times already. With You-Know-Who's fall there just isn't a need for the DMLE to – "
"You're out of order Lord Malfoy" said Dumbledore, "if you have something to say you can wait to be properly recognized. Please continue Director Bones."
"Thanks again Chief Warlock" said Bones, "as I was preparing to say before my esteemed colleague so rudely interrupted me we are here with a specific project for the DMLE. I did not come here today asking for more general funding. Instead I'm coming before you to request funding for a specific project that will help improve the DMLE in light of certain events that occurred last year. Senior Auror Alastor Moody is here at my request and he will do most of the explaining as he is spearheading this project."
"Senior Auror Moody" asked Dumbledore, "will you please come forward?"
Mad Eye Moody came down from the visitors' seats and stood in the middle of the floor in front of the Wizengamot.
"Thank you" said Moody as he addressed the body, "as Director Bones said we are not here to ask for an across the board increase in our funding. Yes, the department always need that but it's not our aim today. What I am proposing is something that will help our auror force become more prepared to face new challenges in the world today."
Lord Greengrass raised his wand.
"What do you mean by 'new challenges in the world today?" he asked after being recognized by Dumbledore "how are the challenges of today different from the past?"
"I'm glad you asked that" said Moody, "it was pointed out just a moment ago that Lord Voldemort – " he ignored all of the flinches in the room, " – is gone. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. I'm sure we all know what happened at Hogwarts back on Halloween suggesting that he isn't so gone as we all would like. But that's neither here nor there today and I'm not going to give an opinion on that.
"Whether Voldemort is gone or not he's not the only enemy out there that we could face in the future. Not all of these enemies are ones we might recognize or be able to handle without a greater amount of knowledge and experience of the outside world where such threats may come from. Who here is familiar with what happened at Hogwarts at the end of last April?"
Almost all of the hands of the members went up.
"Aside from the Chief Warlock" said Moody, "how many of you were actually there to witness what happened? Specifically how many of you saw the invasion by the Brotherhood and the fight between them and the X-Men first hand?"
No hands went up this time. A few of them had been at Hogwarts for the feast afterwards but not for the fight itself.
"I thought not" said Moody" I'm sure you've all heard the details of what happened but nothing beats seeing it for yourselves."
Moody walked over to small table which contained a large bowl-like object which was decorated with runes. Moody reached into a pocket and pulled out three vials which all contained some smoky, swirling substance.
"That's why I had this pensieve brought here" continued Moody, "I've spelled it to project memories for everyone to see. I have three memories to show you. The first two are from that day at Hogwarts. The last one is from last month. Now the first memory I'm going to show you is the Brotherhood's arrival at Hogwarts and what happened when the aurors arrived."
Moody picked up one of the vials, opened it and emptied the contents into the pensieve. He tapped the pensieve with his wand and a large image projected up from it that was visible to everyone in the chamber. The chamber watched in silence as the confrontation between the Brotherhood and the aurors played out. It was true that everyone knew the details of what had happened but it was still shocking for the members of the Wizengamot to see how quickly and easily the aurors were beaten by Magneto and his Brotherhood. Seeing Quicksilver take all of the aurors' wands in a split second was especially disturbing as was seeing Blob beat up on the aurors after they lost their wands. The memory ended with Dumbledore raising the Hogwarts shield.
"As you've seen" said Moody once the murmuring in the chamber died down, "we were outclassed but not because they were superior fighters. What really brought us down is that we weren't prepared to face people like them. Magneto is a force to be reckoned with, never doubt that, but the others we might have been able to handle if we had known what we were dealing with beforehand. But it's not just people like the Brotherhood who are the issue. Our aurors have never been prepared to face threats beyond our enclosed world. The outside world is bigger than just us and when it knocked at the Hogwarts gates we weren't prepared for it
"Now in this second memory you will see scenes from the fight that happened after the X-Men arrived to engage the Brotherhood. Pay close attention in particular to what Headmaster Dumbledore does when you see him."
Moody removed the first memory from the pensieve and returned it to its vial. He then put the second memory in the pensieve and it began to play. The Wizengamot watched the scenes from the fight play out starting with the X-Men charging at the Brotherhood after Dumbledore dropped the Hogwarts shield. Among the scenes they saw were Beast knocking Toad into next week and then facing Magneto. They watched as Marvel Girl, Lightning, and Sirius bounced the Blob up and down a bunch of times before Marvel Girl took him out of the fight with her telepathy. They watched Cyclops, Angel, and Iceman all take down different foes at various times as well as Lightning blasting Magneto off his feet three times with his lightning bolts (Moody carefully excised any place where Dumbledore used Harry's real name during that part). The last scene they saw was Dumbledore's duel against Magneto. That really got everyone's attention. Everyone knew Dumbledore was a formidable warrior but it had been over a decade since anyone had seen the headmaster fighting in a real battle. It was sobering to see how good he really was – and even more sobering to see him fighting a foe who was as good as he was so that the duel turned into a stalemate that was only broken when Cyclops arrived and blasted Magneto away.
"Yes" said Moody, "our Chief Warlock really is that good."
"Thank you Auror Moody" said Dumbledore, "but it was no easy feat to face Magneto. In his way he is as powerful as I am. I follow the news from the muggle world. I'm also friends with the X-Men because their founder and mentor (whom I will not identify) is an old friend of mine. When I fought Magneto one of the reasons I was able to battle him to a standstill is because I knew who he was and what he could do. If I hadn't known that I might not have done as well as I did."
"The point is well made" said Moody, "at the academy we teach our cadets to face all kinds of magical threats. We don't teach them to deal with threats from other places. You would think that we wouldn't need to because of the Statute of Secrecy but the world is changing. It's producing new threats like the Brotherhood and other super powered beings who have been appearing more and more out in the wider world. Although such beings are usually handled either by superhero teams like the X-Men, the Avengers, or the Fantastic Four or by individual heroes on their own that isn't always the case. As we have seen super villains don't necessarily confine themselves to the muggle world. If they come after people in our world then our aurors need to be able to face such threats.
"So how do we do this you may well ask? How do we prepare our aurors to face as many different kinds of threats as possible? That brings me to the third memory I'm going to show you. Last month myself, Director Bones, Head Auror Scrimgeour, and aurors Robards, Shacklebolt, and Tonks were invited to attend a daily training session with the X-Men. The whole training session took a full morning starting at 9 AM. I won't show you all of that. Instead here is a selection of scenes from that day."
Moody returned the second memory to its vial and put the third one into the pensieve and started playing it. The members of the Wizengamot watched scenes of the X-Men being put through their paces with complete fascination. Moody showed them scenes of the members training individually and also doing team exercises. It was quite clear to the watching magicals that the training the mutant team underwent was intense and rigorous. Moody impressed on the watchers that what they were seeing was a normal training session for the team and something they did almost every day. After seeing what the team did in training many of the wizards and witches found it easy to accept that the X-Men were able to take down as many Death Eaters as they did at the Quidditch World Cup. They were clearly a formidable fighting force and it was clear from his manner during the presentation that Moody had a great deal of respect for them.
When the third memory was done playing Moody returned it to its vial and faced the audience once more.
"The X-Men call their training room the 'Danger Room'" he said, "I'm sure I don't have to explain why. Their training can be very dangerous if they don't do things properly. They have safeguards in place there to minimize risk but, as Cyclops said, no system is perfect. The important thing is that their training works.
"What I am proposing is to create a Danger Room for the Auror Academy. It will be used to train our aurors to handle all kinds of threats and to teach them to prepare for anything. Their training will be more expansive and more fully rounded than it has ever been so that if a team of aurors ever again has to face a group like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants they will be prepared to do so. That is what I mean by training our aurors to meet the challenges in the world today. Thank you."
When Moody finished talking there was a long silence in the chamber as everyone absorbed his presentation. The silence was finally broken when Minister Fudge started clapping. Director Bones immediately joined in followed by Dumbledore, Cyrus Greengrass, Augusta Longbottom, Tiberius Ogden, and Griselda Marchbanks. The applause spread around the chamber until most of the body was clapping. The most notable exceptions were the members who had Death Eater connections. Lucius Malfoy in particular was not clapping but the expression on his face showed that he realized that he probably wouldn't be able to kill this proposal no matter how much gold he spread around the Wizengamot.
When the applause finally died down Minister Fudge lit his wand and Dumbledore recognized him.
"I wish to be the first" said Fudge" to move that we approve this proposal. We've been lucky so far that the X-Men were there to help us on two occasions and they may help us again in the future. They won't always be there for us though if only because they live in America. I agree with Senior Auror Moody that we need to better train our aurors. In the past we didn't have to deal with threats like the Brotherhood or other outside attacks but now it seems we do. This isn't a matter of just dealing with You-Know-Who (whether he's alive or not) and his Death Eaters. This is a much larger challenge that we need to face."
"A motion has been made regarding a DMLE Danger Room" said Dumbledore, "is there a second?" Immediately several wands lit up in the chamber. The honor of officially seconding the motion went to Lady Longbottom who spoke strongly in support of the proposal.
The floor was opened up for debate on the motion and it lasted for quite some time even though it was soon clear that a large majority favored it. It was mostly opposed by the former Death Eaters and the more extreme isolationist members who warned strongly of the risk of breaking the Statute of Secrecy. In the end, much to Moody's satisfaction, the motion was carried by a large majority.
"Congratulations Alastor" said Dumbledore after the session was over, "that was quite a presentation. I was glad it went over so well."
"So am I" growled Moody, "now the hard part of actually designing and building such a room begins."
"I imagine Charles will help you?" Dumbledore asked.
"He said he would" was the reply, "and I'm glad because even with all of the notes I took over the months while watching the X-Men train I could still use expert help on creating this thing. Who better than the original creator himself?"
"Indeed" said Dumbledore, "I was surprised that Cornelius was so supportive of it."
"He likes the X-Men" said Moody, "that made it a much easier sell."
The day after the Wizengamot meeting Augusta Longbottom received an urgent summons to St. Mungo's Hospital. What she found out when she got there sent her straight to Hogwarts where, after a quick meeting with Professor Dumbledore, her grandson Neville was pulled out of class and taken to the headmaster's office. When the fourth year student reached the office he was surprised to find his grandmother there.
"Grandmum?" asked Neville, apprehension clear in his voice as he was sure this couldn't be good, "what are you doing here? Is something wrong?"
"Yes Neville" said his grandmother sternly, "something is very wrong however it's not something for which you are at fault. I'm here to tell you what happened myself before it's in the papers tomorrow."
"What happened?"
"Someone broke into the ward where your parents are and attacked your mother."
"What?!" exclaimed a shocked Neville, "who would do that? Why?"
"We don't know yet" said Madame Longbottom "although the DMLE is investigating."
"Is mum okay?" asked Neville.
"She's as well as she can be" said his grandmother, "she's alive and physically she'll be fine. She was found by her healer when he came to give your parents their daily potions. She was lying with one of her arms hanging off of the bed and blood dripping from it. Her arm had been deliberately cut. In addition a broken vial was found on the floor beside the bed. It appears that someone was trying to get some of your mother's blood."
"Why would they do that?" asked a bewildered Neville.
"I don't know" was the reply, "but as I said an investigation has been opened on the matter. The DMLE will get to the bottom of this. St. Mungo's wants this cleared up as soon as possible as someone breaking in to harm a patient will cause a scandal the hospital doesn't want. It will be in the Prophet tomorrow. I wanted you to know about it before that."
"Thank you grandmum" said Neville, "I appreciate you doing that."
Dumbledore had been silent during the meeting between grandmother and grandson but after both of them had left his office he thought over the information Augusta had given him about the incident that she hadn't told Neville.
When the healer had found Neville's mother he had seen footprints in the blood on the floor. This suggested that the perpetrator had been sloppy with what they did. Possibly they'd dropped the vial and been unable to repair it. There were two sets of footprints in the blood. There was a pair of human footprints standing by the bed. Those footprints appeared nowhere else, meaning they didn't show the person leaving the scene of the crime. The second set of prints was much smaller. They started where the human prints were and led to a hole in the wall.
The second set of footprints looked like those of a small animal, specifically a rodent like a rat. It must have been Peter Pettigrew, Dumbledore concluded, who had attacked Alice Longbottom as she lay in her bed.
If it was Pettigrew who did this, and Dumbledore was sure that it was, then he must have been acting under Voldemort's orders. But why? Whatever the reason was for this attack Dumbledore didn't like the fact that of all of the people that Voldemort could have sent Pettigrew to extract blood from he had sent the rat to take it from Harry Potter's Godmother.
In a remote corner of New York State a man named Bolivar Trask was considering a security video a close colleague had recently sent him. It had been taken in London down near Picadilly Circus. On a corner out of view of most people a pair of oddly dressed people had just popped into view seemingly from nowhere and then waved their sticks and their clothes had transformed into normal casual clothing. The average person would have assumed it to be a clip from a movie or TV show that somehow got leaked but Trask knew better.
Trask could recognize magic when he saw it because he was a squib, and not just any squib. The Trasks were a very old, very rich, and very supremacist European family. To be a squib in such a family was usually a death sentence. When it became clear that Bolivar was a squib he only just escaped that fate because his mother – who had married into the family – loved him enough that she spirited him off the family property and with a friend's help sent him off to an orphanage in America so he would be far away from those who would kill him. This act cost his mother her life as she was killed after the family found out what she had done. Fortunately they never found out where she sent young Bolivar. He grew up in the states but he never forgot where he came from or how he had been treated and he promised himself that someday he would pay his family back.
He'd done well in his life despite his early years. He had grown up and gone to university eventually becoming a scientist. He became aware of mutants early and viewed them as a potential threat to humanity because, unlike the magicals, they did not hide themselves away. That made them worse than magicals because he felt that they would inevitably try to take over the world and rule normal humans. The rise of Magneto and his Brotherhood seemed to confirm his fears and he lumped all mutants in with them, even the X-Men who were visibly fighting against Magneto.
Now Trask sat in his workshop and viewed the video he had been sent. Magic was being used in public places and evidence of it was being irrevocably caught at last. To Trask it seemed that the magicals were no longer hiding themselves from normal humans. This, he decided, would be bad. He remembered vividly how his family treated him just because he didn't have magic and he still harbored deeply bitter feelings over it. How long before the magical world came out of hiding and did the same to the rest of humanity? Perhaps they would join forces with the mutants. Mutant powers were enough like magic that if the two groups combined they might form a new ruling class.
No! This could not be allowed. For several years now he had been working on a project to protect humanity from mutants. He called his project the "Sentinels" and he was far along in the development of his plans. As magicals and mutants did have a lot in common it wouldn't take all that much to adjust his plans so that the Sentinels project could guard against both mutants and magicals. Oh yes, he would do it. It wouldn't even delay his time line all that much to make the necessary changes and when he was done humanity would be safe.
(To Be Continued)
A/N - That's all for now. The January events are not finished yet. Next week the chapter will be called "More January Events" and some very important stuff will happen so come on back for it. As usual please take a moment to leave me some feedback. Constructive comments are always welcome but no flames or trolls please. As always stay safe and well everyone.