Disclaimer: I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).
ooo
Mary Esmond hadn't been sure what one was supposed to wear to this event.
Addie had chaffed her gently. "Come as yourself, love," she said. "Only dress warmly." She leaned over and kissed Mary on the forehead, and ruffled her sensible short hair. "I'll loan you a cloak if you like."
Addie wasn't on duty, exactly; there were plenty of honor guards for the proceeding, but Kingsley had a different role in mind for her.
A spectator, she said, this time to a ritual of post-war reconciliation.
Mary had been beyond puzzled by that. "But it's some sort of legal proceeding," she said. She stared at the newspaper clipping again. The article stressed that there hadn't been one of its sort for six hundred years, not since the later crusades, everyone was saying. Mary smoothed out the page with those uncanny moving pictures. There were two of them, both with the air of formal or even royal portraits. On the left side, the woman that Mary still named the Black Widow stood with a hand on the shoulder of her son, who held the baby in his arms. On the other side of the column, a couple whom she didn't recognize, but who looked oddly familiar, sat side by side with the ease of the long-married who are fond of each other; he looking at the photographer with a certain quizzical expression, his eyes intermittently obscured by the reflected light on his steel-rimmed spectacles, and she, eyes dark and unveiled (for some reason, Mary thought of the star-bright metal vapor at the end of a welding torch). They were wearing what looked like academic robes, which impression Addie corrected: it was official regalia, the same as their civil servants wore.
The caption identified them as William and Elizabeth Granger, parents to Hermione Granger, Knight of the Order of Merlin, First Class.
It was the first time in living memory that Muggles had appeared on the front page of the Daily Prophet, at least in the role of news-makers.
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She was glad of the advice to dress warmly; the courtroom, a vast amphitheater of stone, radiated chill. Addie whispered some words in Latin, and she felt warmer immediately. A charm, she knew, and shook her head. Anything became ordinary with practice. She pulled the cloak about her, as she and Addie took their seats. Stone benches these, but somehow as she sat, something gave way pleasantly like a cushion.
There was a considerable interval during which the spectators whispered among themselves. Then a silence fell, sweeping over the spectators in the stone amphitheater like a wind over a field of grass. The tribunal filed in, an entire bank of seats filled with dark-robed dignitaries. At the same time, a shorter procession took place in the pit. Kingsley Shacklebolt, in rich and archaic robes, followed by the Granger parents in the same robes as in their newspaper portrait, the Black Widow, her son (carrying the baby). Behind them followed a procession of six figures of various heights, in chain-mail and tabards, their faces hidden behind archaic helmets, walking with the awkwardness that accompanied cumbersome fancy-dress, swords clanking at their sides.
The Grangers took their places in two elaborately carved stone chairs with red velvet cushions, and their entourage of men-at-arms ranged themselves in a semi-circle behind them.
Mary watched the procession in the upper gallery: the first dignitaries to enter appeared to be in their forties or fifties; they filled the higher seats in the gallery. The lower the seats, the closer to the pit of the amphitheater, the older the watchers. Several ranks of red-robed men and women filed in alongside them, unmistakably in the capacity of armed guards.
Last of all, moving very slowly, came a tiny wizened figure in black, with a cloud of white hair and the winter-apple wrinkles of a healthy but very old human being.
When she looked up, Mary recognized her immediately. It was the redoubtable Madam Marchbanks, the friend of Jackie's Aunt Amelia.
As Madam Marchbanks seated herself (unassisted except with her walking stick) Mary felt a shift, and realized that every pair of eyes in the place was looking at Madam Marchbanks: the presiding magistrate.
"This sitting of the Wizengamot will come to order," Madam Marchbanks said, in a voice surprisingly sonorous given her tiny frame and advanced age. Excellent sound quality, Mary couldn't help thinking. She couldn't see the lavalier of the microphone, but it was clearly one of the best.
"Who petitions this court?"
Much like legal proceedings everywhere, the questions were highly ritualized.
"Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister for Magic, on behalf of the Muggle petitioners William and Elizabeth Granger and the wizard Draco Abraxas Apollonius Paracelsus Brutus, of the house of Malfoy."
"And the matter of the petition?"
"The Muggle potentates petition this august council for permission to retain the aforesaid wizard as their Court Wizard, with all of the customary privileges and obligations."
"Is the Head of the Family present?"
Shacklebolt inclined his head toward the Black Widow, who stood even taller in her black velvet draperies and her moon-pale fall of hair. (It hung all the way down her back, Mary realized, and would brush the back of her calves if she were in modern dress.) "Narcissa Malfoy, born of the house of Black, speaks for the house of Malfoy." Her voice was clear and ringing, very different from the low conversational murmur Mary had heard in the waiting room at the clinic.
A pause. "And do all parties consent freely to this compact, with no influence of Potions, Charms, Magics Dark or otherwise, and no Influence untoward?"
William and Elizabeth Granger stood, in their black petitioners' robes trimmed with sable. "We do avow that we are freely petitioning this council."
Kingsley Shacklebolt added, "The petitioners have been examined by a Potions Master and three St. Mungo's Senior Healers. The results of the examination are in the hands of the council."
A parchment roll materialized in front of each of the dignitaries in the gallery. Mary blinked; well, they wouldn't be wizards if there weren't some measure of showmanship.
"And do the Heir and the Court of the House of Granger agree to this compact freely?"
The man-at-arms standing directly behind the stone chairs removed his-no, her-helmet, and shook out her curly hair. "I, Hermione Jean Granger, Heir of the House of Granger, do agree to this compact freely."
"How speaks the petitioners' Court?"
In turn, each of the entourage removed his or her helmet. Mary smiled; she had seen these young people in the waiting-room, but they looked rather different in archaic warriors' garb. They stood straight and solemn, helmet in the crook of the left arm and right hand on sword-hilt, and called out their names variously ordinary or odd, which somehow seemed no longer so odd at all. Each in turn "did agree to this compact freely":
Ronald Bilius Weasley, who stood taller than the rest, his flaming red hair wild around his face; Mary wondered if there had been berserkers in his line, in the old days.
Ginevra Molly Weasley. Her hair shone bright bronze and spiky, in an athletic cut. There was some smattering of applause as her name was called. "Some Harpies fans here, I see," Addie whispered in Mary's ear.
Luna Lovegood. She was the only one who didn't seem uncomfortable in the heavy archaic garb, for all she was by far the thinnest of them. Which struck Mary funny, because the girl embodied the absent-minded mad-scientist, and now she was looking perfectly at ease as a medieval warrior.
Harry James Potter, who interestingly enough, added the title "Heir of the House of Black" to his name. There was a delighted squawk from the galleries; all heads turned to see the little blue-haired toddler waving his arms, in the lap of a brown-haired woman who greatly resembled the Black Widow. "That's the renegade sister," Addie whispered.
Neville Longbottom, who looked ill-at-ease in the costume, though his heavy frame would seem better suited to it than the rather slighter builds of his comrades. His hand rested on a sword of rather elaborate design, with red stones in the hilt. Addie informed Mary that it was a replica, because of course the original was in the possession of the Goblins by post-war agreement, to be summoned only in case of true and urgent need.
A ritual of this sort apparently didn't qualify.
Everyone remained standing, like soldiers at parade rest. The baby looked about, her bright grey eyes on the spectators. Her brother surreptitiously jiggled her a bit on his hip, to forestall any restlessness, but she seemed occupied, looking from one face to another.
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The ceremony proceeded to additional legal call and response; all of the players seemed well-rehearsed. Even the baby had absorbed some of the solemnity of the players.
She was handed off to her mother at the moment when the chief magistrate said, "You may take the oath."
The Widow's son walked up to the chairs of the petitioners, and straight-backed and graceful as a dancer, sunk to his knees on the stone floor. He held his wand before him in a double-handed grip that was plainly a salute, and then in a clear tenor that filled the room like an operatic aria, he swore on his magic, and that of his ancestors, and that of his children to the seventh generation, that he would faithfully execute his duties as court wizard to the House of Granger.
He did swear fealty to that house, as their faithful vassal.
He held the pose of the swordsman's salute, with his head bowed but back straight and proud, in the oddest combination of attitudes Mary had seen, simultaneously deferential and haughty.
Neville Longbotttom unsheathed the heavy sword with the ruby-handled hilt, and handed it to William Granger, who took the hilt in his right hand with evident effort, and tapped the widow's son on the shoulder. "I do accept your oath, Draco Abraxas Apollonius Paracelsus Brutus, of the house of Malfoy," he said, and then handed the sword across his wife's lap to her right hand, so that she could recite the same formula.
A concession to modern marriage, Addie whispered, though she meant modern marriage on the Muggle side of the border. On their side of the border, "modern" carried a variety of senses.
The ceremony of fealty was immediately succeeded by a second petition, this time on the part of the newly dubbed Court Wizard, that he might place his sister, Hypatia Narcissa Lucia of the house of Malfoy, under the protection of the house of Granger.
The Granger parents recited in unison an oath to protect and sponsor the sister of the Court Wizard as if she were their own kin.
The Black Widow handed the child to her son, and he carefully placed her in the lap of Elizabeth Granger. There was a palpable silence in the room, as if something truly unprecedented had happened. No doubt the whole business had been rehearsed - it had that feel to it - but nonetheless the actual consummation was an astonishment to the audience.
And then the baby broke the spell, by squawking in delight and waving her chubby arms, beaming at her brother and at the assembly. The pause held for another heartbeat, and then the rest of the ceremony was lost in a roar of applause that the remonstrances of Madam Marchbanks took a full five minutes to quell, in spite of the power of her amplified voice.
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In the crush of the reception afterward, Mary could only cling to Addie's arm to avoid being swept away. So it was as a couple that they greeted Kingsley Shacklebolt, who shook hands with Addie and wished her good health, with a warmth that made Mary understand in a flash why they had all agreed on him as their post-war leader.
He smiled at her, as well. "So very good to see you here." Too polite to say that this was also unprecedented, a Muggle-well, more than one of them-being received in the grand foyer of the Ministry for Magic.
The Grangers took turns holding Hypatia as they received the congratulations of the numerous guests. The Widow and her son stood next to them, dispensing nods, bows, and handshakes in an alternation that didn't make sense to Mary; Addie said nothing about it, which led her to believe that it would be a very long story, likely going back centuries. They'd talk it over later, in bed, as they had talked over so very much; Mary and her life with Jackie, Addie's family and her training and the terrifying days of the war.
At Addie's insistence, they joined the receiving line.
Mary shook hands with William and then Elizabeth, and remarked on their daughter's exemplary exertions at the clinic.
They nodded and smiled, in the way of parents who expected no less.
Addie shook hands with the Grangers, correctly but absently. She was paler than usual, nearly as pale as the Widow's son, as she extended her hand to him. To the less than observant eye, he succeeded in suppressing the flinch; he accepted the handshake with a slight bow, a flash of a manner more Junker than English country-house aristocrat. Something stiffened and sharpened in Addie's manner as well: it was the respectful and chastened meeting of two ex-combatants.
The Widow accepted Addie's hand, covering it with both of hers, and inclined her head with weeping-willow grace more appropriate to condolences at a funeral.
Or perhaps that was what they were, very much after the fact.
The etiquette guides that Mary knew had no polite forms for greeting between the murderer's wife and the victim's daughter.
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Addie took charge of her after that, in the manner of a proper host or escort; she made sure that Mary was established in a good vantage point with a nice selection of refreshments: a curiously warming drink that tasted of caramel with an alcoholic tingle, and an assortment of more or less familiar sweet and savory delicacies.
Mary watched as the receiving line crept forward, and marveled at the variety of costumes: there was one of the numerous Weasley brothers, the one with the spectacles, wearing what looked like academic robes open over ordinary button-down shirt and pleated trousers, with a plump rose-gold girl next to him in jeans and red-velveteen top, as if she'd just blown in from dancing at a club. Behind him in line, his mother (in conspicuously archaic robes, dark-red with a border of rampant lions) chatted with a sleek well-upholstered fellow whose curling mustache made him resemble an Alice-in-Wonderland walrus.
She nudged Addie, "Is he a politician?"
Addie started and then laughed. "I suppose you could say so." She indicated Mrs. Weasley. "Molly Prewett's got herself a retroactive invitation to the Slug Club, it would appear." She said, "On the other hand, anyone who took out Bellatrix Lestrange would get the same."
The Grangers' makeshift court greeted Percy, who was grinning in an uncharacteristically unbuttoned way, as his girlfriend leaned close to whisper something in his ear. "Audrey Tonks," Addie said, "she's a Muggle."
"Well, so am I," Mary said.
"Nothing wrong in that, and anyway she's a Tonks." She whispered, "I heard a rumor that the Black Widow meant to acquire her as a daughter-in-law. Too late for that, unless she wants to go toe to toe with Molly."
The walrus-mustached fellow was shaking hands with the Grangers now, and from the look of it, saying something complimentary about their daughter, for they looked in her direction and nodded. He moved a step or two further on, and greeted the Widow, who smiled at him with a vivacity almost girlish. "Slughorn's pleased with her, it would seem," Addie said.
Slughorn shook hands with the Widow's son, rather effusively it would seem, "my dear boy," she heard over the sea-rush of conversation.
"Well, that's a turn-up for the books," said the old woman next to them with the spectacularly outdated hat, on which a stuffed vulture crouched as if scouting the crowd for likely livers to peck. "Never thought I'd see Horace making peace with the Malfoys." A crocodilian smile, "On the other hand, the Malfoys aren't what they were. And that's all to the good."
She turned to Addie, "Good to see you, lass." Addie nodded with wide eyes and an expression that recalled a common soldier greeted by a general.
The red-headed Weasley matriarch was talking to the Widow's son now.
He nodded, "Yes, by all means, Madam Weasley." She leaned in to talk to the baby perched on his opposite hip.
"What a sweet little thing she is."
The vulture bobbed alarmingly. "A good thing I didn't wager on that," said the old woman, but she was smiling.
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Author's Note: Thank you for your patience for the delay in posting. The last months have seen extensive demands on my time both from my day job and from my original-fiction career. That doesn't mean that I'll be abandoning fanfiction.
We are now entering the endgame of this novel-length tale that began as a discarded snippet from Amends. I'm projecting another three to four chapters.