Some may find parts of this one a little dry, as much of it's about the houses and politics of Magical Britain in this world, but the requested bone of redemption is thrown to Narcissa and Lucy gets a slap down, so hopefully folks will like that ;^) The point of describing the system is (in part) to show what's wrong with it.
This one brings them up to Harry and Hermione starting at Hogwarts.
Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I see things that didn't come out the way I wanted.
As soon as Harry woke up James and Lily's portraits, they got their story from them. James had brought the portrait artist to the cottage in Godric's Hollow for the sittings in secret, so no-one else knew about them before they were killed. That was probably why Dumbledore freaked out and hid them when he found them while he was ransacking the cottage, because if James or Lily had gotten out from under the compulsions enough, they would have quite likely set things up to get a message out if they were destroyed, but he didn't know how much they knew about what he was doing. What it came down to though was that Lily more than James had been getting suspicious about why the Hell they would have agreed to leave the safest location in the British Isles to 'hide' in Godric's Hollow, and even James was suspicious enough to agree to record who the secret keeper was in their wills to protect Sirius just before they were killed, but Lily's suspicions were the only things the portraits knew about.
People's reactions to the events of the six months odd since Harry Potter returned to the Magical world varied considerably, many (especially those fortunate few who actually knew that Harry was alive and well) hailed it as the dawn of a new golden age for Magical Britain, as the majority of students at Hogwarts were showing major improvement, an actual cure for Lycanthropy had been found, and some of the major houses were creating and funding new industries which were like a pepper up potion for the magical community, never before had so much been achieved in such a short time…. But those who had been quite happy with the way things were because they had been in control for the most part were rather less pleased. These witches and wizards, as part of what was called the truly 'light' and the truly 'dark' houses, had in the past tended to occupy the two ends of the political spectrum in Magical Britain, but they all had one thing in common, they held to the 'traditional' Pureblood supremacy beliefs.
With Albus Dumbledore being cast out of all four of the extremely influential positions he held (the Headmaster of Hogwarts, where he could influence the leaders of the future, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot where he could influence the laws and direction of Magical Britain, one of Magical Britain's representatives to the International Confederation of Wizards where he could influence Magical Britain's trade agreements and the like with the rest of the Magical world, and the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW where he could influence the Magical world's stance on important matters), both of the 'traditional' Pureblood factions had lost their most powerful supporter, who ironically enough was in fact a Half-Blood.
Minister Bagnold actually missed the show she'd been looking forward to with Lucius Malfoy because she wasn't in the Wizengamot session where it came to a head, but Lord Arcturus Black made sure that he was. Just as everyone had expected, Lucius Malfoy's ego wouldn't let him accept the fact that he was no longer the powerful Lord Malfoy who most were afraid of, so he kept interrupting Ted as he was presenting a submission for the Alliance and when Ted requested that Mister Malfoy be ordered to allow him to finish his presentation without interruption he bit. "That's Lord Malfoy to you Mudblood, and no-one orders me to be quiet!"
That was what Arcturus had been waiting for and he shot to his feet. "I demand that this impostor present proof of this title he claims, that he be sanctioned for using unacceptable forms of address in the Wizengamot and that he be reminded that the Lady Chief Witch or Lord Chief Warlock can indeed order him to do whatever they so wish within the rules of the Wizengamot…. Have his qualifications to even hold a seat in the Wizengamot been reviewed since his house was degraded? Surely there are superior houses which have been awaiting the opportunity for their house to gain a seat on the Wizengamot?"
One look at Griselda told Tiberius that she couldn't answer this without exploding so he spoke up.
"Indeed Mister Malfoy, by what title does the Head of the Minor House of Malfoy claim the right to be addressed as a Lord? As to Lord Black's other points, to remind you of My Lady Chief Witch and my authority as the presiding heads of the Wizengamot, I order that you be silenced once you have answered our questions, and to pay a fine of two thousand galleons to Lord Tonks for the breaching the rules of etiquette of the Wizengamot in heckling him in such an uncouth manner and using an unacceptable derogatory form of address directed at him. I also levy a further thousand galleon fine to be paid to the Wizengamot itself for these offences…. and there may well be further fines if you cannot prove your right to use the title 'Lord'… Scribe, have you determined the answer to Lord Black's question as to the Minor House of Malfoy's right to hold a Wizengamot seat?"
The Court Scribe replied first, as he'd jumped to do that very thing in anticipation of this question, and there was no surprise in the answer as he knew that Lord Black was no fool. "Yes I have My Lord Chief Warlock…. Lord Black appears to be correct in that the Minor House of Malfoy's recent degradation appears to have dropped it below the recently elevated Noble House of Tonks and at least four other Minor Houses currently awaiting a seat on the Wizengamot, therefore it appears that the House of Malfoy's Wizengamot seat should have been revoked."
"Thank you Scribe. Mister Malfoy, you have been challenged to present proof of your right to style yourself as Lord Malfoy, please do so immediately!"
It was obvious that Malfoy wanted to curse the Chief Warlock, Ted and Andi Tonks, Lord Black and the Court Scribe to death, but he was bright enough to realise that he'd only get one curse off if that before he was put down so he bit out. "I must apologise Chief Warlock, in my anger at the slight from the appellant I forgot that my house's rightful title was stripped from us and that I was no longer styled as Lord Malfoy..."
A good number of those in the chamber were counting the seconds to the explosion, and Lord Black didn't keep them waiting long. "I demand satisfaction from this worm, this creature of Bad Faith My Lord Chief Wizard! For a start there was no slight from Lord Tonks, he was addressing Mister Malfoy quite properly, for another thing Lord Tonks is not an appellant, he is presenting a submission for the alliance of Houses of which the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is a part! But what I demand satisfaction for is the false claim that the title that was rightfully reclaimed as part of the dowry of a daughter of the House of Black when her marriage was annulled because of her husband's actions bringing shame on the House of Black was ever the rightful title of the House of Malfoy!"
Arcturus certainly appeared to be enraged, but Sirius was too calm when he stood for this to be anything but an act, even though most in the chamber wouldn't know that. "Grandfather, you must calm yourself! Anyway, if anyone is going to challenge the Head of the House of Bad Faith it should be me! I was the one who lost so many of my friends and their families to him and his fellow branded slaves of Tom Marvolo Riddle, the common Half-Blood bastard of an almost squib and a muggle who styled himself as Lord Voldemort…. Is that why Malfoy chooses to style himself as a Lord when he has no right to do so, is he still attempting to follow his dead master?…. Anyway, between the friends I lost to them and the five years of torment I suffered when I was sent to Azkaban without a trial after another one of his accomplices framed me for betraying my best friends to their deaths and killing him and a dozen non-magical people, I believe I have more right to challenge him than you Grandfather, and besides, no offence Grandad but you are hardly young any more and as you have said I'm not ready to take over a house of the scale of the House of Black yet so for the sake of our house please let me challenge him in your place..."
This was a masterful move that could hardly have been any more effective if it was scripted, Sirius had no trouble with openly agreeing that a few months wasn't enough time to learn to take over the affairs of one of the richest and most powerful houses in Magical Europe and it was not insulting his Grandfather and Head of House to remind him that he was too old and too needed to go challenging an inconsequential bug who did have plenty of recent experience in attacking others as a Death Eater, and it gave him a very public setting in which to verbally attack both Malfoy and his master with impunity, so his Grandfather pretended to scowl at him before he nodded. "Very well Grandson", then turned back to Malfoy. "What is it to be Bad Faith? Will you face my Grandson Earl Sirius Black, Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and a descendent of the Morrighan, or will you offer proper apologies to the House of Black, myself, my Great Niece and her husband for the insults given and false claims to a Black title…. And ten, no fifteen thousand galleons compensation to the House of Black for the stain on our reputation…. Well?"
Malfoy's rage on the other hand was quite real, but for all he wanted to kill the lot of them for humiliating him like this, not to mention costing him nearly twenty thousand galleons, he'd seen Black in action in the war, and he knew that he wouldn't stand a chance against him even if he wasn't fully recovered yet, so he ground out an apology from between gritted teeth and swore the oath that saw the fifteen thousand galleons transferred into the Black vaults. But his humiliation was not finished yet, as the Chief Warlock spoke up then.
"Lucius Abraxus Malfoy, under the rules of the Wizengamot, you are fined a further four thousand galleons for falsely claiming the rights of the Head of a Noble House, and you are to remain silenced and immobilised for the remainder of this session to prevent you interrupting proceedings any further. The points raised as to the right of the Minor House of Malfoy to hold a seat on the Wizengamot will be formally investigated and if found correct, the House of Malfoy's seat will be revoked, to be awarded to the newly ennobled House of Tonks. Furthermore, due to your breaches of the Wizengamot's rules of etiquette and behaviour and false claims, the House of Malfoy is banned from holding any seat on the Wizengamot for twenty years, and you are permanently banned from ever sitting on the Wizengamot again. So Mote It Be!" Griselda also murmured "So Mote It Be!" and everyone felt the decree being accepted by the magic of the court.
Narcissa was sitting in the gallery as required by her husband and she paled at that, because she knew who Lucius would take this humiliation and setback out on, and she seriously doubted that she would survive the experience. As a true daughter of the House of Black, she knew that there was only one thing that could save her from this and she slipped out of the Wizengamot chamber to get herself into position to do it. As Arcturus and Sirius exited the chamber when the session was finished, Narcissa cast herself at Arcturus' feet and begged to be given sanctuary by the House of Black. He looked at Sirius with a question, as Sirius would become her Lord and Head of House if he took her back into the house, and at Sirius' nod he ordered her to stand.
Once she had done so with Sirius' helping hand Arcturus spoke. "Narcissa Malfoy, you have been cast from the House of Black for consorting with your husband, the branded slave of the common Half-Blood impostor Tom Riddle who falsely styled himself as Lord Voldemort. If I give you sanctuary and accept you back into the House of Black you must forsake the Minor House of Malfoy and have no further dealings with any member of that house. Do you accept this condition?"
Narcissa bowed her head, tears starting from her eyes at the thought of forsaking her son, but she knew in her heart that he wasn't really her son any more so she nodded. "I do My Lord."
Arcturus opened his arms. "Then I welcome you back into the family as a daughter of the House of Black Narcissa Irma Black, I hereby annul your marriage to Lucius Abraxus Malfoy and give you sanctuary in the House of Black on the condition that you forsake the House of Malfoy and any and all members of that house from this day forward. So Mote It Be!"
They were standing in the open doorway of the Wizengamot chamber, so the magic in the chamber pulsed noticeably as it accepted this decree, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that the decree was official as Narcissa was embraced by her Great Uncle. Lucius Malfoy was still in the chamber, trying to drum up support from the other Death Eaters and witnessed this. It was interesting to note that Crabbe was the only one who bothered to grab his arm to stop him getting himself killed by trying to attack the Blacks for this new humiliation. By the time Lucius returned to Malfoy Manor, Black elves had removed everything belonging to Narcissa and he just told their son that she had abandoned them.
Of course the current and next Lord Black's comments about Tom Riddle had been noted as planned and many people started looking into this, getting quite angry at the ones who had recruited them to the Death Eaters' cause with promises of Lord Voldemort leading the true Purebloods to take their rightful place, with their feet on the necks of all the Blood Traitors, Half-Bloods and Mudbloods, when in fact their 'Lord Voldemort' was no Lord at all, as the Blacks had said he was actually a common bastard who barely rated as a Half-Blood with a mother who was barely a witch and a father who was an ordinary muggle, and what's more was too much of a coward to admit his own name. The marked Death Eaters and other fanatical believers who were too blind to see the truth remained faithful to the cause, but most of their support quickly dried up and disappeared after that.
Sirius invited Narcissa to share the Black's London Townhouse with him and Arcturus again showed his cunning by appointing her to the role of Steward of the Black family's houses, allocating another Black Baroness title to her (as Narcissa Black) to shore up her position in the Wizengamot. Narcissa was better trained in the myriad aspects of politics in Magical Britain than Sirius as he had rebelled against his parents and refused to learn (not that his parents would have done a good job of teaching him anyway), while she and her sisters had all accepted their training as true daughters of the House of Black…. until Andromeda chose to forsake her family and follow her heart, marrying her best friend, the Muggleborn Ted Tonks, when her parents tried to force to marry the disgusting inbred scion of the House of Flint anyway.
The Wizarding war had started by this stage and Arcturus had decided that he didn't like the look of what this Voldemort was doing, so when Andi's parents demanded that she be expelled from the House of Black he just let them believe that he'd done so. It was around that time that he also formally changed his Heir from his son Orion to his grandson Sirius, because he refused to allow the House of Black to be subjugated by this Voldemort and he knew that Orion was too weak to stand up to pressure from his wife and other members of the house who were following Voldemort. The only reason that Narcissa got the title that her parents had promised in the marriage negotiations with the rich Minor House of Malfoy was that he was trying to be even handed, so as other daughters of the House of Black had received this, she did as well.
When Harry performed the inheritance test to confirm his right to claim his father's family titles as Duke Potter, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter, Earl Peverell, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Peverell and Baron Gryffindor, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Gryffindor (the fact that the House of Potter came from Morgan Le Fay's bloodline and the House of Gryffindor came from Myddrin Emrys's bloodline gave a hint as to why Harry was so powerful), they discovered something interesting. Through his mother, he was also rightfully Baron Slytherin, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Slytherin, and Head of the Most Ancient Druid House of Ifan.
This in turn led to inheritance tests being done for the other children, and Hermione was found to be Baroness Ravenclaw, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Ravenclaw on her mother's side, and Baroness Dagworth-Granger, Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Dagworth and Ancient Druid House of Granger on her father's side. As well as Baron Longbottom, Heir to the titles of Earl Longbottom and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom, Neville was found to be Baron Hufflepuff, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Hufflepuff on his mother's side. Susan was Countess Bones, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bones on her father's side, and Head of the Ancient Druid House of Rhys on her mother's side. Luna was Lady Lovegood, Heiress to the titles of Baroness Lovegood and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Lovegood on her father's side and Heiress to Head of the Most Ancient Druid House of Cathbad on her mother's side. Daphne was Baroness Greengrass, Heiress the titles of Countess Greengrass and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Greengrass on her father's side while Astoria was Lady Greengrass, Heiress to her mother's titles of Baroness Bodhmall and Head the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bodhmall. Dora was Lady Tonks, Heiress to her mother as Baroness Tonks and her father as Head of the Noble House of Tonks.
Hestia had no title, but this was rectified by Minerva making her Heiress to the titles of Countess Ross and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Ross, as well as head of her other houses, so that she became Baroness Jones. In the time since Harry had come back into their lives, the adults had had many discussions about what was likely to happen in their world, and the ones who had lived through the First Wizarding War knew all too well what the risks of the upcoming war were, the ones who had lived through Grindelwald's war as well even more so. This led to the realisation that the majority of them didn't have heirs for their houses, so it was agreed that the children would be made heirs to any of their houses which didn't currently have heirs. The children who currently had houses of their own were included in that, and they used the same blood adoption ritual that Sirius had with Harry to defeat any challenges to their inheriting the titles.
The Potter, Black and Peverell families and some of the other Most Ancient and Ancient Houses had become Noble when they merged their bloodlines with the families of the rulers of Britain over time. Many of the other Most Ancient and to a lesser degree Ancient Houses had also become Noble when the rulers of Britain were courting the most powerful Druids' support so they bribed them with titles (unless they remained dormant, only the Potter, Black and Ollivander lines had remained extant for most of the two thousand year history of Magical Britain, which in turn was why the Potter and Black families were by far the richest and most powerful houses in Magical Britain and among the richest and most powerful in Magical Europe), though few were made anything higher than Baron by this method. The more powerful of the Houses which had become Noble through merging the Druid and Noble bloodlines also gained additional titles through this practice, Earl as well as Baron.
The Druid Houses and the Gentry's Minor Houses which replaced them as lesser houses after the Wizengamot was created in the Sixteenth Century generally had one Wizengamot vote, a Baron/Baroness title two votes, an Earl/Countess four and a Duke eight. Some of the Noble Houses held a number of titles, and on top of that the votes of the Most Ancient Houses which were extant before the Norman Conquest were multiplied by three, two for the Ancient Houses which had been created between the Norman Conquest and the formation of the Wizengamot (IE: a Minor house had one vote, a Baron of a Noble House two, an Ancient Druid House two, an Earl of an Ancient House eight and a Duke of a Most Ancient House twenty four), which meant that between their houses they had a considerable voting block both in the Wizengamot and on the Hogwarts Board. Not to mention the fact that their representatives on the Hogwarts Board held the proxies of all four of the founders' houses, so there was no way that they could have failed to get what they wanted through at Hogwarts.
While only Dumbledore's supporters were worried about him being ousted as Headmaster per se, most of the 'traditional' Purebloods had an issue with the changes which were stripping away the automatic favouritism and advantages that the ruling Purebloods had enjoyed at Hogwarts for the last century at least (more like two or three), as their increasingly magically and intellectually weaker children suddenly had to succeed on their own merits and for the most part, they couldn't. The ICW once again helped squash the Pureblood parents' arguments when they claimed that Hogwarts was falsifying these new results, because the statistics showed that very few students with NEWTs from Hogwarts had succeeded in getting jobs overseas so most of them had returned to Magical Britain, hence the Ministry's policy to employ so-called Purebloods over witches and wizards of 'lesser' blood status with better qualifications and greater ability (many Purebloods in the Wizengamot were quite concerned to see that the ICW had statistics to prove that ones who were unemployable overseas had returned to Britain and taken jobs at the Ministry and St Mungo's from those who would have been employable overseas as they had the required skills, not about the blatant favouritism and unfairness of the practice of course, only the fact that those foreigners knew about it).
This not only helped them squash the arguments about the changes at Hogwarts, it helped throw the Ministry of Magic into disarray when the Wizengamot required that they provide formal documentation on the Ministry's hiring and promotion rules, practices and statistics to prove their claims that the information from the ICW was false, because they were now running around, trying to come up with some rules and figures which could refute the evidence supplied by the ICW. Needless to say, they were not having much success in this. St Mungo's was in a similar position because while it wasn't part of the Ministry per se, it mainly relied on funding from the Ministry so the Wizengamot could demand the same information from them. If anything St Mungo's was in a worse position because ones who had lost family members there were bound to be coming after them when it was made public that they had been firing the more qualified and capable healers who might have saved their family members to give unqualified Purebloods jobs (and not asking questions about the blood status of the healers at the private healing houses that many of them used for their own families).
It was interesting to see how willing the so-called Light Houses were to ally themselves with their 'sworn enemies' in the 'Dark Houses' to protect the 'traditions of Magical Britain' when the only significant Most Ancient House that had defected from the Wizards Council Alliance was the Noble and Most Ancient House of Macmillan. The rest of the Most Ancient Houses had honoured the agreements made in the Sixteenth Century, as did many of the Ancient Houses (especially the Druid Houses). The 'traditional' factions were actually made up of more Noble Houses than Noble and Ancient, their common ground being their belief in Pureblood supremacy and maintaining the status quo more than anything else, because they were worried that the oldest and most powerful houses of Magical Britain seemed determined to pull apart the world that they'd made very comfortable for themselves in the last fifteen to twenty years and replace it with something where commoners and even worse Mudbloods had a say in the way their world was run (getting that right was obviously the exception that proved the rule).
The traditional factions would have been far more frightened if they realised that there was another, Demi-Magical, world now growing in the space between the Magical and Muggle worlds of Britain. The Black and Potter families especially were working with parts of Her Majesty's government to give Ex-Weres (the appellation Exwere had been quickly taken up by them and the others to show their status), Muggleborns, Half-Bloods and Squibs (they'd also adapted the American parlance and used Maj or Nomaj to indicate whether someone used magic or not, as with the Exwere tag, this was purely to identify capabilities, and only children were allowed to call the goblins and elves 'little people') the magical, non-magical and vocational education and training and employment opportunities that they had been denied by Magical Britain and they'd missed out on in Non-Magical Britain. Most of the schools and businesses in Demi-Britain were just starting up, but they were building the infrastructure they needed while they tried to fix issues in Magical Britain. Another part of this was that they knew that there was another war coming, so with their agreement most of the teens and adults were being prepared to do their part, working with Maj/Nomaj teams. The thing about that which would terrify Magical Britain if they knew was that Demi-Britain was already getting close to the size of Magical Britain with only a small fraction of the people they hoped to help, and for that matter the majority of them were more powerful magically and/or non-magically that most of the witches and wizards in Magical Britain.
While they were trying to explain to some of the so-called Muggleborn where they fit into the magical family bloodlines, Jean made a very interesting observation, that some of them appeared to have a case to show that they had more right to be the Heads of the 'traditional' Pureblood families than the ones currently holding those positions, because they were descended from the first born sons of the Head of the House, rather than second or third son, or the daughters of the house through marriage into other houses. The obvious argument to that would be that inheritance could only be passed to witches and wizards, but the point was they were witches and wizards, and therefore the only question was whether inheritance had to be via an unbroken line, which dormant houses being reactivated appeared to refute. As this appeared to be a delightfully simple and fractious way of taking over the Noble Houses which drove the fight against them, they started researching the legal and magical connotations of this. Gringott was delighted, because once again these humans had come up with something that the wizards would never have thought of, and he couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't work.
While they didn't name them, they were all thinking about a few houses in particular that they wished they could use this on, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Macmillan, the Noble and Ancient Houses of Abbott, Nott and Selwyn, the Noble Houses of Smith, Rosier, Rowle and Yaxley and others, as many as possible of the houses which were the power and/or money behind the 'traditional' Purebloods. The House of Macmillan in particular was a figurehead for the Purebloods, so if the Macmillan family magic accepted that one of the Demi-Britons was in fact the rightful Earl Macmillan and Head of the House of Macmillan they'd definitely throw the Purebloods off balance, which would hopefully last long enough to take over most of the houses quickly, because once they started they'd want to get control before the deposed families had a chance to transfer funds or property or destroy any of the history of the houses. If they did this right, they would be able to wipe out the Pureblood controlled culture and set Magical Britain on the path to recovery, the only thing about this plan that Gringott wasn't happy about was the fact that they could well be waiting years for Demi-Britons to show primacy on the lines of enough of major houses for them to be able make the move to overturn the controlling Pureblood families. They had confirmed that the theory was valid with a few houses where the last members were Death Eaters, as the Demi-Britons successfully claimed Head of House while they were being tried, and then cast them out of the family to strip them of their family magic and names.
Most of them were amused about the fact that while they were working to take control of the Wizengamot, the main reason for doing this was so they could overturn the autocratic system that had controlled Magical Britain for the last five hundred years at least, and they'd been using political pressure to influence decisions for a couple of hundred years before that, following the example of the English Barons. Magical Britain had been left behind by most of the rest of the world, both magical and non-magical, well over a century ago. The Noble Houses of the Wizengamot had dictated the direction of Magical Britain since its creation, and British wizards had been using their magic to get titles by any means they could up until it was made clear to them by the International Confederation of Wizards at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century that this contravened the Statute of Secrecy and they would be punished if they persisted in the practice.
The fact that the Purebloods (mostly) with hereditary titles controlled everything and tried to push anyone whom they considered of lesser blood status out of their world was patently unfair, but the irony of the situation was that they had to take over the Pureblood houses before they could do anything about it. Now that Jean's idea had given them a way to do that, they were working on the next step, the revolution. The way they planned to do this was to use articles in Magical Britain's newspapers to inform the 'ordinary' Magical Britons of how politics in the non-magical world, and other parts of the magical world, worked, then point out how the powerful Pureblood houses mostly only passed laws for their own benefit. With the businesses of Demi-Britain existing in Magical Britain and the hiring changes they were forcing on the Ministry and St Mungo's, they were bringing increasing numbers of Muggleborns and ex-weres back into Magical Britain and using this to skew the population away from the perceived Pureblood majority.
The purpose of this was to get the population ready for their proposal to revise the Wizengamot, replacing the existing fifty three Wizengamot seats with the Wizengamot's House of Lords (borrowing the name from Britain's non-magical government) made up of twenty three hereditary seats, and House of Commons with another seventy nine seats, the holders of which would be elected by their peers to sit for a term of three years. The Wizengamot's vote weightings would still apply, which of course meant that the minority House of Lords would retain the power to overrule the majority House of Commons, but it would be making a big step towards democracy in Magical Britain, and it would also give the untitled people and Muggleborns who made up the majority of Magical Britain a voice in how their world was run. Of course the fact that the Wizards Council Alliance would be making up most of the House of Lords because they held the votes to guarantee their right to claim those seats under the existing rules to qualify for a Wizengamot seat meant that they would be able to continue opposing any restrictive laws or measures.
While Harry and the other children had a role in some of the goings on, once the school year finished they spent most of their time at Potter Manor, continuing their training and having the time of their lives, because what child isn't going to love being somewhere they can see unicorns, hypogriffs, griffins and dragons? The Weasleys were wide eyed at everything, because except for Bill and Charlie they hadn't really been to Potter Manor before, but once they got over the shock they jumped right in. It was over the summer that they discovered that Harry had another rare talent, because he started talking to the dragons in parseltongue. Gringott and the goblins were delighted to learn this, because it was over a century since they'd had a British parseltongue to talk to their dragons so they'd been having to bring parseltongues in from overseas (Generally snake charmers from North Africa or India).
Harry had already dispelled the myth that metamorphmagi could not have animangus forms because when Sirius was reminiscing about the fun times they'd had running together in their animal forms on the nights that Remus was the wolf one night, Harry started thinking about Sirius' dog form and his father's stag form. As he wondered what his form would have been if he were an animagus, an image came to him of a Mngwa cub much like Crookshanks and a blink of the eye later a Mngwa cub was sitting in his place, as his metamophmagus transformations had obviously made self transformation easy for him. They urgently called for him to come back to his human form, because the biggest risk in the initial animagus transformations was not being able to return, but he instantly reappeared in his human form. Sirius and Minerva mused that the important things in animagus transformations were the ability to transform yourself, a clear image of your animal form and strength of will, all of which Harry had in abundance, so they asked him to try changing again, which he did with no trouble at all. Being a cheeky little boy, he changed into his Mngwa cat form while he was a Mngwa and changed back to his human form from that, and while Minerva, Hermione and some of the others scolded him about being more careful, they all agreed that there was no question that he was an animagus. Remus said that he couldn't when Harry asked him if he could change too so that they could run together like Sirius was saying, but Harry cut him off with the perennial children's question…. "Why?" That stopped Remus and, emboldened by the fact that Harry's 'why?'s had already changed his life, he looked inside himself, to see a wolf, a Dire Wolf like the ones on the Potter Estate.
It took Remus months to achieve what Harry had done in the blink of an eye, but come Harry's first summer at Potter Manor, there were a Wolfhound, Dire Wolf, European Lioness and three Mngwa cubs running together at Potter Manor, and many of the others were working on their animagus transformations as well. It came as little surprise when other ex-weres who tried found that their animal forms were wolves as well. There was also little surprise that Dora and Hermione managed their animagus transformations before Remus, because Dora had even more experience in self transformation than Harry and Hermione's memory and will were almost a match for Harry's. Dora's lioness form was interesting, but Harry confirmed that memories of them were in the Black family magic and they agreed that it had probably come from that... Hermione's Mngwa form was even more interesting, and it had many of the group, including Roger and Jean, looking between her and Harry and wondering just what this meant, as none of them were buying the argument that the children had both gotten their forms by way of their familiaral bond with Crookshanks.
They soon found their fears confirmed that the Weasleys who were going to need the most help to straighten them out were Percy and Ginny, because they had been Molly's darlings and she'd worked hardest to mould them into what she wanted her son and daughter to be. Percy primarily had a towering case of superiority complex which that needed to be knocked to down to size and tempered with the realisation that accolades and respect needed to be earned. Ginny was a rather more disturbing case, because they found that Molly had been filling her head with the Harry Potter legend rubbish since she was in the cradle, telling her that Grandpa Albus was going to make sure that she would be Lady Potter and they would live happily ever after. They actually feared that her mother and Dumbledore might have gone so far as to use compulsions and/or potions on her to force this because Ginny had a seemingly unshakable belief that this was the way it would be.
Unfortunately Ginny's deep seated Harry fantasies meant that more drastic measures than they'd originally planned were going to be needed, but they weren't prepared to rip apart the memories of a not quite six year old girl or subject her to any more mind magics so Jean and Andi talked Roger into agreeing to let Hermione make something she was doing most nights anyway a permanent arrangement. Harry still had nightmares just about every night, whether about the night he saw his mother killed, what the Dursleys had done to him or the nasty and rather strange memories that that thing in his head had been pushing into his dreams up until the goblins removed it six months before. Hermione sensed when Harry was having these nightmares, quite often before Hedwig came for her, and she went to hold him. With Hermione holding him, Harry could sleep without nightmares so she invariably stayed with him until they woke up together in the morning.
What Jean and Andi pointed out to Roger was that, as they were seven and eight year old children who weren't doing anything wrong and invariably woke up in the same bed most mornings anyway, if they went to bed together it would be easier and less upset for either of them or their familiars. On top of that, coming to accept that this was the way it was and this was the way it was going to stay should help Ginny free herself from these unhealthy beliefs that she'd been programmed with about her fate with Harry. One minute she'd be a delightful little girl laughing because she'd managed to make her big brother Charlie blush because he liked Hestia, the next she'd be glaring balefully at Hermione because Harry was with her, it wasn't normal, even for a crush born out of hero worship.
It took Roger a while to accept the idea, but he knew that they were good kids and were already inseparable, and he'd heard Harry screaming from those nightmares before they started silencing his room…. so if his little girl doing what made her happy (looking after the one who meant so much to her) could help free him from those horrors, he couldn't bring himself to argue with her and Jean.
When Harry and Hermione went back to school, they had skipped another year, so the rest of the ones in the class were at least a year older than Hermione, and nearly two years older than Harry. This still wasn't enough to make them anything close to Harry or Hermione's level though, so they tested out again at Christmas and started after the break in the next year up, and after moving up three years of classes they were finally with students who could keep up with them, for a few months anyway. At least they were finishing primary school that year so they would be getting out of the system and doing high school with tutors or at the Demi-Britain schools. Meanwhile they were studying magic at Potter Manor with the others (their magic had settled down enough now to have wands made, and Garrick Ollivander made up a Rowan wand for Harry with three of Fawkes' tail feathers for the core, one from the wand that matched Harry but was barely enough to handle the power that he already had so it was bound to be overloaded as he grew, the second from the brother wand that Riddle had had and the final one that Fawkes had dropped just before she left, he acquired his other wand when he called for the return of all Heirlooms of his houses that had been stolen by others, because the Elder Wand came to him as the rightful Head of the House of Peverell and accepted him as its master... the strange thing with that was that Dumbledore had tried to break it before it was taken off him to stop anyone else being able to wield the power of the Elder Wand, but it came back to Harry whole, just six inches shorter like his Rowan wand... and Garrick had also made up two wands for Hermione, one with three dragon heart strings for the core and the other with seven unicorn tail hairs), who were also churning through their non-magical education there. The advantage they had at the Manor was that they could progress at their own rate without worrying about other students, so they were moving ahead almost as fast as Harry and Hermione.
At Hogwarts, Bill and Hestia were in their Sixth year, Dora and Charlie in Fourth year and Percy was in his First year. At least being around younger children like Harry and Hermione who could do so much more than him over summer had managed to deflate the overblown opinion of himself that his mother had instilled in him and his brothers, Hestia, Tonks and the professors all reported that he was actually behaving well at Hogwarts.
Of course, whether he would keep up that good behaviour when he found out that the twins would be starting a year behind him with Hermione, Daphne, Luna and Harry was another question altogether, because by the 'old' rules, that was a year early for the twins, three years early for Hermione, Daphne and Harry and four years early for Luna (as she was two months younger than Harry). This meant that there would be two ten year olds and four others ranging from almost nine down to almost eight starting in September, and they were actually looking forward to the outrage.
They had decided to wait until they had a good batch of students ready to start before they slapped Magical Britain in the face with the fact that they'd allowed one self centred old man to put the children of Magical Britain and the secret of the Magical world at risk for over forty five years by passing his law to make it illegal for children to begin their magical education at Hogwarts until after they had turned eleven, when the Hogwarts Charter (which was immutable, incontrovertible and had been ratified at every major landmark along Magical Britain's legal timeline since Hogwarts was founded) clearly stated that children must begin their magical training as soon as their magic begins to present itself noticeably to protect them and others from the dangers of accidental magic, which was also supported by the Statute of Secrecy's requirement to prevent displays of magic exposing magic to the non-magical world. They were planning to wait until the traditional Purebloods began bleating that it was illegal for children to start at Hogwarts that young and then trot out the relevant part of the Hogwarts Charter, using that and the official legal opinion of the ICW that the current practices of Magical Britain not only clearly contravened the legal requirements of the Charter, they also placed the secret of the magical world at risk.
Frank, Alice and Amelia had agreed that it would be better for Neville and Sue to train at the Manor for another year and start with Astoria and Ginny next year because they weren't quite as advanced as the others, so by waiting and starting with the younger girls, they were less likely to get disheartened about being left behind. For their part, Nev and Sue weren't at all worried about Luna moving ahead of them, because she was scarily brilliant like Hermione so it was obvious that her place was with her and Harry, and Daphne was up there with them too.