A quick word of caution to those who like the stories here but feel the need to correct the writers. The amount of effort that goes into writing a story can be considerable, especially the research to give the story some sort of plausible underpinnings, and this in turn quite often makes writing more of a chore than fun for us. Trying to come up with something new and interesting that fits into the space you're writing in once you've written a few dozen stories adding up to millions of words and read far more is often rather a chore as well. For this reason, having people try to correct us when we're already struggling to keep going tends to make many of us more inclined to just give up writing for you folk here altogether and concentrate our efforts on our own stories in the real world, which we can be paid for. If the writing style offends you because we're having trouble getting motivated on the story of the day (and if you're actually counting the words it must), it would be better for you, me and everyone else if you just found another story that doesn't offend you to read. I apologise to those rare few of you who actually do us the kindness of making the effort to tell us when you like and appreciate our stories, but getting lectured when I was fighting to get a workable structure established for this world was just about enough to make me pack it in here.
Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.
Dora, Bill and the others at Hogwarts had been getting extra training in their subjects through the year (as well as the older ones taking extra-curricular classes in things like Alchemy, Advanced Arithmancy and Ancient Studies), so Dora, Charlie and Hagrid did their OWLs at the end of the year and except for Bill and Hestia they were all advancing a year come September. While Bill and Hestia were going into Seventh year so they wouldn't advancing, they'd started working on their chosen masteries at the beginning of Sixth year, so they only got a few of the easier NEWTs out of the way at the end of the year, but they'd be gaining their masteries along with most of their NEWTs at the end of Seventh year. Charlie and Hagrid got an early start on their masteries in Care of Magical Creatures because Wilhelmina Grubbley-Plank, the witch who Minerva had gotten in to replace their obviously ineffective (going by the fact that he'd lost most of his limbs) Magical Creatures Professor Silvanus Kettleburn was quite happy to take the two of them on as apprentices while they were students.
Minerva had also had the source of the curse on the Defence Professor's position located and removed before she hired Remus to replace the last professor, so the students were getting competent Defence training at last. This was the first serious job Remus had ever landed in Magical Britain, because earning nine outstanding NEWTs and gaining his Defence Mastery just out of Hogwarts had meant nothing to the bigots of his home, to whom he was nothing but a dark creature. They even tried to have his mastery taken off of him when they realised that he was in fact a werewolf, so as Dumbledore had already turned his friends against him by then he moved to the Continent for work.
When he saw the news of James and Lily's murders though, Remus immediately contacted Dumbledore to find out what happened to Harry and make plans to come back and look after him but Dumbledore would only say that Harry was safe with his Aunt and forbade him from going anywhere near him. He fought with Dumbledore over this for a year before giving up and coming home to look for Harry himself, but he'd never known where Petunia and her family lived, or even what their surname was, so he'd spent over four years living hand to mouth as he moved about the Greater London area searching for him by the time he caught Harry's scent in Crawley the day the Grangers rescued him.
Percy was beginning to see how the Alliance 'family' worked when he was called back in to sit the Second year exams after completing the normal exams at the end of his First year at Hogwarts, and he heard that Charlie and Dora had both done their OWLs, so he wasn't too surprised to hear that the twins and others would be starting as Third years with him after he was told that they'd also sat their First and Second year exams. He was still pretentious enough to get excited to hear that everyone would be moving into the Lords Tower that was reserved for the Heads and Heirs of the Most Ancient and Ancient Noble Houses, and that while it was the right of any Head or Heir of a Most Ancient or Ancient Noble House, no-one but them knew about it. Percy was also clever and ambitious enough to appreciate the advantage that the prestige and extra training they were getting would give him once he left Hogwarts, so he was determined not to do anything to make his father reconsider taking him in after his true parentage was revealed.
By the end of the summer holidays, everything was in place, and after considerable debate in the family, it was decided to honour the tradition of making their first trip to Hogwarts at least on the Hogwarts Express. On the September First, they appeared on Platform 9 ¾ and quickly boarded the Hogwarts Express to claim two compartments. Hestia, Charlie, Percy and the twins took one and Bill, Dora, Harry, Hermione, Luna and Daphne took the other. No-one seemed to notice that none of them had their trunks or pets with them, just one bottomless bag in each compartment for their robes and such.
Bill, Hestia, Charlie and Dora had all gotten quieter and pulled away from the other students over the last year and a bit. Even so, it was a shock for the ones who tried to kick the Firsties and Percy out of their compartments so they could begin worming their way into the new Head Boy and Head Girl's inner circle when Bill went off at them for trying to interfere with his girlfriend's family, and Hestia said the same in regard to her boyfriend. Being told off by the angry Head Boy and Head Girl when they were trying to curry favour with them was not at all what the Seventh Years had been expecting, so they scurried off to rethink the situation. The only one who managed to get into their compartments was a Gryffindor girl heading into her Third year who Bill found crying in the corridor with her trunk after she had had to draw her wand to refuse the inappropriate suggestions of some older students who came into her compartment.
The ones in the compartment were put on notice by Bill that they would be severely dealt with as soon as they reached Hogwarts, especially the prefects, but Penny was safely ensconced in the compartment with Harry and most of the girls by then. There was no question about what the others were asking as they looked from Penny to him once they'd talked to her enough to decide they liked her, so Harry obliged. "Penny is Lady Penelope Anne Clearwater, Heiress to the titles of Countess Clearwater and Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Clearwater. The House of Clearwater was one of the guiding families, but it isn't currently part of the Alliance because I believe her Grandfather was either coerced or compelled by Dumbledore to join his so-called 'Light' Alliance when he reactivated the house just before he left Hogwarts forty years ago."
Dora gave him, as the only one present with the authority to decide this, a questioning look and at his nod asked Penny whether she wanted to join their group, and if so whether she minded them talking to her father about rejoining the Wizards Council Alliance, and for that matter whether she'd be willing to check whether she had been sorted into the right house. This of course required an explanation.
"Our families are all part of what's called the Wizards Council Alliance Penny. The Alliance is made up of the houses of the guiding families that led the magical people of Britain for one and a half thousand years up until the Wizengamot was created as part of the Druids Council and the Wizards Council that the Druids Council became a thousand years ago to try and ward off the persecution of the Christian church. As Harry just told us, the House of Clearwater was one of the guiding families who sat on the councils but they must have gone dormant at some point if your house was only reactivated by your Grandfather forty years ago…."
It wasn't hard to read the dubious look that Penny was sending Harry's way so Dora answered that.
"Why should you listen to a little boy like Harry? Well for a start, Harry has a just about perfect memory and he remembers everything he sees, hears or reads, but more importantly, Harry is the most powerful one person here…." She looked musingly at Penny. "I think it's time for proper introductions here, Lady Clearwater, may I have the honour of introducing Lord Henry James Potter, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter among others, but you're more likely to know of him as Harry Potter."
That had Penny whipping her head around to stare at her in disbelief. "But Harry Potter died! He was killed by that Muggle family he was left with almost two years ago!"
Dora shook her head grimly. "Almost, but not quite! Take my word for it that you do not want to know what they did to him Penny, but Harry was rescued and brought back into Magical Britain around the time he was supposedly killed. He needed to be protected against Dumbledore and learn how to take his proper place in our world, so we let Magical Britain believe he was dead while he was being trained to survive them. It was Hermione and her parents who found him in the street in Muggle London and as luck would have it, Professor Lupin was in the area searching for Harry at the time and caught his scent, so he followed that scent to them. Professor Lupin picked up the fact that Hermione was magical as well and he convinced the Grangers to bring me in to help confirm how Harry had healed his injuries, my parents too because Mum was his closest available magical relative and Dad was the Potters' family solicitor… Anyway, Dad got them to take Harry to Gringotts so he could get the protection of claiming his house and Director Gringott told us that the Potters were friends of the goblin people and he's been part of much of what has been done for Harry since then."
At another nod from Harry and matching nods from the others, she went on. "Harry is also Lord Gryffindor and Lord Slytherin and Head and Heir to a number of other Most Ancient and Ancient Houses, and he will become the Black Heir when my Great Grandfather passes the title of Head of the House of Black on to Cousin Sirius. Hermione is Lady Ravenclaw, Lady Dagworth-Granger and Head and Heiress of a number of other Most Ancient and Ancient Houses. Daphne, Luna and I are all Heiresses to a number of Most Ancient and Ancient Houses, even though the House of Tonks is only Noble…. In my opinion Bill's most important title is my boyfriend, but he is also Heir to the Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Weasley and a number of other Most Ancient and Ancient Houses, Hestia, Charlie and the other Weasleys in the next compartment are pretty much the same, but Charlie is also Lord Prewett, Head of the Noble House of Prewett, so we represent most of the guiding families. Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, Daphne's sister Astoria and Ginevra Weasley will be starting next year and are pretty much the same as most of us, the major differences being that Neville is also Lord Hufflepuff, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Hufflepuff and Susan is Lady Bones, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bones and Head of the Ancient Druid House of Rhys."
Penny was looking at her in shock and Dora smiled. "Yeah, welcome to our world Penny…. Now as Harry has told you, you are part of our world so we'd like to keep you safe and help you realise your potential. But to do that, we need you to join our classes and move into the Lords Tower with us." She stopped and looked at the girl. "Do you feel like a Gryffindor Penny? Because I'm just not seeing it, I'd bet if you were properly sorted you would have ended up in Ravenclaw…. Now please don't take this out on them because it wasn't their fault, they don't even know about it, but my money would be on Dumbledore having you put into Gryffindor so that you would be in the right place to force you to become either Bill, Charlie or Percy's girlfriend and wife. I'd say Percy because he was his mother's favourite and she'd have to kill off Bill or Charlie for him to become Lord Weasley or Lord Prewett, which would have been a little obvious, for that matter the House of Clearwater was ranked above the Houses of Weasley and Prewett and richer than both of them put together at the time."
The look was a mixture of shock and anger now and Dora nodded. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but like I said it wasn't their fault. Bill was supposed to be single again by now because I was supposed to have been killed off, and I doubt that Dumbledore would have let Charlie stay with Hestia because she was too strong willed for him to control. What I meant about re-sorting though is that the kids..." (Ducking a hex that Harry threw at her with a grin but getting caught by the tamer one that Luna cast) "have decided that they want to be together in Hufflepuff so that they'll all be in the same classes to make guarding them easier, and also so that their free time is together for their extra classes. Bill, Charlie and Percy are being re-sorted to get them into Hufflepuff too, Bill and Charlie would have been there in the first place if it wasn't for Dumbledore's interference, but Percy was meant to be Slytherin, cunning and ambitious is our Percy."
Luna spoke up in the silence that followed. "Don't worry Penny, you'll be with Charlie. He's really nice, well they all are except for Ronald, he was always mean to me when I was playing with Ginny."
Dora felt she should warn Penny. "Luna is a true seer Penny, and she's too nice to make a joke about something like this. You can try and fight it but if she says it, it's meant to be, and Charlie is nice."
She was wondering what would happen to Hestia when, trying to make a joke of it, Penny asked "So are Charlie and I the only ones who are fated to be together?" but unfortunately Luna took the question seriously.
"Oh no! Charlie will be with another girl as well, someone called Cecilia. Harry will be with Hermione and me, and maybe a couple of French Veela as well later on, but it's not certain whether that will happen. Bill will be with Dora and Hestia, Percy with a girl called Alicia, Fred with two girls named Angelina and Katie, George with Daphne and Astoria, Neville will be with with Sue and Ginny will be with Draco. Did you just mean us or were you asking about the others?"
Everyone rushed to assure her that that was quite enough, because they couldn't handle hearing anything more, they wished that they could unhear what they had heard. One thing the others noted though was that Hermione seemed neither surprised nor unhappy about what she heard about Harry with her, Luna and those others, as if she'd already heard and accepted this news.
Dora tried to shake off the wish to be obliviated of what she'd just heard about her, Bill and Hestia as she formally requested Penny's permission for them to contact her father, as Head of the House of Clearwater, to obtain his written authorisation for Penny to be resorted and join the group in their classes and the Lords' Tower, and have her accepted as his Heir. They would also be asking the House of Clearwater to rejoin the Wizards Council Alliance. As soon as Penny agreed Dora pulled out her communications mirror to call her father. By the time the Hogwarts Express had reached Hogsmeade, Ted had called back so that Penny's father could hear from her that this was what she wanted, and she was formally accepted as his heir once everything had been agreed.
As soon as Bill returned, Dora dragged him off to find somewhere to talk in private and asked him whether his feelings for Hestia had changed in the last year. This of course meant that she had to tell him what Luna had predicted about who would end up with who. Bill looked her in the eye and swore on his magic that his feelings for Hestia had not changed from a friend, but gently reminded her how many times Luna's predictions had been proven wrong in near on two years. She cried for a while but they agreed to talk to Hestia and Luna about it to prevent it festering and getting in the way of their relationships with each other. They knew that Luna's telling them this was totally innocent, because for all she saw with her sight, she was still a sweet and innocent seven year old girl who probably just saw this as her friends in this big happy family of their's working out who they were closest to, not realising the upheaval her pronouncements caused.
When they arrived at Hogsmeade, those who were starting at Hogwarts once again kept to tradition and took their first trip into Hogwarts in the boats, and they entered the castle with the rest of the students to be sorted.
While folk lore said that the sorting hat had been created by Godric Gryffindor to sort students, in fact it went back several generations and about four centuries further in Godric's family. Myrddin Emrys, better known as Merlin, was too vain to consider any but him to have the wisdom needed to properly advise Uther and Artur's descendants, the rulers of Britain. Therefore he bound a powerful image of himself which included most of his memories and some of his magic into a mage's hat which he created to be impervious to the ravages of time or man for the purpose of instructing his descendants on what to advise the rulers. Needless to say, Merlin's descendants soon tired of dealing with this much arrogance from a hat so the hat, which insisted on being addressed as Myrddin, was locked away for a few centuries…. until one of Merlin's descendants, Godric Gryffindor and his fellow founders of Hogwarts were having a problem.
Most of the older Druid families were disparaging the four young witches and warlocks who had the impertinence to declare their school, this Hogwarts, to be the only place in the British Isles where witches and wizards could be properly trained to harness and make full use of their magic. The three oldest guiding families, the ones now known as the Potters who were descended from Morgan Le Fay, the Blacks who were descended from the Morrighan, and the Ollivanders, who were the most renowned creators of mage staffs in the British Isles (though they were making more of these new… wands than they were mage staffs nowadays) however supported them. This was the only thing that stopped the other Druid families tearing these upstarts' school down.
The Druid families' reactions to them and their school were making Hogwarts' founders panic and one of their biggest problems was that they were having trouble placing the students with the best masters to properly develop their potential, so Godric retrieved Merlin's mage hat from where it was hidden. They mixed threats, coercion and compulsions to make the hat sort the students into the most appropriate school house, and support the story that Godric had created it for that purpose.
For the last thousand years, Myrddin had endured what amounted to solitary confinement, being dusted off and trotted out just once a year to sort the next batch of hopeful witches and wizards into the most appropriate houses before being locked away again. The only change in this routine had been in the last forty five years or so because Dumbledore, the new Headmaster, had been compelling him to place selected students in the houses that he specified.
When Minerva took over Hogwarts and Harry called his lost heirlooms to him, the hat was one of the heirlooms that came to him and they had had many interesting discussions. Myrddin managed to convince Harry that he had really turned over a new leaf in his desperation to avoid enduring another thousand years of speaking to no-one but Hogwarts except for one night a year when he looked into the new students' heads and determined where best to place them. Once he was convinced of Myrddin's veracity, Harry used what he could see in the Gryffindor family magic to release Myrddin from the bindings and compulsions that Godric had placed over him when he bound him to being the sorting hat.
Freeing Myrddin from his bonds had gained them a powerful ally, because being fed magic by the ley lines like the rest of Hogwarts while he was incarcerated in Hogwarts for a thousand years had turned him into an incredibly powerful magical artefact, and a self aware entity like Hogwarts herself to boot. Being able to speak to no-one but Hogwarts most of the time for a thousand years meant that they had become rather close (Sirius laughingly called him Hogwarts' consort, which he did not appreciate),which in turn meant that Myrddin became the voice of Hogwarts, but it also made the garrulous entity desperate to please Harry and avoid being silenced again, so he wholeheartedly pledged himself to Harry. Neville was brought in at Hogwarts' request, and Hogwarts made a similar pledge to Harry, Hermione and him as the descendants of her founders.
Most of the family were laughing to themselves as they envisioned the pandemonium that was going to erupt when Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, returned from the dead to start at Hogwarts three years early. They watched as Hermione, Daphne and Luna were sorted into Hufflepuff as planned, taking in the growing muttering that surely these girls weren't old enough to be at Hogwarts, and settled back to watch the show as Pomona got up to the 'P's.
They had to laugh when Pomona called out "Lord Henry James Potter", then added "Harry Potter, are you here?" to make sure no-one had missed who this was, and the Great Hall erupted.
In the end Minerva had to stand and ask Hogwarts to silence the hall to regain order and let the sorting proceed, and Pomona didn't bother even trying to cover up her beaming smile as she waved Harry to the sorting stool. The noise would have erupted again when Harry Potter was sorted into Hufflepuff if Minerva hadn't had Hogwarts keep most of them silenced.
Once Harry joined the girls where they were sitting at the end of the Hufflepuff table, grim human and goblin guards bearing the Black crest entered the hall and stationed themselves behind the students. The presence of the Black Guard kept everyone else away from them, because their reputation was formidable. The Hufflepuff prefects now understood why Professor Sprout had told them not to interfere with anyone who went to sit at the far end of the table after they were sorted, as it had obviously been in preparation for this. Of course, no-one knew that only the Hufflepuff prefects had been told that, because they already knew where Harry and the others would be going. The twins being sorted into Hufflepuff at the very end of the sorting led to another swell in the noise levels, because everyone 'knew' that Weasleys were always Gryffindors, just as they knew the Potters were (even though Arthur's father had been Hufflepuff and his mother was Slytherin).
The more astute ones in the hall noted that the sorting hat hadn't been removed once all the new arrivals had been sorted, so they were looking forward to more excitement when Professor McGonagall stood and moved to the lectern at the front of the High Table dais. Minerva looked around until the noise had abated and then announced. "It has come to our attention that the sorting of a number of our students was interfered with by previous Hogwarts staff. Some of these students have requested permission to be resorted into their proper houses and this has been granted. If any other students believe that they have been placed in houses other than the ones they should have been and wish to avail themselves of this opportunity to be resorted, please contact your House Master or House Mistress now so that you may be added to the group to be resorted…."
She looked around for the ones that Bill had reported for what they'd tried to do to Penny on the Hogwarts Express. "While students are taking this up with their House Master or Mistress, the following students are to come forward…." She named the ones from the compartment and reflected as she waited for them to come forward that it was a good thing that she'd given in and made Rolanda House Mistress of Gryffindor when she became Headmistress, because she could see quite a number of Gryffindors with Rolanda who obviously wanted to be resorted.
When the last of the boys had grudgingly come forward, she pointed angrily at the two prefects and snapped. "For a start, hand over your prefect badges you two! Your behaviour on the Hogwarts Express was disgusting and you will never be put in a position of responsibility over other students again, especially girls!"
Once they'd fearfully handed their badges over she faced the other students, her voice ringing out over them. "These five sons of so-called reputable houses accosted a lone female student in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express and tried to force her to give in to their disgusting demands. The young lady, who was at least two years younger than any of these five, drew her wand on them and managed to escape with her virtue intact, for which I am relieved and grateful. Unfortunately, as she managed to prevent them actually doing anything to her I do not have grounds to expel them or have them put up on criminal charges, but they will be serving detention with Mister Hagrid at least once a week for the remainder of the school year. Take a good look at them ladies and ensure that you are not caught alone with any of them, as they have clearly shown that they regard any young ladies as fair game if they believe that they can get away with it."
The five sons of powerful Pureblood families were outraged, to have their reputations shredded by this Half-Blood, just for trying to do what they had every right to do to Half-Bloods and Mudbloods. They were even more outraged when they looked to their peers for support and were mostly met with looks of disgust, especially from the girls. The final humiliation was when the girl who the Ravenclaw Seventh year ex-prefect's family had expended a considerable amount of money and influence negotiating a betrothal with for him to elevate their house publicly stated that she would be demanding that her house break their betrothal because she would never consider marrying someone who behaved in such a disgusting manner!
His desperate argument that the girl was just a Half-Blood caused another outbreak of threats against them and his friends hit him for making things even worse for them. When they were sent back to their house tables, the wands pointed at them convinced them to go sit at the other end of the table, away from the other students.
Penny was one of the first of the nearly twenty students who were re-sorted, and she was surprised by the support she was receiving as she headed to sit with Harry and the others. It was obvious that she was the one Professor McGonagall was talking about because she'd arrived with the Head Boy, and while few had known that she was of a powerful house, everyone knew that she was a Half-Blood. Even those who held with the beliefs of blood status applauded her courage in facing down five older boys to protect her virtue though, so she was hearing encouragement all the way to the Hufflepuff table.
Some of the ones who asked to be resorted were upset when the hat initially selected the same house for them again, but they all had good cause to want to get out of the houses they were in so Myrddin capitulated and moved them to another house. Slytherin lost some of its brightest students that way, especially the girls, because even with the change of Headmaster and House Master, many of the older Slytherins had been too entrenched in the old mindset to change their ways. Minerva was upset to see that even leaving the Weasley boys out of it, Gryffindor had the next highest number of students determined to get away from the culture in their house. Thinking back to her own days as a Half-Blood witch in Gryffindor though, she could understand why some might want to leave.
By the end of the re-sorting, there were over a dozen extra Hufflepuff girls, so Hogwarts had the elves open extra bedchambers in the girls' dorms. Septima, Rolanda and Filius harshly stopped anyone moving to fill the holes left by the ones who had changed houses, telling them that they needed to think about why their house mates had felt that they had no option other than to leave, so they would not be covering up their shame. They added that if there was any attempt to continue the behaviour which had pushed those house mates to do this with other members of the house, they would be caught and they would be punished! Pomona was the only House Mistress who hadn't lost any students in the re-sorting, but she told her house that the same thing applied to them, any behaviour of the nature of what had made those students ask to be resorted would be punished!
There were some Gryffindors who were stupid enough to complain that they'd not only lost their star seeker in Charlie Weasley, they'd also lost two of their chasers, one of whom had been the team's captain until Madam Hooch publicly stripped him of the position and banned him from the team because he was one of the five who had tried to attack Penny, but they were quickly shouted down by the rest of the house.
In fact all the quidditch teams lost key players and several more prefects were stripped of their badges, because other girls were emboldened by Penny's example and stood up to publicly accuse others who had attacked them or tried to force them to do things against their will. When they did, Filius and the other House Mistresses immediately imposed penalties on the guilty parties because everyone knew that memories of the attacks would be taken as evidence, so there could be no question of what happened. While Penny had managed to stop the ones who tried to do this to her, other girls hadn't been so lucky and sixteen students were expelled, seven of them being arrested by the DMLE and charged with criminal offences because they were of age, now at least. Three of the ones who had tried to attack Penny were among the ones expelled and two of them were charged, so they didn't escape justice. This was a frightening experience for the new First years, but Filius, Pomona, Septima and Rolanda sat down and explained to them how this was actually making it safer for them to be at Hogwarts, because the ones who did the wrong things were being outed and punished at last.
Just about everyone was drained by the time they finished what had to have been the most eventful Sorting Feast in known history at Hogwarts, but the older students who raced to get to the owlery before all the owls were claimed to get word off to their parents that Harry Potter was alive and at Hogwarts missed one important piece of news. Not even the ones who were from Hufflepuff found out that Harry and the others hadn't gone to the Hufflepuff dormitories until they returned, and by then it was too late, because it wasn't worth risking being caught out after curfew when there wasn't an owl left in Hogwarts.
While they had no more than two in each bedchamber in the Lords Tower and it was better secured than the rest of Hogwarts, Gringott and the others wanted more security for Harry especially, so they had almost impregnable trunks that used a host of expansion and other charms to create light and airy homes, complete with magical gardens, windows and ceilings inside them sitting in most of their bedchambers. After what she'd heard on the Hogwarts Express, Daphne wasn't surprised to find that it was Penny sharing the bedchamber and trunk with her rather than Luna. Both bedchambers in Hermione and Luna's trunk were empty anyway, because they'd both used the goblin floo in their trunk to join Harry in his bedchamber, for their own comfort as well as his because it had been a tumultuous night. So had Daphne for that matter, because she was closer to them than anyone else. They all knew that breakfast the next morning was going to be almost as chaotic as the Sorting Feast, but they were safe behind the wards of their trunks so they settled into a peaceful if exhausted sleep.
The cat was out of the bag as soon as the first students reached the Great Hall the next morning, because the elves had added a separate table at the rear of the hall for the people in the Lords Tower. The whispering about the ones in the back of the hall escalated when the schedules were handed out, because an extra third year class had been added, made up of Harry Potter and those other five new Huffpuffs who everyone had expected to be First years, plus Percy Weasley, Penny Clearwater and the top students who had come forward from Second year. The brighter ones in the Great Hall could easily see that this class would soon outstrip the rest of Third year, because even those who ridiculed the Weasleys as blood traitors couldn't argue that Bill, Charlie and Percy Weasley were among the best and brightest at Hogwarts. The more honest parents also admitted that Arthur Weasley, Branwen Greengrass, Pandora Lovegood and James and Lily Potter had all been brilliant when they were at Hogwarts and their children were expected to be just as bright.
One thing was obvious, this new group was determined to stand Hogwarts, and probably Magical Britain on its head, but the 'traditional' houses couldn't see any way to stop them.
There was quite a bit of complaining coming from the children of the so-called 'old' Pureblood families when they discovered that the Lords Tower had been reopened for children of the guiding families. These complaints only got worse when they discovered that, no matter how important they believed themselves to be, the only ones who qualified to move into the tower other than the children of the guiding families belonged to what they regarded to be lesser families that had been almost wiped out in the Wizarding war. The fact that most of the richest families in the traditional factions were Noble, rather than Noble and Ancient, Houses (and the only Noble and Ancient House in the Pureblood factions with an Heir or Heiress at Hogwarts had already defected to the Council Alliance) was immaterial in their opinion, they were important so they should be in the Lords Tower.
This was yet another slap in the face for the traditional Pureblood Houses, Magical Britain had been firmly under their control since before the Wizarding War, but for the last year and a half, everything had been falling apart! Their families were losing influence, their businesses were losing money, that Bones creature was arresting their sons just for doing what they had all been doing for centuries, and now Hogwarts was expelling their sons and denying their children their rightful privileges, they would not put up with this!
The winds of change that started at Hogwarts had developed into a gale as they swept through Magical Britain. Pureblood wizards who complained that it was their right, or even worse, any wizards of Pureblood families' right to do this were now finding that their previously malleable wives and daughters were suddenly standing up to them. These wizards were suddenly finding that they could and did get charged for forcing witches of lower blood status to give in to them, including the ones they were betrothed to because apparently the archaic laws which said that they could do as they wished with their wives didn't apply until they were actually wed. The fact that the witches betrothed to them had been told about this was yet another thing that they demanded retribution for.
Those fathers who traded their daughters for wealth and power with no care as to what fate awaited them didn't escape either, because while they could not actually be charged for doing this, they could be and were tried in the court of public opinion, paying with their reputations and losing hard won alliances and the support of those who weren't willing to be dragged down with them. Most of the houses who had been chasing alliances to gain their families' wealth or power were now pretending not to know them because any involvement in those deals to trade the daughters of wealthy or powerful houses for more wealth or power against their will would now mean having their own families' names dragged through the mud, and that wealth or power would be useless if no-one was willing to deal with them.
Minister Bagnold and others who tried to pressure the Daily Prophet into stopping its reports on these issues discovered something disturbing, that the guiding families now owned about three quarters of the Prophet so as long as they kept to reporting verifiable facts, there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. In fact the only noticeable outcome of Minister Bagnold's attempt to introduce a law to stop the Prophet reporting these things was a new series of articles about how the Ministry tried to and had introduced laws purely to support its own agendas after the proposed law had been blocked in the Wizengamot. The fact that Xeno Lovegood was now the managing editor of the Prophet took a while longer to come out because he was a different wizard in that role, dead serious with a mind like a steel trap and he neither bent nor broke when anyone came at him, though the fact that he had a few of the Black Guard stationed in his office at all times may have helped with that part.
Knowing that they couldn't resist rising to the bait, Minerva issued an open offer in the Daily Prophet to parents of any Hogwarts students who believed that their children had been unfairly treated or denied their rights to provide detailed written submissions of what they believed to be unfair, promising to give fair and impartial consideration to their claims and address them if they were found to be justified. Bagnold saw the trap in this and tried to stop her factions responding, but many of the Pureblood fathers saw this as the bitch realising that she'd lost and backing down, so they jumped in, sending piles of parchment detailing the Noble House and Pureblood rights that she had ignored.
Apparently none of them had noticed that Minerva made no promise to respond privately, but then they should have realised that she'd be following up responses to the offer she'd made in the Prophet via the same media, shouldn't they?
Minerva handed everything she received over to Gringott, Ted, Amelia and the DMLE's law experts and they pulled it apart line by line. The inbred idiots had handed them a gold mine, they even provided enough detail to be accepted as confessions to many crimes when they were 'explaining' why this was just the Purebloods' right, and with the corroborating evidence from the Half-Blood, Muggleborn and Muggle victims who they managed to locate they were building an extensive charge list for quite a number of Purebloods.
The Purebloods' problem was that they had forgotten (if they ever really understood) that they had only ever gotten away with these practices because other Purebloods had used exceedingly liberal interpretations of the laws to let them off. They couldn't comprehend that the fact that they'd been let off by their peers in the past didn't mean that they'd be let off by anyone who actually took their laws seriously. On top of that, there were units of Her Majesty's Government's in Demi-Britain who most definitely weren't going to let Wizards get away with crimes against non-magical Britons, and they had quite enough magic personnel and controls to hold them. The fact that it was Sirius' Black Guard who were grabbing wizards where they had sufficient evidence of their crimes and handing them over to the HMG units meant that Amelia could quite honestly say that she had no knowledge of the circumstances of the wizards' disappearances. Bagnold was suspicious but carefully worded oaths meant that what Amelia told her was still accepted at face value, because centuries of arrogance born of complete power meant that witches and wizards of Magical Britain didn't really understand subtle nuances.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it), none of the wizards who disappeared through Demi-Britain had been significant to the traditional factions, so there was no great furore about what happened to them. A little carefully doctored information about street violence in countries where weapons were more prevalent presented a credible argument that they must have gone Muggle-baiting or been caught trying to grab Muggle girls for a bit of fun in the wrong areas. It was common knowledge that most of these wizards weren't too bright (After all, how bright can you be to provide written evidence of your crimes, even if you believe the victims to be beneath your notice?) so the general consensus was that they must have gotten themselves killed doing something stupid. Most of these wizards just had their memories wiped and magic bound and were dumped in Muggle prisons, but the few who appeared likely to know anything useful were passed on to the goblins and HMG's intelligence units to extract everything they knew.
Once they'd rounded up and disposed of the low hanging fruit, Minerva's responses were published in the Daily Prophet, with the majority of the material coming from the DMLE and Wizengamot's legal experts. Minister Bagnold groaned when she read these responses in the paper, because while she knew that she was working with idiots, she hadn't realised the true scope of their idiocy. Her suspicions about the previous disappearances returned in force at that point, because there was no way that those idiots would have been able to resist a chance to strike back at any disrespect from those they believed that they were superior to (not that they could be called mentally superior to anything but a troll) and their monumental stupidity would have provided far more opportunities to humiliate them, but few of them had been mentioned in the early responses in the paper.
The Minister was a problem, because the stupidity of the ones who made up the majority of the factions that she was behind had made them underestimate her, but the fact was that she had no proof to support her suspicions so all she could really do was keep an eye on them to try and get that proof.
While all of this was going on, Harry and the others were settling into Hogwarts. Neither Minerva or the other professors were surprised to hear that the new students were disappointed about what they were learning there, because even with the special class that had been created for them they were held back a little by Percy and the other students who were used to working within the normal class structure of Hogwarts.
The point of bringing them to Hogwarts was more to socialise them with the children of their generation in Magical Britain though, because they were the ones they'd be dealing with when they grew up. To this end, the handful of other students at Hogwarts who did qualify to move into the Lords Tower because they were the Heads or Heirs of Noble and Ancient Houses (There wouldn't be any Heads or Heirs of 'traditional' Noble and Most Ancient Houses at Hogwarts for another decade unless the current Head or Heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Macmillan died, and they didn't see Lord Macmillan's grandson Earnest starting early as by all reports he was no great shakes in either intelligence or magical ability.) were moved in as soon as it was confirmed that the requirements were met.
Having the other residents of the Lords Tower and the guests they escorted into the Tower's common room and their chambers reporting that it wasn't that much different from the House dormitories except for the training facilities in the tower had the effect of reducing most of the other students' complaints, because aside from the Ravenclaws most at Hogwarts didn't see the ability to do more training and study in their tower as a good thing. Having to escort their guests at all times inside the tower and accept responsibility for anything they did, and on top of that being under the watchful eye of the Black Guard whenever they were anywhere near Harry and the core group with him tended to limit guests' visits, as did the fact that things were much more friendly and relaxed when only the residents were there. This helped them get all of the other Tower residents' houses into the Wizards Council Alliance, because most of them had lost family in the Wizarding War too, giving them common experiences and views to bond over.
The jealous looks at the Lords Table in the Great Hall continued, but most of the student body had stopped listening to the whining from the children of the Pureblood Noble Houses about how they should be there. The fact that the Heads and Heirs of the more powerful Noble and Most Ancient Houses represented at the Lords Table didn't push their status down people's throats anywhere near as much as those Noble Houses' children was quickly swaying public opinion in the Most Ancient Houses' favour, because the other students at Hogwarts were reporting home to their parents about most of the incidents and complaints there.
In fact, once Dumbledore's illegal law prohibiting students starting at Hogwarts when they were supposed to was abolished and most people accepted that what they were doing was a more sensible approach and the furore over the fact that Harry Potter was alive had died down and the reasons he had been in hiding for nearly two years were accepted, most of the reports about him were what a nice boy he was, and how he only ever used his status when someone tried to push him or the ones closest to him around. The reports of those incidents generally delighted in telling how he'd come back at the older sons or daughters of Noble Houses and put them down harder than most would have thought possible for an eight year old, even if it was Harry Potter. The stories about how brilliant he was with a strong sense of justice and how his best friend was even more so made many people laugh and say that there could be no question that he was James and Lily Potter's son, as he had all of their qualities and found the most brilliant witch of the age with a fiery passion for justice to stand by him.
The family was furious about the fact that most of the people of Magical Britain couldn't understand why Harry was getting upset about all the plans that were being made for big celebrations on Halloween in honour of the return of the Boy-Who-Lived, even after they were reminded about just what Halloween meant to him. Minister Bagnold was planning on using the Boy-Who-Lived's popularity to bolster her own flagging reputation and wouldn't be deterred from putting on a gala event to celebrate his return, where she would be awarding him the Order of Merlin, First Class, for vanquishing Lord Voldemort. It was only a week before the event that they finally managed to convince her that Harry would refuse to accept any award unless his parents were awarded at least the same, so she hastily arranged a posthumous award of the Order of Merlin, First Class, to Lord James and Lady Lily Potter for their part in Lord Voldemort's downfall.
Bagnold was ready to explode at the award ceremony though, because the Potter brat had ruined her! He'd accepted the awards graciously enough (well more grudgingly than graciously for his own), but then he had the gall to demand to know why that Death Eater traitor Peter Pettigrew who betrayed his parents to their deaths was awarded an Order of Merlin posthumously right after he was supposedly killed by his Godfather, but his parents who had been killed by Voldemort himself trying to protect him would have received nothing if he hadn't refused to accept an award that he hadn't done anything to deserve unless they received what they were due. She was caught flat footed by that because while she had written a rousing speech about the Potters' noble sacrifice and the nation's gratitude for his efforts in vanquishing Lord Voldemort, she couldn't use that now and she had absolutely nothing prepared to answer the charges that everyone in Magical Britain could immediately see were quite valid.… Indeed! Why had that traitor been awarded an Order of Merlin and applauded for his courage immediately for doing nothing when the Potters who were killed by Voldemort for trying to protect their son from him were forgotten?
Then, while she stood there, open mouthed as she tried to formulate a response, the brat had gone even further, railing at everyone for expecting him to join them in celebrating the night that his Mummy and Daddy had been killed by Voldemort. Celebrating the fact that he had been sentenced to hard labour and torment and his Godfather was sent to Azkaban without a trial for over five years by the great Leader of the Light, and no-one did a thing to stop the old man or try and rescue him! An eight year old should not be able to project the presence that that brat did, but he stood there with his green eyes glowing as if they were about to start sending Avada Kedavras into the crowd and had everyone transfixed, unable to say a word for the shame they were feeling, but they had soon enough found someone to turn their self loathing on, her! The angry questions and demands being thrown at her from the crowd were the death knell of her political career, all her hopes and plans to get past this current mess and be seen leading Magical Britain into a new golden age were shredded then and there.
She couldn't even take off straight away because if she just cut and ran that Bones bitch would investigate her, and she was fairly sure that Bones was even more competent than she looked. No, she'd have to play this very carefully, wait until the Ministry's Yule Ball and then publicly tender her resignation, announcing that she had done a considerable amount of soul searching since the revelations of Halloween and had realised that she had indeed failed Lord Potter and Heir Black when she unquestioningly trusted Chief Warlock Dumbledore's honesty and integrity in the events following that fateful Halloween seven years ago. She'd concede contritely that while they had all made the error of believing the Chief Warlock to be beyond reproach, in her position as the Minister for Magic (had to be careful about that, because the real old Noble families were particular about proper titles) she had a greater duty of care than ordinary citizens of Magical Britain, but she had failed in that due to her horror at what had happened to the Potters. Having come to face that, she had decided that she must do the right thing and tender her resignation.
Yes, that should be enough to make it look as though she was falling on her sword in an act of contrition instead of taking whatever money she could get her hands on and running before she could be dragged down with the rest of those idiots, because she didn't think that there was any question that whoever it was pulling the Potter brat's strings was going to destroy their opposition. She wished she had more money to take with her, but was sure that she'd made the right decision to keep her hands off the Hogwarts funding after she heard that the Wizards Council Alliance had total control of the Hogwarts Board, as they would have surely gone looking for the money and it was a fair bet that they would have found it.