I've decided that I'll be borrowing one of the alternative terms that I've read in a number of the great stories here for Muggleborns, Newbloods, because as noted in one of those stories it's a much more positive way of representing what those of supposedly Non-Magical backgrounds bring to the Magical world.
I dare say that some may not agree with my version of the origin of trolls, dwarves and such, but hope you have as much fun as I do with what happened with the ones in the middle. And no disrespect for Messers Cervantes and Tolkien is intended, it just fitted into the story line nicely IMHO.
I also expect some to argue that the other founders didn't have magical swords and they couldn't do what I have here, but to them I ask, how do you know? Where's the evidence to say that only Godric had a sword and it could only be used as a sword in one form?
A bit before half way through there's an unpleasant section, but I bid you to remember that this is a rampantly misogynistic society and I can see the prevailing views portrayed as being realistic in that scenario. They ain't nice people folks!
From the reactions to something similar I introduced in a story in a different space and time, I also expect vocal opposition to one of the curses I created for this, but you know what? Tough! I believe that the world would be a better place if something like that did exist to deal with those types.
Usual disclaimers, no rights to any established 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.
They held their second Yule Ball at Longbottom Manor, but this time Harry and Hermione attended (as they weren't hiding Harry any more), along with the families of the ones who joined them at Hogwarts, and representatives of some of the premier families of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.
With the goblins' help, they'd been using tours of their overseas holdings, properties and businesses to renew old alliances and forge new alliances to rebuild their power base across the Magical world. (In the old days, when the head of a wizarding house lost a challenge or feud with another head of house, their house with all its titles, holdings and belongings was forfeited to the winner, and the powerful Potter family had become fabulously wealthy through winning many of these challenges and feuds. Of course strict rules and hierarchies applied to what houses challenges or feuds could be declared on by a given house, and under what conditions. This practice still applied, even though the declaration of challenges and feuds was illegal across most of the Magical world now.)
When Harry learned about his holdings and titles in Magical Spain, he and the others in the family who were familiar with Nomaj literature burst out laughing, because one of his titles was Conde Quixote de la Mancha, so it appeared that Miguel de Cervantes may have been from the Magical world, or more likely got the information about Conde Quixote from someone from the Magical world. Most likely a squib who was angry at having been been cast out of the family there if they were willing to risk their life and soul by using the name and title in such a derogatory manner, depicting Conde Quixote as nothing more than the delusions of an old fool, and making the Conde into a mere Hidalgo at that, because that would have surely brought the wrath of the Quixote family down on them.
When they thought about it, they agreed that it was more probable that Cervantes had gotten the information about Conde Quixote from someone who from the Magical world like Tolkien and Hilton had. The consensus was that James Hilton had seen the name and description of the Potter estate in the valley of Shangri-La somewhere when he was researching his novel Lost Horizon, because there was nothing to indicate that Hilton had ever travelled in Asia, or been magical enough to see Shangri-La if he came across it…. But at least Cervantes and Hilton's sources hadn't gotten as much wrong as whoever it was that Tolkien got his information from. Calling goblin silver 'mithril', swapping the goblins and dwarves as the Magical beings and Non-Magical minions…..
At least Salazar wasn't responsible for the disgusting idea to breed smaller versions of giants to create troll and dwarf soldiers (they weren't bright or quick enough to be called warriors but enough of them made a formidable fighting force), as that had been done thousands of years before his time by other greedy wizards….. The mental image of what would have happened when they bred giants with common Nomaj humans, and then the results of those breedings being bred with other Nomaj humans and the little people to create armies of abnormally strong, magic resistant and stupid and aggressive but obedient soldiers was rather sickening…..
That in turn raised another question though, what happened to the human sized creations in between the ten to twelve foot high trolls and the three to four foot high dwarves? Had they all been wiped out in battle? No, they had more likely been gathered up after the battles and taken back to be subsumed into the hordes of Nomaj humans as strong but stupid peasants….. Yes, that made more sense….
Come to think of it, there were more than a few witches and wizards in some of the traditional 'Pureblood' families like the Flints who looked rather like trolls and were easily stupid and magically weak enough to be descended from those ancient attempts to create better spear and axe fodder for greedy nobles…. It was a well known fact that fertile Nomaj women were often grabbed in desperate attempts to save so-called Pureblood lines that were on the verge of dying out from extinction and abundant fertility would have been the prime criteria when selecting breeders to create those armies, so their descendents would be likely choices to keep the 'Pure' bloodlines alive.
As planned, stories soon spread about the powerful figures from across the Magical world who came to recognise that Duke Potter had returned to the Magical world, and this weakened the resistance against them. Because how could the 'traditional' houses openly oppose a house with such history and power which was recognised across the Magical world?
This led to two complications though. The first being that the eight year old Duke Henry James Potter was required to formally reaffirm the fealty of the House of Potter and his other British houses with Noble titles to Her Majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdoms. This in turn meant that the heads of all their other British houses with Noble titles were also expected to formally reaffirm their houses' fealty and present their heirs to the crown of Non-Magical Britain, something that hadn't been done in nearly a hundred years outside of Harry's Grandfather and Great Grandfather, Charlus and Henry Potter. (James had never had the opportunity to reaffirm his houses' fealty when he was elevated to Head of House after Charlus died in the later stages of the war.)
It wasn't meeting Her Majesty that frightened Harry the most though….. no, that was being there while Gringott and the others explained to Roger and Jean that having the Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and Harry's other houses return to the Magical world as what most would see as a malleable child would bring the sharks out, and that the best way to protect him, and protect Hermione against being 'gotten out of the way' was to formally declare their betrothal. Hermione was delighted with the idea and agreed wholeheartedly, but the idea of having to face Roger and Jean's wrath at the idea of their nine year old daughter being betrothed to marry terrified Harry, even if it was Harry, Hermione and Andie (as their Regent) who would actually be accepting all the magical contracts. In the end this was anticlimactic, Roger had bristled as expected but Jean whacked him across the head and reminded him quite forcefully that they'd all been expecting this since Harry and Hermione met, it was only the timing that had changed.
Of course the situation wasn't helped by the fact that the family had also decided that Luna needed to be betrothed to Harry to protect her against those who would want to clear the way to the next heir after Sirius became the Head of the House of Black and its other houses, but Jean pointed out that this had been almost as obvious as Harry and Hermione for two years as well. In the end everyone was happy when Roger, Xeno, Pandora, Harry, Hermione and Andie formally accepted all the betrothals.
Gringott ensured that no more than the existence of betrothals to the Houses of Potter and Black was common knowledge (they'd kicked Sirius in the arse and made sure that he openly married Emmeline as soon as he'd recovered from Azkaban and was cleared because she'd put her life on hold after her soon-to-be fiancé was suddenly buried in Azkaban without a trial so they were safe). That way, only those who knew Harry and the girls well enough to see what they were to each other would know that they were his betrothed, but any families with aspirations to bag Harry while he was an easy target would be put on notice that he was already off the market.
Harry, the other Heads of House and their heirs presented themselves to Her Majesty at Holyrood Palace, because it had to be done in an official royal residence and Holyrood was the least obvious. A few of the Queen's non-magical retainers were frightened and disturbed when the naked ghost of the witch Agnes Sampson appeared and many of the witches and wizards present paid their respects to her, especially when Minerva, Harry and some of the others addressed her as 'Cousin Agnes' as they had familial connections to her.
Her Majesty was quite interested to meet this young man (He was no boy, even if he was only eight. He was taller than she was and wore the proper morning dress and comported himself with a poise and grace that her own children had failed to master at over twice his age, not to mention the fact that he spoke many of the European languages flawlessly and didn't stumble once in observing the proper forms.) who had apparently turned Magical Britain upside down since he appeared two years ago. Her people who were working with the magicals had told her that while he wasn't involved in the day to day dealings, he was involved in significant events and his input was quite often insightful and relevant.
She was surprised to find that, quite aside from the shock of hearing that the eight year old Duke was already betrothed to his nine year old best friend (who's parents were Non-Magical, just as his own mother's had been apparently) when he presented her as his heir, she was actually disappointed that the young Duke would not be a possible suitor for one of her granddaughters. It was only then that she realised how taken she was with this extraordinary young man. Another thing which came out in his discussions with the adults present was how was easy it was to forget his youthful appearance and voice as you became caught up in the knowledge and insights he presented on a wealth of subjects, and the same was true for his best friends Lady Hermione and Lady Luna (who were also far taller than expected and dressed and comported themselves with a poise and grace far beyond their years).
All in all, the day they spent reaffirming their fealty to the Crown at Holyrood Palace was a good experience for all of them, Magical and Non-Magical alike. Much like the information in the Wizengamot and Ministry's archives, the information recorded about the Lords and Ladies and succession of the Noble Houses of Magical Britain was buried in the Royal Archives, it was maintained as part of the peerages of Britain but hidden from the public eye, so the Queen and her trusted advisors were the only ones who knew of the Magical peers. Before they left, Her Majesty extracted promises from Harry and the girls to visit her more often, because she was captivated by these brilliant young paragons of nobility.
By the end of the Christmas holidays (as they were commonly known as in Magical Britain now), there wasn't anyone in Magical Britain who didn't know that Harry Potter was alive, back, and a force to be reckoned with in the Magical world. He, Hermione and Luna were also a force of nature, taking the others with them as they caught up to the other Fourth Year students by the end of February.
As well as wizarding magic, Harry and the others were still studying goblin and elvan magic. Chief among these in the warrior training was the only Goblin Magic really used in combat, their magical bucklers. Goblins were warriors, and as such they didn't hide behind shield walls like common soldiers, they stood up and fought! Goblin warriors generated impregnable magical buckler shields that were anchored to their hands and no more than eighteen inches across to stop or deflect just about anything coming at them. Accomplished goblin warriors could generate magical bucklers that were capable of withstanding repeated blows from giants with a clubs, maces, battleaxes or spike backed war hammers, as well as bolts or other projectiles cast by siege engines. As they discovered in the war against Grindelwald, their bucklers were also able to handle being hammered by anything up to and including heavy machine guns. This was obviously far more than the flimsy wizarding shields could cope with, as handguns were enough to overcome them, and this meant that an accomplished goblin warrior's magical buckler was also enough to deflect any spells cast by wizards, including the unforgivables.
Like everything else, it took a considerable amount of time and effort before warriors were able generate magical bucklers at that level, but Harry's and the others' were growing stronger all the time. After two years' hard work, the core training group could all cast eighteen inch wide bucklers that were far stronger than any wizards' shield, and six inch or foot wide bucklers that were strong enough to stand up to in serious sparring with spear, sword and axe. They sparred with all the goblins' traditional weapons to build up their skills, strength and endurance, but ever since they called their houses' heirlooms to them Harry, Hermione, Luna and Neville had been using the swords, half-swords/spears and axes of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Hufflepuff for about half of their training sessions (these enchanted weapons felt much lighter and easier to wield when they accepted the user, so they used more 'normal' weapons to build up their strength and endurance).
The story they got from the founders' portraits was that when they were ennobled at the start of the Eleventh Century in recognition of the improvement in wizarding education that came from them founding Hogwarts, under the rules of the time, Rowena and Helga basically had to be treated as men in order to be granted their titles. As such, they all had to be knighted before they were granted baronies, so the goblins forged magical sword/spears, half-sword/spears, battleaxes, bucklers and armour for the four of them out of goblin silver. The founders' weapons, bucklers and armour looked alike except for the identifying designs and the names engraved on their blades. Godric's were set with rubies, Salazar's silver set with emeralds, Rowena's red gold set with sapphires and Helga's were black meteorite metal set with canary diamonds.
The native state of the swords was as a hand and half long sword with a thirty three inch blade, but they could be shrunk to a one handed short sword or extended into a two handed great sword on demand, and the hilts could become a six or seven foot long spear shaft as well. In their base state, the half-swords had a fifteen inch long blade and the four foot long axes had a three foot long metal haft, two foot long crescent blade and foot long curved spike to the rear of the blade, but they could both be shrunk or extended by half that on demand, and the half-sword hilts could also be extended to form five or six foot long spear shafts. As both Godric and Salazar's blades came to Harry, he shared Salazar's buckler, armour and weapons with Luna, Hermione had Rowena's weapons and Neville had Helga's, so all four of them had weapons of legend to train and fight with. The only thing Luna couldn't do with Salazar's weapons was call them to her like the true heirs could, she had enough of a blood connection to Salazar's line for them to accept her once they were in her hands so Harry called them and handed them off to her when needed. As a general rule they kept the swords shrunk to short sword length, half-swords to daggers and axes to two foot long when they were sparring. The rest of the family used magical goblin silver weapons belonging to their houses and Gringott's family which could also be shrunk or lengthened on demand, as warriors of the leading families of the Goblin Nation had been carrying these for two thousand years.
Harry, Hermione, Luna and Neville also used the founders' weapons when practising Magical combat, because being crafted from goblin silver rather than cold iron made it possible for them to be used as mage staffs as well. The Head of the House of Ollivander at that time had worked with the goblins' master smiths to add this feature to the founders' weapons with the most appropriate magical cores, and the founders bound their images into them to turn them magical artefacts. As such, the founders' weapons were arguably their most important heirlooms.
The goblin silver's nature to absorb whatever makes it stronger meant that the ancient weapons had become much more powerful than their 'normal' wands by the time they were awoken by the true heirs a thousand years later. They lacked finesse for delicate work, but in combat they were incredible.
Harry, Hermione and Luna had to use their Magical and Non-Magical combat skills soon after they came back from the Christmas break, because a group of Sixth and Seventh year wizards suddenly cut them off as they were heading down a remote corridor on a shortcut from one class to the next. Hearing Luna's 'voice' in their heads telling them that there was no point in trying to go back because there was another group behind them confirmed that this wasn't going to be fun, even before the ambushers' mouthpiece spoke up.
"You've shamed my sister and made everything turn to shit since you forced your way into our world Potter, but that's all going to stop here and now!"
Unpleasantness begins
Ever since he started at Hogwarts, Harry had had attractive Sixth and Seventh year witches (because they were of age to marry and the Head of a Noble and Most Ancient House was exempted from any age rules) from the more ambitious and unscrupulous 'traditional' houses trying to entrap him into marrying into their houses under their families' orders. Their usual methods tended to be exposing themselves to him and trying to entice him into doing things which would have been wildly inappropriate if he were the twelve or thirteen that he appeared to be at first sight, let alone eight as they and their families knew he actually was. The most blatant of these witches (including the ones who were with their ambushers) had grabbed his hands or face and rubbed them against their bare breasts lasciviously (between their legs too), this was usually enough to make Harry do whatever he had to to get away from them because that type of behaviour disgusted him.
Didn't they have any sense of decorum or self respect? He knew that the purported modesty in Magical Britain purely applied to the public façade, but shite, he could hear the voices of most women he knew ranting about that type of behaviour having no place outside a two knut brothel and he wholeheartedly agreed with them!
Harry eventually grew so frustrated and fed up with these attacks that he had the adults with them at Hogwarts make arrangements to expose the actions of the most aggressive of these girls before Hogwarts broke for Christmas, setting up a goblin version of a pensieve to show everyone in the Great Hall the most blatant of these encounters in the hope that their being exposed that way would be enough to scare the others off. The girls who were outed of course jumped up, screaming that he was a lying little bastard and that someone had obviously modified those memories to put their faces on some other witches' bodies, while their male relations were demanding satisfaction.
They were prepared for that though and Harry clicked his fingers. At his signal, members of the Black Guard vanished the witches' clothes, letting everyone see for themselves the proof that it definitely was them who were shown in those memories, unless the images had been prepared by people who knew exactly what their bodies looked like. Then they cast purity detection charms over them.
The only things most of the 'traditional' houses cared about were wealth, power and the sanctity of their families' bloodlines. As bloodlines and being able to sell off their daughters for the best price were all they really cared about in regard to a witch's 'purity', the traditional houses had forcibly redefined the term 'virginity' in Magical Britain to mean not having had anyone ejaculate into their womb. That was why the 'purity' detection charms were originally created hundreds of years ago and ultimately had been developed into the version now in use about a century ago. This final version made the witch's body orifices glow blue if they had been ejaculated into, and this was overlaid with another detection charm for the womb which glowed red if the witch was, or had ever been pregnant. This red overlay combined with the original charm generated a purple glow if anyone had ejaculated into her womb, separate from the pregnancy marker. Due to the wizards and witches' innate laziness, no-one ever bothered making the effort to remove the blue glows for the other orifices, and they rationalised that as being to see what else the witches had been doing anyway.
It also wasn't uncommon for ambitious houses who were aggressively courting richer and more powerful houses to offer their daughters up to those houses on a 'try before you buy' basis. These offers were usually made to the Head of the House rather than the prospective betrothed, both as an incentive to 'sweeten the deal' and because an older wizard should be more likely to be able to control himself than a young and eager wizard…. More able to gauge how 'experienced' the girl was too.
All of those witches protesting their innocence showed either purple or blue glows when the purity charms were cast on them, in fact most of them showed purple and one or both blue glows and two showed red glows as well, destroying any last doubts that it was them exposing themselves to Harry and saying and doing what his memories showed. They were quickly covered up and ran from the hall, but word of what they had tried to do was guaranteed to spread throughout Magical Britain before the Christmas break was finished, it would most likely get around before the Yule balls.
Harry had already lost the argument with his ladies over their link to have them get out of there and leave him to deal with this until the risk to him was enough to call their champions to him, so he took note of the faces of the ones in front of him before lazily turning to look at the ones blocking their retreat, determining that there were at least fifteen or sixteen wizards and five witches who were all twice their age, and the wizards were all rather larger than him too. They were all Purebloods of course, but the fact that they represented all four of the Hogwarts houses was surprising. The witches in the group were the ones who he'd had so very publicly shamed in the Great Hall before the Christmas break for trying to seduce him into marrying them, and he was rather surprised that their families hadn't hidden them away somewhere until the scandal died down.
He made a point of naming the mouthpiece and the most prominent Noble houses represented when he responded. "Heir Selwyn, it would appear that the Houses of Selwyn, Macmillan, Rosier, Abbott, Smith and Rowle are all ready to be made extinct, because that is exactly what will happen as soon as I report this attack to the houses of the Wizards Council Alliance."
Selwyn laughed at him. "That won't be happening Potter, you see once we've all finished having fun with your little whores, cleaned them out, put your seed into them and ensured that you've impregnated my sister, you're all going to be obliviated and given memories to show that you made them come with you to a 'party' that my sister invited you to.…" He gave an evil smirk as he added. "The party must have gotten a little rough though because your pet Mudblood and the Blood traitor will be too ripped up by the time we're done with them to ever have children but I expect that they'll recover somewhat eventually, at least there won't be any challenges to the primary heir my sister produces for your houses…. But after shaming her the way you did before Christmas, well all I can say is that the House of Selwyn will be demanding substantial compensations from you in the betrothal contract…."
Unpleasantness ends
Harry cut him off as he turned to Hermione. "See Mione, the inbreeding's made them all retarded."
She laughed at him. "You say that as if it wasn't what I've been telling you all along Harry?"
Harry just smiled and kissed her on the cheek before turning back to face Selwyn. "I think you're overly optimistic about your group's chances here Heir Selwyn, but after what you just said about your plans for my betrothed you're going to die, so by all means, bring it on Ankles!"
Hermione and Luna had slipped their wands into their hands as Harry spoke and he and Hermione called the swords of Gryffindor, Slytherin and Ravenclaw to them as soon as he finished, with Harry immediately handing Salazar's sword off to Luna and then slipping his own wand into his hand. They stepped apart far enough to give each other room to move and stood side-on to both groups of ambushers to present smaller targets, generating magical bucklers on both wrists as they did so. Harry smiled to his two girls and then turned back to Selwyn. "Well? Are we are too much for you?"
Their ambushers had been taken aback when they saw the swords blaze into existence, but to most in the traditional houses, swords were nothing but the ceremonial trappings of a Noble house, so Harry's taunt kicked off simultaneous hails of spellfire from both sides as they rushed forward, trying to get close enough to hit them. Only one in five spells if that came close enough to be batted away with their magical bucklers, but just about every spell Harry, Hermione and Luna threw back hit their targets, and as they'd agreed over their link, many of those spells were nasty curses that they'd found in the Black library.
Their attackers were convinced that most of the hits that they were taking must have been nothing but luck, because no-one could consistently hit wands end-on at that distance on purpose. When they got close enough to start hitting their three targets though, things only got worse for the attackers, because just about every spell was now either being reflected back onto them, or went straight past to hit the group on the other side. They kept closing in as they tried to find a hole in the three's defences, but then they suddenly went on the attack, and with the power of the magical swords of the founders, it became an instant bloodbath! By the time the alerts were generated and help arrived, every one in the attacking groups was down, with three quarters of them missing arms and legs or showing gaping wounds from the swords.
Memories were taken from everyone (willingly from Harry, Hermione and Luna and forcibly from their attackers). Poppy had quickly confirmed that Heir Selwyn, Horace Macmillan and a couple of the others were dying, so she stepped aside and let the Aurors collect their memories while they could. The memories taken clearly confirmed Harry, Hermione and Luna's version of what had happened, and the Selwyns' and Horace Macmillan's memories proved that their two houses had been the primary ones behind the attack, so Sirius, Andie, Xeno and Pandora had ample cause to demand that all titles, holdings, properties and belongings of the Macmillan and Selwyn families (and appropriate amounts of the other attackers' families') be forfeited to Harry, Hermione and Luna's families. As Harry had told Selwyn, the Houses of Abbott and Rowle were also eradicated, but unfortunately the Rosiers and Smiths present turned out to be from cadet branches of their families so their involvement wasn't enough cause to bring the houses down. The Alliance acquired enough titles through this to shift the balance of power further in their favour, with Earl Macmillan's title making Luna a Countess in her own right and elevating the House of Cathbad to a Noble and Most Ancient House.
It was only when the surviving attackers who were released tried to get new wands to replace the ones that had been exploded in their hands that they discovered that they couldn't cast with their wand hands any more, and in most cases the backlash on their magical cores because they had been trying to cast when their wands exploded meant that they couldn't cast with their off hands at all either. Effectively, most of them were now Squibs and the rest were little more than Squibs. Garrick Ollivander was hard put to hide his amusement at this, because the family magic of the Most Ancient Druid House of Ollivander, which had been creating mage staffs and wands for Britain's magical people for over two and a half thousand years, had kept track of most known factors which could effect witches and wizards' ability to cast magic. This meant that Garrick knew that the House of Black had created a Squib curse which had these effects for use in family feuds over seven hundred years ago, but this was the first time he'd seen evidence of it being used in over two hundred years. A quick visit to the Black Townhouse got him confirmation that the Squib curse had been dug out of the Blacks' restricted family magic tomes to help the children protect themselves, along with the Rapists' curse.
Garrick didn't bother trying to hide his delight when Sirius and Narcissa explained to him what the Rapists' curse did. As an adamantly patriarchal society, it just wasn't 'done' in Magical Britain to create anything which could threaten a wizards' manhood, but before its fall from grace two hundred odd years ago, the House of Black had embraced its Druid House roots and protected its daughters with everything it had, so they created and taught their daughters the Rapists' curse. The immediate effect of this curse was to put a stop to all sexual urges in the recipient, but it caused the man's entire reproductive system to wither away, so they would never again be able to rape women or girls (or boys for that matter) and they lost most of their other violent urges too because their testosterone levels dropped way down. If they hadn't created an heir before they were struck with the curse, it could also mean the end of their line.
The Head and Heir of the House of Black had both fallen in the battles at Castell Du in the last major goblin rebellion a couple of hundred years ago, and one of the more ambitious Noble Houses of the time had managed to buy enough support in the Wizengamot to get the next Heiress to the House of Black quickly married off to one of their sons so that they could gain control of the house. The son of this union who took over as the next Head of the House of Black was raised to follow his grandfather's beliefs and was therefore horrified to learn of the Rapists' curse and other similar curses in the restricted Black family magic. He couldn't destroy them though, so he buried them as deep as he could, in hope that no-one else would ever find them. That worked up until Sirius, Harry and Narcissa (as the Primary and Secondary Heirs and Steward to the House of Black) began researching the restricted Black family magic for things that would help protect the upcoming generation, and seeing as the majority of them were girls, the Rapists' curse was one of the first they were taught.
At this point, the wizards' being 'unmanned' was being put down by most as a result of their being unable to cast any magic, aside from the lucky few who were able to use their offhand to cast weak, simple spells. Garrick agreed that sooner or later the healers would work out that the wizards involved in the attack were actually losing their reproductive systems, but Garrick was the only other one who knew what had made them lose their ability to cast magic, so hopefully their sexual problems would just be attributed to whatever had caused that. After all, the wizards and witches of Magical Britain had proven that their ability to reason was almost non-existent, so with any luck they'd just see this as a related unexplained complication and believe that everything was failing because they were losing their magic.
One benefit accruing from the battle in the corridor was that just about everyone at Hogwarts was now terrified of crossing Harry, Hermione and Luna, and by extension anyone in their group. This meant they were all safer than they'd be otherwise, but it wasn't just at Hogwarts, because details of the story of what happened came out when they were claiming everything from their attackers' houses, which in turn led to the question that if three children could do that, what could the adults of the Wizards Council do?
This caused a problem as well though, because it derailed the friendly relations they had been building with some of the students. Luckily the more rational ones pointed out that Harry, Hermione and Luna hadn't instigated this, that they were on their way to their next class when they were ambushed by a much bigger group of older students who wanted to do terrible things to the girls and they'd just defended themselves, albeit with devastating results. They went on to remind everyone that none of the Lords group had ever attacked anyone else and had only reacted to extreme provocation, so if no-one attacked them, they wouldn't be a threat to anyone.
Harry stood and thanked them for reminding everyone that they hadn't attacked anyone, but wanted to clarify one point. "Thank you Miss Varney and Mister Talbot, it is gratifying to see that some people are able to see the facts of the matter and are willing to speak out in our defence. I can and will confirm that none of our group will ever attack anyone who has not attacked us first…. But I would like to remind everyone that verbal attacks will also be responded to harshly….."
He put his hands out to Hermione and Luna and helped them to their feet. "While this was the first instance of an outright physical attack against us…" He stopped and grimaced. "Other than those witches' useless attempts to convince me to bind with them last year..." He was surprised by the laughter that comment generated but went on when it died down. "There have been numerous verbal attacks on members of our group, most especially my betrothed..."
A shocked silence fell over the Great Hall and he suddenly realised that this was in fact the first public announcement of their betrothals, but he mentally shrugged, he'd said as much to their attackers so word would get out sooner or later. "Ummm, yes. Please allow me to introduce my betrothed, Lady Hermione Granger who will become Duchess Hermione Potter when we wed, and Lady Luna Lovegood, who is to become Countess Luna Black when we wed…. But what I wanted to say here is that these ladies, who are both very dear to me, have been reviled with names such as Mudblood, Muggleborn, Looney and Blood Traitor all too often in Hogwarts, and I hereby put you on notice that that will stop now!"
That of course kicked off a wave of whispered discussions, until one brave soul spoke up. "Lord Potter?"
He tried to look as friendly as he could as he nodded to them. "Yes?"
"We can understand how you and your ladies would be offended by the 'M' word, 'Looney' and 'Blood Traitor'…. But could you explain why you find 'Muggleborn' to be offensive? It is the accepted term for people of our parentage… I am a Muggleborn myself… so I, and I see many others, am having trouble seeing how this is regarded as offensive."
Harry nodded with a smile. "Okay, I can see how most may not see that my way at first, so let's break this down. If it isn't a rude question, how did your parents react the first time you told them that they were what was known as 'Muggles' in this world?"
The boy frowned. "My father said 'What do you mean we're called Mugs in that world?' and I had to explain that it was 'Muggle' not 'Mug', and that was just what non-magical people were known as in the magical world, it wasn't a derogatory reference."
Harry smiled again. "Did it occur to you that your father actually had the right of it? It is a derogatory term, because many British witches and wizards think that they're better than anyone non-magical and therefore look down on them. Elsewhere in the magical world, non-magical people are known as mundanes or no-majes. My Godfather and I have been touring our houses' estates and businesses around the world and we've found very few magical countries which are as prejudiced as Britain. The Minister for Magic is currently working to have the terms 'Muggle' and 'Muggleborn' officially replaced with 'Nomaj' and 'Newblood', as they are both more descriptive and have been found to be less offensive than the old terms adopted by the bigots."
That of course kicked off another wave of outbursts and one Pureblood wizard shouted. "What do we care whether Muggles like what they're called or not? If they complain we'll just put them in their place!"
Harry looked up at the High Table, calling out a question. "I take it this one didn't do too well in the mandatory Muggle Culture or History of Magic classes Headmistress?"
Minerva smirked as she cast a Sonorous. "No Lord Potter, and I can see that we will need to put him back a year or two until he manages to learn what he needs to know, as he wasn't doing too well at his other classes either once he started being tested without bias. What Lord Potter is referring to Mister Seinhoff is that even here in Britain, the non-magicals outnumber us ten thousand to one, and they have weapons that could wipe all of us off the map in the blink of an eye. That was why the Statute of Secrecy was enacted three hundred years ago, because even then the magical world recognised that if we provoked the non-magicals we would be wiped out! Why do you think they allowed something like the witch trials and witch burnings to occur? The magical world could not afford to openly oppose the non-magical world so we had to stand by and watch witches and wizards be killed, along with the innocents who had been falsely prosecuted by the Christian church, to keep our secret!"
She turned her head to the speak to the boy's House Mistress without cancelling the sonorous. "Professor Vector, I believe that Mister Seinhoff needs to be moved back to the Fourth, or at least Fifth year classes and dorm, effective immediately. I had not realised just how ignorant he was until this."
Sinestra nodded as she looked at the boy. "Neither had I Professor McGonagall, he will be in the Fourth year classes tomorrow…. Mister Seinhoff, wait for me in my office please!"
Harry turned back to the other students as the soon to be Fourth year Slytherin angrily stomped out of the Great Hall. "As Professor McGonagall so amply summarised, that is why we need to be more respectful to non-magical people, quite aside from the fact that many of them deserve respect…. While we're at it, another thing that I believe that most people in Magical Britain have forgotten, even though it is part of the oaths that every senior Ministry official, Wizengamot member and Head of House must give when they are accepted to the position, is the fact that we are still subjects of the Queen of Britain… That means that every government official and Head of House has affirmed his fealty to the Non-Magical ruler of Britain, and yet the bigots somehow believe that they can denigrate all non-magicals with impunity? Idiots! Anyway, that explains why Minister Weasley is taking steps to implement a more appropriate term for non-magical people, as for the term Newblood, that is also more descriptive and less insulting…."
"As the goblins have proved with inheritance tests, nearly all witches and wizards born to non-magical parents are the descendents of Squibs who were tossed out of our world at some point in the past. Some of them, like Hermione and my mother, actually reactivated long dormant magical families when they returned to our world as magicals, but more to the point, they brought new blood back into Magical Britain to refresh the old bloodlines that are becoming stale, or even failing. This is a good point to bring up other terminology that Minister Weasley is correcting. Once it is passed through the Wizengamot, the terms Pureblood, Squib, Muggle and Muggleborn will all be banned. The old bloodlines will be referred to as Oldblood, Magicals born of Non-Magical parents will be referred to as Newblood and Squibs will be referred to as Nomaj. To avoid a pointless fight, the term Halfblood will remain to describe those, like myself, who are born of a union of an Oldblood and a Newblood or a Nomaj…."
He jumped in to cut off the obvious arguments. "Before anyone tries to claim that they are Purebloods and no-one can take that from them… That. Is. Shite!"
That shut them up, so he went on. "The goblins' inheritance tests, which have been accepted right across the magical world as being both accurate and reliable, have proven that there is no such thing as your definition of Pureblood. Every extant family has brought in Non-Magicals or Newbloods at some point in the last five or six generations to save their bloodlines from dying out. The only difference between families like the Potters and other so-called Purebloods is that we didn't try to cover up our Newblood connections. Even the Gaunts, who were so inbred that they were insane and barely magical, failed to keep their line Pure because Merope Gaunt, the last daughter of their house, got desperate enough to love potion a Nomaj and get pregnant to him before her family managed to inbreed itself to extinction, so the last member of their house was in fact the Halfblood Tom Riddle…. By the way, I know that Riddle, the so-called Lord Voldemort, claimed that he was the heir of Salazar Slytherin through his mother, but that was a lie. The Gaunts were actually descended from Salazar's sister….."
Harry stopped and looked up at the High Table, when Minerva, Pandora and Filius nodded at him to go ahead, he turned back to the students. "We know this because I am actually the Heir of Salazar Slytherin, through my mother Lily Evans!" With that he reached up and called the Sword of Slytherin to him, reversing it and holding it up by the blade so that the emerald and silver hilt and name engraved on the blade were visible to all.
Someone called out. "I thought the Potters were supposed to be Gryffindor's heirs?"
He quickly looked to see who it was who had remembered that, a little surprised to see that it was a Hufflepuff, but nodded, turning to stab Salazar's sword into the tabletop before reaching up to call the Sword of Gryffindor to him, stabbing it into the tabletop as well. "I'd say ten points to Hufflepuff if I could, but yes, as you can see I am also the Heir of Godric Gryffindor through my father."
There was a snarky comment from somewhere on the Ravenclaw table. "Are you claiming to be the Heir of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff too Potter?"
He heard Hermione's firm 'My turn!' over their link before she reached up and called Rowena's sword to her and said "No, I am the Heir of Rowena Ravenclaw!", stabbing the sword into the tabletop beside Salazar's and Godric's before adding. "We know who Helga Hufflepuff's heir is too, but they are not currently at Hogwarts."
Luna reminded Harry that he'd allowed himself to be sidetracked over their link and he nodded, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and forcefully saying. "As I was saying…." when they'd quietened down he continued in a more reasonable tone.
"There is no such thing as a Pureblood in Magical Britain and that is why Minister Weasley is in the process of banning that false self aggrandising term from being used here, just as he is banning all the derogatory terms that were previously used for non-magicals, Newbloods and Oldbloods who weren't bigots. So any of you who insist on falsely calling yourself Purebloods, know that I will laugh at you and report you for using a forbidden term, but more to the point…. If you ever use the terms Mudblood or Muggleborn in my hearing, especially in regard to Hermione, or Blood Traitor in regard to Luna or others, you'll have to deal with me, and you won't like that. Just ask Macmillan and Selwyn… oh wait, you can't do that any more, can you?"
His eyes flashed at that and a chill washed over most of the people in the hall, anyone who hadn't known that he was someone to be feared before this certainly knew it now.
A/N: If someone wants the 'Ankles' reference explained, go and look up its derogatory slang meaning because I'm not repeating it here. ;^)
A/N: Strange timing, I received this rather corny 'Royal Job Interview' email from a friend while I was writing the bit about them presenting themselves to the Queen. ;^)
Two blokes living in the Australian outback saw a couple of jobs advertised by the Queen of England. She was looking for footmen, to walk beside her carriage.
They applied and were very happy to be flown to London for an interview with Her Majesty.
She says to them: "Because my footmen must wear long white stockings, I must see your ankles to be sure they are not swollen or misshapen."
After they show her their ankles, the Queen says: "It is also important that you don't have knobby knees, so I need to see your knees too."
Once she has seen their knees, she says: "Now everything appears to be in shape, so I just need to see your testimonials."
Nine years later, when the pair are finally released from prison, one of the blokes says to the other: "I reckon, if we just had a bit more education we would have got that job!"