Chapter 5: Chapter 5
Recommended Songs: Dream Sweet in Sea Major by Miracle Musical
Glitter & Gold by Barns Courtney
AN: Here's the next Chapter! Have any of you heard any of the songs I've recommended? Did you like them? How about the fanfics I've recommended? Comment or message me with fics you think I'll enjoy!
The three new friends had been enjoying the first twenty minutes of their journey when a red faced, puffing redhead slammed the door of their compartment open. He leaned against the doorway for a second, trying to catch his breath before looking up. He barely glanced at Hermione and Neville, instead focusing on Hawthorn and staring at him with a look of supreme confusion.
"You Harry Potter, then? The other compartments are all full so budge over." The redhead pushed Hermione harshly so that she fell into the wall of the compartment and created a space between her and Hawthorn. A space he settled into, sitting on a book Hermione had been showing the other two boys.
"My name is Hawthorn Lansing, not Harry Potter. We didn't ask you for your name, let alone to join us."
"Bloody Hell, I've been all over this train looking for that prat! If mum hadn't told me he was raised muggle I'd stay here. He needs a best friend to help 'im you know." He puffed out his chest and acted like he was the perfect choice.
"What if-f he doesn't-t want your help?" asked Neville curiously. Ron looked confused and started pinking up.
"Well who else'll help 'im? Better me than a stinking snake or a half baked squib like that Longbottom kid. 'Course I'll have to teach 'im quidditch first so's we can watch Gryffindor practice together." The mentally deficit boy didn't notice Hermione gasp when he mentioned Longbottom, or Nevill tear up, or Hawthorn's eyes become green, green slits in anger.
"Neville Longbottom is my friend and you best leave right now if you know what's good for you." Hawthorn had stood and was looming over the clueless Weasley. Ron looked up at him in surprise and paled rapidly. His eyes darted to the teary Neville and back at Hawthorn. For someone who stuck not just his foot but his entire leg in it;he made the connection quickly. He picked up and fairly ran out of the compartment, Hawthorn's snort of disgust hot on his heel.
"Don't listen to him Neville, squibs are never accepted into Hogwarts and Longbottoms tend to be late bloomers. According to family history, Leland Longbottom the first had trouble with magic until he turned fourteen. He wasn't even the latest bloomer in your family. I'm certain you'll do well. Just give it time and relax, yeah?" Neville stared out of the window at the outside world whizzing by.
"I kind of thought it was 'cause of the attack. Gran thinks it's just me." If Hawthorn and Hermione hadn't been focused on Neville, they wouldn't have heard his soft whisper.
"Listen, Neville, your family and mine go way back to the days of ritual magic. To learn Lansing history is to learn lots of Longbottom history. No offense to your grandmother but she's a Beaufort and any Longbottom history would have been what she had to know as a wife of House Longbottom not as Regent or Head. Beauforts wouldn't know much about Longbottom history either since the entire family immigrated to the Isles in the late seventeenth century and remained in 'lower society' until they started working for the Goblin Inquisition of the mid eighteenth century. Even then they stayed well away out of the way of the Noble and Ancient Houses. Your Grandmother is the first Beaufort to have any connection with anyone over basic House level. Your Grandfather himself was a late bloomer, he was homeschooled until he was all caught up with Hogwarts students his age at fifteen. His magic didn't really manifest until he was thirteen."
"What's all this about houses and levels? I didn't read anything about it. What about ritual magic?" THe boys looked at each other. They may just have met but they already knew Hermione was a shoo-in for Ravenclaw. She just wanted to know everything.
"W-ell. Long time ago, before the Ministry of Magic and Hog-w-warts even existed, there were more than just Light and D-dark Magic. There was Ritual Magic-c. That was Magic in a kind of coven, or group setting but also kind of not caring about right or wrong kind of magic."
"The easiest way to describe it is a little amoral or even Gray. Ritual magic is different than the magic commonly used today because it's both group magic and because it relies on a connection to magic itself. You know about Wiccans and Shamans and that kind of thing, right?" Hawthorn waited for her nod before continuing, "They tend to practice in groups as well as worship personifications of magic like Hecate. Ritual magic is very, very similar. The rituals are both to connect to magic as a force or power and to get something done. The thing about ritual magic is that most rituals have to be led by a 'favorite of magic' or a priest or priestess of magic. That kind of knowledge stayed exclusively in certain bloodlines and so called schools of magic. In this sense, school meaning a group of people who chose each other to pass down their knowledge, kind of like schools of thought. Most of those bloodlines have either died out or been lost to time. The schools of magic have completely disappeared. A few of their rituals may still exist but their true power is lost to time." Neville nodded.
"To say-y that the Long-gbottoms and Lans-sings have been linked since the time of Ritual Magic-c is to say that we've been-n linked since about the Ir-ron ages."
"That's impossible! How can you know if you were linked back then? Few things still exist from back then!" Hawthorn frowned at the girl and she huffed.
"Hermione, think of the magical world as a completely different world than the muggle world. Wizards kept records that still survive. In fact, of the Fourteen most important families of Magical England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, only seven have histroy that reaches as far back. The Fourteen are the Noble and Ancient Houses, think of the House of Lords, sort of. The Fourteen have hereditary seats in the Wizengamot. The Wizengamot makes laws, sits in judgement, and can appoint and remove people from their Ministry positions if they find them lacking. The Wizengamot has 55 Seats. The Fourteen hold two seats each, each Ministry Head of Department has one seat for a total of eight seats and the Minister holds seat is held by the Chief Warlock, the Wizengamot's elected leader." Hawthorn took a sip of the tea filled tumbler his mother had insisted he pack into the messenger bag he's brought along.
"The last seventeen seats are held by Order of Merlin, First Class holders. Of those, Amelia Bones, Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, and Lucius Malfoy all hold other seats. Madame Bones is her niece's regent so she holds the two Bones' seats. Dumbledore is serving as Harry Potter's regent so he holds the two Potter seats as well as Potter's Order seat and the Chief Warlock's and his own Order of Merlin. If Harry Potter were to take control of his seats, Dumbledore would only hold two seats and Potter would hold three. Lucius Malfoy has been the Black regent since the old Head passed away two years ago and it's rumored he specifically "donated" money to get his Order of Merlin. But who really knows."
"So only some of the Fourteen have such a long history, does that mean that the Longbottoms and the Lansings have Wizengamot seats?"
"Ex-actly right. Technically, I'm the hold-der of the Longbottom seats but Gran is my Reg-gent. Who holds-s the Lansing seat?" Hawthorn took another sip of his tea under Hermione and Neville's jealous gaze. Tea would have been nice but the famous trolley lady hadn't passed by and they were in one of the first compartments so they would have seen her relatively early.
"No one. Generally, if the rightful holder of a seat or seats can't hold them, they get a regent or one is assigned for them. Like the Black seat for example. The current Lord is in jail so the court appointed Malfoy on the basis that his wife is a daughter of House Black. The Lansing seats are different. No one can sit for them unless they pass a series of tests. Tests that the court doesn't know. The last Lansing to attend Hogwarts, Geoffrey Lansing, only sat for three meetings and placed our votes in stasis. Now they show up as abstaining votes. The court tried appointing regents but anyone who tried sitting at the actual seats was ejected quite painfully and their votes weren't even counted. Since the Magic of the Wizengamot is what takes votes, no one could do anything about it."
"How does someone learn about this? I didn't see anything about it in any of the books I read. Believe me, I read a lot of books."
"You c-could read Nature's-s Nob-bility. It's a horrible book, very r-racist about blood purit-ty but it has all about the classes and houses. Every Pure-blood with-th any pow-wer has to read it as kid-ds. My gran made me read-d it as punishm-ment."
"Where can I get a copy?" Hawthorn pulled his trunk from the overhead storage and opened it on the floor. It looked like an empty trunk until he rotated a small number dial in the latch. Hermione had thought it was a numerical password lock. Immediately, the trunk appeared to be almost full of miniature books.
"Nature's Nobility." he told….the trunk? A thick black bound book with bronze gilded edges zoomed out of the trunk and seemed to grow in his hands. He handed it to her. "Here. You can borrow my copy. It's not really published anymore and anyone who has more than one copy won't sell for anything. Just make sure you return it to me in less than two months. Otherwise it will hurt you."
"You'll hurt me?" asked Hermione in a horrified whisper. Hawthorn blinked.
"Of course not! These books were kind of jinxed. If anyone other than the rightful owner keeps them for more than two months, they sting, bite, and cause pain to whoever has them. I'd never hurt you. You're my friend, remember?" Hermione beamed at the boy and sat down to read. Hawthorn and Neville gave each other quizzical smiles. Girls were nuts.
AN: The Houses and that whole system is a huge thing in many, many fics so it's not an idea I can credit any one author or fic to. As to Ronald…. I do like him however I do think it was super weird for Mrs. Weasley to have been shouting about Muggles and the Station on the Muggle side. It's not like she forgot or was trying to teach her kids about where it was. She has SEVEN! She must have gone to the station a minimum of fourteen times to pick up and drop off Bill (that's without counting the times she may have gone for him during breaks, just the drop off at the beginning of each year and the pick up at the end). And yes, her kids all overlapped attendance but still. 14 times in just the time Bill was there. She was for sure looking for Harry. Maybe she didn't have bad intentions but it's still shady af.
Recommended Reading: Harry Potter in the Claw of the Raven by BakenandEggs (It's a series so read those if you like this one)