Recommended Songs: Apocalyptic by Halestorm
Every Time You Leave by I Prevail, Happier by Rajiv Dhall
An: Is everyone enjoying this? Have any of you tried any of the fic I recommended?
Because, as many people often said, it was Hogwarts so of course everyone knew; the whole school knew by lunch time that Snape would be going to Azkaban for his mental assault of the Lansing boy. The rumor mill had the unintended consequence of spreading the Lansing reputation and their position in the Wizengamot. The result was that Hawthorne and his two closest friends, Neville and Hermione, plus the new addition of Annalise Ashman, were stared at like a particularly bad car accident in front of a school sort of way.
"Harry, aren't you bothered by the staring?" asked Neville who got jittery and had already dropped something five times in the last twenty minutes. In his experience being the center of attention was not a good thing.
"There's no real point in being intimidated. Maybe if I were self-conscious about how I looked but I'm not so there's no real problem with them staring. It's not like they can really perceive me, as my grandmother likes to say. Sure, they see what I look like physically but it's not like when they stare they can somehow see whatever it is that caught their attention."
"I guess you're right, Harry." Hermione tilted her head, "they'd have to have some sort of special power to be able to see situations in your past or in your future just by looking at you."
"Is that what he meant?" asked Neville, who thought Harry occasionally sounded like his gran.
"Yep. If they really wanted answers to their questions, they'd ask instead of staring."
"But aren't you worried about the S-slytherins?" asked the blond. "They got a l-lot of favorit-tism from S-snape."
"Most of them won't do anything other than complain. Some probably didn't like the man anyway. The ones that could do something will be discouraged from it purely because of my family, others because the risk outweighs the results. Besides, my family isn't one to let one of theirs alone without reliable help in any situation. I'm perfectly safe from anything other than truly dark magics." The other two first years glanced at each other. Neville caught Hermione's eye and shrugged. He didn't know much that she didn't. Hawthorne was confusing even for someone raised in the magical world.
"I guess. I hope you know what you're doing." Hermione didn't sound so sure.
"I'm with Hermione on this one, Lansing." Annalise, who'd been walking with the three friends said. "Perhaps people like you and I may be fine but Hermione? And even Neville? He doesn't wear his Heir ring so he's not afforded that protection either. There are people who'd hurt your friends since they can't get to you." Harry stopped short and frowned.
"You're right, Ashman. I'm sorry I didn't take that into consideration. I'm not so naive that I don't know there are such people. I guess I just expected the adults in the castle to do their duties." Hermione nodded her agreement.
"It's a school. We should be able to trust in our safety, shouldn't we?"
"Yeah….. You did hear the Headmaster say there's a highly deadly something in the third floor corridor, right?" Hermione looked shocked. She had clearly forgotten the headmaster's closing speech. She had thought it highly irregular that a teacher, and the headmaster no less, would threaten death even as a joke.
"You have to admit, it isn't that far out that we would think he was having us on. He did start the feast with literal nonsense."
"He's supposed to be a genius, though. Especially in the field of Defense. He did get most of his positions after defeatign a Dark Lord. You can't blame me for thinking he's up to protecting his students, even from other students. Of course we have magic to consider but look around." Harry gestured to the corridor they were walking through to get to the Great Hall. "We're surrounded by ghosts, paintings, and other students almost every second of the day. The only places a student could be really alone is the toilet and the showers. Even our dorms are shared by other students. Are we really so vulnerable when such a large castle is covered in eyes?"
"I would say you have a point," said Annalise, "except that Dumbledore has a long history of handing out second, third, and so on chances. A few points lost, a detention or two and a stern talking to are the most they'd get. Grandfather also complains about the castle being so insulated. No one really tells what's going on inside to the outside and it's not like anyone from the outside can interfere."
"You make it sound like it's own country with its own laws. If someone breaks ministerial law, even as a student, they must be dealt with by the authorities." Hermione added.
"You would think." Neville shook his head. "Gran also complained about the eternal forgiveness. There have probably been several laws broken throughout the castle. It's bound to happen when you have all kinds of people living together and arguing together, let alone with magic to be able to harm each other. I don't believe the people that grow up to be criminals start only once they're adults. It has happened that someone or other does something that is too dangerous and they're tried at court instead of facing detention. Unfortunately, that only happens when the victim is a pureblood with money and a family to back them up against a poorer perpetrator. Most of those times, the 'criminal' didn't start the altercation and isn't a pureblood. In those cases, how responsible or whether they were the aggressors isn't really important. The minute they're said to have hurt a pureblood, they're jailed."
"That's terribly unfair!" Hermione had stopped completely and was glaring at the other three. "That stinks of racism. How can anyone let it continue?"
"Well," said Harry as he sat at the Gryffindor table, "it's not so easy as that. We should be covering the Blood war in History of Magic but with that useless ghost….who knows? The Blood war was a war that was actually still going ten years ago. It completely centered around that same blood purity debate. A group of fanatical blood purists started trying to take over the magical world by killing, torturing, and otherwise harming anyone that didn't meet their standards. It included random muggles and creatures, not just half bloods and muggleborns. Even with the mass casualties, many of the people who believe in pureblood supremacy, continue to believe in it."
Despite the heavy topic of conversation, and the stray from the original topic, Hermione was enjoying the history lesson/social lesson. Again the group hadn't noticed the amount of people listening in. The Hufflepuffs, being the closest of the houses, and the Gryffindor second years, had started listening the minute the Blood war had been brought up. Even so many years later, it was still a delicate subject and most Muggleborns learned of it in hushed tones from their friends.
"It really goes much further back than that, Hermione. If you go far enough, back to the beginning of the witch hunts and trials beginning in the sixteenth century. The fear of witches, and magic in general, had been caused by Christianity. Unfortunately, the muggles of the time had been completely converted and since their belief stated that magic and witchcraft were evil and signs of the devil, they were reacting to it in very violent ways. The real problem with that of course, was the muggleborns. They're beliefs and their abilities were in direct opposition. For some of them, they hid their power and learned in secret. For others, they left their lives as muggles and fled to magical towns. Unfortunately, others completely believed that they'd be absolved of the 'evil' within them by bringing practicing magicals to 'justice'. That's what really caused fear and distrust of the muggleborn." He took a bite of his steamed vegetables and swallowed them.
"It gets worse really. In an attempt to make the rituals and traditions of the magical a little less intimidating and easily accepted by the muggles and muggleborn, some of the traditions and rituals were made a taboo. To speak about them in public became rude. As time went on, more and more of those traditions and rituals, the knowledge about deeper magic, was lost and made into something either considered dark or something no one uses or talks about. In some cases those things were almost essential, not just to those that took part but to many. Because the whole thing started as a way of keeping the wizarding world acceptable to muggleborns, almost as a defense mechanism, they got the blame for it. Their culture and traditions were forcibly being pushed aside and made illegal if not just highly shunned because of the beliefs that caused the murder of so many of their brethren. Well we don't get to do x because muggleborns see it as a satanic ritual. We lost so much knowledge because we weren't allowed to do y because the muggleborns would see it as devil worship. Etc, etc. That's not to say that the Dark Lord's supporters were in the right, either. Killing, torturing, destruction, and all kinds of horrible things aren't tradition or a ritual. It was another case of using belief as an excuse to do something. Their belief that the Old Ways should be preserved and in some cases still used has little to do with them killing a defenseless child and their family just because the child has magic. They just used it as an excuse to carry out their depravity. Many people who didn't get involved may have agreed that change was necessary and they shouldn't be made to pander to Christian derived Muggle sensitivities but hated to see that used as an excuse for what was essentially terrorism."
"So what does that have to do with Muggleborns or halfbloods being unjustly punished by the courts system?" Hermione had been listening and taking notes with one hand as she used the other to shakily feed herself. It was a funny sight in an otherwise uncomfortable situation. The Hufflepuffs, especially Susan Bones, who was niece to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, were incensed to hear of injustice in the courts system.
"I was getting there. Keep in mind that it's not a one hundred percent unfair situation. Anyway, the Wizengamot is the one that meets for actual full blown trials. So to get convicted of something serious like murder, or assault, you have to be judged by the full Wizengamot. For custody disputes, suing somebody, things as unimportant as minor thefts and such, you're seen by a small group of people including your solicitor, the prosecutor, and a high ranking member of the department your trial deals with. That's usually the DMLE or the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Anyway, the majority of the members of the Wizengamot are pureblood. The Fourteen are Noble and Ancient Houses so the majority of them are pureblood. The most influential people of the magical world are people with strong ties to it and that tends to mean old or pureblood. So you end up with the department heads being pureblood too. The minister is voted in by the people but like any politician, they tend to have ties with the Fourteen, and the Noble Houses. Again, most of the ministers have been pureblood with the exception of two. The majority of the Wizengamot seat holders who aren't pureblood are found in the seventeen seats held by the recipients of the order of Merlin."
"So you're saying that the majority of the powerful people in the government are pureblood? That's why they're more likely to punish halfblood and muggleborns excessively? That's still not fair!"
"Again there's more to it. Like Annalise and Neville said, in the case of assault and broken laws in the castle, the majority go unreported to the DMLE. He'd rather have them in detention instead of facing real consequences for the laws they've broken. So the only ones that do get reported are reported by purebloods who don't like that their intended victim defended themselves too well. Of course, they tend to have more money and more ties to the members of the panel who'll be judging the person they pointed out as the criminal. Outside of the castle is a whole other thing. There's of course those who are knowingly being blood purist because of the reasons I just explained. Then there's the subconscious prejudice formed by the ages of dislike between the two cultures. That can be exhibited even by those who actively accept and try to learn more about muggles and the muggleborn. And expecting fitness is a little idealistic and unrealistic. The concept of fair depends on your point of view. What's fair for the eagle is unfair for the mouse, what's fair for the fish is unfair for the monkey."
"But-but….ughh!" Hermione slammed shut her notebook and attacked the last of her food with surprising hostility. The conversation would probably continue at another time, but for now she had well and truly forgotten how they had started it in the first place. Hawthorne, however, hadn't forgotten. That same afternoon, he sat down to write another letter to his family.
Recommended Reading: Face On The Milk Carton by dyslexic penguin
The Augurey by La-Matrona