Author's Note:
I experimented with embedding audio in the Wattpad and AO3 versions of the story (background music to set the mood for the two major scenes here), but alas that's not possible in FFNet. So, this is text only.
So, let's proceed to the Third Arc!
This chapter turned heavier and more sombre than I planned and sort of drained me out of ideas for the next chapter. They just...don't measure up to this one. I must've gone through who-knows-how-many-100k-words of fanfics this week trying to jumpstart the muse (I've gone through a 200k Battlemech one, a 200k Dresden Files + ASoIaF one among others...it's just that it's still not helping). This is just a heads up in case chapter 66's update lags.
Many apologies if I haven't gotten back to your comments either. Like I said, I'm doing my best trying to bootstrap the next chapter, and so comment replies are one of the things that I'm behind on. On the other hand, thanks to everyone who had left a comment. Man, I can't believe that I'd be at the point where I have enough readers to even be behind comments, so yeah, it's heartening, thanks everybody!
(I'm ordering this alphabetically because I think I was losing track who I've replied to...)
To Ash:Thanks! Happy reading!
To bukspiks: It's actually a cute username, really, and I'm really flattered that you're squeeing at my replies. Also, you're probably having Harry and Ron flashbacks because Moody, with his Auror work, is exactly what they would be doing according to several of Hermione's recent flashbacks. On the subject of names, I use behindthename (add a triple w and com as necessary). As for names...I always like to figure out the meaning in a name.
(minor detour on names): All names have meanings; it's just a matter whether you speak a language where it's the sound/pronunciation that's mostly retained of ancient names or the meaning. Chinese names are clearly and example of the first—most people (generally) knows the meaning of a name, but you no longer pronounce it the way you would have in Classical Chinese or any of the older languages. English, like many European names, are of the second category. Like, if I wanted to name my daughter something that means 'pearl', I wouldn't name her Pearl. I'd use Margaret, or something, because Margaret meant pearl. See? There is already a name that fits your need. No need to invent something new or even *shudder* bork the spelling like 'Perl' or 'Pyrl' just to get something unique. Also, it may surprise you, but some of the names I use are just actual European names. Of course, the US seemed to have carried over a more limited selection of English names, for some reason.
To kaira-hime: Heh, funny that you should mention Tom's 'inevitably darker' plans...
To simmingdae: Every time someone says that Strange Attractors' version of Tom is their favourite version of him, I fist pump. Thanks! Hermione's still light grey, really, and I'll do my best to keep her there.
'-
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~ TNS&C ~
~ Third Arc – To Navigate Scylla & Charybdis ~
[3]
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65 Old War Dogs
Galatea Merrythought has a drink with old friends in a pub. Conversations about their students. Reminiscences of a different conflict. Daedalus drops in at the Search's headquarters bearing gifts. Galatea Merrythought invites Hermione over for tea and stories.
In which Hermione voices the Promise that she made to herself.
'-
It was Friday night, and even if the official Hogsmeade Weekend hasn't quite started yet in Hogwarts, it was clear that some teachers have already decided to start their weekend now and unwind. Hermione and Tom would have no idea about it (nor would they care), as they had their own affairs to tend to after the unsatisfying discussion as to whom their ministry liaison for the Search should be.
For now, let us return to the Three Broomsticks.
The witch's shock of white hair was easily identifiable from almost anywhere in the establishment, though her face was still unlined. It certainly made meeting up easier when she'd arrived earlier than her friends. Galatea Merrythought was nursing a tumbler of firewhisky in front of her when her colleagues showed up.
"I thought we agreed to do this two weeks ago? This is a bit late, isn't it?"
Orpheus Dexter took the stool to her left, dark robes the colour of the night sky shifting behind him. She could see the faintest dusting of stars on them. "I did say I was sorry, Galatea. It's not like I can safely leave writing test problems to my assistants. The term's end is already here."
"You say that like I don't need to write test problems too."
"Half of your tests are practice tests!"
"You can do that with yours too. Do oral tests." She teased. He let out an aggrieved sigh and peevishly scratched his hair. They both knew that it was an issue of the standards set by Hogwarts board of governors than anything they could change. Astronomy's written tests still had to cover 80% of the materials (and of the final weight). The fact that it hadn't been changed for three centuries did not make the board more inclined to review it soon. Orpheus had been collecting signatures and essays from his colleagues in the continent expressing how the modern curriculum and approaches used by current Astronomy Masters and Grandmasters had moved on.
Needless to say, it was slow going.
"I'll pay for your next drink." The blond wizard conceded instead.
Her smile grew as Orpheus hailed the bartender to order his drink and hers. A draft passed through the pub as the door opened yet again.
"That would be great, yes. Thank you." She nodded.
Heavy footsteps thudding in an alternating pattern on the wooden floor alerted both of them to the third member of their little group. She glanced back over her shoulder to see the grizzled visage of Silvanus Kettleburn, Hogwarts Professor for Care of Magical Creatures along with his salt-and-pepper hair. He took the seat to her right.
"Evening, all." Silvanus said.
"Evening Silvanus." Orpheus replied.
"Evening Silv," Galatea said, ignoring the glare he sent her way under bushy eyebrows. This, too, was already an old habit of hers, and if Silvanus muttered under his breath, he had yet to really argue with her about it.
As he pulled off his coat and dropped it on the stool next to his, she could hear the 'whump' of its solid mass—Hogwarts' professor and official beast keeper had yet to give up his old dragonhide coat, even if it meant continuously mending and darning it. On the upside, the number of protective runes he'd sewn on its lining meant that at this rate, it probably counted as light armour (the dragonhide itself was rather magic resistant, but not the fabric lining). He'd ordered one of the local beers to start with.
"And what's your excuse for cancelling on us last week and the one before?" The witch asked him.
"Needed to get the iron leg calibrated, what else?" He grumbled. "Winfrith had warned me that anytime the season changes, if I start feeling some aches, I'd need to reset the connection, sensitivity and whatnot. Well, I tried it myself but it wasn't getting better. It was actually hurting more."
"So, you stopped trying to be so tough and actually call her." Galatea finished the story with a wry grin.
"So I floo-called her," Silvanus continued, not bothering to answer at her comment, "and we set a place to meet, you know how fraught it is to floo travel to the continent and back. We only managed that last week to meet in Helsinki, since going to-and-fro neutral territories are much smoother. You wouldn't believe the number of floo jumps needed to achieve that—"
"Wait a minute, if I'm about to hear you complain about your last weekend's travel, I'm not even tipsy enough to enjoy that yet. Let's hold that back for at least another half an hour." Orpheus cut in as he picked up his own glass of wine.
Silvanus muttered something about unappreciative friends and Orpheus only grinned.
"Did Winfrith chew you off for taking too long to fix it?" Galatea asked.
"Are you telling this story, or am I?" He groused. She could hear the heavy thump-thump-thump of impatient metal fingers against the countertop. His right hand was busier holding his stein. She raised a hand in peace.
"Sorry, sorry. Do go on."
"Wait, don't go on," Orpheus added quickly. "Let's just circle back to it later. I've heard her name a few times before, but I hadn't made the connection. Her name isn't common and I'm sure I've heard it before somewhere."
"None of our names are exactly common," Galatea dryly remarked. "After all, you can always check the registry to see who's already using what."
Names confer destiny. For the average witch or wizard, it may not be a major Destiny, with a capital D, but it does not mean that most magical parents would like to have their children's fate intertwine with someone else's. It was why the wizarding world scarcely have the same first names within the same generation or two.
"Winfrith, Winfrith… is it actually Winfrith Hohenheim?" Orpheus asked in surprise.
"Who else?" Silvanus murmured into his glass. "There's not a lot of prosthetics master, definitely not with that name."
"Huh," Orpheus mused, "didn't really know her. I know her husband better; the Sages needed to construct this large-scale orrery, back in the late 20s. The thing is, we wanted the model planets to also accurately reflect the conditions on the real planets, and apparently that required some rather finicky metal alchemy to create the connection. That was how I knew Eduard."
"Why go with Hohenheim, though? I thought you'd have asked Albus, what with the Royal Stargazers being based in England." Silvanus asked, his metallic left hand drumming a slow rhythm on the countertop yet again.
"Because Albus was working to finish his grandmaster in transfigurations or alchemy under Flamel. I don't even know which one then, possibly even both. Like hell I even know how to contact Flamel of all people."
Orpheus' tone was a little self-deprecating as he said this. Galatea sipped her second glass of firewhisky. Silvanus had already ordered more beer for himself. Expectation hung heavily in the air, as they were still skittering around the primary reason that they did this at least once a year, usually twice. Tension skittered back and forth among the three of them.
"So…" she started.
"So," Orpheus replied.
Both of them turned to Silvanus who bristled. "What? We're drinking and talking among friends, isn't that enough?"
The white-haired witch did not let herself be goaded. She let a calmer quiet settle between them for a while before she spoke up.
"You know it's not, Silvan."
There was a sigh from her left, and Orpheus leaned his head against one hand. "I'll go first then. I still avoid going through the Forbidden Forest during heavy rain, especially if I was alone. It's not as bad if I have company, because the conversation can distract me enough. If not, though…I can still catch the phantom scent of gunpowder sometimes. It's not there, but my head fills in the blanks all too readily."
"Anything happier?" Galatea asked instead.
"I had cause to visit muggle London last month and met Stevens, someone I knew from the Warwickshire Regiment. We went for drinks." His answer was succinct.
"And you laugh at the idiots that you both remember." Silvanus murmured.
"At idiots that only we remember," Orpheus corrected, his tone warmer for some reason, yet his expression was mixed. "He wanted to invite me to meet the rest of the boys around Boxing Day."
"If they're fundraising for their widows and orphan funds, owl me their accounts." Silvanus said.
"Send it to me too," Galatea added quickly. His friends' easy rejoinder left the astronomer slightly off-kilter as he knew not what to say so.
"Ah…thank you."
Hogwarts head of beastkeepers shrugged. "No problem at all."
"Do none of them find you…odd?" Galatea mused. "Even if you're from some strange detachment with single-letter codes that the headquarters stay mum about? No comments on how surprisingly well-preserved you are for a man your age?"
It was Silvanus' turn to laugh. For the first time that evening, his gravelly voice had lost its reluctant edge. His wide shoulders shook with mirth. "Honestly, Galatea, the regular soldiers know that they're never told much. They don't care. If you had their backs, you're a good fella. Even if nobody can ever get your hair into what they call 'regulation' hair. Especially when you always have more rations to pass or trade than anyone else."
"True enough," she nodded. "Nobody asked many questions about how I was able to pass messages swiftly during night time in Passchendaele, over several trenches and large stretches of no man's land."
"More night heron than swift, I wager."
She quirked her lips into a smile but said nothing.
"Good thing you were in Hogsmeade at that last brush up, Galatea," Silvanus said again. "Merlin, I regret not going there from the morning. At least with you, the kids are certainly in good hands."
"I wasn't alone," she pointed out. He rubbed his beard with his flesh hand and scoffed.
"Who the hell expects you to do it alone? Not me."
"Not me either," Orpheus chimed in.
"I mean, if I was there, a few weeks ago, somebody's going to end up dead and that person weren't going to be me." Kettleburn said, with a certainty of someone who had killed people before and knew how to live with it.
"It's really not advisable to throw Avada willy-nilly when you're back home, you know. We're not even supposed to be killing anybody back then," The Astronomer casually pointed out. It was met by a snort and coughs of disbelief, to which he only gave a mysterious smile.
"Well, men may plan all they wish, but when your plans hit reality…" the duelling mistress trailed away.
"Still, Order of Merlin for the children? Pffft. Where was the one for you and the others?" Silvanus was on a roll now, his voice almost rising. "They're not giving you any because it would be so inconvenient for the Ministry's popularity game, wouldn't it?"
"Do watch that hand, Silvanus." The blond interrupted.
The white-haired witch knew what Orpheus meant—the last thing they needed was Silvanus banging his left fist on the top. That was going to break it right in the middle sooner or later.
"We know it's a popularity game, Silv. Besides, it's not that we're adults, it's mainly because we'd gone off against Ministry recommendation of staying out of it back then. I don't think that mark on us is going anywhere for at least another decade." She answered him, a rueful sigh escaped her lips.
"And well, I was involved. No one else was going to get considered now—I suppose I should apologise to Phyllida. Travers is still in the Ministry, isn't he? I don't think he'll ever stop to keep me out its hallowed halls. He will never forget what I did to Evermonde."
"—buggering nob of an undersecretary—"
"Silvanus, it's fine." Galatea spoke up.
Orpheus shook his head. This time, his tone was steel. "You weren't wrong, Galatea, none of us were. We're still British subjects. They can't even outright forbid us to try assisting at the front back then—we even maintained the Statute of Secrecy, didn't we?"
For all his appearance of a mild-mannered professor, the blond's opinion was unyielding on this.
"Their worries are not exactly unfounded, Orpheus. You know the people you went in with, same with you, Silvanus. How many of them went back with you? Merlin and Morgana, if Madame Álava and even Albus didn't pitch in with the rescue and extra wards at the hospital, around the end, I don't know how many would've been gone."
Hogwarts's expert of Magical Creatures' nodded thoughtfully at that. "Even with that, the butcher's bill is several feet long. That's a lot of wizards and witches."
"That's a lot of wizards and witches who aren't going to have children and raise them. We don't exactly grow at the same rate as the muggles do," she continued his sentence.
"Oh, yeah, like jarveys and pixies, the whole lot of them." The other professor murmured, with more than a hint of envy.
It had only hit the white-haired witch now, after more than a decade teaching, that she seemed to remember her graduating year to be somewhat larger than the ones she was teaching now. It was perhaps not by much, but if one were to observe carefully, the difference was visible.
Orpheus was leaning his chin against clasped hands, his gaze somewhere in some unseen distance. She hoped he wasn't stuck in another French village none of them were too eager to see again. His voice was still calm that Galatea relaxed.
"I always thought Nightingale was being a tad dramatic when he wrote that poem, you know? But now, one of them did surface in my mind from time to time."
"Which one was it? He wrote several, didn't he? Where was he at, anyway?"
The blond wizard paused. "Back then? High Wood, I think. Let me remember it… I don't remember the entire poem, but the last stanza is…
The iris of valour bright in her breast
Were mere fallen petals as life were wrest
His courage rose red as lifeblood poured
The flowers of wizardry fell at Somme
."
Silvanus' reply was eloquent.
"Well…shit."
She snorted. The Defence Mistress could recall meeting Nightingale before, probably at the same 'Thank goodness we're alive/oh shit, why are we alive/why isn't it anyone else that's alive?' celebrations they'd gone to before. He'd always been good with words, though she'd thought that he was a little too thoughtful (alright, if she were to be honest, he was outright brooding). It wasn't always a good thing to be stuck in your own head when your recent memories are mostly painful.
The chatter of the pub was clearer now with neither of them talking. The barkeep had the good sense to notice what they were talking about and had left them alone. As Galatea wondered how to stop this from becoming too morose, Silvanus unexpectedly spoke up first after he asked for some scotch.
"You both need to warn your students."
"Our students?" Orpheus asked, askance.
"You have Little Miss Genius in your House, and 'Tea has been teaching the Occitan and the Half-English prefects. They need to hear the warning we never had."
"Wait, Pip and Ceres? Albus would have greater sway over them," she protested.
Silvanus flattened her objection without a second thought. "Albus thinks that some things are self-evident that I'm not sure if he can build a strong enough argument for it. He never thought it was a good idea to help with the non-magical war back in 1916 and he doesn't think so now either. Sure, he agreed with medical help, but that's not what most of the brats are thinking about, is it? I don't think he'll manage to convince the young 'uns."
"I don't think Hermione's that reckless…"
The astronomer trailed away as his friend outright guffawed, bushy eyebrows shaking. "Not reckless? Ha! You haven't been looking, Orphne! What prim and proper witch would have decided to venture out in Hogsmeade when an attack was happening? What nice and restrained student would decide that looking for the shooters and disarming them is a good idea?"
Silvanus Kettleburn watched his friends digest his words.
"She's an excellent healer for her age, Silvanus. Surely you don't think that it would've been better for her to hold back?" The blond was distracted enough that his wine was forgotten by now.
"No, not for the civilians." He was agreeable about it.
"But her ability to not give in to her fear and go straight into danger…yes, that's very unusual and I've trained enough duellists and fighters to know," Galatea pointed out. "Other trainee healers may be able to match her skills, but her determination…that's all her."
The grizzled teacher nodded; she'd easily put into words the understanding he'd known in his gut. He was so animated his hands were waving around, and he missed how Galatea had subtly drawn her stool back to get out of the range of his metallic arm.
"Then, we have that perfect prefect Horace is so proud of, who seemed to have discovered witches for the first time in his life, eh? Why, he went with her without even blinking about it! And does he look much shaken in the days after, Orpheus, Galatea?"
"I saw no signs of it." The blond wizard was the first to reply.
"Exactly! It affected him not at all. It's not that hard to get Horace to speak up about him; that was how I kept up with news of him later on. I know a couple of people like that from the regulars back then and suffice to say that they either make the best or the worst officers. No in-between. Coldest bastards I know. Yet that allows them to walk through fire easily, and thus steel their men's hearts and give them reprieve from their own fears. He can lead them bodily into hell and they'd damn well follow."
"…or to sacrifice his people easily for his own advancement, playing chess on the bloody battlefield, sacrificing men without losing any sleep." Orpheus murmured. From the way his gaze was fixed on the counter top, the wood either held the secrets of the universe in it or he was lost in his memories in that moment.
Silvanus clapped his hands. "Precisely! You know the sort of sods I'm talkin' about. Couple that trait with his ambition, then…well, if that did not spoke of an aptitude for danger and glory, I don't know what does. Cernunnos knows I see that arrogance often in the mirror back when my hair was all black."
He waited with a grim sort of amusement, flashing his canines in a grin, as realisation and horror dawned on Dexter's face. Silvanus turned to Galatea next.
"I don't think I need to say much about the two Gryffindor prefects. They're in your Advanced Defence II class, aren't they, 'Tea?"
Her tumbler was empty but they all knew that she had a high tolerance and an iron-cast liver.
"Yes, they are, and no, you don't need to say anything more. They might have not been as…effective as Hermione and Tom had been, but they're cut very similarly, aren't they?" The witch mused.
"They might have intended just to help a little, but you know what happens in these things. In war, objectives change." Silvanus shifted his beer steins around. "Governments see opportunities and shift. They've always been all too eager to send their young to the meat grinder for a little pissing contest. Once they realise that they have the perfect pawns at hand, well… Why wouldn't they give a little extra directive here and there? Make requests? 'Oh, won't you please help deliver this bit of supplies or ammunition to this half-regiment at the edge here?'"
"Just a little delivery." The duelling mistress followed his thought easily.
"That would take them across several miles of hell. Who knows what they'll see? What they'll do?"
The questions were rhetorical. The Astronomy Professor pushed his glass and bottle away, losing his taste for it already. The occasional laughter of Hogsmeade's denizens sounded strange to them, distant; sounds of a world they were not part of.
"We're just a couple of old magicians, not that different from Albus. Why would they listen to us?" Galatea wondered aloud.
"No, I think I get it." Orpheus looked up. "Because we've fought another world war, isn't it? Even if the Ministry would rather pretend that we didn't exist."
His friend nodded slowly under salt-and-pepper hair, grave and solemn now.
"Yes, precisely. Somebody has to tell them."
'-
Daedalus knocked and then entered the room without bothering to wait for a reaction, still feeling the confidence boost provided by his natty coat and robes of dark blue with a contrasting claret tie. He always felt a bit more himself on weekends.
The seventh-year wizard gazed around the repurposed classroom curiously. There was a large map of Europe covering over almost the entire wall opposite of the blackboard. One long table that was unexpectedly wider than usual was placed near the far wall, with a lot of chairs. It was a meeting table, he surmised. Spread across the walls were either a bookshelf or a pigeonhole shelf—all the better to store scrolls in.
At the centre of the room was a large, maroon Persian carpet with a rather detailed pattern of vines and flowers from who-knows-which-storage. The colour was a little faded, but it seemed fine otherwise. It was as unexpected as the medieval-style chandelier, or heck, the damask curtains by the window.
"Wow, you're really serious about redecorating, aren't you?" He mused aloud.
Hermione turned from where she'd been chatting with Melchior Nott, a scroll in one hand.
"Daedalus! It's good to see you here."
"Take your time, I can wait."
She made her way easily towards the doorway. Hermione wore a floral-patterned dress belted at her waist. He would have no idea how to describe it in more detail to his sister if she ever asked. What he was a tad too aware was how the hem stopped slightly higher than the knee, and the long stretch of stockinged legs were a little distracting. He managed to drag his eyes back up only by sheer force of will. Then he started to forcefully imagine pink elephants stampeding around the room.
I wouldn't be surprised if Riddle starts having 'little chats' with half the wizard she passes.
"So, how hard was it to transform an abandoned class to this?" He asked.
"Oh, half of this must've been due to Pinny's diligence while the shelves are certainly due to Abraxas' creativity in digging through the castle's old inventory."
"I bet the curtains were also his work," Daedalus eyed them while leaning back against the door. She seemed surprised.
"How did you know?"
"Hermione, they're green and tied with silver ropes." His voice was dry.
"Ah, yes. I didn't pay much attention to them since other things seem more important." Daedalus didn't even blink at that answer.
What he said instead was, "I'm actually astonished that he hadn't changed the carpet."
Hermione pursed her lips.
"He did say that he'd find a better one to replace it. I kept saying that it's not necessary, but he didn't seem to care,"
"To our everlasting astonishment—"
"I know; I know better now. No need for sarcasm." The brunette sighed and leaned her forehead against a hand. "I'll just ask Pinny to find a dark blue carpet from somewhere, along with a dark grey tablecloth for what used to be the teacher's desk."
"Who's Pinny?"
"One of the house elfs of Ravenclaw House. She seems so enthusiastic to help that I hadn't managed to turn her down at all. What are you here for, Daedalus? I'm sure you didn't drop in to complain about the interior design."
He didn't tell her how curious that was, since the elfs do not often get attached to a particular student, but he was sure that she would completely miss the point if he mentioned it that he said nothing. Instead, he simply focused back on his actual purpose of dropping in there.
"Well, I have some starting points for the French teams, I'm sure…" as he said this, Daedalus entered the room further, looking for a random table to drop his book bag on.
From there, he liberated several scrolls, unrolled them and flattened them in two spells on said table. He told her that he had reports that can confirm just where the Ministry had tried to look for Grindelwald before, though the thoroughness of the search varied, as they did not always have a firsthand report. Sometimes, the investigator was not someone who had lived and worked at the locale for a while.
"…These are the reports from some areas of Burgundy, and then a few cities on the Loire valley. I know that there are more reports for the second part, but what I do have is Tours and Orléans, and there may be more reports from Burgundy than the ones I brought right now. These aren't the entire reports that the Ministry has, alright?"
Hermione scanned the heading of each report and skimmed the first paragraph or two. The monotonous handwriting was rather exact, closer than a printed font type than actual handwriting. He knew when her eyes widened that she recognised it immediately as the result of a copy spell cast on a verbatim quill.
"Daedalus," she murmured. "Did you copy these from Auror reports?"
The Ravenclaw prefect hid his surprise well. Did she really read all that quickly to be able to recognise it? He didn't intend on keeping the source a secret, as it was rather obvious to his trained eye. Yet he hadn't counted on her knowing what it was immediately.
She glanced up at him. He was aware that he was too thick-skinned to be embarrassed, eyes bright with mischief instead.
"Hermione, how could you accuse me so? I cannot possibly comment."
"One of us actually has a parent placed rather high up in the DMLE. That person is emphatically not me." She replied with a bland smile of her own.
"To smuggle or even copy a document of restricted access is a misdemeanour."
"I'm surprised that you even know it's not a felony." She muttered, and he restrained his surprise. Why was he not surprised that she was even aware of the distinction?
"I'm not foolish enough to risk that. I'm a prefect, you know? Have to be a good example and all that rot." He continued as if she hadn't spoken, even if he was holding back his grin.
"So, these aren't actually restricted documents." Hermione finished. Her raised single eyebrow challenged him to tell her that she was wrong. He simply nodded.
"Precisely. It's still not something you want to be caught copying, though—"
"—Me? You mean you don't want to get caught copying—"
"—because it may result in some…misunderstandings. So, believe me when I wholeheartedly encourage you to find a way to officially gain access to these files and the rest of the bunch." He finished, trailing into little chuckles when he heard her pointed protestations.
"Truly, I'm certain that it won't be difficult for you. Healers usually have several Auror contacts, for obvious reasons since they often hold shifts at the A&E. I'm sure Madam Álava have some colleagues she can recommend if you ask her."
Her brown eyes lit up. "Ah, I see. Excellent point. So, are you staying for a while?"
"No. I'm not like you, Hermione, all-too-happy to use up Saturday morning for work. I've given you some head start on the search for now, and I'll contact you later if I have more. In the meantime, I'm going to go to Hogsmeade and just enjoy the fresh air."
"What fresh air? You're just going to get stuck in the bookstore." That was an actual hit to his ego.
"Only in the evening. I actually have a date." He emphasised. The wizard didn't think he was that much of a bookworm, not compared to most of his Housemates. "And you're still going to spend your afternoon in St. Mungo's. That's just insane."
She shrugged as she turned towards him with a smile, as effortless as a ballerina, as if the weight on her shoulders were non-existent. He had no idea how she did it.
"The rotation for healer's apprentices is four weeks on and then four weeks off, and I'm already doing less than most since I'm only doing it part time. So, it's just for four Saturdays in a row. It's not that big of a deal."
Daedalus shook his head in disbelief but said nothing more on the subject, simply rubbing his forehead under his bangs. There really was no way to get Hermione to understand how crazy her schedule was to lesser mortals, so he'd given up trying after a certain point. Curie was certainly a law unto her own.
They chatted for a few more minutes after that, her trying to get him to say who his date was and him enjoying being able to stump her for a bit that he actually stayed mum on the subject. Not that he even thought it was a secret, but there really were too few things that escaped her notice at this point that he appreciated the little things that she still didn't know. Nott joined them after a while; he was probably bored just working alone in his corner when they were making a ruckus chatting. That wasn't a problem for him, as the Nott heir had been one of the less prideful Slytherins that he knew.
"What are you working on, Nott?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" The other wizard's smile was affable with a hint of something more. He relented when Daedalus eyed him sideways. "Well, it's nothing exciting. There is the early draft for some precautions against Grindelwald's most recent methods, along with the mire of legal precedent to go through to back it up just in case it's something that comes across as a little too daring for the current bureaucracy…"
Whether Daedalus even chose to or not, some points of the law were still what his parents often talk about anywhere, not just at the dinner table. A veritable orchard of legal ideas grew wild in his head by dint of sheer exposure seeding them, bearing fruit easily with how often he was watered by concepts hashed out and fed by their ongoing arguments ('discussions'). His mother passed the bar to become Counsel to the Wizengamot and she'd married another avid scholar of justice—her husband merely ended up in law enforcement instead.
The fifth-year trailed away after another two sentences or so, his expression of light embarrassment. It wasn't a strange thing to do, for Nott must have expected him to already yawn at such a dry topic.
"I apologise; I must be boring you."
"Actually no, not at all. I'm not simply being polite when I say this. How do I put this…"
Rubbing his chin, Daedalus sighed. He was regretting his decision to listen to Ignatius' pleadings to take over his prefect position when he resigned last year (for personal reasons). He was starting to grow an utterly inconvenient sense of responsibility. He wanted to say no. The blond wizard really, really wanted to say no; it was going to be such a bother and he appreciated his free time very much.
His mouth said something completely different.
"I'm probably as much of an amateur at this as you are—not a proper legal scholar here—but I've been swimming in some of those cases and discussions for as long as I can remember." He pointed to the thick case book that the Slytherin had carried with him, easily recognising it for what it was. "If you need a second opinion about something or if something got confusing, you know how to contact me."
…and Merlin help us both.
Daedalus accepted Nott's outpouring expression of thanks and his vigorous handshake with a feeling of restrained gloom.
'-
Hermione threw the floo powder and called out her destination. "Hogwarts's Infirmary."
She stepped through the fireplace at St. Mungo's staff lounge into the green flames, closing her eyes halfway to not become disoriented by the swirling vortex of green fire. In the next step (or ten) the young witch exited the fireplace at Maggie Edelstein's office, Head Nurse of Hogwarts. While waving away the ash and occasional embers floating in front of her face, she opened her eyes to take in the room.
Warm lantern glow lit the room. It wasn't even five yet but the sky was fully dark now and filled with millions of stars—a contrast to the reddish sky of London with its purple-tinted clouds where the sun had set some ten minutes ago. Rather stark latitude difference. The sound of quill scratching had stopped the moment she arrived.
"Welcome back, Hermione," Maggie greeted from her desk.
She returned the smile. "Thank you."
"Ah, here's an invite for tea from Galatea before I forget it." Hermione took the envelope from Nurse Edelstein's hand, while the older witch continued. "She said she wanted to chat a little with you this afternoon, but you were already out to St. Mungo's so, I said I'll pass on any message. She asked me to wait while she came up with something and a house elf delivered this sometime later."
Like many wizarding world envelopes, it had a wax seal on it even if it was small. The colour of dark amber, which was either a personal preference or a primary colour of her crest. Who knew that the Merrythoughts had a family crest? She could even make out the motto.
Rideamus in faciei mors.
Ouch, her tired brain didn't have the capacity to be untangling more complicated Latin conjugations yet and looked up. "Can I borrow your letter opener?"
"Sure." She handed the blunt knife to Hermione.
It was not difficult to carefully pry the seal open (she didn't like destroying them if she could help it, especially if it's one she hadn't seen before). Her wince was unavoidable when she saw Professor Merrythought's elegant flourishes on the thick paper. Practically all the adults she knew here had handwriting that was elegant to look at. She told herself yet again that it was a different time as she gamely moved on and focused on the contents.
Ah, there it is, "I cordially invite you to…" ah, tea at her office. Alright. She skimmed past the formal language easily, only pausing at the highlights to get the gist. The speed with which she understood it was probably yet another thing she owed Daphne, even if she couldn't remember it now.
I'll make sure your family gets out of this century alive and well, Daphne, she promised to herself.
"Great. Thanks for the message, Maggie!"
"Anytime, Hermione."
As she walked out, Hermione thought that she would certainly be detouring to Merrythought's suite now. Tom had informed her of his schedule for the day beforehand, probably expecting her to join him after she returned. Change of plans, then. She set off for the Ravenclaw Tower quickly even as she rummaged her bag for a new scroll and quill. It would be easier to write of the situation once she was in the common room, not to mention that there'd be many first and second years looking for an extra bit of pocket change by playing messenger. Once she'd showered and changed, she'd be set for tea.
'-
"Come in, come in, Hermione! Please, take a seat. I've been waiting for you."
She peeked into the room from the doorway, taking in the cosy sofa and the shelves and dining table of light-coloured wood. The interior was warm and cheerful, in shades of maroon, pumpkin and yellow (the Tiffany lamp patterned with graceful art nouveau bumblebees and sunflowers was a surprise, and so was the floor lamp done in the same glasswork and style).
"I'm sorry that you couldn't find me earlier." She took steps into the room as she said this.
Professor Merrythought ushered her in to the gingham sofa. "Oh, it's not a problem. We still managed to meet up all the same, don't we? How was your shift at St. Mungo's?"
Hermione described her experiences, both today and the last two weeks before that. Some of the accidents that people came in from were interesting. Sure, there were the Aurors (Moody and his juniors were not unique there), but the household accidents were sometimes even more bizarre. There was at least one person saying they had 'fallen down' by accident on a bottle and that was where it ended, up his backside and basically irretrievable except by a trained professional. She was gamely doing her best not to let her expression change, even if she had to bite the inside of her lips and sink her right nails into her left forearm.
She'd had chats with the other apprentice healers, and they passed on stories that they've heard from their seniors and the innocuous 'giant glass jar of knick-knacks' on display in a quiet corner. That, Hermione, are the items retrieved and cleaned from a hell lot of people 'accidentally falling on top of them without pants and getting it stuck up where the sun don't shine', as Amanda told her.
That got a good laugh from Professor Merrythought
Another accident or two later, she reached the story of the wizard with a spiky vine, wrapped around his right arm, dripping water as he trailed in. The vine oozed something that smelled as sweet as sugar yet with a similar burning edge that made your eyes water like caustic soda. He laughed and simply said that 'Dear Gertrude' was being 'a handful' today, and he just wanted her to be able to unwind it carefully so he can go back and reattach it to the main plant. She wouldn't let him leave without doing something about the open cuts and reddened and swollen skin he displayed.
Hermione truly did not care if he decided to keep a whole pond full of carnivorous plant, or breed them for faster reflexes and greater toxicity, but there was no way she was going to let him exit St. Mungo's in anything less than good health.
"I had to threaten to tie him down before he took me seriously, you know?" The brunette complained.
Merrythought nodded. "Ah, I know the type. You'd have just as much difficulty dragging Silvanus away from dragons, even if it had costed him both limbs now."
The Ravenclaw blinked. That was interesting. She could hear Professor Kettleburn's heavier right step, of course, and see his metal left hand, but she hadn't wondered how it came around.
"Wow."
"Of course, some people thought it was from the war, and he never tried to explain it. It wasn't exactly wrong—if he hadn't had a metal left hand, he'd have lost it twice again when he crossed the trenches."
That was when Hermione froze and watched her professor's expression carefully. Merrythought wasn't saying what she thought she was saying, was she? The master duellist's expression was still serene, her gaze unwavering. With her shock of white hair, she truly seemed ageless in that moment; a passing divine, an unearthly visitor.
"Um, the trenches, Professor?"
"Certainly. Orpheus and Silvanus were in Ancre and another wood not far from there. I only joined later myself—I was in Passchendaele. I hadn't known either of them until the whole nightmare was over. More tea?" She offered.
"No need for now, thank you."
Passchendaele, there was an uneasy echo of familiarity of the name to Hermione, and she avoided it for the moment in favour of an easier question to ask. "Ancre, Professor?"
"Oh, you know. One of the battles at Somme. My own crucible was at Ypres."
Somme. Now that was a name Hermione knew only too well. Her hands tightened, clutching at nothing while Merrythought's hazel eyes were still too open, too understanding as she tried to process the words and came up with nothing. It would explain the scars on her arm, an unthinking part of her mind opined. Considering that the usual wizarding world outfit usually involved robes, such covering up did not bring second or third thoughts in anyone. The last time Hermione saw Merrythought stepping in the middle of a particularly vicious fight between a Slytherin and a Gryffindor, however, shredded her left sleeves.
She had seen burn scars with slashes of thicker areas and keloid formation at the centre of several. Then the defence professor mended her sleeve and they were no longer visible.
Impossible she'd first thought when she saw it. There's practically no burn so severe that it would leave a scar tissue that obvious in the wizarding world, not with the healing methods and spells available.
"Somme," the word felt foreign on her tongue as she tried it out. She was shaking her head without realising that she did. "That's…that's the previous World War, isn't it?"
"It is. It was the Great War, as we knew it then. The War to End All Wars."
The young witch couldn't help a sceptical scoff at that, even if she immediately covered her mouth in surprise. Merrythought's expression merely drifted slowly into a smile.
"I know. Such hubris," she added.
"But-but…it was a muggle war!" Hermione exclaimed. "We're not supposed to interfere with muggles!"
"What we're not supposed to do is to break the Statute of Secrecy. Trust me, when people are tenacious, they can be very creative. Not to mention that most muggle soldier has no wish to question good fortune or inexplicably able assistance either. If being uncurious would help them live longer, if it could make their life easier, then they'd turn a blind eye to any apparent oddities without a second thought."
Galatea poured more tea for herself.
"I was mostly a messenger as I flew from camp to camp at night—I had the eyes for it, you see. There had been no message that I failed to send, and barely any that took more than a night. When I told my colleagues and the general's staff that I was attached to not to ask any questions as to how I manage it, they didn't—I was from Detachment W, after all, of which most officers knew to be highly classified. If I asked them to stay away from my corner for a whole day, they'd do it promptly."
"I…no, perhaps not the soldiers. I understand that. Yet I can't imagine that the Minister for Magic allowing participation all the same." The Fudge that she knew would've forbid it.
"Oh, they disapproved. They forbid direct involvement in the fight, but…" Galatea Merrythought idly passed her teacup to her left hand. "But the Ministry for Magic is still a Ministry under no. 10 Downing Street. We are not a separate kingdom with a fully independent government. Would a lower bureaucrat have the power to countermand the position of one superior to him? Both Asquith and Lloyd George were always ecstatic at the prospect of our assistance—their opinion is reflected by both their staffs, across all parties. Evermonde certainly could not go against them. In wartime, that would have veered too close to treason."
The name Evermonde was not immediately recognisable to her, though she could feel an odd sense of familiarity from it, like a co-worker from a distant department you only heard in passing once. It was only after a few seconds that she realised that he would have been the Minister for Magic during the First World War.
Merrythought's eyes met Hermione's. "How could he forbid loyal British subjects from assisting their countrymen? He couldn't."
Hermione began to gain an idea of what he did.
"What he could was to use the Statute of Secrecy like a shield, isn't it?"
"Yes. A dozen or two of wizards and witches got pulled out because they weren't any good at keeping secrets or laying low, but most of us stayed. He insisted that we couldn't be directly involved and fight muggles because that would expose us and our abilities—many of us became specialists instead after that. You know that mine is direct communications and messenger services. I know a lot of saboteurs and sappers whose muggle friends insist that they had a 'magical touch', able to light the wettest fuse, to mix their personal proprietary explosive that made green word burn, to provide somewhat dry powder even in pouring rain…"
The smile that Hermione shared was as watery as professor Merrythought's at the recollection. She wasn't sure that the life expectancy of an explosive expert was very good, magic notwithstanding. It was difficult to imagine how many people her professor had known personally that were now simply gone.
"Silvanus told me that even Horace helped—back at England, of course. He never had the stomach for conflict, but his cauldrons had never stopped brewing once Silvanus told him that he could help and how. Albus assisted Madam Álava sometime during the last year of the war, or perhaps two, in the wards of St. Mungo's. It was where the worst wounded were sent back to. I have no idea why he even knew so many spells to arrest damage and heal, I'm just thankful for it. He did his part with the potions too—we could never have too many, not when we were also trying to help alleviate the suffering of our muggle friends."
"Dumbledore only helped around the last year or so?"
"He'd been in the depths of Romania or Wallachia with Flamel. Even after he'd returned, our Albus isn't exactly the most aware or connected to muggle news, is he? If he hadn't ventured back to Scotland once in a while, I'm sure he wouldn't have realised that a war was going on in the muggle world for a long while, perhaps only until it was over."
Hermione covered her mouth again to stop herself from laughing. It was absurd, and yet somehow the unawareness of muggle things still felt like something distinctly Dumbledore. Merrythought's wry expression told her that her teacher was quite aware where her thoughts had gone.
"But I digress. Where was I? Ah, the Minister's opposition, wasn't it?" She sipped her tea while gathering her thoughts.
"I was one of the loudest who countered Evermonde's words in public, in the newspapers. We might be wizards and witches but nowhere does it say that we have to be cowards. Our countrymen were risking their lives and we can't even spare them some assistance? What yellow-bellied attitude is that?"
Hermione couldn't help her small chuckle. "You actually said that?"
Merrythought's grin made her look younger. There were barely any lines on her face. "Oh, I did. I did that in the newspapers and wireless and worse. I insisted that we could keep the Statute of Secrecy and still help. The two goals didn't have to be mutually exclusive. Many of the public had read and heard and clamoured to give us support, in letters to the editor and such. I know that he'd never truly forgiven me for bringing his career down in flames."
"He did that to himself. You just took the opportunity that he set up" Hermione muttered. She probably didn't realise how Slytherin she sounded in that moment, which was why Merrythought's grin turned amused for a second.
"You certainly picked up the weirdest things from Riddle." She commented.
"I'm sorry?"
"Oh, it's nothing. Don't mind me."
Her pleasant expression didn't last long as more of her memories brought her back. She sighed as she glanced towards the window, only a wistful smile now remained.
"You're still young, Hermione."
"What does that even mean?"
She returned her gaze to her waiting student. "I meant that I was young too, back then. Oh, the core idea that I expressed was true, definitely. Yet what I failed to see was how Archer's worries weren't exactly nothing either. He had a point, even if he just had to put it in the most stupid and cowardly way and insist that the lives of the wizarding world were worth a hundred muggles. I don't think anyone could be more tone deaf even if they tried."
Hermione couldn't help but smile at the way Merrythought insulted the ex-Minister so easily. "Archer?"
"Archer Evermonde. He was my year mate in Hogwarts and Ravenclaw prefect. A fussier wizard than him you can scarcely imagine. He once wrote a petition to shift the house elfs' cleaning schedule in the morning back by one hour in summer because he thought the stones were still a little on the damp side in the corridors where the first and second years were to take their classes. At one point he was prepared to argue his hypothesis with the Hogwarts caretaker by brandishing an entire scroll filled with his attempts at measuring the slipperiness of different corridors at different times in the morning. It was something that he managed by mobilising a couple of second-years. Unwise cleaning schedule, he said, and reckless disregard of the safety of the youngest members of the student body."
Hermione's lips twitched slightly. "Oh Merlin, he sounds like an experience."
"Oh, he's an experience alright. I was told by a mutual friend of ours that a foreign diplomat once jumped straight into a pond to avoid him—he'd miscalculated the distance from a viewing pavilion to the stairs."
Hermione's laughter rang clear and Merrythought grinned widely in that moment before she continued her story.
"I told him that badgering people don't get them to do things for you, it just annoys the hell out of them and making them more negative in their opinion to you. You have to make them like you first, and then you have to make it sound like that the change can only benefit them more. Do you know what he did next? He took the effort to ask around what cake the caretaker liked and then went down to the kitchens for a week until he could bake it correctly before he marched all the way to the caretaker's quarters."
"I doubt the man was inclined to pardon him," she replied.
"I did outright tell him to apologise. So, it helped that the first thing he did was insist that he was sorry and that he didn't know how much of an annoyance he was being. There are benefits for being as thick-skinned as he is—he didn't give a fig about pride. Then, he handed the cake."
Perhaps she was merely imagining things, yet for all of Merrythought's annoyance in her anecdote, she thought she caught an undercurrent of fondness.
"If he'd been such a clod about the war, what is it that he got right, then?"
"That we all should've been more careful to not get killed." The older witch explained. Hermione's brows creased as she thought over the answer.
"Even the non-magical soldiers would agree with that,"
Her teacher was already shaking her head that Hermione paused and waited for her to speak. "No. It was years later that I understood what he was trying to say, his tone-deaf phrasing and lack of tact notwithstanding."
There was a restlessness in her hands, in the way she gently passed her teacup from one hand and back again.
"I met more of other fellow veterans, heard about their units and the friends they had known. That was when I thought that someone ought to start writing their experiences down. I asked around for the name of someone who's good at recordkeeping and arithmancy and that was how I was introduced to Septima Eccleston."
"Let's make a record of the veterans and the dead, I suggested. She agreed that it was important; she had always wanted to understand what had driven four of her older brothers to go to the continent where two were never to return alive."
Eccleston? Hermione wondered. Is that Emma's aunt or mother?
"She said that we can probably even get the Ministry to fund it if we phrase it correctly—I deferred that to her expertise and she made a proposal. Septima confirmed that we had some funds ready to cover some expenses now, and it was a good enough start. We started tracking down as many people as we can think of, and asking them to speak of us to their friends. It was a very effective method."
Merrythought's hands stilled now, the teacup cradled between both palms and yet there were no more movement. She was gazing into it as if it held the answer to the universe itself. The moment extended indefinitely and all that Hermione could hear were the crackling of logs burning merrily in the fireplace, the faraway hoot of an owl.
"Professor?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I was a little distracted." The white-haired witch placed the teacup on the table. "Of the volunteers from the wizarding world, only around an eighth of us made it back reasonably unscathed. Only a third of us made it back alive. I believe I have the summary around here somewhere." She lifted a few pillows of the sofa and pulled out a scroll Hermione hadn't seen and unrolled it on the table. The professor turned it around and pushed it towards her.
One out of eight were well…and two-thirds dead. The numbers were horrifying.
"The non-magical world loses many people too," Hermione murmured softly, simply because she was numb from the sheer number of people lost.
"That was what I thought so too back then, when everything was too fresh and painful. But the muggle world in general survived at a rate higher than us, and the people we lost were actually spread over a wider range of generations than theirs. It's just…" She sighed. "Hermione, let me put this in the simplest term I can. After I started teaching in Hogwarts, something niggled the back of my mind about my classes."
"…alright?"
"They were smaller than the ones I remembered—smaller than my classes back when I was still in Hogwarts. Your and Riddle's Society is one of the few societies that exists in Hogwarts now. When I was in Hogwarts, I can choose from at least eight or ten of them. Compare the number of students on the rolls in your year with the one in mine, if you really want to see the hard numbers."
Hermione could almost feel her throat tightening at the idea.
"Septima and I had talked about this often—we've talked about this with our friends too. We of the wizarding world marry at a later age than muggles. The purebloods among us do not always have many children, for one reason after another. The degree of inbreeding that have is certainly one reason."
"If you were to search for Grindelwald's base, I could not reasonably object to it, not with all the daring things I've tried out in my youth. But if you were coordinating this with people in France and even Germany, then there is no way that you would not brush up against the muggle war sooner or later—no, no need to defend yourself, Hermione. It's inevitable." She raised a hand to stop Hermione from protesting.
"Perhaps you'd see a fleeing resistance fighter and thought to provide shelter, perhaps it would be something else, a refugee trying to escape their burning homeland. It does not really matter. Perhaps the muggle ministries wish to exchange information with some of your assistance, a little message running or escort of people. This is all to be expected. I trust your sense of humanity, Hermione. What matters after that is to always be careful to stay mostly uninvolved with the muggle war, to preserve you and your friends' lives the best you can."
Her exhaled breath seemed to carry the memory of too many losses.
"The wizarding world can't afford to lose yet another generation, Hermione. Not if we wish to avoid extinction in the next century. Please promise me this."
"I…I promise."
There was no other answer Hermione could've given. She'd suspected something like this before, but not to this extent. Hermione was now acutely aware that she, Harry and Ron had come of age in what was actually the twilight of the wizarding world.
Then, she spoke up again with a much firmer voice.
"I promise that I'll change the future, Professor Merrythought. I promise I'll save as many people as I can."
She'd thought of it often, but it was the first time she actually put her own ideals and purpose here into words. It was a promise not just to the DADA professor, but also to herself; to the future witch with a host of inchoate nightmares that she very much wished to avert.
"Thank you, Hermione."
'-
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End Notes:
For some reason I don't quite get myself, I ended up trying to recreate the feeling of End of the Third Age that I get at the end of the Lord of the Rings novel into the HP canon. The result here is probably a bit of a hit-and-miss.
That Silvanus Kettleburn has missing limbs is canon, possibly due to his overenthusiasm for his field of study (it's not hard to see between the lines who inspired Hagrid with his enthusiasm). I just thought that it would make sense for him to have picked up some prosthetics after his wounds healed. The non-magical world managed prosthetics easily, ergo, the magical world should be at least up to that standard, and possibly even progressed much further.
Like Leonard Spencer-Moon, Archer Evermonde is also a canon Minister for Magic in his particular period. He is also described as trying to stop people from getting involved with the muggle war since he is worried about the Statute of Secrecy. As with Galatea Merrythought, I took a lot of liberties in fleshing out his character in the direction I wanted.
Also, there are certainly random expies here, simply because it's easier to populate the background characters of the world that way.
For those without a western history background to put things in context, the Battles of Somme are famous (notorious) series of battles in World War I.
Quick-and-dirty overview of some aspects of WWI: What made World War I's fronts more gruesome than World War II (nuclear bombs notwithstanding) is that this is a time of rapid technological advancement in technology, including war technology. The army doctrines, training and exercises, however, have yet to catch up (training takes time…heck, getting your officers to gain enough experience and know-how also takes time). So, things get rather bloody as people start to get the hang of it live, practically troubleshooting shit in the middle of a real conflict, with the cost expressed in terms of life. That war was a real knock-down, drag-out slugging match.
'-
List of Stuff One Might Try to Look Up:
Cernunnos: (Celtic Mythology) the horned God of Celtic polytheism from the Gallo-Roman period. The name [C]ernunnos appears only once on the Pillar of the Boatmen, a Gallo-Roman monument from the early 1st century CE, which is the best evidence for it though the exact spelling is still uncertain. It may also be Carnonos, from Gaulish karnon for "horn". Since there are barely any surviving records on him, his possible role varies from being the god of animals, nature and fertility to god of travel, commerce and bi-directionality.
Misdemeanour: (Legal, Common Law) is a 'lesser' criminal act in some common law legal systems, generally punished to a lighter degree than a felony. Both 'felony' and 'misdemeanour' may still sound familiar to those with a passing acquaintance with the US legal system, but the UK used to have these categories too (where did you think the US got it from?), until the abolition of the distinction between felonies and misdemeanours by the Criminal Law Act of 1967. After that, the categories that exists are summary offence and indictable offence.
As is mentioned in-text, the wizarding world is still under the Minister for Magic, which is part of His Majesty's Government and territory of UK instead of a separate sovereignty. Thus, in general, the laws of the UK still apply. As Hermione is currently still in 1942, you can guess what legal categories are still in effect here.
Occitania: (Geography) a historical region mainly covering southern France, with parts of north Spain, Monaco and northwest Italy included, where Occitan was historically the main language spoken. Occitan is also the demonym (the name for its inhabitants). Occitania is recognised as a linguistic and cultural concept since the Middle Ages, but there has never been a legal or political entity under the name.
(Credit mostly to Wikipedia).
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Additional Notes:
Rideamus in faciei mors: (Latin) We laugh in the face of death.
(I didn't use Google Translate for this because GT's Latin translation frankly sucks. I used a dictionary with conjugation tables, of course).
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