A/N: I'm really liking this idea of slightly shorter chapters, as this one is ready a few days earlier than actually planned!
After lunch, everyone was dismissed. There was just under an hour to go until the adults had their first meeting, and it was during this time that Harry, Amelia and Dorea would be meeting with Aquinnah, who was bringing some of her friends to discuss what needed changing. Dorea went back to her room and got changed into more casual clothes - a light sweatshirt and some jeans that were slightly baggy.
Amelia and Harry were soon knocking on her door, and when she opened it, her dad was standing there too. He was carrying a briefcase that she had never seen him with before. Upon a bit closer inspection, the black leather was embroidered with the initials "O.A.B". she realised quickly it was a family briefcase, as she spied the Black family crest.
"This was my fathers - your grandfathers," he said when he saw her looking at it, "the initials stand for Orion Arcturus Black."
She nodded acknowledgement. Sirius had never spoken about his own father much, as the man had made home life so terrible for him until he went to live with James Potter. Dorea remembered back last summer when they stayed at Grimmauld Place - she had pried the portrait of Orion Black off Kreacher, and he had spoken to her. Harshly, but then he seemed to soften when he noted how Dorea had looked a lot like Walburga - her grandmother. It had also been when she found Regulus's note to his parents, detailing that he hated them.
"How many friends is this Aquinnah bringing?" Sirius asked as they waited for their other travelling companions to come out of their rooms.
"We don't actually know the numbers." Harry answered. "I'm assuming it'll be quite a few."
When the adults were ready, Headmaster Fontaine appeared as if by magic, and began escorting them to the place where the talks were to be held. They fell in beside Hunter Martinez, who as an aide had a potentially busy afternoon ahead.
"I know that they're planning to talk about strengthening relationships between Ilvermorny, Hogwarts and the Canadian school. As well as that, there's the usual stuff like trade and commerce." Hunter said, a bit quieter.
"I wonder what that would entail." Amelia pondered.
"Apparently Fontaine and Adams are particularly keen on planning more trips between here and Hogwarts - I heard that earlier at lunch. There might be exchange student programmes coming into the fray too." Hunter said.
"Well, be sure to tell us about the non-confidential stuff after," Harry said, smiling, as they watched the adults walk on ahead to their destination. Sirius looked back and waved at them, and it also looked like he mouthed "good luck!" as well.
Dorea followed Harry and Amelia outside, and started walking towards the creature reserve, where Aquinnah and one of her friends were meant to meet them. Just as they were about fifty metres from the edge of the reserve did they see them emerge from the forest.
"Hello again!" Aquinnah called, waving, her friend doing the same.
Once they got closer, introductions were made by Aquinnah. "This is Taima, she and her family live at the base of Mount Greylock. Taima, this is Harry Potter, his twin Amelia Potter, and Dorea Black."
"It's nice to meet you three," Taima said, smiling now, "I've heard great things about you already."
After a few minutes of getting acquainted, the two Native girls beckoned them to follow them. "We'll just go to my house, as it's easier to get resources we need and all the others are already there."
"How many others are there?" Dorea asked.
"Ten others. Mainly girls, though there's a few boys too." Aquinnah replied, "there are more Natives that attend Ilvermorny, including from other tribes, but they are spread all across the country, and obviously not all of them can be here."
It didn't take too long to reach Aquinnah's house, which was bigger up close than it was from far away. When they stood outside, they could hear chattering, and upon entering there were several other teenagers in either the living room or the kitchen. The house had a nice, cosy vibe, almost like a log cabin in the woods, but bigger.
"Right, everyone! Come through and meet our guests!" Taima called, and Dorea couldn't help but notice that only a handful came through enthusiastically - she saw others lurking in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall corridor, perhaps a bit standoffish.
Aquinnah and Taima took turns doing the introductions. Another fellow Wampanoag girl called Asuna was one of the first to greet them - she seemed really nice, and Dorea thought the braids in her hair looked so nice - far nicer than anything she was able to do. The other girls included Chenoa and Willow (who were sisters - Chenoa being the eldest by 2 years), Kara, Sakari, Wapeka (who, along with Sakari, were among those looking a bit unenthusiastic), Mitena and Faith. The two boys were called Denali and Tokala - they were tall, with strong builds, and Denali - the older of the two - even had some tattoos. They didn't approach them straight away, and seemed to be eyeing them. They were surprised when Aquinnah said that Tokala was her older brother; Dorea wondered why they hadn't met him earlier.
"Right, now that we're all introduced, shall we get started?" Amelia proclaimed, looking mainly to Aquinnah.
"Yeah, we should. Let's go through to the dining room, where there's a big table for all of us to sit around." Aquinnah gestured for everyone to get up on their feet and follow her through.
It didn't take long for them to sit down, and Aquinnah procured a large sheet of paper from somewhere in her house and some fancy looking quills. It seemed time to brainstorm.
"So, we were thinking you guys could explain the problems that you as Native Americans face, so that we can better understand and come to solutions to put to the faculty." Harry, who was by far the most natural and confident speaker out of the three of them, stated.
Kara, who had a nice and gentle aura about her, was about to speak, but one of the other girls, Wapeka, got in first. "Yeah, I bet you would love to hear about our plight and struggle."
Chenoa gasped slightly, whilst her younger sister Willow elbowed Wapeka and glared at her. Asuna was already apologising, as was Taima.
Denali also spoke. "Why do you think that all our problems will be solved by getting three English people on board, Aquinnah?"
Dorea didn't take offence to that; and neither did Harry nor Amelia. She could understand why they were so hesitant and sceptical.
"Three English people that probably didn't know we existed until yesterday." Tokala muttered, and Aquinnah looked at her brother like he was ruining everything.
"Sorry about them." Faith, who looked to only be a third year, said from next to Dorea.
She smiled at the sweet girl. "Don't worry, we know it'll take some time."
"We understand, completely, why you have your doubts." Amelia spoke up, confidently and without any ounce of hatred. "But we have heard plenty to know that we cannot simply just let your struggles with the school faculty go on with no resolution. It is unfair to you and your communities - indigenous to this country, that you have to fight for the barest of inclusion and representation."
Denali and Topaka's expressions softened slightly, as if considering, and others such as Wapeka and Sakari seemed to relax more and eye them more with a bit more respect.
Harry gave his twin a proud look, as it was normally him doing inspirational speeches like that.
"If you insist." Sakari said. Dorea wondered if that girl in particular would take a little longer to come around and warm up to them.
"Right," Aquinnah said, "let's get started."
Their first meeting with the Americans and Canadians was starting better than they'd hoped. They were only two and a half hours into the meeting, and they'd already discussed things pertaining to trade such as importing and exporting and agriculture. Sirius left those issues to the more qualified people that had come with them from the Ministry, and they were very clever and knowledgeable at their job.
Initial draft agreements were signed - they would be written out properly at a later date, but for now it was a great start. He didn't have much to contribute yet, but hopefully when they moved on to topics relating to politics and defence, he would have more to offer.
After another half hour, they came on to those very issues.
"Mr Jones, might we be allowed to ask how many Auror's your British Ministry of Magic has in total?" One of the Canadian's asked.
There was some shuffling of paper. "I admit that, in recent years, the Ministry of Magic's numbers of Aurors - whether they are in training or already qualified - have dwindled slightly. Our figures this year reads that we have 140 total - with 30 currently in training as we speak. This figure is down from five years ago, where we had close to 250 total." Gareth Jones, who was the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, said.
Sirius winced slightly at the figures. He hadn't realised the numbers had fallen so much. Back in the First Wizarding War, where he and James, along with Frank and Alice Longbottom, were in the profession, there had been almost 300 due to the sheer amount of attacks and Death Eater's there were - people had streamed through the doors, wanting to help fight. Aye, but those numbers went down as well, he thought bleakly, with the sheer amount of deaths and incapacitations… He thought about Frank and Alice, lonely on that ward at St Mungo's, minds forced to be clean slates with no memories - not even of themselves or their own son. Sirius even entertained going to visit them semi-regularly a few times; his thinking was that he could tell them things about themselves in hopes that they would regain memories and be normal again. But he quickly quashed the idea when he remembered that they could barely speak, and likely couldn't comprehend much.
"With some ironing out, we could come to an agreement for a defence partnership. Our numbers of Auror's totals in the thousands respectively, largely due to how big the USA and Canada are compared to Great Britain. I say that we propose a working policing partnership between us and you; chances for American and Canadian Aurors to relocate to the UK to bolster your Ministry's Auror programme, or some of our state-of-the-art training simulators and instructors can be loaned." The Head USA representative continued. "As well as that, this partnership can bind us together in an alliance proper - if Britain ever does get the Wizarding Government overthrown by Voldemort, we would honour the alliance and join you in the fight to restore democracy."
Sirius liked the idea proposed - anything that bolstered Auror numbers was good to him. There was a few minutes pause whilst Sirius and the rest of the Brits talked amongst themselves, and some more questions of clarification got asked.
After another 45 minutes, the three nations had come to another draft agreement on defence. He knew there were more defence-related things to discuss, but Sirius was almost giddy about this. It was going so well; there had been times where the representatives were haggling about things related to percentages and how much money was going to be spent (the latter being the biggest thing argued about - each country had billions, yet they were almost so prude about spending any of it that it was almost as if they had no money at all).
After that, discussions ended for day one. Sirius looked at his travelling companions; they all had a knowing twinkle in their eye - the day almost couldn't have gone any better.
On tomorrow's agenda were issues pertaining to tariffs and horticulture - again, not issues he was very clued up on, although he was on the Wand Wood Trade & Commerce Committee, it didn't really give him an upper hand as he was still new to it. He left the meeting satisfied though, and even smiled when nobody was looking.
A very promising start.
Harry listened very intently to the Native's as they took turns speaking. Aquinnah was writing down everything being said - so far they had mentioned their issue with the faculty regarding the naming of the Ilvermorny houses, as the school used the names of four Indigenous folklore creatures without realising their significance. There was also an issue with the school's Pukwudgie - who served in similar ways to house elves at the school. The Native's had petitioned before for them to release the creatures back into the wild where they belonged; the name literally translated to "person of the wilderness".
Harry had a thought. "Might I ask - how do these meetings with the faculty pan out? Like, what all gets said?"
Tokala answered. "Like any other meeting - things get brought up and discussed. Why?"
Harry had a thought on how to word his next sentence. "And when you're bringing up your points… Do you take an open-minded approach, or are you's more demanding?"
Sakari almost scoffed. "This fight has gone on for years. We simply pick up the baton passed to us from our parents, who likewise had the baton passed to them from their parents, and so on. We are tired. Of course we make demands. They are uncooperative."
Ah, I can see where it partly goes wrong now. "That's what I'm wondering - instead of being demanding, I think a better approach would be to try and be persuasive. Demanding can work, but in this case it can make things more tedious and bitter. Maybe try and make them see things from your point of view?"
Most of the Native's seemed to think this was a good idea. Some needed more clarification though. "Can you give us an example of how we could do that?" Faith asked.
Amelia looked at him, and he nodded - he knew she wanted to answer. "So, a demanding approach would be if you said 'We Native Americans find that the names of the Ilvermorny houses' disrespects our culture and ways. You better change it.' Whereas with persuasion, you would say something like, 'We find this issue a problem for us…' Then you would list the reasons why, and then litter it with language that gets them thinking, such as: 'Now that you know why it is an offence to us, you can ask yourself - if you were in our shoes, how would this make you feel?' Things like that, to get them thinking. If you especially try to make them think of themselves, it tends to resonate with them."
"So by simply asking a few extra questions, they're going to bow down to us?" Wapeka rolled her eyes. "Wow, we should have thought of that earlier, eh?"
Aquinnah looked up from what she was noting down. "Wapeka, enough. We're finally getting help with this. Don't fuck this up."
Wapeka muttered something. Willow, for the second time, elbowed her.
"Another issue that we have is just prejudice in general," Mitena spoke up. She was the American equivalent of a fourth year. Her mother was Wampanoag, whereas her father was from another Native American tribe called the Ojibwe. "There are students that look down on us, and even say things without any consequence."
Chenoa backed up that point. "I've even had things said to me directly - horrible things."
"Are there many No Bullying policies here?" Harry asked.
"Oh, there's the universal one that every school has, where they say they have no tolerance for bullying, but the second someone does get bullied they barely do anything." Denali said.
"Maybe you could propose to the faculty about a general no racism tolerance either?" Dorea suggested. "Use persuasion regarding that issue too - put them in your shoes."
After another hour or so, Tokala and Aquinnah's father returned home. Tokala opened up a bit and explained that Metacom had gone to New York for the day to sort some things out at the bank - supposedly there was a secret Wizarding street in the city.
With that, it was time for the others to go home for the day. Harry hadn't even realised it was almost 4pm; he wondered if Sirius and the other adults were still in their meeting. Everyone except for Aquinnah, Taima and Tokala either left via the Floo or via some Portkeys.
As they were walking to the door to leave, Harry spoke to Tokala. "What do you do for work? I'm assuming you've graduated from Ilvermorny."
The older boy smiled slightly. "I work not far from here at a local wand wood farm. It's honest work, but it pays well. Dad knows the owner; I think it's Asuna's grandfather who owns the business. I do help out on the creature reserve when I have days off, though Aquinnah actually prefers doing it herself, I like doing it too."
Harry nodded. When they got to the front door, he actually felt himself be pulled into a hug by Aquinnah, who looked giddy. "Thank you three, for helping us."
"There's still work to be done," Amelia said, smiling, "but I'm confident we can get something to present to the faculty."
"Come back here tomorrow, during the free time in the afternoon again. My father will be home, but he's doing work on the creature reserves, so he won't bother us." Aquinnah said.
They said their farewells, and Harry thought it marked improvement that Tokala shook hands with them as they were leaving. When they were introduced earlier he had barely inclined his head in greeting, and said a snide remark. But it was good he was warming up. Others like Wapeka and Sakari might still take some convincing.
Regardless, he was very happy with their progress today. He knew there was more work to be done, but Harry had the utmost confidence that they could convince Professor Fontaine to make changes.