Chapter Two: A Heated Summer
Lily Evans also knew what it was like to be highly unusual ("a freak" her older sister, Petunia, called her). Unlike Remus, neither of her parents had any magic - and she lived in the least magical place imaginable, so the news she was a witch had come as rather a shock. Especially as it had been delivered to her by a strange boy on the playground, claiming that he was a wizard as well.
The strange boy had turned out to be Sev - Severus Snape - and he had turned out to be right, and he was now her best friend in the whole world, as well as the only other young person with magic in Cokeworth. He had always said neither of them belonged in this grimy, muggle town, and the longer Lily spent at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the more she believed him.
Not that Lily wanted to believe that she was different, or that she didn't belong in her home… but she missed so much of what was going on while she was away at school that she felt every holiday she was playing catch up; her new world was so different and no one here understood it and she was starting to feel like a great, yawning chasm was opening up between her and the rest of her family.
Take the jokes, for example (not that Petunia ever joked - she stayed as far away from Lily as was humanly possible, and stewed in furious silence when they were forced to be in the same room). Her parents had been very supportive (if slightly surprised) when a teacher from Hogwarts had arrived on their doorstep with a letter and an explanation for why their Lils could do such odd stuff. But they had had a hard time keeping a straight face when they had read the equipment list.
They had chortled when they had seen she would need a pointy hat and a pewter cauldron, to attend Hogwarts. They had guffawed at the news she could take either a cat or a toad or an owl as a pet, and they had actually cried with laughter when they read that first years were not allowed to take their own brooms.
Needless to say - Lily had not bothered to ask for her own broomstick once she was a second year. And she wasn't asking for one this summer either.
It wasn't that her parents really minded that she was a witch. Not really. They asked about what she learned and wished she could show them some magic (but - due to the decree on underage wizardry - she was not allowed to perform magic outside of school on pain of getting expelled). But whenever she tried to talk to them seriously about Potions or Charms - or about the new subjects she would be starting in September - there was always that amused twinkle in their eye. Like they were trying not to laugh.
Whereas they would tell anyone who would listen that Tuney - once she had done with her O levels, in the next couple of years - was hoping to get a place at secretarial college. That she would learn to type, and get an office job in some posh tower block in Birmingham made out of lots of glass. That she was leaving Cokeworth and moving up in the world.
But they had no idea what it was Lily would do in a few years' time when she left school. They had no idea what sort of job a curriculum of turning rats into teacups would leave her ready for. They smiled, and their eyes twinkled - and she could just tell they thought her whole world was whimsical and more than a bit foolish. An entire society of perpetual children, playing at magic tricks; with their heads in the clouds and not in the real world at all.
The more she spoke to them, over the summer, the more she realised her parents just did not understand her at all.
And the summer had dragged on interminably. She had been in trouble from the moment she had stepped off the school train. The previous hols she had convinced an older boy to buy her some cigarettes, and she and her friends had been caught smoking by her Head of House, Professor McGonagall. Once she had returned home, she had found herself grounded for the entire duration of the break - and she was being made to cook for the family.
Not that she minded the cooking. She actually quite enjoyed whipping up stews. It rather reminded her of her best subject, Potions (and after a few weeks in Cokeworth she needed anything that reminded her there was a whole other world out there that she could escape back to). But once again she found herself subject to jokes, all because she'd added a dash of rosemary or a sprig of parsley (which was in the cupboard anyway!) to try and bring out the flavour.
'Oh la dee da!' Her dad had laughed, when she had explained why it tasted different this time. 'Here that, Hyacinth? She's going all middle class on us. She'll be serving us a prawn cocktail for starters next.'
And her mum had laughed, and Tuney had grimaced (though Lily had seen her later, looking through the spice rack herself and carefully reading the labels) and once again Lily had felt like an alien in her own home.
Today, as she peered anxiously through the oven door - watching the pastry on her beef and ale pie rise, she checked her watch. Grounded or not, she was still sneaking out every night to see Sev, and she had a letter she needed to write to Mary McDonald before then. Mary was the easiest of her friends to write to - as she also came from a muggle home - and Lily could just send her letters through the post, rather than wait around for an owl (so completely unhygienic) to turn up so she could write to her other fellow Gryffindor girls: Petra and Mandy.
The clock on the wall behind her struck five - and she braced herself, as the most horrendous sound rent the air. For some reason (probably money - or a lack thereof) the factory in Cokeworth still used the Moaning Minnie air raid siren from the war as the signal for the start and end of the shifts. Her whole childhood had been punctuated by this melancholy wail of alarm and - of all the things about Cokeworth that she did not miss while she was at Hogwarts - it was probably the siren that she missed the least.
But it meant her dad would be home soon (he worked in the accounts office) and that meant she needed tea on the table. She peered anxiously through the oven door once again and then went to boil the potatoes.
…
After tea was over (a meal that had been eaten mostly in silence, as her dad was not in a joking mood this evening, and Lily found she had less and less to say if she was not being laughed at) she asked to be excused, and ran up the stairs to her room. She closed the door, sat at her little writing desk and pulled a piece of notepaper and a pen over to herself.
Dear Mary,
She wrote
How are things your end? They are frightfully dull here. I'm still grounded and nothing happens anyway. I think about all those girls at Hogwarts dead eager to know all about muggle stuff - and if they had to actually get stuck here then they would know how lucky they really are!
I really miss everything about school but - God - I miss Bobby! I'm not even allowed to get my pictures of him out in case some of my old friends turn up and see them moving. My whole room looks exactly like it did before I even started school. It's still got my dolls lined up against the wall - like I'm a little girl. I miss so much time at home that I don't think my mum has noticed that I'm a woman now. I'll be fourteen in January - she acts like I'm still ten!
I tried to listen to some of the muggle songs The Kneazles ones come from - just to feel a bit more in tune with our world. But if anything it made it worse! Penny Lane is not Diagon Alley!
Speaking of - we went to get my new school books last week, I've been flicking through. I can't wait to be able to try out some of the stuff in them. And my new subjects look fascinating (shame Potter is going to be in both of them). It was so good to see Kneazle stuff everywhere … but just like in school, some of the posters had been defaced. The M word had been painted onto the side of the wall - right where Knockturn and Diagon Alley meet. I don't think my parents picked up on any of it - but I saw people staring at us in a way they never had before, and it creeped me out! I hope this ugliness dies out soon. Why - when there's such wonderful things to think about as Bobby and Roger (though not together, Bettina!) - are people bothering about whether or not you come from a magic family? It's nonsense.
Anyway - I'm so ready for the new term to start. I "borrowed" some of Tuney's Jackie magazines and I have some really good ideas for starting up our own. I think the girls will all go wild for it and we'll be cooler and more popular than ever. I think this next year is going to be the best one yet. Did your mum sign the Hogsmeade permission slip? I can't wait to go! (though I can't wait to go anywhere that's not Cokeworth).
Anyway, Sev will be round in a bit, so I better get going. See you soon (I'm counting the days!)
Love
Lily xxx
She signed off her name and kisses with a flourish, and stuck the letter in an envelope. Then she went downstairs and politely asked permission to be allowed to walk to the post box at the end of the street.
…
Severus sat up in his room, watching as the stars came out one by one to twinkle in the gloaming sky. Soon it would be time to go and see Lily. And it would be one day closer to returning to Hogwarts. One day less in this muggle rathole.
How he hated it here. Hated everything about it (apart from Lily - he would never quite understand how this one beautiful flower had bloomed in such a strangulation of worthless weeds). He hated the narrow streets and the looming chimey and the dust and smoke in the air, and the common, vulgar people smoking their stinking cigarettes on street corners - women in slippers and hairnets with fags hanging out of their mouths and a squirming, red faced baby hoiked under one arm …
He hated the grim faced men who spoke in terse sentences and drank pints down the pub, and the teenagers with their ludicrous hair and clothes and angry snarls on their faces, and the squealing mundane brats - like the ones that had been so cruel to him when he was trapped here before Hogwarts - who played at the park and went to their mundane school and never knew there was anything better out there.
He hated the newsagents, and the church and the Railview Hotel. And the railway itself. He hated the milkman and the postman and Mr. Green in the shop. Everything about this place was so dirty and grimy, and plodding and banal and the people here were barely people at all … mammals shuffling through an ordinary and worthless life towards their ordinary and worthless death. Animals in shoes. They knew nothing of higher and better things. They grovelled in the dirt.
The things being written in the Daily Prophet had that right! All summer he had been reading the paper once his mum was done with it, and eagerly taking in every word written by the likes of Abraxas Malfoy, Evan Rosier and Orion Black. Today there had been a piece included headlined "The Voice of Youth" where a young witch called Bellatrix Lestrange had written a rallying call to arms to her fellow young pure bloods.
Severus's heart had swollen in his chest as he had read her words:
We are a better people - a better class, a better breed, a better race - and we must defend our superiority, guard it with our lives lest we become one with those creatures of sweat and toil - the muggle.
And it is up to us - the young - the future of our world - to ensure that our separation is kept and our prosperity allowed to flourish. We do not want to be the generation that led our world to moral decay and magical collapse. The youth of tomorrow will never forgive us. History is waiting - and it is ready to judge us. Do not fail to heed its call.
And then he had looked out of the window and felt sick with shame - that he - he - came from this world of "sweat and toil". And he felt the usual stab of anger and resentment towards his mother, that she would sully the purity of her own blood with that loathsome, animal muggle downstairs. That she would make Severus share blood with that creature, that she had risked his not being magic at all … for that pathetic excuse of a man.
Of all the things Severus hated in Cokeworth, he hated his father most of all. He was downstairs right now, drinking.
If Severus was lucky, he would stay where he was - slumped in front of that muggle screen - and drink until he fell asleep, snoring like a stuck hog. If he was unlucky, he would drink until he was angry - and would start throwing things; first the bottle of beer, then the ornaments, then he'd kick the furniture … and then he would come upstairs and start throwing punches and kicking Severus.
Severus couldn't wait until he was old enough to use magic at home. Let his dad swing at him then. Let him see if he dared … But for now, Sev had no choice but to put up with it. And he currently sported a black eye that Lily had very carefully not mentioned when she had seen it (though she had brought some arnica to put on it the next evening) and a cut lip. As Severus grew bigger, Tobias Snape grew angrier - and more violent. Like he couldn't bear to have another man in the house. A better man.
Or maybe it was the constant worry of layoffs at the factory that made him angry. Not that he did anything to help. He drank until he dropped and then he overslept and was late for work. Waking only when that godawful siren would wail through the streets. Of course - when the redundancies came - they would get rid of the workers who didn't turn up on time first. Mr. Snape would have no one to blame but himself. Yet, when the time did come, he would definitely take it out on Severus.
Still - it was nearly time to escape this town, return to where he really belonged. And he would not be back for another year. And it was nearly time for him to escape this house for the evening. From downstairs he heard snippets of the muggle news drifting upward: trouble in Northern Ireland and more reporting on the colliery disaster in Derbyshire, and then came the national anthem, and then the signal went dead and he heard the crackle of static from the screen. It must be midnight now. The witching hour. The muggles would all be asleep and the streets would belong to him and Lily.
His dad didn't turn the screen off. He must have drunk himself into a stupor. Still - Severus wasn't going to risk tiptoeing past him and waking him up. He slid open the window, threw his leg over the sill, and then shinned down the drainpipe, dropping quietly into the street below.
…
He threw pebbles at her window until she appeared and then, with a mischievous smile and a backwards glance to make sure her muggle family slept on, she clambered out of the window - just as he had done - and shinned her way down to the ground.
'So where to?' she asked, dusting herself off and then taking his arm (he felt his stomach lurch with pleasure when she did that, though he tried to act like it was no big deal).
They went to the playground. There was nowhere else to go. They sat on the swings for a while, their toes scuffing along the ground - and talked.
'Remember when we used to do magic here?' Lily said, 'and no one cared.'
'The muggles cared. We'd get called freaks. We'd get beaten up.'
'I mean the Ministry - and you know it. Before we had wands we were free to do whatever we pleased… now we're stuck.'
'Pretending to be like them .' He sounded bitter and disgusted.
A frown line crinkled above Lily's nose. 'It's not the pretending I mind. It's just spending two months getting out of practice … and it would be fun to fly off the swing again.'
'It would be fun to be able to hex my dad.'
Her frown line deepened. 'We will go back soon. It isn't forever. Not for very long at all.'
'It feels like forever.' And he jumped up from the swing, kicked it away from himself and stalked off over to the climbing frame. Lily followed him.
'You wouldn't really hex your dad, would you?'
'Why, in Merlin's name, shouldn't I?'
'Because it's not right - using magic on muggles. They can't protect themselves, can't hex back.'
'I can't punch back … doesn't stop him.'
'Sev … two wrongs don't make a right.'
But he snorted in disgust. 'No it wouldn't make it right - but it would be a start to making things even.' He climbed on top of the monkey bars.
Lily looked troubled - and climbed up after him. 'Things won't seem so bad once we're away,' she said - not knowing what else to say. 'We'll be home before we know it.' She lay back on the bars and stared up into the night sky. The stars twinkled above her, and she named all the ones she could, in her head - taking comfort from this reminder of school.
It was stiflingly hot, even though it was dark. The air was deathly still and the heat seemed to funnel straight down the narrow streets - turning the whole town into an oven. It made the atmosphere oppressive - made it feel like it was a struggle to breathe. The heat was making the people in the town angry, their discontent bubbling over as they baked - and she knew it was working the same way on Sev. Not that he didn't have plenty to be angry about … but the heat was not helping.
She could feel him stewing away right next to her - and was at a loss as to how to make things better. 'Things will be better back at school,' she said at last.
He turned and looked at her - staring at her profile until she blushed and turned towards him. 'What?'
'You haven't been reading the paper this summer have you?'
'No - I don't have any money and my parents don't want The Prophet being delivered by an owl every day. They don't want the paper. They don't care what happens in our world.'
'Well - maybe they should. Maybe it's time they sat up and paid attention.'
Lily frowned and sat up again. 'What do you mean? Why should muggles pay attention to our world?'
'Because things are changing.'
'Is this about Abraxas Malfoy?' Her voice had become sharp.
'Among others - yes. They're making demands. They don't think we should be in hiding any more.'
'What? They want to bring the two worlds together?' That didn't sound like anything Malfoy had been writing in the paper a few months earlier. It seemed a very strange change of heart.
But Sev made a derisive noise with his nose. 'Don't be daft. No. They want to use magic to take over. To rule over the muggles. Us on top - them to serve us.'
'What? That's .. horrible. You can't support that, Sev?'
But Severus looked mutinous and said nothing.
'Sev!'
'Oh - alright - no. I think we're better off left alone. Separation not subjugation. If we enslave the muggles we'll never get away from them. But there's talk. There's talk of lots of different things. It all comes back to the Dark Lord.'
Lily stared at him for a moment, and then burst into peels of laughter. 'The "Dark Lord"?' she wheezed. 'Who on earth is that when he's at home? Who goes around calling themselves "The Dark Lord"? That's the silliest thing I ever heard.'
'You won't be saying that when he releases his manifesto,' Severus said sharply - and Lily stopped laughing and looked surprised. Severus took a deep breath. 'He has a lot of followers. You mustn't laugh - it could get you in trouble. There are people out there - powerful people - who like what he has to say.'
'And what about you? Do you like what he has to say?'
'Well I've never heard him speak. But… I look around this place. I look at my dad. And some of what they say makes sense.'
'Oh, Severus! '' Her voice was soft and disappointed - and Severus flushed.
'I didn't say I liked it all…'
'But I bet all your friends do. And once we're home - you won't speak up against them if they go too far.'
He flushed again.
'It isn't just muggles, Sev. It's people like me. Your friends want me out of the castle, out of Hogwarts … and you stand by and let them say that.'
'I don't…'
'Tell me truthfully, Sev. Do you really believe I belong in the wizarding world?'
'Of course I do!' he sounded outraged. 'How many times, Lily - I'm the one that introduced you to all this. Of course you belong in it.'
'So - if you don't want to subjugate muggles, and you don't want to get rid of muggleborns …what exactly is it that they're all saying that you like the sound of?'
'They just … they have it right - our world is better.'
'But they don't need a political movement to think that! They don't need a "Dark Lord".'
'But the Ministry - people like Dumbledore - they promote integration and tolerance and…'
'They're not bad things!'
'But we don't want it. We want to be left alone.'
'Or to enslave them.'
'Nothing's decided.'
'Well - maybe it's about time you all made up your mind. Decided where you all stand. So the rest of us can make our own stands too.'
'They're going to,' Severus said. 'Tomorrow - at the Ministry - there's going to be a rally. It will be a bit like the pureblood riots from a few years ago. They're going to meet in the atrium and make speeches and put together their demands. Right in the heart of Government - so Jenkins won't be able to say "no". It's going to be huge.'
Lily folded her arms. 'Are you going?'
'No - my mum doesn't want to. Well, she married a muggle. But I know a lot of people who are going.'
'Like who?'
'Everybody. Anybody who's anybody will be there.'
…
Walburga Black held out the vase of floo powder for her younger son to take a pinch. 'Wait until you see your father before you climb out of the grate,' she told him. 'And then wait for me at the fireplace. It will be very busy - we do not wish to be separated.'
'No, mum.' His face was rosy with excitement, as he took his pinch of powder - and Walburga felt her heart warm. At least she had Regulus to share this day with, this moment in history. At least she had Regulus to take pride in his birth and behave as befitted a young wizard of his standing. And at least her useless elder son was away with his fellow blood traitors. Had been all summer. At least she did not have to take the shame of her flesh along with them today. Merlin knew it was humiliating enough that people knew she had a muggle loving Gryffindor for a son, humiliating enough that they were all sniggering up their sleeves at her misfortune. She could not face the sneers if she actually had to be seen with him in public.
As much as she hated sending Sirius off to be happy among his inferiors, it was a great relief not to have him around. Home did not feel like home with a blood traitor under the roof.
The flames turned green and leapt up high - and Regulus vanished.
'Kreacher - have dinner ready for us when we return,' Walburga ordered the house elf. Kreacher bowed low and murmured his assent - and then it was her turn to step into the fire.
…
Regulus tumbled out of the grate, beside his father - who held out a hand to help him back to his feet. Then he stared open-mouthed at his surroundings. The atrium was panelled in warm wood and lined with tall fireplaces, which - even as Regulus looked - kept turning green and spitting out more witches and wizards. Above his head, the ceiling was painted blue - and adorned with golden symbols which seemed to move and change, scribing and re-scribing themselves over and over into new shapes.
But it wasn't the grandeur of the place that was making him stare (he was well enough used to grandeur), it was how packed it was. Every inch was crammed with excited, chattering wizards - a clustered melee of hats and cloaks and gossip, and an underlying air of crackling excitement. There were banners and flags - sporting slogans like "mudbloods out" and "magic is might".
Regulus felt a shiver go down his spine - despite the heat of the day, and the crush of the crowd - and he grinned to himself. Behind him, the fire turned green, a large shape appeared - whirling very fast - and then his mother stepped out to join him.
'Come,' she said to her husband. 'Let us mingle. There is no point in our being here, if we are not seen by the right people.' They pushed off through the crowd. Regulus stayed close to his parents - but his eyes kept roving, and he saw Julian Mulciber and Gaius Avery close to their own parents, and his best friend, Tristram Rowle, with his dad. He waved - and Tristram waved back.
A platform had been set up by the Fountain of Magical Brethren and some of the older students from school were standing up there, along with his cousin, Bellatrix. They all wore the same robes - like a uniform - green - with a black collar and a coiled serpent emblazoned on the breast pocket, and black leather gloves. Their hair was brushed very precisely - with very severe side partings.
Every so often, a Ministry wizard would attempt to push their way through the crowd, tutting as they tried to go about their normal day with this much palaver carrying on around them. Regulus saw one youngish Ministry wizard, with thinning red hair and a harried look in his eyes, come to a stop and stare at the uniformed youths on the platform.
'Disgusting,' the Ministry wizard said, shaking his head - his expression somewhere between saddened and angry. He took his glasses off, wiped them clean, shook his head again - and then pushed off through the masses.
But Regulus didn't think the smart, young wizards were disgusting. He looked at them - in their uniforms, their wands held firmly at their sides - and he longed to be old enough to join them; to be one of them - standing up there - ready to lead this revolution.
And then an older wizard stepped onto the dais. He pointed his wand at his throat and muttered 'sonorous' and then his voice called out - magically magnified - so all could hear him. The crowd fell quiet.
'Wizards, witches, warlocks - welcome - one and all. My name - I am sure many of you are aware - is Septimus Selwyn and I have the very high honour of being Deputy Grand Wizard of the Knights of Walpurgis.'
The crowd all began to holler and applaud. The flags were waved.
'This is an exciting time for our people, for our world - and if you are not yet one of us I urge you - come - join us. Sign on as a Page, today. Be at the forefront of our struggle and in time you will be a Squire and then a Knight of our esteemed clan. We are ushering in a new world. A world of beauty and honour and purity. A world where we can be proud of our magical bloodline - where our abilities will raise us above those who lack them, where we take our rightful place - where magic is might! '
The crowd cheered again.
'And who better - to speak to us of purity - than the voices of our children? From the youth wing of the Knights of Walpurgis - please put your hands together for Lucius Malfoy!'
The crowd all applauded, Abraxas Malfoy could be seen, from deep within the masses, looking so proud he could burst - and Lucius, a boy about to start his seventh year at Hogwarts - and a Slytherin prefect, stepped forward from the line of uniformed young wizards.
'Witches and wizards,' he nodded around at them all. 'Thank you for coming here today - to be a part of this momentous occasion…'
Regulus listened avidly as Lucius spoke at length of the threat to wizarding youth, the pernicious dangers of mudbloods, and his own desire to be a part of the change the world needed - to make things right for his future and the future of all who would follow him. And the whole time, Regulus imagined that it was him up there, in those smart robes, the whole crowd eating out of his hand as he outlined his own vision of a glorious, mudblood free society where purity of blood reigned supreme.
'...we are at the cusp,' Lucius finished up, 'the very cusp of triumph or extinction - but I tell you this - ladies and gentleman - today is not our swan song, today is our moment of truth, and tomorrow - tomorrow belongs to me!'
The crowd all roared their approval. Lucius flushed with pleasure, nodded his head at them and then stepped back among his uniformed compatriots. Bellatrix patted him on the back, approvingly, and he nodded at her.
Selwyn had stepped forward again. 'Very good very good - is there any sound more pure than the voices of our young? And now - to business. We gather here today to make our demands to the Minister - herself.' He looked around, grinning. 'Eugenia? Eugenia, where are you?'
There was no reply - and everyone laughed.
'Never mind - they can hide in their offices, but they will still hear. Our first demand: restrictions on muggleborns from holding government posts - they do not know our ways, they cannot make our laws.' The crowd cheered. 'Our second demand: all muggleborns must pass a magical proficiency test before they be allowed to study at Hogwarts. We cannot have their complete lack of knowledge holding back the education of our own children.' Once again he had to stop until the applause died down.
'Thirdly - a recognition of the importance of the sacred twenty eight - and how they have shaped our society. All families who bear the name and maintain purity of blood are to be given their own hereditary seat on the wizengamot. Who better to shape our laws than those who have been in this world the longest?'
There was more cheering.
'Our fourth demand - it must be recognised - by the government, by the Minister herself - and enshrined in our laws - that the muggle is lesser and as such its rights are less. If we - as a superior race - choose to put an impertinent muggle in its place by hexing it, if we choose to indulge in a spot of mugglebaiting, we should not face reprimands from the Ministry. Magic is might - and we may use ours on those without it, consequence free!'
The flags waved, the crowd applauded.
'And our fifth and final demand - we insist upon the Ministry holding a review into the statute of secrecy. We insist steps are made to usher in a new phase of magical and muggle cooperation…'
The crowd all laughed.
'A five year plan - at the longest - to work towards throwing off this shroud of secrecy and instead ruling the whole world in our rightful place. It is not we who should hide like rats in the shadows. It is not we who should cling to the corners. Magic is might! The whole world should be ours and, by Merlin, we shall take it by force, if we must. The temperature is rising, the fire is lit beneath the cauldron and the flames are stoked … But for now - we will work with the government to find a political and diplomatic way forward. If only they will heed our call. So - what say you, Eugenia?' He raised his voice.
The crowd laughed again.
'Why so timid? Come out, come out and answer our demands.'
This was met by silence … until Selwyn started to clap his hands slowly. Behind him, the youth wing took up the same slow applause … and then slowly the whole crowd started to join in, until the entire atrium was filled with a menacing, repetitive, rhythmic thunderclap. The atmosphere thickened until it could be cut with a knife. Regulus felt a bead of sweat drip down his back - and just when it felt like the whole thing was going to boil over into anarchy … a portly junior minister in pinstriped robes was suddenly bundled out of one of the offices and forced up onto the platform.
'Oh now, really,' he said, sounding quite cross. 'You've had your fun - but there is no precedent for demands like these being met anywhere. It is an international statute of secrecy and Britain cannot be the first to break it. Now go home - the lot of you - shoo.'
He was pelted with dungbombs and tomatoes - but he stood his ground. 'I said shoo - go home.'
He was hit in the face with a lettuce leaf. It dangled from his nose. 'The Minister will not be intimidated.'
'Then why isn't it her out here?' roared someone from the crowd. And that seemed to be the signal people had been waiting for. Suddenly chaos broke loose - the crowd was surging - and they turned into a mob, fighting and yelling and tearing the place apart.
Aurors ran out of offices and fired sparks from their wands into the crowd.
Regulus felt Walburga's hand on his shoulder, 'come along,' she said - perfectly calmly - and she swept him back towards the fireplace. 'This is no scene for the likes of us.'
She gave him another pinch of floo powder, he threw it in - the flames turned green, he stepped into them and said '12 Grimmauld Place' - and then had one last view of the junior minister and Septimus Selwyn trying to throttle each other, while tomatoes rained down on them from all angles - before there was a wooshing sound and he was swept away.
…
That night, when The Evening Prophet arrived, he cut out the article reporting on the rally and stuck it up on his bedroom wall, along with all the other newspaper clippings he had started to keep that summer.