Oh, hello there!
I was originally going to wait to finish the whole thing before posting it, but I can't get the flavour excerpts between scenes to work the way I wanted, so I cut them. But getting those excerpts to flow right was really the only reason the whole thing needed to be finished before I started posting so...I'm just gonna post chapters as I finish them instead. Woo? Woo.
The Battle for Earth has a total of seventeen scenes, of which eleven are already completed. I'll be posting the completed scenes every couple days, whenever I feel like it's a good time, until I run out. After that, you'll have to wait for me to write them like everything else — I've been trying to switch off with The Good War every few scenes lately, so, we'll see how that goes.
Oh, and fair warning, a lot of the military stuff is probably going to be super unrealistic. This is a Star Wars fic, and have you read those books? It's fine, don't think about it too hard. The authors of the Star Wars books sure haven't.
Anyway, let's get this silly show on the road! Woo!
8th September 1995 (63:5:22)
— Contact plus 00.00.06:00.30
Beth had seen pictures of the Wizengamot Chamber, though she'd never actually been here before. It was sort of like a full circular amphitheatre, but instead of a bunch of benches in rose there were three tiers of desks, all facing the open floor at the middle. There was technically a fourth tier, on the other side of a barrier behind the third tier, filled with rows of armchairs all the way around the Chamber, but those were for first- and second-class members of the Order of Merlin, more like an observation balcony than a proper part of the Hall.
(Apparently one of the privileges of being in the Order of Merlin was getting to observe the Wizengamot, and sometimes even comment, which didn't sound like much of a reward to Beth.)
The whole structure was made out of intensely white marble, tiny glinting lines of gold framing the tiles, more gold leaf in complicated curly patterns covering a lectern at one side — the Chief Warlock's podium, elevated above a single overlong table all the Department Directors sat at. All the white and gold was hard on the eyes, glaring under the sun let in by an enchanted ceiling, a lot like the one at Hogwarts. There was less warping of the image of the sky around the edges, the view clearer, but this one was only, like, three hundred years old or so, less than that even, they must have made improvements. It was a somewhat cloudy day, but still enough that the glare was uncomfortable. Thankfully, there was other stuff to break it up somewhat — all the Noble Houses got a desk on the tiers, and they got to design their own, so they came in a wide variety of materials, colours, and styles.
The Potter seat was on the third tier, maybe forty-five degrees around from the Chief Warlock's podium. (Meaning she was in the Government seats, which was a little annoying, because she was pretty sure she didn't like the people in charge much.) The desk was made out of a rich, rosey wood, like all the wood parts in the family rooms at Rock-on-Clyde, on the corners facing the floor ceramic figurines of rearing hippogriffs in red and white — Beth had noticed Potters must have a thing for hippogriffs, since she'd started paying attention she saw them everywhere on Potter stuff. Not saying that was a problem, she did like hippogriffs, just, didn't know what that was about.
Actually, thinking about it for a second, she did know what that was about. Godric Gryffindor had become famous for, in big mediaeval battles, flying on the back of a hippogriff over an attacking army to hit them from behind, on his own like a complete badass — it was even where the name "Gryffindor" came from, a French translation of a nickname he was given at the time — so hippogriffs were very commonly used as a symbol of Gryffindor, both the original bloke and the (now extinct) Noble House he'd started. The Potters were one of the families who claimed descent from Gryffindor...though, Beth was pretty sure she (and like half the nobility, according to Hermione) was descended from all the Founders, Gryffindor was just the one they liked best. So, that was probably why all the hippogriffs.
There were three chairs behind the desk, made out of the same wood with padded white upholstery. There must be cushioning charms or something, the chair was far more comfortable than the thin padding made it look — which made sense, since old people would have needed to sit in them for extended periods of time. One chair in the middle had a somewhat taller back, with glinting gold tracery around the edges, the other two still nice chairs but rather less fancy looking. The big chair was meant for the head of the family, the other two for, like, heirs and assistants and things.
Right now, Beth was sitting in the big chair, feeling kind of silly, and Dumbledore was in one of the normal ones, just to her left. They'd arrived somewhat early, not wanting to be hung up by people too much, drawn into who knew how many uncomfortable conversations along the way — and, despite the importance of the day, and all the crazy shite going on all over the world, Beth was still getting very bored.
The room was very noisy, hundreds of people chattering away, shouting over each other just to be heard. The desks were mostly all filled now, people finding their way to their seats — one each for the fifty-nine Noble Houses, their Wizengamot representative plus one or two relatives and/or assistants, and then the Minister and the twelve Department Directors, plus their assistants swarming around the over-long table, so that was a couple hundred people right there. And the seats for Order of Merlin members were packed. According to Dumbledore, that wasn't normal, on an average day you'd just see a few people, maybe a couple dozen when there was important business, it only got nearly this full when something really, really big was happening — Beth would guess an alien invasion was big enough. And then on top of all that, there were also people crowded into the floor at the middle of the Hall, completely hiding the triskelion mosaic under their feet. Well, not completely, there were only like a dozen people and the floor was bigger than that, but that was still way more than normal.
Sirius was down there — he'd need to petition to be allowed back to his seat, at the beginning of the meeting — alongside unfamiliar people in a mix of muggle and magical dress. A few people were definitely muggles, in muggle-style suits and everything, flanked by a couple bodyguards in the same black uniforms Beth remembered from the mages flying cover for the government convoy leaving London — she was a little surprised they were still armed, handguns visible at their hips and one with an actual bloody sword, but she guessed it wasn't like those were any more dangerous than wands, and practically everybody had one of those. Talking with the muggles were a rather odd-looking couple, a blonde woman in a plain knee-length dress, maybe thirty at the oldest, a taller East Asian man looming over her shoulder, old enough his hair had started to frost at the edges, dressed up in colourful robes in an unfamiliar style. (Old-fashioned magical Chinese formal dress, Beth assumed, but she wasn't an expert.) The impression she got, watching, was that the blonde woman was definitely in charge, which seemed a bit incongruous, given the contrast in their clothing and age. Whatever.
The oddest in their group was a black-haired young woman, looking perfectly unremarkable in plain black trousers and tunic. Beth wouldn't have given her a second glance if there wasn't a faint tingle in her scar every time Beth looked at her — pretty subtle, numb, almost like the pins and needles of a limb fallen asleep. She had no idea what it meant, at all.
Her scar had been quiet for the last week or so, ever since hurting really bad once during the alien attack. Somehow different from the pain she'd gotten there before, almost... Most of the time, it almost felt like she was being stabbed in the forehead with a hot poker, but this time it'd been cold — still sharp, but not like stabbing, more like a knife made out of liquid nitrogen or some shite slicing along her scar, and cutting out... She didn't know, she had no idea what it meant. The pain had been bad enough that she'd practically passed out — not literally, but she'd collapsed useless for a couple minutes — but luckily she and Sirius had been helping with evacuations at the time, so the distraction hadn't gotten her killed. And after a couple minutes, it'd stopped, and she'd been...fine — a little numb and tingly, sort of like now, but the pain had, just, stopped, without much of a lingering ache at all. Which, not complaining, but still bloody weird. In fact, her scar had been so quiet since then that she'd kind of completely forgotten about it. There was sort of a lot going on, so.
Until seeing this woman in the Wizengamot, and getting that odd uncomfortable tingle.
Since Dumbledore was right here anyway, she'd told him about it — she thought he might be a little annoyed about not being informed earlier that her scar had done something new and strange, but he didn't say anything about it (there was a lot going on, okay!) — but it didn't sound like he had any better idea what it was about than she did. No, she hadn't had any nightmares to do with Voldemort since, like she'd said, it was very quiet these days. (Again, not complaining, just weird.) Beth could tell Dumbledore thought that woman down there was suspicious, but he couldn't tell her anything about her. Besides that, if Beth's scar was tingling around her, she was probably worth keeping an eye on.
Gee, thanks Headmaster, never would figured that one out for herself...
There was even a goblin down there — standing ram-rod straight, out of the way to one side, the edges of polished bronze-ish plate armour not quite hidden by a bright red robe shining in the sunlight, a spear longer than he was tall held in one hand, point over his head and butt resting on the tile floor. Dumbledore said the people down there all had business of one kind or another with the Wizengamot, petitioners they'd hear in short order once the meeting began. Presumably the muggles were here to represent the UK, who the magical government would have to work closely with going forward, and the goblin was probably carrying a message from his government. Those (plus Sirius) made sense, but Dumbledore didn't know who the blonde and the Asian man were.
She guessed she'd found out soon. Just as she was wondering to herself how much fucking longer this was going to be, there was a low boom-boom-boom, the entire room seeming to ring like a gong. The people who weren't already sitting down (or standing on the floor to wait their turn) scrambled to their seats, as a pair of Hit Wizards made up in Wizengamot purple pushed the big, gold-encrusted marble doors ponderously closed. By the time they clunked into place, everyone had found their seats — an expectant quiet fell over the room, broken by a low sussuring of movement, people whispering to their neighbours.
They weren't left in suspense very long before a vaguely familiar woman got up to the Chief Warlock's podium. Dumbledore had been expelled from the position earlier in the summer, but they hadn't actually filled it yet — apparently a lot of politics went into it, it was a whole thing. In the meantime, the Director of Wizengamot Administration Services (something Tugwood, Beth forgot) had been filling in. But, when the invasion started, the magical government had declared a state of emergency, which put the Director of Law Enforcement in control of the Ministry and also the Wizengamot. Susan's aunt Amelia was somewhat short, as a lot of purebloods tended to be, but thick and sturdy, in the way of someone who was extremely physically fit, short straw-blonde hair over a square-jawed face. Not super pretty or anything, but she definitely gave an impression of another kind.
That impression being that this woman could definitely kick all their arses, which she guessed was probably the sort of thing you wanted from a wartime leader.
Beth twitched when Bones started speaking — her voice was sharp and booming, much...bigger than she'd expected from such a relatively small woman. She said something about the session being started, blah blah, after barely a sentence moved on to an invitation to address any procedural issues before the Council. Beth had the feeling there was supposed to be more ceremony to the beginning of a session, but she wasn't really surprised that Bones had just blown straight through it. Sirius took that as his cue, slipping out of the group on the floor and waving for her attention. Blah blah, Sirius Black, claiming my seat, blah.
Unsurprisingly, there was a bit of a reaction to that, but Bones silenced the Hall with a combination of sharp glares and snapping at rowdy Lords to shut up. The whole process from there was very quick. Bones explained what her own investigation into the matter since Sirius's escape had turned up — apparently, despite Fudge having his head up his arse about the whole thing, Bones had been quietly looking into it on her own time, because not everyone in the magical government was incompetent — and that Sirius had already been given amnesty by the UK. At a wave from Bones, one of the government people — Director Fox, of the Department of Mysteries (Beth didn't know what that was) — got to his feet, holding some...crystal pyramid device...thing. Bones would ask Sirius a question, Sirius would answer; the pyramid would glow from within, mostly blue or green, and Fox would just say truth every time. Some kind of lie-detecting thing, Liz guessed.
As the questions went on, there was an increase in muttering from the crowd — Sirius's story was being verified as true at every step, so, obviously someone being falsely imprisoned for a dozen years and then made public enemy number one despite being completely innocent was kind of a big deal. Once they got through the story, Bones waved Fox down again, and declared that, under her authority as the Director of Law Enforcement, she was summarily voiding his conviction in absentia for crimes committed in November of '81, as well as dismissing the charges filed after his escape from Azkaban in July of '93 — obviously, escaping from prison when you were innocent was perfectly reasonable, still holding him responsible for that would be silly. And that was that, Sirius was a free man.
Well. That was easy.
Sirius offered to reimburse Hogwarts for the property damage he'd caused trespassing there back in Beth's third year — and also the Weasleys', for accidentally injuring Ron — but Bones said that was a matter for him to discuss with the parties involved. Sirius was led through a few quick oaths, which all the members of the Wizengamot had to swear — Beth hadn't, but just because she'd made Dumbledore her representative here shortly after he'd been fired as Chief Warlock, and he was sitting right there. Once that was done, he sauntered over to a desk in the first tier, made out of shiny pure black stone, swished down to a seat. Aside from the government table, most of that first tier was empty, only a few of the desks occupied. The Most Ancient Houses, apparently — they kept the seats for the Seventeen Founders of the Wizengamot in place, despite most of them having died out centuries ago.
Once that was done, one of the mages in the black uniforms — the one with the sword, the sheath polished red and gold — stepped forward, coming to a sharp halt straight in front of the podium. "My name is William Langley. My uncle was Lord Edward, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Langley — as the sole remaining heir, I claim my right to the seat."
Oh, well, speaking of the Seventeen Founders...
There was a bit of hubbub at that, people whispering to their neighbours or shouting out objections. Bones waved them down again, looked over at someone in the government seats. "Caradog."
"Yes, Director." A middle-aged blond man stood up, held out a hand behind him — an aide handed him an old leather-bound book, the man flipped it open. "According to our records, Lord Edward Langley took his own life in the winter of Sixteen Eighty-Seven, aggrieved by the murder of his family by followers of the Dark Lady Frances Cromwell some decades before. With his death, the House was declared vacant."
Langley nodded. "Yes, Director, I believe that is correct."
"That was three hundred years ago. If you truly are Lord Edward's nephew, how do you yet live?"
There was an odd ripple across Langley's features, and he was, abruptly, an entirely different man. He'd been pretty plain and unremarkable-looking before, and he still was now — just a different unremarkable-looking, nose a little longer and his hair gone darker. "My mother — Bellatrix Eudora Langley, née Black — was a metamorph, and I inherited the talent."
"Bellatrix Black?" called out someone in the Hall, Beth didn't see who.
Langley glanced in that direction, just for a second before turning back to the government seats. "Bellatrix is a common name in the House of Black. My mother was named for her grandmother, the Chief Warlock's daughter."
"That is, the Chief Warlock Henry Black," the man from before asked. "He was your great-grandfather?" That was kind of a big deal, Beth guessed — Henry Black was super famous, it was a whole thing.
"Yes, Director."
The man waved at one of the aides, leaned in to mutter something. There was a brief conversation going back and forth, before the Director nodded, turned back to Langley. "Do you have any documentation to verify your claim?"
"Yes, Director. May I?" he asked, reaching under his uniform jacket. The Director — Wizengamot Administration Services, Beth thought, this would be that Tugwood bloke — waved Langley forward, so he approached, fishing a tube the length of his forearm out of an extended pocket. For storing scrolls, Beth knew, she'd seen the like before. This one looked to be made out of...ceramic, maybe, but it looked old, the previously white material faded tannish, chipped in places. Of course, it might well be three-hundred-odd years old, so.
Tugwood leaned over the table to take the tube from Langley and, gently, screwed off the cap. Several pages of fragile-looking parchment were delicately removed from the tube, splayed over the table in front of Tugwood. He looked over them for a minute, fingers following his eyes from one sheet to the next. Finally, he nodded, started carefully packing the papers up again. "I'm satisfied, Director," he said to Bones. "My Department will not contest Lord William's accession."
There was another wave of muttering at that — mages could be ridiculous about their history, and one of the famous Founders of the Wizengamot had basically just come back from the dead — but Bones waved them down again. With hardly any ceremony at all, as though nothing out of the ordinary were happening, Bones led Langley through the same oaths she'd given Sirius just a couple minutes before. Once that was done, Langley stepped up to a relatively plain wooden desk in the bottom tier, a curly pattern carved into the edges Beth couldn't make out from here, and sat down. The muggles actually went with him, apparently he'd be speaking for them when the time came — there weren't enough chairs, he conjured a couple for the muggles, the other uniformed mages standing looming over their shoulders.
The Hall was still filled with chatter, people not done gossipping about that development yet, when the woman who made Beth's scar tingle stepped forward. "My name is Phoebe Ramsey. I claim the Noble and Most Ancient House of Gaunt, by right of my grandmother, Merope Riddle, née Gaunt."
And there was another storm of muttering in the crowd — Beth heard a rustling from close next to her, Dumbledore leaning forward on his elbows against the desk, long wrinkly fingers folded under his chin. The name Langley hadn't really meant anything to her, but she did know the Gaunts, from History class. (Well, Hermione talking to her about what they were supposed to learn in History class, technically.) The name had only come into use in the last five centuries or so, but modern scholars posthumously applied it to the family going back way before then. They were one of the Founders of the Wizengamot, yes, one of the few Gaelic families invited, the ruling family of a little petty kingdom somewhere in Leinster at the time. They were locally influential, one of the more powerful magical families in Ireland, but didn't have much national importance for most of history. The major exception was Ignatius Gaunt, one of the more successful Dark Lords in British history, back in the 12th and 13th Centuries — he managed to conquer, like, half of the Isles, ruling from Hogwarts itself. He'd been something of a crazy bastard, supposedly had multiple basilisks, it'd taken a big damn army of mages and muggles together to finally put him down.
(Some of the details she knew about Ignatius Gaunt, like the multiple basilisks, Beth had learned from Sirius instead — the person who'd led the big damn army was called Gwenffrewi of Aberdyfi, who happened to be a member of the House of Black, and one of only a few ancestors of his Sirius was actually proud of.)
But anyway, the Gaunts had gone on, finally losing a large fraction of their people and influence in the early to mid-17th Century. They'd been important in the fight against the Cromwells, they'd been a big help but had gotten their arses thoroughly kicked in the process. The Gaunts who remained had strongly opposed Secrecy, and had gotten their arses kicked again by the other noble families forcing them to fall in line. Even after that, they'd stubbornly refused to recognise the authority of the Ministry, which had led to a little mini-war between the Gaunts and the Department of Law Enforcement — by the end, the previously powerful family was reduced to a single household, most of their properties seized by the Wizengamot and handed off to parties injured in the conflict or sold for profit. The Gaunts never had recovered after that, pulling further and further away from the other magical families and increasingly sinking into poverty, until they stopped showing up for Wizengamot meetings entirely, back in the early 19th Century, and faded into obscurity. The family finally being declared extinct in the 1960s was barely even a footnote, they'd long ceased being important to anybody by then.
Pretty much the only time Beth heard anyone refer to the Gaunts these days was in the form of incest jokes — apparently, they hadn't just been isolating themselves from the nobility, but literally everyone...meaning they'd proceeded to fuck their own cousins, or even siblings. In at least one known case Beth had heard about, a Corvin Gaunt (the last Gaunt to attend Hogwarts) had had children with his own daughter, it was very gross. It might have been a respectable name once upon a time, but it definitely wasn't anymore.
Claiming those creepy fuckers as your family seemed like it'd be really embarrassing, but Beth guessed that wasn't her business.
From how Dumbledore was leaning forward over the desk, narrowed eyes attentively watching this Ramsey women, he definitely thought there was something important about this. Beth had already told him about her scar being weird, maybe that in combination with the name meant something to him? She was about to ask whether he knew who this woman was now, but Bones was shouting for quiet before she could get the question out.
"Thank you, Director," Tugwood said to Bones, before turning back to Ramsey. Beth belatedly noticed he had another book splayed open in his arms — maybe the same one, hard to say. "We do have a record of a Merope Gaunt, in the form of a single mention dating to the Nineteen Twenties, as a witness in criminal proceedings targeting Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt. Is this the same Merope Gaunt you claim is your grandmother?"
"Yes, Director."
"I don't suppose you could have your grandmother come into our offices after this assembly to verify your claim."
"No, she died in childbed, long before I was born — I'm uncertain whether my father even knew of her identity until later in life. I only know the name because my mother performed a heritage test when I was a child."
"I see. Is your father available to testify on your behalf, then?"
Ramsey seemed to hesitate, just for a second. "I'm afraid he's...unavailable. I've never met him, in any case — I'm uncertain whether he would come to vouch for me if I asked, and I doubt you would allow him to testify regardless."
"...I don't see why Wizengamot Administration Services should refuse to speak with him. Unless there are outstanding criminal charges against him."
"In a manner of speaking. My father is the individual now known as the Dark Lord Voldemort."
The Wizengamot Hall immediately went fucking insane.
While the shouting went on around her — Ramsey standing still and calm in the middle of the storm, seemingly unaffected — Beth flopped against the back of her chair, frowning to herself. That seemed...unlikely. Maybe this was just her, but she couldn't exactly imagine bloody Voldemort having children — that was just bloody weird, she didn't want to... Well, she guessed he hadn't looked like that forever? She meant, he did used to be human at some point, not always the weird snake-man he was now, and this woman was...probably in her twenties or thirties — Beth was some metres away, and it could be hard to tell sometimes, mages aged weird — so it was possible he'd had her before whatever rituals and shite he'd done to make himself look like that.
...He'd probably already been doing the Dark Lord thing by then, though. Supposedly that'd started in the 60s already, and... Beth guessed Ramsey might have been a little kid by then, but not any older than that. Meaning it was very possible her mother had been one of Voldemort's followers — supposedly a lot of cult leaders could get into some creepy sex stuff, who the hell knew what'd been going on back then. Or, when she thought about it, maybe a rape victim? She didn't know, Ramsey had said she'd never met him, could be anything...
Still, bloody weird, that was all. Beth did at least tentatively believe it — if she had some connection with him, that might explain Beth's scar being weird about her — but Voldemort having kids was still the weirdest fucking thought ever, that was all.
As the shouting continued on, Beth belatedly noticed that Dumbledore didn't seem surprised — he'd hardly even reacted, looked like. Still staring down at Ramsey just as he had before, hardly seeming to blink. "Is that true, you think?"
Dumbledore hesitated for a moment, but it didn't seem like Bones was getting control of the assembly any time soon. "I don't doubt that this woman is somehow connected to Voldemort. I have serious doubts as to the truth of her story, however."
"What part of it?"
Dumbledore's eyes flicked to her for a second. "I suppose I never did ask how much you were told, down in the Chamber of Secrets. The diary had the owner's name written on the inside cover — did you never notice?"
Beth shrugged. "We didn't talk much — also, it was fucking creepy, bastard riding around in Gin's body like she was a puppet or something, ugh." She realised she was mixing her metaphors, since people didn't exactly ride around in puppets, whatever. "And I didn't get a good look at the diary, just enough to stab it. Why?"
"I have done my own investigation into the matter, and I do believe that Merope Gaunt was Voldemort's mother. However — and this is not well known, Voldemort did a very thorough job of separating himself from his birth name — but Voldemort's name was once Tamsyn Riddle."
"Okay? I don't see what—" Beth cut herself off, blinking. "Tamsyn is a girl's name."
"Yes, it is."
"...You're saying the bloody Dark Lord was born a girl?" That wasn't...completely impossible, Beth guessed. She was aware it was possible to permanently switch sexes — it took a big involved ritual, which was technically illegal in Britain (it was blood alchemy), so it didn't happen very often, but it wasn't unheard of. Supposedly, it was considered a medical thing, a treatment for something about people feeling like they were the wrong sex for reasons Beth didn't really get? Whatever, not important. (Hermione claimed it happened to muggles too, though of course their treatments for it weren't nearly as good, but Beth had literally never heard of that before.) So, it was possible Voldemort had done that at some point, she guessed. Fucking weird, but... "Are you sure about that?" As fucking weird as the idea was, it seemed more likely to Beth that Dumbledore had just...gotten the wrong person...
"I cannot show you all the evidence tying the two, here and now, but suffice to say I am very certain." Oh, well, okay then, just seemed like a hell of a leap to her, but she guessed she'd take his word for it. "When I learned of it, I can't even say I was surprised — Tamsyn had precious little tolerance for weakness in those around her, and least of all in herself."
Okay, Beth was rather irritated at the suggestion that being a girl was inherently a weakness, but Dumbledore was saying what he thought Voldemort thought, so she just let it go. If she was following what Dumbledore was getting at here, he thought "Tamsyn" hadn't gone to proper doctors and shite, but had just fucked around with stuff himself...herself? Whatever. Anyway, she thought the point was that Voldemort probably couldn't have fathered a child, so Dumbledore doubted Ramsey's story. Which did make sense, when she thought about it — she couldn't imagine Voldemort just sitting down and letting a healer fuck with his body with blood alchemy, and it was kind of hard to perform surgery on yourself. "So...do you think Ramsey is Voldemort? Like, he switched back to a girl to fake us out or something?"
"...I don't know, Beth. I simply don't know."
Well, that cleared everything up, thanks for that, Headmaster...
Bones eventually managed to calm the Hall down, though she had to cheat — she whipped out her wand and cast a powerful spell of some kind, the magic crawling over Beth in a wave...and the room instantly went completely silent. After waiting for a few seconds for people to cool off, Bones cancelled the spell, said something about maybe shutting the fuck up for five seconds and they might get their questions answered (more politely than that, but not by very much). Ramsey insisted she had nothing to do with Voldemort, had never even met him — she'd grown up with the Ramseys, who were apparently a family of mages who'd defected to the UK, working for the muggle government and living on that side and everything. Beth hadn't even known that was a thing, but Dumbledore said it was. He'd heard the muggle government even sent letters to muggleborn students after they took the OWLs, explaining how shite career options could be for people who didn't have the right connections, but you could totally come work for us instead. It turned out mages on this side did not like those mages — thought they were basically traitors, judging from the tone of the reactions Ramsey was getting — and one claiming to be Voldemort's kid was not helping matters.
At a question from Tugwood, Langley stood up, to confirm that the UK was aware of Ramsey's background, and would officially back up her claim on the House of Gaunt if asked. They'd also vouch for her character, but nobody took that seriously — after all, suggesting that the UK was trying to get a second one of 'their' mages onto the Wizengamot didn't exactly make the purebloods happy, like the muggles were infiltrating them or something.
The shouting from some of the Lords was reminding Beth very much of how paranoid some Tories could be about the Reds. Maybe not bringing up Voldemort or the muggle government at all would have been better for her case...
After calming down people shouting whatever for a second time, Bones handed the floor back to Tugwood, who insisted that it didn't really matter who her father was or what her relationship with the muggle government was like. If she had a claim on the seat, she had a claim on the seat, and determining that was the only thing Tugwood cared about. (Very professional, Beth guessed, even if he was being so serious about a very silly thing.) Tugwood asked if Ramsey had any documents proving her connection to Merope Gaunt, but of course she didn't — Ramsey wasn't even certain whether Merope had been able to read, so. She didn't have a copy of that old heritage test, though she guessed they could do another one later, if Tugwood insisted.
"I do have one thing, however." Ramsey took a ring off a finger of her left hand, held it up. "May I approach?"
Tugwood waved her forward, even as one of his assistants turned to a stack of books tucked away over there, presumably looking for something they could use to identify the ring. But, when Ramsey reached up to drop the ring into his palm, Tugwood immediately perked up. "Ah! I recognise this piece! This is the Peverell Ring."
There was an immediate storm of whispering around the Hall, because British purebloods could be ridiculous about their history — Beth was aware that Peverell was another of the Seventeen Founders, died out bloody ages ago. Supposedly, the last Peverell had married the Longbottom who later became the first Potter, back like seven hundred years ago, a lot of the Potters' initial wealth made up of what was left of the Peverell fortune. A lot of gold and shite, sure, but apparently it was well known that the Potters had gotten the Peverell library, a lot of the really old books and scrolls in the library at Rock-on-Clyde were from the Peverells. (They'd been big into creepy soul magic and shite, so those books were concentrated toward the top of the tower, away from the prying eyes of children — according to Sirius, Lily had probably used the old Peverell books to design the ritual she'd used to save Beth's life that Hallowe'en. So, the Dark Arts did have some use, Beth guessed, probably better for her that previous Potters hadn't just destroyed them.) The Peverells had been kind of a big deal, in the first half of British history, there were all kinds of stories about them (some real, some myths), a lot of families claiming to be descended from them like it was something impressive. People would still brag about artefacts they had that'd once belonged to the Peverells, whether it was actually true or not, it was a whole big thing.
(According to Sirius, her invisibility cloak was a Peverell heirloom, but that was ridiculous — it'd have to be like a thousand years old, and invisibility cloaks simply didn't last that long. James had probably just been making up impressive shite to fuck with Sirius, seemed like something he'd do.)
Beth had never heard of a Peverell Ring, but she did know how people could be about Peverell shite, so it wasn't really a surprise that everybody was whispering about it. Curiously, Dumbledore had even twitched in surprise, leaning further forward over the desk, seemingly fascinated. Or something, anyway, Beth wasn't sure how to read that expression — all the wrinkles and the beard in the way didn't really help, and she didn't have a great angle, but. "What is it?"
Dumbledore didn't answer, just kept staring. Okay...
The assistant was trying to hand over a book, but Tugwood just waved her off, apparently not needing the book for this one. "One of the ancient heirlooms of the House of Peverell, it was passed down to the Gaunts as the House finally died out — it was traditionally worn by the Lord Gaunt, for centuries. If I recall correctly, it was last seen on the hand of Marvolo Gaunt, back in the Nineteen Twenties."
"That is correct," Ramsey agreed. "My understanding is that Morfin returned from Azkaban to find Marvolo already dead — he claimed the ring before burying him. My father took the ring from him during their one and only meeting. He later left it with my mother, who later gave it to me — he didn't explain his thinking, but I suspect he was concerned it would be lost in the fighting."
"I see, I see. Well, this is the Peverell Ring, I have no doubt about that." Tugwood gently — almost reverently, like it was a sacred artefact or something — handed the ring back to Ramsey, who immediately slipped it back on. "That you have this ring in your possession proves that you have some connection to the House of Gaunt, certainly — whether that connection is one of blood, well, that is more difficult to say." More whispers running through the hall, Tugwood hesitated for a second, his gaze seemingly flicking toward Langley. Turning up to Bones, he said, "Director, with her possession of the Peverell Ring and Lord Langley's testimony in mind, I'm inclined to allow it. I would prefer Lady Phoebe present further corroborating evidence to W.A.S. as soon as is feasible, but I'm uncertain whether that will be possible in our present circumstances. In the meantime, my Department will not contest her accession." Tugwood smoothly sank back into his seat, seemingly unaffected by the storm of muttering and the occasional shout of protest his decision had caused.
It took much longer for Bones to get through the oaths and stuff than it had for Langley, with constant interruptions from the Hall, Bones needing to resort to silencing them all for a second time. Eventually they managed it, Ramsey — or Gaunt now, Beth guessed — allowed to take the Gaunt desk on the bottom tier, all shining green and black ceramic. (Very Slytherin-y, which wasn't really a surprise.) The whole time, Dumbledore was intently watching her, his fingers slowly tapping at the desk.
So, seemed like Ramsey was a big damn question mark, but Beth was going to go ahead and take her scar tingling whenever she looked at her as a bad sign.
While the Hall was still filled with tense muttering, the unknown blonde woman stepped forward in front of the government seats, the Asian man still looming over her shoulder. Again, it took a little while for the Hall to calm down, the woman standing patiently, her hands folded behind her back. Bones finally got everyone to shut up, passing the floor back over to Tugwood, who hadn't even bothered sitting back down. "I suppose you would also like to claim a defunct House." Tugwood sounded almost amused about it — Beth would guess this was something that almost never happened, and here they had three in a row, making such a fuss it was taking them forever to get to the actual meeting part of the meeting. This session was going to take all fucking day at this rate...
"Even so. These days I'm called Sarah Selwyn, but you know me by another name." She had an accent, but Beth couldn't figure what kind — it sounded vaguely Celtic, but also vaguely German, could be anything. "Selwyn" was a familiar name — there were a couple Selwyns at Hogwarts right now, at least one Death Eater had been a Selwyn, and it was a noble family — but that didn't necessary mean she was one of those Selwyns. There were also, just, normal people named Selwyn, so.
Tugwood waited a moment for Selwyn to continue, but it didn't look like she was going to. "And what name is that?"
"I won't say — you wouldn't believe me anyway. Instead, I will simply demonstrate." Selwyn turned her back on the government seats and crossed the floor, ignoring the murmuring of the crowd around her, the Asian man following close on her heel. On the opposite side of the floor — not directly across from the Chief Warlock's podium, but at an angle that Beth could easily see — she stepped up onto the bottom tier, circling around behind one of the desks. This one was plain grey stone, a layer of black ceramic on top smooth and shiny but everything else rough and ancient-looking, the chair behind it roughly carved from the same stuff — Beth assumed there had to be cushioning charms and stuff on that, because it just looked uncomfortable. Hanging off the front was a banner, as wide as the desk, a lot of them had a thing like that, this one showing a snake wrapped around a rose on a plain yellowish background, the edges of the fabric fraying just a little. The design was vaguely familiar, though Beth couldn't place it — the desk and the flag both looked old, even older than the other abandoned seats, as though it hadn't been maintained in the meanwhile.
As Selwyn stood in front of the chair, the Hall abruptly went completely silent. Hardly anyone seemed to be breathing, the tension on the air electric — enough that the hairs on the back of Beth's neck stood up, despite the fact that she had no fucking clue what was going on. For a long moment, Selwyn simply stood there, her eyes slowly turning over the hall, seeming to look at every member of the Wizengamot one by one. Dumbledore visibly tensed a little as Selwyn's eyes dragged over them, didn't know why — if she was doing something, with mind magic or whatever else, Beth hadn't felt it.
And then she sat down. Everyone in the Hall seemed to hold their collective breath, just for a second, before erupting into a storm of chatter, so suddenly Beth jumped.
...Oookay, then? Something had definitely happened, but Beth didn't get it — and the noise of people talking was too mixed up for her to pick out anything any particular person was saying either, just, noise. Selwyn seemed unaffected by the outburst, reaching back for her companion's hand; there was a faint crackle of magic, Beth could barely feel it from here, no idea what that was, Selwyn then conjuring a chair, the man settling in next to her.
Right, it felt like people were going to continue being silly about this for a while, Beth wasn't going to miss anything. Leaning a little toward Dumbledore, she muttered, "Um, what's going on?"
"That's the Slytherin seat." There was a hard edge to Dumbledore's voice, sharp and tense. His eyes were fixed on Selwyn now, Ramsey temporarily forgotten, his brow deeply furrowed.
Oooh, right, Beth remembered the snake symbol now — she'd seen it a few times here and there at Hogwarts, must be a Slytherin thing. As in, the old noble family, not the house at Hogwarts, their symbol was different. Slytherin was one of the Founders of the Wizengamot, she knew, so she wasn't surprised they had a desk down there...and it was slightly ridiculous, Selwyn just sitting there, the Slytherins had died out centuries ago. (The 15th Century, Beth thought.) But it still felt like she was missing something. "Okay, but, what's the big deal about her just sitting there, though? Lots of people claim to be descended from Slytherin." Beth knew for a fact she was herself, but that wasn't special — Slytherin had, like, fifteen kids or some shite, over a thousand years ago, like half the country was descended from him somehow by now. Time was funny like that.
(Like, she was related to Slytherin the same way she was related to Gryffindor — according to Hermione's research, one of Slytherin's grandchildren had married one of Gryffindor's grandchildren, and their daughter married a Longbottom, and one of their descendants left the Longbottoms to start the House of Potter. That was the most direct one on her grandfather's side, but on her grandmother's side, Sirius said there was a pretty direct line up to the both of them again, and also Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and you could get back up to Gryffindor and Slytherin again and again and again by different ways if you traced back up different parts of the tree. Because, again, a thousand fucking years, time was funny like that.)
"And so many do, but none can claim their seat on the Wizengamot. After the House died out in the Fifteenth Century, there was a brief contest between a handful of related families over who should have the right to use the name. During a debate on the floor over the matter, an unknown individual appeared in the Hall. They then set a curse on the seat — they declared that the House would belong to none of them, that only he who could sit there without consequence was worthy of the name. And then they left, without a trace."
"...Okay." Fucking weird, but the magical world could be that way sometimes. "And nobody has sat there since?"
"Oh, some have tried, convinced they alone were worthy of their famous ancestor's legacy. Every claimant has been rendered catatonic, the curse only releasing them after days of unending nightmares. A handful have even died from the ordeal. None have made the attempt since before even I was born. In all that time, the curse has not been broken, and the Slytherin seat has not been moved from its place — the curse is so stubborn that, after the original Wizengamot Hall was destroyed in the Seventeenth Century, the modern structure was built around it."
Woah. Alright, then. "So, who is she?"
"At a guess, the individual who placed the curse in the first place."
That was like five hundred years ago, but fine. "And...who is that, exactly?"
"I don't know, Beth." She probably wasn't imagining the hint of exasperation on his voice. She realised she was asking a lot of questions, but she couldn't help it, it wasn't like she knew most of this shite — and whose fault was that, again? (His, it was his fault, for sticking her with the Dursleys, where she wasn't told anything about anything. But, he was getting annoyed with her for not magically knowing this shite, fine, whatever.) "There are theories as to their identity, but they are only theories, with no hard evidence one way or the other. The surviving accounts do not even agree on the individual's gender, making any attempt to identify them in the modern day all the more complicated. It is one of the great mysteries in British history."
Huh. That was odd. Spitballing here, but if Beth had to guess, she'd say she was a metamorph, like Langley. They technically didn't age the way everyone else did (Dora sometimes joked about you mere mortals, it was a whole thing), and supposedly they could even change sex if they felt like it (according to the occasional sex joke from Dora, so Beth wasn't positive she was serious about that) — so that would explain Selwyn still being alive five hundred years later, and also people at the time not agreeing on whether she was a man or a woman, if it'd been really obvious she was a metamorph or she'd looked especially androgynous or something. It seemed reasonable that Selwyn was actually a Slytherin, and had just outlived the rest of the family, and got annoyed with everyone arguing over their stuff, but also didn't want to take the seat herself, because who the hell would choose to deal with the Wizengamot forever? Cursing the fuck out of it and pissing off without explanation was kind of an extreme option, but mages could be fucking weird, and Slytherins were kind of known for being melodramatic bastards, so. Seemed like a reasonable guess to Beth.
Not that it really mattered? They kind of had more important things to worry about than who the hell had just casually taken the Slytherins' spot on the Wizengamot. Like who the hell had just taken the Gaunts' seat — the Order hadn't heard anything from Voldemort since before the aliens attacked, maybe it was a scheme somehow...
(Or maybe Voldemort simply recognised that dealing with the alien invasion was more important than whatever the fuck his racist terrorism campaign was supposed to accomplish, but Beth didn't think he was that...sane? Yeah, let's go with that...)
After far too long, Bones finally got people to shut the fuck up — well, not completely, but enough for Bones to raise her voice over them and continue on with business. If that was all the procedural stuff, then they could actually get this meeting started. She should start with a quick summary of the situation as they understood it before—
"Excuse me, Director," called one of the people on the bottom tier, getting up to her feet. A woman in duelling armour, brown and green and white, Beth didn't know who that was — the rather plain desk had a flag with a yellow sunburst on a green background hanging from it, which was familiar, but she wasn't quite placing it. "There was one other matter."
"This better be serious, Bríd — we've wasted enough time already, we have pressing issues to attend to."
"I suppose it isn't a critical issue in the short term, but if it is not addressed soon it may cause greater difficulties in the future." The woman — "Bríd", which was a given name — had a noticeable Gaelic accent, putting a bit of a bounce on her speech, but it wasn't super distracting. "I understand that the state of emergency declared by the Ministry was necessary, under the circumstances. It was not, however, legal — I am concerned any effort to meet the crisis before us will be sabotaged by questions of legitimacy."
"Don't play innocent, Ingham," called a man from one of the desks near the government seats. "You say you are concerned about a hypothetical problem that may come in the future, while simultaneously causing the problem you claim to be concerned about." That was a bloody circle of a sentence, but Beth got what he was trying to get at.
"You misunderstand my intent, Your Grace — you do seem to have a bad habit of that, don't you?" Raising her voice over the irritated rejoinder, "I have no objection to Director Bones's leadership, in principle, but I wish to ensure we set out on the best legal footing possible, to prevent any challenge to said leadership in future."
The Chamber then immediately devolved into a tangled argument about the complicated legal situation they'd found themselves in. If Beth was following all this, the woman — Bríd Ingham, apparently — was correct that the Ministry couldn't just declare an emergency the way they had. It was good that they had, because Bones had been able to steamroll over any rules that might have slowed down the evacuation of the Ministry offices and the rest of the magical enclaves in London, probably saving a lot of people in the process. Apparently, the DLE had already made an informal alliance with the muggle government, which was also something they didn't have the authority to do — the muggles here with Langley were here to start formalising it, but the situation they were in now was definitely still illegal — not to mention Aurors and Hit Wizards teleporting all over the Continent to help out with attacks here and there and everywhere, completely ignoring any borders in the way and the fact that they technically didn't have authorisation from the Wizengamot to act. Nobody had refused to cooperate so far, the active alien attack more important than quibbles about the law, but if the government tried to draft some people to make healing potions for them, or tried to take food to supply the evacuees, or protective gear for newly-recruited battlemages, and they were refused, things could get very complicated very quickly.
Basically, Ingham was worried that, if the government didn't have all their ducks in a row, they might push further than people thought they were entitled to, and accidentally spark a civil war as people resisted them. And she wasn't the only one, either, once Ingham pointed it out there were a lot of other people saying similar stuff. Needless to say, the mages fighting each other like idiots while there was an alien invasion going on wouldn't do anybody any fucking good. But purebloods were hidebound self-centred idiots, so this debate was probably going to go on forever — they must have been here for hours already, and they hadn't even accomplished anything yet...
Dumbledore rose to his feet, the movement noticeably awkward and stiff (he was super old). He raised his voice a little to cut over the murmuring going on all over, but Beth thought he was actually cheating — there was a faint tingle on the air, he must be using some kind of (wandless) charm to project the sound through the Chamber. "If I may, Director?"
There was an immediate negative reaction from various people throughout the Hall — some people hadn't been happy about Beth agreeing to let Dumbledore use the Potter seat immediately after he was kicked out of the Chief Warlock post, which was exactly why she'd done it in the first place — but if Bones noticed she didn't care. "If you have a simple solution we've all overlooked, Mister Dumbledore, I would like to hear it."
"It is very simple, if perhaps unpalatable to some. It is true that the Ministry hasn't the right to grant an individual emergency power in order to manage an emergency — the Wizengamot, on the other hand, does. I propose we select a Lord Protector for the duration of the crisis."
Well, that was one way to solve this debate, Beth guessed. Though if the sudden noise from every part of the Wizengamot, and even the observers' seats, was any sign, it probably wasn't going to help much. Choosing a Lord Protector was a pretty big deal, as she understood it — such a big deal that they hadn't even done it in, what, five hundred years? Though, there were other reasons they hadn't done it for a while, it was complicated.
Beth sort of thought of the Wizengamot as magic Parliament, but it was actually a little more complicated than that. The comparison worked, more or less, as long as you were only looking at the present day — the mages hadn't really had their own government until the Statute of Secrecy. Before then, the mages of the Isles would be residents of different kingdoms all over the place — or they had been until pretty close to the end, anyway — with loyalties to different countries and speaking different languages and following different laws, the Wizengamot not so much its own government as a diplomatic thing. They would occasionally deal with particular magical issues, sure — the Wizengamot had taken it upon themselves to take out, like, Dark Lords, and people abusing magic, or whatever big magical problems their little kingdoms couldn't handle on their own — but for the most part it was just a place to work out trade deals, manage alliances and feuds between the different big important magical families, sometimes acting as envoys for their kings dealing with normal international politics stuff, that sort of thing. Less like magic Parliament, and more like a magic UN (though on a much smaller scale and in the Dark Ages).
The old Celtic clans that'd made the Wizengamot in the first place had this tradition where, if a big thing was threatening a whole bunch of clans at once, their little kings would all pick one war-leader to lead them to deal with it. When they'd made the rules of the Wizengamot, that tradition had carried over. The Lord Protector replaced the Chief Warlock — and also, in the revised post-Statute rules, the Minister, fusing them into one office — but had much broader powers to basically rule by decree, draft people into the military, seize equipment and supplies and even lands as they see fit. It was a temporary appointment, kind of like a dictātor from the Roman Republic, empowered to deal with a problem and then stepping down once it was over. Apparently, the Lord Protector got addressed, both domestically and internationally, like they were royalty...meaning magical Britain was technically a monarchy, but one that worked by selection and not inheritance, and where the throne was vacant the vast majority of the time. (Which was weird, but whatever.) It was a very powerful position, and the noble families could be irrationally protective about all their shite, so of course it wasn't something they'd ever actually done very often. Probably less often than they should — the way the rules worked, they actually needed to pick a Lord Protector to legally declare war, so they couldn't streamline things to deal with, for example, a maniac Dark Lord and his homicidal band of racist terrorists.
It didn't help that a few incidents had kind of tainted the office over the years. There'd been a couple examples of people stubbornly trying to hold on to the title after the emergency was over with...and then there was the time the Dark Lady Frances Cromwell murdered the Chief Warlock (the same Henry Black mentioned what felt like hours ago) and claimed the title over his dead body, without the approval of the Wizengamot. That had kind of put a stink on the whole thing, as you might imagine — there hadn't been a legitimate Lord Protector since before Cromwell.
So, the Wizengamot Hall getting a bit noisy at someone suggesting they pick a Lord Protector wasn't really a surprise. Dumbledore might be trying to stop the arguing so they could get to important shite, but Beth wasn't sure this idea was actually going to help at all.
After a few seconds of chattering and shouting back and forth, someone managed to snatch the floor long enough to shout across at Dumbledore. "If you think to nominate yourself, Dumbledore, you have horribly overestimated this body's tolerance for your presence. If you hadn't managed to slither your way into the Potter seat, you would not even be allowed in the building." There was some shouting at that, both agreeing with and yelling at the bloke, a whole big mess — Beth grit her teeth, resisting the urge to cover her ears with both hands.
"I have no— If I may!" Dumbledore yelled, raising both hands for attention. It didn't really help, the noise going on and on, after some seconds Bones yelling for quiet, finally resorting to her trick with the silencing charm again. Once the tingle of magic on the air abated, there was still some muttering, but it was quiet enough Dumbledore would be able to make himself understood, at least. "Thank you, Director. I have no intention of nominating myself to bear the burden of guiding our country through the dark times to come. I know that, as ill-trusted as I am today, that doing so would only cripple our efforts to repel the invaders who have so ruthlessly and mercilessly attacked us — placing myself into the office, even should this body decide to do so, would not equip us to save more lives than we might otherwise, but might only see more lost due to confusion and dissent. And, of course, I am simply too old to lead a country into war."
There was a little bit of muttering at that — it was widely-believed that Dumbledore claiming Voldemort was back was some sort of gambit to seize power for himself, which was completely fucking ridiculous, but whatever — and even some laughter. Mostly good-natured, Beth thought, at that last bit — there had been a bit of a drawl on Dumbledore's voice for the comment about his age, so that was probably more laughing with him than at him.
"No, nominating myself would not do, and I would never sabotage our response so as to suggest it. But even putting myself aside, we must take great care whom we choose. It is a heady responsibility, one that may wisely be entrusted to only the most honourable, the most incorruptible of persons. Those who it can be certain would never use such exemplary authority for personal gain, but only as necessary to safeguard the lands and the peoples we have sworn to serve. When I consider who may have the depth of skill and the purity of character to faithfully lead our country through this crisis, I find only one name comes to mind." Smoothly and dramatically, Dumbledore raised one arm, holding one open-palmed hand out toward the government seats, his voice dropping into a deep rumble. "May it please the Lords of the Wizengamot, I propose we invest Amelia Bones as our Lady Protector." Dumbledore held the gesture for a moment, as everyone in the Chamber around them seemed to all hold their breath, before carefully sinking back into his chair.
The quiet lingered for another moment — everyone considering the idea, Beth would guess. She knew Bones was really well-liked, was a literal war hero and everything (she'd been an active Auror in the war with Voldemort). And, it helped that she was a very...blunt Director of Law Enforcement. She meant, from what Beth had heard from Order people, Bones pretty much stayed completely out of politics, and just tried to do her job. There wasn't even a sniff of corruption around her, which, for someone so high up in the Ministry, was practically unheard of. Sometimes there was trouble with her trying to get around enforcing laws she thought were stupid — some of the racist shite against non-humans, for example, ended up being enforced mostly by Regulation and Control, in large part because Bones very intentionally half-arsed that kind of thing — some people did get annoyed with her for that, but nobody argued Bones was doing that sort of thing for, like, personal gain, or as favours to people, or whatever, she legitimately just thought those laws were stupid and refused to cooperate with stupid shite. She could be a bit too stubborn and blunt for a politician, supposedly, but someone who'd do what they thought was right or necessary no matter what was kind of exactly who you wanted in charge in a situation like this.
Beth wasn't an expert, there were a lot of people in the government she didn't know shite about, but if you were going to hand ultimate power over to someone, Bones was who she would pick. And as squabbling and obstructive as the magical government could be, they really should pick someone. Of course, who the hell knew if the Wizengamot would agree with her — she didn't generally expect these idiots to be reasonable. In fact, them being terrible at their jobs was kind of why picking a Lord Protector might be a good idea in the first place...?
Eventually, the quiet fell apart, people muttering to each other. The noise in the Chamber gradually increased, but not breaking out into shouting and arguing as Beth had expected — instead, starting somewhere to Beth's right and quickly spreading across the Hall, there was a deep boom, boom, boom, boom. As it came around, Beth realised people were doing that with some kind of noise-making charm, their wands tapping against desks in unison with each boom. Not everyone started doing it, there were definitely some people around the government seats who were sitting it out — some even visibly disapproving, arms crossed and glaring out at the Hall — but they did get most of them, obviously.
Huh. Colour Beth surprised, the Wizengamot was actually being reasonable for once — that almost never happened...
Bones hadn't moved since the Headmaster's nomination, visibly taken aback. But, as the noise spread through the Hall, she left the Chief Warlock's podium (Tugwood standing up to take her place), stepped down to the floor in the middle. Beth would guess presiding over your own nomination for an even higher office was probably inappropriate. Gradually, the noise died out, and Bones gave a brief speech, very little of which Beth would remember afterward. About being flattered by their faith in her, that it might be necessary to appropriate people's property to supply the war effort and to resettle those made homeless by the initial attack, but vowing that she would only do so as she felt necessary to carry on for another generation the legacy handed them by their ancestors, blah blah, political shite, blah. It was pretty short and blunt, considering Bones had literally just been nominated to be made queen (slash military dictator) of magical Britain, but Beth couldn't help it, once she'd recognised it as a political speech it went in one ear and straight out the other.
(Even after listening to Hermione talk about stuff sometimes, she still knew less about politics than she probably should, and maybe she would actually be able to pay attention if it wasn't always so boring.)
Once she was done with her little speech, Tugwood asked if anyone had any comments, questions, protests...and surprisingly didn't get any — the only person who stood up was a Lord Eirsley, who only spoke long enough to suggest they just get on with it already. (Beth was with that bloke, this shite was taking way too long.) So, without further ado, Tugwood started with the vote. Apparently they started with the first tier, because Sirius was the first to vote — he voted to make Bones Lady Protector, naturally — followed immediately by Susan, sitting at the Bones seat (plain white marble, matching the Hall itself, with very little decoration at all) alongside a woman in the black and blue of the Hit Wizards. Beth had heard Susan complain that she was often stuck with bodyguards any time she was leaving the house or school without her aunt around, Amelia worried about some bastard kidnapping Susan and trying to use her as a hostage. (Like all good Aurors, there were a lot of criminal types out there who really hated her.) Anyway, Susan abstained, which made sense — just like Amelia presiding over the vote wouldn't be appropriate, Susan voting at all also wouldn't look good — and the process continued on.
Dumbledore leaned over toward Beth, lowering his voice so they wouldn't be heard over the vote (finishing the first tier before proceeding alphabetically down the list now, seemed like), to suggest that Beth should be the one to vote for the Potters. That was Dumbledore's job, basically, but picking a Lord Protector was a big fucking deal, and it would look better if Beth participated herself — especially since Dumbledore was so controversial these days. That did make sense, so, why not. Dumbledore asked if she had any quick questions about what was going on, but she just waved him off. She realised she could be an idiot sometimes, but she actually got pretty good marks in History class (thanks to Hermione talking about shite aloud for her), and she did pay attention to Dora talking about the DLE and Order people talking about how the war was going. She didn't need any help figuring out that voting for Bones was definitely the right thing to do.
Besides, she was well aware that Bones was one of Sirius's favourite people in government — they'd fought together in the war, but she also had zero tolerance for the racist shite that was far too common in magical society, and he claimed she could be amusingly blunt about how stupid she thought it all was — and also that Fudge sucked. So, basically kicking him out and putting Bones in charge seemed like an obvious improvement to Beth — especially since Bones would have way more power to ignore the stupid racist laws. And also Voldemort was still out there somewhere, and she'd probably be in a better position to deal with that too? So. Yeah, not a hard decision, she didn't hesitate at all when her turn came up.
(No matter how fucking ridiculous it was that she was voting in wizard Parliament — she was barely fifteen years old, and she hardly understood any of this shite, honestly...)
Tugwood didn't say exactly what the vote total had ended up being, but he didn't really have to — Beth had only been half-listening, but she was still very certain it'd ended up being well above half. While Tugwood was saying some very fancy, poetic shite, Beth was distracted by the big double doors being pushed open. There was a tromping of boots, about a dozen Hit Wizards filed into the Hall — the special ones that guarded the Wizengamot, with their finely-detailed purple and gold armour, carrying brightly-polished swords and/or spears. (As silly as it looked to modern eyes, the things must be enchanted to hell and back, and could probably do some serious damage in the right situation.) As Tugwood wrapped up her speech, one of the Hit Wizards pounded his spear on the floor, near the edge of the triple-spiral design taking up the centre.
Apparently it wasn't just a design: some of the curved lines were actually seams, the floor irising open, the panels seeming to rotate as they were pulled away. A shallow circular hole was opened up in the middle of the floor, Beth couldn't see inside it very well from this angle. A couple of the purple Hit Wizards hopped inside then climbed back out, one with a cloth of some kind (probably a cloak or something) draped over one shoulder — very colourful, a swirling rainbow mess, if there was a particular pattern to it Beth couldn't make it out, trying to follow the lines almost making her dizzy. The other had pulled on gloves before, gently, lifting up with both hands a...length of wood. Slightly longer than an average person was tall, it almost looked like a branch someone had just hacked off a tree, most of its length straight and mostly smooth — though still with little knobs here and there, kinking and curving at subtle angles — but at one end divided into multiple twigs, spreading out a little but remaining tangled together in a confusing mess, almost like a root ball scaled up. The bloke was carrying the thing carefully, almost reverentially, Beth immediately got the impression that the thing was really important, whatever it was.
The first Hit Wizard had reached Bones, and it turned out the cloth was a weird rainbow cape...thing — it got draped over one shoulder, held closed by...something the Hit Wizard set over the other shoulder, Beth couldn't see it from here. (There was a metal glint where the corners of the cape were held in place, but she was too far away to tell what that was.) While they were doing that, Beth leaned a little closer to Dumbledore, whispered, "What's that thing? The big stick, I mean."
Dumbledore let out a little huff of laughter. "That is the Merlin Staff, Beth."
Beth twitched, gave the staff a double-take. "Wait, really? You mean, the Merlin Staff, literally? I didn't know that thing was real!"
"It has not been seen with living eyes in centuries, but yes, it is very real."
...Bloody hell, she'd assumed that was just a myth. Before wands had become common, a lot of people had used staves instead — more room to work with meant it was easier to pack in the enchanting necessary to prepare it as a focus. The things could be pretty hard to make, so they'd be passed down through families, or sometimes master to apprentice, or staying with a particular office. One had been passed down by an old Celtic priesthood on Anglesey, handed from high priest to high priest back longer than anyone knew, supposedly centuries before the Romans had ever reached the Isles. The first Wizengamot had met at a sanctuary managed by the priesthood — exactly where they were now, the land had been handed off to the government at some point — and the high priest at the time happened to be the Merlin. Instead of sticking with the priesthood (which, after a bunch of reforms over the centuries, eventually became the House of Bones), with Merlin's death the staff had been donated to the infant Wizengamot instead, to be held by the Chief Warlock.
A couple centuries later, though, they'd stopped using it. Supposedly, there were some weird ancient magics tied to the staff, and when the staff was taken up by a person the weird magics approved of the staff would bloom — it quickly became very embarrassing if the staff didn't bloom when a new Chief Warlock was picked. They decided the staff would belong to the Lord Protector instead. There were a couple cases over history when the staff didn't bloom for a Lord Protector, immediately leading to the selection of a new Lord Protector, and on one infamous case another and another, until they found one the staff liked. There was an old story about Ignatius Gaunt nearly stealing the thing, and a big dramatic thing about the person who managed to swipe it and escape from the old Wizengamot Hall while it was being attacked by Cormwell and her people, it was a whole thing.
And Beth had assumed it was all fictional. For one thing, two thousand years was a long bloody time for a wooden staff to survive, and also, mysterious mystical objects that only worked properly for people who were worthy just...seemed like the sort of thing that would be fictional? She meant, it was very silly, that was all.
Beth guessed that, after four years and change dealing with the magical world, she should be used to their silly shite turning out to be super serious by now. It was just surreal.
Did this mean that Merlin was an actual historical figure? She'd kind of assumed all that was myth too...
Anyway, the one with the Staff sank to one knee just to Bones's left, held the Staff up toward her with both hands. Bones began to reach for it, but then hesitated, her hand hovering a foot from the wood. The Hall had gone completely silent, everyone seeming to hold their breath — Beth had no idea what would happen if the Staff rejected her, she assumed it'd be much harder to find an alternative everyone would agree on. Thankfully, Bones didn't leave them in suspense for too long, her hand closing around the staff after only a couple seconds. There was a faint crackle of magic, something Beth only vaguely felt sweeping through the room, and the tangled twigs at the head of the staff abruptly burst with pure white flowers, gusty sighs and low chuckles running through the Chamber. Beth squinted, leaning forward a little — apple, maybe? Didn't the more traditional mages have a thing about apples?
While that had been going on, there'd been some reshuffling in the government seats. The middle of the long table, where the Minister sat, had melted down into the floor, Fudge standing awkwardly behind Bones's empty seat. The Chief Warlock's podium was also gone, the spot it'd been transfigured out a little into the government seats, dividing the table in half, stairs ascending the little platform leading up to a chair that hadn't been there a moment ago. It seemed to have grown out of the stone of the Hall, formed out of the same white marble, little bits of quartz glittering in the sun, blocky and plain and undecorated.
After a second spent staring at the flowers that'd taken over the end of the Staff, Bones started toward the...toward the throne, Beth guessed was the proper term, the special purple Hit Wizards dropping to their knees as she passed, a clattering of metal against stone as they laid their weapons down at her feet. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, there was a shuffling and thunking as everyone in the Hall started getting to their feet all at once — Dumbledore reached for her elbow to draw her up, but Beth had figured that out for herself, thanks. When Bones got to the top of the stairs, she turned and sat without any additional ceremony, the rainbow cloak fluttering around her a little, the Staff held in one hand with the butt resting on the floor.
"Take your seats everyone. We have work to do."
(And that was how Beth's friend Susan became a literal magic princess.)
(Also, the Wizengamot didn't know it, but they'd just elected the final leader of magical Britain — Bones would ultimately dissolve the country as an independent entity, less than a decade from her nomination. If they'd realised that at the time, Beth guessed the election might not have gone so smoothly, but it was too late to do anything about it now.)