Ministry of Magic, Office of Cornelius Fudge.
"What happened to your close relationship with the Daily Prophet management, Cornelius? Do they not have any respect for your authority as Minister."
Albus Dumbledore smoothed his beard more or less continuously in what the Minister was beginning to realize was a nervous tick. After having to cow-tow to the almost omnipotent Champion of Light, a glorified school teacher who held the top post in the Wizagamot and Iinternational Confederation of Warlocks but could not be bothered to do the work of either body, it was deeply amusing to see the Mighty Dumbledore nervous about a group of school children.
"The Prophet is a newspaper Albus, and we here in Wizarding Britain have a world renowned free press, not like the tame lapdogs of the French or Russians who have to clear every comma with three censors before they are allowed to print a weather report." Said Fudge pompously, embracing the public stance that ignored the Ministry's heavy hand on official news sources when its own interests were involved.
"It isn't as if they acted against any instructions I gave them, nor do I recall any specific conversations about covering up any snake-sex-cult stories at Hogwarts. It isn't as if it comes up in daily conversations!" Cornelius paused, then looked theatrically thoughtful.
"I mean it does now, certainly. I have had everyone from the shoe-shine hag to the centaur who delivered our milk, the goblin teller at Gringotts and every single witch and wizard I saw in the coffee shop trying to get my morning tea and scones try to bend my ear about it. What happened to your control over your faculty and student's Dumbledore? Don't they have any respect for your authority as Headmaster?"
Cornelius Fudge slapped his knee, and laughed right in the face of Albus Dumbledore, supreme warlock of the wizagamot, supreme mugwump of the ICW, headmaster of Hogwarts, and Order of Merlin First Class. Ten years of boot licking washed away as he laughed, and he rather enjoyed the taste better than boot-polish.
Albus wand twitched into his hand, and the four Aurors in the room began to sweat. If Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore chose to blast the Minister of Magic into rainbow sparkles, or transform him into a toad, he would do so. They would draw their wands of course, as sworn Aurors of the defense detail they had magical oaths binding them too, but none of them expected that would make a difference to the outcome. The magical power in the room cycled around Dumbledore like a vortex, it was all the wizards could do to hold the magic of their own core from flowing into and being absorbed by the Champion of Light, if they dared to raise a wand against him, they doubted any attack they raised would be noticed, nor any defense they put up help.
In the end, the old wizard sighed.
"Minister Fudge, the actions of these children threaten the control that I wield over internal discipline in Hogwarts, and of my moral authority to direct, guide and shape the young witches and wizards who we have been shaping to better suit the needs of a peaceful and orderly society. Ancient laws built upon mysticism and paganism, respecting individual power and ties to family above nation have no place in Wizarding Britain. Magic, and the primordial forces that birth it are no fit guides for humanity. We no longer serve magic, magic serves us.
You profit from a Wizarding Britain whose wizagamot sleeps, and stirs only to protect its monetary interests, and those social advantages that distract them from taking up and wielding magical power that has the capacity to reshape the world, and upset the delicate balance we must walk. The price we pay for being left alone to tame wizarding Britain into a well managed flower garden of decorative but thornless blossoms, rather than a dark and ancient forest filled with eldritch horrors is humouring the overbred and overprivileged nobility while we get the real work done."
Dumbledore turned to the hollow shell of a man that was Cornelius Fudge. A crusader once, he found the need for the gold of Lucius Malfoy had been required to get anything done in a Ministry deliberately kept cash starved, even as he needed the moral authority and political support of Albus Dumbledore to keep Malfoy's Dark houses from overturning or ignoring the few laws that limited their behaviour. Fudge had been a well trained puppet for years, dancing at the call of offsetting masters he tried to pit against each other to allow him the illusino of independence.
Lucius Malfoy's wealth and power were shattered, and now the moral authority of Dumbledore and his control over the Light Faction were being threatened. Minister Fudge thought this was going to make him a free man, and the actual master of wizarding Britain.
Fool. A puppet with his strings cut did not dance, it collapsed. Dumbledore would try one last appeal to the fool's self interest.
"You need to put controls on these children. I cannot control their actions inside of Hogwarts when they wield the charter against me. The charter was made by founders who saw wizards as the servants of magic and the protectors of a magicless humanity. The founders and their charter charged wizards to open themselves to the wild magics of creation, to stand as intercessors between magicless humanity and the world they inhabited but could not understand.
When the Statute of Secrecy was enacted, we chose to cut ourselves off from the muggles, and let them wipe out their world in their blindess as long as our kind could live on. Your ministry was created to steer wizarding Britain away from those primal powers, to give them bread and circuses and leave ancient powers to be forgotten as a dream we outgrew and moved past.
Grindelwald tried to wake the wizarding world by force, and in the end, I had to stop him. The charter will not let me act against the children in Hogwarts for following the rules the Founders laid down before wizarding Britain became a legal entity. Harry Potter needs to be guided into being the end of Voldemort, not the rise of the next Grindelwald."
Fudge shook his head. "You want me to seat them early, call the wizagamot into session and risk them trying to bring up Sirius Black before the Dementors have found and kissed him, just so we drag them into wizarding politics where they will have to play by our rules and face power that comes from votes and favours, gold and secrets, not wand and magic.
Why should I risk it? Right now it is not my power they are threatening. The Dementors are the Ministry's fist. It is time the Ancient and Noble Houses realize the days of their primacy are gone. They slept too long, power has been in our hands too long. They have no idea how the world actually works now, few of them could even cook a meal without a dozen house elves, or tie their own shoes even with a wand and twenty grimoires to guide them.
No. The Dementors will find and kiss Sirius Black, the Ancient and Noble Houses will see that the Ministry can bring down even one of their own when we need to, and the people of wizarding Britain will be reminded that only the Ministry can defend them from the dark.
I will seat them and give them their Orders of Merlin after Sirius Black dies, not before."
Cornelius Fudge said, secure in his newfound power. Dumbledore shook his head. He did not need Sybil Trewlany to predict this would all end in tears. Puppets should know their places, both Cornelius Fudge and Harry Potter.
Dumbledore would wait. He was the most powerful wizard of light in living memory. When Cornelius lost control of his pet Dementors, as he had in the last war when Voldemort took control of them, Dumbledore would play the saviour again, and remind wizarding Britain why he held every position of supreme authority, in Hogwarts, in the wizagamot and in the ICW.
Hogwarts: Several weeks later, Quidditch pitch on game day.
Ron Weasley was looking at his three traitor siblings, his face a mask of uncomprehanding rage.
"How can you be wearing their colours? " Ron shouted. "We are Gryffindors!"
Ginny Weasley rolled her eyes. "Gryffindor is not playing, it is Slytherin vs Hufflepuff. Clearly cheering for Gryffindor would be a bit daft wouldn't it?"
Ron stomped his feet like a five year old finding coal not candy in his stocking.
"No sister of mine is wearing that in public!" Ron shouted.
Ginny looked down at her "Cuddle Badger" quidditch Jersy, which had Neville Longbottom's number on the back, the golden Hufflepuff colours, and a black and white badger hugging a heart.
Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet, two of the Gryffindor chaser girls were about to move past the Weasley blockade when they spotted Ginny in her "Cuddle Badger" jersey.
"Sister!" They shouted, linking arms with the little redhead and dragging her off. The two chasers also sported Cuddle Badger jerseys and went off to a section usually reserved for Gryffindor fans that was filled largely with Ravenclaw and Gryffindor girls all wearing Cuddle Badger jerseys, Hufflepuff scarves or bearing badger flags.
Ron turned to Fred and George who were wearing Slytherin Quidditch Jerseys with crossed beater bat and whip on the front, with a crown above.
"And you are cheering for the bloody snakes! We hate Slytherin!" Ron howled like a monkey at the zoo discovering his banana was plastic.
"She's the Queen" began Fred
"Of beaters." Finished George.
"Fought two rogue bludgers," crooned Fred
"For almost fifteen minutes," cheered George
"Through traffic!" added Fred
"And then batted," cheered George
"The snitch," shouted Fred
"For the WIN!" They cheered together, then high fived, linked arms, and marched past Ron to shoulder their way to good spots in the Slytherin section with all the subtly of Gryffindor beaters.
Ron sat there blinking. "Mental. My brothers are all mental."
Luna Lovegood walked up, a big green toque with a large knitted silver dragon enchanted to wave its wings and snap its jaws walked up, clad in Ravenclaw robes with a Slytherin scarf.
"Cheering is very important today. Cheering is the most important part of Quidditch, especially today." Luna Lovegood said, grabbing Ron's arms and dragging him against his will to the Ravenclaw section where Ron notices her hat snapping at those who tried to sneer at her made their passage easier than her travels through Ravenclaw spaces usually were.
Before Luna sat down, she waved over at the Hufflepuff section, where Hermione was lit with odd blue flames that served to keep her and Noodle warm yet somehow not light their seats on fire.
Ron shook his head. Even the Hufflepuffs had snakes. Honestly, people needed to remember that Gryffindor led the light, Slytherin the dark, and everybody had to pick a side. There was no middle ground, there were no other options. Dubmledore was right, you couldn't be a little bit dark. There was pure light, and dirty filthy slimy snake suckers. Nothing else. He didn't know why people tried to make things complicated. Simple was best. Dumbledore was right, and everyone else was wrong, just like mum always said.
-Hours before, Forbidden Forest, Auror detail
"You swear these are the only copies?" Auror Holt snarled.
Lucius Malfoy sneered. "Honestly Holt, I think you overestimate the market for pictures of a man and a satyr getting friendly over a log. You are going to drink this little potion, come down suddenly ill and report to St Mungos. You will have an amazing alibi, and it isn't your fault at all if someone else shows up to your shift."
Auror Holt shuddered. "What are you going to do with those Dementors. I mean, you can't think to attack the school, the Hogwarts wards would eat the Dementors alive. They are from before the Azkaban Treaty, and don't care the Ministry supposedly controls them now."
Lucius Malfoy raised his new wand up and took a magical oath.
"I swear upon my magic, I will not turn the Dementors I use tonight upon the school of Hogwarts, nor any staff or student within its halls." His wand flashed, and Lucius then spoke softly. "Lumos" and his wand lit, proving he had not sworn falsely and lost his magic.
Auror Holt nodded. "Alright then, I couldn't take an inquiriy if a student got hurt because of me."
Lucius smiled cruelly, exchanging photos for the Aurors Dementor Amulet. "My dear Holt, I did see the pictures. I am sure you could 'take' a great deal more than most."
The Auror blushed and bolted, too insulted and ashamed to really think about the oath Lucius just took. Honestly, what was Hogwarts teaching these days. He supposed it came from Bins being a ghost, no one studied magical history with any degree of critical thinking. Magical oaths and their limits was a huge portion of any true study of magical history. The first treaty with the Sidhe that sundered the fairy realm from earth had been the first. The wizarding world had lost so much power from that one act that their loss of control to the muggles had been all but guaranteed before the ink was even dry on their victory over the ancient elves.
Sure, those poor elves left on this side when the rest of their race were trapped forever in fairy had the choice to become slaves to wizards or starve, cut off from the Sidhe magic of fairy, but the wizard magic was so weak they actually were at the mercy of their muggle cousins, who were free to breed like rabits and expand into the territory the ancient race no longer defended.
The devil was in the details. Magic was as much about grammar as intent. Lucius Malfoy had no ill intent against Hogwarts castle itself. The Quidditch pitch was far outside the inner wards after all. His targets were not going to be in Hogwarts. The oath cost him exactly nothing.
Joining the Auror detail under a glamour of Holt, he used the Amulet to take control of his six Dementors from the first Auror. Getting paired with his partner, he began his circuit of patrol in the Dark Forest. As he fell slightly behind his parner, he snapped his wand into his hand and whispered "Imperio".
The first of the patroling Aurors was now under his control. When they passed the next team, he and his parner both whirled as they past and cast Imperio on the next pair. It took three of the four hours of his shift to comprimise twenty Aurors of the guard force, that gave him a hundred and twenty Dementors, the full Hogwarts patrol force.
As the cheers rang from the Quidditch stadium, and the echo of the play by play reached the Forbidden Forest, as if on cue, all the Aurors gave the command, and set the Dementors on the Quidditch players and spectators.
Lucius turned and walked towards the pitch. He would not be able to approach the outer wards without detection, but he could use his far seeing charms to see and hear the slaughter.
He was Lucius Malfoy. He did not need his Lord's ring, his fortune, or his Dark Lord to bring his enemies down. He would never have to grovel at Voldemort's feet and beg for table scraps. This was not the Blood War, Lucius had succeeded in bringing Wizarding Britain to heel with corruption and guile, he didn't need brute magical power or forbidden knowledge. Blackmail was more potent than secret magics. His enemies would die screaming today, and it was Lucius Malfoy whose name would be whispered in fear by even the followers of the Dark Lord.
Adrian Pucey and the Slytherin chasers were better than the Hufflepuffs, and that should have been enough. The war in the air however was a storm of iron and oak that sounded more like the crashing broadsides of the Spanish Armada's failed invasion attempt than a standard quidditch match.
Harry and Neville were a storm, driving the bludgers at the Slytherin chasers like the wrath of an angry god. Pucey and his well oiled chasing machine were forced to devote more of their attention to staying alive than chasing the quaffle.
The Night Hag of Slytherin cackled madly as she dove between the Slytherin chasers and incoming carnage, Milicent Blustrode's bat hammered like a thunderbolt, slamming the bludger at a Hufflepuff chaser diving on Pucey's dropped quaffle, forcing them too to break off.
Marcus Flint had been forced to dive from a shattered broom as Neville and Harry sent converging bludgers at him at the tenth minute of play, and it had been two on one in the sky since then with no quarter asked or given.
The mad laughter of Milicent and her streaming black hair had the Slytherin's screaming "Night Hag! Night Hag!" even as Fred and George unfurled a banner labeled Queen of Beaters!
The Hufflepuff chasers were slowly building a lead, but Draco Malfoy was showing either blind faith in Bulstrode to protect him, or an almost Gryffindor courage to dive past the bludgers after the snitch. Cedric Diggory held himself among the best of the seekers in the game, but twice he shied away from bludgers that Longbottom or Potter stopped, while Draco never wavered, trusting the lone Bustrode somehow to protect him.
If Draco succeeded in getting to the snitch first, Slytherin won. If he took too much time, the Hufflepuff's would ride bludger control to victory as their chasers did what Hufflepuffs did best, and ground their way to slow and steady victory.
Harry and Neville were living the Hufflepuff dream, working together, guarding their friends and working hard to a joint victory. For Draco and Milicent, this was a Slytherin moment. Their team was helpless, and only their own superiority made even a miracle possible. If they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, it would cement their personal standing and power both within their house and before the school. If snakes could sing, they would be.
Lee Jordan had passed out and been replaced by Professor McGonagall who could actually remember to breathe, the play by play was so fast that the clipped tones and ever thickening brogue of the quidditch mad McGonagall matched well the screaming excitement of a crowd whipped into a frenzy as the pace of the match moved to that of a top level professional match, far beyond what was expected or safe for a school match.
This of course was when the Dementors descended. A hundred and twenty demons of darkness and fear, the essence of anti-life, the spiritual parasites of the Unreal descended on a stadium filled with students whipped into a frenzy of excitement and joy.
The Dementors control was already weak through their controllers being both distant and under the Imperius curse. In the face of hundreds of innocent children whipped into an emotional frenzy, they lost all control and went into a feeding frenzy as they descended upon the pitch from all sides.
Albus Dumbledore called upon his Patronus, and a blazing phoenix took to the sky, and a dozen Dementors fled before it. He shone, his mantle of Champion of light drew around him where he stood in the stand.
No one noticed, or cared. In the sky, the true battle was being fought.
Harry Potter touched his wand to his throat and cast his most powerful Sonorus.
"GET OUT OF MY SKY YOU UNNATURAL FILTH!" He roared.
"$ Expecto Patronum! $ Harry hissed and a Basilisk shone in the sky above the Hogwarts quidditch field, but only for a moment.
Draco Malfoy pointed his wand at Potter and hissed. "$ Expecto Patronum $"
Seeing what he had done, Neville and Milicent pointed their wands at Potter and hissed "$ Expecto Patronum$ "
Luna Lovegood stood in the Ravenclaw stands and hissed "$ Expecto Patronum!" causing Ron Weasley to scream in fear at the hated serpent tongue.
Hermione Granger and Noodle together hissed from the Hufflepuff stands " $Expecto Patronum$
Fred and George Weasley from the heart of the Slytherin stands "$ Expect Patronum $"
As the silver fire leapt from each of their wands, it took the form of a twisting serpent of light that slammed into Harry Potter who blazed like a star.
The basilisk patronus sprouted the wings of an eagle, the fangs of a lion and the claws of a badger.
A dragon formed of the magic of all four Hogwarts founders blazed in the sky above her students, and while its eyes blazed with the killing power of the basilisk, its great jaws opened to the roar and fire of the Dragon, the ancient and most potent symbol of the power of magic herself.
A dragon roughly the size of an Airbus opened its mouth, and the primordial fires of creation, the flames that shattered the first and endless night carved through the gathering darkness of a hundred Dementors, and they fell from the sky screaming and burning.
The power of a patronus is an aura of hope and joy, of safety and comfort that extends for somewhere between dozens of centimeters or meters from the patronus, depending on the power of its caster.
The Dragon of Hogwarts blazed so brightly, and its roar shook the earth so powerfully that the ley lines that converged on Hogwarts answered back, and the sky burned with an aurora more powerful than the Northern Lights, an aura that sang with raw defiance and joy a maddening frenzy of ecstasy that went beyond reason or limit, a fire of life and its passions that was the madness of the maenad, the power of the storm, the wrath of the volcano, the song of the Veela, and the endless renewing dance of life itself.
The dozen Dementors that fled fastest, and the dozen Dumblefore's own forgotten Patronus had driven off were the only ones that lived. They flew all the way back to the walls of Azkaban and refused to leave.
Below in the stadium, the students sang and danced wildly in the song of power that rose between the ancient ley lines of the land, the powerful wards of Hogwarts and the blazing dragon of light that soared in the sky's above, and screamed its joy to the world.
Alone in the stadium, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore slammed his shields down, and blocked the wild magic, the primal magic of the ancient days from him. He felt the land around him waken from its slumber, ancient powers whose name and nature were best forgotten heard the call of these ignorant children, and gave answer.
The land woke, the earth stirred and power flowed into his wards, power that had not moved since the days of the Founders. Power that would deny entry to creatures of the dark. Dementors would not again dare the sky's above these fields, no matter what the Minister ordered, and no matter what the Headmaster himself chose.
This was not a power the children wielded. They were none of them, neither individually nor collectively as poweful as he was. They called to magic in ways that the wizards and witches learned long ago when they guided their tribes, before the rise of kings and nations, and before the separation of wizard and muggle, and magic answered.
This was not the magic of spell and wand, careful and controlled. This was wild magic, changing the world as magic willed when witches and wizards cried out the needs of their folk to the powers that shaped the world and asked it do as magic chose to aid their folk.
Merlin reshaped the world with the wand. Magic was bent to the will of the wizard, not the pathetic mewlings of magicless mortals. Wizards commanded and magic obeyed, it had no more right to a will than a shovel or a hammer. it was a tool, not a god, or too often for the ancient peoples, a goddess.
The old world was dead. The wild magics, the dark magics, they could not be afforded in the new world of materialism, and rationality. The Unreal had no place, wild magic had no place. For the greater good, the rule of wand and will must be absolute.
If Voldemort was left unchecked, there would not be enough wizard blood left to carry the magical world forward even a dozen generations, but if the wild magic not the light magic was what wizarding Britain turned to, two thousand years of progress would be lost.
The light was the only path. The light of reason. The harsh light that permitted neither shadow nor darkness, in which even colour was stripped away. Only the light, the will, the wand. Two thousand years light wizards had striven to guide humanity away from the madness and chaos of the wild, from the seduction of the dark. Only in the harsh rule of order, of rationality, and the pure submission to the light could magic be bent to human will, and made properly its servant.
His precious Dementors shattered before the children of the whole of magical Britain, maybe now Cornelius Fudge would see that he needed to take control of these children. Harry Potter was a weapon promised to his hand for the light. He must be used to strike down Voldemort before he grew powerful enough to choose for himself.
Above all else, Harry Potter must be forced to fit the Child of Prophesy, for the child of prophesy would die bringing down Voldemort under the guidance of Albus Dumbledore, the Champion of Light. Only he could be trusted to guide these children who thought themselves Lords and Ministers of Wizarding Britain. Didn't they understand? It was only Dumbledore who could see what must be done.
With Grindelwald lost, only he remained to fight for the Greater Good.
-Forbidden Forest
Lucius Malfoy wept. He was nothing. Not lord of anything, no wealth or position to stand on. He had looked upon the face of true power and his own worthlessness ground into him. He had no choice now. He never had. Like McNair said, Lucius had no choice but to crawl back to his Dark Lord, accept his punishment, and kiss his feet until his service had proven worthwhile enough for the Dark Lord to again grant him place and power.
The truth burned him. Now he must go to Albania, and seek out a bodiless wraith filled with rage beyond the limits of human reason, and beg to be its tool once again.
-Ministry of Magic
Cornelius Fudge had stormed out of Amelia Bones office, he wished he could fire her, but a no confidence vote would see him on the street before she could pack up her office. Probably end up with his if he tried.
His own Aurors, the very guards of Azkaban he had ordered to Hogwarts to wield the Dementors as the Ministry's hunting hounds were singing the praise of the Hogwarts Dragon.
His own guards could not wait to tell every reporter they could find that the Ministry had lost control of the Dementors and only the wild magic of the Miracle of Hogwarts had saved all of their children. Each of them swore they felt the power of the wild magic clean the taint of the Dementors off their soul, claimed none of the guards of Azkaban could remain clean, that the Dementors themselves were far more numerous than the Ministry admitted, that they were breeding off the prisoners the Ministry fed them.
Those who had stood in the light of that Dragon had been freed from their oaths of secrecy sworn in Azkaban, the very secrets the treaty was meant to protect now spoken in the open without fear.
He had been a fool to laugh at Dumbledore. Harry Potter and his friends were a clear and present threat to the Ministry. They needed to be brought out of Hogwarts and bound to the powers and laws of the wizagamot.
Let them be granted their Order of Merlin and their seat in the Wizagamot. One seat was worth the cost, to get them bound to the oaths of Loyalty to the wizagamot itself. After all, when the Sacred Twenty Eight families each held upwards of thirty votes, who cared if these children got one?
They would be bound to the laws of the wizagamot, no longer protected by the Hogwarts charter. Then let them see where true power lay. Not in the wand, but in the regulation and law. Hundreds of dewy eyed crusaders had come into the wizagamot demanding change, and before long their hands and souls were as dirty as anyone else's from the deals and bargains required to get anything done.
Yes. Time to call a special meeting of the wizagamot. Let the press believe it was to honour the saviours of Hogwarts. Those that mattered understood it was about bringing dangerous and chaotic elements into the arena where ancient privilege mattered more than magical prowess or fuzzy nonsense like right or wrong.