I do not own Harry Potter nor World of Darkness
Ministry of Magic, London, 7th January 1993 (Thursday)
Zafrina walked into the large building, her visitor tag glistening on her chest.
She had left Barnaby at Hogwarts with Glen Graytwig and Mansi Mole to continue the inspection, which had swiftly turned into a very frustrating attempt to map a semi-sentient castle that really didn't like being mapped. The marble staircase in particular had been a constant source of frustration, with stairs seemingly determined to pull, stretch and crush any measuring tape they tried to lay down. Laying cables in there will be a nightmare, they might be forced to drill the power lines inside the walls, which is something none of them wanted to do. Drilling meter after meter into stone, even with the assistance of magic, would take months.
But today she wasn't inspecting the castle. Today she had a delivery to make. She knocked on the door.
"Come in, dear."
Zafrina stepped into the office, a horrendously pink room with cat-themed plates hanging on the wall and a massive picture of a smiling Cornelius Fudge framed above the fireplace. The senior undersecretary, a stout woman resembling a large pale toad wearing just as much pink as the rest of the room, offered the psychic a very wide and very fake smile.
"Good morning. Miss… Zafrina, I assume?"
The blonde psychic nodded, offering a bow.
"Zafrina Lessard. At your service, undersecretary Umbridge."
"Senior undersecretary Umbridge. - commented the toad, her tone so sweet it seemed nauseous. - I was told Sir Zettler wanted to send one of his… minions… to discuss my anti-werewolf legislation proposal, right? I understand you might be concerned to discover the existence of such a dangerous creature, but I can assure, my dear, that this legislation is aimed at upholding order within the wizarding community. To an almost-muggle like yourself, these suggestions may seem harsh, but I can assure they are necessary for ensuring the safety of everyone."
Zafrina nodded, ignoring the condescending tone of the witch.
"Oh, I am sure, they are, miss. However, I am obligated to tell you that both Sir Zettler and I are of the opinion that those measures are a bit too… lenient."
Umbridge's attention peaked. While she loathed the fact that this lady, who was little more than a muggle and thus only a few steps away from being an animal, she was carrying the full weight of Sir Zettler, a man who was one of Cornelius' main financial backers, and thus needed to be listened to, even if doing so made her want to vomit. Muggles, squibs, mudblood and those new… psychic things were all the same: ignorant savages, barely above foul half-breeds. Yet, if she wanted to push for more aggressive measures, she would listen. She knew her legislation was lenient, werewolves ought to be rounded up and put out of their misery, not jailed, but without a massive smear campaign against werewolves or a sufficiently high profile case, it was the best she could realistically hope to achieve. But if Sir Zettler were to put a few thousand Galleons to help sway popular opinion before the bill was presented…
"Sir Zettler has a few… suggestions for how to handle Garous, and has outlined a program to properly deal with them. It will take some time, but he can guarantee from personal experience that this particular method has proven to be rather effective. He suggests gradually implementing these steps over a fifteen year period."
Zafrina slid her a piece of paper and Dolores, repressing the sense of revulsion of touching it, picked it up. Had these people never heard of parchment? The discomfort towards the woman in front of her soon disappeared as she scanned the documents.
1) All werewolves are to be registered by the ministry;
2) Hire paid Magizoologist 'experts' and publish their work on werewolves to prove their condition makes them inherently evil;
3) Reorganize the Werewolf Capture Unit into the Werewolf Control Unit and allow them the use of more lethal spells. Prioritize hiring people with psychopathic tendencies and preferably already predisposed to hate werewolves;
4) Any werewolf found guilty of any crime will have declawing added to their sentence, removing one of their main weapons. If possible, use markings as to make it obvious to the casual civilian that the criminal is a werewolf;
5) Push heavier sentences towards repeated werewolves offenders, introducing the mandatory use of muzzle while in public;
6) Make it so Werewolves are only allowed to own land in predesignated werewolf-only areas, preferably as far from the common population as possible;
7) Grant the Werewolf Control Unit the legal right to execute werewolves under a certain set of circumstances. Slowly expand those circumstances to be generic enough to always be applicable;
8) Once all the werewolves have been moved to the predesignated werewolf-only areas into the countryside, infect their water supply with a cocktail of hormones that will, over time, sterilize the population;
She smiled while looking at the list. Now, that was something she could get behind. There was no way such a draconian proposal would ever pass as is, but with Sir Zettler's money? A few articles on werewolves attacks pushed to the front page of the Prophet, a couple donations here and there… The prospect was more than enough to make her genuinely smile.
"Sir Zettler has been pleased with the way your campaign has progressed so far and decided to offer a small incentive to show his support and see that your proposal is pushed through and becomes law as soon as possible. While he wishes to one day have his own suggestion implemented, he understands that before the general public can get behind such measures, it will take years of work from behind the scenes. Regardless, Sir Zettler believes that your ideas is a very good starting point. Please, use these to further your campaign."
Dolores looked up, watching Zafrina open a small bag filled with what had to be almost six thousand Galleons and deposit it on her desk. This Zafrina may be barely above a muggle, and thus inherently inferior to a proper witch like her, but perhaps this Zettler knew how to pick the one in a million good ones. Or maybe Psychics, unlike the rest of them, knew and accepted the fact they belonged at the bottom. She would have to wait and see, but so far she was more than happy from what little she saw. No wonder minister Fudge liked Sir Zettler so much.
"I'm sure we're all going to be very good friends."
Great Hall, Hogwarts, 14 February 1993 (Sunday)
Despite the attacks, Harry opted to spend the holidays inside the castle, helping out Barnaby and Zafrina to finish their inspection. They had presented an estimate for the price to Dumbledore in the second week of January, the matter had been pushed to the school board for approval and, once it was clear that the board wasn't going to make an immediate decision, Barnaby and Zafrina went back to the shop.
Even though he didn't celebrate, he still received a handful of gifts for Christmas or Yule, depending on who sent them, but the thing that surprised him the most was a large package carrying the obvious handwriting of Hagrid.
Sent owls off ter all yer parents' old school friends,
askin' fer photos ... knew yeh didn' have any.
Hope 'yeh like it.
Harry had spent a good deal of time looking at the photo album and spent quite a bit more time with the massive groundskeeper, asking stories about them. While Hagrid hadn't really known either of his parents that well when they were out at Hogwarts, the man had spent a few years with them during the war against You-Know-Who and had a number of anecdotes to tell Harry about them during those times.
In January, the classes resumed without much of a schedule change. Free periods were spent mostly in the library, under the watchful supervision of much nicer Madam Pince, who was now spending quite a lot of time pouring over old books about the Fae, or in the common room due to curfew.
In an attempt to 'wash away the ugly memories of last term', Professor Lockhart had decided to organize something for Valentine's day.
The man's idea of a morale-booster became clear at breakfast: as Harry hurried down to the Great Hall later than most due to his morning exercises he thought, for a moment, to have walked through the wrong doors.
The walls were all covered with large, lurid pink flowers and heart-shaped confetti was falling from the pale blue ceiling.
"What's going on?" asked Harry, sitting down at the Slytherin table and wiping confetti off his bacon.
Theo pointed to the teachers' table, where Lockhart, wearing robes matching the same obnoxious color of the decorations, was waving for silence. From where he sat, Harry could see a muscle going in Professor McGonagall's cheek and Snape looked as though someone had just fed him a large beaker of Skele-Gro.
"Happy Valentine's Day! - Lockhart shouted. - And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all, and it doesn't end here!"
Lockhart clapped his hands and through the doors to the Entrance Hall marched a dozen surly-looking dwarfs wearing golden wings and carrying harps.
"My friendly, card-carrying cupids! - beamed Lockhart. - They will be roving around the school today delivering your Valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"
Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands and Snape was looking like he force-fed poison to whoever dared to ask him for a Love Potion.
All day long, the dwarfs kept barging into students to deliver Valentines, often with muddy shoes to Filch's annoyance, and disturbing the peace.
Late that afternoon, one of them caught up with Harry.
"Oy, you! 'Arry Potter!" shouted a particularly grim-looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to Harry. Hot all over at the thought of being given a Valentine in front of a queue of first-years, which happened to include Ginny Weasley, Harry tried to escape. The dwarf, however, leapt over the crowd in a dramatic display of acrobatics and reached him before he'd gone two paces.
"I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person." he said with a grin, twanging his harp in a threatening sort of way.
"Not here." Harry hissed, trying to escape.
"Stay still!" grunted the dwarf, grabbing hold of Harry's bag and pulling him back.
Harry tried to make a run for it, but the dwarf seized him around the knees and brought him crashing to the floor.
"Right - he said, sitting on Harry's ankles - here is your singing Valentine:
His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.
Harry tried to fight against the embarrassment coloring his cheeks. Trying valiantly to laugh along with everyone else, he got up, his feet numb from the weight of the dwarf as Theo, barely containing his laughter, tried his best to disperse the crowd of first and second years.
"Off you go, off you go, the bell rang five minutes ago, off to dinner, now!"
As the group came to a close, Sally rushed to Harry, Daphne and Theo.
"The dwarves are Fae!" she almost shouted, her voice barely reaching the three above the laughter of the other students.
After Sally's words sank in, the Slytherin trio turned their head toward the retreating dwarf.
"Verum Sui Revelio!"
The stout frame of the dwarf shimmered, revealing a thinner frame and olive-brown skin weather-beaten with age. Gone was the bald head, replaced by a long mane of silver-colored hair tied up together in a series of braids.
"How…?"
"Hermione. She and Professor Flitwick spent the last hour or so chatting with one of these… Piskey, I think is what they said they are. I think they're trying to convince one to come to the next Fae Studies meeting."
Manhattan Valley, New York, 6th April 1993 (Tuesday)
Francesco sat down in his brand new chair, looking at his new colleagues around him. He took note of Zettler's condescending smirk and the nervous look of Kiro Yamazaki. The man had been on the brink of 'disappearance' since his latest failure of project Odyssey and everyone knew it. The japanese man was only here because Francesco had decided to take over his pitiful project and actually made it into something worthwhile by reorganizing it into his own project Aeneid. Yamazaki's ass was in Francesco's hands and everyone at that table knew it perfectly well.
Francesco smiled, tuning out the pointless pleasantry and mindless drivel that was part of Pentex's politics that, for some reason, Zettler and Culliford loved so much. When the pair finally got the discussion going, he was happy to show off the progress made by his research facility in Erenhot.
"... and I am happy to announce that our seventeenth batch of Brain Eater Fomori no longer suffers from bouts of explosive Bane rejection. While we are still trying to work on removing their addiction to human brains, the new Fomori can now function with an intake as low as one human brain per month."
Zettler started clapping with a maniacal grin on his face, swiftly followed by Yamazaki. The other members offered a slow, courtesy clap. Francesco smirked again.
"Good, good. - said a spindly-looking woman with way too many wrinkles on her face, shuffling through some documents. - Onto the next item on our list: project Maledictus."
Yamazaki stood up, the attention of the board focused on him.
"We have analyzed two specimens in different stages of the curse and a healthy carrier. Both subjects, as we suspected, share the same set of genetic abnormalities. From our research, the two share a few of these genetic abnormalities with those we have found in Fera and, to a minor degree, Kinfolk. Whether these abnormalities are a chance mutation, a crude attempt by mages to create artificial Fera or simply the result of severe inbreeding among Bubasti kinfolk is, at the current moment, impossible to determine."
"Can we weaponize this knowledge?"
"Maybe. So far, this discovery has allowed us to greatly expand the selection of viable specimens for project Lycaon, but whether we will be able to replicate the specific series of mutation responsible for blocking the Fera's shapeshifting properties via biological weapons is yet to be determined. Replicating the condition in captured Garou has so far been unsuccessful."
"What about the younger subject? This… Astoria, you said her name was? - asked a young man while flipping over the reports. - Would she make for a good baseline for an expansion for project Lycaon on… let's say jaguars?"
"According to our simulations, she does sound like the perfect candidate for preliminary testing on a new Mockery Breed." pointed out Francesco.
"What about her family? They are all Mages, and quite the influential family, if my understanding of this 'wizarding Britain' is correct. Can we recruit her?"
"Highly unlikely. You might have an easier time convincing Sir Zettler here to take a stroll under the sun."
"Lovely example, dear colleague. - replied Zettler, ignoring the jab. - I concur. Wizards carry disdain towards non-mages as well any mage that is… not as inbred as them."
A few members chuckled.
"Astoria Greengrass, while a perfect test subject, is not worth the ire of an entire wizarding family, especially one with ties to the government. Perhaps we can look elsewhere? A Greengrass pariah, maybe?"
"Unfortunately none exist. We had agents scouring their family tree: if another candidate whose presence wouldn't be missed existed, we would have found them and they'd already be in our lab."
"Which side of the family does the curse originate from? Paternal or maternal?" asked an old man, adjusting his glasses and scratching his neckbeard.
"Paternal." answered Francesco, looking at Benjamin Rushing, possibly the single most influential member within the room.
"In that case, we should collect some sperm samples. Have a couple of subjects ready for fertilization and let's hope we get at least one Maledictus to study."
"It is highly unlikely that Mr. Greengrass will ever agree to a sperm donation. He is… quite the blood purist." pointed out Zettler.
"That's easily solvable. - answered Benjamin, waving off the vampire's concerns - grab a few new subjects, preferably young and attractive witches, and shove a few Banes in them to turn them into Enticer Fomori. They'll collect the sample the old fashioned way, and we can use it to fertilize a few dozen eggs in vitro."
A few whispers of approval spread among the board. After a minute and with no one having objected, the proposal passed.
"Then it's decided. I will personally handle the recruitment and make sure the witches are sufficiently… alluring. I have been researching magical half-breeds and I have an idea on how to make it happen. You can consider it part of my own experiments on magical Fomori"
"Very well, Zettler. You have one year to provide us with the sperm sample for testing and start IVF."
Zettler stood up, offering a small bow to his colleagues before walking out of the meeting room and picking up his phone. After a few seconds, his secretary picked up.
"Yes, sir?"
"My dear, will you be so kind as to prepare me for a flight to France? I am dying to make new friends with a certain family."
"What family would that be, sir?"
"The Delacours."
Notes
Pentex starts showing their fangs! Their evil plans will shake the wizarding world and create quite a few ripple effects that... well, you will see the consequences in future chapters. And yes, obligatory disclaimer that Pentex is evil and I don't condone their action and yadda yadda, the story is M rated for a reason and I trust no one will send tear-filled PM about how dare I make the evil people do evil things (happened once already and I don't want a repeat of that conversation)
Umbridge makes her first appearance! She will have a few extra scenes before book 5, hope I make her as punchable as the books!
You might have noticed that I skipped the Dueling Club scene. That's because the scene puts up a clean display for everyone to see how incompetent Lockhart truly is. With the way I changed Lockhart, that scene would not fly. Do not worry, there will be a chapter dedicated to dueling, it has simply been moved to another point in the story.
Had to sneak in that Changeling scene with the cupids, and Piskey felt like the perfect Kith for the situation.
I don't know why, but writing out a villanous plot leaves you in a weird mental state... I don't know how many times I had to stop writing this chapter to laugh maniacally, does it happen to you as well?
