The Wizengamot Hall was uncommonly crowded today. But then, Dorea supposed that was to be expected — it wasn't every day that a government officially instituted a public education system for the first time in its history.

Dorea had never seen them in operation herself (obviously), but she was aware that there were some kind of enchantments that projected an illusion of the proceedings inside the Chamber itself out into the Antechamber. There would be chairs set up for spectators, though there normally weren't many. The major newspapers, sometimes from a neighbouring country depending on the business of the day, occasionally a handful of curious onlookers, more than that was unusual.

The Antechamber had seated significant crowds a couple times that Dorea remembered, but that only happened when there was serious controversy of some kind — around Liz's custody hearings, Sirius trial, the aftermath of the World Cup. The audio would be broadcast over the radio — not on a regular basis, but they made the effort when major news was happening — but the experience lacked something in comparison to actually watching it, especially since the enchantments used to filter it tended to cut out the heckling and the like. People who could easily make the trip would, the Antechamber packed with random people from noble families and the guilds — sometimes guilds who had business on would make a semi-official thing of it, coming as a group and bringing signs and everything. Sort of reminding Dorea of a union picketing or something of the like? The craft guilds were comparable to the idea of a labour union, so she guessed the similar impression wasn't entirely a coincidence...

Previous occasions had seen significant crowds in the Antechamber, but none of them Dorea remembered had been quite this crowded. The entire Antechamber was packed, standing-room only from wall to wall, and noisy, filled with constant chatter, occasional cheers or heckling as one voting member or another passed through the narrow corridor a couple dozen Hit Wizards and Aurors were managing to keep open. Security had been significantly increased, the blue-cloaked Hit Wizards and red-cloaked Aurors posted in addition to the expected row of formal purple-armoured guards standing before the doors into the Chamber proper. A few more were posted at the top of the stairs down into the lower levels, but the guard were only so many, the DLE had obviously decided to send them back-up. The guilds were putting in an appearance this time too, Dorea spotted banners over the crowd as she, Uncle Ted, and Sirius made their way through, but she didn't make out much of what they said before the cameras started flashing — getting pictures of Sirius, she assumed, the public fascination with the scandal around his illegal imprisonment and escape hadn't cooled off yet — and she had to look away just in case.

Dorea was still prone to migraines, and even the rare seizure if she was unlucky. It seemed like the dementor exposure on the train had acted as a sort of trigger, weakening the treatment holding back the progression of her condition just enough to simulate common epilepsy. She wasn't the only one, either — Cameron Peakes also had the stealing away, and he'd had occasional seizures ever since, and a handful of other students hadn't seemed to have any preexisting medical issues but were epileptic now. (Supposedly, triggering chronic epilepsy was something dementor exposure was known to do in a minority of people.) Andi and Madam Pomfrey were both certain that her condition wasn't actually worsening, but it wasn't worth redoing the ritual to fix the damage done, so she just had to resign herself to having epilepsy for the rest of her life.

It wasn't that bad, honestly. The migraines could be miserable, but their frequency had declined a lot once the dementors were moved out of the Valley, and she could successfully avoid having seizures at all if she was careful to reduce her exposure to potential triggers. She couldn't always — there were some classes of magic that could be a problem, and it wasn't always possible to isolate herself — but it'd been over two months now since her last one, so. The bloody flashing lights weren't helping, though.

Even reflecting off the opposite wall, probably still not great — Dorea reached for Uncle Ted's hand and closed her eyes, allowed herself to be led along blind.

The Wizengamot Chamber itself was also more crowded than usual. It wasn't unusual for a Lord (or whoever was voting the seat) to be accompanied by an assistant or an heir in training, but even then it was typical for each desk to only be seating one or two people. It looked like most Lords had brought two people today, a handful of seats with even more, four or five people packed into the available space. And the Ministry seats were more crowded, buzzing with assistants passing papers around, more slipping through the Hall to carry messages back and forth.

The outer ring was also packed to the brim, Order of Merlin members exercising their privilege to attend meetings in numbers far greater than usual. In an ordinary session there would only be a small handful present, but as the start of the meeting approached it was increasingly looking like they'd filled literally every single available chair — Dorea noticed a few people even conjuring more, to make extra room. All in all, there were easily three to four times the typical number of people in the Chamber, the air thick with chatter coming from all directions.

Looking around the Hall as she waited for the meeting to start, Dorea spotted multiple people she knew from school. Neville was with his grandmother at the Longbottom seat right next to theirs, of course. Tony was here with his great-uncle, but Dorea couldn't actually see him without turning around — the Black seat was on the inner ring with the rest of the Seventeen Founders, the Common Fate seats spreading out behind them, the Goldsteins in the back row. (A family's positioning within the faction's seats reflected internal alliances and seniority and their influence in general, and the Goldsteins were a young, relatively minor family.) Charles Urquhart was also here, a former Slytherin prefect, he'd finished just last year. Over in the Ars Brittania seats, she'd spotted Cedric (who wasn't actually the current Lord Diggory's heir, but that might or might not mean anything), Terry, Brendan Prince from the duelling team, Theo Nott in their year (who Dorea had hardly ever spoken to), and fifth-year prefect Laurus Lestrange. Pansy wasn't at the Parkinson seat, unsurprisingly — her family planned on marrying her off, so she wasn't being educated to deal with this stuff — and obviously Tracey was absent from the Davis seat, despite technically being first in line to inherit the title. Even if Lord Davis wanted her there, Dorea doubted Tracey wanted to subject herself to his company for that long.

And there were more Hogwarts students she knew in the Ars Publica seats, of course. Susan was sitting in the Founders' row at the front, along with a woman Dorea knew was a bodyguard. (Dorea was pretty sure that was Íde, an Auror who was frequently assigned by Amelia to escort Susan in public.) Daphne and Fay were here, and Ernie, Draco was sitting with both of his parents. Somewhat surprisingly, Dylan was at the Smethwyck seat, last she'd checked he wasn't actually in line to inherit the title...but Dorea wasn't sure how the Smethwyck lordship worked. Dylan was quite talented, and very popular at Hogwarts, it was possible they were considering him now. (Dorea couldn't help remembering Dylan asking her to the Yule Ball, felt the warmth on her face, tried not to stare.) Cameron Peakes was here, Eustace was at the Scrimgeour seat, and the boy at the Eirsley seat was familiar, but she couldn't think of his name — an upper year Ravenclaw, she thought.

Liz showed up late, shortly before the scheduled start of the meeting, accompanied by a blonde woman Dorea knew was Sylviana Slughorn — they'd never spoken, but Hermione had mentioned her and she'd seen the name in the papers. Liz's dress was new (a dark red stay of some kind over a plain blueish-black gown, hair plaited up out of the way and the lack of her usual scarf showing off her mother's necklace), and maybe too informal for the Wizengamot, but Liz hardly gave a damn about the social conventions of the nobility. Also, it was possible dressing down somewhat was meant as a political statement. It was hard to guess what that statement was meant to be, but Slughorn would be speaking before the vote, that might make it more clear.

Dorea didn't recognise the other woman with them at first, before belatedly realising it was Hermione. (She'd done something to make her hair behave, dressed in passable if plain formal robes in a creamy sky blue with hints here and there of yellow and green, she didn't look much like herself.) Of course, the heads of families were allowed to invite whoever they wanted, but it was normally limited to family members or assistants, the occasional vassal. A young lord bringing a school friend maybe wasn't entirely unusual, but one who also happened to be a muggleborn would draw side-eyes. Or it would if anyone recognised her as a muggleborn, anyway...though Draco gave her a double-take as they passed by the Malfoy seat, which was rather funny...

This wasn't so unexpected, she guessed. Liz hardly gave a damn about the social conventions of the nobility, after all, and Hermione was interested in the politics of the country she'd found herself swept up into. If Liz mentioned she had to go to the meeting, and Hermione said something about it, Dorea could easily imagine Liz impulsively inviting her to come along, and then scrambling to figure out how the hell she was supposed to make that happen, exactly. (Those formal robes must be new, for example.) Hermione did seem excited to be here, grinning and glancing around, occasionally leaning in to ask Slughorn a question.

Dorea probably should have thought of inviting Hermione herself, that was an obvious thing to do in retrospect. Oh well, they had a better view of the Chamber over there anyway, the Potter seat further back and closer to opposite the Ministry seats — Liz could have this one.

(It was obvious that Hermione was very consciously attempting to split her time between Dorea and Liz, since Liz still wasn't speaking to her, which Dorea appreciated — especially since Hermione hadn't been subtle about siding with Liz in their 'break-up'. As far as she could tell, Hermione actually spent more time with Dorea — they often ate together at the Hufflepuff table, Liz remaining behind with the Slytherins, and she was nearby during study group meetings more often than not — but she assumed Hermione was making time for Liz when Dorea wasn't paying attention. They did still seem close when Dorea did see them together, so.)

Not long later, there was a low boom, boom, boom, thrumming through the air and vibrating up to Dorea through her chair — the session was starting. There was a brief uptick in noise and motion as people found their seats, a stream of assistants either returning to their places or rushing out to attend to other business. A pair of purple-armoured Hit Wizards began to pull the heavy doors slowly closed, a last few people slipping through at the last second. There was a sharp clunk, audible from here, as the door latched, a harsh crackle as the privacy wards activated. A brief moment later, as the Hall gradually descended into a polite hush, Erin Scrimgeour stepped up to the Chief Warlock's podium.

Scrimgeour went through the normal routine to call the assembly to order — there was a script, followed religiously since the 14th Century or so, a direct translation into English in the 19th Century the only major change — though her heart obviously wasn't in it. By most metrics, Scrimgeour was a peculiar pick for Chief Warlock, didn't have the temperament for the formal ritual and politics, but that was a fair part of why she'd been picked: she was unlikely to want to hold onto the post, was expected to step down as soon as the fragile political environment had stabilised. (Unless there was a civil war over the national question, which might drag her term out longer, but Dorea was still hoping they could avoid that.) There were a few quick announcements, an update from the DLE on a few ongoing cases; Lands and Waters about some complicated fishing dispute involving the Danes, multiple muggle nations, and merfolk and selkies (sounded like a huge bloody mess); Commerce and Trade about a draft of some new safety measures being discussed with the alchemists' guild; something from Public Works about the construction going on in Hogsmeade...

Once that was all out of the way, Scrimgeour immediately went straight into the final proceedings for the Act to Establish a Common Education and Promote Academy Expansion — the name was unwieldy, as formal Acts of the Wizengamot often were, the papers generally referred to it as the ECP. They started with a final read of the text of the Act from the Director of Education. Not literally, Zabini didn't stand up and read the entire text top to bottom — the thing was long, they'd be here for hours — but a summary version of it, using stand-ins for sections that the membership could look up themselves if they wished. The rules of the Wizengamot required an act before the assembly be read out onto the floor in its entirety before the final voting process could begin, but as the centuries passed and the country's legal system grew more complicated, they'd gradually come up with work-arounds, mnemonics and references to drastically cut down the time needed. Zabini still needed to introduce all the sections involved, but she could do that by referencing documents previously read into the Wizengamot in earlier sessions, the formal act read filled with the names of different sections and a brief summary of their contents. The effect made the summary somewhat incomprehensible if you didn't already know the subject matter, but it required a far more reasonable length of time.

Once Zabini was done, a few other Directors had a turn, expressing their Departments' willingness and readiness (or anticipated lack thereof) to fulfil their obligations laid out in the Act. Most programmes only required the participation of a single Department, but this one was terribly complicated, involving Education, Health and Family, Public Works, Commerce and Trade, Lands and Waters, and probably also Transportation and Games and Sports before it was all said and done. Once they'd all had their say, Mockridge formally surrendered the floor back to Scrimgeour, who then opened it up to the Assembly for discussion.

Not that it was actually fully open — there was a distinction between when the Wizengamot was open for general discussion, anyone able to step up and say whatever they want, and the floor being 'open' for pre-prepared statements. Though it could be a little confusing, because there actually wasn't a distinction in the formal rules, Scrimgeour's role in the process looked exactly the same, with identical language. Wizengamot Administration Services kept a calendar of Wizengamot business, and the two different types of 'open' time were marked differently on the schedule. Open open discussion was only for certain phases in the preparation of a thing, or when there was particular kinds of business on, plus a window every day for people to introduce new business; for statement periods, a Lord would write in to WAS requesting time, and if WAS got enough of those requests they would schedule a block, the available time divided between the people who wanted some. For bigger events, groups of members or even whole factions would ask WAS for time as a block, and divide up the time they were given amongst themselves. So, Scrimgeour said the floor was open, but actually all the available time had been spoken for already.

Since creating a public education system from scratch was a pretty damn big deal, practically every member of the Wizengamot had wanted time to make a formal statement about it. They'd been gradually making their way through the list whenever there was open time in the schedule, ever since the language had been more or less finalised — Uncle Ted had given the Blacks' statement a week ago already. (Enumerating a few of the points they were unhappy with, but also talking about how huge of a deal this was for magical Britain as a whole, ultimately positive and hopeful for more improvements down the line.) There were only a handful left, the last few families from Ars Publica who hadn't had an opportunity to speak their piece yet.

Dorea expected these ones to be rather negative. Balancing the different interests going into this kind of thing inevitably meant offending a smaller number of people to get a larger number on board. The entirety of Common Fate and, somewhat surprisingly, the conservative wing of Ars Publica (the segment led by Lady Monroe) had been fully behind the programme from the beginning, but between them they only had twenty-two votes, not enough to pass anything. Around the same time, Ars Brittania and the radical wing of Ars Publica had put out their own versions of a public education programme — unofficial estimates of how they would do if put to the floor came out to twenty-one for the latter and twenty-seven for the former. Ars Publica's programme would have been dead on arrival, but Andi said it was possible that Ars Brittania's could have been altered and amended to pick off enough from Common Fate and conservatives from Ars Publica to put it over the line. They only would have needed three or four votes, it should have been possible.

Lord Fawley from Common Fate and Lord Carpenter from Ars Brittania got together and put together a proposal that wasn't quite Common Fate's or Ars Brittania's, or even really based off of either of them — not copying passages so much as taking elements from both programmes and trying to figure out how to get them to work together. They'd only come up with a general outline, which the Wizengamot had gradually worked over for...well, however long it'd been, Dorea had forgotten exactly. The final version wasn't recognisable as Fawley's and Carpenter's initial effort, but it had provided the foundation they'd built off of.

So, the compromises they'd needed to make to get enough of Ars Brittania on board to get it over the line had necessarily meant offending the more radical wing of Ars Publica. They'd cooperated early in the process, once they'd realised their proposal wasn't going to get anywhere, but they'd been far more ambivalent than the conservative wing, and had been increasingly put off as they made more concessions to Ars Brittania, turning into an awkward balancing act. In the end, they'd managed to hang onto about two-thirds of Ars Brittania — Llewellyn, Ainsley, Brown, Atwell, Farley, Diggory, and Avery were all expected to vote against, and they may or may not lose a couple others on the fence — but in exchange they'd lost most of the radical wing of Ars Publica — Ingham herself, Slughorn, and MacCormaic were voting for it, Grey and Bellchant were maybes, and it was anybody's guess which way Potter would go. (Slughorn had been voting for Liz for a brief enough time that people were still feeling out their politics — it was generally assumed she was voting for it, but nobody knew for sure.) They'd lost Peakes and Rosier in the conservative wing of Ars Publica as well, and also Yaxley in Common Fate for some reason. They actually hadn't even known that they'd lost Yaxley until their Lord gave his statement on the matter just last week, came as a surprise.

They still had the votes, though — Andi wasn't positive what the exact margin would be, but it should clear by from anywhere between three to nine votes. Honestly, with a divided Wizengamot and as contentious as the current political climate in the country was, Dorea thought they'd done a damn good job putting together any public education programme at all. Especially one that, while flawed, was really quite good. A step in the right direction, at least — far better than Ars Brittania's initial proposal, that's for sure.

It was just bad luck that the final batch of statements would be coming from people who, primarily, opposed the programme they'd landed on. This was a big historical development, several people expressing how unhappy they were with it just beforehand was kind of souring the mood...

The first comment was from Lord Smethwyck, whose largest complaints had to do with the failure to include public funding for Mastery study — grants had been included in earlier versions, but they'd been gradually diminished and ultimately removed entirely as the programme was revised — the underfunding of academies — Smethwyck's numbers made it sound worse than the estimates put out by Public Works, but it was a legitimate problem — and the exclusion of non-humans, particularly wilderfolk and nymphs. The issue with schooling for rural children was also brought up. None of those were really a surprise, since the Smethwycks were a largely agrarian family that also had a hand in certain professions that required Mastery qualifications, particularly healing and alchemy — they'd publicly complained in the past how expensive an education as a healer in particular could be, formal academic study so exclusive people who weren't nobility (or from a select handful of well-connected, wealthy Common Houses) were essentially forced to go to the priesthoods instead. Religious healing education did tend to be good, but it had its own limitations, since they most often closed participation to people of their faith, and sometimes even required applicants essentially become priests in order to become healers. (These healer-priests were very highly-regarded in magical culture, but it was really more a calling than a profession.) Smethwyck did think it was urgent that magical Britain implement a proper public education system, but this programme wouldn't solve some of the most pressing issues the country was facing, and would only serve to further impoverish rural communities when compared to the towns, so he couldn't in good conscience support it in its current form. Like a number of his like-minded peers — Tugwood, Eirsley, Greengrass, Glanwvyl, all more rural, strongly agricultural families — he would be voting against it.

Next up was Lord Scrimgeour — the Chief Warlock's nephew of some kind, Dorea was unsure of their exact relationship. His statement was similar to Smethwyck's in some places, the points about rural schools and the underfunding of academy being brought up again, but Scrimgeour's largest complaint was that the current licensing system hadn't been reformed in the slightest. (Dorea assumed some of the speakers today must have coordinated their statements ahead of time, Scrimgeour brushing over points of agreement with Smethwyck to focus on a topic the previous Lord hadn't mentioned.) A large part of why Mastery education could be so convoluted, expensive, and exclusive was the archaic licensing process itself. More academic fields, like healing and potions and arithmancy and the like, required a course of classes, a certain period of active practice culminating in some kind of recognition by a panel of Masters, and finally some kind of original publication or achievement — only then would authorities in the field confer a Mastery, if they felt the achievement in question deserved the honour. The less academic, more working/middle-class trades had a similar system, with an apprenticeship, followed by provisional and eventual full guild membership, and in most cases only after a long career in the trade would one be recognised as a Master of the craft by the leadership of one's guild, thereafter afforded certain privileges and approval to start taking on apprentices.

Both tracks had their own problems, and could be impenetrably exclusive in their own ways. Classroom Mastery study was, of course, expensive — and on top of the cost of tuition, it would often take enough of a person's time that they couldn't work at the same time (if they could find work worth a damn), so the only way they could manage it was if they could afford both tuition and to live on no income at all for however long it took to complete. And Britain only had the one school with classroom Mastery programmes at the moment (though that was changing soon), so they might even have to do it overseas, to additional cost. Generally speaking, only people whose families could support them through the whole process even had the option of seeking a Mastery in the more academic fields. The other trades, craft school acted as a sort of recruiting ground — show enough promise, and you might get an offer from a Master or be invited to join one of the group apprenticeship programmes some of the guilds ran — but if you didn't have access to craft school, or simply didn't attract the attention of anyone in your chosen trade, getting an apprenticeship could be very difficult, often coming down to family connections or bribery. The apprenticeship itself didn't normally cost money (though they were often on the hook for supplies), but they normally didn't pay anything either — and when they did, it was a pittance no one could possibly actually live on. So families were often forced to support people in apprenticeships too...and often even into their early years in the trade. Once you were a guild member, you could work independently in the trade, but people with the means to pay generously were hardly likely to contract someone new. Most business went through workshops run by Masters, junior guild members competing for the limited number of positions they could support — and the pay often wasn't great, divided between the Masters and whoever on staff. Eventually, you could build up enough of a history to start taking your own contracts, but it could often be over a decade from entering an apprenticeship before someone started making enough to support themselves.

So, meaningful post-academy or post- craft school education was often restricted to those whose family could support them for years and years into adulthood. That often wasn't going to be feasible for a lot of people. The Act did create a few scholarship problems to help cover costs, but they were very limited, could only help a handful of people at a time — the licensing system itself was the limiting factor, and that was completely untouched. There was talk about essentially founding a university, which would solve some of these problems, but that wasn't included in this Act, and would be far too limited in scope to make much of a difference. Scrimgeour argued that the restrictiveness of the current higher education system was a large part of why Britain was lagging behind their neighbours, and would continue to do so until it was addressed. Which this Act did not do in any meaningful way. The programmes they were voting on today were a step in the right direction, yes, but Scrimgeour was worried a success here would fuel complacency, only delaying action on the problems in higher education — for that reason, he unfortunately must oppose it.

Listening to Scrimgeour's argument, Dorea found herself frowning. That was...kind of a good point, actually. Andi had argued that this was simply the best they were going to be able to get at the present moment, but...

After Scrimgeour was Potter. Dorea was a little surprised when Liz stood up — she'd expected that Slughorn would give their statement and Liz was just showing her face, like the various other younger people scattered around the seats. By the hisses of whispers working around the room, it seemed she wasn't the only one who hadn't seen it coming. Liz waited for the muttering to die down, staring impatiently up to her left.

"In light of the comments made before me," she started, "I have little to add to the enumeration of the 'flaws' of the programme before us." There was some kind of tone on the use of "flaws" there, but Dorea wasn't sure what it was meant to be. "Little would be gained by listing them out again. I do not disagree with the content of what was just now said by Lord Smethwyck and Lord Scrimgeour, but I do disagree with their characterisation of it. The two of them, and others of our members who've raised similar issues over the last few days, seem to believe the shortcomings of this programme are born out of ignorance, or complacency, or simple compromise. At the most, they might call it cowardice, an unwillingness to step out of line and speak a controversial truth. It is this characterisation that I disagree with.

"The obvious, critical shortcomings of this programme are not flaws, as such — they are designs."

Dorea was briefly distracted when she noticed Sirius stiffening next to her, glanced that way. Sirius had been less than entirely composed through Smethwyck and Slughorn's statements, occasionally hissing or glaring at one Lord or another, or slumping back in his seat with his arms crossed. But now his posture had straightened out, rigid, leaning forward to lean his elbows on the desk. The side of his face Dorea could make out blank, eyes fixed attentive on Liz.

Which, Dorea did understand, she... Was Liz actually voting against the education programme? She hadn't thought... Well, she hadn't given that much thought to Liz's politics — if she were being honest, she suspected Liz hadn't given her own politics that much thought either — but she'd repeatedly said it was bloody stupid that magical Britain didn't already have a public education system, so, she'd kind of assumed... It certainly sounded like it, though.

"It has been observed that the coverage of rural areas by primary schooling is terribly insufficient. But of course it is — what use has an agricultural labourer for the ability to read? It has been observed that the expansion of the craft school system is incomplete, much of the responsibility left to the guilds. But of course it is — how else are they to retain their domination of their trades? It has been observed that, for a variety of reasons, academy and Mastery study will likely remain the sole privilege of the wealthy or well-connected. But of course it will — those who receive such education would be reluctant to return to the fields or the shops. The exclusion of wilderfolk and nymphs in particular is, I expect, the very same design.

"The final defeat of the goblins of these Isles," Liz said, seemingly changing the subject for no reason, "is said to have been formalised with the Concession of Fifteen Thirty-Seven. Those who negotiated the terms of the Concession, in private notes and correspondence, admitted that the purpose was to strangle goblin society, to prevent them from ever presenting a threat to humanity ever again. The goblins were militarily defeated, and forced to accept the terms, but it was not long before rebellion began. Once, immediately in the Fifteen Forties. And then again, in Fifteen Sixty-Two, and again in Fifteen Seventy-Five, and again in Fifteen Ninety-Four through Ninety-Eight, and then again in Sixteen Twelve, and again in the Sixteen Fifties. And again, in the Sixteen Eighties and Nineties we fought, the goblins coerced to accept Secrecy not through military defeat — for they were not beaten, not this time — but through a loosening of the terms of the Concession. Mages sacrificed some of our control over our goblin neighbours, some of the tariffs.

"But we did not sacrifice enough. So when the opportunity came, the goblins forced us to sacrifice even more."

The brief war after Secrecy, Liz meant, when the goblins destroyed the infant magical economy by simply recalling all their currency, and dictated their own terms while magical society teetered on the brink of total collapse. There was a reason Gringotts was so heavily involved in the modern magical economy: the goblins essentially set financial policy in magical Britain, according to the terms of the treaty the mages were forced to sign back in the early 1700s. Some claimed the goblins had conquered magical Britain without fighting a single battle (aside from fending off a few attacks in the brief time before magical society completely imploded), the country only existing now as what was essentially a client state under goblin domination, which was maybe overstating the situation somewhat. The mages had certainly lost their last war with the goblins, that part wasn't deniable (though some human supremacists still tried to).

Dorea understood all that, but she didn't know what it had to do with the matter at hand.

"There is also the example of what happened in Aquitania and France. Our peers in Aquitania sensed the turning of the tide before the water began to rise. They knew that any enrichment of the impoverished masses would come out of their own wealth and power — and so they sacrificed. They gave up a share of that wealth and power to sooth the misery and dissatisfaction of the populace, a strategy that our own country employed in later decades, to a lesser degree. The guilds have the example of Aquitania and Holland to thank for what prominence they now enjoy. But those of our peers to their north did not follow in their example. Instead, they attempted to hold on to their wealth and power through strength of arms and the broad immiseration of the masses.

"Until an opportunity came, and they were forced to sacrifice it all — not only the share their Aquitanian peers had freely given up, but all that they had. Even some their very lives.

"Receiving a proper education may open up new opportunities but there is also a sacrifice — but not from the person who receives it. There has been much talk here of taxes and grants, the land on which schools could be built, the hours of labour that may be required. But that is not all broader education may ask those of us in our position to sacrifice.

"Our wealth is not a product of the labour of our own hands, but of those whose labour we control. And what might more accessible education mean to us? Should the common craftsman be given access to academy, he may seek a higher profession — and so one of the guilds is short a craftsman. Should the lowly labourer be given access to craft school, he may find his way into the guilds — and so one of us is short a labourer. Should the farmer be granted an education, he may leave to the towns to seek a more comfortable life — and so one of us is short a peasant to work the land in our stead.

"And teaching the poor to read," the sarcasm practically dripping off of her voice, "what horrors might born from that! In case you are unaware, my fellow Ladies and Lords, Toward a New Community has already been translated into Cambrian. Should literacy become commonplace among the immiserated masses of our country, how long do you think it will be until we are flooded with works such as that? Given the state of the poor here, and in what close quarters they live, I would not expect it to take long."

There was a lot of hissing and chatter at that, which shouldn't be a surprise — that was a hell of a thing to say. Dorea had heard of Toward a New Community, but she'd never seen a copy before, being very illegal in Britain, only read of references to it. It was a pamphlet — perhaps not quite the right word, something like twenty to thirty pages — composed and distributed by Gellert Grindelwald's organisation, explaining their political programme. It'd been all over the place, tended to be mentioned when talking about the run-up to the Saxon Revolution. She knew there were English and Gaelic translations out there, but she'd never heard of a Cambrian one, presumably Liz wouldn't have lied about it. Regardless, mentioning Gellert Grindelwald's literal political propaganda on the floor of the Wizengamot — and not even necessarily in a derogatory way either — was just a little bit of an absolutely mad thing to do, what the hell was Liz thinking?!

Seemingly completely ignorant of the unnecessarily scandalous thing she'd just said, Liz went on, her voice raising just slightly over the muttering. "Properly educating the populace would take sacrifice on the part of those who currently benefit from their ignorance. A sacrifice that it seems, to me, too many of us are unwilling to make. And perhaps they never will be, perhaps too many of us intend to hold onto our position, by any means necessary — until, one day, a moment of opportunity arrives, and that decision is taken from us.

"The programme before us is horribly insincere, not seeking to enrich the population so much as to further divide them, to widen the gulf between town and village, craftsman and bondsman. Designed such to demand as little sacrifice as possible from us. Ask of me a greater sacrifice and I may pay it — but I will not put my name to this insult. I yield the floor," she said to the Chief Warlock, before flopping back down into her chair, rosy wood shining with gold leaf.

And, the image was just sort of ridiculous, Liz making a statement like that from a literal gilded chair. Dorea knew it wasn't as though Liz had designed her family's seat, it'd been that way for at least a couple generations, but the image was still, just, almost humorously incongruous. Oh yes, the big problem with this education programme was that the nobility weren't sacrificing enough to do a proper job by the poor, now I'll just have a seat in my chair that definitely cost more to make than most of the people I'm talking about will ever see in their lives...

Not that Dorea thought Liz was wrong, necessarily — it was just...kind of obvious, when she thought about it? The way the economy in magical Britain was set up benefitted the nobility, obviously, and they were the people who were making the political decisions, so, they weren't going to want to shake things up too badly. As frustrating as the flaws in the programme they'd come up with were, it was progress — a step in the right direction, which would give time for society to adapt to the new way of things, before they made another step. It was hardly likely anything else would have happened, and there wasn't anything inherently wrong with it, Dorea didn't think? Change things more quickly than people are comfortable with and you'll just end up with economic shocks...

...and, you know, fascists. The Death Eaters had grown as a reaction to the reforms the Wizengamot and the Ministry made to take the steam out of the Communalist movement here in Britain, so. Baby steps, let people get used to it, there was only so fast you could go before people started dying.

There were some families in the Wizengamot who weren't so particular about taking things slowly, but they were very much the exception. They often represented religious communities, like the Greenwood, their faith lending them to...rather different priorities. Also, they were mostly agricultural communes, with few exceptions, so a lot of the larger economic consequences of something like this education programme mostly wouldn't affect them anyway. A big chunk of their expected no votes — Greengrass, Smethwyck, Bulstrode, Tugwood, Glanwvyl, Dunbar, and arguably Eirsley and Bones — were all these agrarian religious types, who were both less likely to be directly affected and were...basically some weird kind of theocratic communists or something? It was hard to explain, exactly — it didn't help that Dorea didn't really understand their beliefs that well in the first place. Their support had been lost pretty much the instant they'd started making concessions to Ars Brittania to get the bloody thing passed, and honestly had been pretty shaky to begin with, the limits put on it by Common Fate's own more conservative members turning them off.

Sure, politics in this country were constrained by the self-interest of the nobility, but what else did anyone expect to happen? She'd heard talk about reforming the Wizengamot into a more democratic body — which wasn't a bad idea, Dorea would be on board for that — but it would need to be a long-term project, couldn't just do it overnight. There was the backlash to consider, yes, but also magical society just wasn't ready for democracy? The magical population was distributed weirdly, it'd take some doing to figure out exactly how voting should work, but even if you put that aside...

To put it bluntly, too much of the population simply didn't have the baseline level of education necessary to participate. And that was just as expected, this education programme was one of the steps necessary to lay the groundwork for the transition, you couldn't do one without the other! What, did these people (Liz included this time) think that you could switch from aristocracy to democracy overnight? That wasn't how anything worked! Like, the House of Commons had originally only existed as a formality, it'd taken centuries of gradual reforms before it became a properly democratic institution that actually held power in the country, not even a hundred years ago now...

Some of this more radical politics she heard sometimes, since starting to be more involved in Wizengamot stuff, always struck her as so naïve. Which, when it was someone like Daphne saying it, sure, whatever — her political beliefs were very closely tied to her religious beliefs, and that's just how they were, not worth worrying about too much. But, perhaps Liz had absorbed more Mistwalker attitudes during her relationship with Daphne than Dorea had realised. (It was hardly as though they'd ever talked about it, after all...or even talked at all, anymore.) The Slughorns were rather radical too, though through the perspective of some of the more technical craft guilds, so her new proxy probably didn't help either.

So, Dorea had expected Liz to, just, go along with the programme, and not think about it too hard, but it wasn't a big surprise that she'd ended up absorbing some of the attitudes of the people she'd been spending a lot of time with. (No matter how little the politics seemed to mesh with her personality.) Liz taking such a weird, extreme position on it, comparing the Wizengamot not going far enough to the lead-up to the French Revolution was just...unbelievably strange. Almost surreal, like, Dorea would never have seen this coming, didn't really know what to think about it. And by the chatter going on in the Hall she wasn't the only one.

Sirius was scowling across the Hall in Liz's direction, looking irritated and almost surly. Though, this was just guessing, but Dorea didn't get the impression that he disapproved — but if he didn't think Liz was being a naïve little idiot, and just making trouble for herself in future by stirring up controversy for no reason, she really couldn't guess what was going on in there.

Lady Glanwvyl spoke next, and then Lord Bellchant, but after Liz they seemed pretty tame and uneventful.

Pretty much straight after Bellchant sat back down, they went into the voting process. They followed the default voting order, Founders first and then everyone else, alphabetically. So their first vote was a no vote — which was expected, the Boneses were also one of those funny religious communes, and Susan took wilderfolk being excluded very personally for some reason — followed by Dorea's yes vote. (Actually standing to do it herself this time, which she almost never did, but it was an important vote, politics.) The first surprise was immediately after Dorea, when Lady Ingham voted no — she was supposed to be a yes, last Dorea checked they'd still been pretty sure about that.

The vote ended up being much closer than expected, a few especially conservative Ars Brittania people they'd been mostly certain they had dropping off, and the few people in the radical side of Ars Publica flipping at the last second. In retrospect, going over the votes after the fact, they'd blame Ingham unexpectedly changing her vote for the people they'd lost in her faction — it was possible that her support had given her people the necessary confidence to stay on despite most of their faction being against it, but once she'd flipped she'd taken them with her. There'd been a couple yes votes here and there they hadn't been sure of, but with all the people they'd lost the Act just barely squeaked by in the end.

And Dorea did mean barely: it passed by literally a single vote, 30 to 29. Jesus, that was close, imagine if all that work over months had just gone down the drain...

When the final count was announced, among all the activity in the Hall (creating a public education system from scratch was a very big deal, after all), Dorea noticed Liz slump in her chair, looking a little relieved. Apparently, while she had wanted the programme to pass, she just hadn't wanted to vote for it, which was silly and very confusing.

(Dorea would later wonder if Liz had been worried her statement had caused Lady Ingham to change her mind, her people flipping with her nearly killing the Act, but it wasn't like she could ask — she didn't exactly have a great relationship with Liz or Ingham.)

Scrimgeour called an end to the morning session not long after the end of the vote — a formality, the evening session was inevitably going to be cancelled due to lack of attendance, but sometimes they had to go through the motions for these things — and the meeting broke up. There was immediately a lot of chatter, the room growing quite loud as everyone turned to discuss what just happened with their neighbours. People began filtering out of the Hall pretty quickly, but Dorea and Ted and Sirius waited a few minutes longer, intermittently chatting with their neighbours or people coming by. The first few people who came out were definitely going to be bombarded with camera flashes — Dorea was hoping if they came out closer to the end of the pack, the people out in the Antechamber would have time to get it out of their system.

Didn't quite work, it turned out, by the time they finally left Dorea still had to close her eyes and let herself be led by the hand just in case. Oh well.

The supporters of the education programme had planned ahead of time to have a sort of informal lunch in the state dining hall here at the Wizengamot. Sort of informal because they weren't having a proper sit down meal, with all that that entailed, but also this was the space used for diplomatic functions and to receive literal royalty, so it was hard to call it properly informal. Also, everyone was still in the fancy clothes they'd worn for the session, so.

The Great Hall was rather absurd — the floor and walls formed from pure white marble, polished to gleam bright in the sunlight. The floor was occasionally hidden by rich purple rugs stitched with the silver triple-spiral of the Wizengamot — she didn't mean the colour, but actual silver, glinting where it caught the light — hanging on the walls a multitude of banners, several different styles repeated a few times each — more white and violet to represent the Wizengamot, the dragon of the national flag, each of the three factions in the Wizengamot at present, and also the colours of each of the remaining Seventeen Founders (though there were only one each of those). The upper span of the tall walls and the high, arched ceiling were covered in gold filigree, twisting and curling in spirals and floral patterns, the narrow faces of the room to east and west with huge stained-glass windows, displaying stylised images pulled from British history or complex elaborations on the familiar triple-spiral design. There was some kind of magic in the hall that did something to the light, chinks of coloured sunlight slashing into the hall, but there almost seemed to be glitter or something suspended in the air, little glints of rainbow sparks flittering in and out of sight...

It was very pretty, but honestly a bit much. They didn't even use this thing very often...

Numerous little tables circled with chairs had been distributed through the overlong space — some kind of ceramic, she thought, pure white with a subtle golden tinge to it when you looked from the right angles, the legs and the rim shaped into bunches of frozen porcelain flowers, complex kaleidoscopic spiral designs etched into the top surface. (Probably made to show off for international guests, some kind of alchemical properties worked into the material, moulded and carved with incredibly fine detail — Britain was actually somewhat well known for their magical ceramics, major export.) Food and drink had been set out on the tables, but nothing particularly heavy, the sort of bite-sized things you could put on a plate and walk around with, stealing an occasional bite in conversational pauses. As far as official gatherings went, it was somewhat toward the more casual end, without a lot of the formalities of proper dinner parties. More like the 'official' holiday get-togethers Dorea was going to have to start attending now that she was old enough...

The guest list included all the members of the Wizengamot (and their companions for the day) who they'd anticipated would vote with them — which meant invitations had been given out to a few people who'd ended up voting against them, but they had the tact to not show up. (Supposedly Liz had been invited, but Dorea hadn't expected her to show; even if she'd voted with them she would have come up with some excuse to skip out early.) In addition to the Lords and Ladies, a handful of Directors and their assistants were here too, the biggest supporters of the project in the Ministry, including the Minister himself. There were also various people from a number of guilds, pulled in from the spectators out in the Antechamber, either supporters of the Act in the process of it being put together or else people they would need cooperation from going forward, so might as well start sweet-talking them early.

The conversation was, largely, tedious. There was some talk about the vote itself, the very narrow victory, speculating about the people who'd unexpectedly flipped on them. Not that there was really much to say about the latter, since none of them had shown up to explain themselves — not that they'd been particularly firm allies anyway. The exclusion of wilderfolk and nymphs had been especially controversial with the Ars Publica people, and the issues with arranging schooling for people in rural areas, the limitations placed on werewolves... It'd probably been optimistic to expect to hang on to them, honestly. The couple people in Ars Brittania they'd lost were more dubious, nobody knew what was going on with that.

(Lord Bletchley suggested that certain extreme British nationalists might have intentionally tried to sabotage it, for complicated political reasons Dorea didn't entirely follow, which sounded unsettlingly plausible. At least they'd failed, she guessed.)

Liz probably wouldn't like how the people here were talking about her. Even the more sympathetic ones were blaming the abuse for her politics, which Dorea suspected she'd find...condescending? Oh well, at least she wasn't here to be bothered by it.

A lot of the conversation was about what they needed to do now. Creating a public education system from scratch was a massive undertaking, after all, there was still a lot of work to do. There were a bunch of little pockets of discussion going on around the oversized hall — the design of primary schools here, which guilds had what responsibilities in putting together the new craft school here, how exactly expanding the academy in Oxford was going to go, they'd need to make arrangements for construction with the muggle authorities, some esoteric particularity of the funding of the grants over there...

A lot of the details were over Dorea's head, honestly. She was supposed to be focussing on her education, she wasn't involved in a lot of this stuff — Uncle Ted was, he and Aunt Andi just told her what she needed to know. (And Uncle Ted was participating in these talks, because naturally he knew the Act backwards and forwards.) She would need to take responsibility for the House's politics eventually, but that day was probably still two decades away. In the meantime, all she was expected to do was sign the occasional official document, and show up at events to smile and look pretty.

Of course, there were other expectations for young noblewoman, which was what could make one of the topics of conversation especially tedious. You couldn't get this many nobles in one room without plenty of gossip coming up, and the heads of families tended to be around middle age — most had adult children, and sometimes even grandchildren. As anyone who'd spent any time at all around parents should know, their children were invariably a favourite topic of discussion. Dorea suspected certain names came up even more often when she or one of the other younger people here were around, since they all went (or had gone) to Hogwarts, so were at least vaguely familiar with each other. Even if Dorea didn't know a person particularly well, she was at least aware they existed...sometimes. The first- and second-year classes were huge, she couldn't be expected to know literally everyone in all four houses.

It didn't take very long at all for Dorea to notice Lords (and Ladies) were mentioning male relatives within a certain age range with suspicious frequency. Not that that was a big surprise, she'd expected this sort of thing to start happening. Dorea's fifteenth birthday had been just last month — she'd reached the age that it was officially considered appropriate to begin thinking about marriage arrangements. Just bluntly saying like, hey, I've got this nephew who's quite talented and handsome, so will provide good genes for the next generation of Blacks, and our family is well-established and wealthy enough to bribe you to consider him above other blokes, what do you say would be somewhat uncouth, to say the least, but talking about younger male relatives and leaving the obvious implication unspoken was perfectly acceptable. Clear what was meant to anyone paying attention, but done in a coy, mutually-deniable way, like civilised people.

It was a little exasperating, but Dorea didn't really mind that much. It wasn't so much worse than the sort of tedious things adults said to younger people in the first place. And it wasn't even inappropriate, considering Dorea was growing increasingly certain that she was going to do the...proper courtship thing. This would probably seem slightly mad to most people her age, but honestly Dorea found the prospect of dating, and everything that came with it, just a bit...intimidating? was that the right word? Dylan Smethwyck asking her to the Yule Ball had been extremely flattering, yes — she'd basically instantly dissolved into a red-faced stammering mess — but it'd also been...kind of unsettling. She almost wanted to say "scary", but that didn't seem quite right...

She didn't know, just, the thought of doing that stuff made her uncomfortable. Which was some kind of achievement, because she'd somehow managed to be even more neurotic about something than Liz — not sure how that happened, but okay. Pretty much all of her friends were talking about or actively dating now, and she just...

The whole courtship process seemed...safer, somehow. There were rules, the expectations far more explicit and less... She didn't know what word she wanted, exactly. Relationships could be messy, and an advantage of the more formal path was that you could be very direct about what you were doing and what you wanted, without having to worry about anyone's feelings getting hurt. Or getting too wrapped up into it and exploding into drama when things go badly...or not too much, at least.

And, Dorea wasn't completely unselfconscious, she knew at least part of why she found the idea of dating like any other person her age so intimidating was because her mother had sort of given her a complex. Her mother had never lied to Dorea about the circumstances of her own conception, and... Mum made a point of not seeming like she was blaming Dorea, not seeming bitter about it, but getting pregnant with Dorea had...kind of ruined her life? Or at least, the life she'd planned on having at the time — she'd had big dreams of getting into theatre, and... They'd been taken care of, sure, it's not like Mum had been destitute and miserable or anything, but she'd basically blown up all of her plans and dropped out of school and quit acting and everything, just because she'd been stupid one night.

Dorea didn't really have any big plans the way Mum had had, but she still didn't want to blow her whole life up being stupid. And she realised it was irrational, she'd realised even as she was turning down Dylan that she was being ridiculous, but, well, sometimes feelings were irrational, there wasn't a lot that could be done about that.

Also, Dorea could hardly talk to a boy she liked without obviously blushing and stammering and generally making an embarrassing mess of herself, so, there was that too. Oh God, she was suddenly remembering that time last year Adrian Pucey came over in the library looking for Liz, uuuggghhhh...

Yeah, courting seemed simpler. Less sensitive, less pressure.

She'd talked to Andi about it, and she'd already tipped off some political allies and the like (the people most likely to try to approach them) that they were putting it off until at least the summer — so nobody should be making any formal opening moves yet, at least. Theoretically, Dorea could put it off until after she finished NEWTs, or even well into her twenties — that would be unusual, but she was the Lady of a Noble House, and allowances were sometimes made — but there was really no strong reason to do that. It could easily take years to actually work out an arrangement with someone, and it wasn't like they'd have to get married immediately — it was perfectly normal for the betrothal to be finalised several years before the wedding actually happened. Some people did get married straight out of Hogwarts, sure, but that wasn't so common these days as it used to be. There was no reason they couldn't be talking to people and having the meetings and stuff in the meanwhile. She wouldn't actually need to agree to anything until she was ready.

And besides, with how quickly Dorea could dissolve into an embarrassing mess sometimes, she could probably use the practice. People weren't really expected to be, er, physically intimate at all when they were courting — it wasn't disallowed, there could even sometimes be a bit of complicated sexual politics going on, but it wasn't required — and there was generally less pressure to be, you know, romantic and the like. Agreeing to a few meetings over the summer would be good practice at not making an idiot of herself, at least.

Not to mention, doing it the formal way was probably just the safer idea in the long run too. The courtship system didn't come to exist as it did for absolutely no reason — all the sounding each other out and the negotiations and stuff worked to make sure the other party wasn't just trying to get close to you to stab you in the back. (Contracts also tended to include divorce terms, so they didn't have to worry about what would happen if the marriage didn't work out, which was important for rich people aristocratic reasons too.) As vaguely frustrating as it was to think about that angle, Dorea was a Black, so, if she were taking the more informal, dating path, she would need to be cautious about people trying to play on her feelings to take advantage of her. That was far less of a threat when going through the structure of a proper courtship. It seemed safer for stupid neurotic reasons, yes, but it was also just safer for practical reasons.

Dorea did want to get married and have a family, she always had — though not straight out of Hogwarts...but probably not that long after? She didn't know, it was hard to guess how she'd feel about it when she was a proper adult and all. Some years to herself, sure, but she didn't expect she'd want that many. It was just that she didn't want to make a mess of things the way Mum had. When she was ready, in the proper way, at its proper time. So, yeah, courtship, good idea.

The Lords and Ladies in the room making a point of mentioning male relatives around her age was still a little exasperating, though. Did they think they were being subtle?

It wasn't so irritating that Dorea found their little post-vote party here too overwhelmingly terrible. Honestly, it was kind of funny sometimes — once an especially obvious Lord (or Lady) turned their back, Dorea would share quick glances and eye rolls with sympathetic people nearby. She spent a fair bit of time around Neville and Tony and Terry, the only people in her and Hermione's study group in the room at the moment, occasionally even Draco hung around. (As stuffy as Draco could be sometimes, even he quickly grew bored just listening to adults talk politics or gossip about each other's families.) After one Lord moved on, Terry made a very suggestive gesture, miming, er, a particular act — Lord Carmichael was known to have had a rotation of male lovers over the decades — Draco shooting him an intensely scandalised look, Dorea couldn't quite hold in a giggle. Less at Terry than at the silly expression on Draco's face, he just looked so ridiculous...

So, when she left the activity of the get-together for the fringes, it wasn't because she personally needed a break. She'd glanced to the side at some point, and caught a glimpse of Sirius sitting at one of the tables far away near a wall, looking rather miserable.

Dorea still wasn't entirely sure how she felt about Sirius, if she was being honest — she guessed that sort of thing could happen when one first met one's father at the age of thirteen. That he'd still been rather unstable due to a dozen years of dementor exposure the first few times they'd met didn't really help. He did seem better now, these days, and not just his physical health, though that was obviously better too. He'd been eating better and regularly practised duelling and played quidditch with old friends, hardly a bulky bloke by any means but not so terribly thin anymore; still rather pale (he was where Dorea got it from) but without the greyish pallor and discoloured blotches she'd since learned were a sign of malnutrition, more pink on his cheeks and along the outsides of his arms, his hair thickened and with more of a healthy lustre to it, long curls kept loose to tumble over his shoulders looking more artful than neglected. The goatee looked somewhat peculiar to Dorea — the fashion was a little dated, common when Sirius had been growing up — but the presence of the facial hair did help him to look somewhat less androgynous. Only somewhat, because even with it he was still a very pretty man — that was common in certain old pureblood families, supposedly an unintended side effect of the selective breeding they'd done going back centuries.

Seriously, shave his face and put him in a dress with a corset, a couple basic cosmetic charms, and Sirius could pass for a woman very easily — and Dorea knew that for a fact, because he had before, apparently just for fun. (Her father was really very strange sometimes.) His being oddly androgynous made the resemblance between them far more obvious than you'd normally expect, given they were opposite sexes...though, she'd noticed before that Liz actually looked more like Sirius than Dorea did. Dorea was a bit taller, had more roundness to her face from Mum, and it helped that Sirius and Liz were both much more athletic types than her. Which wasn't really that unusual, when she thought about it — Sirius and James looked similar enough they could have been twins (despite actually being first/second cousins once removed), because the nobility were hilariously inbred sometimes. Dorea took after her mother more than Liz did Lily, so Liz ended up looking more like Dorea's father than Dorea did (however subtly), because genetics could play funny tricks like that.

And he did seem... Dorea didn't want to say "happy", exactly — with all the horrible things Sirius had gone through, she suspected getting to "happy" was going to take a lot of time and a lot of work. But better, certainly. His moods were far less tempestuous, and he did seem to be, if not truly happy, capable of legitimately enjoying himself. Which was progress, Dorea was pretty sure. Even if the things he legitimately enjoyed himself doing probably weren't the most healthy things in the world. He seemed to have a lot of fun with the lessons he was giving Liz — which was probably fine, no matter how unnerving Dorea found the idea of Liz and Sirius chucking curses at each other — and he went out partying ridiculously frequently, doing all manner of recreational drugs and sleeping around and honestly who knew what else. Which Dorea found kind of vaguely irritating, since it was exactly that kind of behaviour which had led to Dorea's existence in the first place...

...though, if she said something about it, she was certain Sirius would say Dorea's existence obviously wasn't a bad thing, so he wasn't sure what the problem was. Which was kind of hard to hypothetically argue with, but, she didn't know, just seemed irresponsible was all. And probably bad for his health in the long term. Not that she expected pointing that out would do any good — from what she'd seen so far, Sirius Black didn't pay much mind at all to the long term.

Their relationship was still very much a work on progress. Which was about what one should expect, she guessed — he was her father, but he hadn't been around for pretty much her entire life, so. Sirius was trying very hard, both with Dorea and with Liz, which was rather endearing just on its own, but they'd started off as practical strangers, so, it was still awkward at times. Which was fine, Dorea fully expected it would take time to feel right.

It didn't help on the building a relationship front that Dorea was getting the very clear feeling that she and Sirius didn't have very much in common at all. But, as awkward as it could be sometimes, she should still go check on him.

Dorea extracted herself from the conversation, picking up a fresh cup of tea on the way over. Sirius had deigned to dress in proper formal robes for the occasion — his habitual denims and tee shirt were dreadfully inappropriate for the Wizengamot Hall — though he'd elected to go for a more practical duellist style, trousers and a wrap-around tunic under an off-shoulder cape, all in black with accents in blue and red. The sleeves were rather short, the hem dangling loose around his elbows; while on the floor he had been wearing dark leather gloves (which had struck Dorea as vaguely feminine), but they'd been tucked away at some point, pale fingers cupped around a glass of wine. He was reclined back in an armchair, legs sprawled out in front of him, elbows on the arms to keep the wine glass propped up, the bottom of the glass sitting near his waist. And he glared over the rim at the gathering, a dark, surly sort of look on his face she didn't know how to read.

The unpleasant look did ease somewhat as Dorea approached him, glancing up at her with a half-hearted smile. "Hey, kid."

"Sirius." She passed her tea cup over to her left hand, drawing her wand so she could float a chair over from a nearby table.

"Here," Sirius said, holding out a hand.

It took her a second, blinking at him, to realise he was offering to hold onto her tea while she sat down. "Oh! Thanks." She handed the cup over, before turning to lower herself into the chair. These robes were comfortable to sit in, since she'd gotten them to attend Wizengamot meetings — some formal events were standing room only, so especially fancy dresses and the like sometimes weren't designed with sitting in mind — but it was still a little bit of a production, needing to gather up the skirts with one arm so she didn't crumple them up oddly, the stay limiting the angles her back could take somewhat, making the motion a little awkward. She squirmed in place a little once she was down, shuffling into a comfortable position against the back.

Holding her cup back out to her, Sirius drawled, "Oh, the perils of formalwear."

"It's not that bad. The multiple layers of skirts and the lace and the like can get a bit much. Though I don't really like corsets, the stay I have with this is bad enough."

"You have to hold yourself differently in a corset, it takes getting used to."

"Gotten used to it, have you?"

Sirius shrugged. "Sure, when I was your age. Narcissa and I hated each other as children, you know, I used to do this thing where I'd steal her things and just walk around Ancient House in them. Put on a few glamours to look more like her — not that that took much doing, of course — act like a stuck-up snooty bitch, you know, making a point. Drove her mad, but she couldn't hex me, since she'd ruin her own things. Alice Prewett helped me figure out the clothes, thought the whole thing was hilarious — I'm told it was also funny because apparently she thinks I look better as a girl, but I'm not sure if that was supposed to be insulting or not, so. Some of those should be past tense, I think, I forget sometimes Alice isn't around anymore."

...Dorea really hadn't needed to know that Sirius had been crossdressing since he was a teenager, even if it was just to tease Narcissa Malfoy. Though, as much as she had not needed to know that, it was still a less unpleasant topic than Neville's mother.

"So, that's more than enough babbling from me — for the record, I blame the wine for my terribly uncool behaviour, going on like some old lady at a bloody tea party. What's up?"

It probably wouldn't be polite to say she'd come over mostly just to check on him. "Oh, you know, thought I'd take a break."

"Yeah, it does look like you're popular today. I've been watching," he admitted, tipping his glass toward the crowd, "looked like everyone was taking a turn."

"Well, I am fifteen now, you know. Seems like everyone wanted to remind me of the existence of the young men in their families, in case that information might be of interest to me."

Sirius let out a low, harsh scoff, his lip twisting into a scowl. "Of course. I can go tell them to piss off, if you like." Knowing Sirius, he probably meant that he'd threaten people to leave her alone — he wasn't exactly subtle, and he wasn't above using his propaganda-built reputation as an unstable violent maniac (weaker since the trial, but not vanished entirely) to his own benefit.

"It's fine, Sirius, I'm considering doing a proper formal courtship anyway. It's just a little exasperating."

Cutting her a quick, sharp glance, Sirius frowned a little — surprised about the courtship thing, she guessed. He let out a low thoughtful hum, but didn't actually say anything, after a few seconds turned back to stare out into the crowd.

"What is it?" He'd definitely been thinking something, but...

"Nothing, just remembering someone." And he didn't give any further explanation, going quiet.

The silence lingered, the two of them occasionally taking a sip of their drinks, but... The initial topic had died down immediately, and Dorea didn't know how to start from there. She didn't want to too bluntly ask how he was doing over here, putting him too on the spot — Sirius wasn't nearly so sensitive as Liz, but he did have a habit of plastering on a happy mask whenever he noticed her noticing something was off. She understood that he didn't want her worrying or whatever, but it was frustrating sometimes. But she was worried, and if she wanted to figure out what was wrong she couldn't give that away or he'd clam up...

This was very silly.

"So. Who was it?"

Sirius blinked, turning a raised eyebrow on her. "Hm?"

"I assume you're over here to avoid a confrontation with someone. So, whose wife was it?"

There was a little snort of laughter, his lips twitching. "You realise most of the people here are a generation or two older than me."

"Do you care? I didn't realise you discriminate based on age." Or really any other reason, honestly.

"Ha! No, not really," he admitted. "But no, nothing like that — when have you ever known me to avoid confrontation? No, I've just been brooding, like the dramatic bastard I am."

"Brooding?"

"Yup. I got quite good at it while I was in Azkaban, you know, I'd hate for such a hard-earned skill to go to waste."

"...Er." That was a bloody odd thing to say, but whatever. "And what are you brooding about, exactly?"

"Oh, you know, the usual." Sirius looked away, down into his wine glass — his eyebrows dipping with a mild frown, obviously thinking. After some seconds, he admitted, "It's more difficult than I thought it would be. Finding my way back."

Dorea felt herself stiffen with attention a little, but forced herself to act casual, even took a slow, unconcerned sip of her tea. Didn't want to put Sirius off by taking it too, um, seriously, after all. "Back to what?"

"You know, life. Most people who've been in Azkaban for more than a few months never manage it. It's not just the time you've missed, though that's no small thing either — like your entire bloody childhood, for example — but they do shite to you. Dementors, I mean."

...She had no idea what she was supposed to say to that. Azkaban was horrible, that any country that considered itself civilised allowed the place to continue to exist was nothing short of criminal — because Sirius was right, it did do things to people. Even a relatively brief sentence could ruin people for life, many never became functional members of society again. And a dozen years was not a brief sentence. After a moment of floundering, she decided to offer, "You are doing a lot better than you were at first."

"Yeah, that's true," he agreed in a gruff sort of half-mumble, almost grudgingly. "I'm trying, and some of it I'm figuring out again. Like us, right?" he asked, turning a crooked little smile to her. "It's still weird, sometimes, but we're working on it." Dorea nodded, but before she could say anything Sirius was babbling on. "And your mum, and Liz, and Andi, I– The family I can do, I've been away a while so it's stilted and painfully uncomfortable when I fuck it up, but I don't have to force that. But they take great bloody bites out of you, you know. Like a tile that got a few big chips hacked out, it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the mosaic anymore. You can try to paste the holes back in, but it just doesn't look right."

"Sirius, what are you trying to say?" She would think that he meant he wasn't feeling like he fit in his own life at all anymore, but he'd made a point of excluding their family, which was...kind of a big part of it, wasn't it?

Sirius sighed, limply sinking into his seat. He let his elbows roll off the arms of the chair, his hands hanging down — she didn't hear the wine glass drop, presumably he still had it in the opposite hand, but Dorea couldn't see it from here. "I don't belong here. Took me a while to realise it, since it doesn't feel like I belong in a lot of places these days. Thought it was just that, but it's not. This just feels wrong."

"You're going to have to be more specific than that, Sirius, I don't know what you mean."

"This," he said, waving vaguely at the gathered nobles with his free hand, "and all this shite Andi and Ted have going, I don't... Doe, I—" His left hand came up, the back of his wrist resting against the arm of Dorea's chair. So Dorea passed her tea to her other hand, and took his — Sirius's hands were soft and smooth (the restorative treatments post-Azkaban still sticking), and warm to the touch, his circulation must be better than Dorea's. "I'm thinking I don't want to be invited to political events anymore."

Trying to keep the exasperation off her voice, she said, "That's fine. Honestly, you never had to come to this sort of thing in the first place if you didn't want to."

"Yeah, I guess, it— I was trying to be supportive, you know, presenting a united front and all. But I don't belong here. Not just in posh society events — though that too, I never did, I was always shite at playing along — but with the people you're working with, the things Ted and Andi are working on."

"I know you're disappointed we had to drop opening the programme to wilderfolk and nymphs, but—"

Dorea was going to say that it was simply politically infeasible at the present moment, but Sirius cut her off. "It's not about that. Well, it is about that, but not only that. I can't sit in..." He sighed, letting go of her hand. Straightening in his seat, he took a big gulp of his wine before turning back to her with a wry, crooked smile. "I never gave that much of a damn in the first place, I was such a rebellious little shite when I was your age, but I think whatever capacity to give a damn I had before was in one of those bits the dementors took. They're right, Smethwyck and Glanwvyl and fucking Slughorn, they're right about all of it. I'm with Liz — our peers need to get their heads out of their arses, or they're going to burn. And if they can't manage it, they should burn."

...She really had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to say to that. "Sirius, I don't—"

"It's all right, kid, I know you don't agree — but that's why I don't want to be invited to shite like this anymore. Because I'll just be sitting in a corner by myself, getting plastered and glaring murderously at half the people in the room. Like Nott, just there — he was a Death Eater, you know? Killed a good friend of mine once. And him, and him, and her, and him, and of course Lucky Lucy. Lots of Death Eaters in this room."

"Yes, I know." She tried not to think about it, honestly. The politics of the present moment were different, more focussed on the nationalist crisis going on — and the Malfoys, at least, their political orientation was much different these days, seemingly having abandoned their old allegiances entirely. Besides, the former Death Eaters in the room were just allies of convenience this time, they just so happened to support the education programme for their own reasons. Politics could be complicated like that.

"I thought it was just me, but I got a kick in the arse, and I was looking around, and... Well. It's nothing personal, Dorea, you do what you gotta do. I just don't belong here." Sirius swayed up to his feet, in a smooth rolling motion that Dorea would be absolutely hopeless to imitate — honestly, she suspected wandless magic of some kind might have been involved. He threw back another big sip of wine, leaving only a little bit left clinging to the bottom. Throwing her a smirk, "I've always flirted with class treason anyway. Figure I might as well get off the bloody fence.

"The Sixth Task is coming up, right, multiple days around the end of the month, first week of April?"

A little dumbfounded by the odd turns this conversation had taken, Dorea numbly nodded. "Yeah. Dates should be in the Prophet soon."

"Brill. I'll find you when I come up. Take care of yourself, Doe."

"You too, Sirius."

Still smirking, he drawled, "I intend to."

Dorea watched him leave, feeling, just bemused and confused — not that that was an unusual feeling after a conversation with Sirius. Though, honestly, she thought that this might be a positive step? It was probably better for Sirius in the long run to not make himself miserable by forcing himself to go to political events full of people he hated. As much as the stuff he got up to on his own time might seem baffling and slightly concerning to Dorea, she would rather him be happy, if there was a choice in the matter, so. If he thought this was better for him, then, good.

She did disagree with his politics, but that wasn't her business, really. Andi would probably have to put out the word that Sirius wasn't onboard with their political project, and didn't represent the House overall, but it wasn't a big deal. She wished him good luck figuring out who he was, post-Azkaban. Honestly.

Though, something about the swagger to Sirius's pace as he wove through the crowd was giving her a bad feeling. A bad feeling that only got worse when Sirius walked right up to Lord Nott and punched him right in the face.

Oh, for fuck's sake...

It's fine, Dorea, sometimes you gotta punch a bastard in the face, don't worry about it.

By the way, if you've been leaving reviews on this or any other fic and expecting answers to questions or anything, FFN randomly decided to stop sending me alert emails again, so I haven't been seeing them as they come in. I recommend switching to read on AO3, for various reasons.

Plan to switch back to First Contact for a couple scenes, and they'll be dropping back in on Tamsyn before moving on. Woo.