Saturday's headline was a follow-up to the breaking story of the day before:
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CORDELIA BAGSHOT ARRESTED!
Long-lost squib behind generations-long scheme
to prevent pregnancies seized!
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Cordelia Bagshot was arrested yesterday morning by the Ministry of Magic. She is accused of being the mastermind behind the diabolically evil scheme of Queen Anne's Tea. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement captured her from her factory yesterday morning in South Diagon Alley, while horrified factory workers watched on.
"I had no idea," said Mathilda Skert, production specialist. "I just thought we were making tea. I didn't know."
Cordelia Bagshot, age 94, is niece to Bathilda Bagshot (124), the famous magical historian. Cordelia is the daughter of Alatar Bagshot (brother to Bathilda) who had four children. Cordelia was disowned at age 14 when it became clear that she was a squib and had no true magical potential.
"Cordelia did not come back after failing her second-year exams for the second time," said Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "The Bagshots are an old family known for homeschooling their children. The Headmaster at the time likely presumed that she was withdrawn for more personal tutoring and schooling, not realizing she was disowned."
Squibs are loosely defined as 'magical people without magic'. Most frequently born to purebloods, squibs are able to interact with magical objects and pass through magical barriers, but unable to control magic of their own.
"That's how [squibs] pass as magical for a while," said Herman Halstaff, magical genealogist. "They can go to Diagon Alley, and they can even make sparks come out of a wand. They can see Hogwarts, not a run-down castle. But they can't use a wand to cast magic themselves. Most of them end up in the muggle world."
Cordelia Bagshot, contrary to most squibs, remained stubbornly in the wizarding world, keeping in contact with her Aunt Bathilda, who felt a measure of pity for her niece.
"I often took tea with her for years afterward," Bathilda Bagshot admitted. "She was still my niece, my horrible brother be damned. I told her stories of her heritage. Even if she couldn't use magic herself, it was still her history."
Taking tea with Aunty Bathilda likely led to Cordelia's dastardly plot with Queen Anne's Tea. Queen Anne's Tea is remarkably similar in composition to another tea known colloquially as 'Bleeding Tea', a secret recipe passed down through some magical matrilineal lines from one to another.
"I was told of the Bleeding Tea by my Great-Aunt Hilda," said Ella Gamp, a pureblood woman who came forward yesterday to tell the Ministry what she knew. "She caught me in bed with my best friend Jill, and instead of a beating, she gave me the secret of this tea to prevent pregnancy if I was ever forced into a marriage I didn't want."
In addition to being shared with female descendants who love other women, the secret has also been shared with women caught in unfortunate situations out of wedlock, or spinsters who never deign to marry anyone. Bathilda Bagshot, notorious spinster, has long been rumored to take men into her bed despite being unmarried, and still managed to have no children of her own.
"My lovers are my own bloody business," Bathilda Bagshot snapped. "I don't remember teaching Cordelia about the tea, but it's not unlikely that I did. It's her right to know as my descendant, squib or not, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted an unmarried squib woman to find herself in the family way."
Cordelia Bagshot, after learning of the Bleeding Tea, then took the recipe to her abandoned potions desk to dissect, analyze, and experiment with, fueled by her hatred for the pureblood elite that cast her out. Soon afterward, Cordelia started her own production company, Regal Tea, making teas that catered to the elite. Her flagship was Queen Anne's Tea, which debuted in 1924.
"There are other teas we make," Mathilda Skert told our reporters. "We have Queen Elizabeth's Tea, which is a blackberry blend, and we have a King George version, which I personally dislike. But Queen Anne's Tea is by far our best seller. We make the most of that one by a mile."
Cordelia took great pains to ensure that her factory workers never discovered the truth of her tea. Ingredients were kept separate and prepared by different people in the name of keeping trade secrets. In this way, no one person knew the full contents of any one tea.
"I did the raspberry," said Skert. "I know how much of that to put in each tin. But I don't know what else goes in it. I do the blackberry for a couple others, too, and that's the only ingredient I know."
Inside Cordelia's office, cursebreakers were able to discover a hidden door that led to a secret room within the tea production facility. Inside this room, dozens of family trees were written on the walls, meticulously tracked and updated. Extinct pureblood lines were marked in gold, shining bright against the black ink of the rest.
"It's like a serial killer's trophy room," said Alexandra Jones, Wand of the Realm. "This was no accident, no mere coincidence. Cordelia Bagshot meticulously planned this. She marketed the tea to her targets, and she kept track of her victims – the pureblood family lines."
Cordelia Bagshot is not the first notorious descendent from the Bagshot line. Bathilda Bagshot is also aunt to the infamous Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, who reigned terror across Europe for years until his defeat at the hand of Albus Dumbledore. Grindelwald currently remains imprisoned in Nurmengard, located in Austria. Cordelia Bagshot, in the meantime, remains imprisoned in the Ministry of Magic jail cells.
The Minister of Magic refused to comment on Cordelia Bagshot, the Queen Anne's Tea scandal, or the implications of what all this means. Amelia Bones, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, was more forthcoming.
"I've no idea what all laws she's broken," Bones told us. "But I'm going to do my best to hunt down every single one I can to charge her with. I'll look up ancient edicts from the Dark Ages if I have to. I want her locked up for as long possible for what she's done."
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There was a picture of Cordelia Bagshot's 'serial killer' room as well, some of the text on the walls glinting in the light, contrasting with the dark ink of others. Text covered the walls from top to bottom, some of the family trees extending onto the edges of the ceiling. It did not look like the room of a mentally healthy person.
"This is mad," Draco breathed, his eyes horrified. "Some squib did all of this? For years?"
Tracey seemed unsure of how to address the matter. "You think this is why you don't have any siblings?"
"Yes," said Daphne, Draco, Theo, and Pansy immediately. They all glanced at each other and then looked down.
"I don't think you understand how commonly used this tea is among the Sacred 28," Pansy told Tracey. "This was what I saw my mother brew for every fancy social gathering she hosted for years. Years. The fact that we—" she gestured down the line of the table at herself and the other three "—were born in the war years, when the tea would have been harder to get – there's no way that's a coincidence."
Daphne approached Hermione after breakfast, before Hermione could escape to the library to do some research.
"This—this tea," she said hesitantly. "This is—this is why you asked for my mum to send some, isn't it?"
Hermione gnawed on her lip. "Daphne…"
"Because I recognized something in the taste," Daphne went on, not looking at Hermione. "That's how you knew, isn't it? And you tipped off the Prophet?"
Daphne looked like she was close to tears. Hermione was lost, not knowing what response Daphne was looking for.
"I did," Hermione finally admitted. "But I made sure your mum had stopped drinking it as soon as I knew, way before this article came out."
Daphne started crying at this, and Hermione panicked slightly.
"Daphne! Daphne, it's okay," Hermione said, anxiously. "It's over now, everyone will be able to recover—"
"No, no, it's fine," Daphne said, sniffing and dashing the tears from her eyes. "I'm—I'm just glad that—that my—that the thing with Cassius—that something good came from it—"
Horror crashed into Hermione, making her sick to her stomach.
"No. No. This is not—"
"It's fine," said Daphne, waving Hermione off.
"No, Daphne. This—"
"This was a Fated event."
Hermione turned to see Luna Lovegood approaching, looking at Daphne in compassion.
"A what?" Daphne asked.
"A Fated event," Luna said gently. "If Hermione hadn't figured it out this way, she would have figured it out any one of a dozen other ways within a week of each other. Her discovery was a Fated event. Whatever happened to you – it was not an event Fated to happen."
Daphne started crying again, and Luna pulled her into her arms, hugging her and whispering to her. She glanced up at Hermione and nodded, and Hermione scampered off to the library, anxiety and uneasiness running down her spine, the feelings lingering even as she reached her favorite table in the stacks.
Hermione didn't know how she was even supposed to respond to Daphne. She couldn't even imagine what it must be like for her, which part of everything had upset her. Was the thought that something good came from her assault a comfort? Or was it that the idea that something good could come of it made it seem like the assault itself hadn't been a bad thing? Was it just recalling the assault itself?
Maybe it was all of the above, Hermione thought, wincing. She'd certainly been overwhelmed by conflicting emotions and cried because of it before herself, in situations much less intense than what Daphne was going through.
The Second Task crept ever closer, Hermione growing more anxious as it did. Harry was coming along well with making a staff of his own, having been gifted a branch of Ogham wood. Even if it wasn't complete by the time of the Second Task, he would at least have it to gesture with dramatically, which was really all it was needed for.
Parting the waters, however, was proving to be more difficult than anticipated.
"It's just so heavy," Harry said, strained. "Hermione, I really don't think I'm strong enough to do this."
"No," Hermione said stubbornly, hiding her desperation. "I'm sure this will work. We just have to figure it out."
"Well, I need a break," Harry declared, flopping backwards onto some nearby stones. He winced a moment later, apparently having forgotten how hard stone was. "I feel like I've been exercising for hours."
"I mean, in a way, you have," Hermione said. "If your magic is a muscle, you've been essentially 'lifting weights'."
"Literally," Harry groaned. "Water is heavy."
Hermione bit her lip and fell silent. While Harry panted and recovered, she sat on a rock and sent flickers of her own water magic out into the lake, experimenting.
Harry was right. The water was heavy. Pushing and holding it back was exhausting. It was fighting her constantly – the water didn't want to stop like that, it wanted to flow and ebb—
It was fighting her, Hermione realized abruptly. She was forcing the magic, not working with the flow of magic, like the spell crafting book had talked about, letting it move how it wanted to.
She paused, her eyes wide, and forced herself to breathe slowly and think things through. She didn't think she'd need to develop a spell to 'part the sea', but there was something here.
If her intent was to part the water, she thought, what was she doing now? She was just pushing back the water, as if her magic was a dam. What would the magic and water want to do, if she just let it? Presumably it didn't want to be pushed back, but maybe if she could convince it to flow back…
Carefully, Hermione closed her eyes, tapping her water elemental. This time, instead of pushing her magic through it, she let herself meditate on her intent while the water elemental woke up.
The water elemental felt moody and almost rebellious, to Hermione; like she'd been ignoring it and had offended it by not asking for its advice. As best she could, Hermione wordlessly tried to offer it an apology and a genuine plea for help, and begrudgingly, the water elemental woke up a bit more, as if standing up and stretching out inside her core. She felt the water elemental push her magic to go through it, converting it into more elemental magic, and when it was all water magic and flowing through the elemental, she felt her fingertips tingle.
Hermione held out her hand toward the lake.
It was immediately different this time – instead of pushing the waters back, her magic went into the water itself, communicating her intent. More than that, the water magic felt different – it felt like persuasion, almost – as if the water elemental was selling the lake on the idea. There wasn't a plea for help like Hermione had expected, but a case for why the lake would want to – the feel of flowing backwards so fully, how high a wall of water might stand, how powerful it would be, the drama of the entire thing, the feeling of the crash and rush of the water flooding back in once the parting was done—
"Hermione." Harry's voice was a gasp.
Hermione opened her eyes. Before her, the waters of the lake had parted, flowing backwards away from a narrow path through it along the bottom. The water around it still roiled and flowed somehow, like two tidal waves ready to crash down upon the path as soon as they could, but there was a path of land.
Astonished, Hermione let go of the magic, and there was a momentary burst of freedom and joy as the waters came crashing back down, drenching both Hermione and Harry in the resulting massive splash.
"Merlin's socks, Hermione, how did you manage that?" Harry gasped, while Hermione flicked a drying charm at him, neatly following up with one for herself. "That's—that's exactly what I need—is it because you're so much stronger?"
"No," Hermione said. She gave Harry a relieved, happy smile. "It's about how you approach the problem. This is probably going to sound really silly, but this is how I made it happen…"