11th May, 1992
Giving Alastor a blank, flat look, Frank drawled, "I suppose that was meant to be some manner of joke."
The senior Auror's scarred, mangled, lopsided face twisted its way into a macabre smirk, the vivid blue artificial eye fixed on Frank but almost seeming to vibrate with contained energy. "Would be simpler if it were, weren't it?" he growled, his voice low and harsh and grinding. "I'd recognise that bastard no matter what he form he takes. An aura like that, you don't forget it."
Despite himself, Frank shivered, memories of the handful of times he'd crossed wands with Voldemort flickering behind his eyes — he could almost feel the Dark Lord's magic on the air, even here in his office, heavy and sharp and oppressively heavy and viciously dark. No, he supposed one didn't forget something like that. He hesitated for a second, before glancing at the second Auror, sitting rigid at Alastor's side. "Kingsley?"
"...I'm uncertain, for my own part," he admitted after a moment, his low, smooth voice turned slow and faintly crackling from exhaustion. "I never had the misfortune of directly encountering Voldemort myself. But Alastor is far more familiar with him than I — he believes that spirit was Voldemort, and so I take him at his word. This is why we have come to you directly rather than follow the ordinary protocol."
"Yes, I can understand that." If Voldemort had returned, somehow — even in such a reduced state, a disembodied spirit forced to possess willing servants — there could be absolutely no delay in their response. Even a day to prepare the appropriate paperwork might risk allowing his true return to approach ever nearer. They had to act, now — but before he could begin to take action, he needed to see it for himself. "Show me."
While many forms of divination could be notoriously unreliable, there was at least one method that was dependable enough to be useful to law enforcement: memory-scrying. It was possible to reproduce an event exactly as it occurred, all manner of spectral phenomena included, through the means of a properly enchanted device and a copy of a witness's memory. Unfortunately, because the method was so reliable, their ability to use it was constrained by the Wizengamot. Memories could not be forcefully extracted to be used as evidence or to aid an investigation, but only provided voluntarily from a witness or compelled from a suspect by the order of certain official bodies — these bodies had particular political and class interests, and so rarely authorised the extraction of memories from noblemen or suspects of especially political crimes. Whether memory-scrying would be available to them in any particular investigation was always a roll of the dice, which was very frustrating, given how much it could streamline the process.
Thankfully, Frank had two Aurors who had witnessed the incident in question sitting right in front of him, so he didn't need to bother with asking for permission.
Alastor led the way out of Frank's office and through the Office, moving with an electric sort of energy that seemed to clash with his repeatedly-crippled body. A nervous energy, Frank suspected, though his face showed something between a toothy grin and a vicious snarl. Alastor despised the political settlement after the war, if Frank didn't know better he might suspect Alastor was almost enthusiastic about the prospect of Voldemort's return — at least then they might have cause to finish the job properly. Whatever motivated him, it seemed to give him magical speed, all but flying across the Office and down the hall, poor clerks and one hapless LEP officer scrambling to clear the way ahead of him, Frank and Kingsley following in his wake.
Soon they reached the Pensieve Chambre. Every surface, floor ceiling and walls, were constructed of pure white ceramic, the tiles fitted so closely that the seams between them seemed to disappear, smooth and featureless. With the constant silvery-blue light filling the space, evenly lit, it was difficult to estimate the precise proportions of the room, a lack of any landmarks or shadows. The only interruption was an alcove set into one wall, where the pensieve itself sat on a pedestal, the wide, shallow bowl made of the same ceramic, the semi-gaseous potion held within seeming to caress the runes carved along the inside surface with ephemeral fingers.
Without pause, Alastor clunked his way up to pedestal. While Kingsley secured the door behind them, Alastor closed his eyes in concentration, a single finger pressed to his temple — after a moment it slowly pulled away, a silvery tendril of memory extracted from his head millimetre by millimetre. In time it broke, swinging and curling from his fingertip, held only a moment before being greedily sucked away by the substance inside the pensieve. A swirl of Alastor's hand, a sharp rap of his staff against the pedestal, and a tingling surge of magic erupted through the room, crawling cool and tingly over Frank's skin.
The featureless white surfaces of the room were obscured with a projected illusion, all made of blurry smears for a few seconds before the image gradually resolved. A classroom, obviously, rows of student desks, shelves and cabinets along the walls, the floors retouched with tile but where the walls weren't hidden showing the greyish stone of Hogwarts. Frank didn't recognise the room — perhaps Defence had been taught in a different location in his time, or perhaps successive professors had simply changed the environment such that it wasn't recognisable anymore.
An unfamiliar man was standing near the lecturer's desk, fiddling with a stack of paper. Frank had never met Quirrell, had never heard of the man before the children had mentioned him in their first letters home. He'd been educated at the Academy of Saint Frideswith, continued through Proficiencies and his Mastery at Beauxbatons. Of all things, his Mastery was in historical literature, a programme Beauxbatons offered that covered materials all the way from the Classics through to the period immediately preceding Secrecy. He'd been the Professor of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts for a handful of years — his Mastery study had involved research at muggle institutions of learning, using their libraries and academic sources — before switching to the Defence position just last autumn. Quirrell had tested well in Defence throughout his education, though he had no official qualifications in the subject area — but then, that was not unusual at Hogwarts these days. Someone truly should do something about that bloody curse...
Supposedly, the turban was a recent affectation, he'd returned with it from his travel abroad to prepare for the switch to teaching Defence. Nobody had any idea why that had come about.
As the memory picked up, Kingsley and Emma were walking between the desks straight toward Quirrell, at a steady but casual pace, unthreatening. Alastor hung back, seeming to wander aimlessly in an idle weave through the desks at the rear — but from the tension in how he stood, discernable even in the rather dreamlike quality of the projection, Frank could tell he was paying very close attention. In their verbal report earlier, Alastor had said he'd been able to tell immediately that something was wrong with Quirrell, but he hadn't wanted to tip the suspect off too soon, playing casual.
The voices came out somewhat warbling, odd, as though carried through an echo, but the words were mostly understandable. (The reproduction would be better if Frank directly entered the pensieve, but this was faster.) Kingsley asked if they might have a brief word with him, Quirrell stammered through an agreement, so long as it was brief — he had another class before too much longer. He and Emma asked a few quick questions, confirming he was Quirinus Quirrell, mentioning that there had been accusations of inappropriate use of mind magic on students. Quirrell brushed that off as ridiculous — the stammer might have prevented it from looking quite as off-handed as he intended — since he wasn't a legilimens, so simply wouldn't be capable of such a thing. Frank had kept secret who had made that accusation, but Kingsley and Emma seemed unfazed by the denial, taking Frank's claim at face value — it might be unusual for a legilimens to successfully keep their talent secret, but it wasn't unheard of.
Emma then asked if he'd heard about unicorns being found murdered out in the Forest, and the mood in the room abruptly shifted: Quirrell's stammer vanished, in an instant, his voice suddenly smooth and sharp. Frank saw all three Aurors tense, eyes still and watchful. Quirrell claimed he had heard of it, but to know nothing of it, of course, provided his 'expert opinion' on how improbable such a thing was. But his dissembling was pointless, after only a brief exchange Kingsley retrieved the order they'd been sent with. By the authority of the Director of Law Enforcement, Quirrell was to submit to an examination to detect any sign of exposure to unicorn blood.
From there, things moved very quickly. Quirrell stared at the order for one breath, two — and then his wand was in his hand, jabbing out at Kingsley, a pearlescent golden shield snapping into existence to intercept a dark orange-ish curse. (Frank had noticed that Kingsley had offered the order with his off hand, he must have been holding his wand up his sleeve, anticipating a violent response.) Emma snapped off the standard stunning-restraining hex the Aurors used, but it broke over Quirrell to no effect — countered somehow, possibly subsumed — Kingsley and Alastor both got off spells in the next second — Alastor's slipping right through the narrow gap between Kingsley and Emma, brilliant aim — but Quirrell ducked and spun out of the way, with speed and grace Frank wouldn't have expected the fragile-looking man to be capable of a minute ago. Abruptly, his wand hand hidden from view, the desk exploded, burning shrapnel lancing out through the room — Kingsley got a barrier up in time, but he was still staggered back by the force, while Emma was hit badly, pummelled and cut up in multiple places, her hair even catching alight, but only for a second, Emma put it out herself, struggling to stand, gritting her teeth and clenching her wand in a shaking hand, blood trickling through her clothes in multiple places. While they were disoriented from that, Quirrell blew out a bank of windows, moving to—
A large, eye-searingly bright spellglow struck the wall over the windows, instantly melting a portion of the stone — streams yellow and orange dripped in a thick rain across the gap, cutting off Quirrell's escape. (He could get through it, of course, but it'd take spellwork, which he didn't have opportunity to do with Alastor and Kingsley behind him.) Spells zipped back and forth between the three combatants in a rapid rainbow of colour, sizzling off of shields or expending themselves against walls and the floor and desks, carving out furrows and craters or releasing in bursts of fire and lightning, one desk Frank noticed dissolve into ash — serious curse, that one. Emma managed to get up to her feet, a transfiguration drawing tendrils to twine up Quirrell's legs, bending and curling like copper wire but holding as solid as the stone they were made from; she was holding the spell, so Quirrell couldn't simply dispel it. With a vicious snarl he cast the Killing Curse — the Green Death, the Unforgiveable one — but Kingsley intercepted it before it could reach her, the crackling vivid spellglow expending itself against a conjured steel barrier, and then an instant later an overpowered piercing curse blew a hole through Quirrell's chest, a splatter of blood spraying across the wall behind him. He staggered, wand wavering, despite his injury moving to cast another spell—
Before he could get it off, another bright spellglow from Alastor struck his shoulder, and in a flash of light the entire right side of Quirrell's body was obliterated, broken remains falling limp, bending awkwardly over in place thanks to the transfiguration still holding the legs rigid. Some bits did fall to the floor, whatever remained of the right arm, organs spilling out onto the stone, because when Alastor decided to put someone down, they went down. Kingsley immediately turned to check on Emma, but Alastor snapped at them to keep their eyes open. Something still felt wrong.
A few seconds later, some kind of...spirit or something started lifting out of Quirrell's dripping corpse. Black as night, ephemeral and wafting like smoke, there was something just unnatural about it, like a hole in the Earth, even through the imperfect reproduction of the spellwork in the room it still made the skin at the back of Frank's neck crawl. Separate tendrils rising from the body to coalesce into a single mass, it contorted, and then narrowed into a dense, pointed spear sort of shape, and lanced in toward Emma — before it reached her it struck a brilliant white barrier cast by Alastor. Reeling back with an ear-piercing screech, wisps and flutters of eerie black something churning about, Alastor held the barrier with his wand, while...
Frank didn't recognise the language — it sounded Celtic, but archaic, perhaps dating to the late Roman or early Mediaeval period — but it was obviously some kind of litany, the words coming in the rhythm of poetry. Alastor finished one line, struck the stone floor with the butt of his staff — a flash of bright silver-white light raced out from Alastor and through the room, the thing cringing away. Alastor recited a second line, ending with another thump of his staff and another flash of light. The thing screamed, harsh and high and bone-grinding, and the shadows all around seemed to deepen, as though turning solid and flickering like fire, Kingsley and Emma ducking their heads and crying out, obviously in pain from whatever it was attempting to do. But Alastor was implacable, recited the third line of the litany, his voice dripping with molten disdain, the pulse of silver released by the third thump of his staff against the stone even brighter, seeming to fill the room.
When the light cleared, the spirit was gone. The memory ended a few seconds later.
...What the fuck was that?!
It took a couple seconds for Frank to find his voice, staring at the empty spot where the thing had last been, now showing only uninterrupted white ceramic. "Get me Director Fox," he snapped. "Now."
Thankfully, getting the attention of the reclusive Director of Mysteries wasn't particularly difficult this time. Kingsley gave Frank a quick nod, and then he was sweeping out of the room, presumably making his way straight for Fox's office. Frank pulled the memory back up, freezing it on the moment the spirit had properly coalesced above Quirrell's corpse. He stood in the middle of what had been an orderly grid of student desks — tossed around and shattered and burned from the rapid-fire skirmish, the four mages having managed to tear the room apart in a matter of a minute or two — Alastor hitched up leaning in a corner to take weight off his bad leg. Neither of them spoke a word, waiting.
It was maybe only ten minutes before the door opened again, and Ambrose Fox stepped into the Pensieve Room. The Director of Mysteries was an unassuming, unremarkable man — neither short nor tall, face neither ugly nor especially attractive, auburn hair kept at a perfectly respectable shoulder length in a modest style, facial hair short and neat and well-ordered. He dressed in the manner of well-to-do, professional commoners, trousers and waistcoat and jacket, but more in the style of those who might be expected to work with their hands or spend time at an outdoor worksite, tailored close and without any excessive ornamentation which might get in the way. Very modest for a Department Director, but he wouldn't seem out of place among the middling office staff throughout the Ministry, which was only appropriate, as he shared a class background with them. His aura was even quiet — he didn't feel especially powerful, especially alongside people like Alastor or Albus, or even Amelia or his mother, ordinary.
Frank wasn't fooled, of course. Magic was not a matter of power alone — their Director of Mysteries was, undoubtedly, among the most dangerous individuals in the entire country. They were very fortunate that a man of his knowledge and talent was content with a relatively humble life.
Britain hadn't even recovered from their last Dark Lord yet, they didn't need another.
On entering the room, Fox looked around, curious, but quickly turned to give Frank a mild smile and a polite nod. His eyes flicked up to the black spirit over Frank's shoulder, but only for a second. "Chief Longbottom. Sir Moody," he added with another nod over toward Alastor. "I understand you have a matter of some urgency for me."
"I do, yes. Thank you for coming so quickly, Director." Pointing back at the illusive reproduction of the spirit, "Alastor tells me this thing is Lord Voldemort. I need you to tell me how, and how to get rid of him for good."
"...I see." Fox glanced around the room. "Is this Hogwarts?"
"Yes — he's been teaching students since September."
"Is that so? I see our Chief Warlock's history of hiring only the best for the Defence position continues uninterrupted." Alastor let out a sharp bark of derisive laughter, one corner of Fox's lips curling a little. "In any case, I may have some ideas as to how such a thing might have been accomplished — excuse me while I take a closer look." Giving Frank another polite nod, he turned around and walked up to the pensieve on its stand. He conjured a chair with a flick of his wand, sat down, and stuck his hand in the pensieve, immediately going limp as his mind was drawn into the memory. The illusions all around winked out at the same moment, the magic of the device focussed on Fox alone.
Again, Frank and Alastor waited, the empty, featureless room silent save for the rasp of breath.
Fox jerked upright after a few minutes, a queer look crossing his face — contemplative, perhaps. "I see, I see. I must admit, I had suspected our old friend might have done something like that."
"Care to explain, Director?"
"Of course." Tipping back up to his feet, Fox disrupted the conjuration with a careless wave of a wandless hand before turning back to Frank. "I'm sure you remember, Chief Longbottom, that the Dark Lord Voldemort had a certain penchant to monologue — a flair for the dramatic I assume he picked up while serving as a priest in the cult of Venatrix Trivia. Now and then, in these digressions of his, he would claim that he has somehow transcended mortality, that he has done more to conquer death than any before."
"Yeah, the man liked to talk," Alastor drawled, impatient. "What are you getting at, Fox?"
If Fox was irritated by Alastor's abrasive attitude, he didn't show it at all, a light smile flickering at his lips. "I suppose the both of you are familiar with a particular ritual product referred to as a horcrux?"
The room went dead silent for a moment, Frank's breath turning cold. "I've heard of it, yes." Most often as part of the tragedy of Herpo the Foul, which felt almost mythical, a story from a previous age, but they were known to exist. Aurors were typically trained to identify and destroy them — they were extremely rare, but they were dangerous enough that the precaution was worthwhile.
"Good, we may skip directly to the point, then. The entity you encountered, Sir Moody," he said, turning to aim a nod at Alastor in his corner, "is what is known in the study of necromancy as a wraith. It is a rare phenomenon, representing the mind and magic of a being that is somehow prevented from decohering despite its disembodied state. A mage bound to a horcrux, should their body be destroyed, would most likely be reduced to a wraith."
"So, it was Voldemort."
"Judging from memories of the man I have examined in the past, I would concur with Sir Moody, yes."
...It was true, then. Of course, Frank had heard rumours that Voldemort hadn't been entirely destroyed, only diminished — Albus in particular insisted he wasn't permanently defeated, that he would return. He hadn't shared whatever evidence had caused him to come to that conclusion, but Frank had had no particular cause to doubt him. He'd thought... Well, he guessed he'd hoped Albus was wrong. The first war had been awful enough, he didn't want to think about a second.
...
The bastard had been teaching at Hogwarts. What the hell had Albus been thinking, had he really noticed nothing was going on there?
Frank managed to pull himself out of his thoughts after a few seconds, focussing back on Fox. "Very well. How do we get rid of him?"
"Ah, well, that's a more difficult matter I'm afraid — or simpler, in a way. The wraith is sustained in its current form by the magics binding it."
"So we need to find his horcrux?" That could be a problem. As he understood the magic, practically anything could be turned into a horcrux — there was absolutely no telling where Voldemort had hidden the bloody thing. They couldn't simply scour the whole country, there were certainly wards to conceal any sign of it — they could be standing right on top of a hidden vault and never know — and for all they knew Voldemort could have hidden it anywhere in the world. And they didn't know what the damn thing looked like. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack, but a million times more difficult.
A dry note on his voice, Fox said, "Horcruces plural, I suspect. Remember how Voldemort claimed that he had gone beyond any man before in his quest for immortality. Mages in the past have created a single hocrux before, but several?" He shrugged. "To disperse the wraith, it would require destroying all ties he has to the earth, without exception."
...Make that several needles, and they didn't even know how many. That sounded fucking impossible. "Forgive me if I don't find that very reassuring, Director."
"Well then, allow me attempt to reassure you. In his present form, Voldemort's powers are limited. He will need to possess a willing subject in order to use most magics, or even cross wardlines of any significant strength. And he will not be able to possess any one person for very long — unicorn blood may slow the degradation of the host, if only temporarily, I suspect that's what he was killing them for. As Sir Moody demonstrated, once he has been forced into the open, there are methods by which a wraith may be exorcised from a location. He is still a threat in his diminished state, yes, but a manageable one."
"It hardly matters how much weaker he is now. He must be trying to find a way to make himself a new body, yes?" Frank had heard rumours the Philosopher's Stone was being kept at Hogwarts, presumably as a favour from the Flamels' to aid in Albus's personal research. As many wild rumours there were floating around in this country, he hadn't given the idea much credence, but he assumed Voldemort must have — perhaps he could have used such a powerful artefact to create a permanent vessel for himself, somehow. (Frank would be having words about Albus with this whole debacle, but that was a matter for another time.) The Flamels would hopefully keep a closer eye on their Stone from here on out, but there were other methods, he knew enough about the Dark Arts to realise that. "We stopped him this time, but he only needs to succeed once, and he has an eternity to try."
"That's the thing, Chief Longbottom: he does not have an eternity. While a horcrux may keep one's essence from dissolving immediately upon death, it is not a permanent solution. The longer a wraith spends unmoored, the more it will decohere — the wraith's mind will gradually unravel, losing knowledge and memory, until it is nothing but undifferentiated magic, whereupon it will dissolve entirely."
That was good news. Frank had been worried they'd be stuck with the bastard forever, since he doubted they'd be able to hunt down an unknown number of horcruces, scattered in unknown locations throughout the world...but if there was a time limit... "How long does he have?"
Fox gave a careless little shrug. "It is hard to say. Active possession of the sort he was performing on Quirrell will slow the process, and it's possible the effects of multiple horcruces will help him as well. But after a decade, I would suspect his mind has already begun to suffer. You might have noticed he used little mind magic in that skirmish — at the height of his power, it should have been no issue for a legilimens of Voldemort's calibre to possess one individual while simultaneously assaulting the minds of three others."
...Good catch, he hadn't gone into the pensieve himself, so he wouldn't have been able to feel out that sort of thing. That did sound like a promising sign, yes.
"But for how much time he has left... Conservatively, I would estimate in another decade he will have diminished too thoroughly to be reincorporated through ritual — or if he were, he would no longer be coherent enough to be any kind of threat to us. Five years may be more realistic, I'm uncertain. Without having more memories of the state of the wraith to compare, it is difficult to say how quickly he's deteriorating."
"So, we only have to hold out for five to ten years."
"That would be my best guess, yes."
For a long moment, Frank just silently stared at the unassuming-looking man. He glanced at Alastor, the older Auror giving him a toothy, confident smirk. "You're right: that is reassuring."
Fox smiled back at him, bland but pleasant. "My pleasure to help, Chief Longbottom."
"If you'd truly like to help, you can write a report on the matter for me. I intend to announce the discovery of the wraith to the Wizengamot, so we can better organise against his efforts to return, and your cooperation would be helpful."
"Gladly. Though I will need to strip any explicit mentions of the horcrux and its functioning — Department policy, I'm afraid."
"That's acceptable." The Wizengamot didn't need to know how Voldemort's wraith was hanging around, simply that it was. "How soon can you have it written up? I'm going straight from this meeting to ask Amelia for a time to address the assembly."
"Ah, well, perhaps it would be better if I could simply give an oral report on the floor myself? It would take less time to prepare."
...Fair enough. "Good. Thank you for the help, Director — please be ready to address the Wizengamot as soon as Amelia can get us a time."
"Of course, Chief Longbottom. Sir Moody." Another couple polite nods, and Fox turned and walked out of the Pensieve Room. His pace was calm, casual, his bearing perfectly at ease, as though he'd discovered nothing particularly concerning during their meeting.
Though, when Frank thought about it, he had said that he'd suspected Voldemort might have done something like this — it was possible he hadn't learned anything new.
Brushing off his persistent misgivings about their Director of Mysteries, Frank conjured a glass phial, and stepped up to the pensieve. There were enchantments in the Wizengamot Hall that enabled the display of a memory to the assembly — given the allegiances and politics of certain members, this would go far more smoothly if Frank came with proof. "I trust you don't mind if I show this to the Wizengamot."
"Be my guest," Alastor grumbled. Shoving himself away from his corner, he clunked over toward Frank. "Forgive me if I'm not optimistic about this hidebound ingrates seeing sense."
"I wouldn't expect anything else." While he had fought against the Revolutionaries on the Continent during the 30s and 40s, Alastor had become deeply disillusioned with the Wizengamot in recent decades. Sometimes Frank wondered if Alastor might have found himself fighting on the other side of his first war, if he'd been able to see what was to come. "I'll inform my mother ahead of time — she may be able to twist a few arms to ensure we get what we need."
Alastor let out an ambivalent huff. "Once I'm off for the day I'm going straight to see Albus. I have some questions for the old bastard."
"Mind asking him for me what the fuck he was thinking letting a professor under hostile possession anywhere near the students? I don't believe for a second he didn't notice anything wrong. He put my children in a classroom with Voldemort." Frank felt the horror in his own voice — he'd put that together a while ago, of course, but he hadn't said it aloud. Voicing it made him... They'd been metres away from him, for hours...
"Right, your eldest are there now, aren't they? Are they the source for the tip about him abusing mind magic?"
Frank nodded — there was no point in denying it to Alastor of all people, and he could be trusted to keep the secret. Even Frank didn't know the identities of some of his contacts down Knockturn way or in Starlight, stubborn bastard. "Hazel, yes. I had them pulled from Defence class back in December. They were both checked over by a mind healer during the break, but they were both clean. Which is only more unsettling, honestly, I still didn't send them back."
"Good move. Though if it were me, I might have marched up to the Castle and hexed some answers outta him. You got better patience than me — that's why you're in the nice office, and I'm not."
One eyebrow curling up, his voice low and flat, Frank drawled, "I can think of more than just the one reason. Didn't you once threaten Lord Farley's brother with stringing him up from a lamppost in Old Town?"
Alastor let out a harsh bark of laughter, lips twisting in a tooth sneer. "Mighta done. Bastard would have it coming, you know what he's involved himself with through the Brotherhood."
He knew what Alastor accused Arnold Farley of in collaboration with the Night Briar Brotherhood, but he'd never been presented any firm evidence — that Alastor had a reputation for jumping to conclusions and ignoring protocol was the point. "I suppose you can make it through the rest of the day without threatening any siblings of Lords of the Wizengamot."
"Sir, yes sir," Alastor snapped, with a sloppy little salute. "Meet you back here tomorrow for the memory of little Amy's face when you tell her why you need to speak to the Wizengamot."
...Yes, Frank did expect the cursing to be very extensive.
፠
Ten and a half years after his seeming defeat, Chief Auror Frank Longbottom announced the discovery of the continued existence of the Dark Lord Voldemort to the assembled Lords and Ladies of the Wizengamot — and before the public, his presentation conveyed over the radio in real time and to be reproduced in newsprint the following day.
Though none involved in events would have recognised it at the time, retrospective historians would come to mark the 15th of May 1992 as the beginning of the end for aristocratic rule in Britain.