Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge carefully hides his nervousness as he knocks on the massive front doors of Hogwarts Castle. He and his cabinet spent the last year, with the help of the Office of Foreign Relations, trying to find out who to contact to formally open relations with the Equestrians. They hadn’t been able to find anything- and then, out of the blue, Rita’s article came out… and pointed out a single liaison. The girl isn’t an Equestrian, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped them- and now, especially in light of this morning’s newspaper, his entire cabinet agrees that they need to establish friendly contact as soon as possible… and take an alarmed stance on the issue of Lockhart and Heartstrings.
Which is why he’s here, with two aurors, a representative from St. Mungo’s, and one of his aides- the one that’s fastest with a quill. No doubt he and his staff will spend the next hour or so, once they get back to the Ministry, preparing a press release for the general public tonight.
The great oak doors open, to reveal Professor McGonagall. “Minister,” McGonagall greets.
“Uh- Good afternoon,” Fudge begins, internally berating himself for stumbling already. “Is the Equestrian liaison, Ginny Weasley, available?”
Behind McGonagall, he spots a girl with hair that reminds him of hay whirl to look towards the doors, then start speaking into her ‘radio’ device.
“Ahh,” Professor McGonagall begins. “I’m sure that can be arranged.” She stands back, gesturing them inside.
“Thank you,” Fudge continues. “We can wait here while you get her, please.”
“Actually,” the hay-haired girl states, trotting closer. “She’s ready for you now.” She looks up at McGonagall. “In the Hospital Wing.”
McGonagall smiles thinly, nodding slowly. “Ahh… I see.” She turns back to Fudge and his party. “If you would follow me?”
“Ah, yes,” Fudge nods, distinctly nervous. In the Hospital Wing? Isn’t that where Heartstrings is? He prays to himself that she hasn’t died, or something.
Professor McGonagall leads him up the familiar passageways to the Hospital Wing… where he is at once overwhelmed by the woman with the sunlit hair, glaring at a floundering Lockhart.
Ginny Weasley, standing near the door, bows slightly to him as he enters. “Meet Princess Celestia, Princess of the Sun and Diarch of Equestria,” she intones, holding a hand out towards the sunlit woman.
At her words, Celestia’s attention shifts from Lockhart to him. She doesn’t fix him with the glare she’d pointed at Lockhart, thankfully- but her disappointed gaze is bad enough.
“Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge,” Weasley introduces, bowing fully to Celestia and holding her hand out towards him.
He bows to the Princess- and notices that his aide is bowing as well… and the two aurors, after exchanging looks with the armored men standing respectfully by the door, simply nod their heads to the Princess. “Princess,” he greets, before rising carefully. This is his country, technically- it wouldn’t do to appear subservient to her here. “I take it you’ve seen the news?”
She nods slightly. “I have. Professor Lockhart here,” she turns to scowl at Lockhart again, who is frantically reading the news article in front of him, “irresponsibly caused very nearly irreparable damage to one of my loyal subjects.”
“Ahh, yes,” Fudge mutters, looking down slightly and trying to recollect his thoughts. “She’s… She’ll recover, right?”
The blue-and-white-haired girl sitting on the next bed over lets out a laugh, wand in hand. “Oh, yeah, I’ll recover, eventually. He only damaged my innate magic so badly it won’t fully recover for almost a full year, and vanished: One, the bones out of my right arm. Two, my right lung. Three, an entire limb. And four, a sizable chunk out of my right side, mostly towards my back.” She shudders. “It’s only thanks to Madam Pomfrey and Doctor Horse here that I survived at all.” She shoots a glare at Lockhart, who yelps as if he’d been burned. “And before my apparent good health makes you wonder, the only reason I’m not in magical stasis right now is because Silversong happened to be nearby- and thanks to her combination of skill and raw power, she was able to replace my side with magic until it can grow back.”
Fudge blinks.
“You regrow?” Lockhart yelps.
Lyra shakes her head. “Not without magical support.” She shudders. “And I won’t be able to fly again for a good three years at least.” Scowl. “Or eat normally for a year and a half or so.”
“Ahh…” Fudge glances up at Madam Pomfrey.
The nurse sighs. “That’s only the beginning of it.” She lifts the clipboard hanging on the end of the girl’s bed, and makes a show of flipping through six pages of diagnosis, before returning it to its place. “And Miss Heartstrings is mistaken- if not for Silversong, she’d be dead right now. Magical stasis wouldn’t have worked.”
Heartstrings blinks. “Wait, really?”
She nods sagely. “You were in far too critical of condition. Stasis would have shattered your magical core.”
She winces. “Oh… I knew I recognized Silver’s signature, but I didn’t realize her contribution was that important.”
Fudge tilts his head. “Shattered the magical core…? Wouldn’t that…?”
Bonbon shakes her head. “That’s how the Killing Curse does its job.”
“Ahh…” Fudge glances around the room. “Does this Silversong happen to be-?”
Bonbon shakes her head again. “She has asked to remain anonymous.”
“... Huh. Well…” He looks towards Lockhart. “I daresay this calls for a reevaluation of Mr. Lockhart’s magical abilities at the very least,” he states. “We can’t have him injuring anyone else like this.” He looks at the St. Mungo’s representative that had come in with him. “And we should probably extend that into a program to make sure all celebrities- and holders of an Order of Merlin- can cast basic magics correctly.”
“To be fair, I did have some active spells that might have interfered with it when I allowed him to,” Heartstrings inserts.
“Allowed!?” Madam Pomfrey promptly explodes, infuriated. “He was allowed to hurt you like that?”
Everyone else in the room goes instantly silent, watching the nurse.
Lyra shakes her head vehemently- and winces in pain. “Ow! Um, no, I didn’t allow him to hurt me. He offered to heal the broken bone, and I said okay.” She scowls. “Probably should have warned him of those spells… or cancelled them first.”
The St. Mungo’s representative then speaks up angrily. “Any competent wizard should know to check for interference before casting any kind of medical magic!”
Madam Pomfrey nods vehemently, but Dumbledore beats her to speaking. “Completely aside from how he shouldn’t have offered in the first place. The Equestrians are different from the rest of us, and so respond differently to medical magics. Only Madam Pomfrey here understands that difference well enough to work through it; all the rest of the staff- including myself- are supposed to take any injured Equestrians straight here, no matter how simple the ailment!”
“I believe that’s been posted in the staffroom for over a year,” Professor McGonagall scowls. “And mentioned at every staff meeting this year, too.”
Celestia turns her gaze on Lockhart once again, causing an instant resurgence of the cat-and-mouse appearance.
“Ahh…” Fudge mutters, also glaring at Lockhart. “It would seem this also calls for an investigation. Any holder of an Order of Merlin, no matter the class, should know better than to disregard safety instructions. And shouldn’t need them, to begin with!”
“Hold on,” one of the Aurors mutters, looking up at McGonagall. “That post tells why they come straight here, right?”
McGonagall shakes her head.
He sighs, and shakes his head. “Then there’s nothing we can do.” He gestures at his partner. “In terms of law enforcement.”
Celestia’s eyebrows nearly disappear into her hairline. “By his negligence, he nearly killed a foreign envoy, including sentencing her to a minimum of three years of pain and disability, yet you do nothing against him?”
The Auror flinches back from her glare. “I’m sorry, Princess- he hasn’t violated any standing laws, so our hands are tied.” He looks at Fudge.
Princess Celestia also turns to Fudge.
“That, ah, definitely needs looking into,” Fudge declares immediately. “I expect it is simply a matter not covered by our current laws. Rest assured we will see to it that any such deficiency is corrected… and that he then sees justice.” He glances at Dumbledore, who nods, before looking back at Celestia. “Ahh… Would you like to know when we have a trial date?”
“Can you promise me that he will not lay one finger on any of my subjects before his trial?” Celestia demands.
“Ahh…” Fudge looks between Lockhart and Celestia. “I… Um…”
The red-and-gold-haired girl that had hitherto sat silently rises, trotting up next to Celestia. “Just issue a restraining order,” she instructs him, “to keep him from touching any Equestrian, either physically or by magic.” She then turns to look up at Celestia. “That way, if he does touch one of us again…” She looks sideways at the aurors. “It’d be a criminal offense, even if he didn’t cause harm.”
“Ahh… Those have to be requested by the victim, though…”
Celestia gives him an unimpressed deadpan set to make a man like Dumbledore cower in fear. The red-and-gold-haired girl facepalms. Rita’s quill breaks, but Granger’s already got a fresh one waiting for her.
Fudge doesn’t stand a chance, backing involuntarily into the closed infirmary door.
“You know,” Heartstrings supplies, in the perfect deadpan, “that Princess Celestia represents every last one of us, right?”
Everyone nods… then Bonbon, Heartstrings, Granger, Weasley, and the red-and-gold-haired girl stiffen suddenly.
Bonbon puts her hands up to her face, leaning back in her chair. “Oh Lord…”
Granger simply facepalms. Heartstrings groans, flopping back down flat on her bed. The fiery-haired girl sighs, shaking her head and turning to return to her seat.
Weasley rolls her eyes and mutters something into one of her two radios.
Dumbledore looks at them. “What happened this time?” he asks tiredly.
“Muggles,” Weasley answers shortly. “They’ve been spotted driving their cars onto the grounds.”
“C-Cars?” Fudge asks. “Isn’t the ground too bumpy for those?”
She shrugs. “Somebody should have told these that. They’re not even inconvenienced.”
Nearly killed someone, yet didn't break any of the laws? It seems wizards don't have manslaughter charge.
Ah, the joy of true off-road vehicles...
9941377
Nor reckless endangerment it would seem.
9941377
9941380
Yeah, it would seem.
And after Voldemort, you'd think they'd have them. But unfortunately, that was the only way I could think of to keep him from being arrested... because there are future plot points that rely on him.
9941386
But when have wizards ever used something as smart as logic or common sense? Aside from a select few.
9941389
... This is true. As a matter of fact, it may or may not be one of my pet peeves with the series...
9941380
It seems Wizards have a really high tolerance for "accidents", if the person can survive. Otherwise, I think potions would be unteachable with that liability hanging over the teacher's head.
9941512
At least not as taught by "Professor"
Safety HazzardSeverus Snape.I mean, the very first lesson we see for First Year Potions has no safety instructions at all other than "Follow the directions on the board." There is no eye protection of any kind provided, and Snape doesn't even make sure that any of them are wearing their dragonhide gloves, let alone clay infused aprons or other safety gear for working with alchemical ingredients!
No, with him, it's: Interrogate Potter about trivia that is only partially within the year I'm teaching at the moment; tell the students to make the assigned potion, following the directions on the board (which we later find out isn't even the best way to make the potions he puts up there); lurk about the room, purposely making the students nervous while simultaneously providing NO assistance nor corrections even when he notes students making dangerous mistakes; and scolding and berating injured students before seeing that they are taken to the medical wing.
Honestly, I get why Dumbledore wanted his pet spy, but putting Snape in any kind of teaching position for beginners when the man obviously can't stand kids was a huge mistake. Maybe if he was only responsible for teaching older students who already knew the basics or even the intermediary techniques, with another teacher handling the lower years, but he should not have been put in charge of beginners at all. Especially when it is guaranteed that at least a portion of every First Year class will only have just recently found out that magic was real at all, let alone that actual potions are a thing.
Er… Sorry about the rant.
Hold on a moment:
So the Equestrians said that they could not figure out the maze of departments.
And here, you had two "students' with official titles of princess, and you could not figure out who to ask?
How incompetent are ... never mind :-)
9941519
there is that, though the author could have skipped over the safety instructions in favor of story pacing, leaving no hint that it even happened. remember the author is British and they tend to ignore a few things that they deem common knowledge.
Yea, remember, if Aragon was never mentioned as wearing pants, then clearly he never did.
Muggles?! This I've got to see!
Most excellent.
“Muggles,” Weasley answers shortly. “They’ve been spotted driving their cars onto the grounds.”
“C-Cars?” Fudge asks. “Isn’t the ground too bumpy for those?”
She shrugs. “Somebody should have told these that. They’re not even inconvenienced.”
Welcome to the world of muggle sport called rockcrawling were we take small unasuming trucks and turn them into massive monsters
I am quite enjoying this and am looking forward to the coming chapters.
9941377
Well even thought tia has the right to be angry it was mostly an accident more than anything and even though I have not read the series in awhile I think they are being way to hard on the poor guy he probably feels guilty enough even though he was just trying to help
9941893
Ahh... Um... Yeah, you might want to reread the series...
Canon Lockhart vanished Harry’s bones, and was only really worried about the damage to his reputation. As a matter of fact, at the end of the book, he tried to attack Harry and Ron in order to protect his fabled reputation!
So yes, it was an accident... an accident brought about by carelessness, resulting in the very real crime of reckless endangerment. He’s lucky Wizarding Britain doesn’t have that law... yet. There’s a reason modern criminal law codes are so big & complicated, and it’s not because someone brainstormed them all- it’s because they’ve all been violated, at at least one point in history, and some lawmaker or another was alarmed enough by the news report (or agreed enough with the judge’s decision) to make it a law. And that’s not counting how “precedent” is a law unto itself...
9941380
That one's pretty effectively proved throughout the entirety of canon.
too be frank celestia could bypass both fudge and the wizingamott entirely, she's a crown and technically so is lyra, celestia has a right to handle this matter directly with Elizabeth herself.
Until I read the rest of the story I thought they were stiffening because they thought Tia was going to blow up at the Ministry for not understanding the role of a Monarch. But that's on my brain not working today, not your story. Can't wait to see who's in the cars (anyone we know or is it just random people?)
If it turns out to be some police officers with an Officer Fiona at the lead, with backup copies of their memories on walkmen and printed records, that would be wonderful :-)
(Alas, Sir Poley seems to have stopped writing.)
9942516
Neither.
As in, they’re not anybody that’s shown up before, and they’re not random, either.
Oof
9946026
You raise a good point... they did, in fact, have the ability to satisfy the implied promise, that they could stop him in his tracks. They just miscalculated the threat he posed... and didn’t account for some of their assets.
And yeah, Flutters probably could have shot him... but she wasn’t present, and she wasn’t summoned.