Chapter 24 History Lessons
Anna Granger stood nervously beside her husband Michael. Each of them had a small overnight bag slung over their shoulder, and both were staring with some trepidation at the old shoe on the center of their table. It was a 'port key' Hermione had explained in her letter. The shoe had been delivered just that morning by a large brown owl who had been happy to accept a slice of their morning bacon as payment for the delivery.
"So we just touch it?" Michael asked warily.
"That's what Hermione said in her letter," Anna nodded. They had been invited to some place called the Burrow for Christmas. Now it was December 23rd and they were schedule to make the trip at precisely one minute after 12 noon. It was just noon now. They were both eager to see their daughter, and glad that finally they would be given time enough to truly get to know the family they suspected their daughter would one day belong to if her rather long-winded descriptions of Ronald Weasley were anything to go by. Her letters were always informative, detailed with her academic standings and whatever pieces of Wizarding news she felt were important that they know. And she spoke of Harry quite frequently and her constant worry and concern for the poor boy. But her descriptions of Harry had always been of a sisterly sort - Ron on the other hand was always referred to in clever asides. And a mother could read between the lines - she knew her daughter's heart and had long suspected that the red-headed boy had stolen it.
"Well, let's give it a try, I suppose," Michael sighed. With trepidation, they both reached out and touched the shoe. A second later, Anna felt a wrenching sensation in her stomach and before she could shout in surprise she found herself being pulled away from their home in London. The world seemed to blur around them and a moment later refocused. They were no longer where they had been.
Anna had only a moment of disorientation to notice that they now stood in a somewhat old-fashioned looking living room with the most enormous fireplace she had ever seen before she heard a shout of "Mom!" and found her daughter flinging her arms around her in greeting.
The next ten minutes were a blur to Anna as she was introduced to a very large number of redheads, along with Ron and Harry. She had of course met Arthur and Molly several times before when she'd gone shopping with Hermione in Diagon Alley, but it was different being a guest in a person's home.
As for the house itself - logic dictated that it should not be standing. The architecture did not look at all sound - particularly the stairs that didn't seem to follow any rhyme or reason beyond the simple fact that they went 'up'. The room they were staying in, covered surprisingly in posters with moving pictures in them, seemed to be larger on the inside that it was on the outside. And the window, which faced the front of the house and should have looked out upon the road, appeared to have a very fine view of the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland.
Once they'd settled in the room and unpacked for the two nights they were staying, Anna was led by her daughter and young Ginny Weasley down into the kitchen where Molly fixed her a nice cup of tea while she finished getting lunch made for the mob of people in her house. Anna watched in silent amazement as the woman conducted the various food items and kitchen utensils with a wave of her wand.
The kitchen was far from familiar to Anna - she only recognized a few of the items in it. Her own kitchen back home was equipped with every modern convenience known to man - even a few she had yet to find a true use for. But Molly Weasley's kitchen appeared to be at least two hundred years out of date - that was definitely a butter churn she saw sitting in the corner of the room. Of course when the butter churn pumped itself with little prompting from Molly, Anna supposed the results were better than the processed cubes she bought in the store. There also didn't seem to be anything that resembled a refrigerator in the room - rather Molly simply opened up a random cupboard and pulled various food items from them. One minute a cupboard was filled with chilled milk, the next Molly was pulling a steaming hot pie out of it. All in all it was very disturbing - like something out of dream.
She found herself watching her daughter as she helped Molly with various chores in the kitchen. Far from being alarmed by all the oddities that she knew her daughter had not grown up with, Hermione looked very much at home in this environment. Indeed her daughter appeared to be thriving in it as she had ever since that fateful day when her Hogwarts letter had arrived via owl. Anna was pleased that her daughter seemed so happy in this world she had chosen for herself.
But despite all the joy in the strange little house, Anna knew there was a dark side to all of this, made apparent when they all sat down to lunch a short while later and she realized that her husband was seated next to a man she'd seen on the evening telly time and time again as an escaped serial killer. Sirius Black, she recalled the name.
She knew of course that the man was innocent - Hermione had told her the whole story. Knew also that the other man sitting beside him must be the beloved teacher, Professor Lupin, that Hermione had spoken so highly of. A werewolf, if the stories were to be believed, and she had no reason to think her daughter might lie.
And not far from them was young Harry, with the infamous scar on his forehead that stood as stark reminder to all of them that a threat loomed over both of their worlds. She supposed she'd only heard a fraction of the true adventures her daughter had been involved in, and she knew that Hermione's close friendship with that boy had endangered her life time and time again.
She was also vaguely beginning to understand through her daughter's letters that precisely because of that boy this group of people were somehow at the heart of the Wizarding World - they were important in the grand scheme of things. And her daughter, by mere association, had become something of a legend in her own right. Simply seeing her daughter's name in that enormously thick book Hermione had shown her last summer - "Hogwarts, a History" - had convinced her that things were going on she might never truly understand. The book, self-updating Hermione had said, accounted some of the adventures her daughter, Ron and Harry had been involved in. It was strange to think that in a world she knew next to nothing about, her daughter had become famous.
Later that evening she joined the others in the living room. They sat around the enormous fire (looked like several people could stand up right in the fireplace) and discussed some of the events that were taking place in the world that neither she nor Michael truly understood.
"So how much does the Muggle Ministry know about this fellow Voldemort?" Michael was asking. Anna saw several people flinch at the mention of the Dark Lord's name and Michael quickly apologized. "Sorry - I meant You Know Who." Neither of them could really get their minds around the superstition that made people so leery of saying the name.
"Several key figures in the Muggle Ministry are briefed regularly on the events in the Wizarding World," Arthur explained. "But they are very much aware of the fact that there isn't a lot they can do to affect things here. Seems like every year they are trying to impose some sort of new regulations on the Wizarding World, but when it comes right down to it, much of the Wizarding World doesn't even notice."
"How can they not notice?" Michael asked. "I mean doesn't the average Wizard and Witch have to follow the laws just the same as every Muggle?"
"Wizard laws, Michael," Remus explained. "It's actually a small percentage of the Wizarding population who ever interact with Muggles at all. I mean it would be pretty silly to expect Wizards to pay attention to traffic laws when they don't drive cars. And you could hardly expect Muggles to pay attention to apparating laws when they don't even know such things are possible."
"Well what happens when the laws do come into conflict?" Anna asked. She'd been very curious about the letter Hermione had sent to her at the beginning of the semester about Harry. The discovery that Harry had been abused by his family had been heart-breaking - and just as shocking had been the response of the Wizarding World. She could see the wedding band on young Harry's finger and couldn't really understand how they could have married off such a young boy. And if Hermione was to be believed he was married to a man of all things - one of their professors. She didn't think she liked that idea in the slightest. She rather hoped she had misunderstood the story.
"That depends on what law you are talking about," Arthur told her. "If it concerns a wizard, then Wizarding law takes precedence. You can't expect Muggle authorities to apprehend a Wizarding criminal. It wouldn't be possible in most cases. And Muggle prisons certainly couldn't hold a wizard or witch for long."
"But who is in charge?" Michael asked in confusion. Her husband had always preferred things to be straightforward and well-organized, something her daughter had inherited. "I mean, I know you have a Minister of Magic, but doesn't he answer ultimately to the Prime Minister and Parliament?"
"Ah, I see where you might be confused," Arthur nodded, though he glanced over to Remus as if deferring to the former professor. "While I work for the Ministry, I'm afraid I don't truly know a lot about the Muggle government."
"You are laboring under the misunderstanding that Wizarding Great Britain is the same nation as Muggle Great Britain," Remus explained. "It's not."
Anna noted that Harry looked surprised at that statement as well. "It's not?" he asked in confusion.
Hermione just shook her head. "Honestly, Harry, don't you ever pay attention in Professor Binn's class?"
"Nobody pays attention in Professor Binn's class," Harry protested. "The only time something interesting happens there is when he forgets where he is and starts drifting through the floor."
Anna found herself shuddering at that. Professor Binn was the ghost professor Hermione had told her about - magic was one thing, but the very idea of ghosts gave her the shivers. She couldn't imagine her daughter being taught by a man long dead.
"Do you mean to say that Wizarding Great Britain is not part of our nation?" Michael pressed.
Remus leaned forward, appearing to move into a lecture mode. Anna noticed Sirius' eyes lighting up with sudden interest, and she couldn't help wonder at the relationship between the two men. They were sitting awfully close together on the couch, though there was room enough to spread out.
"Despite the fact that Great Britain as you understand it has been around a very long time, the government that rules over it is really quite young," Remus informed him. Michael frowned in confusion. "I mean to say that it wasn't that long ago that you were ruled by your monarchy."
Michael nodded, as if conceding the point, though Anna wasn't certain what Remus might have meant by 'not that long ago'. Seemed a goodly time to her.
"But our society with its current form of government here in Great Britain has been around for a long time. We consider our 'modern' form of government to have been ratified by Merlin over 1500 years ago. But prior to that our society had thrived virtually unchanged here on the British Isles for several thousand years."
"The same government?" Michael asked in shock as if the very idea was inconceivable.
Remus nodded. "It goes back farther than that. You have to understand that you as Muggles are ultimately ruled by a set of laws you have written down on paper. While those laws have some basic universal truths backing them, they are still just words on paper. They are subject to interpretation and can be changed or broken depending on who is in power. The Wizarding World however is governed by a set of laws that are backed by magic. They cannot be changed, they cannot be interpreted, and they cannot be ignored. These laws have been ruling our society since long before the Great Pyramids in Egypt were ever constructed."
Michael frowned at that. "I don't understand. Which laws are you talking about here? Certainly not apparation laws or age limits for magic use."
"No, of course not," Remus laughed. "These laws are deeper and more esoteric. For example, the Universe has a dual nature that cannot be ignored. For every good there is an evil, for every life there is a death."
"For every action there is a reaction," Michael nodded in understanding. "But that's just basic physics. It's not a form of government."
"It is to us," Remus explained. "That duality affects our lives in a very fundamental way that can not be denied. For example, we know that for every soul that exist in the world there is a soul mate for it. If these two souls somehow miraculous manage to find each other in life, we know that we cannot pull them apart. To do so causes chaos. It can bring about great pain and mischief which ultimately diminishes our society. Consequently our marriage laws are much different than those of the Muggle world."
"Is that why you were able to marry Harry to another man?" Anna asked in surprise.
As Remus nodded, Harry blanched in shock and looked sharply at the werewolf. "The Marriage Stone! Does it find soul mates?"
Again Remus nodded, "That is its purpose."
"Snape!" Harry exclaimed in stunned amazement looking shocked beyond words - Anna remembered that Snape was the name of the man he had married.
Sirius reached over quickly and patted Harry on the shoulder. "Harry, relax. Soul mates have nothing to do with all that romantic twaddle you might read about in Muggle Romance novels. It has to do with magical resonances and how your magic reacts to one another. Not to mention the archetypal natures of your individual psyches and how they mesh together. Siblings can be soul mates without there ever being any form of romance between them."
Harry seemed to calm down at that but still looked somewhat disturbed by the notion.
"Alright," Michael proceeded. "You have these ancient laws that govern your society - who interprets them ultimately. It sounds like all the Wizarding World would be subjected to them regardless of what country they belonged to."
"Right," Remus agreed. "But the laws are not interpreted, merely enforced, and that is done by a group that has been called many things over the years - the High Council, the Circle of Elders, the Illuminati, the Magi. The various ministries currently call them the International Confederation of Sorcerers."
"That's on Professor Dumbledore's letter head!" Ron exclaimed, looking happy to be able to point something out.
Again Remus nodded. "Yes, Albus is a member," he agreed. "The confederation is made up of the most powerful and eldest families in the Wizarding World. They are ultimately the final authority in our society."
"If that's the case then why does the Headmaster have to do what the Minister of Magic and the board of Governors tells him to do?" Ron protested.
"Because Albus would never dream of interfering with the day-to-day governing of a single nation," Remus explained. "The Confederation has very little to do with the daily running of the world. In fact decades might pass with out a single meeting of the members. Instead, each nation is governed on a daily bases by their version of the Ministry of Magic, and those Wizarding forms of government are sovereign unto themselves and have nothing to do with the Muggle world."
"Do they at least recognize the same national boundaries of the Muggle World," Michael wanted to know, looking quite shocked by the idea. Anna had noticed that while Harry looked completely flummoxed by the idea, Hermione appeared to understand all this already.
"Oh, Merlin, no," Remus laughed. "I mean for one thing did you know that in the Wizarding World England has six whole counties that Muggles have never even seen before?"
"What!" both Anna and Michael exclaimed.
"Wizarding France is still ruled by a monarchy - they missed the whole Revolution. By the time they got around to noticing that Muggles were running around lopping off each other's heads, they had already washed their hands of the Muggle world and retreated into unplottable provinces. Wizarding Russia and China not only missed the advent of communism, they never even defied their national borders along the same lines. That entire section of the world is broken up into hundreds of small kingdoms that are ruled over by various warlords and conquerors. The descendants of Attila the Hun still control large sections of the land."
"Wizarding Egypt still has a pharaoh," Bill added helpfully.
"And Wizarding India is ruled by a family of Rakshashas- a creature that is part human part tiger," Charlie added. "And various leaders in parts of Asia claim to have dragon blood in them."
"And then there's the Americas," Remus continued. "Our history here in Britain is filled with stories going back thousands of years about magical people sailing away into the west in search of a mythical haven. By the time the Muggle Columbus had reached the American shores, wizards had been living in America for thousands of years. The current Muggle government there is aware of the Wizarding World, but they have very little interaction with them. One of their founders, Benjamin Franklin arranged a treaty with them, but it largely consisted of 'don't bother us and we won't bother you'."
"Man, I've really got to start paying more attention in History class," Harry muttered.
"Finally!" Hermione exclaimed, and her exasperation caused everyone to laugh.
They talked a great deal longer about the intricacies of the Wizarding World. Eventually Anna asked the question that had been weighing most heavily on her mind. "And how does the Dark Lord and his followers ultimately fit into the various Wizarding governments? What is his ultimate goal?"
All of them looked uncomfortable at that, seeming uncertain how to answer. Surprisingly it was Harry who spoke up. "Voldemort wants to rule the world - all the world regardless of whether or not it is Wizarding or Muggle."
Both his use of the forbidden name and the description of what he wanted to do made the Weasleys all shudder.
"And the Muggle world can do nothing at all to stop him?" Michael asked, wanting to confirm what they both feared. They had been reading about various unexplained deaths in newspapers for over a year now - they had long suspected they were the work of Death Eaters despite the papers saying they were unknown terrorists.
"Voldemort doesn't believe that even the Wizarding World can do anything to stop him," Harry added.
"Can the Wizarding World stop them?" Michael asked fearfully. At that Harry smiled sadly and turned away. Sirius reached out again and took the boy's hand.
"We'll all certainly try our best," Sirius informed them, sounding very resolved in his response. At that Remus and several others all reached over and patted Harry on the shoulder as if offering him silent support. Hermione, Anna noticed, was one of the first to do so and she felt her heart break at the gesture. She understood what they all meant - for whatever reason the Wizarding World expected this boy to stop Voldemort, and his friends and family all knew it. Anna could not imagine such pressure; she could only pray that the boy was up to the task. That somehow he might manage to save at least one of their worlds.