Harry Potter and the Junior Year Abroad
Welcome to America
By Ishtar
Chapter Fifteen
Welcome to America
Professor Broomfield-Hill counted heads one more time to make sure she had everyone as the bus rattled off through London. As expected, the students had paired up by houses on the two-person bench seats. "All right, listen up! You students should all be aware of what could happen if you break the International Secrecy Statutes, even accidentally. While we're at the various schools, you may do magic as you would at Hogwarts. Three of the schools are protected by isolation or bands of terrain which discourage intrusion by Muggles. There are also the usual spell barriers to turn Muggles away. However, the Norton Institute, the fourth school on our visit, is in the middle of an urban area, so you must be especially circumspect there. Hopefully, by the time you get there, you will have learned how to pass as Muggles in public. We will also be making visits to other locations where you will be interacting with Muggles, especially during the winter holidays, when we'll be spending two weeks in New York City. In general, there is more interaction between the Wizarding and Muggle communities in the United States than you find at home. You will also find, however, that the general population of the United States is more magic-sensitized than at home. There are very fanciful depictions of it in their popular media, such as books, cinema, and television shows. As a result, you may find yourself in contact with someone who claims to know about magic, may even claim to be a witch, but is nonetheless a Muggle. You must be extremely careful when dealing with these people. Do not encourage them. Most particularly, do not do magic where they can see it, or even when you think they might see it. The penalties for breaking the International Statutes are harsh for a reason; they range from penalties and fines which your parents would have to pay, you being minors, but then you would have to answer to your families, up to and including being expelled from school or even having your wand snapped, depending on the egregiousness of the offence. That's just for using magic in front of Muggles; depending on what exactly the magic is, if any harm is done, penalties can include incarceration in Azkaban or Alcatraz, the American equivalent."
Harry nodded, grimly. He remembered all too well his experience on the wrong side of those statutes the previous summer.
"Not only don't we want to risk breaking the law, but we're going to have to be extra sure no magic happens while we're in the air. Muggle airplanes are full of electronics, and they're very sensitive to magic, and the law of gravity is even harsher than Wizarding law. To make sure that nothing happens, even accidentally, I'm going to have to ask you all to give me your wands for safekeeping. They'll be returned when we're safely at the Nokomis Institute. Even my own wand will be going into storage, see?" She unrolled a black velvet cloth that had nine narrow wand pockets sewed into it, and carefully slid her own wand into the first pocket. "May I have all your wands, please?"
With some reluctance, Harry handed his wand over, and Lavender followed suit. Blaise was the last to pass his up, and did so only after Daphne elbowed him in the ribs. With no robes and no wand, he felt more than a little lost. He felt a little better, though, when Potter — no, Harry — looked back at him and gave a quick, reassuring wink. The professor carefully rolled up the wands in a velvet cocoon, and put it in her carry-on bag.
"Very good, thank you all. Now, once this bus stops, there is to be no discussion of magic, wizardry, anything of that sort at all, until we are on the plane. It's a special charter flight, run by Muggles who have Wizard connections, sort of like the Knight Bus, so once aboard, you may speak freely. If you have any doubts, it's best to keep silent — or ask me, my husband, or one of the Muggle-born students if you can do so discreetly."
Harry hoped it wasn't going to be too much like the Knight Bus — if it flew as erratically as the Bus drove, he wasn't sure how long his stomach would hold out. And if the steward turned out to be named Shunpike, that was it, he was just going to run off and hide in the Forbidden Forest for the whole year.
The bus wove its terrifying way through London traffic and then out to Heathrow, where the traffic was, if anything, even more terrifying as cabs and jitneys and private cars jostled for positions at the departures building. Amazingly, with no visible magic but lots of horn blowing, the bus driver managed to get them up to the kerb in front of the appropriate departure lounge. Justin Finch-Fletchley and Michael Corner went in search of luggage trolleys. Once they had returned, Harry and Mr. Hill unloaded the trunks from the back of the bus. Blaise helped keep the stack from falling over as he watched the pride of Gryffindor doing the unloading like a common labourer, and grinning at Mr. Hill's thanks when they were done.
The crowds at Heathrow made Harry think fondly of the crowds at King's Cross station. Even Platform Nine and Three-Quarters just before the Hogwarts Express left was not as frantic as Heathrow, and he could only imagine what it must be like for the purebloods. Blaise looked almost sick with nervousness, so Harry kept him close and guided him as needed, making sure he didn't get lost and making sure they both stayed right behind the rather noticeable Mr. Hill. Daphne stayed right behind them, and after a time they found themselves at the end of an extremely long queue. Once they had crept to the head of it, they parted company with their trunks and the trolley. Professor Broomfield-Hill fussed with tickets and boarding passes, and soon they were off again to find their departure gate.
Security, identity checks … to Harry's relief, nothing blew up when Professor Broomfield-Hill's bag, with all their wands, or Harry's own carry-on, with its enlarged inside, went through the X-Ray machine. Harry was half expecting to find the Wizarding charter departure gate to be hidden, of a magical nature, but instead it was a normal gate all the way at the end of the terminal, with a sign for "Magical Mystery Air Tours". There were other people there, mostly bearing the subtle (and not so subtle) signs of Wizards in Muggles' clothing: the mismatched patterns, the odd hat, the rather unusual tie. The Hogwarts group were the most "normal" looking ones in the bunch, even with Blaise goggling at all the unfamiliar Muggle things. Really, he was worse than Arthur Weasley. Harry nudged him as he ogled the passers-by. "Don't gape. Or if you must, turn around and look out the window. Gape at the planes. That's expected."
For the first time, apparently, Blaise realized that these large ungainly craft were actually going to attempt to fly, and that he was going to be inside one of them when it did so. "You mean those … those things … they'll never get off the ground! How do they stay up? They make no sense!"
Harry grinned. "You know, there's lots of Muggles who think that, too. But they do stay up. Mostly."
"Mostly? What do you mean, mostly?"
"Harry, you're a bastard!" Lavender laughed.
But in a little while the door opened and groups were being called for seating, and even Harry found himself thinking that planes only mostly stayed up. Mostly.
Harry looked out the window of the terminal as the coach passengers were called for boarding and moaned slightly. What was it with Wizards and their colour schemes? The plane was painted bright purple, with yellow stars and moons and spirals all over it. It was so garish that most people would wind up looking away from it and attempting to forget they'd ever seen it. Which was probably the idea. Other than that, it looked like a normal plane, but Harry kept a weather eye out for anyone who looked even vaguely like a Shunpike.
The Hogwarts group, all ten of them, took up the first several rows of first class, and so, of course, were called last. Automatically, they started to pair off by House, but Professor Broomfield-Hill called them to attention while they were still messing about with overhead luggage compartments for their carry-ons.
"Before you sit down — I want everyone sitting with someone from a different House! I also want everyone on a first-name basis. We are all representatives of Hogwarts here, and I want no inter-house rivalries that might reflect badly on the school. By the end of this trip, you all will know each other as well as your dorm-mates, and that process starts now. Mix it up, mix it up, please — Mr. Zabini, perhaps you should stay with Mr. Potter for a bit, that's good …" The Professor ruthlessly arranged the students to her liking, and made sure they were all buckled into their seats. A stewardess gave them a little lecture on safety, how to find the exits in an emergency, and where the airsickness bags were; more than one of the Wizard-born students looked like they were going to need them before the plane ever left the ground. Harry suspected that the usual boarding lecture on Muggle flights didn't include instructions to keep one's wand in a properly warded storage pouch while the plane was operating.
And then the plane was moving, and the students sitting next to the windows pressed their noses to the glass while their seatmates craned their necks to see, and the plane moved away from the terminal, stopped and started several times on the way to the runway, and finally the whine of the engines ramped up and the plane picked up speed and the ground fell away beneath them.
The highest Harry had ever flown on a broom was the trip from Surrey to London the year before, and he hadn't been able to see much then because it was at night, and Moody had mostly kept them in the clouds. He did remember seeing the roads stretched out like lines of jewelled light in the darkness below him, though. Now he saw whole counties stretched out beneath him like patches on a quilt, with roads and rivers just like the lines of stitching between. He wondered if you could get a broom to fly this high. Would it be too cold? Would there be enough air up here? And if there wasn't, would a Bubble-Head Charm be any good? Maybe someday … maybe after Voldemort, if there was an after … he could find out. Then the patchwork of the land ended, and out before him was an endless stretch of silver water, and thinking of the future with anticipation for the first time in months, Harry Potter flew away from the only home he'd ever known.
It wasn't long before looking at the ocean and the clouds palled, and Harry turned to his seat-mate. Blaise sat almost rigid in his seat, gripping the armrests tightly. "Er, you can relax a little bit. It's going to be a long flight. You're going to wear yourself out like that." Blaise managed to pry his fingers loose with an effort.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen, you can unbuckle your seat belts now," said Mr. Hill. "Breakfast will be served shortly, and they're going to be showing a movie later — that's a Muggle form of entertainment — and there will be a discussion period after, so those of you who understand Muggle things can explain it to those who don't. In the meantime, try talking to your classmates and getting to know those you're not familiar with. The seats swivel round, so those of you in the front row can talk to the ones in back if you've a mind to." He showed them how to adjust and turn the chairs.
Harry and Blaise spun their chairs to face Mandy and Justin. "Before anything else," said Harry, "I've got one very important question … how many of you play Quidditch?"
"I thought you got banned last year," said Justin.
"In the United Kingdom. And as long as there are still folks in the Ministry who don't like me, that's going to stay in place." He made a face. "They couldn't ban me from flying altogether, though, and Dumbledore gave my broom back to me after he found it in the cabinet where Umbridge locked it up. I don't think the Ministry has authority in America, and they can't stop me from playing pick-up games either. Since we'll be jumping schools all year, though, I can't try out for any of their teams. So I thought we might put together a Hogwarts team and see if the American exchangers can put together a team, and at least play each other. And maybe against some of the school teams. What do you think?"
"Well … I tried out for Beater for Hufflepuff and missed it by a hair back in third year. But I've spent a lot more time on a broom since then. I'd give it a shot," said Justin.
Daphne, it turned out, was a reserve Chaser for the Slytherin team, and although she'd never actually played in a House game, she did practice regularly. Blaise played pick-up games occasionally and had played all positions except Seeker. But Lavender didn't do well on a broom and Mandy, Susan and Michael were nowhere near good enough. "How about trying to put together a combined exchange team with the Americans?" Lavender suggested. "With Harry as Seeker, we'd have a tremendous advantage, and with Justin, Daphne and Blaise that's four, and I'd be surprised if we couldn't find enough players among the Americans to make up the other three plus some reservists."
"Don't count me as such an advantage," Harry said. "I'm so out of practice it isn't funny. And we don't know how good the Americans are at all. They got blown out of the water in the last World Cup, but the national team doesn't necessarily reflect how good the school teams are. I just want to be able to play again, that's all."
"We'd all need to learn each other's styles," said Justin. "You Gryffindors play differently than the Slytherins, for example."
"You mean honestly," put in Lavender.
"Too right," agreed Daphne, much to everybody else's surprise. "That's why I'm only a reserve Chaser. I'm better than both of the ones they've got, but I don't like the sneaky plays. They need to have me to keep up the team roster, but they don't particularly want me to play."
"Let's do it, then," said Harry, his eyes gleaming at the thought. Miscellaneous talk of Quidditch tactics and broomstick models kept the students busy until breakfast was served by the stewardess. By now, most of them were ready for a little something, since breakfast at the Leaky had been several hours and much excitement ago. Harry thought the eggs, bacon and toast were adequate, but Justin was surprised at the quality. "Wow, magical airline food is a lot better than regular airline food. The regular stuff is only one step up from hospital food."
"That bad?" asked Harry.
"That bad. I suppose you know all about hospital food now, huh?"
"Do not remind me," said Harry, making a face.
"What was that all about, anyway?" asked Justin. "Um, if you don't mind my asking. It was all over the Prophet for a week, and then just suddenly dropped off. It was even in the regular papers."
"What exactly was in the papers? You'll understand that I didn't see them at the time."
"The Muggle papers had it first, really. It was a weird news day, I guess, what with all those assaults and things happening, and then frogs and lightning bolts in a hospital? I knew right then that there had to be a Wizard involved somehow. But your name wasn't mentioned at that point. That came up in the Prophet the next day. Their first set of stories had you going berserk and wreaking havoc for no apparent reason …"
Harry snorted. "Typical."
"I'm beginning to think so. After the last few years, it's obvious to anybody with a brain that the Prophet is after you. But then the second set of stories told about how you were attacked — although they didn't say who did it - and any damage you had done was because of your injuries and the effect of Muggle medicines on you and you weren't really responsible. So somebody landed on them, I guess. Then there were all these speculations on how you got injured, but it was fairly obvious people were just making stuff up at that point. They kept running updates on your condition, and all these articles on how awful Muggle medicine is, and all that. There was a lot of talk about whether you should be living with the Muggles at all, or whether the Ministry should be in control of where you lived. Especially with all the panic about You-Know-Who coming back. Then there was the announcement that you were out of the hospital, and the Ministry had sent you to an undisclosed location where you could recover. The Muggle papers had an entirely different side of the story. Something about a shakeup in Child Protective Services because you'd fallen through the cracks?"
Harry suddenly lost his appetite for breakfast. "Well, I'd really rather none of it happened, but I can't get away from it, I suppose. I guess you all saw it?" There were nods and noises of agreement all around, and Harry looked at the circle of curious faces. Even the Professor was listening, although she at least was pretending not to be. "Okay, here it is … my mother was Muggle-born, and her family are my only living relatives, so I grew up with them and stay with them for the summers. They don't like magic, and I'm not allowed to do it around them. I can live with that, but they haven't treated me very well because of it. And, well, my cousin Dudley is … none too stable, and he just went psycho one night and tried to beat me to a pulp. Almost did it, too. But I got away from him, and someone called the police, and they took me to a Muggle hospital. The frog stuff happened when they gave me painkillers and then worked on my dislocated shoulder. The medication wiped out my control, I guess, and I made random things happen. Then the police and the hospital staff called in the Child Protective Services. They were upset because nobody ever filed papers with the Muggle courts when my parents died, so they didn't know about me and weren't aware of the way my relatives treated me. They didn't want me going back to live with my aunt and uncle again once they did find out. They were going to put me in a Muggle Orphan's Home, or maybe foster care. Ron's folks volunteered to be my foster family, so now I'm living with the Weasleys. And you do not want to know what we had to do to pull that off. I don't think we broke any of the Secrecy Statutes, but we sure as hell bent a few. Ron's dad works for the Ministry, so maybe I am living under Ministry supervision, at that." That notion did not sit well, really, and he wished it hadn't come up. "That's all, really. Now I just have to keep a low profile for a while until the Muggles forget and something else happens to keep the Prophet busy."
"That's it? According to the Prophet, you were nearly killed. And then you were taken off somewhere for 'recuperation' and nobody knew where you were for a month and then you waltzed into the Cauldron yesterday like nothing ever happened."
Harry snorted. "The Prophet is a rag. They wouldn't know how to write a story straight if their lives depended on it. If they couldn't find me, somebody high up decided it wouldn't be good for them to find me, and personally I'm just as glad that they didn't. I was with the Weasleys. I was even in Diagon Alley doing school shopping, and I spent another day in Muggle London getting ready for this trip, and a couple of days with the police in Surrey giving my statement. I even had dinner in a restaurant. I wasn't hiding anywhere. All I was trying to do was have a normal summer." And failing completely, given all the other things. "Can we talk about somebody else's summer now?"
Lavender immediately launched into a long story about her family's trip to Majorca, and soon had all the girls involved in a discussion of fashions. The boys glared at Harry, blaming it all on him. He grinned, shrugged, and pulled a book out of his carry-on. It was Volume 1 of Carmarthen: "Tilting the Playing Field in Your Direction", and he'd put yellow sticky notes on pages that looked interesting during his reading last week. To his dismay, the book had spat them all out and he was going to have to start all over again.
"What's that?" asked Blaise, cocking his head at the book. "Getting a jump on schoolwork already?"
"Sort of extra-credit," Harry said, tilting the book so Blaise could see the title.
The Slytherin was suitably impressed. "Wow, Carmarthen! Who'd you have to kill to get that?"
Harry felt everything inside him go cold. He'd forgotten who Blaise was, which House he belonged to. Had forgotten that Slytherin trick of sliding the verbal knife in between the ribs, and twisting just so. Had forgotten that Malfoy wasn't the only viper in the nest. "My godfather," he said, his voice cold and cutting. "I killed my godfather." He jerked the book away, unbuckled his seatbelt, and moved to a seat on the other side of the cabin, where he just sat and stared out the window, with the back of his chair turned to the rest of the group.
Blaise attempted to get up and follow him, but Lavender's hand impacted in the centre of his chest and pushed him back down. "Zabini, I don't know whether that was malice or just stupidity, but I am warning you right now, if you say one more thing to upset him, when I get my wand back I'm going to hex you so hard you'll be lucky to reincarnate as a slug in your next ten lives!"
"I… I didn't mean anything … it was just, like, those books are so rare, people are always saying they'd kill for one, so … you don't mean he …" Blaise's eyes grew round as he looked over at the back of Harry's chair.
"No, he didn't!" snapped Lavender. "But his godfather did die during that thing at the Department of Mysteries, you know. There were rumours all through the Tower about that. And I think Harry thinks he's responsible. Oh, come on, don't tell me you didn't know about that!" she said as Blaise shook his head.
"I don't know anything about what happened except what was in the Prophet about … about You-Know-Who coming back. And that wasn't a lot. There were maybe three paragraphs about what really happened."
"And I suppose Malfoy and the rest of your Slytherin buddies didn't tell you what happened to their parents?"
"No, they didn't," replied Blaise, hotly. "Not all of us in Slytherin are Malfoy bootlickers. If he and his crew have spoken five words to me all year, it's been a lot. And nobody else in school will talk to me because I'm Slytherin. I've been pretty much isolated for the past five years. I was hoping to have a chance to change that this year."
"I'm not much better off," said Daphne. "At least I have Tracey to talk to. Bulstrode and Parkinson won't have anything to do with either of us. And some of the Ravenclaws talk to Tracey. But none of them knew anything solid about what happened in June, and you know Ravenclaws — if they don't know for sure what they're talking about, they won't say anything — no offence intended," she said, looking over at Mandy.
"I'd have told Tracey if I knew anything, which I didn't because certain other individuals," Mandy said, glaring at Michael, "wouldn't tell me anything."
"Well how could I, after what happened to Edgecombe?"
"What does Edgecombe have to do with any of this?" asked Blaise.
"Whoa, stop, stop! This is getting too scattered," said Lavender. "Blaise, Daphne, Mandy — here's the short version. You-Know-Who wanted to get Harry to go to the Department of Mysteries for some reason … some trap or other, nobody knows the details. So Harry went, but he didn't go alone, some friends of his went with him, and they were having this big fight with Death Eaters that were there, and then some Aurors, including Harry's godfather, showed up, and his godfather got killed, but all but one of the Death Eaters were arrested, including the fathers of Malfoy and Goyle, and You-Know-Who and Dumbledore had a duel in the main lobby of the Ministry before You-Know-Who ran away along with that Lestrange woman who escaped from Azkaban a while back."
"This is the short version?" asked Mandy.
"Well, yeah. I mean, I wasn't there for the fight, but there was all this stuff with Umbridge before and after, and about the, um," she stuttered to a halt.
"Yeah, the, um," said Michael. "Mandy, Daphne and Blaise are the only ones here who weren't part of The Um. Oh, and the Professor — none of the teachers knew. And after what happened to Edgecombe, we don't want to know what would happen if we talked about it to somebody who wasn't part of it."
"Well, you're talking about it now."
"No, I'm talking around it."
"I'm still confused," said Blaise, "but it doesn't make any difference." He unbuckled his seatbelt and rose carefully, as if he expected the floor of the plane to buck beneath his feet, and crossed the aisle to sit next to Harry again. Harry's face remained still and shuttered, and it was anybody's guess as to whether he'd paid any attention to the conversation which had gone on so close to him.
"Harry, I'm sorry. I had no idea. Really."
"And why should I believe you? One of Malfoy's cronies?"
"I'm not. I never have been. I'll give you my Oath on that if you like."
"Like a Slytherin's oath would convince me of anything."
"Harry." Blaise paused to collect himself, took a deep breath, and spoke intensely. "Cross my heart and hope to die, if I've told you any lie." He drew the index finger of his right hand across his chest twice, and Harry saw shining silver lines trailing after the fingertip form an X mark which lingered for a moment and then faded away. Blaise was slightly pale. "It's done. You have my Oath. I didn't know, and I've never been a Malfoy lapdog. I'm ambitious, yes, or I wouldn't be in Slytherin at all, but my ambitions and his are not the same. Pretty much opposed, actually." He glanced downwards at the book. "I didn't mean anything by … what I said. It was only a turn of phrase. And if I could, I'd go back and unsay it, because I truly don't want to hurt you."
Harry unbent just a little. Children's rhyme aside, Blaise was making an effort here. And he'd seemed sincere back in the Leaky Cauldron. "All right. I accept your apology. And I'm sorry for overreacting. It's just that it's still raw, and I … I really don't want to talk about it."
"All right then. But Harry … you're going to have to talk about it sometime." Blaise returned to his seat on the other side of the plane.
Harry suddenly realized that everybody else's conversation had died down, and they'd all been listening to him and Blaise. He glared at the lot of them. "Okay, is everybody's curiosity satisfied? Can we get on to something else?" And he spun his chair back to the window. But this time, he was more aware of their conversation, no longer lost in his own thoughts.
Daphne leaned across Susan toward Blaise to touch his hand. "That was a hell of a risk you took, Blaise."
"Not really. I knew I'd never spoken to Harry much in the past, much less lied to him. But yeah, there's always the chance you've forgotten something. I've never done an Oath like that before. Now I know why you're not supposed to."
"I don't get it," said Justin. "All you did was a little nursery rhyme. That's a children's swear. It doesn't mean anything."
"Doesn't mean anything?!" exclaimed Blaise. "Justin, that was a Wizard's Oath! If I had lied to Harry at any time in the past, it would have killed me. That's why we so rarely make oaths and promises. They're flipping dangerous. Don't they teach you Muggle-borns anything?"
"No. No, they don't. They just bring us into the school and expect us to sink or swim on our own. They have Muggle Studies class to let the Wizard-born know about us, but we don't get the return favour. We manage to pick up most of it, but sometimes we run right into something like this. Hell, half the Muggle-born kids that come into the school would use 'Cross my heart and hope to die' to seal a promise or verify a statement and think nothing of it. I know I did."
"You're kidding!"
Justin gave a little smile and said, "Cross my heart." Blaise flinched.
"I thought so, too," put in Harry abruptly, swivelling his chair around again. "I thought it was something children would do, like pinky swearing." Blaise and Daphne exchanged a glance. "Oh, don't tell me that's something, too! I'm surprised first-years aren't dropping dead left and right!"
"It's probably because they don't think anything of it," said Michael. "If they intended it, or if there was a lot of emotion behind it, it could be binding."
"Still, they ought to tell people about these things. Hey, Professor!" The Muggle Studies teacher, who had been listening to the entire conversation with her chair turned around to give them at least the illusion of privacy, swung her seat around. "Why don't they teach the Muggle-borns about things like this?"
"Do you want the charitable reason or the uncharitable one?" she asked.
"Ah, both, please?" asked Michael.
"Charitable reason … the Board of Governors and all the teachers with any influence are purebloods. They've been so steeped in their own culture that they honestly don't know how much the Muggle-borns don't know. Maybe not even Dumbledore. And certain sectors, like the majority of members of a House which shall not be named but its initial is S, can then feel smug about the stupidity of the poor Muggle-borns for not knowing something they were never taught. I know, Mr. Zabini, not all are like that. But the majority are. And I don't think you'd be willing to cross your heart and tell me you've never felt that way, either." Blaise swallowed uncomfortably and shook his head. "The uncharitable reason is that it's done deliberately, to hamper the Muggle-born and keep them from obtaining positions of power. You may have noticed that when you consider the population of the school as a whole, there are a lot more Muggle-borns or half-bloods than there are purebloods. But how many Muggle-born or halfs are there on the Board of Governors? In positions of influence in the Ministry? Virtually none. Oh, you get some in the lower positions, secretaries, clerks, low-level bureaucrats, some of the Aurors, or teachers like myself and Hagrid, who are marginalized. But in the positions where it counts? No, the purebloods keep their stranglehold on the political power, despite the greater numbers of mixed-blood witches and wizards in the general population."
"So … which of the reasons is right?"
"That's the question, isn't it? One answer is right for some, another answer for others. And telling which is which … and what, if anything, should be done about it … those are questions you all will be facing as you grow up."
"Won't getting rid of … of You-Know-Who kind of settle it?" Susan asked.
"You-Know-Who would not have been able to attract the group of followers that he did if the attitudes weren't pre-existing."
"I still don't know why the purebloods follow him in the first place, given how mixed his blood is," said Harry. "I mean, he's got less Wizard ancestry than I do."
This little bombshell resulted in everyone goggling at Harry. "What? How do you know that?"
"Remember, I've met him. His mother was a village witch from somewhere up in Yorkshire, I think — not from one of the big important families, anyway — and his father was a Muggle. Not even Muggle-born. A Muggle. Anyway, he rejected her because she was a witch, and she died in childbirth and the baby was raised in a Muggle orphanage until he was old enough to go to Hogwarts. Now I don't think he's even quite human any more."
"Does the Ministry know this? I bet if it were public, people wouldn't be so eager to follow him."
"They know. I told them. Dumbledore told them. It's in the records, if you know where to look. If it's not publicized, it's because they don't want people to know, for some reason."
"The Death Eaters are all bound to him personally. It wouldn't make any difference to them now," said Professor Broomfield-Hill. "And the pureblood agenda wasn't part of his original plan. Most of his original followers were pureblood, because they were most likely to go along with his aims. But if he were to drop dead … again … tomorrow, it wouldn't solve the long-term issues. As long as the pureblood community holds special knowledge and customs that are required for social acceptability but to which the Muggle-borns are denied access, and as long as the knowledge and customs of the Muggle-borns are regarded as unnecessary and barbaric, there will be a vast gap between the two. Purebloods and half-bloods whose parents practice magic in the home grow up seeing magic done, beginning to learn how spells work as naturally as breathing. Muggle-borns, and the half-bloods whose parents keep it secret, suddenly get it all thrust upon them when they're eleven and have to try to absorb it all then. Now, how would you go about solving the problems?"
Blaise thought. "Um, have a Wizard Studies class so they could learn about us?"
"That would be a start. Mr. Finch-Fletchley?"
"Make the Muggle Studies class mandatory for the Wizard-born? Most of them don't bother to take it."
"All right, that's another idea," said the Professor. "I've been proposing both of those steps for several years now. What else? Take it out of the school environment."
"Justin, you're the only one of us that's Muggle-born," said Mandy. "What would have helped you the most?"
"Mmm, I'd say knowing about it all in advance. I'm sure if my parents had known, they would have got me tutoring in Latin and maybe French or Italian, for one thing. Purebloods speak the languages of magic from day one. It's a lot harder for the rest of us to pick up, and it never comes naturally. Just listen to the way we pronounce things. Being in Hufflepuff helps, of course. So many of us are Muggle-born that the older students understand what the younger ones are going through and make a concerted effort to help them, and we all share spells that we find out about. I don't know if you get that in the other Houses."
"We don't get Muggle-borns in Slytherin," said Blaise. "But you're right, they wouldn't get that sort of help. We only share spells when it's really necessary for the good of the House."
"You're wrong about Muggle-borns in Slytherin," said Professor Broomfield-Hill. "It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Remember that the defining characteristic of a Slytherin is mindset, not blood. Check your House histories some time. They tend not to advertise the fact, but some of the most outstanding Slytherins have been Muggle-born — or Muggle-raised, like You-Know-Who. So," she continued before Blaise could respond, "before school, increasing contact with the Wizarding world would help. How about after school? Mr. Zabini … your family has a Grimoire, yes?"
"Of course."
"And it has spells in it which aren't in the Standard List, am I correct?"
"That's the point of having a Grimoire."
"Would you be willing to teach some of those spells to Mr. Finch-Fletchley? Assuming you and he were old enough?"
"No! That's my family legacy!"
"Even if you knew that he might need those spells someday to save his life? Or yours?"
"Um…"
"Um. Think about it. Miss Bones, your family also has a Grimoire. Would you share it with Mr. Finch-Fletchley?"
"Maybe not the whole thing. But if there was something he really needed, yes. And if he, um, marriedintothefamily or something, of course." Justin was surprised to note that Susan blushed madly and refused to meet his eyes after this comment.
"Mr. Potter, does your family have a Grimoire?"
Harry blinked, startled. "I have no idea. I never even heard of Grimoires before."
"Mr. Potter is the descendant of one of the oldest Wizard families. If any family has a Grimoire, his does. But through circumstances, he has been isolated from his family legacy. If not for this chance conversation, he might not ever know it had existed, because of the custom that one doesn't mention these things in 'mixed company'. Now at least there is the possibility of his recovering it, if it was not destroyed fifteen years ago."
"Where might it be?" asked Harry, while thinking 'Chance conversation,' my foot! You steered it right to this. What House were you in, Professor?
"There are any number of places, and I think we should discuss this at another time, since it does not concern the rest of the group. If the Grimoire still exists, you will not be able to use it until you come of age anyway. That's the way these things work. But if you can find it, your family legacy will become available to you on your seventeenth birthday.
"As for the rest of you, those of you from mixed families should check back through your family lines to see if there are any links with pureblood families. If you ask for access to family Grimoires, they cannot deny you. For those of you who have no verifiable links, or who are Muggle-born, the only thing I can suggest is to start your own, so that your children will have their own legacy. Or, as Susan commented, if you marry into a family that has a Grimoire, you would gain access to it."
"How do we start making one?"
"Right now, you can't. However, by the end of this year, you will have learned many of the skills you need to do so. In the meantime, learning as many spells as possible which are not in the Standard Books of Spells would be a good foundation. It's always a good idea to have a few surprises up your sleeves. The Grimoire will assure that your children have surprises up theirs. Those of you who will eventually be able to access family Grimoires will benefit your families if you seek out spells which could be added at the time you gain access."
"You know, I suppose I should be glad Hermione didn't know she wasn't supposed to share spells," said Harry. "She's always researched things and shared them with Ron and me. If she hadn't, I'd probably be dead a couple times over already. And last year, I and a lot of others got together to share what we knew in DADA — most of us probably wouldn't have passed our OWLs if we hadn't."
"Harry," said Lavender warningly, shooting a glance at the Slytherins. "They weren't part of it."
"That doesn't matter now. Dumbledore told me he wanted the D.A. to be a public club this year with school sponsorship. Now that Umbridge is gone, we don't need the secrecy."
"Good, because I've been dying of curiosity ever since Lavender and Michael started dancing around it," said Mandy, leaning forward. "Now tell all."
So the five students who had been part of the D.A. told the others, and Professor Broomfield-Hill allowed the conversation to go the way it would. She had made the points she wanted to, and then some, and her charges would need to consider what she had said.
Some time later, the lights darkened, a small screen dropped at the front of the cabin, and the promised movie started. It was an American movie, and Harry had heard of it, though not seen it, of course, since it had come out the previous year while he was at school. It was all about the American space program and an accident which happened on one of their flights to the moon years before. He thought it fascinating, and even though he knew how it turned out, he was still holding his breath at the end and hoping they'd make it … He thought poor Blaise's brain was going to squirt out his ears, though, at the notion that what they had seen was a reenaction of something that was true, and that the American Muggles had, in fact, been able to send people to the moon and get them back again. The question-and-answer period extended until well after lunch, when Blaise finally ran out of questions. The chaperones suggested that the students read quietly or rest for a while, and Harry, who was suffering the effects of the night with Fred, George, and Ron, thought that an excellent idea.
He finally did manage to do a little reading in his Carmarthen, replacing the sticky notes with bits of torn paper and hoping the book wouldn't get picky about those, too, before they had to put their belongings away for the descent to Chicago. According to his watch, which had adjusted to local time, it was still early in the afternoon, but his body was telling him that it was much later than that. His companions seemed to be having the same problem. The Professor and her husband hustled them off the plane and herded them through the crowds to reclaim their luggage, and then they had to wait in long queues to get through Customs. Harry obediently opened his trunk for the inspector, who pawed momentarily through the stacks of underwear, jeans, and schoolbooks. He flushed and looked down at his feet as the inspector found the magazines he'd stashed. The man smirked and confiscated them, telling Harry that just this once he wouldn't write anything up, but he'd better shape up and improve his choices in reading material. Then he gave Harry a conspiratorial wink, which told him that the magazines would probably end up being passed around the agents' locker room for a while.
Justin, who was in the queue just behind Harry, was mildly astonished and admonished Harry once they were past the Customs counter and waiting for the others to finish. "Harry! I'm surprised you read things like that!"
Harry grinned. "That was Fred and George's idea. Put something harmless in the trunk that they can find and confiscate, and they won't look farther. Or if they do look, they'll look at me and not anybody else — and my trunk disguise was the least likely to fail."
"Good thought," said Mr. Hill, joining them, "though I wish you'd told us, so we could have made sure one of us was right behind you if it turned out you'd got a prudish inspector. Some of them are … well, look at the difficulty Miss Brown is having." Lavender's inspector was going carefully through each and every container of makeup or personal hygiene product, opening them all to make sure they contained only what they said they contained. Harry had no idea girls needed that many little bottles and containers, and Lavender was turning bright pink as the uniformed woman made her unpack and then repack virtually everything in her duffle bag. Daphne and Mandy, queued up behind her, were looking concerned, since they weren't sure if their trunk disguises would pass this rigorous an inspection. The Professor bustled over as soon as she was free from her own inspection and had a few words with the inspector. Harry couldn't hear what she said, but whatever it was, it made her give back Lavender's belongings and pass the other girls through with only a cursory look.
It was with great relief that the Professor counted heads again and started their group off again. "That was the worst part, the rest is just tedious. Come along, come along!" Harry was very glad for the wheels on his trunk by the time they had dragged their luggage through the terminal, onto a shuttle bus, off the bus again and through another terminal to check luggage again. Then it was off to another waiting area for another plane. They were travelling surrounded by Muggles now, so conversation was kept to a minimum.
The coach seats on the domestic flight were not as comfortable as the first-class seats had been and Harry was unable to focus on the novel he dragged out of his bag instead of the Carmarthen. Neither could he stare out the window, as somehow he was squashed in a centre seat between Justin and Mr. Hill. (Blaise had reclaimed Daphne as his seatmate across the aisle and was much happier now.) Harry found his thoughts wandering through the things the Professor had told them about earlier, and wondered if the Weasleys had a Grimoire. Certainly Ron had never mentioned it, nor had any of the other Weasleys. He also wondered just how far his 'adoption' into the Weasley clan went. If there were a Weasley Grimoire, would he be allowed to see it? Had his father's Grimoire survived? Was it possibly at the Potter house or in the vault? Could there possibly be something helpful in it? And what about the mysterious Black and Marvolo legacies? Could those be Grimoires as well? He drifted off into an uneasy sleep while considering these ideas, and was in the middle of a dream in which he faced Voldemort and could do no more than throw books at him, when Justin elbowed him awake. They were making the descent into Minneapolis. It was still afternoon. This was shaping up to be the longest day of Harry's life.
By now, even Blaise was getting jaded by airports. "All I want is a decent cup of tea and then bed," he muttered as they disembarked. There was a crowd of people waiting for disembarking travellers, including a number of suit-clad individuals holding signs with names on them. Next to them was a tallish, much less formally clad man holding a hand-lettered sign that read, HOGWARTS. Mr. Hill spotted him first, and waved to attract his attention, then dragged the group off to meet him.
"Hello, I'm Kenneth Hill, chaperone for the Hogwarts exchange group. Are you our driver?"
"Sure am. Welcome to Minnesota, folks!" he said, shaking hands with Mr. Hill and tipping his hat to the Professor. Harry looked curiously at the man; he was the first Native American Harry had ever seen. He was tall and slim and appeared to be somewhere in his mid-twenties; his skin was dark bronze, and he had high cheekbones, dark eyes, and a nose which was, well, downright Snapish. He wore jeans and a denim shirt, a wide-brimmed black hat with a beaded band, and moccasin boots. With his long black hair tied back in a pony tail and some sort of animal claw earring, as well as his easy smile, he reminded Harry a lot of Bill Weasley. "You got everybody? Okay, my name's Aispun, and I'm in charge of getting you all from here to the school in one piece, so we'll go collect your luggage and I'll get you all on the bus."
Aispun guided them down to the luggage claim and they reclaimed their luggage, thankfully without the need for any further inspections. The yellow school bus was parked conveniently close in the short-term parking lot. "Did the Parking Spot Location spell a good half hour out," Aispun explained, rather smugly. "You wait until you're almost at the airport, you're still stuck with a spot half-way out in the lot. Give it enough lead time, you get parking right in front of the terminal. Even for a bus this size." Luggage went into the back seats and was carefully strapped in, and passengers sat in the front seats. Although they looked like uncomfortably flat bench seats, they were actually as comfortable and welcoming as a sofa, and there were groans of relief from all as they sank into them. The coach airline seats had suited nobody.
Aispun got the bus out of the confusing maze of the airport — Harry thought they went through one intersection from each of five possible ways — and drove for a while before pulling off into what looked like an industrial park of some kind. At five o'clock on a Saturday evening, the place was deserted. He drove around to where there was a closed warehouse on one side and a stretch of woods on the other, and turned the engine off. He walked to the back of the bus and double-checked the straps holding all the luggage, then walked forward again. "See those straps on the back of the seats in front of you? I want everybody holding those straps. If you have carry-ons or purses, hold on with the other hand. I don't want to have to come back for anything. Okay?" He made sure everyone had a strap in hand, then sat in the driver's seat again, grabbed a strap attached to the side of the bus at his left, yelled, "Hang on tight!" and hit a button on the dashboard. There was a wrenching feeling just behind Harry's navel, and the industrial park whirled away. The afternoon colours of the countryside swept by the windows of the bus in a blur, and in a few moments solidified into quite a different place. "You can let go now, we're here!" Alan opened the doors of the bus, and the scent of a pine forest on a warm afternoon swept in. The bus was parked in front of a long building built in rustic log-cabin style; a quick glance around showed quite a number of other buildings, most much larger, in similar style. A group of people, mostly clad in Muggle-style jeans and shirts, but one elderly woman in beaded buckskin robes, came out of the nearest building and approached the door of the bus.
"The whole bus is a Portkey!" exclaimed Harry as he disentangled his hand from the strap.
"Sure is! Took me a couple of hours getting out to the airport, no time at all getting back!" Aispun grinned, his white teeth shining in his dark face. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Nokomis Institute!"