Magic Knows No Boundaries Chapter 40 (Patreon)

Chapter 40:

A Burning Olive Branch

***

“Alright! All non-medical personnel, out of the quarters!” Warbeck ordered.

The Marauders and some of the new adult volunteers mock-groaned like children as they exited the barracks. More than a few of the guests chuckled or outright laughed at their antics. They all grabbed the plates, utensils and unfinished carbohydrates that their guests hadn’t gotten around to yet.

Harry led them into the same sitting room where the werewolves with allergies had congregated earlier. They all took their seats and waited patiently.

Narcissa, Molly, Warbeck and Belby were all administering the wolfsbane potion to the guests upstairs. Scamander, both Hagrids and Andromeda were downstairs in cold storage tending to the werewolves with allergies. Andromeda to administer the all natural alternatives, Newt and Papa Hagrid because of their long experiences dealing with werewolves and magical creatures alike. Rubeus was ostensibly down there for the same reasons as his father, with the added bonus of being one hell of a bouncer if need be.

They were all so quiet you would think they were holding a wake. Truth be told, they were waiting for the transformations to begin, or more accurately end. Something about being chipper and enjoying themselves while that kind of suffering was happening in damned near every other room of the house just didn’t feel right.

And so, they all sat there in silence as they listened to those horrible noises. Noises of pain, noises of bestial rage, and the cries of werewolves in pain from that awful transformation. Those cries slowly died down to whimpering. Despite this quitting down nobody seemed comfortable enough to start a conversation, breaking their dour moods.

They didn’t need to, as Andromeda and Narcissa joined them. They were followed by Molly and Hagrid Senior from the opposite directions at the same time.

“Madame Warbeck says we will be taking shifts in pairs.” Narcissa told them.

“Time for some eating and talking.” Said Hagrid senior. “Where is all of the leftover treats for our guests?”

“I’ll get them. Dear, can you send a hobbit to fetch us some wine?” Narcissa asked Lucius. “You know, from the wine cellar you were planning to host a werewolf rave in?”

“I don’t mean to be that guy, but no drinking on the job.” Harry said. “Not even responsibly.”

Harry bore through the series of “awwww”s in mock complaint from the crowd as he cast a switching charm. The leftover pastries, fruit, and dip all appeared in the rooms, still on top of their tables.

“Shall I at least send an elf for syrup?” Lucius asked.

“Syrup?” Harry asked.

“For soda’s.” He said. “Add a bit of water and a carbonation charm, and we will have ourselves plenty of virgin drinks.”

“Oh yeah! That we can do.” Harry told him.

And so they supped.

They ate, they drank non-alcoholic beverages, they talked, they joked and they laughed.

Lucius didn’t hold back on the sodas either. He had a lot of unique syrups, one of a homemade sugar plum recipe which he claimed was gifted to him by a business partner from Malaysia. There was also a syrup for almost every berry and citrus fruit. Harry particularly liked the almost Dr Pepper with a little more anise or fennel than it ought to have, making it taste more like absinthe or sambuca than a Dr Pepper ripoff. It had a nice amaretto undertone to it. Very nutty. It went great with the almond cream fritters.

“I am in the mood to dance with my husband, will you allow us?” Narcissa asked.

Lucius already eagerly stood up at her words, as did Molly and Arthur, the latter of whom was practically lifted out of his seat by his wife.

“I don’t know…” Harry said, thinking of the guests in the other room.

“We can play some slow, relaxing music on the wireless deary.” Said Molly. “And have them projected into the other rooms.”

Oh wow! That was a great idea. Why hadn’t they thought of that?! Some smooth jazz or relaxing house music to bring some peace to their guests.

“Mrs Tonks?” Harry asked, looking to the present mediwitch. “Your professional medical opinion?”

“I think it is an excellent idea. It will be a boon to the mood of our guests.” Said Andromeda.

“Very well. Turn on the wireless. Only a slow music station though.” Harry said.

Soon, the sound of hi hats, bass guitars and saxophone filled the entirety of the Shrieking Shack. It was played at a quiet enough volume to still hear everything in the other rooms. Slowly, the pitiful groans and whimpers of their werewolf guests died down as the volunteers began to dance. The tapping of their feet on wood turned out to be a little loud though, so he insisted they remove their shoes and dance on their socks, which was much better.

All of the couples took to the center of the room. Lucius and Narcissa danced beside Arthur and Molly who danced beside Lily and James who danced beside Sirius and Arianna. Remus eventually picked out Mrs Figg and, more strangely, Ian Hagrid picked out Mrs Shunpike for a dance partner.

Harry looked around for somebody to dance with himself, and was once again struck by how similar Andromeda looked to her sister. He threw the idea away as soon as it entered his head, but not before Andromeda noticed his glance.

“Well, Mister Morrigan? Aren’t you going to ask me to dance?” She asked.

“That’s a bad idea. You’re married, and I have a girlfriend.” He said.

Andromeda pointed out to the dancers, who were at that moment exchanging partners. Sirius was now dancing with Lily while James danced with Arianna. Meanwhile Lucius was doing the same with Molly as Arthur charmed his own wife.

Harry understood her point, while she was pretending not to understand his own.

“I really don’t want to dance with my girlfriend’s lookalike of a sister.” He said. “I get the distinct impression that may bring up some old grudges between the two of you.”

She tilted her head innocently.

“Does my sister seem the jealous type?” She asked.

“Yes. Both of them do.” He said, tilting his head to the dancers.

Andromeda looked up in time to see Narcissa giving Lucius and Molly’s laughing forms a sideways stink eye. She laughed at her sister’s unfounded insecurity.

“Okay, point. But she doesn’t scare me. Not much she can do to me.” Andromeda offered again.

“She does me, and can to me. The answer is no.” Harry refused with a tone of finality.

“You’re just a coward.” Andromeda said, folding her arms and legs. “One who takes joy in disappointing beautiful women.”

Harry had to blink at the strange nonsequiter, and suspected he just got a glimpse into a private conversation she had with Bellatrix recently.

“But I’m not! And I don’t!” An especially giddy Peter Pettigrew said as he approached and offered a hand.

Andromeda took it and the two were off to their dancing. With both seats next to him now vacant, Valentine and Hildebrand.

“I did not expect an actual party today.” Said Hildebrand. “Else I would have worn nicer work clothes.”

“Let alone a dance party between purebloods and muggleborns.” Said Valentine. “Reminds me of the days before World War Two.”

Harry glanced at him, before motioning for him to continue.

“Well, Shunpike there used to be the bell of many balls back in the day. Though back then we had chaperons surgically attached to all of us.” Said Valentine.

Really? That was a side of her Harry had never heard of. He leaned in to listen carefully.

“Really?” Said Hooch, who was sitting nearby. “That’s a side of her I’ve never heard of. Do go on.”

He shrugged and continued on.

“When I was young, muggleborns, purebloods, and all host of people joined for parties and nonprofit events and balls and things were fine.” He said. “She was the sweetest little Hufflepuff, from a Muggle family up in East Yorkshire. She brought in all of the new dances from the swing scene. Our elders didn’t much appreciate her or her little gal gang’s introduction of Muggle dresses, but introduce them they did.”

“A lot of us young men at the time had never seen anything so ostentatious.” Said Hildebrand. “And a lot of us persued those girls for marriage solely because of the force of personality and sexuality they presented. But she was brilliant, and some of us pursued her for that. Damned that Shunpike for getting her.”

“Those were better days.” Mrs Marchbanks the younger said. “I remember taking Lucius’s own grandfather to Muggle London for clubbing and he was just starstruck with it all. We are all so lively back then, thinking that the horrors of the great war were behind us.”

“Then Muggles had to go and have a population explosion, flooding us with more immigrants than we could handle. Then stupidity took over everyone and everything is fucked!”

Their dancing coworkers all stopped their little party and were looking to the three of them

Harry reached out with his senses and, sure enough, Valentine had used a switching charm on the liquid in his goblet. That was straight vodka he was drinking.

Lucius offers to take him home, that now is not the time for politics.

“Then when is?!” Valentine demanded. “Here we all are, professional, respectful and respectable people breaking bread and dancing together. When else will we have such an opportunity to just talk things out?”

Nobody had an answer to that.

“It’s been so long since we’ve all gotten along like this.” Valentine said. “Then this upstart, who I’m seventy five percent sure isn’t at all who he claims to be, comes in like an angel and just shatters all of our carefully constructed facades and barriers between our clicks and makes it feel like we’re in a real society again! And it should make me happy, but it just makes me sad.”

The candidness of a drunk man, especially an older and hardened one, was a powerful thing. Everybody shrugged and patiently returned to their seats. Harry noticed most of the purebloods sat on the left side of the room, even Molly, Arthur and Sirius, while the half or less sat on the right with Harry. He hadn’t actually voiced a side, nice of them to assume.

They all just looked at each other, as if giving the floor to any other parties to begin.

“Hadrian.” Hildebrand said. “I think we may all benefit from your thoughts. You tend to be candid and wise. Not to mention neutral.”

Candid and neutral? Not so much. He had the choice between one or the other, and he chose candid.

“I grew up raised by muggle relatives not even knowing I was a wizard.” Harry said. “And I can honestly say; fuck everything Muggle. Fuck their society, their view on marriage and family, their politics, their other politics, their other other politics, their horrific Prussian model schools, and especially their economics. It’s almost universally terrible. Even their fashion and music has gone to shit in these last few years. But wizarding society? Sure, it has problems. Lots of problems, but I love it. I love magic. I love the sense of community that still exists here. And I see no solutions to its problems coming from the ‘enlightened’ Muggle-raised who think modern Britain, or any Muggle country, has the answers to them.”

Apparently they weren’t properly prepared for a candid conversation, that or they were all realizing how off they were in estimating his positions. Lily in particular was gaping at him and Sirius was making an ‘oh’ face to try and stop himself from smiling in awe at Harry’s little speech.

“I think you hinted at the biggest issue. It really is the attitude.” Lucius said. “Muggleborns coming into our society and daring to call themselves ‘progressive’ when their society is so far behind us on almost all of the issues they complain about ours having, and in some are backsliding into greater inequity. I think its because a lot of them think magical Britain is part of Muggle Britain and owes any fealty to their psychopathic royal family, let alone their laws?”

Lily stood up to argue her point but Mrs Marchbanks the elder pulled her back down.

“They are hurling words dear, as opposed to spells. Let us remain calm and ask questions.” Marchbanks said. “What issues in particular do you feel Muggle society utterly fails at but that Muggleborns try to criticize us for? I can only think of a few.”

Dolores made that atrocious sound with her throat that was like a cross between a cough and a laugh, though with actual humor for once.

“I can’t think of one that isn’t hypocritical!” She said. “Especially the young women who come with their feminist ideas. Daring to claim our society is less egalitarian between the sexes, when we are quite literally a millenia ahead of them in it.”

Her words riled up the other pureblood women, the pureblood and muggleborn men alike all retreating into their chairs as they went.

“We actually put female murderers and rapists behind bars for one.” Said Andromeda. “Instead of having a separate legal classification like ‘made to penetrate’ or ‘sudden infant death syndrome.’ Sudden is right!”

“Yeah we aren’t big on murdering or chopping up babies over here.” Said Narcissa, backing up her sister. “And no, I don’t mean abortion, I mean actually murdering your babies and getting away with it because police won’t investigate, or judges won’t convict making up nonsense excuses like post-partem depression.”

“Post partem depression is very real.” Said Andromeda.

“So are many other mental illnesses, none of them are an excuse for murder, and what few almost are still ought to result in life behind bars for the criminally insane. Padded bars, with medically trained people to watch over them.” Said Narcissa. “And it’s also no excuse for genitally mutilating your baby boys.”

“Wait, what?” Lucius, Arthur, Alecto, Molly, Dolores, and several other purebloods all asked at once.

“Oh yeah. Seven days old, no anesthesia, lopping off foreskins.” Said Narcissa, looking to Andromeda to confirm her claim which she did with a nod. “They are at least progressive enough to only do it to the boys. And that still is hardly the worst of their seeming man hatred.”

“That is so... so…” Dolores said, grasping for words. “Savage! You’re savages!”

Valentine stood up and Dolores recoiled at his face.

“Civil. Please.” He said, with a sigh.

He then sat back down and seemed to deflate into a man of… well, his age. He spoke then, and everyone listened.

“Most of mine and Hildebrands complaints come from our age and long memories.” He said. “We were there. In world war two. To us, it is a fresh memory. Muggleborns act like it was so long ago, that they have radically changed since then, but I don’t see it. Not least of all because they do not disavow or ban the ideologies of socialism and communism and their policies which did so much evil in Germany and Russia, respectively… and China… Cuba… and… you get the point.”

“From the outside it does look like the Muggle world is a powder-keg ready for another world war at any minute.” Said Hildebrand. “In fact, such atrocities continue in distant lands and you all just pretend they aren’t happening. We never enslaved our fellow human beings as wizards, but how many million still live in bondage in your nations?”

“Forty million, give or take.” Mrs Marchbanks said, helpfully.

Several people gave her questioning looks at that piece of trivia and how she knew it.

“But every now and then a young boy or girl comes into our nations demanding we commit genocide against elves by freeing them all.” Said Lucius. “That our relationships are akin to slavery, when it is the house elves that bond to us and our homes to survive, not the other way around.”

Lily made a guilty face and Harry suspected she may have waged her own S.P.E.W crusade once upon a time before informed that elves are actually brownies. That they would literally die without a host family to bond to. How Hermione didn’t guess there was more to people with wands owning creatures to magically clean their homes instead of just waving said wands still baffles Harry.

They were quiet again after that.

Eventually Arthur chuckled and added a point.

“I always felt that the problem was that they just don’t seem to get that they are immigrants in a foreign nation, and treat it like its their own.” Said Arthur. “The funny thing is, we do work so hard to make it palatable to Muggleborns. We even change our business laws to make it easier for registering LLCs or non profits, as Morrigan can attest.”

Oh hey! Harry somehow missed the strangeness of the registration process for his nonprofit being identical to that of Muggle Britain. Had he actually registered in both nations when he made the sanctuary? He needed to go talk to the goblins about that.

“But there is a naturalization process, or at least there’s supposed to be. There’s also a ready made exit clause.” Said James, speaking for the first time. “Muggleborns can always just… leave. Muggle society is still open to them if they hate ours so much. And once they get their owls or newts they are trained enough to conceal their magic and live normal Muggle lives. It’s a large part of the Hogwarts curriculum, actually. Training young witches and wizards in magic that will help them to fit in with Muggle societies, if they can’t fit in here.”

“Is that what you want darling?” Said Lily. “For me to leave you and go to live with Tuni?”

“No! Well, maybe, if that would make you happy and safe.” Said James.

Lily’s face ran the gambit of emotions from hurt to touched as she caught her husbands meaning behind the words.

“I’m still caught up on the whole ‘legal for women to rape men’ thing and cutting up baby boys genitals.” Said Alecto. “I thought that was only done in desert countries without soap or running water, or penis cleaning charms.”

There were specifically penis cleaning charms? Was there shmegma-begone charm Harry was supposed to learn in Madame Pomphrey’s sex ed class?

“Oh don’t worry.” Said Mrs Shunpike. “Their women have been raised to parade themselves around like sex objects, and demeans femininity to the point that motherhood and wifedom are vilified and women are just treated as defective men at worst, and unaccountable children at best.”

“And we haven’t gotten to the bizarreness of Muggle racial tensions.” Said Sirius. “At least the racial tensions we have in the wizarding world are with beings that are actually of another species with irreconcilable differences, meanwhile Muggles can’t get along with people of different skin colors, but want to talk to us about giving giants and centaurs rights in our countries? Rights they would never extend to us in theirs?”

Ian half glared, half shrugged in agreement to that bit about giants. After the shit he went through to be even slightly welcomed into giant society, he better not disagree with that sentiment. Dislike it? Sure. Argue against it? Absolutely not.

This time Harry stood up and raised his hands to quiet everybody down.

“Ladies and gentleman of the pureblood persuasion, I think you have spent enough time airing your grievances. Perchance let the other side speak?” Harry offered.

“Thank you Professor.” Said Arianna.

The half blood woman stood up and cleared her throat. She then straightened her back and raised her hands as if she were about to make a long-winded and erudite argument.

“Voldemort…” She said matter of factly.

The entire room burst into full-bellied laughter. Even Lucius had to reach out and steady himself on an equally unsteady Sirius.

The name Voldemort was pretty much sufficient to explain the issues that recent Muggleborns and their families had with wizarding society.

Harry managed to wipe the tears from his eyes and noticed that Hildebrand and Valentine weren’t laughing.

“Counter point. Serial killers like the Brown family that targeted purebloods who owned house elves. Killing their entire families. Or the Lullaby killer, who systematically targeted the children of pureblood families with her insane ideology of us being inbred and need to misceginate.” Hildebrand offered.

Both people Voldemort specifically hunted down and publicly executed during his rise to power, earning him many followers. And both of whom inspired serial killers on the other side. The latter Voldemort hadn’t been so great at stopping.

This was a circular topic that would lead them nowhere.

“Well I don’t think there’s anything we can say that you won’t dismiss out of hand.” Peter said. “You all said yourselves that our society and its ideas or ideals are anathema, and poison. Any criticism we might lobby against wizarding society you will claim stem from or arrogant and hypocritical society.”

“Hmm. Fair point.” Said Amycus. “But what I think you fail to understand is that you have no right to criticize our society at all. It is OUR society. Our country. We are painfully cognizant of its problems, they are ours to fix.”

Peter gaped at the audacity of that counter argument. It was a little unthinkable to somebody of British stock, so Harry intervened.

“Question.” Said Harry. “If you emigrated to Muggle… somebody pick a non-European culture?”

“Philipines?” Tofty offered.

“Okay. Philipines. If you emigrated to the Muggle Philipines, and you decided you wanted to raise a stink about its politics or society. What would happen to you?” Harry asked.

“I can answer that.” Said Sirius. “That is specifically illegal. You will be arrested and or deported.”

Harry wondered at how Sirius would know that, before deciding he’d probably vacationed there and found out the hard way by acting a fool.

“Okay.” Said Harry. “Anybody want to name another non-European country? Or will the second verse be the same as the first? And the third. And the twentieth. My point here, is that wizarding society treats Muggleborns far and above better than even other Muggle nations would. They’ve certainly treated me better than the Muggle nation I grew up in.”

‘When I wasn’t the poster child of their military opposition’. – He added mentally. Being Hadrian Morrigan, an open minded half-blood who was respectful and curious about their society? Purebloods have been great to Hadrian. Hell, they were great to Harry after Voldemort was gone.

“But Voldemort?” Arianna repeated.

“A nuclear option, and a mostly empty threat.” Lucius answered. “As you don’t seem to understand your mere existence is a nuclear threat against us, literally. If wizarding existence is ever exposed to Muggles, an eventuality each of you are capable of bringing, you know what will happen.”

Andromeda cut in.

“Well the first thing that will happen is Muggle governments the world over will begin kidnapping Muggleborns to perform scientific investigations on you so inhumane as to make Unit 731 look like an ethically sound research clinic.” She said.

Holy shit! Harry hadn’t thought of that. Oh man, was he a specist? Because he fully believed Muggle societies would do that. All of them would absolutely do that. He was definitely going to have nightmares about that.

“The second thing that would happen is war, because your feckless royal family would see our lands as their lands.” Lucius added. “As would most nations. That would mean nuclear annihilation, and retaliatory city-consuming fiendfires with no wizard interested in putting them out, or basilisks being released into Olympic stadiums to petrify everyone in the world. With nowhere near enough mandrakes to cure even a fraction of them.”

Harry appreciated Lucius just laying out Voldemort’s contingency plans for the eventuality of a Muggle-wizard war. Killing the basilisk in the chamber just jumped up in priority. It was time to go buy a rooster.

“Reminder.” Said Sirius. “You can leave. We can’t. This is our only country. The only one where we can continue our culture. You already have a country that is the way you want ours to be. If it means that much to you, you can go there.”

“But without magic.” Said Peter.

“You mean our magic?” Said Lucius. “Invented by our ancestors and those who emigrated into and assimilated into our society? That magic? The magic we shared freely asking only that you be one of us? Lily Potter, you are an outstanding witch. As is your protege. Any one of us would be honored to have you or her as parts of our families. But you don’t treat us like family, as we do each other. You don’t want to seem to be a part of it. We are willing to open our homes for you if you want to be in it. That’s what magic is to us. And it means more than you know when we share it with you.”

He leaned back into his seat in an undignified and defeated manner.

“I think, it would make us purebloods unbelievably happy if you all just said… thank you, once in a while, for being so good to you despite how hard it was. But I think we really have reached the point in society where all we have to say is ‘either assimilate or get the hell out of our country.’” Lucius explained, throwing his hands up.

“Or die?” Marchbanks the elder asked.

“It shouldn’t get to that.” Said Valentine. “It should never have gotten close to that as part of the ultimatum. But I guess, yeah? If the choice is the continuation of life on the planet, our continued exists as a society, or a civil war, guess which we’re picking?”

Everyone slouched at that declaration.

“So that’s it then?” Said Harry. “Are we at an impasse? All of these brilliant people in one room, and we can only come up with three options. Integrate, separate, or continue this ludicrous war?”

Most of the room chuckled nervously at his words. Others nodded sadly to them. Arthur actually laughed.

“I mean, there’s also just doing away with the statute of secrecy and making peace with Mugglekind.” He offered in obvious jest. “Then we can just have our divorce and Muggleborns can go built their magic utopia in the Muggle world.”

Harry felt his eyes widen at Arthur’s words. Partly because that was exactly the solution Harry was gunning for in his own timeline, and eventually this one, but mostly because of who Arthur was the father of.

It might have just been wishful thinking, but perhaps Ron had inherited his ‘prediction in jest’ ability? God, Harry hoped so.

Just then the smooth jazz coming over the radio stopped, replaced by a repeated beeping sound. One meant to signify an emergency broadcast.

Everybody groaned expecting truly terrible news, but not the voice that came from the other end.

“Good evening Europe.” Said Voldemort. “This is your resident dark lord speaking.”

Harry closed his eyes. This couldn’t be good news. Here came the declaration of war, or offer of money to hitmen to retrieve Hadrian’s head or something. And almost five days early too.

“I have good news.” Voldemort went on. “I am calling for a truce.”

-

I had to do SO much research into cultures and political debates for this one. I really tried to make everyone seem somewhat reasonable and believable in their beliefs, but likewise stubborn and unyielding. The purebloods because they feel trapped and invaded, the non-purebloods for feeling righteous. I literally did pick a country at random, Philippines was the second one because the first was an Islamic country and was worse by a lot and the conversation was difficult enough to write about in a kind and mature manner without throwing fundamentalist religions in which would make it even more complicated of a discussion.

If you had been reading my earlier author’s notes, you know that this chapter is pretty much the theme I want to explore in this story and have been on the sly. The actual politics and stakes of the wizarding wars, plus Voldemort and Harry’s roles or solutions to these very deep issues that effect many real-world countries. And it was high time the characters discussed it, because the books sure as fuck didn't!

Yes, this is a political story. Stop complaining about it. That’s the point of it. No, they are not my politics, I’m not a wizard. Or a goblin for that matter. So no, I’m not a comic relief of “philanthropic capitalist”, that was them. This is fiction. Fanfiction. A safe place to explore and debate these themes and ideas without being cunts to each other, like I made these fictional characters do.

I really tried to look at the real world through the eyes of what amounts to aliens. Aliens who are biologically human, but due to living in a post scarcity utopia of magic as semi-immortals have very different outlooks. They are very conservative, but strangely more egalitarian than us especially on gender issues as they treat women like adults with accountability and racial issues mean nothing to them. They view us kind of like how we view uncontacted tribes… if uncontacted tribes outnumbered us 1000 to 1 and had weapons capable of annihilating the planet.

I think they are WRONG to view us this way. But I understand why they would.

These are all brilliant, thoughtful people who have had a long time to think on these issues and so I had to think deeply on them to make good arguments from all sides. I hope I succeeded just a little bit. Actually, I think I did too well, should have slipped some reasoning lapses or dishonesty from both sides but I did what I could. Will edit when I finish the entire story, add a bit more, take some away.

Anyways, sorry for this atrociously long author’s note. I’m just happy to be done with this. Now I can get back to writing the easier, more lighthearted chapters.