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The goblins instigate it.
X
“What authority? The authority you have spent the past year bending to the Dark Lord’s whims? The authority you have used to slaughter our own people like animals? To murder innocents in their homes? To torture schoolchildren and take political hostages and fill your own pockets with the gold of your victims? You have no authority!”
X
Ron doesn’t go. He’s the only one of them that doesn’t, and he stays behind to watch his parents. George and Ginny and Percy file into the Wizengamot in his stead and take their places beside the whole of their generation still breathing, but Ron is not there to temper the rage of his friends and family.
It’s Percy’s voice, sharp and acidic, to first raise issue with the tired, still smarmy smiles being directed at them. He’d spent the duration of the war undermining and sabotaging the Ministry from within. He knows the faces of these adults, knows their characters.
Two days after the Battle of Hogwarts, the Ministry had been cleansed of Death Eaters – but not the unmarked supporters who kept the whole system up and running. Percy would not see them repeat the mistakes of the first war, not when those same monsters are spewing platitudes and honors and a return to normal as if normal is anything to be protected.
Harry watches his best friend’s older brother, watches George’s face – hard in ways Harry has never seen it before, angry with the absence of his twin and cold – flicker with realization, understanding, fury, and Harry takes up Percy’s banner with all the rage and derision a boy dead thrice over and sacrificed for the greater good can hold.
Neville’s voice rings loud and clear across the chamber when he adds his aye to the mix, and their fellow children, teenagers, former students – raise the banner too.
Malfoy and Nott, Susan and Hannah, Padma and Pavarti. Luna and Cho and Flint and Parkinson –
They’ve been united against the adults generally by virtue of being children; Malfoy and Harry have been fighting like cats and dogs and twice as vicious since eleven but damn it all if they will not do everything in their power to keep the professors out of it, and they are merely one example among many. Dumbledore has never been a particularly helpful headmaster, and his staff had taken after him. After the Carrows and Snape had replaced them – well.
Neville and Ginny would not have been able to run the DA half as successfully if not for the Slytherins.
Their cries are too loud to hear the subtle crack beneath their feet.
X
“You have betrayed every oath you took to protect the people of Magical Britain, and we refuse to give you the chance to do it again. What good is a Ministry if it refuses to serve anything but its own self-interests?”
X
A house elf interrupts Neville’s late-morning toast to say someone is at the door.
Teakwood is the last of the Longbottom elves still attached to the Manor, and far too old to not bully Neville into doing chores – he taught Neville to sew as a child, taught him how to make the hot chocolate his mother had favored, showed him his father’s favorite places to hide from Gran. His specialty lies within the home, and beyond forcing Neville to take care of social duties, he is content to let Neville have the run of the grounds while he maintains the Manor. Malfoy would shit bricks to hear the arrangement, but Neville’s family – or at least those that raised him – haven’t ever been content with outright slavery, so.
Neville’s still crunching on his bread when he shoulders open the heavy doors to the great hall and finds Harry huddled into a little ball of misery on the porch. He looks at his friend, chews, and then swallows.
“What’d you do?”
“Kreacher called me a bitch and said you’d know why my head is killing me.” Harry rasps out, voice reedy with pain in a way Neville has never heard before, not even when Harry was fresh off a Cruciatus.
Harry glares up at him accusingly. Neville stares blankly at him, and then –
“Oh.”
“So you do know –“
“Oh, fuck, Harry, holy Merlin, oh we’re – we have to get everybody together – “
X
Teakwood is pissed to be sent on messaging duty, even more so when Harry calls Kreacher – because Kreacher’s a racist asshole who lives solely to make other people miserable – to help. Neville will be paying for that later, but it’s not worth casting sustained Patroni messages when they’ve got to reach just about every survivor of the Battle and then some.
Harry suggests they all go to Grimmauld, and Neville suggests meeting in the evening; that gives them until six to solve – this.
“I can’t believe I didn’t realize this would happen.” Neville says mournfully. Harry kicks him.
“What happened.”
“Let me get you a – fuck, okay. So – give me a minute.”
Harry does, because he’s generally considerate like that, while Neville puts his face in his hands and glares at the porch.
“You know how Malfoy talked about his family being all important all the time.”
“…Yes.”
“Before we had the Ministry, everybody kind of did their own thing. Every family ruled their own land and governed everyone who lived on it. Magic itself was used to govern relations between families – I know you’ve seen magical oaths before, rules like that that had magical consequences to enforce them. The Ministry was formed specifically when the most powerful of those families came together and agreed to set aside their rights and obligations to their own lands and to magic.”
“Who thought that was a good idea?” Harry asks after a moment of silence, and Neville removes his face from his hands and looks over at his godbrother. He looks tired. Less blatantly angry.
“It was an attempt to fit better with the muggle governmental structures, and after the Statute was passed it stuck around.”
“And…this is relevant because…”
“Harry, you condemned the Ministry publicly. And we all backed you. If the Ministry isn’t going to serve the one purpose it was created for, it doesn’t deserve to exist. And without it existing as a block on the rights and obligations of families – that’s back on the table.”
Harry stares at him. Neville waits for his godbrother’s lone braincell to fire. It takes…about long enough for Neville to have shouted that agreement in the Wizengamot.
Okay so maybe this is a little bit his fault.
“I don’t have property though.”
Neville stares at him. Harry stares back.
“Neville.”
“Neville I don’t have – “
X
Uncle Algie and Gran hadn’t made it through the war; Hogwarts had been dangerous but safe in a kind of contained way, while war ravaged the rest of the country. Home might’ve had wards, but Algie had been a Ministry devotee to the end, and Gran had refused to sit idly by while the very people that destroyed her son and daughter-in-law walked free.
Saint Mungo’s had been under Death Eater control during the war, same as the Ministry. The healers had managed to seal off the pediatrics wing and a couple of research wings, and from there had evacuated with varying degrees of success – one research team had set fiendfyre on their wing, still inside, rather than let the Death Eaters chipping away at the wards use their research against people – but the long-term care wings had been low priority.
The Lestranges had visited often, Neville had found out, and when Gran had – well.
His parents had been husks, like they weren’t before, by the time Gran tore through security and found them, still alive.
Gran had slain the both of them. A mercy killing, Neville had been told, and then she’d murdered every Death Eater in Saint Mungo’s before being taken down by Bellatrix herself.
Going out in a blaze of glory had been her Hufflepuff nature taking over; it had not been her only wartime contribution.
“A couple generations back our families went into a joint venture – turns out we owned adjoining land, and I had a great-something-or-other who was born a squib. Your family has always protected its own squibs and the like, but wanted to branch out to help the wider squib community, and the head of the Longbottom family at the time wanted to protect their sibling, so – “
Neville gestures to the village set down the way before them with his free arm. Harry’s grip on his other tightens and relaxes, reflexive and repetitive, and he – stares.
“Gran knew about it. Thought to send me here if I didn’t get my Hogwarts letter, I think, but I don’t know – I found out about this place like. Yesterday. She turned it into a refuge for muggleborns and their families too.”
“What does it mean that I own part of this?” Harry asks hoarsely.
“We’re in charge. We’re responsible.” Neville keeps his voice measured, and, slowly, his godbrother relaxes against him.
“My – head hurts less.”
“It’s the wards. Once you lay them, the land is yours – or once your family did. The magic works by picking somebody to be in charge, or making the family pick someone to be in charge. We’re it by default. And - ” Neville cuts himself off, hesitating, but Harry is patient at his side.
“Right to conquest is a thing with the old magics. Any Death Eater we killed in battle – we own their shit now.”
“…Between all of us…”
“We basically own the whole country.”
X
“There’s one last thing you should know.” Neville says.
“…Am I gonna freak out?”
“No.”
Harry takes a deep breath, and braces his hands on his hips like he’s about to be ill. After a momentary pause, he huffs the breath out and waves a hand for Neville to continue; Neville is a little relieved to see the theatrics. Harry’s – doing alright, even if he’s not fine.
“The Lestranges went after my parents intentionally.”
“Because of the prophecy.”
“Because Bellatrix Lestrange gave birth to a squib, and her father-in-law snuck the kid out before she could, y’know, violently murder them. And Mum and Dad took her in.”
Harry’s eyes get huge. Neville’s hands are shaking. This is the first time he’s told anyone and it – he trusts Harry, knows Harry is fine, but – Merlin –
“Gran didn’t tell anybody – but Adeline is the closest thing I have to a sibling. She just – looks a lot like her parents.”
Harry’s quiet for a moment, big-eyed, staring at him, and then at the village in front of them and the figure leaning against the gate.
“You said we – all of us, we own most of the country.”
“Yeah.”
“And there’s no more Ministry?”
“Dunno that everybody knows that, but – yeah.” Neville says, and he blinks back tears, because Harry’s mouth is pressed into a sharp line and it’s a look that Neville knows.
“No more dead kids, then.”
“No more dead kids.”
X
The village is relatively self-sustaining. The lack of wands does not mean a lack of magic; squibs are capable of potions and ritual magic and enchanting. They are as capable as muggles of building with their hands, and they have built homes and tilled fields and planted orchards and dug ponds all on their own. There’s no electricity and no flashy magic, nothing like Diagon, but one porch roof’s underbelly is thick with three-headed bats snoozing noontime away and there are scaled chickens pecking away at purple shoots adorned with pink tentacle-like protrusions.
“Have you ever been here before?” Harry asks, and Neville shakes his head, taking everything in.
“No. Addie came to the house last night to – Gran left everything with her, for safekeeping. If I died, she would’ve gotten everything.”
“Could we give the land to…” Neville starts shaking his head, and Harry trails off.
“I know America and Africa do things communally like that but the way the magic works here is strongest with one family. You can have cadet branches or something, but they have to be supervised and answer to the main line.”
“So it’s just – not very complicated. It really is just – one person in charge.” Harry doesn’t sound like he believes him, not fully. Neville…is also still adjusting to it all.
He knows the basics. But this is all ancient history – nothing he should ever have had to deal with. But the Ministry just had to suck…
“Is it a pureblood thing?” Harry asks. Neville shrugs.
“Knowing about it, probably, but this isn’t uh – it didn’t matter with the Ministry in charge. The only reason anybody would know about it is if they liked history. Or they were hiding stuff, like our families.”
“Hermione’s gonna lose it.” Harry mutters, and Neville groans a little, because – yeah.
“Nev!”
Harry catches Neville when he goes down, but Harry also weighs like a quarter of what Neville does and has maybe had one full meal in his entire life, so they all go crashing down in a tangle of limbs.
Despite the bruises – Addie’s all elbows, Harry all bones – despite the tragedies that have brought them here – his parents, Gran, Colin and Fred and everyone in between –
Neville bursts into tears.
X
Addie corrals up all the adults. The village is run communally, except where Gran had needed to step in and resolve disputes, so they have to wait for everyone to come in out of the fields and woods and their homes. Addie has Harry ring the bell above the well to summon everyone, and darts off to gather the muggleborn refugees Gran had been bringing in over the course of the war, outsiders who would not recognize the bell for what it is.
Harry stares at her most of the time. He looks mildly surprised even after Addie vanishes, and when Neville looks at him questioning, he grimaces.
“I see Andromeda in her more than Bellatrix. And it’s – weird seeing her smile so much. Andromeda is not a very cheerful person. Even before.” Harry adds hastily.
“Is it – how’s the baby doing?” Neville asks, frowning, but Harry’s expression clears.
“Teddy’s with her for now. I – figured the headache would be a whole thing, you know? It always is.”
Harry had taken the war in stride, taken the chosen one title and all that came with it without hesitation – he hadn’t had a choice.
He had had a choice in taking in a baby, but –
Neville cannot imagine doing so himself, especially on his own. He cannot imagine Harry refusing, especially after – everything.
“And she’s okay with the baby?”
“In small doses. Once things have settled she said she was going to look for a mind healer, but that’ll be…months, if not years away. She might try a muggle therapist in the meantime.” Harry sounds casual about it. Neville’s fairly sure he doesn’t care how often Andromeda Tonks sees her grandson, as long as she doesn’t try to take the baby away from him. The kid is the only family Harry has left – Neville can’t blame him.
A veritable horde of people start forming around them, and Harry squishes into Neville’s side, but Neville waits until he sees Addie return to give a sharp whistle and grab everyone’s attention.
“I know you dealt with my grandmother before me – may she rest in peace – but for those of you who do not know me, I am Neville Longbottom. This is my godbrother, Harry Potter.”
“So the snake-fucker’s dead, then?” The woman who asks is tiny, hardly taller than Flitwick, and gnarled like the knot of a great tree. There’s a miniscule cane clutched in her hand and her silver hair pulled up into a wrapped cloth stitched with tiny shifting flowers. She’s at the front of the crowd, an elder of some sort.
“Voldemort’s dead – for good this time. And most of his marked followers.” Harry answers, and most of the tension in the crowd vanishes. There’s no cheering, but there are relieved sighs – and sobs.
“What’s that mean for us, then?” A man asks. He’s got two little girls held tight to his chest, one on either arm, eerily identical both to each other and to whom Neville presumes is their father.
“Right now – the war’s not over. The Ministry’s still full of unmarked supporters, and they think they’re in charge.”
“Think?” The old woman asks, face splitting into a terrifyingly wide, toothy grin.
“Think. The Ministry was dissolved. They don’t know it yet. We’re meeting with – most of the concerned parties tonight, and will have more news for you soon. I expect to come back with good news, but for now – staying here is safer than leaving.”
“But it’s – almost over.” Someone asks, and Neville has no way of knowing what the answer is but he nods all the same, even as Harry says yeah, and the weeping starts anew.
X
Grimmauld’s a madhouse when they arrive. Nott’s wild-eyed and shaking like a rabid dog, Hannah quite literally sitting on him to keep him still, and a whole cluster of baby first-year survivors are huddled up around Hermione. Neville stops looking to see what his fellows are doing right then and there, and just follows Harry, who beelines for the kitchen.
Both Weasley adults are present, Molly half-heartedly stirring something on the stove and Arthur hovering, and Harry spares a second to greet both of them before yanking a wooden spoon the approximate size and shape of a club out of a drawer and a dented pot off the wall.
Neville, being smart, proceeds to cover his ears before Harry starts whaling on the damn thing, marching through the house. Everybody falls in line, though, and Harry doesn’t stop until everybody’s crammed into one of the sitting rooms. There’s too many of them, but the younger kids have scrambled onto shoulders and those without the Trace have started levitating and sticking people to the ceiling, which helps.
“How many of you woke up with a killer headache this morning?” Harry asks, voice loud. A good half the room raises their hand, all of them glaring at the pot Harry’s still holding.
Harry immediately turns to glare at Neville.
“We broke the magic keeping the Ministry in charge.” Neville announces dryly. Most of the purebloods start groaning.
“What the fuck does that mean?” George asks, tone so sharp it cuts above the chatter, and they dive into it.
Unsurprisingly, Draco knows more about it than the rest. His father had idolized the pre-Ministry power witches and wizards had enjoyed, although the Malfoys had never had a chance to revel fully in it – they’d only come to Britain a generation before the Ministry was formed.
You had to claim land to rule it. That meant laying wards – of any sort, of any strength. Or, thanks to the Ministry and modern realty law, purchase it or file paperwork with Gringotts laying claim to it. The headaches now were old magical bonds and oaths forming, pulling relentlessly at newly appointed lords and ladies – not nobility, but merely landowners – to go shore up and survey their new acquisitions.
“This means muggleborns can own land as well.” Hermione says. Her voice shakes a little.
“You could buy it the muggle way if you wanted, too. Would probably be cheaper. I know one of the Weasleys is a curse-breaker, and we know enough about rudimentary wards to at least claim the land before anything happens.”
“What do you mean, you think something will happen?”
“I think we should make sure all the muggleborns can claim their families’ homes before the Ministry realizes what happened and tries to interfere.” Draco says flatly, uncomfortably.
“Are you in charge of the Malfoy stuff, then?” Ron asks, eyes narrowed. Parkinson starts cackling. Draco looks uncomfortable but jerks his head in a nod.
“The issue is – once you claim it, you have to be able to defend it.”
And they are not all capable of that.
It’s Percy who solves that issue, who grunts and tosses a thick wad of parchment into the approximate center of the room.
“Sign that.”
“What is it?”
“Declaration of allyship that the old magics will accept.” Percy sounds dead. Like. He was less exhausted at the Battle. He looks dead too, but –
“They fuck with one of us, they fuck with all of us.” Tiny little Dennis says, and all the littles scramble for the paper.
Harry lets out a low hum at Neville’s side.
“Maybe this isn’t gonna be as much of a shit show as I thought.” Harry muses aloud. Neville jabs an elbow into his side, but he’s too late – Nott’s already jumped to his feet, Hannah hoisted up under one arm because the fucker’s still smooth like that.
“How the fuck are we going to find the fucking land then?!” He demands.
Draco shrugs. Everyone currently affected by some variant of a magically-induced headache begins shouting.
Neville makes direct eye contact with an overwhelmed Molly Weasley, and sneaks out to the kitchen with her.
X
They send Ron to Gringotts, after someone remembers the goblins keep the original deeds to magically-owned land; the Ministry only gets copies. It’s not going to help with the really old properties, but there are rituals that might help with those that wouldn’t with newer properties, and while they wait for Hermione and Luna and Percy and all the other nerds to figure that out, it’s a sufficient stopgap.
Ron kind of expects to be killed the moment he walks in the door, but instead the goblins are all…staring.
Hungrily.
He freezes a little bit, but Bill’s rambled enough about his bosses that Ron can put two and two together, thanks.
A good 15% of the wizard-goblin wars Binns rambled so ceaselessly about had been started because of the decision to form the Ministry. Pre-Ministry, the goblins held both more power and freedom in magical society.
He’s the only wizard in the room. He shifts a little, and then claps his hands together. The sound falls flat, but it makes him feel better, and that’s all that really matters.
“Right. So. Sorry about the break-in, Bellatrix hid a horcrux in her vault. We know you wouldn’t have knowingly aided and abetted Voldemort’s reign, so we know you had no idea it was there. I’ve a write-up of how we broke in for your security teams, if they’re so inclined, and Godric Gryffindor’s sword to return to you – careful with it, it’s been imbued with Basilisk venom.” Ron pulls out a stack of papers and the sword in question as he talks, and dumps them on the floor in front of him. The goblins twitch a little bit, but don’t move. Their expressions, likewise, do not change.
“Also, the whole lot of us need property records.”
And there’s the explosion.
A couple guards shoot forward to snag the sword and the papers, and the whole lot of tellers and bankers and whatever-elsers rise up out of their seats with a veritable mountain of scrolls and parchment.
Ron has just enough time to think aw, fuck, before he’s drowning.
X
The United Kingdoms are not…big. Not comparatively. Not on muggle maps. But magical land is not bound by the constraints of space or time in quite the same way, and there are centuries worth of hidden spaces after the Statute was enacted alone, never mind all of existence stretching out before that rather arbitrary deadline.
“Well, if this is right, the Earth is not the size scientists think it is, and we probably don’t have anything to worry about in regard to muggle technology picking up on us.”
“Hand me some more tape, please.” Luna calls down, and Hermione does not look away from where she is scrutinizing a portion of the map they’ve cobbled together, even as her wand flicks a roll of clear scotch up to the younger girl.
There are a total of four rooms, dedicated to the rough outline they’ve pieced together from various muggle and magical maps, deeds, and property listings. It’s been helpful for those who learn the exact place of wherever their headache is coming from and for those who don’t, because the more complete they make it, the more accurate scrying is, and the more successful their stabs-in-the-dark are at finding forgotten acres and homes and villages.
Hermione has not felt this much in love with magic since Hogwarts first rose out of the dark in all its glittering splendor as an unsorted eleven-year-old. It makes her want to weep, that the war hasn’t stolen that from her too.
The whole lot of them – students, freshly graduated, survivors – have become more or less accustom to living with pain ranging from mild to debilitating in the meantime. It is paramount that they discover all they own, if only to end the headaches and queasiness and soreness.
Pansy had laughed so hard she’d cried when it had been brought up; it’s no different from what Daphne lives with daily, she’d said. Hermione had a stack of books as tall as her waiting for her in Harry’s room, all dedicated to bloodline curses and pre-Statute magic; there might be a connection there.
She doesn’t have the time for that, though – not right now.
“I think we’re done!” Luna chirps, and Hermione finally tears her gaze away, tilting her head back. Luna is perched delicately on the edge of a broom up near the ceiling, beaming at the final pieces of their map.
Floating islands are a thing. Floating islands are a quite prominent thing. Allegedly Morgan La Fey had popularized them back in the day.
Three of them are Hermione’s.
“Do you think we can trade?” She asks plaintively.
Hermione’s never seen Luna with such a pitying expression before.
X
Molly Weasley bursts back into Grimmauld so furious that her hair is aflame. There’s a baby in her arms.
She’d killed Bellatrix Lestrange; by right of conquest, anything held in Bellatrix’ name is Molly’s – her vault, and any properties not given over to her husband during their marriage. In an effort to feel marginally less like shit when her children needed her so deeply after Fred’s death, she and Bill had located one of Bellatrix’ properties – and promptly found a child there.
“So the kid’s – “
“My cousin.” Harry announces, loudly, before anybody else can connect the dots. Nott looks at him weird. Parkinson hums.
“Technically, yeah, I think. You still speak parseltongue after all – she would’ve been sired after the….Tournament. So – “
The implication that he’d adopted Voldemort in some way is horrifying, and Harry tackles her with a pillow to the face to get her to shut up. Molly watches, but some of the outright fury on her face melts.
“Oh, Harry, love – should we change her name?”
“What’s her name?” He wheezes. Parkinson’s managed to get the upper hand, and is sitting on his ribs. Nott’s scuttled back against the wall like a spider, as if he’s even pinged on Parkinson’s radar.
“Delphini.” Molly says distastefully. She’s never been a fan of House Black’s naming conventions – she’d called Sirius’ mother an inbred fuckwit once when she thought Harry wasn’t in earshot and Sirius had adored her for it.
“Oh, no, change it. Poor dear.” Parkinson says, and Molly goes to hand her the baby, obviously presuming that means Parkinson likes kids, and Parkinson takes off screeching. This frees Harry only for a moment, because Molly dumps the baby on him instead.
She’s got grey eyes. Big, solemn eyes. They look like Harry’s – like Tom’s – like Sirius’.
A baby shouldn’t have the eyes of a soldier.
“You’re gonna keep her?” He asks softly.
She’s almost Teddy’s age, maybe a little younger or a little older. Her grip is strong and her little hands soft, when Harry holds her, and she doesn’t make a sound but she does, after a long moment of staring, thump her cheek into his chest.
He feels, very suddenly, like weeping.
Molly kneels at his side, and rubs one hand up and down his spine.
“Fred would laugh himself to death, us taking her in.”
Harry swallows down tears and nods – Fred would think it the greatest of jokes, the best thing to pull over Voldemort – and –
Harry had told Molly everything Dumbledore had done. Tom’s whole story, Dumbledore’s failures and missteps and his ignorance that Harry was a better person than Tom solely because his mother loved him enough to die for him as if Tom’s hadn’t either in her own fucked up little way and –
“She’ll need you.” He whispers. Molly’s face – goes soft. She reaches out and takes his face in her hands and kisses his brow.
“We’re making you godfather, dear.” She says, and then – Harry gasps.
“Holy shit.”
“Harry dear, what – “
“She has a sister!”