Chapter Five of 'That Glorious Strength'- The Noose Around Their Necks
Chapter Four.
Chapter One.
Title: That Glorious Strength (5/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Background canon couples, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Massive AU (no Voldemort), blood prejudice, mentorship, angst, drama, violence, torture, gore
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. Instead of becoming Voldemort, Tom Riddle established a school of “secondary importance” for Muggleborns, half-bloods, and Squibs. Since the school frees Hogwarts to continue drifting more towards the purebloods’ whims and wishes, they haven’t raised any large fuss. Besides, everyone knows that half-bloods and Muggleborns don’t have any real power. Just look at Riddle, who had ambitions that outpaced his magical strength. They don’t see the revolution coalescing under the surface.
Author’s Notes: This is a story idea I’ve been brewing in my mind for a long time, and finally decided to write. I don’t have any idea how long it will be at the moment. The title is a twist on “that hideous strength,” used as a title by C. S. Lewis and from a poem by David Lyndsay.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Five-The Noose Around Their Necks
“Did the latest payment arrive on time, Arthur?”
Arthur did his best to subdue his own nervousness while he met Lucius Malfoy’s eyes through the fire. “It did, Minister Malfoy. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and your generosity.”
The words burned his mouth, but, well, they had all made sacrifices, hadn’t they? Some people valued peace, and some (like Malfoy) power, and some gold. What Arthur valued was his family. Without the Minister’s generous stipend for all pureblood families, they wouldn’t have been able to afford to have as many children as Molly had wanted.
And, of course, without the experimental research into potions that Malfoy’s government had funded, they wouldn’t have had their three daughters at all.
“Ah.” The lines around Malfoy’s mouth eased a little, as if the news mattered to him, and he nodded. “Good, good. I look forward to seeing your twins at Hogwarts this year. That is,” he added, with another quiver of his lips that hinted at a smile, “your second pair of twins. Ron and, what is it, Victoria?”
“Yes, that’s the name of our daughter, Minister.” And Arthur couldn’t help the deep fondness that crept into his voice. Daughters were rare in the Weasley family. Victoria was the first born in at least fifty years.
And then they had two more, him and Molly. Truly, they were living in an age of miracles.
Immediately, the thought scorched Arthur, because of course it wasn’t an age of miracles for Muggleborns or those half-bloods who had any sort of power. But…well, he couldn’t do much to help them if he’d remained like he was in the past, could he? At least this way, with a voice that was respected in the Ministry because of blood purity politics, he could push for gentler laws and the reforms that Headmaster Dumbledore had wanted.
“I do look forward to them meeting Draco.”
“Yes, sir,” Arthur murmured. The whole of magical Britain knew that Minister Malfoy’s son was to attend Hogwarts this year, of course. The Minister’s family were all celebrities who had breathless articles devoted to them in the Daily Prophet each week. “Between you and me, young Victoria fancies him a bit.”
Malfoy laughed. “Ah, well, I can’t promise that Draco will be able to return her feelings, but I’m sure he’ll behave like a proper gentleman with her.”
“Yes, sir.”
Malfoy turned abruptly, looking over his shoulder into the invisible space of his office, and then sighed in annoyance. “My apologies, Arthur. I am enjoying our conversation, but I have a crisis trying to take up my attention. You’ll understand, I’m sure,” he added, as he began to dust his knees off. “After all, you’re a man of some importance in the Ministry yourself.”
Only because of my blood. But Arthur smoothed out the truths that wanted to trip off his tongue. He couldn’t help anybody, not the Muggleborns and not his family, if he was sacked. “Yes, sir. Have a good day.”
The green cast to the flames winked out, and Arthur sat back and raised a shaky hand to his eyes. He always felt that way after a conversation with Malfoy.
His family had the money it had needed to thrive. Molly didn’t have to spend time running herself ragged to take care of the children. They had Victoria, and Ginny, and Evangeline-and the others, of course, but those last three were miracles that they couldn’t have counted on without the research into potions.
“We’re very blessed,” Arthur said aloud, and didn’t startle at the bitterness of his own voice.
*
“You’ll be careful, Mum, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course.” Pandora Lovegood bent down and kissed her daughter gently on the head. “You understand that just because the Ministry Divinators foresaw danger for me once, it doesn’t mean it’s always there when I go into the lab?”
“Yes, Mum. It’s just-”
Luna clung to her. Pandora sighed and let her hand slowly stroke her eldest child’s forehead. Luna was the only one who had been old enough to remember the Divinators’ warning that Pandora would die if she tried to conduct a certain experiment in her lab on a certain day. Prometheus and Selene had only been a toddler and an infant at the time.
“I know.” Pandora kissed Luna again. “But I promise that I’ll be careful, and because I’m an accessory to the Unspeakables, I have some of their protections woven into the lab now.” It was the same speech she gave every time, but it reassured Luna, so of course she would give it again. Luna’s eyes deepened and softened as she listened. “I love you, shining moon.”
That at least got Luna to smile. “I love you, too, Mum.” And she stepped back, watching intently as Pandora descended the stairs.
It’s sort of a relief that Luna will go to Hogwarts this year, Pandora admitted to herself as she entered the lab and tapped her wand against an enchanted crystal sconce on the wall, which made all the other sconces flare to life as light leaped between them. She needs to focus on something other than me. Pursue her own interests. Not think so much about death.
Of course, some of that came from Xeno and his obsession with the Hallows. Pandora shook her head as she walked towards the polished granite table covered with cauldrons, pliers, measuring tapes that were a variation of the ones Ollivander used in his shop, and all the other tools she needed for the work. He was a dear man, or she wouldn’t have fallen in love with and married him, but he was dotty about the Hallows.
Pandora faced the crystal cauldron on the nearest lip of the table and closed her eyes, letting thoughts of her family drain away. Balance. Center. Essentially, practice Occlumency of a specialized kind that shut away everything but thought of what she was trying to do. Otherwise, the delicate magical research could go sideways. It was finicky enough that it responded even to thought patterns.
Once she was calmest, Pandora opened her eyes and began another day of measuring magic.
*
“You need a strong wand, young man.”
Neville nodded nervously as he followed his grandmother into Ollivander’s. He could have come with his mum and dad, but his father was an Auror and always busy, and his mum was a Healer who’d had a rush of new dragonpox cases lately. And two of the dragonpox cases were Neville’s younger brothers.
Besides, his grandmother would make sure that he got matched with the right kind of wand. There had been studies done that showed some of the wands handed to purebloods in the past were-not the right kind. That was why some purebloods had been mistakenly labeled as weaker than Muggleborns and the like. Ollivander’s was so old and beloved that the Ministry had stopped short of accusing the owner of actually doing it on purpose, but they had bound him with vows to do his best about the matching.
Neville took a deep breath and looked up as Mr. Ollivander came out of the back of the shop. He had a tight smile that dissolved a little when he saw them.
Gran gave him a regal nod. “We’re here to see about my Neville’s wand,” she said, and then took a seat near the shop door. She watched Ollivander as sternly as the eyes of the stuffed vulture on her hat.
“Of course, of course.” Ollivander considered him for a second, and Neville shifted under the stare of those silver eyes. But then he put back his chin and stood up a little straighter.
He had received lessons in self-confidence from the time he was a young child. They were necessary for all purebloods in Britain, who had spent so much time being battered down by people like former Headmaster Dumbledore. Well-meaning people, from what his Gran had told Neville. But they were the kind who promoted lies in the name of promoting equality. They had said that Muggleborns were just as strong as purebloods, and that blood didn’t matter, when, well, it wasn’t true.
Your heritage is the foundation of everything you do. Neville had learned that lesson when he was a toddler, and everything he had learned since had reinforced it.
No one had to be mean to anyone. Gran had always taught Neville to be polite to Muggleborns, and not call them Mudbloods, the way so many people did. But one also had to be conscious of one’s illustrious heritage, and the fact that Muggleborns weren’t as rooted in the earth as purebloods were, and that their magic was more chaotic and, well, dirtier.
With half-bloods, of course, it depended on power. Gran was progressive, and so were Neville’s Mum and Dad. One could make allowances for a half-blood raised in the Muggle world, and it would have been monstrous to harvest them or call them names. They understood their place most of the time better than Muggleborns did, anyway.
“Let’s see, beech and dragon heartstring…”
That one barely made sparks fly out of the end, and Ollivander snatched it away and replaced it with ebony and unicorn hair, which was replaced with apple wood and phoenix feather. Then came a string of ash wands, all with different cores, and another ebony one, and birch and unicorn hair-
“There.”
Neville smiled as he watched red and gold sparks leap into the air. That was a good sign that his House would be Gryffindor, like his mum’s and dad’s, and that he would continue following in their footsteps and supporting his lineage.
“That will be seven Galleons, young man.”
Gran paid Ollivander solemnly, and then escorted Neville out the door. Her hand on his shoulder, usually so stern that it was almost a pinch, was comforting now. Neville looked up at her, bit his lip, and dared to say, “You think I didn’t shame anyone, then, Gran?”
Gran smiled down at him, and it was a real smile, something Neville had hardly ever seen on her face. “Of course not, Neville. That’s a magnificent wand, and you’ll be a magnificent young man.”
They went back to the manor, Neville’s heart floating so high in his chest that it could have carried him without a broom.
*
“You are to be commended on your attempts to redress inequality at Hogwarts, Minerva.”
When Headmistress Celaeno Carrow spoke in that particular voice, Minerva had a strong urge to transform into a cat and scratch her eyes out. All it really took was a single strong leap, a slash with one paw from the left and one from the right…
But that would leave her students defenseless. Minerva bowed her head a little and nodded. “Thank you, Headmistress,” she murmured, eyes on the Nundu kitten chained to the leg of Carrow’s desk. It had been blinded, declawed, and fed potions that robbed it of its poisonous breath. It lay still and silent most of the time, head cradled on its motionless paws.
Minerva knew exactly how it felt.
“No, I mean it,” said Carrow, and leaned forwards, her smile sweet, her blue eyes large, her black hair long and stringy. Purebloods never bothered to do much about changing their looks, secure in their perception that they were the top of the hierarchy. “You have actually restrained your Gryffindors from bullying Slytherins in the corridors, taught the half-bloods their place, and encouraged Mudbloods to attend the school while being realistic about the challenges they’ll face. It’s commendable.”
“Thank you, Headmistress,” Minerva repeated in a stronger voice, and continued to keep her head bowed. Carrow was a Legilimens. If she saw through Minerva’s eyes to her thoughts…
Remember that you have a position to keep up as Gryffindor’s Head of House.
“Despite your own misfortunes, you know that it is better for Mudbloods and half-bloods to be here instead of without the walls.”
Minerva nodded in whole-hearted agreement for the first time. Yes, there was the Fortius Academy, but they didn’t accept all students, and, well, they didn’t have the academic grandeur that Hogwarts did. They were so young. They focused on blood status in a way that Minerva found damning, and they didn’t have the number of professors they should, and some of those professors were from other countries and had foreign ideas, and they didn’t teach all the disciplines that Hogwarts did.
There was still value, Minerva thought, in walking these halls, in being Sorted into one of the Four Houses that the Founders had created. How Sorting was done at Fortius, she had never been able to find out for sure. And how could anyone be sure that they were in the House that best matched their personality and goals if they didn’t sit under the Sorting Hat?
Fortius didn’t even have a system of prefects, from what Minerva had heard. They left all discipline and patrolling up to the professors. Minerva pitied them, no longer able to focus on education.
“About the Mudblood who struck young Mr. Burke the other day.”
“She’s been expelled and her wand snapped.” Minerva kept her voice brisk and business-like. It was the best way to deal with blood purists, she’d found. And in this case, it would keep them from visiting more harm on the poor girl who’d fought back against the vicious “pranks” that Mr. Burke of Slytherin had played on her.
Minerva felt both sympathetic and exasperated when she thought of Adelaide Finch-Fletchley. What in the world had the girl been thinking? One didn’t fight back against someone whose father and uncle sat in the Wizengamot. One came to the professors and asked for help, which Minerva would have granted.
She could have taught the girl Impervious Charms which would shed prank hexes and jinxes like they were water. But Finch-Fletchley hadn’t asked, and so she had been expelled to make her own way in the world, neither belonging to the Muggle one nor in the magical one, half-and-half in a way that Minerva thought would be a far worse fate than anything Burke could have done to her.
“You’ve handled it already, then?”
“Yes, I thought that the best, Headmistress Carrow.” Minerva frowned a little. “Should I not have done that? I did Floo the Mudblood Discipline Department in the Ministry, but they said that that was the punishment on record.”
“Say, rather,” said Carrow, after a long, silent considering of her that was designed to make Minerva fidget and didn’t work, “that next time, I would prefer to oversee the punishment myself, and might appreciate a little less enthusiasm in the cause.”
“Of course, Headmistress.” Minerva bowed her head again, but this time it waw to veil the relief that threatened to burn through her disguise. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry, Minerva. I think you should go back to your duties as Head of Gryffindor, however. There are many students who seem to delight in roaming the corridors near curfew.”
Minerva nodded briskly and stood up. “Yes, and unfortunately, my House causes the most trouble for all that we’re the smallest one in the school now.”
The Headmistress laughed, a sliding, eerie chuckle that had always reminded Minerva of a hyena that had found wounded prey. She tried not to remember that hyenas could kill lions. “Well, can you blame the Hat for finally seeing what it should have seen all along? Or even Mudbloods for wanting to avoid a House with a reputation for daring and brashness in a world where we all understand our place?”
“No, Headmistress,” Minerva said obediently.
“Oh, go along with you, Minerva.” Carrow flapped a hand at her. “I know well enough that not all Gryffindors are like that. You got to keep your job, after all, didn’t you?”
Minerva nodded, and smiled, and escaped.
As she rode down the moving staircase, she watched the walls change about her in silence, and seethed.
But what good would it do to show Carrow any flash of temper? Minerva knew well enough that any pureblood they brought in to be Head of Gryffindor would find the position humiliating, and would take out their temper on the students.
Well, either that, or they would be a sadistic bastard who delighted in torture as much as Carrow herself did.
No, for the sake of her students who had no other advocate, she must keep holding the line, no matter how much she hated it.
*
“Are you going to be all right, Miss Finch-Fletchley?”
The Muggleborn girl nodded and pushed the hair out of her eyes without looking at Tom. “I-yes, Headmaster. I just-don’t understand why you appeared and snapped me up like that the minute I was expelled from Hogwarts.”
“Part of the Academy’s purpose is to offer a sanctuary to young Muggleborns and half-bloods who get expelled-”
She spun around to stare at him. Finch-Fletchley had blonde hair and brown eyes, and she looked as if she was continually on the verge of crying and stopping herself. Tom had to admit he was impressed with her strength, even if she had been in the House that was known for that kind of thing. “I don’t mean that. I mean why did you offer me a place now, and not when I was eleven? I would have been happier here!”
“Miss Finch-Fletchley.” Tom waited a moment until she was focused on him, and not staring around the soft blue Fortius infirmary as if waiting for someone to emerge and ambush her. “I did offer you a place.”
“You didn’t! I would have remembered-”
She cut herself off. Tom nodded. “Exactly. I am afraid that, since you refused and said you wanted to go to Hogwarts for the sense of tradition it offered, I made sure that you did not remember my visit.”
“You Obliviated me. That’s awful.”
Finch-Fletchley looked like she was about to cry again. Despite what people like Lucius would say, Tom wasn’t in the business of enjoying tears, and so he controlled his sigh and sat down in the chair that was next to the hospital bed she’d got off earlier, after their own Healer had checked her over for any magical shock or worse consequences from her wand being snapped. “Yes, I need to protect the school and the students here.”
“I’m a student here now.”
Tom concealed his pleased smile. He hadn’t been sure, until that moment, that Finch-Fletchley had actually accepted his offer. “You are. But you will still have promises and oaths that you need to keep. For one thing, you’ll find that you can’t speak of certain school secrets outside these walls.”
“Because of the purebloods?”
“Partially. Also because of the people who might think that a half-blood shouldn’t be running a school, and some older Muggleborns who will be angry that Fortius didn’t exist when they were in Hogwarts and want to ruin it.” Tom shrugged when Finch-Fletchley stared at him. “I’ve dealt with several of them now. I wish I could have rescued them, but the timeline couldn’t be sped up.”
“I see it,” Finch-Fletchley breathed. “I see how I could have become bitter like them.” She closed her eyes and shivered for a second. Then she focused on Tom again with a keen gaze that he was glad to see. “I don’t have a wand.”
“You’ll be matched with one in one of the shops that our students go to. Don’t worry, they’re much more discreet than parading down Diagon Alley to get to Ollivander’s.”
“That’s good. And-I have a little brother. I don’t think you offered a place to him. He said he was going to attend Hogwarts.”
Tom thought a moment before he responded. “I didn’t offer a place to him because you had refused, and I thought he likely would as well, if only because he’d want to attend the school that his older sister did. And, well, his marks aren’t as good as I’d like.”
Finch-Fletchley sighed. “Justin’s-too used to coasting on our family’s money. He would have got into Eton, no problem, just because of who our father is.” She folded her arms to hug herself. “I know, now, that he’ll want to come here. My parents will insist on it. I’ll make sure that his marks stay in an acceptable range.”
“If you wish to take on that burden. We also have capable professors and tutors.”
“Most people find Justin so charming they don’t hold him to his promises.”
Tom chuckled, remembering his own days in Hogwarts and how easy it had been to charm some people into doing what he wanted. “I assure you, I’m familiar with the type. So are my professors, many of whom have either been that kind of student or are used to them. Your brother won’t want for people to keep him on track.”
Finch-Fletchley closed her eyes. “Thank you. That was what bothered me the most about being expelled from Hogwarts-the thought of my brother going there next year and suffering the same things I did.”
Her shoulders trembled abruptly, and Tom stood. “I’ll contact Professor Johnson to escort you to get your wand in a few hours’ time. Perhaps you’d like to rest first?”
“Yes, thank you, Professor Riddle,” Finch-Fletchley whispered.
If she let the tears out, she did it after he’d exited the room.
Tom paced silently down the corridor to his office, high in the tower that stood next to Belasha’s lair. He was pleased with how that had gone. Even when expelled from Hogwarts and summarily refused a place in the world they had thought would be theirs, not all Muggleborns came to Fortius. Some of them had simply absorbed too many tales at Hogwarts of how “inferior” Tom’s school was, and others had mourned the loss of their magic so deeply that they wanted to withdraw from it altogether.
But the ones who were willing to struggle to reclaim the world that was indeed theirs were among his strongest students.
And his strongest revolutionaries.
Tom stepped into his office, a large half-circular space with a window that overlooked Belasha’s dome and the new student dormitories where, tonight, Harry Potter would be sleeping. Tom crossed over to the far side of the room, where an innocent-looking crystal globe stood on a bookshelf. It was a half-dome, and looking at it, someone might have thought it was a broken crystal ball, kept perhaps by someone with not enough talent in Divination to use a whole one.
In fact, it was a magical device that could perhaps change the world in the future when Tom released news of it. For now, he had no intention of suffering the fates of Muggleborn and half-blood spellcrafters in the last few decades: accusations of stealing ideas from purebloods, and Obliviation at best, the Dementor’s Kiss at worst.
Tom laid his wand on the globe, and it woke and began to shimmer with a subtle chime. Tom bent over it, breathed on the embodied, anchored spell, and said, “Spy time.”
The summons fled outwards, on the nearly undetectable link of a long-lasting Imperius Curse that existed between the crystal and Tom’s best spy in the enemy camp. It wouldn’t do to be found having used the spell himself; there were new charms that could search out any spell a wand had ever cast, and casting the Imperius on a pureblood rated an instant execution. But with the Imperius in this form, it was both much less likely to be found in the victim’s mind and undetectable on Tom’s wand. The crystal was the spell. Unless it was activated, his control over the pureblood didn’t exist.
For what Tom required of his spy, the control didn’t need to be constant.
His Floo lit perhaps half an hour later. Having such a buried spy did mean that sometimes she couldn’t get away immediately. Tom sat back with a small smile and watched as she came through the fire and collapsed to her knees in front of him-something Tom had to admit he enjoyed.
“My lord,” she intoned.
That impulse, Tom hadn’t planted in her. But there was something cringing and subservient in so many purebloods, who didn’t know how to react to a powerful wizard as an equal.
Tom leaned forwards. “What have you to report, Narcissa?”
Chapter Six.