Part Three of 'An Artifice of Copper and Tin'- Answers

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Two.

Part One.

Title: An Artifice of Copper and Tin (3/5)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Mentions of Lucius/Narcissa and OMC/OFC, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Angst, AU, brief violence
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the wake of the revelations about so many people’s familiars, the wizarding world reacts…badly.
Author’s Notes: This immediately follows A Door Into Hope in my Children of the Sun series, and will spoil its ending if you haven’t read it. This should be only a few chapters long, and then the next longer part of the series will start.


Thank you again for all the reviews! This is going to be longer than the three parts I thought it would be after all, simply to deal with some of the fallout.


Chapter Three—Answers

“I want to know what you thought you were doing, Mr. Potter.”

Harry fought back his nerves. What he had done was in the past, and he couldn’t change it. He just needed to answer Madam Bones’s questions as best as he could.

Golden draped his head over Harry’s shoulder from where he was coiled up along the side of the chair. Harry stroked his chin and looked for a second at the tapestry on the wall behind the Headmistress’s desk that had all four Hogwarts animals on it. The gleaming green snake reassured him, even though he wasn’t in Slytherin.

“I was trying to solve the problem of artificial familiars, Madam Bones,” Harry said, turning to where she stood next to the Headmistress and frowned at him. “Some of their owners were attacking me, and no one was doing anything.”

Madam Bones sighed. Her tiger lifted his head from his paws for a moment, then lowered it. “Something would have been done, Mr. Potter.”

“But what, though? Madam,” Harry added, as he saw her lips tighten like Aunt Petunia’s.

“Something.”

Harry waited for a second, then shrugged. “I didn’t know that, Madam Bones. I just thought that no one was doing anything fast enough, and no one really wanted to deal with the problem of artificial familiars, because of how big it is.”

Madam Bones blinked for a moment. “So you decided to place it in our laps so that we would have to do something?”

She sounded—wondering, but also like she was going to be angry in a second. Harry nodded and sat up and forced himself to keep looking at her. “Yes, madam. I didn’t know if anyone would ever help them otherwise. And some of the familiars that used to be a different color before they were cut up were coming to me for help, and—” He hesitated.

“Say what’s on your mind, Mr. Potter.”

Resolute even though it probably meant he’d get yelled at later, Harry said firmly, “No one was doing anything about the problem of Squibs, either. Or the way that people with tin and copper familiars feel like they’re less than everybody else. So I didn’t trust the Ministry to handle the problem of artificial familiars by itself, either.”

Madam Bones exchanged a glance with the Headmistress, but Harry couldn’t tell what either one of them was thinking. Malkin sat with his tail curled around his paws instead of looking angry, though. That reassured Harry as much as anything could.

“You need not worry about us failing to handle this,” Madam Bones finally said, in a thin, weary voice.

Because I forced you into it. But Harry nodded. “Can I be excused, Madam Bones? I have Herbology now.”

Madam Bones made a noise that might have been one of despair. Maybe she was on the verge of throwing her hands up in the air. Harry didn’t know. He didn’t care. He just wanted to get out of the uncomfortable office.

“Yes, Mr. Potter, you may go,” Headmistress McGonagall said, and sat back to smooth her hand down Malkin’s back. “I’m sure the Ministry will let you know if they have more questions for you.”

Harry nodded and said, “I’m sorry for causing trouble, Madam Bones.” Then he left the room before she could call him back or decide she was angry after all.

Golden rubbed his head gently against Harry’s arm as they headed down towards the stairs and Herbology. “You are right that the Ministry would probably have done nothing about the artificial familiars. They had ignored evidence of it in the past. We can’t be the first ones to find it.”

Harry nodded and sighed. “I know, but it’s hard to know that I hurt other people, even if I made the best decision I could.”

Golden flicked his tongue out, and Harry glanced up to see Professor Sprout walking towards him, her hamster Bryony trundling along at her side. Harry swallowed nervously. Was he so late to Herbology that she had to come find him?

“Professor?”

“Are you all right, Mr. Potter?” Professor Sprout peered at him curiously. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”

She didn’t say my name like I was in trouble. “I thought I was so late for class that you came to fetch me.”

Professor Sprout chuckled and shook her head. “You should learn the Tempus Charm, Mr. Potter. Or get a watch. No, I came to find you because I did want to talk to you, and I thought we could walk to the greenhouse at the same time.”

“Oh. Sure, professor.” Harry calmed his heartbeat down as much as he could and started to walk next to her. Professor Sprout picked up Bryony, who sat in her hand and looked down at Golden as if considering trying to ride on his head.

“How much do you know about how Squibs are treated in our society, Mr. Potter?”

“Not much except for what Professor Snape told me,” Harry said. “That it’s badly, and that there’s no good solution, because they shouldn’t be exiled to the Muggle world, but they can’t see familiars if they stay in the magical one.”

Professor Sprout nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that much is true. And there is very little interest in making things better for them, partially because it’s seen as such a shame when a Squib is born into the family. That’s one reason that artificial familiars were created, of course.” She tilted her head at him. “Do you hate Squibs, Mr. Potter?”

Harry took a deep breath. “No, professor. But I don’t think it’s fair if they did cut up someone else’s familiar to make their own, and I don’t think it’s fair if they attack me.”

Professor Sprout blinked. “Of course not, Mr. Potter. But I would advance to you that many of the people who have artificial familiars have them because their parents made a decision for them when they were children, rather than because they are now evil people.”

“I met a woman who’s like that, Professor,” Harry admitted. “She had to have been a kid, because she had the familiar when she went to Hogwarts. But she attacked me once and tried to attack me again, and I don’t have—I’m sorry, but I don’t feel much sympathy for her.”

Professor Sprout paused and looked at him thoughtfully as they stood in the door that led into the entrance hall. “Do you think everyone is like her?”

“No.” Harry stared at her. “Do you know someone with an artificial familiar, Professor?”

Professor Sprout nodded. “She wasn’t even aware that her familiar was artificial until the marking you made appeared. Our parents made the decision when she was very small. And she had never known that her connection with her familiar was different from the ones that other people had with theirs, because that’s not something that’s often discussed and would be different to quantify if it was.”

“Oh,” Harry said softly. It seemed mental to him that someone wouldn’t notice that their familiar was more like a hammer than a living creature, but then again, lots of people in ordinary magical society had managed to ignore it, too. “Does she need help?”

Professor Sprout smiled at him and pressed his shoulder with one hand. “I don’t want you to worry about it, Mr. Potter.”

Harry squinted at her. “Then why did you bring her up at all, professor?”

Professor Sprout laughed. “Because I think you might be able to help her in the future, Mr. Potter, at least if you’re not actively hostile to Squibs. But I don’t think that you owe it to her to make her life different and better immediately, especially since you probably didn’t know people like her existed.”

“I didn’t really think about it,” Harry admitted sheepishly. “I assumed most of them knew and would do anything to protect their secret.”

Professor Sprout sighed. “My sister is not your problem to solve, nor your friend to protect. But I hope that you’ll be open to meeting with her once we’ve decided what we should do, and talking to her about it.”

Harry nodded. “Professor, are your parents still alive? Do you know which of them did that to her? To their familiar?”

“No.” Professor Sprout’s mouth tightened for a second. “To both questions. I have my suspicions, but I don’t think my suspicions would actually help the situation at this point.”

Harry nodded again. He could see that. “Well, I’d like to meet your sister at some point, Professor. If you think she’d like to meet me.”

Professor Sprout’s hand brushed his shoulder for a moment. “I’m sure she’d like to, Mr. Potter. Now, come on. We should get to classes.” She smiled down at him. “You can’t be the goldenborn savior of the wizarding world all the time. Sometimes, you have to be an ordinary student.”

Harry knew she’d probably meant to make him laugh, but he saw no reason not to.

*

“What’s going to happen to me, Headmistress?”

Minerva sighed as she stared at the boy in front of her, sitting with his head bowed and his fingers twiddling. Wychard Medwyn’s familiar, at his side, was too nervous and too independent to be a natural artificial familiar (what thoughts this situation made her have), but he had the golden aura and the words floating around him. Presumably, Medwyn had cut up part of him at one point to make sure that someone related to him could have a familiar.

“That is up to you, Mr. Medwyn,” Minerva said quietly, and drew the relevant letter out of a drawer, where she had been storing all the various pleading and angry and horrified letters from parents. “Your mother and father want to take you out of Hogwarts.”

Medwyn flinched with his whole body and stared at her with dark eyes. “I would—I would give anything if that didn’t happen, Headmistress.”

“Really? Do you fear that your family would abuse you?”

“Not—as such.”

The young man appeared to be struggling. Minerva waited. Malkin was prowling back and forth on her desk, his eyes fixed on the Slytherin’s peacock familiar. Minerva put her hand on his back to distract him. She didn’t think his animosity was simply because of his usual predatory interest in bird familiars. He seemed to have an instinctive hostility to all artificial ones. She’d had to stop him attacking the others who had come into the office before this, too.

Finally, Medwyn whispered, “I’m afraid that they would say that I’m the one who betrayed the secret, and maybe they would say I’m the reason our whole family is going to suffer. I can’t take it if they’re disappointed in me, Professor McGonagall. I can’t.”

Minerva blinked rapidly. She remembered well, herself, being that age and feeling like the disappointment of a parent was the whole world. She sat back in her chair. “Very well, Mr. Medwyn. What alternative would you suggest? I cannot take custody of you if your parents are not abusive, or even keep you here if they send for you. It is a parent’s right to have their child attend another school if they wish.”

Medwyn braced himself as though he was about to push a boulder uphill. Then he looked her dead in the eye. “What about the Heisenberg Laws, Professor?”

Minerva stared at him with her mouth a little open. When she realized it, she shut it, and gathered up Malkin in her arms as he gathered himself as if he would really spring at the peacock. The nervous bird danced behind his wizard with a little squawk.

“You must tell me where you heard about those, Mr. Medwyn.”

Medwyn clenched his hands in his lap and folded his legs around them as if he wanted to hide everything about himself from view, but his hands would do for a start. “My parents told me about them when they were talking about why we couldn’t be found out. Because you could claim custody of a child whose parents were a danger to his familiar.” He cleared his throat. “Or anyone could claim that kind of custody, really.”

“I will have an easier time as the Headmistress than most others would,” Minerva acknowledged. “But why not ask your Head of House?”

Medwyn swallowed. “I was afraid to,” he whispered. “He’s so close to Harry Potter lately, and Harry Potter is the one who did this to me.” He nodded to the golden aura around his familiar.

“You ought to know that I also have protected and sheltered Mr. Potter.”

“But not to the point that you look as though you’re going to murder anyone who doesn’t bow down and worship him.”

Medwyn’s voice was bitter enough that Minerva winced. She wondered if she should tell Severus to pay more attention to his own House and less to Harry. But she knew already that he would never agree. He would only assume that Slytherins needed it proved to them that he stood with a goldenborn child, and take it out on people who didn’t deserve it.

“I don’t worship Mr. Potter,” she said, and shook her head when Medwyn stared at her. “But I won’t tolerate threats to him, either.”

Medwyn licked his lips. “I don’t care about him. I mean, not that much. I don’t like him, but I won’t attack him.”

“All right, Mr. Medwyn. Say that I claim custody of you under the Heisenberg Laws. What happens next?”

“I don’t have to go home and face my family?” But it was clear from the question that Medwyn put at the end of that statement that he didn’t believe it would only entail that. Minerva just stared at him, and Malkin lashed his tail. Medwyn sighed and leaned back in his chair, letting his hand dangle down for his peacock familiar.

“My parents are going to be furious,” he began quietly. “And I imagine that they’ll try to bring you in front of the Wizengamot, or challenge the Heisenberg Laws.”

“And they’ll try to incite other parents to remove their children, won’t they?”

Medwyn blinked. That didn’t seem to be a perspective on the situation that had occurred to him. He nibbled his lip for a second, and then nodded. “Sorry, Professor. They probably will.”

“How many students am I going to lose as the result of taking custody of you, Mr. Medwyn?”

He curled into the chair and didn’t meet her eyes. But a second later, Minerva sighed. It wasn’t his fault, and it didn’t sound as though he had been more than a child when he’d cut up his familiar—or been made to cut him up. It wasn’t fair to lay the blame for the situation across his shoulders.

“I will make an announcement that anyone else who needs to consider the school their temporary home under the Heisenberg Laws can do so. I will help that catches the worst cases, the students who are afraid of their parents or guardians, as you are. And if others leave and go home to bad situations willingly…well, I can’t stop them.”

Medwyn blinked and sat up. “Why are you granting me sanctuary when it’s going to cost you so heavily?”

Minerva looked down at Malkin. He glanced up at her, bright eyes shimmering, and he gave her the courage to say what she had to.

“I had the good fortune of being born with a bronze familiar, an acceptable color according to our world,” she said quietly. “And not a Squib, or someone else who would be badly-treated. And that means that I have the duty to speak up for people who don’t have as much as I do and need my protection.” She ran a hand down Malkin’s back, and he arched it and purred. “And specifically, the man whom people revered because of his golden phoenix lived by a philosophy of the greatest good for the greatest number. I can’t live that way. I have to accept individuals who need help and try to protect the one, or I can’t live with myself.”

Medwyn swallowed and blinked hard. Minerva glanced aside until she thought he’d recovered, and added briskly, “You will have to write the letter to your parents informing them that you’ve invoked the Heisenberg Laws and appealed to Hogwarts for sanctuary, Mr. Medwyn. That’s not something I can legally do for you.”

“Will you—would it be possible to prevent their Howlers from coming inside the wards, Headmistress?”

Minerva smiled a little. “When you enter my custody, Mr. Medwyn, the magic of that arrangement will automatically divert Howlers to me.”

His relief was obvious. He stammered out some excuses, some thanks, and then rushed out of the office to write the letter he needed to write. Minerva leaned her head back on her chair and closed her eyes, her hand flexing open as she gently rubbed Malkin’s back. Then he sprawled on his belly and let her rub that.

“Did I do the right thing?” she asked quietly, looking at her familiar.

Malkin lifted his head and sat up, staring into her eyes. Then he curled his tail gently around her wrist.

Minerva sighed and closed her eyes again. The Heisenberg Laws, named after the familiar of the wizard who had passed them, laid down a series of rules for when a child could seek custody from someone who wasn’t his or her parents, or an adult could request the protection of the Ministry, because they believed that someone else was an imminent danger to their familiars. They hadn’t been used more than once a decade since they’d been passed. There weren’t that many parents who constituted a danger to their children’s familiars, not even Muggle parents, who couldn’t see the familiar to hurt it.

But she suspected she was about to see a flood of requests.

She remembered what she’d said to Medwyn, though, and tightened her resolve. She’d meant it. She would do it again.

I will never be Albus.