Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don’t mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.
London, Magical Britain [1980]
–Scott Winters–
“Alright, what’s on the agenda today? More importantly, do I need to be with you once we are done with the formalities? I have never been to London before, kinda want to see all the attractions before we leave.” John asked him as they had their breakfast in his room, the downstairs hotel being too public for them to discuss what they were going to do for the day.
“Really?” He deadpanned at John who was stuffing his face with some Indian dish that he really loved back in the States and wanted to try here since it was a five star hotel and all that. It was good, but he was in the mood for something lighter since he was meeting his family later in the day, hence, the salad.
“What?” John asked him defensively, “I know you can handle yourself. The Director only sent me here just in case your people needed a direct Ministry contact, just in case they get really handsy or something.”
“What?” HE asked John, utterly befuddled as to why he would do that. It was not like those pompous fools in the Ministry would listen to John anyway. For them, Dumbledore was the ultimate shield, and any tough questions from foreign powers were anyway answered by Dumbledore anyway, who never really went tough on the Dark Oriented nobles, emboldening them even further. His fists clenched as he thought of the paperwork after paperwork he had to fill, just for the opportunity to send a letter with evidence to the British Ministry of some of their Lords being involved in various crimes in the States.
They never really heard back about any of that ever again. Typical.
“Hey? Hello, Scott?” he blinked as he looked at a concerned looking John. He sighed again, John couldn’t have possibly known that, he was just supposed to handle his missions and evaluate his mental states after each and every mission just in case there was a chance that he would go insane or worse, rogue. He didn't know the depths of the corruption in the British Ministry.
But Rothschild did but he never explained anything to John. He snorted at that, typical of the hard ass director. Sending in his people with only the information he deems useful, nothing more than that. He probably thought of information as currency, something that he wouldn’t hand out until the last moment.
Since John didn’t know much, he set down his salad bowl and set about explaining the nuances of the British Ministry and how it worked. How it was a cesspit of corruption with its very design being to favour the ones already born with a silver, golden, or even a diamond spoon. The truth of the matter was that while not all nobles were filthy rich like the Malfoys, who transferred all of their wealth from France where their family was guillotined, resulting in a small couple of members suddenly gaining the wealth of a family that once had hundreds, resulting in them being the rich new family in Britain, most of the families in Britain were rich.
And the ones that were poor but were still “pureblood” got generous stipends from the government for basically everything, not to mention the death of government jobs available for the “right blooded” people who didn’t have wealth to support their families for multiple lifetimes.
Sure, there were “light oriented” families who cared for the rights of the many but even that was not right, in his book. Even the so-called Light families, who were always in opposition to the Dark side in the matters of the No-Majs or even the No-Maj born, did not do so out of the goodness of their hearts, mostly.
Some of them did it for the money, some of it for the optics, some of it to gain Dumbledore’s favour, and a tiny amount who actually believed that aside from the lack of magic, the No-Maj were actually humans as well and as such, worthy of basic fundamental rights, same as the one that wizards did.
“Oh, Ohhhh,” That was all John had to say as he sort of processed the crap that had been dumped on his lap at the last moment, “And you say that we have to go deal with them today?”
“Yes but don’t worry, we are the “right” sort according to them so they won’t do anything, especially since news of us coming here has already reached the Ministry. I am sure they don’t want any diplomatic incident, especially since rumours have no doubt reached DUmbledore’s ears that MACUSA already has a replacement ArchMage for their outgoing one.” John nodded along at the information except at the last bit, where his eyes widened dramatically, trembling pointed fingers and all that.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Y-y-you don’t mean?”
“Yup.” He took great pleasure in breaking some clearances as he told John the whole reason he got special privileges, even though he didn’t abuse it to do something irrational like he totally wanted to do, like fire Rothschild or more like transfer him to some minor Shit shoveling department, if the MACUSA had one.
Then, John’s HR mind kicked in as he immediately whipped out his wand and cast all manners of detection spells, for charms, for curses, for actual human beings, for elves, for magical tools, for animagi, and more. After casting dozens of such spells, accounting for even obscure humanoid species like the Centaur, John finally sighed in relief and slumped in his seat, wand back in its holster.
“You should not have done that. Now, I am stuck with you, forever.” John said as he stabbed into his food.
He grinned like a loon at that, “Yup. Remember, FOREVER!”
“Alright, finish your food, we have an appointment and yes, you can take off to see your tourist attractions after we are done at the Ministry, just be careful of pickpockets.”
“Ha! Who do you think you are talking to?”
“A wizard mediocre in the field of combat magic and above average at best in support magics? With zero regular physical exercise and little to no experience in combat? Magical or otherwise?”
“....I hate you.”
“That’s what I thought.”
After that humbling experiment, they both went down to the Ministry the normal way. Leaky Cauldron way.
“Wow. That was…wow.” He laughed at John’s reaction, who looked at the Diagon Alley, now that the wall had slid away, revealing the wonderful chaotic order that was Diagon Alley to the fellow American John.
“That’s not the last of it,” He quipped as they entered the Ministry building, after undergoing a thorough scan that resulting in nothing since both of them were not idiots and were given brochures by their departments on what to do in these situations, so all his “extra” weaponry was kept back in the hotel, part of the reason why he had chosen a fine establishment to stay in.
“Once again, wow!” John exclaimed once they entered the foreign immigration counter in the ministry. It was…bare. Yup, it made sense that nobody came to London, it was a soaking wet hole of a place but still, there should have been someone here.
“And after all that action we saw with the flying papers and howlers and everything.” John turned to him and said in a mocking tone.
“Hey! Don’t diss my heritage!” He shouted in mock outrage.
“Nghh, who’s there?” He looked at the booth, the wizard who was sleeping there finally waking up. His senses told him of the man immediately, as fast as his mind categorised the man as a non threat immediately. His wand was not even on his person. It was lying in a drawer of the table and not even the closest one.
A complete non issue if it comes down to combat. Sadly, his mind always thought like that now, no matter how much he tried to do so otherwise, such was his life.
A head of ginger popped out of the booth, with drool on their face and completely unfocused eyes that stilled when their bleary eyes finally saw that they were not sitting on a completely empty floor of the building.
He saw the person blink once, twice before with a terrible screeching sound, the chair was pushed back as the person stood upright before them, fumbling with his glasses and discreetly trying to wipe his drool.
Spoiler, they both saw it anyway.
“Uh, Hello! Welcome to the Immigration department, what can I do for you today?”
Well, that was…something.
“Hello, we are here for the foreign wizards registration?” John led with it.
The man, who they still didn't know the name of, looked blankly at them for a moment before his mind lit up with an Eureka.
“Oh, I see! Americans, right?” The man tried for small talk while fiddling around for forms of some sort.
He sighed explosively. This was going to be a while.
…..
…
–A while Later–
“Alright, you know the rules. Have a safe trip,” He gave the man a strained smile at the absolutely unnecessary but still mandatory three hour disclaimer that the British Ministry gives anyone about what and what not to do while in Britain. No wonder that no wizards ever visited London of their own volition.
Who would go through such torture for some mediocre tourism? Especially with how wet everything was?
“I trust you got the rules?” He asked a glassy eyed John.
“Huh? Oh! Yeah, I got it!” John tapped his front pocket which held a pocket version of the rules which also had a nifty little enchantment on it that would warn the tourist about any incoming magical place or establishment.
“Great, I will see you at the Hotel. Have fun!” He waved at the man and then turned around, ready to enter the Den of the Goblins.
Gringotts.
If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon
I already have upto 10 extra chapters published there.