Sleep disturbed by frequent flutter of wings, the green light problem solved by Ms. Fieldstein sending a disc of darkness to cover the tree, wasn’t an experience many ever got to enjoy that night, used to the soft mattresses provided for them since childhood by the same firm with headquarters in Iverstead, ‘Softest Lullaby’. At the prescribed time of breakfast, cooking wizards still sent a whole range of what they usually prepare, sweet rolls, milk, cereal, juices, bread, peanut butter, and so on, maybe as a joke among themselves and a temptation to the students protesting. The one absent also showed up, vice-headmaster went straight to the teaching table ignoring the looks he got, and sat down taking out two books, stacks of parchment, four quills, and two inkwells to set up a bizarre working station for himself and grabbed a bite to eat casually.
The mystery in all witnesses' minds about what was he doing unsolved temporarily as eagles carrying ‘Daily Seer’ came in, everyone curious if the affairs in Ilvermorny represented objectively gathered around those who subscribed to the newspaper. Luca and his roommates huddled to read over Bryce’s shoulder, the front page occupied by three black and white pictures with the headline written in bold font: ‘Luca Granger, the boy who paralyzed MACUSA, and his mentor, Volatile Changeling Agilbert Fontaine.’.
The first picture upon touching it with a wand played Luca’s sorting, the four wooden statues lit up at the entrance ceremony, and his choice of Wampus amid the cheers and Fontaine’s close-up whispers. Bryce’s wand coming to the second one, a recording of the trial presenting the speech of Fontaine advocating for the execution made the boys look sneakily at the man himself sitting up there also reading a newspaper, then the reaction from other deans, closing on Luca’s statement. The third picture contained a top-down view of a huge circle with the MACUSA emblem painted in the middle of a marble floor where hundreds of wizards sat holding up the transfigured banners, just like their kids at school in protest of the cruel treatment of fairies, shouting slogans that Makris triplets came up with.
“Is that teacher’s nickname?” Luca asked puzzled about the headline.
“Title, you know, best in transfiguration. Kind of dope, I would wager he threatened people responsible for them until they came up with an acceptable one, must have taken weeks.” Bryce speculated maliciously and turned over the page. It described Luca’s case after some background information about both him and the victim, nothing important. Then, the revelation came that while the Wampus house was planning the protest, their dean went to imprison and interrogate the couple staying with their unconscious son in St. Jelweth’s Hospital For Ailing, then invaded the Berbat’s family mansion to search for possible dark wizard or demonic items but found no incriminating evidence, which then he disclosed in a self-snitching letter to the chief editor of ‘Daily Seer’ as support to his claim that people were ‘born evil’ even with no prior indicators of their disposition, even with decent parents, and the need for a system to segregate them from the law-abiding masses as early as in Ilvermorny, essentially doubling down on his speech.
The boys looked at each other in shock, then sneaked another peek at the man in the story sitting there as if nothing admiring the audacity bordering on complete disregard shown in order to reach his goal, whatever it is in his brain. The released couple immediately went to the Minister of Magic's office to seek an explanation for both them and their son, not happy with the ‘trial’ organized by the headmaster and stayed there until now because of the whole strike thing occupying all manpower. Any further news on that front will be reported immediately after reporters get to speak with the Minister busy directing her closest aides to respond to the urgent accidents that nobody took care of since the overnight strike. The boys had to have a moment to digest the information before Bryce flipped the page, a picture again with a reporter holding a microphone to the lips of a sitting there wizard in Auror’s uniform, he input the magic to make it move.
‘Our correspondent interviewed some passers-by, please listen to their opinions: “Such medieval practices should be banned indeed, there is no need for cruelty on humanoid creatures to brew some whimsical, useless potions.” the first man spoke, a woman next to him bent over to speak to the microphone, “Maybe if we paid attention to such issues, there wouldn’t be a rebellion up North, and my husband would stay with me and kids…” she said sadly. “This is what we, the Magical Creatures Protection Association, in short MCPA, always advocated. That boy is a hero, and the perpetrator ought to be given a sentence!” picture cut to a group of wizards that transfigured themselves to resemble other species, now with added extra colourful wings.
“As our readers can see, the action seems to be taking shape and uniting the public around the issue, how big can it grow, and when can we get an official statement? Stay tuned, a special edition of our best magical news source has a chance to be printed if a breakthrough is achieved!” the reporter told the readers to perchance ready their money for a second time this day as the picture stopped moving.’
The last pages described Fontaine’s life, his seven received Order of Merlin accolades, two First Class, four Second Class, and one Third Class during his service as an Auror for nearly thirty years. There would be more, but Luca’s teacher stated that the banquets were too boring to bother showing up and declined any further honours. How he climbed up to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, responsible for security, judgment, and punishment of magical crimes over North America for a decade, a transcript of his letter of resignation because of being tired of seeing no change, no matter how hard he and his fellow Aurors worked, a cavalcade of dark wizards, warlocks, dimensional mages, vampires, and so forth seemed in inexhaustible supply over the land he was supposed to protect. Having made a decision to reform the Ilvermorny he saw as educating wrongly because of the number of eventually fallen youths coming from there, with the aid of his friend and former teacher Geoffrey Roche being a headmaster, he got the position of vice-headmaster from the get-go and successfully revamped the outdated models left over from before the civil war era.
Yet his former subordinates in the Auror’s Office were still dying on the job during the prolonged war years against the rebellion, there were still new dark wizards that he personally educated being locked up in Alcatraz, which for a long time weighed on his mind. The incident finally detonating the resentment in a plea to start forcefully eliminating future dark wizards from the cradle, a call to action for those who have had enough, to kill a year underage student that exposed himself as a future dark wizard in hope to deter at least the currently studying wizards from following the path of no return.
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The paper stated that the protestors in MACUSA seem unaware of his proposition to execute the student brutalizing the fairies, and posted a question if their attitudes could change after hearing the presented in the ‘Daily Seer’ facts. Ending the freshest news section, and going into weather, divination on the topic if November is a good month for couples where a woman was born under the star sign of Aquarius, and a successful Halloween concert of a ghost celebrity singer, the boys finished reading.
“It certainly is an idea…” Luca frowned and pondered like the rest of the boys about the odds of the Fontaine getting what he wanted if he is so connected and if it would come to the intended future good for the Wizarding World. Then a cacophony of squawks alerted everyone in the dining hall, upon lifting up their heads they saw a density of eagles too high to fit them all in the opened passage in the glass leading outside that fought each other to reach the inside of the castle and drop letters on top of the teaching table.
Seconds from that, Fontaine sat there in the midst of red paper lips that kept hurling abuse on him using a voice of deafening volume, looking quite curious about what they had to say as the station he prepared started automatically taking notes in the two thick empty notebooks meant to be diaries. He also wrote to answer normal letters and burned some on the spot, evidently containing a curse or a poisoning agent.
Luca also received letters, the boys busy reading and classifying them into nicely written or filled with insults, the overwhelming majority good ones, and completely no dangerous ones were found as they got supervised by Juno that calmed down and sat down helplessly to join the strike near their group, making sure of safety using an array of spells, her wand dancing over each envelope. That commotion lasted the whole day, news from the parents incoming that they are engaging in talks with the Minister and drafted a preliminary plan of a law change making hungry students think their tiny sacrifice was worth it.
During that time, multiple varied individuals came to the school, Fontaine’s subordinates to exchange old feelings and ideas, wizards that tried to duel or cast spells on him because of his outrageous proposition promptly disarmed and thrown out, Chief Editor of ‘Daily Seer’ himself for a deep dive into the respected wizards’ decision to come up with such a solution, the current Heads of multiple departments, Jailer from Alcatraz, and others that either stayed for a while to debate him or came to look at the current state of the kid’s protest and say a word of approval or disapproval personally.
Some put attention on the leaders of the temporary team and Luca himself, praising their drive and morality after a brief introduction, inviting Slate and others tall enough to look like they were due to graduate this schoolyear into their department. From the smiles on officials’ faces, it could be seen that their proposed revision of law had almost universal approval and that ruling of the school council in Luca’s case was unlikely to be overturned. One guest the no-maj born in the crowd knew very well among them: the bald Mr. Grimsditch in charge of taking care of newcomer wizards, looked into Luca’s ruby eyes with his grey ones seriously, frowning for a second before leaving on his heels without speaking a word to Fontaine, clearly only interested in the boy. Luca’s mood sank, the boy remembered the visitor was the only wizard allowed to read minds freely, his thoughts not a pretty sight to behold in the nearest past. Nothing could be done now, he scratched the crest on his chest and smiled mocking his situation of caring about fairies while both his body and mind could be considered a free-use property of others.
“What are you thinking of?” Bryce asked the suddenly sullen Luca.
“...nothing.” the boy looked over his friend’s thin frame with pity and wondered how much brainwashing the clueless shortie got.
Bryce folded his arms in front to cover under Luca’s strange stare and glared back until Luca averted his sight in embarrassment. The day went interestingly like that, the idle young activists gossiping about those distant yet right in front of them for this brief moment prominent figures and addressing the concept of watching the unconscious Berbat get murdered in cold blood by the vice-headmaster, now everybody convinced capable of doing such a thing after learning of his feats and four decades in the Auror profession without a single visible scar. Next morning, scattered messages from their relatives reached the dining hall, strikers slowly woke up exhausted and lacking nutrition, announcing victory for the cause. Makris brothers yet again threw Luca up and down triumphantly for a while, this time without any mid-air obstruction spoiling the moment, members of all four houses and teachers cheered, including Fontaine, that spent the entire day and night in his spot working on pushing his way of reasoning out to as many as he could.
Freshly printed with ink still drying issue of the daily magazine confirmed it, the Minister of Magic Selina Lopez, a woman coming from one of Twelve Auror families originating in Spain, occupied the front page standing in front of a transfigured podium addressing the protesters formally.
‘On the premise of free speech and his contributions to society, there will be no recourse for the unlawful arrest and trespassing against Mr. and Mrs. Berbat, but Agilber Fontaine must buy the best arm prosthetic available on the market for their son and apologize publicly, also never mention bringing harm to any of his students again under the punishment of dishonorable discharge. The verdict of innocence for Luca Granger is upheld. Demands to change the status of fairies are met in their entirety…’ after the main points, there was a long political speech commending the public’s passion and swift reaction to injustice, rallying them to start working again as the backlog of cases grew uncontrollably without their essential and selfless dedication to serving the taxpayers.
Fontaine stood up and sighed half-sad, half-relieved, and came up to hug the Knight’s members and whoever else didn’t avoid him subconsciously, the trust vice-headmaster should enjoy damaged a lot. The kids had a meal, everyone joking in a good mood about how delicious plain bread can be, and cleaned up the scene using their wands before going to rest in their dormitories, Juno shouts of their lazy asses going back to work straight away ignored by both the other members of the staff and students alike.
The school returned to normal in days after, snow started to fall mid-November and competition between houses immediately began on who can build a bigger snowman gathering the white frozen vapor from all over Ilvermorny’s grounds that was to last until the end of winter.