Chapter 203: Series of Events

9th March 2012, New York City

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

“They tried to give me a Ministry position, that I rejected. They tried getting me to join the Department of Mysteries, that I also rejected. They even tried to get me to teach at Hogwarts. I was almost tempted, but I didn’t like teaching too much and I didn’t see myself grading papers all day. They even tried to convince my parents to marry me off. They refused, of course, but it was nearly made into an actual law.”

I frowned at her, “They tried to bind you to the Ministry so that they could use you as leverage in their international dealings, like Dumbledore did for years.”

She nodded, “Exactly. I was able to get out of it, thanks to Nathan since he was the Minister at the time. But my biggest problem came at the hand of his undersecretary, Hermione Granger.”

I was surprised at this, “Really? You’re talking about Granger? The bookworm that followed Nathan around in his ridiculous adventures?”

Rose chuckled, “Yes. I have to admit that I didn’t see her being this much of a nuisance. Unfortunately, she’s a role model to all Muggleborns in the country, being the first one that had done this well in the Ministry. Never mind the fact that it was my brother who got her the job in the first place. Well, turns out that Hermione was great at organizing things which helped Nathan a lot, but it came at the cost of her somewhat extremist views.”

I looked at her weirdly, “Was she biased against purebloods or something?”

Rose snorted, “I wish she was. It would have been easy to deal with. What she wants is to centralize magical knowledge for everyone in the world, where people can request the information of a certain spell or ritual from their governments to use properly. She wants every single noble family to hand out their personal magical spells, since it wasn’t fair that some people grow up with magical advantages. It’s a sort of magical communism, to be more precise.”

I shook my head at this, “That would never work. The idea itself is preposterous. It might be a viable model if only the ministries had the capabilities to create spells and rituals, but this isn’t the case. If someone’s offer of a spell isn’t accepted, then they only need to invent a spell with similar effect, or even pay someone to do so. At worst, people can just share the spells later on. Dangerous spells would easily be spread around. And that’s even assuming noble houses grow mad and just hand in all their family’s legacies.”

Rose’s face remained serious, “You’re correct on all counts, but Granger is charismatic, and Nathan lets her get away with a lot because she made herself almost indispensable to his administration. She also has a large following of Muggleborns. She started a movement one that is becoming influential with every muggleborn that graduates from Hogwarts.”

“Then if they want special spells, instead of whining, why don’t they just create their own?”

Rose shrugged, “It’s not about the spells, really. Muggleborns still arrive to our world as outsiders. Things are getting better, but the noble families still have many advantages over them.”

“Ah, so it comes down to greed, jealousy and hunger for power. It’s human nature after all, and no matter how much they try to delude themselves otherwise, mages are still human beings in their core,” I then looked at Rose quizzically, “I still don’t understand why this would cause trouble for you.”

She nodded, “Well, it started with Nathan. He noticed that I was still getting better at magic and concluded that I was studying your ‘Brand of Magic’ as he called it. He assumed that you had left me a grimoire of sorts, that I studied for years. My parents also seemed to come to the same conclusion, but unfortunately, he blabbed to Granger, complaining about my progress in magic. The truth is that you are, well Jasmine Evanshade is, considered to be one of the greatest magical prodigies to ever exist, considering that you held your own against Dumbledore with your own brand of magic that you created. They worship you, because they think that had you been alive, you would have led them into a new magical era, perhaps even an utopia. They consider your death to be one of the greatest tragedies of the wizarding world, and many curse Dumbledore’s name because of it. Your magic, is considered sacred, and when Hermione learnt that I had a ‘grimoire’ she went to the Wizengamot for help.”

I sighed in exasperation, “I can see where this is going. The promise of power, of knowledge, would get them to take drastic measures.”

“Well, the Wizengamot wanted to force me to reveal your magic, so that it would be under Ministry control. I was able to turn the verdict by declaring this magic to be family magic and showing them how this could be used as a precedent that would force them to give away their own family magic. They backed off after that, especially when it became apparent that it was a trap laid by Granger to get them to give away their family magic down the line. But things didn’t end there, they wanted me to at least give the presumed grimoire to my brother, as my head of house. This, of course, led to a large debate when I said that it was left to me in your will, and only me. And that if they wanted to force me to spread it, I would send the entire grimoire to the States to the Sayre family. They stopped trying to force me to give away your magic after that. Still, things were getting out of hand in Britain for me, and the continuous laws being created just to try to get control of me were getting annoying, so I chose to leave, taking everything, even your portrait with me. I decided to travel the world, and there was nothing they could do to stop me without messing with international affairs.”

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I look at her curiously, “So you’re not in contact with Magical Britain anymore?”

My sister shook her head, “No, I am. I still call my parents every few days or so, and I come back during the holidays to visit my niece and nephew, but I rarely stay more than two weeks at a time there. I made the mistake of doing that for a while, and Granger still tried to confront me about the greater good of the magical world, and that I was hampering the development and progress of our world.”

I snorted, “So, she annoyed you into leaving your own country…”

She blushed, “Come on, she didn’t annoy me into leaving the country. It’s just that I noticed how stifling things were in there and how little of the world I’ve actually seen. My passion is magic and staying in the same place wouldn’t help me with my own magical development. A change in perspective can be very helpful.”

I nodded, “That it can. So, where did you go after that?”

“Well, I traveled through Europe for a couple of years, visited Berlin, Paris. The Vatican was utterly fascinating.”

I snorted, “You have no idea how it was back then. There was an entire light magic sect there back in the day, whose whole purpose was to kill anything magical that they deemed to be a threat to the pope. They weren’t that influential outside the city, but Vampires, Werewolves, and magical creatures in general learnt to avoid that place. I’m not really sure what happened to them.”

Selene interjected, “They were hunted down by a vampire coven that they angered after they killed the daughter of the leader when she was just going through the city.”

“Oh, yes, I remember now. An entire army of vampires attacked the city, but they had no idea who was responsible for the girl’s death only that it was a mage, so they hunted down every single wizard and witch, no matter their age, in the entire city, killed the pope, burnt down their library, and took every treasure they could find. It took the support of the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Italy to bring the city back to where it used to be, and even then it took a few decades to do that. They also hired warders so that no magical being could step foot in the city. The wards held for a few centuries, but after the Statute of Secrecy went up, it wasn’t maintained anymore so they fell later on. Funnily enough, the vampire massacre had far reaching consequences, including an exponential rise of witch hunts, which started to even be supported by the church.”

Rose looked to be very interested in that story, “So that is what happened during the dark centuries they kept babbling about. You know, sometimes I forget how old you are, Jasmine.”

I gave her a bitter laugh, “I wish I could say the same, Rose. So, tell me, what did you do next?”

“Well, after that I went to Egypt, trained under a few curse breakers. I think one of the tombs was yours by the way. Then I decided to go to Asia for a bit. You haven’t seen a real dragon until you’ve gone to a Chinese dragon reserve. I went to Japan for a while, tried to learn their paper runes. I learnt a few basic ones but didn’t become a master. It was very interesting but not really useful if I was being honest. The interest was purely academic. In the end, I went to Nepal and found Kamar-Taj. I decided to go for a visit like your portrait advised me. It was nice, but I didn’t have any talent for sorcery.”

I nodded, “I don’t expect you would. It took me centuries to learn how to use both my magic and sorcery. Using either is relatively easy but learning how to juggle multiple kinds of energy to cast magic is an entire minefield. Unless one is gifted with a prodigal understanding of both magics, then it would be almost impossible to learn both disciplines in a single lifetime, let alone master them.”

“That’s what the ancient one said. But imagine my surprise that while I stayed in the sanctum, I heard two young women saying that Jasmine Sayre had disappeared and that they were looking for her. I immediately knew that it was you, and I decided to follow the two of them for a while. Of course, they didn’t even notice me.”

I gave Jean and Wanda a very unimpressed look, and the two girls looked away and blushed in embarrassment. Rose chuckled at the byplay and continued her story, “Well, at first, I wanted to see what relation they had with you. When I heard Wanda calling you her mother, I knew that something was wrong. You could sometimes leave, yes, but you wouldn’t leave someone who called you ‘mum’ without at least explaining why. This meant that something had happened, something you didn’t see coming.”

I was starting to feel guilty at her words. Did Wanda really keep searching for me across the globe. Selene should have told her that I was alive and not in this universe. Rose didn’t seem to notice my feelings and continued her tale, “But until I could figure out what happened, I decided to continue following them. One of them was your daughter, which meant that she was my niece, my family, and I had to make sure that she was alright. So far, both of them were very capable, and were able to travel without being noticed or being attacked. But unfortunately, they ran into trouble that they couldn’t deal with. They ran into someone who was actively hunting them down. They ran into a sorcerer called Karl Mordo.”