Chapter 251: The Court
7th October 2012, Malfoy Manor
(Hermione Granger POV)
To say that the last few days in Hermione Granger's life were hectic would be an understatement. What else would you expect from Jasmine Potter's return. Hermione would bet her magic that the woman spread chaos everywhere she went. But this time, she screwed everything up.
Previously, the young witch was barely processing the impact of the woman's return, and she didn't take into consideration the reactions that the general populace had before the large scale duel that happened in broad daylight.
The magical world existed on a delicate balance, one that magical Titans like Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindelwald, and Jasmine Potter, tended to annihilate the moment they revealed their power.
It was why organizations from all around the globe tended to cripple them as they did Nathan Potter, when they were young, to avoid someone destroying the balance of powers this easily. Because why would someone follow the laws of the land if they could kill most of the administration with a few spells. It was easy to forget how powerful wizards and witches could be. One need only look at ancient myths, where legendary battles changed landscapes like they were nothing.
Sure, things were probably exaggerated in these myths and legends, since Dumbledore, while rumored to be one of the most powerful wizards in centuries, had never even hinted at having power on that scale. Hermione always thought that these tales were romanticized and so did the entire wizarding world. And a few days ago, they were all proven wrong.
The Duel between Jasmine Potter and the elderly man was a thing of legends, and the population was terrified. Some fled the country, fearing the rise of a new Dark Lord or Dark Lady which would cause another civil war in Britain, some chose to worship the two fighters as gods. But most of them were just frozen in fear, not understanding what they should do, and asking the Ministry for advice, something that neither Nathan nor Hermione knew how to deal with.
They couldn't explain what happened since they barely knew the details, only that Jasmine fought someone very powerful, and she was the only survivor of the battle. They had no idea about why the fight happened in the first place, and Rose refused to comment on the issue. Things were getting really bad for the Ministry, and there was talk of removing Nathan from office because of his lack of action, something that Hermione just couldn't allow; a lot of her power came from using Nathan's name, which means that Nathan resigning or being removed from his post would hurt her plans immensely.
Hermione wasn't the only one who was being affected by the battle, the rest of the Wizengamot were also in hot waters. They didn't know what to do, and Hermione couldn't blame them, as hateful as most of them could be. It was odd, to see such a display of power and without saying anything. All they had was silence. There were no plans, no agenda, no movements, no demands, no ambitions, nothing really, and it was driving everyone insane.
It was almost a rule of thumb in the magical world, a magical Titan trains themself until they deem themselves ready where, in a spectacular display of power, they reveal themselves and their ambitions. Rose Potter was obviously taken off guard which revealed her powers before she was ready, which was understandable, but Jasmine Potter completely blew off the entire premise. And now, the entire magical world had to deal with a witch that was known as a certified prodigy before her untimely demise.
People demanded answers and they had nothing. And even if they did, Hermione didn't know if she would be smart enough to deal with Jasmine on her own. The blatant explicit threat that the woman had given her still rang in her ears. She had never felt this small, and this useless before. It was horrible, she knew that she was barely more than an insect compared to the woman in front of her, and there was nothing she could do to change that. She couldn't even name a single spell that could deal with someone this powerful. She had no choice but to swallow her pride and stop even trying to go after the powerful witch.
But things were already out of her hands, what happened in Hogsmeade rattled people enough that she was here, in Malfoy Manor, with the elite that made up Magical Britain.
She was currently sitting at a circular table in the home of one of her school rivals, Draco Malfoy, who announced the beginning of the meeting, "Alright, the court is in order, let's begin."
The Court of Shadows, the power behind the power, it was an international organization that was at least two centuries old and made up of multiple cells, each one in a different country. It was a meeting held at a round table, where each party is considered equal, where the true leaders of each magical nation met to discuss urgent issues. They set up rules and regulations to be followed by everyone and violating them will result in the instant death of the violator.
They're the ones who implemented the whole poisoning the magic of possible magical Titans when they were young and were very strict with the knowing violators. Kendra Dumbledore was part of the Court and she hid the fact that her son, Albus, was a possible magical Titan. When he revealed the extent of his power during his NEWTS, she suffered a tragic accident that took her life. The Court knew that going after Dumbledore after he had just achieved his magical maturity was suicide, especially when they had no idea of the extent of his prowess, which ended up being the right decision, since he's the one who ended up stopping Grindelwald, another magical Titan who had slipped through the system, something that was unprecedented since the previous century, every single magical Titan was recognized and dealt with when they were younger.
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Draco Malfoy, having inherited the seat from his father, Lucius, after his tragic demise – the man was a follower of Voldemort, but even then, he had more ambitions than just serving a mad man, he was the Court's main spy in the man's forces.
The host of the meeting spoke up, "Alright, let's let Smith go first, what grievances do you have?"
The blond man looked at Malfoy incredulously, "What grievances do I have? Hogsmeade got turned into a fucking warzone in the middle of the day, Malfoy."
Elphias Doge barked out a laugh, "He's got you there, boy. We have bigger issues than due process, right now. I've seen a lot of wizards in my days, from Dumbledore to Grindelwald, and even that nutcase Riddle. But I have never seen anything approaching this scale from any of them. This was a fight between two godly beings, not some magical Titans. How did two beings on this scale escape our surveillance for so long?"
The man had a point. Hermione had no idea how someone like Jasmine Potter could avoid making a ruckus for decades at a time. As foolish as he liked to appear to the public, Elphias Doge was a wolf in sheep's clothing, and that's saying it lightly. The man had spied on Dumbledore for decades, while pretending to be his friend, giving the Court reports of his personality and capabilities throughout the duration of the war with Grindelwald and the civil war with Voldemort, but also during peace time as well. Even after the former headmaster's death, Doge's resourcefulness granted him a seat at the table.
Roxanne Greengrass spoke up next, "It doesn't matter what happened in the past, it will not change anything. We need to decide how to proceed, and for that we need intel. I have noticed that Granger has been suspiciously quiet during this conversation."
Damn that woman. She was always perceptive. She was actually born Roxanne Rosier, daughter of Vinda Rosier, one of Grindelwald's main lieutenants, who had also spied on behalf of the court.
Hermione hesitated for a minute before sighing in resignation. In the court, allegiances and ideologies do not matter, only the stability of the government. If they figure out that she was keeping something this crucial from them, then she was dead, but even then, she was more afraid of Jasmine Potter. There was something inhuman, otherworldly, in the woman's eyes as she threatened her. Hermione had no wish to incur her wrath, but she had no choice but to reveal what she knew, "Yes, I know more information about the battle, but not a lot."
With these words the entirety of the table turned in unison towards her. For the first time since she joined the Court of Shadows, she had the complete attention of the two dozen members that made up the court. Unfortunately, she hoped that this would have happened in another situation, "We have no idea why the fight happened in the first place, but we know that it continued somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, where things got a lot more destructive. I believe that the two combatants did their best to limit casualties, or at least one of them did since they changed the location of the battle when things started to get heated, which in the end resulted in the death of the man."
All over the table, people sighed in relief. At least one of the monsters was dead. With that said, Hermione continued, "The Statute of Secrecy wasn't even broken, the entire fight was removed from the minds of the muggles somehow, and any footage of the fight was edited on a planetary scale. The muggles have attributed this to some natural accident."
Again, the rest of the court started to murmur, pleased with the result. A big problem with fights on this scale was the fact that they tended to break the Statute quite easily. The aftermath tended to be actually more costly than the damage the fight actually cost, since usually all it took was a few repairing charms to set things right, unless some serious dark magic was used, that is. But the manpower needed for obliviations and to corrupt security tapes and whatnot was very extensive, and usually cost a fortune with each incident.
Greengrass though, didn't change her facial expression. She just kept staring at Hermione, and the young witch felt like the woman was just looking through her and directly into her soul. Hermione had to take a look at her Occlumency shield because someone staring at her unblinkingly like that was just unnatural unless they used Legilimency. After the murmurs stopped, the woman spoke up, "That's not it, there's something else you haven't told us."
Damn, Hermione didn't want to reveal this. Telling the court of Jasmine's continued existence would cause too many complications. They would not tolerate someone with that kind of power existing outside of their influence and without any kind of surveillance on her. They were probably hoping that this was just a foreign witch that wouldn't be interested in the British Isles, which would have meant that it would have been another cell's problem.
They would undoubtedly go after her, and Hermione didn't know how that would go. The court was powerful and influential, but Jasmine Potter was just on another level, and she seems pretty peaceful, doing her own thing, whatever the hell that was. Having the Court going after her would cause wars, and nothing but chaos, something that Hermione often tried to avoid as it caused a lot of complications down the line. But then again, Chaos was a ladder, and while they would be preoccupied with Jasmine Potter, Hermione would try to further her agenda.
In the end, the muggleborn witch had no choice in the matter either way; she could not hide something like this from the Court, especially when she was asked details this explicitly.
Sighing, Hermione nodded, "Yes, while we don't know the identity of the man who perished, we do know the identity of the woman. She was revealed to be Jasmine Potter, the sister to Rose Potter and Nathan Potter."
Her proclamation shocked the entire court, and Hermione took some pleasure in seeing the impassive Roxanne Greengrass lose her impassive face and gape at the muggleborn witch.
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