-.-.-Chapter 20-.-.-

Sadly however my dreams of a Skeever massacre had to be put on hold. Once our shopping in Diagon alley was done and we had said our goodbyes to the Grangers, with my parents exchanging telephone numbers, we made our way home and I quickly went up to my room to begin looking over my new books.

Putting the books on actual magic aside, for the time being, I instead chose to mainly focus on the history books and others that my dad had picked out that worked as primers for new muggle borns coming into the magical world.

I spent the next two hours up in my room pouring over the various texts that I now had access to wanting to verify my knowledge on things and confirm, or disprove, my various concepts of the magical world.

It was only when my mum called me down for lunch, an hour later, that I came down the stairs with a frown on my face.

“What’s up lad?” my dad asked, seeing the look on my face.

I shook my head, “Nothing, just rather disappointed in some of my findings from the books I had you get?” I said as I sat at the table.

“Were things not as you thought?” My mum asked as she placed a plate with some sandwiches down in front of me.

“In a way, it’s just not as grandiose as I was hoping it would be,” I sighed, “I had this whole picture in my mind of Lords and Ladies, with young masters and so on,” I shook my head, “the original books on this world as well, as the movies, were heavily focus on Hogwarts and the events that transpired there. The rest of the world at large wasn’t really covered in detail, so fans of the series took it upon themselves to build upon it in fictions of their own, turns out they were way off the mark as to what was actually fact.”

“How so?” my dad asked curiously.

“Well for a start, fans of the series speculated that the purebloods all had birthrights, that those on the governing body of magical britain had titles and that such were hereditary like back in our history,” I explained, “the reality is that, while titles like Lord and Lady do exist, they’re more formalities, and positions on the governing body are, for the most part, gained not by birthright but are through being voted in as well as monetary contributions to the ministry as retainment fees”

‘Which now that I think on it actually does make sense, given that how large the population of magical britain would have to be in order to maintain a steady population as long as it has, even with all the cases of inbreeding, there would be no feasible way that the the purebloods could each have such rights’ I thought to myself.

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“They have to pay for their right to vote on things?” my mum said, sounding rather disgusted with the idea.

“To retain their seats,” I clarified, “there are one hundred and eighty seats on the Wizengamot, two thirds of them are taken up by those voted in by their peers while the last third is made up of various heads of branches of the ministry like the DLME and such, as well a seats set aside for each family that has reached a certain status that allows them to permanently maintain a seat. Should one of the seats fall vacant due to one reason or another a vote is held to nominate another to fill the position, but they can only keep their seat as long as they pay the yearly fee which I suspect is rather high.”

“That’s just ridiculous, it would be absolutely childs play to abuse that system, anyone could put their own people into place as seats open up, with enough time anyone could have enough people voting for them because they’re paying to retain their seat.” My dad said, shaking his head as he pointed out the flaws in the system.

“Yep,” I nodded as he voiced my thoughts on the matter.

“You mentioned certain families having permanent seats,” My mum asked.

I nodded, “it’s only a select group, the four founders of Hogwarts all have their seats, but they’ve been empty for years as no one has been able to rightfully claim them. Other such seats are from really old families that have contributed greatly to magical Britain over the years and hold the title Most Noble and Most Ancient. The last house to be elevated to such was House Potter due to James and Lily Potters sacrifice against Lord Voldemort and the belief that Harry somehow defeated him, so when Harry Comes of age he’ll have a seat waiting for him as Lord Potter, other houses are the likes of Bones, Black, Longbottom, Dumbledore, Parkinson, Malfoy and others”

“And just how do they get such titles?” My dad asked curiously.

“It’s a mixture of things,” I said as I took up one of my sandwiches, “the Ancient part of the title has to do with how long the family has been magical, ten generations is needed for the Most ancient title, and then the Noble aspect can be obtained through various family members contributions to the magical world, be that through their own hands or by funding others to do so and claiming credit, it can also be attained instantly, in the case of Headmaster Dumbledore as he did when he was awarded the order of Merlin, First class, which is another way that individuals can attain a seat for the duration of their life. Though for a family it takes three members of the family attaining such honors for the family to be given a permanent seat.”

“Order of Merlin?” My mother asked.

“It’s one of the highest award that can be given out my the ministry to individuals that have done some great feat or contribution for the magical world at large, Dumbledore got his for his defeat of Grindelwald during the end of world war two, there are three classes of it depending on how great the accomplishment, third, second and first class, each would be comparable to a knighthood given by the queen to us” I clarified.

My dad shook his head, “it all sounds so…”

“Malleable?” I suggested as it had been my thoughts on the truth behind how things in the wingemot turned out to work.

“As good a word as any” My dad snorted, “never much liked or cared for politics, bunch of corrupt idiots blowing hot air and making a lot of noise and not doing anything at the end of the day, except lining their own pockets.”

I just smirked and turned my attention to my lunch, all that reading had made me hungry.

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Chapter word count: 1144