A/N: Hello everyone! I am so sorry for the long wait but updates on my stories will be sporadic throughout the summer because of my job. I wont be able to write at work as much as I do during our off seasons. I promise I am still working on them though. On another note, I will tell y'all that someone took my USB drive, which has lead to me redoing my outlines for my stories so that I know what mythos I have created for each story, as well as having to rewrite the chapters that I have already started on.
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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
{Parseltongue}
The Great Hall was silent as the adults took in the plan that the teens had told them about. None of them could hide their expressions of shock and amazement that the teens had come up with a plan that would not only allow them to live with their magic without fear from the muggles and what would allow them to live in the open among their own kind. Only Severus was able to keep his composure as he had heard the story the night before; something that he was extremely thankful for because he was well aware that he had the same expression on his face that the others did when he first heard the plan.
"I have a question." The comment from Sirius caused all eyes to turn to the black haired man. Once he was assured he had the teen's attention he continued. "You have already said that you would go through with this plan on your own if necessary, correct?" The teens just nodded as the adults all looked on. "Then this is what confuses me, you said that you would thrive, but you are still only twenty-five people. How exactly do you plan to thrive if you are on your own, or do you just plan to live in comfort until you are old and ready to pass on?"
Some of the teens smiled at the question before tuning their gazes to look at the head of the table at their leader. Harry was looking over at Hermione who was pressing her lips together as she thought about what she wanted to say. Looking around, she finally nodded before starting to speak again.
"We do plan to thrive, but in the since of trying to ensure that our species survives and even grows over time." Even Dumbledore was looking at the teens in confusion now. "Let me explain. For now, my explanation will be based on the notion that it will just be us twenty-five so that it may help you to understand better. As of right now, we are planning on declaring ourselves as a new Nation through the ICW. This is the first part of our plan. Percy has already drafted the request and sent it to the ICW. Even if the Magical world as a whole retreats into underground cities, we will keep our selves separate from the Ministry of Magic here in Britain as none of us would be comfortable living under their rule."
Hermione had to pause in her explanation as the adults had all started to ask questions at the same time again. Hermione just stood silently waiting for the volume to lower a bit as the adults asked questions, questions that were not even directed at her. It looked like the adults all thought that Albus have an answer, but they were not really giving him a chance to speak either. Albus finally spoke when he thought he could be heard over the others. His question caused everyone to go silent and look towards the bushy haired girl again.
"My dear, what was the reasoning used when you decided to create a new nation for yourselves."
It was Neville who answered the Headmaster. "It was my idea, actually. We have been a unit unto ourselves for a long time and none of us wish to live under the yoke of a corrupt Ministry again. It is bad enough that Voldemort is alive in this world, but he probably has followers in key places of power at this time. We are not interested in playing games and trying to weed out his followers nor are we interested in being bound by laws put in place that will ultimately cause our extinction. If our request is denied, we will ask that the Goblins build us a city somewhere far away where we will continue our plans in peace."
"You would leave Britain just to keep away from the Ministry?" Frank Longbottom asked Neville incredulously. Neville just looked at the man that was a copy of the father he had never known and wondered if he would ever find some common ground that they could share and connect over.
"We all would. None of us want to have a Ministry dictate our lives and that of our families when we have children. Percy was able to get a lot of records out of the Archives before the Ministry in our world fell. Those records ended up being used like text books for us since the Professor refused to allow our brains to rot." Some of the teens looked down the table at Severus with what could be considered fond looks by the Slytherins at the table that knew how to read others with masks." One thing that we learned is that the Ministry does not work for the good of the people they represent; they work for the good of the people in office. The Magical communities and governments have allowed that to become the norm, and that is something that none of us want to live with."
"But they are the Ministry; they deserve your loyalty. You cannot live without a government." Frank argued while waving his arms around franticly. Alice had to duck when his hand veered to close to her face.
The adults, including Frank, all stilled when Harry began to speak in his low even voice. He allowed others to speak for the most part and only spoke when it appeared he felt that it was needed. But when he spoke it seemed as though his Magic was actually woven into his voice. That added to the fact that Harry had obviously taken on a lot of mannerisms from the Severus Snape in his world, including speech patterns, caused a few of the adults to shiver.
"It seems that you have failed to understand that your Ministry is not our Ministry and they have done nothing to deserve the loyalty of my people; none of which wish to be subjected to another corrupt government. Our government allowed one of its employees to torture students during our last year. This may not be true of your current government, but even you should be able to admit that Voldemort currently has his hands in your Ministry and there are people in power that abuse their positions. Tell me, why would I allow my people to be exposed to that again when they do not wish to?"
"It is not your choice!" Frank spat out in anger, ignoring the other adults that were trying to get his attention and stop his tirade. They could tell that the teens were becoming angry even through the masks that the teens seemed to be extremely good at maintaining. "What makes you think that you have any right to make decisions for my son or these other children? You are nothing but a child and should listen to those that know better than you do about such things."
Harry's expression was the only one on the teen's side of the table that did not change at all. The others had maintained their masks but were showing minuet expressions in the way they narrowed their eyes, clenched their jaw, or pursed their lips. Each teens ire was directed at Frank Longbottom who remained oblivious to the looks that he was receiving as he berated Harry. The adults just waited to see how they would react as Frank huffed from his seat, finally done ranting.
Slowly, Neville Longbottom stood from his seat and turned towards the adult Longbottoms. He wanted to make sure that they could see him as he set them straight.
"You are not my father." The words were hissed and caused both Longbottoms to pale. Frank flinched when he met the cold gaze of the boy that was his son in another world. "It seems that you also have a small hearing problem. Harry said that we did not wish to live under this Ministry. His exact words were: 'Tell me, why would I allow my people to be exposed to that again when they do not wish to?' They, not I. Harry speaks for us because we wish him to; not because he want to control us. Harry is not like your Minister. He does have our best interest in mind and listens to what we want. He is our leader because we wish it. I will not have you speak to him that way again; if you do, any of you, I will insist that we leave immediately."
"I will agree." Marcus said from his seat across the table, the muscle in his jaw still jumping from the force he was using to grit his teeth. His eyes had specks of gold that were bleeding into the brown indicating that not only was Marcus displeased, but his wolf was as well. Remus shifted in his seat as his own wolf reacted to the scent of an angry Alpha. The fact that the younger boy was still in his seat and had not attacked Frank yet astounded Remus. A person that held an inner Alpha was both rare and near impossible to control when angered, even without changing on a full moon.
The other teens were quick to mutter their agreements as they continued to gaze at the Longbottoms with barely concealed contemptuous glares. Once again the room fell into silence only Albus to clear his throat a few moments later.
"I think I do understand why you would wish to remain autonomous actually. There would be quite a few benefits for you and any that you allow to join you. You said that Mr. Weasley here has already sent off your request to the ICW?" Most of the teens were now looking at the tabletop instead of looking towards the Headmaster. Percy glanced quickly at Harry before he spoke.
"I did. I used one of the school owls to send it. I hope that was alright." While polite, he allowed his mask to drop for a moment to make it abundantly clear that he would have sent it even if there had been an issue with his use of the school owl.
Albus had to force himself not to glare at Frank for causing the teens to shut down on them. Honestly, what was he thinking? Keeping his eyes on Percy and his expression friendly, he nodded his head and smiled. "That is not a problem at all. The ICW will probably call an emergency meeting to consider your request. I will certainly be voicing my approval if that is the direction you feel you need to take to ensure your safety, and I am sure that there has been a lot of thought that has gone into all of your plans. I will ask however, that you, Harry, go with me to the meeting. I know you still have much to explain about your plans since we were interrupted, but I can already tell that the other nations should hear of what you have gone through in your world and the possible threat from the muggles. The fact that you already have what may be a viable plan will hopefully allow others to also prepare for what may be coming."
As Albus spoke, the teens slowly relaxed and looked towards the Headmaster. None of the other adults missed the fact that none of the teens would look at the Longbottoms, both of which were staring towards Neville in the hopes of catching his attention.
"That will be fine." Harry nodded his acceptance. "Just let us know when so that we can be ready to depart." Albus noticed that Neville looked towards Marcus and Adrian from his seat. He did not say anything, but it was obvious that a message had been sent as both boys nodded towards Neville.
"Wonderful. Now, we have gotten a bit off tract. If I am not mistaken, you had explained that you had requested that the ICW declare you an independent Nation and why. You also explained that your explanation would be as though it was just you twenty-five living in a city, be it here or elsewhere. Now, please continue, I am very interested in how you plan to have your community of such a small number to grow, and if your information about the slow population decline for your world holds true in this one, I am sure that the ICW would be interested in hearing a plan that could possibly reverse the damage and allow all Magicals to grow."
Hermione sent the first true smile the teens had shown towards the Headmaster, startling a good number of the adults. Her smile literally seemed to Light up the room. It was the first time they had seen one of the teens be truly expressive aside from the small outburst from Lavender the day before and the larger dressing down that Neville had given Frank a few moments ago.
"Well, our plan is simple really. We plan to have children."
The adults just blinked at the teens as they tried to determine if they were being pranked for some reason.
"Excuse me," Lily leaned forward so that Hermione could see her. She did not want to risk offending the teenager, "I am not sure that I understand. Even if you have children…I think that I am missing something. I just don't see how that would help your new nation grow."
"That is alright Ms. Potter. I think that the piece that you are missing is that I will not just be having children with Harry. I will have at least one child with each of the other boys here. Except for Fred. I drew George and Luna drew Fred. Luna, Lavender, Alecia, Millicent and I are all planning on having at least fourteen children. Angelina and Tracy are planning on thirteen. Padma and Parvati are planning on six and Ginny is planning on five. That is currently the tally anyway. I did not have very much time to make a new chart since we have lost more than a few of our people. My math may not be exact at the moment, but that is the first part of our plan to ensure the survival of Magic. This is also based on the assumption that it would just be us twenty-five which would hopefully be the worst case scenario."
"Fourteen?" Lily was not the only person that was whispering the number, but she was the one that was the loudest. Seeing that she still had Hermione's attention she tried to get the girl to elaborate on this crazy scheme. "Having fourteen children, having the seven children that Molly had or even the two that I had is very dangerous and takes a large toll on the body. I don't see how you would be able to manage to have so many."
"Ah, but when we finally managed to present viable numbers to Sev, he was able to come up with a potion that would strengthen the body during the pregnancy and then one for the mother after the delivery that would heal the body. With the fact that Witches can generally have children up until they are around eighty years old, I am hoping that I can have many more than the fourteen that I have stated. For a while we did have a plan on artificial insemination and surrogacy, but we would not want to use those spells as they had been restricted for a very long time by the Ministry and even the Healers would have had to learn how to cast it safely. I am not sure that any of us will be at that level of Healing proficiency soon. If we could learn those spells, it would allow Ginny, Padma and Parvati to carry more children if they wished. Anyway, fourteen children should be no problem with the potions during and after the pregnancy." Hermione could not tell if the adults were silent because they thought she was crazy or because they were stunned.
"Did you just say that we could have children until we were eighty?" Minerva asked incredulously. When Hermione nodded, Minerva turned her focus to Poppy. "But that can't be right." Everyone could tell it was more a question rather than a statement.
Poppy shifted in her seat as the women in the room all turned their attention on her with a focus that was a bit off putting. "Well, it is technically true. But, the Ministry has long discouraged older women from having children. Having a woman forty or above simply attracted too much attention from the muggles. It is also harder on the body when you are older, so the Ministry issued a mandate about four hundred years ago to discourage older women from having children. Though there are potions for strengthening the body during pregnancy, I have never heard of any that would heal the body after delivery." Poppy turned her attention back towards Hermione in the hopes that she would not have to see the look of slight betrayal from Minerva who she had known wanted a child for many years. Her friend was only sixty-two and could technically still have children, but not without having to deal with the Ministry. As the law set today, Minerva could face time in Azkaban if she were to try for a child.
Hermione continued to explain how they would be able to grow their population slowly over the course of time. "You see. If we are able to have a child with each of the boys, which is our best case scenario, then each of those children will have different genetics that they could then pass down to their children. With those numbers, we would have one hundred thirteen children between us." Hermione paused to allow the adults to let the thought of one hundred children sink in.
"I will round down with each generation for the sake of this explanation and we can then only assume that half of the children will be female but that will vary generation to generation. This plan involves a lot of Arithmancy and muggle Math and Sciences all wrapped up into one project, so forgive me if it is hard to follow. Let's assume that we will have forty-five girls in that second generation that will be willing to have five children of their own with unique genetics. That would give us two hundred and twenty-five children in the third generation. So out of our third generation, let's say that…seventy five of those girls are also willing to have five children. The fourth generation would have three hundred and seventy-five children. Then out of those, if one hundred and twenty choose to have five children then the fifth generation would have six hundred children. It is at that point that the numbers truly start to expand at a phenomenal rate. If only two hundred women of that generation have five there would be one thousand children born to the sixth generation." Hermione smirked as she looked at the dumbfounded expressions on the adults faces. "Of course, that will all depend on the male/female ratio and other factors like I explained before, but it is possible for us to grow, even with our numbers."
"But you would then have to deal with inbreeding and such. You would eventually breed out your very Magic." Lily shrank back in her chair as everyone on her side of the table looked at her like she was crazy. People in the Magical world did not have the same views on intermarrying between families as the muggles did.
"Lily dear, where did you hear such a thing?" Poppy asked gently
"I…I don't know. I guess I just assumed. A lot of the Death Eaters seem to be weaker than us and in school it was some of the purebloods that had trouble with the spells for the most part…with all the inbreeding…I suppose I just assumed it was because there was not enough new blood added to their families. Muggles have been saying that inbreeding can cause all sorts of problems with genetics for a while now. I thought that was why squibs were born."
Poppy was taking a deep breath when Hermione began to speak. "She is both correct and incorrect."
"What do you mean?" Minerva sat forward with a look of interest on her face. Most of the adults aside from the Longbottoms seemed to enjoy hearing the new information that the teens were bringing to light.
"Well, correct me if I am wrong Madam Pomphrey, but it has been observed through the generations that magic seems to correct for genetic deficiencies for the most part." Poppy nodded and smiled at Hermione who turned her attention back to Lily. "Magicals have always had a smaller population and have been prone to intermarrying between families. It has not really caused problems like you would see in muggles. Magic provides a protection of a sort. Of course that does not mean that you would want to have sibling or close cousins marrying and having children, but there is a bit of leeway when dealing with Magic. Our…breeding plan for lack of a better word is very involved and ensures that we keep those that are too closely related from having children. A child from Harry and I would not have a child from Luna and Harry, but possibly from Luna and Marcus. I would be happy to let you see the charts I have, but keep in mind that they will have to be reworked to take into account our recent losses."
"But…I don't understand. I thought that was why squibs were born and why some of the purebloods seemed to be weaker in their Magic."
"That is actually where you were partially correct. Tell me, do you know how muggleborns get their Magic?"
Lily nodded. "Albus explained that a bit when he was talking about how Merlin became a mage. Something about a soul being chosen as worthy and gifted with their Magic."
"Correct. Now, were any of you aware that that gift of Magic actually attaches to our DNA as a gene?" Hermione just received blinks in response to her question.
Poppy looked like she was about to launch herself down the table in order to grill Hermione on her knowledge. Not much was known about their Magic as it related to their physiology and this girl spoke about the subject as though it was common knowledge. Their healers could do many things with Magic, but there were limits when the Healers and Researchers themselves were content to leave things the way they were. After all, if you have gone this long without having to know something, you probably are better off not wasting your time. Poppy was still irritated at the instructor that had told her that while she was still in training.
"How did you figure that out? It must have taken a lot of research to find a spell that would let you look at such a thing. What is DNA and how did you find our Magic on it?"
Hermione's face pinched a bit and the happy expression faded away. She honestly was not looking forward to explaining this to a group of people that only had one person with a muggle education up until the age of eleven. This was completely out of their realm of knowledge. She could only understand it because they had found some muggle books that Severus had them study in the hopes that the teens he was looking after would not be 'hopeless dunderheads.' Hermione had excelled in the sciences.
"It actually was not a spell. The scientists that were looking for ways to take our Magic were the ones that found it. DNA is what makes us who we are. Our DNA carries the traits and genes that we get from our parents; half of our genetics comes from our father and half from our mother. DNA is a long strand that looks like a twisted ladder and records…" Hermione paused as she noticed all the blank looks she was receiving.
"Alright think of your DNA as a long parchment, just like the medical parchment Poppy creates. It is on this parchment that your genetics are written. That parchment decides if your eyes are blue or green, your hair is black or blond, if you are six feet tall or only five feet. This dictates everything about you. The muggles have a way of reading that parchment and seeing everything they need to know about you. One thing they found was what they called the Magic gene. It appears in muggle-born children just as it would any other magical. The scientist found that they were unable to use that gene to take our Magic for themselves though, so while it is wonderful information to have, it was also a large part of why our world became so inhospitable for us."
"Now, this may be a bit too involved so let me know if you get confused." Hermione conjured an odd shiny white chalkboard to float beside her. She smiled at the expressions of awe that came from the teachers in the room when she began to write on the board with a marker. "When Magic gifts a muggle-born with Magic, the Magic is pure and untainted. So, it would be written like this…two capital M's. This represents a muggle-born. It is very likely that all Magical families started with a muggle-born at some point and they have just passed their Magic on to their children."
"Now you know how a Mage is created, correct?" Hermione looked around and saw everyone nodding. "Perfect, then you are aware of Magic taking a direct interest in peoples lives. Well when Magic is offended at that level, it then interferes and increases the Magical potential of the person in question. Now, it is the same even if Magic has not been offended to the point that it involves direct interference like it did with Merlin and Harry. It is possible for Magic to decrease your amount of Magic just as it can increase it when necessary. I am going to use Harry as an example because you already know that Magic has interfered in his life."
"When Voldemort tried to kill Harry as a baby, Magic was offended and interfered, saving Harry. While Magic saved Harry, Magic also imposed a consequence onto Voldemort for his actions. One of those was that Voldemort was left without a body until our first year at Hogwarts. However, if he were to be tested, it is more than likely that his Magic gene, had it been represented with two capital M's beforehand, would be represented with both a capital and lower case M. The capital is called the dominate gene and the lower case is the recessive. This is just an example as Voldemort was never tested and it is very possible that he had already offended Magic or that his family had at some point and passed down the recessive gene. This was just to give you an example of a possible scenario for Magic doing such a thing."
"We have not found out to much about what can cause the regression of the gene, but we do know that a lot of the Wizards that followed Voldemort and had been known to commit crimes against nature or humanity had the recessive gene. Also a lot of their children had the recessive gene, but you have to understand that their recessive genes could have been passed down for quite a while through their families and we have no way to know where it started because we did not know who in the family would test with two positive Magic genes. It is too new of a discovery. We do think that it would take doing something on the level of murdering someone in cold blood to cause a regression of the gene, but other than checking the…health…of the genes every once and a while, there is no real way to know what causes it other than checking. The only reason to know that this happens is that we knew one of our older classmates that had been captured and had been tested to have two dominate gene. He escaped and joined Voldemort. Two years later he was captured by the muggles again and then tested for a recessive gene. It is pretty clear that he at some point offended Magic and was punished. None of us are willing to purposefully try and offend our Magic just to find out what situations would cause the punishment, but we know that it is possible."
The adults all nodded their agreement even though more than half of them were confused at the information. Albus, Lucius, Poppy, Narcissa, Severus, and Lily were hanging on every word that Hermione spoke.
"Now let's assume that two people come from families that have both offended Magic at some point, and both people that we are considering have a dominate and recessive Magic gene. They are going to be married and have children." Hermione drew what looked to be a box with a cross separating the inside of the box into four equal segments on her whiteboard. The lines of the cross on the top and left extended out of the box. At the top she wrote a large M on one side of the line and a small m and on the left hand side going down she wrote the same. "On the top we have the Mother and on the left we have the father. In regards to the Magic gene, there are four possible outcomes for their children. They have a twenty-five percent chance each time they give birth of having a child with two dominate genes." Hermione wrote MM in the first square. "They then have a fifty percent chance of having a child with both a dominate and recessive gene like their own combination." Hermione drew her fingers along the paths to the boxes before writing in the genes. "Now then, they also have a twenty-five percent chance of having a child with two recessive genes. This is what we would call a squib."
Hermione drew a new box with new mother and father representations. "The squib could have children with someone with two dominate genes and the only possible combination for their children would be for a dominate and recessive combination. Each child would be able to do Magic. You don't see that in the Magical communities because the families immediately have their children sent to the muggle world or in some cases killed to avoid their shame."
She quickly drew two more boxes. "Another set of parents, one with both a recessive and dominate gene and a parent with two dominate genes would have a seventy-five percent chance of having a child with both genes dominate and only twenty-five percent chance of producing a child that is a carrier for the recessive gene. The percentages would be the same only in reverse if one parent was a squib or had two recessive genes and the other had one of each dominate and recessive. And of course those are the percentages for each pregnancy. If you were to have one combination, it does not been that you are guaranteed on of the other three for the next pregnancy. It resets and you start over each time with the same percentages possible."
"I do think that it is possible for Magic to change someone's recessive gene back to a dominate one if Magic is especially pleased with someone. The fact that Magic interferes to cause a regression or to increase the power of someone that has been put in danger in extreme circumstances makes me feel that would be the logical conclusion."
"Anyway, back to Lily, you were correct to assume that inbreeding can lead to higher birthrates of squibs, and even a lower power level in the children, but only if the parents are carriers of the recessive genes. Magic seems to take care of the possible defects that you would see in muggles which is why you don't see Magicals with disorders that are genetic. The big issue is that the families that are intermarrying are continuously passing down that one gene and people that are willing to do something that offends Magic tend to only be acceptable by people that share their views. Therefore they intermarry more often. That is one of the reasons why the families you would class as 'Light' have not had as much trouble with the issue as those you would class as 'Dark.' The Light families may be carriers for the gene, but they are more likely to marry muggleborns that do not carry the recessive gene, increasing their odds of breeding the gene out. The Magical communities have encouraged the two factions of Light and Dark to remain separate and even encourages the prejudices between them which ultimately cause the gene pool that is being drawn from to be even more restricted."
"So Dark Magic is bad for you and your Magic. I always thought so and told those that liked to play with Dark Magic that they were just asking for trouble." Frank seemed to smirk towards the end of the table where Severus, Lucius and Narcissa were just staring stoically back at the opinionated man. Narcissa seemed to be made of stone she was sitting so stiffly.
"That is not what I said at all." Hermione said evenly causing Frank to snap his head towards her and glare. "I said that the families you would class as 'Dark' would have more problems. Not that Dark Magic was the problem."
"Well, what is the difference? Dark is evil and that is all there is too it." Alice finally spoke up to back up her husband. While not glaring, it was clear that she had more than a few preconceived notions about Dark Magic and how they were evil. A few of the other adults at the table were nodding their heads as they looked towards Hermione. Though some of them looked like they agreed with Alice and Frank, it was clear by their expressions that they were interested in what Hermione would say. Even Molly, a staunch supporter of the Light in their old world, was looking at her with clear interest in her eyes.
Hermione sighed and looked towards Harry with an expression that the adults could not read. For a few moments they all watched as the two seemed to have a silent conversation just between the two of them. Finally, Hermione smiled and sat down while Harry sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Looking up, he slowly met the gazes of the adults across the table. Catching and holding the gaze of Albus, Harry began to speak in his smooth, even voice. He was able to catch and hold everyone's attention much like Severus held the attention of his students when lecturing.
"There is really no such thing as Dark and Light Magic." The room was completely silent and still despite the comment that was against everything most of them had known all their lives. "There is just Magic. The classifications that you use are based on intent if anything. Those classifications are incorrect in most cases and overly restrictive as the Ministry has a habit of classifying anything that they do not understand or that they do not have the power to control, under the label of 'Dark.' Truly, anything that would cause you or harm outside of defending yourself, would be considered Forbidden Acts under the classification used during Salazar's time. However, it was not the spell that was 'Dark' and that was judged. It was the person and their intent and actions. Over the course of time, the Forbidden Acts of harming another was warped and spells were placed in different classifications and misused by the populous. It was only two hundred years after Salazar left Hogwarts that the Ministry of Magic in Britain created the concept of Light and the Dark."