Ink and Parchment ~ blood and bone

62

Blaise choked on his croissant.

“There’s going to be riots” Draco exclaimed, almost gleeful at the prospect and Eliza grinned sharply.

“Viva la revolution”

Draco wasn’t wrong.

~

Eliza had not intentionally been late to the Wizengamot meeting.

The owls arrived for her and Hermione at breakfast two days later – Eliza had almost missed it due to her insane time-travel schedule but instead watched as a large pompous owl landed on their table. It was nothing like her Hedwig and Eliza found herself giving the owl a dirty look as though it had offended her personally.

And then she saw that the owl was from the Wizengamot and glared even harder.

“I know that look” Draco taunted, flipping through his own mail “Emergency Wizengamot meeting?”

Eliza nodded her head glumly.

“You brought this on yourself” Daphne pointed out and although she was right Eliza glared anyway. Daphne let out a laugh in response and patted Eliza’s shoulder in commiseration and whilst that didn’t solve her problem she appreciated it anyway.

“Try not to kill anyone” Blaise said brightly and Theo looked up from his book to briefly wish her luck in ‘terrorising the old coots on the Wizengamot’

She had not intended on being late.

But she stayed behind at Hogwarts to finish her coffee anyway.

By the time she made it to the Wizengamot chamber the atrium was almost empty and she could hear Scrimgeour trying to gain control of the chaos inside. The second she stepped in she was near overwhelmed by the shouting coming from all sides of the room.

Everyone was at each other’s throats and she hadn’t even said anything yet – in fact they were so busy arguing they didn’t even notice her slipping in and taking her seat. She listened intently, trying to gauge the reactions of the room as Scrimgeour tried and failed to wrangle control over the room.

There were a few who seemed to believe the research was all a scam, an interesting stance but so unbelievably wrong it was laughable. Everyone else seemed to be in agreement about the research but judging by the cacophony of noise no-one quite knew what to do with it. On the surface the split opinion would appear to hinder her but Eliza knew she could make it work. If no one knew who to listen too then maybe they would be happy to listen to her.

“Listen” Scrimgeour shouted as the room finally quieted “We are here to debate what our response will be to the recent research that has been publicised that muggle-borns are in fact not muggle born but squib descendants”

“Why should we have to do anything” Lord Blishwick said scathingly “Muggle, Squib – isn’t it all the same at the end of the day”

“Of course you’d think that” Lord Bulstrode shot back “You lot still live in the medieval ages”

“Oh and what do you suggest we do” someone else snarled from the crowd “Go and lick some muggle boots?”

The shouting started again, only this time it was a lot more vicious. She caught Tom’s gaze across the crowd and the pair of them shared matching conspiring smiles.

“You believe that squibs don’t belong in our world because they don’t have magic, and yet you still allow muggle-borns to languish in the muggle world for eleven years even though they do have magic” Tom cut in smoothly, not having to raise his voice to draw attention “There seems to be some flaw in your logic Lord Blishwick”