Third-Person PoV:
Hermione flicked through another book on the rights of Magical Creatures within the Wizarding World. Her lips pursed as she went over a section explaining how the British Ministry of Magic classified magical creatures. Honestly, the rights that magical creatures had in the Wizarding World were worse than animal rights in the Muggle World, she could barely even call these rights.
The Gryffindor was planning on meeting Draco and Daphne in the library to discuss more Pureblood society and magical creatures. In the past, the girl was more focused on the rights of House-Elves, probably because their mistreatment was more apparent than most creatures, she should have been able to connect the dots and realize that perhaps many other magical creatures are probably abused. Truth be told the brunette was surprised that the Wyverns even had a large claim over dragons, in the short time she was at their house with the Order it came to light that dragons possibly didn't need to be placed in the XXXXX classification, sure they could potentially be domesticated but the Wyverns just let them do their own thing. Maybe if Wizarding Society learned to treat magical creatures with more respect and stopped dehumanizing them it could be-
"Ummm hey, Hermione." Her unruly hair flounced on her shoulders as she raised her head up to look at who said her name, she had been rushing this morning to get some more reading in before she met the two Slytherin's and forgot to do the hair routine that Lavender and Parvati recommended for her.
"Oh hey, Harry. Not going to Hogsmeade today?" Harry nibbled at his lips and shuffled a foot into the ground.
"No, I actually wanted to speak with you if that's alright."
She closed the book that she was reading, placing it in front of her. "Sure go ahead."
The Boy-Who-Lived sat down on a chair in front of her drawing in a deep breath. "I want to apologize for how I've been behaving and how I've treated you. I-it was wrong of me to take my anger out on you and Ron this year and to not take your interests seriously as well, you've tried your best to support me and Ron in Quidditch even when we don't appreciate it and the fact that you hate Quidditch." They both chuckled at that comment. "As friends, we got into too many arguments and frequently, it would have been better to take some time to cool down and discuss the problem when none of us were angry." Silence settled between them, Harry fidgeted on the chair as he felt Hermione's gaze piercing through him.
"I accept your apology, Harry, I would like to try being friends again, in a more healthy way, it'll take some time but I'm willing to work for our friendship. Although... I owe you an apology too-"
"What?! No, you don't! I was in the wrong Hermione, you did nothing wrong!"
Hermione shushed him as she frantically looked around for Madam Pince.
"That doesn't matter at all Harry, I was still in the wrong too, I always acted like I knew better and treated you and Ronald like you were stupid which neither of you is, just because you aren't s smart academically or smart in the way I am it doesn't necessarily mean you're dumb, just smart in other areas. I should have asked you and Ronald about some of the decisions that I made before I went through with them, that's how most of our arguments occurred in the first place."
Neither spoke for a while, their eyes locked and a tiny smile crept upon their lips. A heavy weight had been lifted off their shoulders, the constant ebbing of their fractured friendship no longer festered in the back of their mind.
"-she's been feeling quite restless lately and we are unsure of how we can assist her." Draco rounded the corner with Daphne pursing her lips beside him.
"Perhaps you should taker her out, away from the crowds, and have a talk, communication is key in any relationship."
The blond sighed and ran a hand through his locks, which weren't greased back for once, "That should have been the first thing for me to think of, thank yo- oh." His eyes grey eyes connected with emerald and the familiar sneer constructed onto his face. His mouth opened before it closed again, a flush built onto his face as he looked back at Harry guiltily. "Sorry Potter, hope I didn't offend you."
The Boy-Who-Lived peered at the Slytherin with squinted eyes and mouth drawn open. "But you didn't even say anything."
"I was about to. And I...well. I want to apologize for how I've treated you since the first year, nothing can excuse my behaviour and I understand now how wrong it was of me to behave like that. A simple apology won't fix the damage that I've done to you and your friends but I hope my actions will show just how sincere I am. You don't have to accept my apology right now or ever, but you just deserve one." Draco swallowed and grasped his hands together tightly. Harry studied him. He was fidgeting more than he had seen him do in the past four years of studying at Hogwarts, he had been holding back more on trading insults and starting brawls.
But could he really forgive and forget?
"I can't every forget the way you were and how you treated Hermione. It was disgusting. Will I ever forgive you? I really don't know Malfoy, but we'll see, I'll try and be civil with you at the very least." The Gryffindor shrugged, Hermione nibbled her bottom lip, her eyes flitting between the two rivals. A small smile broke out on Draco's face.
"That's more than I expected but that's fair, why don't we all sit." His hands gestured to the seats around Hermione and they all sat back down.
"So....uhhh what were you all meeting in the library for?"
"We were coming up with a plan to present to Professor Dumbledore about how we can start a club on promoting the rights of magical creatures."
"It will be rather easy to convince him but getting students to agree will be hard on some points, the right of House Elves will be one of them, especially those of our class." Daphne gestured to herself and Draco.
"Convincing them that they're slaves will definitely be hard but I'm positive we can do it."
No. 12 Grimmauld Place,
Sirius rolled his eyes as Molly Weasley rushed back up the stairs to start cleaning one of the few rooms that were left to clean. If he was bothered he would simply set fire to the whole house and rebuild it, yet he was certain that his mother had found a way to prevent such damage from being done to his childhood house. A lot of cursed items have been found in many of the rooms and they were still working on how to open the door to his mother's and his father's rooms where there was sure to be plenty more.
Shacklebolt had called a meeting for the Order this coming evening, piquing his interest, no doubt it was about the Americans.
"Afternoon Padfoot, been up to any mischief recently?" Remus shuffled into the kitchen, a twinkle shining in his green eyes as he took off his wet jacket, a few of the stitches on it were fraying.
"I'm afraid I have not Moony, not much to do when you're stuck inside." He grumbles, his nose scrunches up and he face plants onto the table.
"Maybe this Order meeting will give you something more productive to do."
"I doubt it, it's always just an information dump, never something to do. It's not like we learn anything much in the first place, He's doing a good job of hiding his tracks." Remus hummed in agreement as he placed a newspaper on the table and started boiling water on the stove for some tea. The two spoke no more as the werewolf busied himself around the kitchen, setting up enough teapots for the whole Order.
"Do-do you think I'll ever be able to leave this place?"
Nothing was said for a while.
"Truthfully I don't know Sirius. You'd need to have another trial, a fair trial in Order to be a free man. The only way we could do that will most likely be through the Royal Family, they didn't comment or even care that a convicted criminal was in their presence. But how long, who knows."
The kettles whistled and jiggled about on the stove.
"They probably could, but would they. You saw how quickly they dismissed helping in the war, so why would they even bother helping me."
Hot water trickled into the teapots set on the side, tea bags of earl grey were plopped inside and left to diffuse.
"They gave you a warning about you dying, that would be connected to Harry's actions, somehow."
He went through the cupboards and took some biscuits to rest on three plates that were distributed down the table evenly.
"But why Harry? He's already done enough. Has had enough happened to him, he's still a child."
Remus removed the tea bags and placed the six teapots along the table.
"They've trained from a young age, the concept of a child would be different for them, they clearly live a short life so they have to grow up quickly. It's probably extremely weird to them that we coddle our children still."
Teacups were settled onto the wood and cubes of sugar in small bowls rested beside the teapots.
"We had to grow up quickly too Moony, I-I just wish that he could have had a childhood and still have one. Unlike us."
Their eyes met and Remus's movements paused.
"Yeah, unlike us."
"We should've taken the chance when we had it."
"We still could, we still have time."
"I know. I'm just not ready... I'm still healing, I still need time, I'm sorry."
"There's no need to apologize Padfoot, take your time. Just remember I'm always here for you."
Silence settled once again in the kitchen, Remus sat down and opened his newspaper, ignoring the burn of Sirius's wistful eyes that bore into him.
Molly rushed into the room and paused as she looked around. "Remus! I didn't hear you come in, did you make tea for the Order? I was just coming down to make it."
"Yes, it didn't take too long to do, why don't you sit down and rest your feet before the meeting." He turned another page of his paper.
"Thank you, Remus, that was nice of you, unlike some people." She narrowed her eyes at Sirius who rolled his eyes, he tilted his head back and threw an arm over his face.
"But Molly it's so boring here! Besides you could have asked Kreacher to do it."
"Remind me to take you for a walk later." The Weasley Matriarch mused, pouring herself a cup of tea.
"Ahhh, good the rest of us are coming in." Shaklebolt, opened the door and walked in, the other members of the Order followed behind him, chattering amongst themselves as they settled down in the chairs.
"So what exactly have you called us here for Shaklebolt? I have a patrol to get back to you know." Moody grumbled.
"Well, I've been looking into our Royal guests and have decided to share what I know about them."
"Oh?" McGonagall raised an eyebrow.
"Perseus Jackson was in the muggle news a couple of years back. He and his mother had gone missing after the car of his ex-stepfather was found exploded on Long Island Sound. The stepfather accused Perseus of the crime and a wanted poster was put out across the country starting a manhunt for a 12-year-old child."
"They started a manhunt for a 12-year-old?" Arthur stared at Shaklebolt with a blank look plastered across his face.
"Unfortunetabley, he was spotted across the country multiple times with Marchioness Annabeth Chase and another identified as Grover Underwood, they even blew up the Gateway Arch. He was caught when fighting his kidnapper with guns and revealed that the kidnapper was holding his mother hostage while he forced the three of them to do his bidding. Money was raised to help fly the three of them back to New York and no further investigations were taken with the case, his stepfather shortly went missing afterward, his mother, Sally Blofis nee Jackson did send out a report of him missing but not much was done with the missing case, it was pretty much ignored entirely."
"Might have something to do with why they're hunted, they did say that for them it's kill or be killed." Tonks bit into a custard cream.
"I wonder if they actually have killed, the poor dears." Molly sighed into her cup of tea.
"Anything else?" Snape asked.
"Jason and Thalia Grace are the children of deceased TV Star Beryl Grace. While they were out on a family trip Jason Grace went missing, not long after Thalia Grace called the police on her mother claiming that she had given up her brother to someone named Juno. Beryl Grace wasn't arrested but Thalia ran away from home not long after, Beryl died in a crash while drink driving only a year before the Jackson case. The only thing I don't understand is that Thalia should be older."
"Older? The hell do you mean by that?"
"She should be 24, yet she looks 16."
An unsettling quiet nestled between the group.
"What kind of magic could she have used to... stop herself from aging?"
"Has to be Dark Magic." Moody barked, "I say we keep them hostage and use truth serum to tell us how."
"...The same could be said for Nico di Angelo and Hazel Levesque. There's no record of either of them in the muggle world, the last ones are of a deceased Hazel Levesque and Marie Levesque from 1942 in a collapsed cave. And a missing case for Nico di Angelo and Bianca di Angelo from 1939 where they were seen entering the Lotus Hotel shortly after their mother's death after being caught in the fire of a hotel that was struck with lightning. In 2011 a Bianca and Nico di Angelo attended Westover Hall and were taken in December by Perseus Jackson, Grover Underwood, Thalia Grace, and Annabeth Chase. Bianca was shortly seen across the country with Perseus, Thalia, Grover, and an unidentified young woman and was never to be seen again."
"If they were the same Hazel Levesque and Nico di Angelo then they would be 91 and 89 respectively. Yet they appear to have the same father, King Hadrien."
"That clearly has to be a lie, it's impossible to be immortal."
"Maybe for us, but we don't even know anything about their magic and how much it differs, what else have you got Kingsley," Minerva demanded.
He shook his head. "Nothing much, they all appear to follow some sort of trend in their muggle records: a single parent, one unknown parent, some have stepparents and stepsiblings seeming to often not be that good, ADHD, dyslexia, bad school records, ending up in unexplainable situations, some seem to stop going to muggle school altogether by the time they reach 10 or 11. We already know from Hermione that Rachel Dare and Piper McLean are daughters of famous people in the muggle world. Leo Valdez was placed into the foster system after his mother died when their garage burnt down, his carers often commenting that there was something wrong with the child and the police believe that he started the fire."
"You think that he started the fire? I do remember seeing him set his hand on fire once"
"I honestly don't know, there's something off about the whole family, we all need to see what else we can find out."
"Oho, is this finally some work I can do?" Sirius sat up straighter and a grin worked its way onto his face.
"I need you all to do what you can to find out more about these cases or the family, they're very close-lipped, they did give a lot away at the Wyverns but that still doesn't get us anywhere."
"It did sound like they had a Civil War, the first war they fought in, we know nothing about their most recent war."
"We don't know how powerful their magic is either, they have four armies, but the numbers in each army are unknown. We have no idea what we're truly up against if we make enemies out of them."
"Maybe the children might know more..."
"No, they're already helping us by training Harry. We should have started training him after his first year or even his second year, it's clear that no matter what we do to protect him he's going to wind up in some sort of danger, the least we should do is ensure that he's trained to protect not only himself but those he cares about."
"I agree, we need to train Harry more, he needs it more than ever."
They murmured amongst themselves for some time.
"We can decide at a later date what we could do to aid Harry, but for now do what you can to find out about the Royal Family of America. I'm starting to think that perhaps our enemy is using similar magic to theirs to help himself. Meeting dismissed." Kingsley stalked out of the kitchen, giving a quick farewell as he dashed back to his job at the Ministry, a few more left to get back to patrols, jobs, or their family leaving the Weasley's, Remus, Sirius, and Tonks.
"The more I learn about this family the more I want them away from Harry." The man groaned and dragged a hand through his long, dark hair.
"Don't we all, I'm sure it's not the children's fault, they never asked to be born into that lifestyle, no one would."
"True, but that lifestyle has now become a part of them, who they are now, they aren't children any more Molls."
Hehee, sorry for the long wait, I hope this is a nice treat for you all🥰🥰