The Rest of the Story

DISCLAIMER: That part of this world and those characters you’ve seen before belong to their Creator: JKR. The rest is mine - although I cannot quit my day job as I make no $$$

A/N: Much of this chapter might seem unnecessary and perhaps it is, but I had fun writing it anyway. Some of this is history and some is fiction and I’ll leave any historical inaccuracies to the fictional side of things.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT: THE REST OF THE STORY

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29 th 1993.

“I’d like to hear it,” the Commander said.

“So would I,” Sirius added.

“It begins with the Treaty of Separation signed by King John of England and Anulf, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot of Greater Britannia in 1207… ,” Sir John began. “The Treaty of Separation seems to be unique to the British Isles. As far as I’m aware there’s nothing similar elsewhere prior to the International Statue of Secrecy of 1692 which effectively did the same thing throughout Europe and the Americas but without prior notice to the Muggles. One of the provisions King John insisted upon was a proviso that barred a wizard from ever ruling England. There was no reason to believe that was about to happen and no historical basis for believing it had happened. Then again, King John was both capricious and more than a little paranoid. There was a similar proviso in the companion Treaty of Separation with Scotland of 1212 but such provisos do not exist in the Treaties with the various Irish and Welsh principalities. The proviso makes little sense considering it was a highly unlikely outcome. As I said, the odds of a given Muggle couple having a Muggle Born witch or wizard are incredibly slim. To that we have to add the fact that immediate heirs to the throne married for political reasons, which almost always meant to foreigners. Such marriages persisted until recently and it’s said (not entirely accurately) that the Muggle First World War was really a family feud on a global scale. However, assuming it had ever been politically advantageous for a Prince to marry a witch, the Treaty of Separation ended that so there was practically no chance of a wizard ever rising to the throne. Basically, the proviso protected against a near impossibility.

“Add to it this office or rather its earlier incarnation which was set up to enforce and monitor compliance with the Treaty. That necessarily included preventing the Royal Family from marrying their kids off to a known witch or wizard and retaining any claim on the throne. Essentially, the family chose the bride and our job was to make sure she was not a witch and for the most part they were not.”

“For the most part?” the Commander asked.

Sir John laughed. “Well, this wouldn’t be much of a story if a problem had never arose! That problem was the chaos of succession following the usurpation of the throne by Henry Bollingbrook, cousin of King Richard II and after chucking that king into a prison of sorts, King Henry IV. Not surprisingly, he spent a fair part of his rule suppressing revolts. What few remember is that was hardly odd. Just about every Norman King before him had to do the same at one point or another. I don’t think Edward III did, but he had to contend with the Black Death when he was not beating up on the French. Revolting against the King was almost a national sport. Succeeding, however, was rather rare.

“Right then. Henry V succeeded his usurper father, suppressed a half-hearted revolt and then kept the potential malcontents busy really beating up on the hapless French. He married a French princess for political reasons and rather promptly died leaving a widow and a nine month old son, Henry VI. During the boy king’s minority, the people who were supposed to keep it all in order did a terrible job. They lost everything in France gained by his father, plus everything dating back to William of Normandy except Calais and the Channel Islands. Needless to say, the folks in England were not thrilled; especially those who had lost property to the French. It didn’t help at all that the boy grew to be a lousy king. By all accounts he was a decent sort of person, but he was weak and indecisive as a ruler and that’s giving him more credit than he’s probably due. His nobility found him revolting, that is to say they found him easy to revolt against.

“His cousin, Edward, eventually deposed him. Edward was supposedly single at the time. From the standpoint of this office, prior to overthrowing Henry he was also at best a distant contender for the throne so we did not see need to either scrutinize his love life, nor advise him of the perils of marrying a witch. When he secured the throne we did so advise him and he effectively told us that sort of thing was his business and not ours. Again, not that it mattered as his advisors were busy looking for some foreign princess to set him up with and he was busy putting down revolts which might be good for begetting bastards, but hardly led to finding a wife or at least they had not in the past. Leave it to Edward to change that.

“About a generation or so before this mess my magical ancestors came to England. A distant grandmother of mine was both a witch and a daughter of a Count who had lands in a few places including Flanders. As there was no treaty of separation there, it was not unheard of for there to be magicals in the nobility on the Continent. That daughter married a son of Henry IV of England, but he died before there were any children. She then married her husband’s chamberlain, a knight but a commoner. They had a brood together; fourteen kids of which all but one lived to adulthood including a daughter, another of my distant grandmothers. She married a knight and commoner (as knights were not nobility simply by being knighted) and had two sons before he bought it in battle, of which there were many at the time.

“The legend is that she caught the eye of the bachelor King Edward IV as he rode past her home with a large retinue and he married her in secret not long thereafter. Publically, he was in negotiations to marry the daughter of the King of France. That ended when he announced that it was too late, he had already married becoming the first King of England to marry a local. She was accused of using witchcraft to ensnare the King. This was the first thing our office was asked to look into. We could neither prove nor disprove the accusation but the fact that it could not be proven suggests she did not. It is more probable that as she was a real looker and would not be content being a mere mistress he married her to get in her knickers; a habit he did not give up simply ‘cause he had a wife. I mean chasing skirts, not marrying them.

“But this office was convinced that she was a witch and while that alone was not a violation of the Treaty, the fact that the King had no legitimate issue made it a potential violation for if they had children, in all probability those children would be magical and as a boy of theirs would be heir to the throne, should that heir succeed to the throne it would violate the treaty which would place England under the rule of a wizard.”

“You’re talking about the Princes in the Tower!” the Commander said.

“Yes, but we’ll get to that,” Sir John continued. “Well, at first there was not much that needed to be done. After all, the Treaty of Separation did not prevent a king from marrying a witch only a wizard from becoming king. We were not worried about daughters.”

“Why not?” Sirius asked.

“At that time a woman could not rule England. The Treaty made it clear that this was about ruling England in your own right, not something less. Queen Consorts had administered England in the absence of their husbands before, but that’s not the same as ruling since their authority came from their husband and not their position as Queen. Besides, if the king only had a daughter the line would pass to the next closest male relative upon the king’s death. This didn’t change until Henry VIII changed the rules several decades after this mess so that his daughter could rule if his string of wives failed to produce a son who lived. But before Henry VIII did that; as long as there were no sons there was no potential violation. It would not have mattered at all if it were known that Edward’s witch was magically barren for if she were none of her children would be magical and the Treaty could not be at risk. But this office knew that was not the case. She had two sons by her first marriage, both of them were magical if not trained as such so it was probable any children born to the King would be as well. It was six years before there was a potential for a crisis for their first three children were daughters. Then she started bearing sons.

“Now remember, it is a wizard on the throne that was the issue in all this. Unless and until that happened, nothing happened to violate the treaty. So long as the sons never took the throne, nothing happened. The easiest thing to do was to have the king bar his sons from the throne. He did not and in some ways you can’t blame him. The country had been torn apart by wars for the throne because succession had been messed up when Henry IV deposed his cousin. To bar the sons could lead to another dynastic struggle. Then there was the king himself who really did not like people telling him what he could or could not do. Add to it a wife who was from a family of social climbers who stood to lose everything if her son was not there on the throne to let them keep it and… well, so much for an easy way.

“The one thing this office would not do is kill the boys. While as wizards they were the reason there was a potential mess, they did not cause it. That was their parents' doing so why should they suffer for it? If this office could get them off to Hogwarts before they could be crowned - in other words before they were both too old to attend and their father died - by attending, they would cross over the line such that they could not rise to the throne. But their mother had never attended a magical school. She had been taught by her mother and was content to teach her children herself. In her opinion magical school was for Muggle Borns or young witches and wizards born to incompetent witches and wizards. We hoped to convince her it would be better to send the lot off to Hogwarts when their time came, but we never did. Her children were more valuable to her as marriage bargaining chips than as witches and wizards.

“Nor could our office openly defy the King. Let’s leave out it would be treason even if his right to rule could be debated. The fact of the matter was that we enforced the Treaty for the Crown and he was the Crown. But this was also a time where keeping the Crown on your head was easier said than done. Nothing truly prevented us from suggesting things to other claimants. With luck, Edward would be deposed before his son’s were old enough to pose a true problem and the matter could be closed. The problem was: deposed by whom?

“There was a nobleman named Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. He had been a crucial player in putting Edward IV on the throne and Edward had then thanked him by marrying a local commoner while the Earl was off negotiating on Edward’s behalf for the marriage to the daughter of the King of France. Warwick might’ve accepted this but for the fact that he was never told in advance that his negotiations were not meant to bear fruit and he took the snubbing personally whether it was meant that way or not and immediately turned on the King. This was well before the King had a son to pose problems and therefore well before this office was thinking about doing anything. Warwick wanted Edward off the throne, and by 1470 when a son was born so did we after he and his wife refused to bar their oldest son from succeeding to the throne.

“Warwick did not want the throne for himself. He had no personal claim to it. But the deposed Henry VI was still alive and, moreover, the King’s brother George Duke of Clarence wanted the throne as well and Warwick was more than willing to get it for one or the other of them. He had, after all, put Edward on the throne and then had been plotting to get rid of him too for a few years. But it didn’t work out to well for him and for his prime candidate the son of Henry VI. Warwick was killed in battle in 1471. Henry’s son was killed in another battle not long afterwards although there was also reason to believe he was captured and summarily executed. Henry VI was captured and later murdered in captivity. It would seem that getting rid of the sitting King was not as easy as it had once been.

“There were two claimants left who seemed to want a shot at the crown. One was not a good choice. That was Edward Tudor who in addition to being very young at the time also came from a line of bastards. Like Kings Henry IV through VI, he was descended from John of Gaunt, son of Edward the III. But he was descended from a mistress, not a wife and John of Gaunt’s later marriage to that mistress did not cure this defect. The other active claimant was King Edward’s younger brother George, Duke of Clarence. Our records don’t say why the man was intent on the throne, unless it was because he couldn’t pay his bills and his brother kept him on a short leash. The only things George was really good at was getting drunk and spending his brother’s money. He might’ve been good at other things, but being drunk most of the time hindered it. In the end he bungled it one time too many even for his forgiving brother. The legend is he was drowned in a barrel of wine which was a fitting end but aside from Shakespeare who wrote about it more than a hundred years after the fact nothing says this was truly the case only that he was executed for treason. In the opinion of this office, after Henry VI and his son were killed the best option would’ve been Richard Duke of York, the King’s other brother. But he was loyal to the king and would not consider it.”

“But that was Richard III, wasn’t it?” the Commander asked. “He took the throne!”

“Not from his brother,” Sir John said, “and we’ll get to that. Anyway, our office needed to keep the King’s sons away from the throne and the King and his wife were not about to cooperate. We were left with Richard, who was not about to go after it at least not at the expense of his brother; the other brother George who was little more than comic relief and Edward Tudor who’s only supporter was his mother. The only thing we really had going for us at all was no one could stand the queen. She might’ve been quite popular had she not spent her efforts conniving to enrich and ennoble her numerous brothers, sisters and her two sons by prior marriage. That was not a way to win the support of the more established nobility and it did not matter a whit to the older families that so few of them had survived the decades of civil war. Perhaps that was part of the problem as it seemed to the older families that there were almost as many upstarts from the queen’s commoner family as there were of them. What was known as the War of the Roses all but wiped out the English nobility when it finally came to an end.

“So, we were faced with a King who was fairly safe upon the throne; certainly safer than any in a century. He was married to a witch which was not in and of itself an issue. They had several children, including three sons although one would die in infancy all of whom were magical and should any of the sons survive their father, he would be King and the Treaty would be violated.”

“And what would happen then?” Sirius asked.

“The King would then regain the right of rule over the magical realm,” Sir John said. “That was a default clause King John had insisted upon knowing the magicals would hate it. It did not exist in any of the other treaties. But this office also saw nothing in the treaty that prevented the wizards from preventing that, also unlike the other treaties. It’s all very disjointed and contradictory. What is certain is that wizards never believed in the divine right of kings or that they were anointed by God or some such. Muggles at the time debated this every time they thought of deposing a king. Without that barrier, what was to stop a wizard from killing the king? The Treaty of Separation had. After all, there was nothing to gain in doing so as the King was none of the wizards' business and couldn’t do anything to them. But if the King were a wizard, all that changed. This could lead to problems best avoided. The proviso said the wizard King could claim the right to rule the magicals. But it did not say that would happen.

“Hypothetically, the Wizard King would demand his rights and probably impose a tax. After all, insofar as the magicals were concerned he was not hampered by the Magna Carta and other laws that said he could only tax if Parliament let him. The Wizengamot would probably refuse. To them, he was a nobody and certainly no relation to the ruling magical Houses. But the King would have one thing the wizards lacked: an Army. The English nobility might’ve been able to survive after wars that cost them thousands of lives. The wizards could not. Even at that time, had the Muggles made a concerted and united effort to crush the wizarding world, they might well have succeeded in the end by sheer weight of numbers and the wiser wizards knew this. But the wiser wizards would not be able to avoid the Muggles if they were ruled in turn by a wizard. Had one of Edward’s sons become king, the wizards may have tried to kill him if he even thought of extending his rule into their world most likely and this would’ve triggered a bloody war between the two groups one which would’ve been far more devastating to the magicals.”

“But if the King left the wizards alone… ,” the Earl began.

“Her Majesty Elizabeth would leave them alone,” Sir John said. “There is much that she can do as Queen, but very little that she would do as Queen. Back then, however, monarchs were not nearly as judicious in their exercise of power as recent generations. Quite the opposite. It is hard to envision a King of that time not taxing the magical world simply because it might upset them. It’s also hard not to envision the magicals just sitting there and taking it. The considered opinion of this office was that the wizards would kill the wizard King or die trying. Success would throw the Muggle world into chaos, which is never good. Failure would destroy the magical one. It was not a pleasant prospect at the time.

“In 1483, Edward IV died. He was only forty-one at the time but his death was natural and not by magical means as far as we were able to determine at the time and we have had no reason to revise that assessment. On his deathbed, he named his brother Richard as Lord Protector of England. We’re pretty sure this was against the wishes of his wife who wanted that to go to one of her relations. Richard was now more than willing to prevent a violation of the Treaty provided it was in a way that did not involve killing the boys. He was less concerned about appearances. After all, killing rival claimants was more or less what one did in England at the time and after a brief furor, people would forget about it. So as soon as possible, the two surviving sons were sent off to Hogwarts.

“Richard then added a stroke of genius. He was concerned that wizard school or not, the boys might try and claim the throne one day. But the one thing that was unassailable in the law at the time was that a bastard could never be King. William of Normandy had been one, and he had made sure there could never be another. No one had challenged the validity of the marriage of Edward IV while he was alive. But at the time of his death, the only person who could testify as to the marriage was the widow. All of the other witnesses and the priest who had married them were dead and their deaths, while convenient, were not suspicious. The law was that the bride and groom could not give competent testimony as to a marriage or its validity. But Richard went further than just calling the widow a liar. Somehow an obscure (but real) Bishop came forward with evidence that the King was already married, or at least close enough that his marriage to the Queen was invalid. Naturally, the alleged bride of that marriage was long dead. But it was enough to convince Parliament that the marriage to the Queen was legally a sham and they independently enacted legislation to that effect. As such, the children of the marriage were born out of wedlock and therefore bastards and as no bastard had any claim to the throne…”

“So Richard didn’t kill the boys?” the Commander asked.

“Why would he?”

“To secure the throne!”

“He had to kill a lot more than two boys if that was his goal,” Sir John said. “There were the five sisters. While they had no claim themselves, their sons would have a stronger claim than any child of Richard’s. Much of the evils foisted upon Richard had been committed centuries before by John. John killed his own nephew or at least did nothing to avoid suspicion. He chucked his niece into a prison for life ‘cause her claim and the claim of any children she might have were better than his or that of his son the future Henry III. She was prevented from ever marrying or having children. In Richard’s case, in addition to King Edward’s numerous children, his other older brother George Duke of Clarence had surviving children who had better claims. Richard did see to it that several of the Queen’s relations died, but they were direct threats to him personally and not rival claimants to the throne. In fact, when Richard’s son died, King Richard named his brother George’s son as heir. Not that this matters. Parliament declared the children of Edward IV bastards, not Richard. He had no need to kill them after that.”

“But the sources suggest…”

“John Rous wrote with praise about Richard when he was alive. He later wrote that Richard was deformed and evil to the core. The later writings were long after Richard was dead and Henry VII was on the throne and King Henry probably had something to do with the revisions. Sir Thomas More wrote a biography which was probably the source for Shakespeare’s play. One must note he was a member of Henry VIII’s Privy Council at the time having come from practical obscurity. Likewise, he could not write from personal experience (unlike Rous) as he was between the ages of five and seven when Richard was king. Henry VII’s claim to the throne was at best tenuous and he killed a lot of other rivals to keep it secure, those he missed his son dispatched. Neither of those men were likely to look kindly on someone who even suggested they were usurpers and even more base at that than any of their predecessor usurpers. It’s kind of hard to write an objective history if the censor can take your head for disputing the party line, isn’t it?”

“I… the bodies in the tower?” the Commander added.

“Okay, you lost me,” Sirius said. “Where did these bodies come from?”

“It’s known that sometime later two bodies were dug up at the Tower of London where it was said the two sons of Edward IV who had been imprisoned after their father’s death,” the Earl replied.

Sir John nodded. “They were buried outside the tower,” he said. “They were found some two hundred years after the fact and it’s not like people at that time could date remains at all. So little ‘evidence’ remained that all anyone could do even in far more recent times was estimate that the bodies were around the age of the two boys. But they could not even tell if the bodies were that of two boys much less anything else such as when they might have died. The Tower of London has stood since the late Eleventh Century and has been used as a prison for most of that time even when it was also a royal residence. Goodness knows how many people died there over the centuries. It is far more likely, absent better evidence, that the two bodies were children of staff or perhaps of a prisoner who died of illness sometime before they were found which means anytime within an almost 600 year window. In other words, it could be anyone except the princes.”

“And you’re sure because…?” the Commander asked.

“My surname is Fitzedward. The name dates from the time when my ancestor entered Hogwarts. His name was Richard Fitzedward (or Richard, acknowledged bastard of Edward which is the later derivation of the Norman prefix ‘Fitz’) formerly Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV.”

“Bloody hell!” the Commander said.

“It’s not like I advertise.”

“And the other prince?”

“His brother’s line was all girls, or at least only the girls lived to have children of their own. To the Muggles, Edward and Richard died in 1485. To the magicals, you would find that Edward and Richard Fitzedward began Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in September 1485, having been residents of Hogsmeade Village for about two months prior.”

“And that was the reason for the Concordant?” the Commander asked.

“That was years later,” Sir John said. “We need to get there. So, the Princes who are no longer princes are off to Hogwarts to learn their craft. Their Uncle Richard is on the throne and is generally respected by anyone not related to his brother Edward’s wife. But he does have enemies, among them is Henry Tudor whose mother wants him on the throne despite the fact that while a descendant of a king he has no viable claim at all. Henry had the added problem that he has no real friends or supporters in England and he’s lived most of his young adult life in France and Brittany. When Richard III came to the throne, Henry’s mother financed a smear campaign to gain support for her son as the rightful heir. This campaign may have started the rumour that the sons of Edward IV had been murdered, although it gained no real following. The only nobles willing to accept the rumour were no friends of Richard to begin with and were already inclined to revolt.

“Henry made two attempts at the crown. The first was an unmitigated disaster for him as his main supporter in England was captured and beheaded. Richard came close to getting Henry as well having bought the loyalty of Henry’s primary sponsor the Duke of Brittany. Henry fled to the French court which was more than willing to cause internal problems in England provided France could be kept out of it. His support in England was limited to the relatives of the former Queen. I guess you can’t blame them as no one liked them and the new King gave them the boot from anything they had gained under Edward IV. The French paid for a mercenary army to land in England under Henry and they also hoped for support from the Welsh who were always a good source of troops.

“It was a recipe for disaster. Richard had far more loyal troops than Henry could muster. Most of Henry’s army were barely trained mercenaries loyal to their money pouches and nothing else and they were facing a battle hardened army and, more critically, they were outnumbered. The Battle of Bosworth Field, as the encounter is called, was similar to the Battle of Hastings. The side that won the battle was losing dreadfully up until almost literally the last minute when the other side’s leader fell. Richard was winning and then saw an opportunity to kill his rival. At that point, Thomas and William Stanley switched sides. They had been fighting for Richard but changed and attacked. It should be noted that Thomas Stanley was now married to Henry Tudor’s mother which may have been a factor. But the Stanley’s had always been opportunists and they saw one here. I think it’s more likely they saw this as a chance to decide the battle and reap the rewards and they saw Henry as being the more grateful seeing as the King expected them to fight for him and Henry did not. Richard was killed and Henry was crowned King.

“One of the first things Henry VII did as King was marry Elizabeth of York, oldest daughter of Edward the IV and sister to the two Fitzedward boys at Hogwarts. This had been the result of an agreement between the mothers of the bride and groom after Edward IV had died. This office had a spy with the former queen and knew the arrangement was because the former queen absolutely refused to be concerned about the Treaty and blamed her husband’s death and the disappearance of her sons on this office. The later was true, but we were not about to tell the scheming witch the boys were alive and well. The former was a figment of her imagination. While this office considered the arrangement somewhat of a red herring, we had had enough fun with that witch and her kin and decided not to take any more chances with her. At the time she made her deal with Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry and wife of Thomas Stanley, my ancestor the widowed Queen Elizabeth and her daughters were in sanctuary which is sort of a self imposed prison,” he added for Sirius, “that has the advantage that a reputable person will not break in and drag you out. Odd that choice.”

“Oh?” the listeners asked.

“King Richard III was alleged to have violated sanctuary before if you believe Shakespeare. He was believed to have done it to kill the son of Henry VI after the Battle of Tewksbury. So what could possibly convince the wife of the beneficiary of Richard’s action to assume that he would not do the same to get her and her children out of the way?

“King Richard did not violate sanctuary. He did see the widowed Queen and convinced her to turn over her younger son to him. She did and the boy was promptly sent off to Hogwarts. Aside from that, he did nothing. The widowed Queen and her daughters remained in sanctuary for close to a year. By the time they left, many thought her sons were already dead which again begs the question why would she leave with her daughters if she believed there was any truth to the rumour that her sons were dead? It’s true she never said they were alive or if she did there’s no record of it. But why would turn herself and the rest of her children over to the care of a man who killed her sons? As for the other tale that Richard did so because he wanted to marry Elizabeth the daughter, why would he then enter into negotiations to marry her off to the crown prince of Portugal if he intended to marry her should his ailing wife die. Richard’s wife died as did his son and only child, which could be proof of a motive to marry his niece. He did not marry the girl nor take even the first steps to making that happen as he would need a dispensation from Rome for there to have been any validity to the marriage and any issue of the marriage. He never bothered to ask for one. Having a possible motive to do something does not mean that one will do it. As for the alleged crimes Richard is said to have committed against his brother’s family we have weak motives, questionable opportunities and most critically no bodies to prove that the crimes had even been committed. It’s one of the biggest frame up jobs in history! But I’m off topic.

“There’s another reason why Richard would not marry Elizabeth of York. Like her brothers, she was magical. Richard knew about the Treaty and what might happen if it was violated and would have prevented the boys from getting the throne if it came to it. This office got them out of the picture, with some help from Richard. But he was not about to avoid the problem of the Treaty violation only to fall right back into it by marrying a witch. Not even his enemies would say that Richard was stupid. And unlike his brothers, he most certainly did not think with his dick.

“In December 1483, Henry Tudor declared his intent to marry Elizabeth of York should he take the throne. This office decided to deal with that potential problem just in case. We arranged it that a maid who was with the widowed queen and her daughters got sick. That was done by one of our wizards. The maid had to be replaced so we sent in a witch who actually was sick, although not nearly as obviously so as the maid she replaced. That witch had a mild illness whose physical symptoms could be as benign as an occasional sneeze which would hardly raise an eyebrow on its own in the damp quarters of the widowed Queen’s sanctuary. It was a magical malady more than a physical one and particularly dangerous to young witches who have not yet attained magical maturity. If they catch it and it goes untreated, they will be rendered magically barren. Even at that time some four hundred years ago, that illness was well known to the magical community even if it was hardly common. Had Elizabeth Woodville, the widowed Queen attended Hogwarts she would’ve known about it and could’ve dealt with it. But her mother had refused to send her just as she had refused to send her children both believing they knew more than the school did. The result ended the potential problem as later events proved that while the girls did not lose their magic, not a single magical child was born to any of them.”

“If it was that easy, why didn’t this office do it sooner?” the Commander asked.

“Unlike their Muggle compatriots of the time, the magicals in this office knew they were playing with fire. They used a biological weapon as a last resort, not first. I won’t say they were more moral than their Muggle peers. After all, less than a decade later the Muggles began to wipe out tens of millions unwittingly in the Americas with their diseases and this solution was deliberate. There was much debate about taking that step, but the only alternative was to depose the King… again… and this time without a clear heir. It was considered an acceptable risk, although had it gone wrong it could’ve devastated the magical community.

“Anyway, as I said Henry VII won the throne more by accident than design and as he had promised married the witch Elizabeth of York soon afterwards. To do this, he overturned the act of parliament that had declared her and by extension all her siblings bastards which arguably opened the way for her two brothers to make a run at the crown. To show his gratitude to his mother-in-law for arranging the match, he cut off her allowance and had her carted off to a convent and then saw to it her other daughters were married off save the youngest who was also sent to a convent. Well, at least he didn’t kill them as he did with just about all of the other potential rivals. But he had enemies he could not touch.

“King Edward IV had a sister named Margaret who married Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy which historically played sides against each other for their benefit - usually England and France. Margaret effectively took over the Dukedom upon the death of her husband and had no respect for Henry Tudor. In her mind, Henry VII had destroyed her family so she wanted to make his life as difficult as possible. She was not about to raise and army and invade. That wasn’t her style. It wasn’t devious enough. She chanced upon a young man about the age of her nephews - the ones people thought Richard had killed - and who looked a lot like her dead brother Edward at that age. She trained him in secret and then presented him in public and told everyone he was Richard my ancestor. No one seemed to note that she had never seen her real nephew before. The boy’s real name was Perkin Warbeck, a peasant from Flanders. She turned him into a lost Prince of England and used him to stir up a revolt against Henry. She must’ve had either an eye for talent or luck ‘cause the imposter’s identity was further supported by William Stanley, who had helped put Henry on the throne but had probably grown bored with things and he had seen the young Prince.

“What happened next is known to few. It’s a part of my family lore and is documented in the archives of this office, but you won’t find it in any other accounts. When Warbeck the imposter surfaced in Burgundy, word got back to England and to this office. We told Henry it was a lie. He told us to show him the bodies of the real Princes. He believed they were dead but he was terrified that they were not and would take the throne he had usurped fair and square. We got a promise out of him - one of the few he ever kept - that he was not to harm the boys in any way.

“By then the two boys were young men and had finished Hogwarts. The older one Edward was training to become a Healer and the younger one an Auror. Both were married and neither wanted to be King of the Muggles. They were brought before Henry and his wife who, remember, was their sister. This was done in secret and in a way that let Henry know he was dealing with real and powerful wizards. They appeared in the King’s bedchamber via a means of magical travel called apparition catching the King and his wife in flagrante dilecto binding them with magic so they could not flee and sealing the room such that no one could enter and they could not call for help. Each then told an anecdote from their youth which their sister would remember and, moreover, no other but their sister would have known which proved they were who they said they were. This meant the young man across the Channel with Margaret of Burgundy was an imposter, much to the King’s relief. Imposters were easier to deal with after all. The young wizards then made it clear they had no interest in the throne for it was too much trouble for any sane man to covet. That probably did not earn them favor with the King, but he was in no position to argue. They managed to convince the King that they were real and not ghosts, that they were who they said they were and surprisingly that they truly had no interest in the crown. At least their disinterest was surprising to the King. They offered the imposter as proof of their sincerity, should said imposter ever set foot in England.

“He did not for some time, although he did try to get the Irish and the Scots to revolt. The Irish were not about to support any contender for the English throne. The Scots were another matter as they were always eager to cause the English problems. But Henry was able to deal with both problems with ease. Then the imposter landed in England. He was barely there long enough to get over his sea sickness before the two former Princes set him and his co-conspirators up and they were captured. Among those eager to see Henry off the throne were some who had been eager to see Henry on the throne years before. It did not go well for any of them.

“The former Princes were rewarded for their efforts secretly. That reward became the Concordant that I’ve mentioned. There was a little more for the former Princes. They did not need wealth, although a little money was appreciated. They each received a very modest estate by Muggle standards but quite vast by Magical and this Estate while Muggle was under the protection of the Concordant and therefore exempt from usual taxation. Furthermore, the King bestowed titles on them commensurate with their former ranks. Edward became Duke of Surrey, a title which had been attainted by Henry IV and was vacant. My ancestor Richard became Duke of Exeter which was also vacant. It’s last holder had been attainted by Edward IV and later drowned crossing the English Channel.”

“So this Concordant, what does it do exactly?” the Earl asked. “It sounds like all it does is allow a magical to hold a title.”

“Um… well, it wasn’t necessary for that to have happened. Magicals have been ennobled since the Treaty of Separation. But it should be added the Crown never knowingly ennobled a wizard after the Treaty or at least never acknowledged that it had even in secret. What it allowed was for limited transfers of wealth and property between the Muggle and Magical worlds. The small estate granted to my ancestor when he became a duke was allowed to transfer across the treaty line whereas before it could not have happened as the lands were Muggle ones. The Concordant covered more than just my ancestors. It essentially made grey what had been black.”

“Explain,” the Commander said.

“The treaty was supposed to completely separate the two worlds and mostly it did,” Sir John replied. “But to do so completely was impossible. There was and still is trade between the worlds although by the late fifteenth century it was mostly one way. Our side sold, theirs bought.”

“Trade for what?”

“Lord Black,” Sir John said, “can you conjure food?”

“No,” Sirius said. “It can’t be done. I can’t conjure it. I can’t turn a rock into an apple. Well, not one you can eat at any rate. Don’t ask me why. There’s a law you learn about in theory of transfiguration that says you can’t make food with magic, but not why you can’t do it.”

“And yet you do have to eat,” Sir John nodded. “At the time of the Treaty, there was more than enough land ceded to the magicals to feed them, assuming you could farm it and a lot of their land is not suitable for farming even today and even with magic. Kind of hard to plow a mountainside and there are other places where the climate’s not ideally suited even for the Isles. That and we accepted more than a few bogs.”

“Why would magicals want land like that?”

“Well, it wasn’t to farm,” Sir John said. “If you think about it, the one constant was a lot of the lands we took into the magical realm were lands Muggles would not covet and were not inclined to investigate. We can live quite well in a bog with magic. Muggles avoid them, which means no prying Muggle neighbors. But you can see the drawback. If we took such lands, we could not easily farm them for ourselves at all. Not that we would’ve thought about such things. While there were Magicals who farmed, they were a small minority of our total population. Still, we needed food and had things we could sell to get it.”

“Such as?”

“Potions, for one,” Sir John said. “Muggles bought them more than we did although generally they favored the medicinal kind. We were, for all intents and purposes, the forerunner of the modern day pharmaceutical trade until the Statute of Secrecy prohibited such things. The majority of Midwives running about were witches so that was another trade. We also were the primary source of lay scriveners. You wanted a book copied back then you had two choices: find a monastery or find a wizard - although you probably wouldn’t be told it was a wizard. The monasteries did a good job, but they seldom took on work for anyone outside the church and they certainly would not copy works proscribed by the church. Wizards were not as fancy - you won’t find much in the way of an illuminated manuscript of wizard production. Illustrated ones yes, but not the works of art that came out of the monastery scriptoriums. Wizards, however, were faster, less expensive and less concerned with theological issues. That trade was beginning to die off when the Concordant was enacted thanks to the printing press.”

“And what did the wizards buy?” the Commander asked.

“Food, wool, leather and cloth,” Sir John said. “Metal work as well, although not as much. They bought food ‘cause they could not raise enough and certainly not in such variety. The same is true of wool and leather since you need pastures for that. By cloth I mean linen mostly. Cotton was rare if nonexistent and silk was terribly expensive. True, there were those among the wealthy who would buy such things, but your average witch or wizard wore wools, linen and leather goods. Fur was also expensive and harder to come by. True, aside from food you can transfigure stuff into clothes and shoes and such. But such transfigurations are temporary and will not survive magical stress. Kind of embarrassing to cross a ward line or something and be rendered naked. The real stuff is preferred and the primary source for it is Muggle. We do make our own clothes. You can’t find wizarding robes at Marks & Spencer. But we buy the cloth and such from the Muggles.

“Anyway, the Treaty of Separation was supposed to mean no real trade between the worlds but it never worked out that way. What existed was a black market of goods and services smuggled across the line and effectively avoiding both worlds' taxes. Our side was none the wiser for the most part since the trade with the wizards was a pittance as compared with the total economy. The wizards chose to look the other way and rely on a Value Added Tax to make up for lost revenues from other sources meaning anything you buy in their stores is taxed and the tax is passed on as part of the purchase price without regard to where the goods came from or anything. That’s not to say there weren’t problems and by the time of the Concordant those problems were reaching a head. Less and less that wizards could offer was finding a market on the Muggle side which meant they lost money with each generation as they bought far more than they sold. The Concordant allowed them to reenter our economy quietly. For the average witch or wizard this really means next to nothing. But for the wealthy? The wealthiest families on that side own land on this side - investment properties and from those rents they can invest in businesses on their side providing goods, services, jobs, salaries and taxes. The Treaty still applies as to where a transaction occurs thus you pay Muggle taxes on taxable transactions that occur on this side and magical ones on that side. For the wizards this means to the extent they could be expected to pay income or inheritances taxes, that all occurs on their side of the fence. The Concordant modified the terms of the Treaty such that trade would continue and those with the means could transact business on both sides and pass their estates as they desire on one side, the other or both.

“This solved another growing problem…”

“You mean aside from the financial drain?” the Commander asked.

Sir John nodded. “There was also the drain I mentioned earlier: the witches and wizards who for whatever reason crossed over to this side more or less permanently. The Concordant made that move legal, for lack of a better word, and tasked this office to policing the magicals on this side of the fence.”

“More than that,” the Earl snorted. “We’re their bloody government in all but name!”

“And this was a reward for not going for the throne?” the Commander asked.

“Well, that’s the way it was put to the King at the time,” Sir John said. “It was a small price to pay for peace of mind. But the former Princes went to him for the purpose of extracting such a concession. It was very little for the King, but would mean the world to the magicals of the realm because it would allow them unfettered access to the Muggle economy and, as has since been borne out, ended the one way drain of wealth. In time, it allowed thousands of magical to cross to this side for one reason or another and remain unhindered, provided they abided by the laws of the land, of course.”

“And if they didn’t?” Sirius asked.

“Well, if this office were convinced that a witch or wizard was engaged in felonious behavior, they would be caught, tried and if convicted dealt with. Fortunately, the vast majority of our witches and wizards are law abiding.”

“I dare say,” the Earl added, “we have far fewer potential violations of your Statute of Secrecy per capita from our witches and wizards than we do from your own. Most of our magical crimes originate from those on the other side of the fence who seem to have developed a rather disturbing disregard for those on this side.”

“I’m sure all of this is frightfully interesting to some academic types,” the Commander interjected in frustration, “but will someone please explain why I should care? And do use small words and direct language.”

“Lord Black came here to advise us of a potential marriage - potential, not certain, between your son and his daughter,” the Earl said. “I was aware of this potential even if I could not recall it before today. I will leave it as ‘potential’ as unless your son has related something to you I am not aware of in regards to this matter, I think it’s fair to say the thought has not yet seriously entered his mind assuming there’s anything there in this regard at all. But that being said, I was concerned about the future of our House given that I have but one son and you have but one son and that lad’s a wizard. Lord Black’s concern over the future of his family - understandable as it may seem - is not of immediate concern to me as Earl nor should it be to you, Nigel. But Sir John’s solution - one I might add that Lord Black as considered - would certainly preserve Justin’s inheritance and would if need be do the same for the future of Lord Black. It’s all a question of legalities and the right agreements and documentation which, I might add, are best handled through our legal section seeing as it is this Office that oversees Concordant matters.”

“One must understand,” Sir John added, “the Concordant is an agreement between the Crown and its magical subjects - those that opt to fall under Crown jurisdiction as opposed to the magical one. The magical government is not a party to it.”

“If they’re not a party, then how can it work?” the Commander asked.

“In their world, property transfers such as this are the province of the bank, not their Wizengamot,” Sir John replied. “As Gringotts is a party to the Concordant, provided the legal niceties are followed, the strict provisions of the Treaty of Separation can be avoided.”

“We would’ve needed to arrange some such in any event,” the Earl added. “Tying it to a potential marriage to one of their Noble Houses grants additional advantages and makes the whole thing less… objectionable in the eyes of their Wizengamot. That being said, we don’t need a prearrangement such as this conditional betrothal to preserve our Earldom, Lord Black. I’m not saying I would stand in the way of such an arrangement but, to be blunt, what is truly in it for us?”

“Um… ,” Sirius began.

“As I understand things, if the bond happens without prearrangement, it is House Black at risk. I can still preserve my Earldom and Justin can still inherit although I do understand without a connection to such a house as yours he would remain Muggle Born in all other respects…”

“And, most likely would then opt for the Crown over the Wizengamot,” Sir John added, “which avoids all such difficulties and impediments although he would have to give up the notion of his children attending Hogwarts. It is a small price to pay to avoid being consigned to a truly disadvantaged class.”

“You may see your offer as an adequate quid pro quo to preserve both families interests,” the Earl said. “I would ordinarily agree.”

“I sense a but,” Sirius said.

“Not really. I am inclined to take your proposal, but you can forgive me if I ask for more? My interests do extend beyond the small world of family and personal finances - and no, what I’m suggesting is not some sort of financial arrangement. But it is a real part of the reason we let this meeting occur without… difficulties.”

“Your last war was a most frustrating time for our government,” Sir John said. “We were forced into a shooting war in Northern Ireland in part because your lot made that place a shooting gallery of their own igniting strife between factions that might have been more open to negotiation otherwise. True, we did blame the IRA and their lot for some of the mess your war caused both there and elsewhere, but you can be assured we would’ve preferred not to have stirred that cauldron at all, as it were. Your government, on the other hand, left us with little choice seeing as they were insistent that there was no magical problem at all. Our government wishes to avoid that problem should it arise in the future. Unfortunately, your government does not seem to see it to be of any interest to discuss any mutual concerns despite the fact that even under the Treaty of Separation they are still answerable to the Muggle governments for unacceptable breaches of the peace. Quite frankly, aside from those agents we do have, we have no access to information and certainly no open or even intermittent channel of communication of any import across the Treaty Line. I dare say Her Majesty finds this ongoing impasse and lack of even a modicum of polite discourse… disconcerting to say the least.”

“You want a spy?” Sirius almost sputtered.

“Don’t be silly, Sir,” the Earl said. “We have those and have had them for centuries. I would say we want an Embassy or Liaison Office or some such, but this has been suggested to your government time and again and rejected out of hand without exception. Short of an official, governmentally sanctioned mission or cooperative agreement, an unofficial one is better than nothing.”

“And I fit the bill how?”

“You are Head of an Ancient and Noble House,” Sir John said, “and whether you ever exercise it directly or not, you hold an influential seat in your Wizengamot. We don’t need you for secrets, as it were, as in all likelihood we can get those from other sources. But you have some influence and probably a better view of the ‘big picture’ in many ways than any of our sources. We don’t expect you to spy or do anything underhanded that way nor would we ask it of you. But we would like there to be someone across the way willing to stop by and chat openly about areas of mutual interest.”

“Naturally,” the Earl continued, “I shall not hold the future’s of our young people over your head to force such a… friendship. I merely ask that you consider it. Much of your last war might not have gone the way it had if there had been a closer working relationship between our governments and peoples even if it had been informal. We’ll draw up a draft of an agreement regarding the contingent betrothal for your solicitors to chew upon. All we ask in return is to consider our request.”

Sirius made no commitment to the Earl’s request nor was one expected. Although he said nothing, he thought there might be some benefit to such a relationship given what he knew was coming but he wanted to speak with others before he took another step, a fact he did not reveal before he left the “Looney Bin.”

“This business has me confused,” the Commander said after Sirius left.

“Having just stepped through the looking glass it is best that you get used to that idea,” the Earl chuckled.