FATW Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen: The Order of the Phoenix:

Scrimgeour looked down at the young that girl stood before the Wizengamot giving her speech on a new bill regarding Technomancy. The fact that this bill had been debated for days now and that the votes were all but in a tie for and against to allowing this new blending of worlds into the magical world was impressive. Even the muggleborn protection act had not had such a strong following throughout magical Briton. The Lovegood girl was the last ditch effort to get this bill passed. Scrimgeour knew it was needed but he had to be careful, he could not just come out and support it, the pureblood faction would call for his head. But if it was passed in the Wizengamot he of course would sign it.

The girl Luna was so young and brave to be here, she was clad in simple light blue robes that went well with her eyes. (What he did not know is that Molly Weasley had helped the young girl get ready and had finally taken the young girl under her wing as Luna needed a mother figure since her mother had died). This was a bill that would help Molly's husband Arthur and so many more like him. It was Remus Lupin who had spoke to Arthur about this new blending of magic and muggle technology and he had spoke to his oldest sons in passing on this not expecting them to have connections to help bring a bill to the Wizengamot. One thing led to another and now Luna stood before the Wizengamot to explain why this bill was the best thing, and it had to do with her mother.

"Miss Lovegood you are a second year at Hogwarts, why should we listen to any thing you have to say?" Lucius Malfoy asked, he had to act as if he did not support this though he was behind the scenes paying others to vote for it, anonymously of course, he was not a fool, he would do anything to protect the magical world accept voice public opinion on anything like this "you are but a child."

"I know Mr. Malfoy but this has to do with my mother sir." Luna said, "my mother was a spell crafter, most notably she worked with merging technology with magical things. I was with her when she was trying to get a muggle medical machine to work with magic. If she had been trained and if technomancy were legal in England we could avoid deaths like this happening ever again."

"How can this technomancy serve us?" Madam Bones asked.

"We could have faster communications, and more comfortable too." Elphas Dodge said, "my knees are getting too old for using the floo and the muggles have something called a cell phone, it's a device that can carried be on one and used for communication at long distances."

"We have two way mirrors for that." Mr. Nott said.

"Yes but they can only be tuned to two people, two way mirrors." Madam Longbottom replied, "beside this could be the thing to help us hide from the muggles even better. If they could walk into our homes and still not recognize magic we would be even safer."

"I don't want anyone else dying like my mum did." Luna said, "I had to watch and could do nothing, nothing to save her and I did try!"

The small girl standing so brave before the leaders of magical Briton could get the votes Scrimgeour was sure that her words would get this bill passed. Scrimgeour was a man of tradition and he liked things to stay the same but even he knew that his world was backwards. He had spoke to his top Auror (now head of the Auror office) Kingsley Shacklebolt who knew quite a bit about the muggle world. What he had told Scrimgeour scared him and he knew that his world could not survive without change. His move to allow this vote was all about survival of his world and not much more. If this could be avoided he would have done so but it could not and he had to change to survive.

The death eaters and the fanatical evil dark lord Voldemort had nearly exposed their world to the muggles. Scrimgeour realized that if Lily Potter had not done whatever it was she had done to protect her son and stop Voldemort then the world would be a far darker place. Deep inside Scrimgeour knew Voldemort would come back, there was no body and he hated to toy with the idea of the evilest magic used, that of the Horcrux. Well if that evil bastard decided to come back he was going to find a different world and one he could not fully take over like he nearly had before.

When Scrimgeour was voted into the office of minister he had studied what Fudge had done and had realized he had to do what the people wanted. What they wanted was more freedoms, more regulation on the government they trusted to lead them, not on the people. Scrimgeour knew that a revolution was under the surface and he did not want that on his watch. Much of what he did was for survival really but he could not deny it was helping his world. A muggleborn protection act, magical families allowed to adopt magical orphans with no families or monies of their own, an anti slavery bill and now this. If this was passed while he was in office Scrimgeour knew he was looking at being one of the greatest ministers of all time.

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Diana and Greg Granger walked into the room where the meeting was to take place both a bit nervous. They knew a day like this could come, as soon as they realized their daughter was part of the very real magical world they knew that they would be called back to serve Queen and country. They were not surprised she knew of magic and were not surprised to find themselves in a comfortable office with a mix of witches and wizards and muggles like themselves. Greg saw Justin Wilkes and walked up to talk with him and Diana saw Molly Weasley come into the room, both women saw the other at the same time and they smiled as they did like the other very much.

"Mrs. Weasley I glad to see you here." Diana said walking up to take Molly's hand.

"I am sorry your second time into our world was not as pleasant as it should have been." Molly said.

"Don't worry, I am glad your husband beat that git, he deserved it." Diana replied, "I was really thinking of kicking him in the goods if he continued to insult my Hermione."

"Thomas?" Molly said having just spotted Justin Wilkes all color draining from her face.

"You know Justin Wilkes?" Diana asked.

"Yes I do, but I thought he was an accountant, oh I am going to kill him! He dares hide from his family I will teach him!" She had her wand out at this point.

"Molly love please don't not here." Arthur said trying to stop his wife from going after their cousin.

Diana watched this family reunion with amusement as Molly went off on Justin who was trying to explain why he had left the magical world to protect them. Molly was having none of it nor was Arthur who remembered his oldest children playing with their "Uncle Thomas" and enjoying him there. It was at this time Severus entered the room and looked over at Molly and his mouth twitched upwards in a hint of amusement. He found the Weasley matriarch's temper funny when it was not directed on him and he realized the person she was yelling at was Arthur's squib cousin. He saw the Grangers as soon as they saw him and he walked over to them surprisingly more at ease with them than the others in the room.

"Hello professor Snape, I see you are part of whatever is going on here." Greg said.

"Please call me Severus." Severus said actually friendly with the two dentists, then again they were not judgmental of him at all and seemed to respect and like him. "I must thank you again for your wonderful work."

"Well it was a pleasure, no-one should have to go through pain in their teeth." Diana replied, "is Headmaster Dumbledore coming?"

"Yes, hopefully he will show some restraint in attire." Severus replied then seeing the headmaster come in clad in bright purple robes with stars and moons on them with matching pointed hat, "guess it was too much to ask for."

Greg liked Severus, he really did as Severus was not one to hold back in what he thought at all. It was true the headmaster's attire was a bit bright but there were others here who had attire just as bright, take the small head of Ravenclaw Filius Flitwick clad in robes of lime green trimmed in yellow with a blue hat and matching cloak. He saw the Aurors in their dark red robes seated together, McGonagall clad in simple robes of dark green and the merry form of professor Pomona Sprout clad in robes of brown. He wondered why the heads of Hogwarts were here along with a few select ministry of magic employees. Then again what was a retired MI-6 agent now dentist doing in an MI-5 office code named Order of the Phoenix? He saw Remus Lupin enter the room with a tall well built man clad in robes of dark purple, and knew this to be Sirius Black a man thrown in prison without a trial and finally found innocent when the real culprit who had betrayed Harry Potter's parents was found.

It was really Remus Lupin who had got this whole thing going, he had spoke to Dumbledore and both agreed on seeing if they could work with the muggles to protect their world. The resulting contact with the muggle world had proven just how much a select few muggles wanted to work with them. They were all British subjects and under the Queen they all had Queen and country in common. This first meeting would prove if they could work together or not and so far it seemed the muggles were more comfortable with the magical than the other way around. Remus had logically brought up having Flitwick and Sprout in the order as they were heads of Hogwarts houses and with all the heads in the order the school would be better protected.

Flitwick had proven to be extremely happy about being part of the order as was Sprout. They were not too sure about the muggles here but if they worked for the Queen then they were on the same side. Flitwick had seen a lot in his long life, he had spent many years as a master duelist, had been married and though he never had children of his own his sisters had provided he and his wife with many nieces and nephews. It was a sad day when his wife died and it was at that time he had accepted and taken the job of Charms professor and head of Ravenclaw. Sprout too had been married but lost her husband in a horrible accident but she would not let this get her down, no she had turned to teaching and taking care of her plants and children and living up to the Hufflepuff house.

"Hello you must be Hermione's parents." Sprout said to the Grangers. "I am Pomona Sprout."

"I am Greg." Greg said extending his hand.

"Diana, pleased to meet you, Hermione has told us all about the professors at Hogwarts." Diana said looking over at Severus with a smile on her face, "she likes all of her professors."

"Glad to hear it, I thought she would go to my house you know." Flitwick said, he liked the Grangers especially after they had taken care of a toothache of his. "But alas the house of lions got her."

"Pity that, she would have done better in my house." Severus said just as McGonagall sat down by him and glared at him for all he was worth, "she is simply too smart to be a Gryffindor, oh joy you invited the mutt." Severus said glaring at Sirius who had strutted over to sit across from him.

"Ah it looks as if we are all here." Remus said, "I will turn this over to headmaster Dumbledore."

Remus was glad that things had turned out so well and that the headmaster was willing to meet with muggles. He had not thought he would have when Remus brought the idea up to him but Dumbledore thought it would be a good idea, with a promise from Remus to not speak of anything dealing with Voldemort unless he ran it by him. Remus did not mind and sat back as the magical and non-magical members of the order got to know each other. That the magical office of MI-5 had taken on the name of the Order of the Phoenix did not get lost on Dumbledore and he was happy to work with them. It was not the first time he had worked with muggles.

In darker times than even these during World War Two he had worked with muggles and had found much to his dismay that Grindlewald was not using the evil muggle dictator Hitler, it was Hitler using him. Grindlewald had been trapped by the man's lies and had agreed to help him gain power as he promised to give over the muggleborn as servants to Grindlewald and otherwise to leave the magical world alone when he ruled the muggle world. He had lied and instead had done experiments on those muggleborn he could capture and have put in his evil extermination camps. Dumbledore had managed to stop Grindlewald a few months before Hitler took his own life in Berlin but the cost of war was too much on all sides, magical and muggle alike. Now hopefully the mistakes of the past would not repeat themselves and this was the start of a permanent situation.

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The next morning Arthur Weasley was headed to work and the letter he had got by Owl in his hands. He was to meet with the minister of magic and he wondered what Scrimgeour could possibly want of him. He had read the paper this morning and saw that the Technomancy bill had passed but what did that have to do with him? He walked into the anti chamber where Scrimgeour's secretary motioned him into the minister's office. Arthur took in the well appointed office of the powerful man and then of Scrimgeour behind the desk.

"You heard of the passing of the technomancy bill I am sure?" Scrimgeour said as soon as he bid Arthur to take a seat.

"Yes sir, it is a good thing, muggles are for the most part are not bad nor do they wish us harm." Arthur replied, "you know of my time living among them for a summer I take it."

"I do, most ingenious of you to transform your car into a flying one too bad your son took it for a flight, no matter no matter with your talent we can go places in the ministry."

"Sir?" Arthur asked not sure where this was going.

"I need someone to run the new Technomancy offices, that was part of the bill you know having such an office, do not worry you still will get to protect muggles in your new office, I am incorporating the misuse of muggle artifacts office into the Technomancy office. With you as the head of course, it will come with a pay raise of course."

Arthur sat stunned, this was a dream, it had to be. He was being offered the very job that he had wanted for years. A job that had been out of reach as only a few nations world wide had Technomancy offices, the American States were one, so was Canada, Japan, China, Russia, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and India. With Briton signing on as they had more nations would too, if Arthur did more than a good job. He would of course accept the job, how could he not?

"I would be honored sir." Arthur said, "I will need training, I don't have an OWL even in Technomancy."

"But you do have a masters in muggle studies from what your file says and one in defense too. I have no doubt you will do well as head of this office, that is why I chose you."

"Thank you sir, I will not let you down." Arthur said meaning it. "Guess that means I have to stop hiding my full knowledge of the muggle world, maybe I could get Lucius to faint if I told him what a blender really can be used for."

"Arthur don't you dare, though it would be fun to watch I do not need a Black witch coming after me." Scrimgeour said referring to Narcissa Malfoy nee Black. "I have several muggleborn who can help you out too."

Arthur was very happy, things were looking up for his family, after the dark times of Ginny's first year at Hogwarts things were finally getting better. His oldest sons Bill and Charlie were in upwardly mobile careers and Percy already had job offers and he was not even out of school. Fred and George were finally buckling down and studying hard and he knew whatever they chose to do would make them highly successful. Then came the news from Harry himself asking to hire Ron as his steward! He had said yes and he could not be more proud of his children as Ginny too was blossoming this year despite what had happened last year. Arthur was looking forward to telling Molly the good news and knew she was going to be very happy to hear the good news.

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So there is that, the magical world moving towards a better future. Merging magical and muggle technology is something the magical world has done before, take flying brooms, carpets, carriages, expanding trunks, and more. However in modern times it seems that has not been the case. At least in some parts of the world, by having new laws put in place this will protect the magical world, as for Dumbledore wanting to work with the muggles, and having done so in the past, I don't see that as impossible or against character either.

Anyway, do please review!