Chapter 251: The Court

Chapter 251: The Court

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7th October 2012, Malfoy Manor

(Hermione Granger POV)

To say that the last few days in Hermione Granger's life were hectic would be an understatement. What else would you expect from Jasmine Potter's return. Hermione would bet her magic that the woman spread chaos everywhere she went. But this time, she screwed everything up.

Previously, the young witch was barely processing the impact of the woman's return, and she didn't take into consideration the reactions that the general populace had before the large scale duel that happened in broad daylight.

The magical world existed on a delicate balance, one that magical Titans like Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindelwald, and Jasmine Potter, tended to annihilate the moment they revealed their power.

It was why organizations from all around the globe tended to cripple them as they did Nathan Potter, when they were young, to avoid someone destroying the balance of powers this easily. Because why would someone follow the laws of the land if they could kill most of the administration with a few spells. It was easy to forget how powerful wizards and witches could be. One need only look at ancient myths, where legendary battles changed landscapes like they were nothing.

Sure, things were probably exaggerated in these myths and legends, since Dumbledore, while rumored to be one of the most powerful wizards in centuries, had never even hinted at having power on that scale. Hermione always thought that these tales were romanticized and so did the entire wizarding world. And a few days ago, they were all proven wrong.

The Duel between Jasmine Potter and the elderly man was a thing of legends, and the population was terrified. Some fled the country, fearing the rise of a new Dark Lord or Dark Lady which would cause another civil war in Britain, some chose to worship the two fighters as gods. But most of them were just frozen in fear, not understanding what they should do, and asking the Ministry for advice, something that neither Nathan nor Hermione knew how to deal with.

Roxanne Greengrass spoke up next, "It doesn't matter what happened in the past, it will not change anything. We need to decide how to proceed, and for that we need intel. I have noticed that Granger has been suspiciously quiet during this conversation."

Damn that woman. She was always perceptive. She was actually born Roxanne Rosier, daughter of Vinda Rosier, one of Grindelwald's main lieutenants, who had also spied on behalf of the court.

Hermione hesitated for a minute before sighing in resignation. In the court, allegiances and ideologies do not matter, only the stability of the government. If they figure out that she was keeping something this crucial from them, then she was dead, but even then, she was more afraid of Jasmine Potter. There was something inhuman, otherworldly, in the woman's eyes as she threatened her. Hermione had no wish to incur her wrath, but she had no choice but to reveal what she knew, "Yes, I know more information about the battle, but not a lot."

With these words the entirety of the table turned in unison towards her. For the first time since she joined the Court of Shadows, she had the complete attention of the two dozen members that made up the court. Unfortunately, she hoped that this would have happened in another situation, "We have no idea why the fight happened in the first place, but we know that it continued somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, where things got a lot more destructive. I believe that the two combatants did their best to limit casualties, or at least one of them did since they changed the location of the battle when things started to get heated, which in the end resulted in the death of the man."

All over the table, people sighed in relief. At least one of the monsters was dead. With that said, Hermione continued, "The Statute of Secrecy wasn't even broken, the entire fight was removed from the minds of the muggles somehow, and any footage of the fight was edited on a planetary scale. The muggles have attributed this to some natural accident."

Again, the rest of the court started to murmur, pleased with the result. A big problem with fights on this scale was the fact that they tended to break the Statute quite easily. The aftermath tended to be actually more costly than the damage the fight actually cost, since usually all it took was a few repairing charms to set things right, unless some serious dark magic was used, that is. But the manpower needed for obliviations and to corrupt security tapes and whatnot was very extensive, and usually cost a fortune with each incident.

Greengrass though, didn't change her facial expression. She just kept staring at Hermione, and the young witch felt like the woman was just looking through her and directly into her soul. Hermione had to take a look at her Occlumency shield because someone staring at her unblinkingly like that was just unnatural unless they used Legilimency. After the murmurs stopped, the woman spoke up, "That's not it, there's something else you haven't told us."

Damn, Hermione didn't want to reveal this. Telling the court of Jasmine's continued existence would cause too many complications. They would not tolerate someone with that kind of power existing outside of their influence and without any kind of surveillance on her. They were probably hoping that this was just a foreign witch that wouldn't be interested in the British Isles, which would have meant that it would have been another cell's problem.

They would undoubtedly go after her, and Hermione didn't know how that would go. The court was powerful and influential, but Jasmine Potter was just on another level, and she seems pretty peaceful, doing her own thing, whatever the hell that was. Having the Court going after her would cause wars, and nothing but chaos, something that Hermione often tried to avoid as it caused a lot of complications down the line. But then again, Chaos was a ladder, and while they would be preoccupied with Jasmine Potter, Hermione would try to further her agenda.

In the end, the muggleborn witch had no choice in the matter either way; she could not hide something like this from the Court, especially when she was asked details this explicitly.

Sighing, Hermione nodded, "Yes, while we don't know the identity of the man who perished, we do know the identity of the woman. She was revealed to be Jasmine Potter, the sister to Rose Potter and Nathan Potter."

Her proclamation shocked the entire court, and Hermione took some pleasure in seeing the impassive Roxanne Greengrass lose her impassive face and gape at the muggleborn witch.