CHAPTER 113: ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS



The negotiations continued over the next three weeks. When Harry was finally called upon to place his signature on behalf of the magical world alongside the signatures of the Prime Minister and the Queen, the core treaty was a mere fifteen pages long. However, several hundred additional new laws and regulations had been accepted both by the Muggle and magical governments.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the surrender, the final treaty was designed to be in the interest of both governments. While indeed the Ministry of Magic was placed under the authority of the Muggle government, prominent wizards would also hold positions in the Houses of Commons and Lords. The Ministry of Magic mostly retained autonomy over their own people – although the penal code would have to be adapted so non-magical crimes would be met with a similar response in the magical and non-magical courts – and the magical government would not be obliged to adopt a more democratic system; the Wizengamot remained in place mostly as it was. Harry quietly suspected that it would not last for long: with increased contact between the magical and Muggle worlds, witches and wizards would see the alternatives, and might develop a greater inclination to change the unfairnesses in how their world functioned. He wouldn't have objected if the Muggles had pushed their own views a little more on this issue, but in the end he didn't mind: the change, when it came, would come from within.

Separate treaties were developed with the other magical races. Goblins and centaurs both refused the offer to be considered "human" for the purposes of the law, as they valued their independence too greatly to submit to outside interference and were unwilling to surrender the right to kill trespassers on their grounds. Instead, they were granted autonomy on their own land, and separate laws were put in place for when members of either race were to venture into human areas, or when humans were invited into their domains. The centaurs were given new regions of land, as the nuclear radiation at Hogwarts would likely make the Forbidden Forest unlivable for years to come. The goblins tentatively started trading with Muggles. Of all the magical races, merfolk were the only ones to accept human-like status, and they, too, were ceded new lands in compensation for the destruction of the previous home of one of the largest merpeople populations in the country. House Elves universally rejected all attempts to improve their situations, but finally did accept a provision in the Muggle-wizard treaty that any House Elf who asked for freedom would be granted it, and free elves were to be given human rights.

As Harry had predicted, the television coverage of the negotiations went a long way towards soothing the populace's emotions with regards to magic and its practitioners. The talk, the fight and their aftermath had made it very clear that wizards were not all of one mind, and the spectacular duel which conveniently ended with what were clearly the good guys winning created hope for the people. The utter boringness of the following discussions served to quell most of the remaining aggression. There was still some violence, in part aimed at actual wizards and more of it simply at eccentric Muggles, but with the normal and military police breaking down riots, and with magic users being unable to retaliate without immediate interference from the DMLE, these fights slowly died down. The weapons handed out by the military were collected again, and while not everything was successfully retrieved, police raids were uncovering at least some of the remainder.

With the example of the UK, other countries had started similar negotiations with their magical governments. These efforts were complicated because country boundaries were not the same between the magical and Muggle worlds – a problem that was observed early on with the matter of Northern Ireland, although fortunately there had been little fighting there – but this could be overcome. While the magical rulers of a few nations followed the British example of joining with their Muggle regimes – or, indeed, restoring ancient submission contracts with kings and emperors – most magical governments were not willing to be absorbed by their Muggle counterparts, and instead sought co-existence. However, the British merge allowed a level of trust and cooperation that was absent in those countries' treaties. Thicknesse quietly predicted to Harry that their own nation – Muggle and magical – and those who followed its example, would see enormous financial benefits in the long run. If it indeed worked out well, those countries who now worked towards independence might eventually move towards similar arrangements after all. With the increasingly evident potential for enlarging their wealth, many of the Wizengamot started looking more favorably upon the treaty, and while there was a long way still to go, Harry's name was no longer poison to all.

Many of those who had fled the country in the days of the war were returning home, and they submitted – with varying degrees of reluctance – to the initial tracing system which for now was set to give alarm for any magic in Muggle areas and certain groups of darker magic in other places, but was scheduled to change soon enough. Only ten percent of witches and wizards living in Britain left the country or refrained from returning, and most of those, as Amelia Bones observed, probably had something to hide. As the treaty neared completion and other countries' stance became clear, quite a few foreign witches and wizards, most of them Muggleborns, actually filed for immigration, as they saw an opening for skilled magic users providing services to Muggles and thereby attaining the wealth and recognition they had been unable to achieve in their home countries.

Even though his presence was not required much in the negotiations (he was called upon only once to arbitrate decisions between the different political camps) Harry did not have much time to be bored. He and Hermione were called upon to visit conferences and schools, and give talks relating their experiences with magic and the wizarding world in general. Although they were mostly kept out of the political aspects, the two children were generally seen as the public face of the magical side of the country due to their prominent role in the first day of the peace talks, and consequently were a valuable tool for obtaining general acceptance. Draco was grieving, but he joined them one time, relating the tale from his own youth as the pureblood heir from a Noble and Most Ancient family.

Aside from those obligations, Harry had his own agenda to spend time on. With Hermione's help, he studied all the books in the Black family library at Grimmauld Place that might be related to healing and the notion of life force, and when possible he spoke to Healers like Madam Pomfrey on the topic. He learned that Dumbledore's explanation had been vastly simplified; "life force" was simply the result of an organic process in the cells of the body rather than anything magic-like as he had come to believe, and the anti-decomposition charm might in fact have saved some of the "life force pool". He petitioned Dumbledore to allow Muggle doctors to experiment on the bodies of the Hogwarts children who had died in the forest battle, but the former Headmaster absolutely refused to allow Harry to bother the grieving parents for permission. He did consent to pull some strings to have the corpses of Remus Lupin and Septima Vector sent there for examination, as neither had living relatives, and he arranged that a large farewell ceremony would be held after the end of the negotiations – an arrangement that would allow Harry some time to assuage his grief by trying to make things better, but which seemed reasonable to most parties and would not impose on the families too much. Some parents objected, and had their children's bodies returned for a private funeral or cremation. At Draco's insistence, Lord Malfoy was buried in his ancestral grave three days after the fatal negotiation session.

Unfortunately, experimentation did not prove successful at all. Despite the seemingly perfect condition of Lupin's body – which had had an anti-decomposition charm applied to it within minutes after his death – and the healing of the worst of Vector's wounds, the doctors couldn't manage to restart the hearts. Even when Professor Dumbledore prevailed on Nicolas Flamel to allow the use of a few drops of his spare life Elixir for the experiment, when Harry and Hermione both cast their Patronuses to supply life force and Xare and Fawkes cried on the corpses together while the Muggle doctors did everything they could to get bodily functions working and magical Healers performed tests and experimental healing charms, there was absolutely no response. Resurrection, it seemed, was not to be achieved in just a few weeks. Nor did any of the experiments with Dementor-victims yield hopeful results. There was nothing obviously wrong with them; they just didn't seem to think anymore for some reason. The only progress made by the investigations was that the study of Lupin's body yielded some initial hints at what might be organic causes for lycanthropy.

Lesath, who had become an unofficial errand boy for the DMLE despite director Bones's awkwardness around him, managed to make contact with his mother two days after the start of the negotiations. Although the initial contact wasn't very heartening, she didn't fully reject his attempts to approach her, and he continued sending his Patronus every day at the same time. She did not remember him, which meant that he had to have been a good memory to her at first, and despite her misgivings and often harsh responses, she seemed at least a little curious to get to know her son. When she learned from outside sources that her master was most likely gone for good, he talked her down from extreme action (with the support of a whole battalion of psychologists and Auror negotiators), and started pushing Bellatrix to turn herself in before she did anything that would do herself, or others, harm; she would not be executed for her previous crimes, but if she acted rash now, he would be unable to protect her. Unfortunately, she cared very little for her own life, and only swung between wanting revenge and wanting to search out her master in case he still lived. What was more, she had a hostage in the form of Marielle Dutant, the promising French schoolgirl who had been kidnapped for the use of her Time-Turner. For two weeks, negotiations went back and forth until she made her final offer of turning herself in, allowing her magic to be drained and releasing Miss Dutant unharmed in exchange for reasonable imprisonment conditions and the opportunity to cast and hold the Cruciatus Curse for a full minute on Mad-Eye Moody, whom she held responsible for the fate of her master. Moody consented for the sake of the French girl and the agreement was made – unhappy though Amelia Bones was about accepting it – and new negotiations were started to arrange the "hostage exchange".

Dumbledore confirmed that Bacon's diary was entirely non-magical, and a Ministry historian made a translation. They discovered that Roger Bacon had done most of his magical experiments in the forest near his house, underneath a tree which he believed to have a magical origin. The location was confirmed, and a team of the best Aurors and ward-breakers visited the location. There, buried beneath the roots, was a metal box inscribed with Mr. H. Potter, which would not open. The ward-breakers determined that there was a powerful blood ward on the box which they could not easily get around, and that there were three items inside: a wand, a piece of paper, and some unspecified object of a magical nature.

Monday, May 25th 1992, 11:43am.

Harry looked at the small box before him with more than a little trepidation. The experts did say that the box and the ward on it seemed harmless on their own, and that opening the box was unlikely to have any effects: none of the items inside would activate or otherwise respond on any magical or mundane event that could conceivably be triggered by opening the box. He was covered by the best protections magic could make. Still, for unexpected and potentially horrible things to happen Riddle only needed to know one thing the others didn't, which was why he hadn't been allowed to take this risk until the negotiations had ended and his sudden death would no longer upset the delicate power-balance of the country.

Carefully, he pricked his finger on the pin, drawing blood. The box opened with an utterly anticlimactic click to reveal a wand, a letter and a stone.

In the next ten minutes, he refrained from touching anything as the Aurors carefully undid all the wards separating him from them (but not the outer wards designed to protect the rest of the area from whatever may transpire within). Then a full dozen magical researchers, ward breakers and Professor Dumbledore started on the box. For over an hour, they cast spell after spell to confirm the magical signature and safety of the items, and to verify that Harry had not been affected. Finally, the letter was confirmed to be completely non-magical and thrust into Harry's hands.

He breached the seal, and read:

Potter.

Since you can read this note, I assume that you have managed to kill me. My compliments. Your intent to kill was always magnificent.

You have told me before that you want everyone to live forever. Well then, my killer, my student, and part of my soul, I expect that you will also find out how to perform resurrections. You always were rather ambitious, after all.

I trust that, once you have set the world to rights, you will see fit to bring me back. To help you on your quest, I pass to you the Resurrection Stone of Cadmus Peverell, which you yourself have unwittingly pointed me to. May it be useful to you.

Your Mentor,

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Behind him, Dumbledore gasped as he finished another identification spell on the stone.

With a trembling hand, the old wizard reached out for the stone and turned it over to reveal the picture of a line inside a circle, inside a triangle. He stared at Harry, breathlessly, as the others merely looked confused or curious.

"The magic on this device is over a thousand years old," he spoke with a croaking voice. "It has not been tampered with recently."

There were intakes of breath and sudden discussion on the meaning of the device, but Harry tuned it out. This was... something.

He had been given the Resurrection Stone, a mythical device reputed to call souls back from the dead. Harry had thought it was an obvious ruse, something which just created an image from your mind, but then, why would Riddle think it would help him? And would he really expect that Harry was going to resurrect him after all that he had done?

Maybe. Maybe not. But then, what did Riddle have to lose? He had probably placed additional wards on the box which would fail in the event of his death, however that might be defined. It was the final fallback: if all his precautions failed and he died after all, he would ask to be resurrected, and give the most likely person to actually succeed in this mission the best tools he had for the task. Perhaps there was only a tiny chance of success, and Riddle himself didn't believe in it, but it was still better than no chance at all.

And I already decided that I would do it, if I can find a way and make it safe to bring Riddle back.

Harry realized that there was a minor argument going on over the safety of the thousand-year-old device whose purpose Dumbledore was apparently not being informative about.

"Have you determined whether the wand is safe yet?" He interrupted. "I should like to try it."

Someone silently handed him the wand. It was a bit longer than his own had been, and it was made of a different material – yew, he knew rather than holly – but it felt warm in his hand and his magic rushed to meet it. It did not quite feel the same as his old wand, but equally right. He shot sparks in the air to try out the feeling of channeling magic through it, and then ended the argument by plucking the stone out of Dumbledore's unresisting hands. It had been left to him, after all.

"Can we go home now?"

Monday, May 25h 1992, 2:19pm.

"Can I see –?"

Harry silently passed the old wizard the letter. They were standing together in the Chief Warlock's chambers, after the Aurors and others had completed their tests and taken down the many warding layers. The man read and drew a sharp breath.

"Surely you wouldn't really consider –"

"Not now," Harry said distractedly. "Not for a long time. Definitely not until the world is something he could be content with, so he won't need to execute terrible plots to save it. And even then we'd need to take some precautions." He stared at the stone, an item of unknown function but enormous potential.

"Don't do it, Harry," the old wizard said urgently. "I know the temptation of bringing back your parents, but you should not. It will only bring you pain."

"I am not stupid, Professor. I know it wouldn't really be them." Harry closed his hand around the stone. "How do I use this then?"

The old wizard sighed, resigned. "The ancient tale states that the second brother, on receiving the stone, turned it over three times in his hand, and spoke the name of the girl he had once wished to marry."

Harry nodded, turned the stone over three times in his hand, and spoke: "Cadmus Peverell".

-o-o-o-o-o-

Author's Note: I know this is very much a summary chapter with little actually happening. Sorry about that; I split it off from the next chapter because otherwise it would become too long.

If you're wondering when Harry pointed Riddle to the resurrection stone: reread chapter 40. :)