Pentacles

Draco

At the heart of the Department of Magical Transportation is the meeting room where staff assemble each Tuesday and Thursday morning for Critical Updates. There was a Critical Update this week on the supply chain issues impacting floo powder production. There was a Critical Update this week on the policy on the allowable use of purple ink. Please stop using purple ink, we aren’t the Department of Mysteries.

It was at the Critical Update meeting when approved apparition point locations were announced.

They say each of the three Ds was equally important, but only one of them could be put through permitting.

Not that you couldn’t apparate anywhere, if you had the location image firmly in your mind. Draco imagined himself in his little cottage kitchen when he wanted to go home. He conjured up the feeling of the worn countertops where he took his breakfast. How the refrigerator was exactly an arms length away from where he always sat. If you knew a place that well, what else did you need?

The challenge with knowing a place is that most places changed. If Draco thought too hard about what was left on the counter - was it the daily profit or a used cup of tea? - he might find himself looped into the wrong kitchen. Practically anywhere. Or, more likely, he could splinch himself as the magic sorted through his misaligned intent.

An apparition point fixed that. The DMT published booklets of their emblems, fastidiously inserted in place with potions and charms. You could book your appointment to apparate to the spot. They stayed clear in bad weather. Charms repelled any wix from hovering in the spot to avoid mashing together upon landing. The booklets offered hints on how to keep the image clear in one’s mind. Remember, there were six roses. Each with three thorns. Bundled together with a ribbon, wrapped around the stems three times and tied into a bow. Draco went back and forth with the artist three times before he approved the design. He carefully tore the page out of the booklet when it was first published. Put the clipping up on his wall.

The real thing, the formal facsimile, was up on a different wall. Well, it started as a wall, but as the DMT’s work expanded so did the map. It crept up the wall and over the ceiling, stretching out branches like a tree until the ceiling was covered in connected dots making up the whole of the united kingdom. Centuries of work were up on that map. The results of permit specialists just like Draco, fixing a location in minds across the wizarding world so anyone could find where they needed to go. A wealth of knowledge and history and bureaucracy.

The Director herself attached it to the giant map at the front of the meeting room. It was a Critical Update. New apparition point approved in Ilkley, outfront the social services building recently established. Processed by D.M.

Harry

It was one thing to be what Harry had always considered rich, and quite another to be able to fund buildings across the continent. Harry figured the ministry would take on that sort of task, but while he waited for that to happen he spent too many nights listening to Hermione lament that nothing was being done to help the orphans, or the widows, or the curse damaged.

There was always a reason, Harry learned, whenever he met Shacklebolt for tea. He never understood the reason well enough to explain it to Hermione after, which gnawed at him.

“Start smaller,” Ron suggested. “What’s the last problem Hermione wanted to fix?”

It was the Dissall children, wasn’t it? Five kids orphaned, cousins if Harry remembered correctly, all living with a granddad whose wife had been a homemaker a century ago and he was now in over his head. When they got to Hogwarts there’d be some support, but in the meantime they needed food, and proper clothes, and enough space for everyone to sleep.

Harry brought the specific issue up with Shacklebolt the very next day, and Shacklebolt explained all the war relief programs the ministry was funding and it all sounded very good. If only Harry understood it well enough afterwards to explain it to Hermione.

It gnawed at him.

“It’s all the bureaucracy,” Hermione explained, “it’s impossible to know how to get any help from them without an expert navigator leading the way.”

Harry knew fuck all about directions but he set his mind to understanding. He got far enough along to realize there had to be someone better for the job. He asked Shacklebolt over tea how to fund navigators like that.

There were a million reasons it wouldn’t happen, Shacklebolt confidently said, even if Harry didn’t understand why.

“Start small,” Harry said. “What’s the first problem we can solve together?”

If they had a navigator, there’d be no way for them to get out to Ilkley. The floo network had been so thoroughly damaged in the war. It was like a tree that had been hacked to pieces and would take years to rebuild. There wasn’t even a regulated apparition point for miles. And it’s not like Ilkley had the public infrastructure to warrant one. What location would it associate with? If it had even one ministry landmark…

They needed to build the foundations of the town from the ground up. Make a new building. Harry honestly considered paying for it himself, damn the consequences to his vault.

It was Ginny who told him he was being stupid. He was Harry Potter. Didn’t he burn all his letters because it was too much to sort through? Any number of people would throw money at him for a bit of his attention.

Harry let Ginny and Luna plan that first fundraiser. To be honest, it was a more than a little over the top. Like they were still inviting folks to stay up too late drinkin beer in a common room, not to shell over loads of gold to erect a building. Ginny said not to worry about it. She had Dean come take pictures and demanded Harry smile. Harry signed the photos of him and his guests - Merlin, Blaise was there, eager to wrap an arm around Harry’s shoulder for the photo. Dean submitted that one to the prophet and it was published.

In the end, the building was named the FAMLEZ resource center. Luna made the acronym from the names of the top six donors. Using wealth to secure a legacy through Harry's project. Luna drew the roses on the walls that welcomed guests in so it wouldn't just be names of donors on the walls. Harry begged her to be the one to handle permitting to get the apparition point. He didn't want Shacklebolt to say there wasn’t a way to get there.