Oh We're All Quite Mad Here
Chapter Two: Oh We’re All Quite Mad Here
King’s Cross Station – September 1st 2069
Alice Oxford held her father’s hand close as they walked into the bustling station. It was already packed, the everyday folk around her pushing, and walking and shoving and running like a great horde of non-stop motion.
Her family alone seemed to be the small buffer of calm, a hub of inactivity around which the great mass was forced to move…..and not all that politely or willingly either.
“For Christ’s sake! You’re holding everyone up!” yelled a suited and bespectacled man with thinning blonde hair as he ran past, the latest tablet gadget in his hands.
‘Was that a Holo-screen?’ Alice idly wondered. Despite being 11 years old she was only peripherally aware of the various fads and technological ‘must-haves’ that seemed to dominate the lives of her friends older siblings and parents. Such supposed delights had held little interest to her, with a vague assumption on her part that it was something she’d grow into caring about as she got older. Now though, now she felt that her reluctance or disinterest had merely been a symptom of something more. Of the reason why she was standing here with her parents looking for a Platform that didn’t exist.
For Alice Oxford was a Witch.
She had always had some element of difference between her and the rest of the children at her primary school. Nothing terrible, nor anything too isolating, in fact she had been quite the social butterfly and reasonably in demand amongst her various friend groups….but there had been a subtle but noticeable feeling of separation. She had put that odd feeling down to her various ‘old-fashioned’ interests. Her preference for paper over a tablet screen to write on, her desire to see plays and theatre instead of some new streaming platform, her tendency to imagine how relaxing life would be if they all suddenly had to make do without electricity for a while.
And now she believed that those thoughts and feelings had come from that hidden deep part of her that was different. That was magical.
Norfolk, England, - July 4th 2069
It had been a surreal day more than a month ago when there had been a sharp, hard knock at the front door of their house in Norfolk. Her parents hadn’t been expecting anyone and the loudness of the knock suggested it wasn’t one of Alice’s classmates coming to see if she wanted to play.
Her mother had walked past Alice, where she lay on the living room floor colouring, as she moved to get the door. There had been the sound of a soft melodious voice and her mothers slightly higher baffled response, then her mother had walked back into the room accompanied by possibly the most beautiful woman Alice had ever seen. It was like a painting from a museum or a fairy from one of Alice’s books on the Tuatha De Danan had come to life. The woman looked about 30, a bit younger than her mum, Alice thought. She had long white-gold hair that swept down past her shoulders to her waist, alabaster white skin, and the utterly captivating fae features that looked like they belonged on one of statues she had seen on school trip to the British Museum.
She was also dressed slightly strangely in a pair of old fashioned pinstripe trousers and a waistcoat that looked as though it was at least 200 years out of date. But the outfit was surprisingly well cut for her figure, the white shirt and long almost cloak-like jacket that nearly touched the floor billowing out behind her as she moved gracefully into the room.
Her mother stood just behind this new person looking both frightened and uncertain, she looked through to the back of the room towards the kitchen door to call out to Alice’s father.
“Blake! Blake, can you come in here please!”
The urgency in her mothers voice must have been noticeable for her father appeared so quickly it was almost as if he had teleported. He took in the scene of her mother looking uncomfortable, unsure and a touch afraid, the beautiful newcomer who remained unconcerned and focused on Alice herself on the floor, and seemed to come to some quick decisions.
“Umm excuse me Miss, can I help you?” Blake Oxford said with a very tangible air of authority behind the question and a strong implication that any answer given should be a good one.
The woman looked up from her quiet contemplation of Alice to give a dazzling bright white smile to her father and mother and gesture to the open couch in the living room inviting them to sit down in their own home.
“Good Morning Mr Oxford, I was just saying to your wife that I’m here to see young Alice. Part of her school admission you might say.” She proffered a heavy envelope of some dense paper at her Alice’s father, who took the letter in confusion and looked down to read.
“This…..this is addressed to Alice?” her father said.
“Yeess, but I think given the circumstances all three of you reading it together might be the best option. Honestly just read….it’ll explain everything, and anything it can’t explain. I will” she finished cheerfully. The beautiful figure seemed to switch quickly between near silent intense focus and exuberant infectious bubbliness.
Alice didn’t think her father was confused about why he should read her letter but rather why someone was writing to his 10 year old daughter in the first place.
Slowly Alice’s father and mother sat down on the couch while Alice herself climbed onto her father’s lap as he unfurled the letter and they all read its contents.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Headmaster: Neville Longbottom (Order of Merlin, First Class, Order of the Silver Scythe, Chair of Herbalpharmacology, Snr Fellow with A.C.O.N.I.T.E.)
Dear Alice Abigail Oxford
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Flavia Morgana Deputy Headmistress
Several long seconds of silence hung in the air.
“Get out” Alice’s father’s voice was low and quiet and dangerous in a way his daughter had never heard before. He stood up and positioned himself between his daughter and the mysterious woman.
The woman looked disappointed but not afraid or repentant in any way.
“I asked you to leave! I don’t what kind of mad cult or scheme you’re trying to pull here but we’re not having any part of it.” Alice’s father was breathing more quickly and his eyes darted warily between the woman and the kitchen door as though calculating how quickly he could get his wife and daughter to the relative safety of the kitchen.
“You seem troubled Mr Oxford?” the woman said with a look of genuine annoyance and mild sadness “was any part of the letter unclear?”
“Unclear? You mean the letter where you claim my daughter is some sort of Satan worshipping witch, and that you want to cart her off to a school for it!” he shouted, looking ready to continue before the woman cut him off.
“There is nothing satanic to do with magic Mr Oxford, nor does your various religious faiths have any real ties to our people or way of life.” This time she sounded genuinely annoyed and angry.
“Magic isn’t real” her father said before the woman subtly twitched and suddenly a long intricately carved stick about the length of Alice’s forearm was held delicately in her hand.
“Then allow me a demonstration” the woman said brightly, giving another infectious smile and waved the stick slightly. Almost at once all the furniture in the living room came alive and started moving around, galloping footstools alongside shuffling cushions and a labouring armchair all jauntily moving around the room in a roughly clockwise direction.
This included the 3 seater sofa that the Oxford family was siting on. A sharp yelp from her parents and an astonished “WOW” from Alice were the main sounds as they all three leapt off the now wriggling sofa and it limbered up and joined its fellow in the merry dance around the room.
With an amused grin, a wink at Alice, and another flick of the stick the furniture returned to its rightful place and stilled, as inert as it ever had been before today.
“Now then” she said, entirely friendly, apparently satisfied with her demonstration “since we can now hopefully agree that magic is indeed real, we can progress to having a nice little chat about what it means for your daughter to go to Hogwarts and what your world will now become, now that you are aware of our world”.
And so Alice’s parents had sat down with the nice lady who had calmly explained about magic and witches and wizards, and about a school established hundreds of years ago that taught magical people like her, and how there was a government that was official and everything.
To Alice these revelations felt natural and logical filling in previously blank aspects of her worldview like jigsaw pieces that perfectly fit, for her parents (judging from the looks of horror, incredulity and eventually wonder on their faces) it was upending everything they thought they knew about how the world around them worked.
After perhaps an hour or so of the woman had managed to cover the basic set-up of the magical world to her parents including its more troubled recent history during the previous century with three wars across the 20thcentury.
“But it’s safe now, isn’t it?” Alice’s mother said with an uncertainty in her voice but clearly looking for a specific answer. “I mean you said that Mr Gimbelword died in prison and that this Lord Volumwort was destroyed by Henry Potter?”
At these words the woman squirmed slightly, her beautiful blue eyes held a hint of mirth at what Alice thought was her mother’s mix-up with the names of these ‘Dark Wizards’, but her quirked perfect lips suggested the admission of a truth she hadn’t really wanted to share.
“Ah. Well…..now we come to what you might say is the crux of the matter. I mentioned that magicals can be split into three categories of heritage or blood status, Pure-Blood, Half-Blood, Muggleborn.” She put added emphasis on the last term.
Alice’s parents nodded warily and silently, and the woman continued.
“Muggleborns have previously been targeted by Pure-Blood factions who disliked the muggle influence and threat to their familial alliances that individually capable witches and wizards without debt or leverage presented. Those issues were mostly put to bed in the UK over 70 years ago with the destruction of Lord Voldemort, and the establishment of a more inclusive government and the high losses of the war whittling down what was left of the Pro Pure-Blood factions.
Magickind had to rebuild, and in turn this led to many of the surviving families either finding spouses from other magical communities around the world or looking to the muggle world. The latter became a more noticeable trend over the succeeding decades. And so Half-Bloods became the dominant majority and a more even handed and progressive mindset asserted itself among our peoples….” At this she trailed off.
“What?” said Alice’s mother “Something clearly must have happened for you to be so reticent on the status of Muggleborns at present. Did these Pure-Bloods rise again, did you have another Dark Lord?” though asked in fearful wariness there was also an element of judgement in Amy Oxford’s voice.
The woman sat on the couch for a few moments longer toying slightly with the end of a strand of her lovely golden hair as though considering how to phrase her response. Eventually she straightened and gestured to in turn Alice and her parents who sat waiting.
“The issue…or rather situation is……well there haven’t been any muggleborn births in over 50 years.”
Silence rang across the small home’s living room.
“What do you mean there haven’t been any?” asked Blake “You just said our daughter was one? You said that they were apparently enough of segment of your population to cause civil wars to be fought? He sounded bewildered, annoyed and angry.
The woman held up a calming but firm hand to placate him before she replied, her previously bubbly demeanour sobering into seriousness “What I mean Mr Oxford, is that out of the blue, nearly 50 years ago muggleborns simply stopped occurring. Our record keeping is very stringent and detailed. We identify most muggleborns by the time they reach age 5 and if sometimes is recorded even shortly after the birth itself. However for a reason that no one can explain, and that no one has ever taken credit for, that simply stopped happening. All of our spells, rituals and magical devices couldn’t detect any magical children being born outside of our world.
I myself went out to investigate this bizarre phenomenon, we thought it was a problem with the spells…..but no, I checked and triple checked again. No matter what I did I stood in the middle of the largest hospital in the United Kingdom and couldn’t find a single muggleborn child.
Since then we’ve no reports of accidental magic, no blip on our nation wide spells……..and for nearly half a century we’ve had to sit back and watch our population rate start to decline across the world.
…..until your daughter’s name appeared in the Hogwarts registry of upcoming students thus year” she finished in a grave whisper.
There was silence in the Oxford household for nearly a solid minute until Alice’s father spoke, “They’re all going to be after her aren’t they? All the old sides from your wars?”
“They’ll all be interested” said the woman. “There’s no doubt about that, but your daughter isn’t a threat to our society Mr Oxford…….she’s our hope for the future”.
Perhaps sensing that she’d finally reached the point where the Oxford’s simply couldn’t take in any more earth shattering revelations the beautiful blonde stood up, gathered her long jacket around her and began to walk slowly to the door.
“I think we’ve covered enough for today Mr Oxford, I’ll be back in a few days to take Alice shopping for her school things, you are of course both welcome to join us” she said, some of her former bubbliness creeping back into her pixie smile. “Until then, here’s my card in case you need to contact me, just throw it into the fire and call my name.”
She held out her hand in which was clasped a small white business card.
AUROR VICTOIRE DELACOUR-POTTER
Recovery & Protection Specialist
DMLE
British Ministry of Magic
As her mother gingerly took the card Alice thought something must’ve jogged her memory because the name sounded familiar to her too.
“Delacour-Potter?” Amy Oxford asked tentatively “wasn’t that the name of that Dark Wizard destroyer person you mentioned?”
At this last bit the blonde woman-No, Victoire fully resumed her earlier cheerful and slightly mischievous countenance, smiling very broadly with perfect teeth.
“Oh yes” she said, “He’s my Dad”.
And with that she spun on the spot and vanished.