Minerva spoke next, "we have a problem in identifying next years students, the first generation magic users will just be contacted by Hogwarts and we have no access to the list."
It was a thoughtful Hermione who asked the question, "How does the list work?"
"The magical book records every birth of a witch or wizard in Britain, it automatically generates the Hogwarts letter and sends it to the correct address by owl on their eleventh birthday."
"So let me see if I've got this right," said Hermione "the magical book has the name and date of birth of every witch and wizard under the age of eleven?"
"Yes," answered Minerva, using her explaining to small child voice "but without the addresses we have no way to contact them."
Hermione just glanced to her mum and dad, "Just leave that to us, with a name and date of birth it's a lot easier to trace someone in the non-magical world. For people of magical backgrounds an advert in the Quibbler inviting applications should do the trick. That book should have most of our students for the next ten years in it, how do we get at it and can it be copied?"
"I'm certain the information could be reproduced but not the enchantments that power the book. I would need to get into my old office at Hogwarts to do it though."
"We're planning on awarding Millicent Bulstrode the Order of Merlin, first class, officially it will be for rescuing her betrothed but we all know it's for rendering Voldemort mortal." A few gasps around the room alerted Amelia to the fact that they didn't all know and she'd put her foot in it.
"Ok, everything said in here tonight is confidential and nothing more so than that last statement." The tone of Hermione's voice left no one in any doubt she was deadly serious, her eyes travelled from Jillian to Minerva taking in Filius, Poppy and Amber en route. "My husband has already destroyed Voldemort three times but he had taken steps to ensure he could keep coming back. We've been working to ensure that couldn't happen again and that bloody reptile was the last piece of the puzzle, Millicent killing that snake has saved lives, some of them might even be in this room now. That piece of information is the biggest secret in the wizarding world at the moment and could endanger many lives if it became public knowledge."
Harry continued seamlessly from where his wife left off, "Most of us saw what happened when Dumbledore realised his number was up, he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory so can you imagine what Voldemort would do? We're hoping his life as a squirrel is so bad that he will accept his fate, thinking that he wont actually die and have the opportunity to return in a more suitable body."
Poppy was looking at her daughter who got the slightest of nods from Harry, "yes mum I knew, the diary that possessed me in second year was one and I was there when they destroyed another in Hogwarts before saving me again. I don't like keeping secrets from you but that wasn't my secret to tell and Riddle might have moved them had he heard even a whisper of what was going on."
Poppy just hugged her daughter, "I'm not angry at you Ginny, just sorry you couldn't share that burden."
"She shared it with us Poppy," said Luna "Neville and I weren't involved in those operations but it was worse just sitting here praying for their safe return."
Minerva's quick mind had put together the pieces and she now had tears in her eyes at the enormity of what these two had achieved, "I'm so proud to even say I know you far less work for you both."
Sirius was never one to let a situation get to serious for long, "why thank you Minnie, Remus and I are quite fond of you to."
Her pretend scowl just cracked everybody up and it was left to Amelia to get things back on track, "I agree with Minerva and there isn't an award high enough for what you've achieved though I totally understand your reasons for refusing any and all from the British establishment. We could hold Miss Bulstrode's award ceremony on Friday night in Hogwarts, invites would of course be coming your way and if Minerva and I went missing for fifteen minutes I'm sure you could cover for us."
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