Shadow Council 130B

*****

Some party.

Xander looked over the guests with a mixture of interest and boredom. He was interested, but his complete lack of any understanding at what he was looking at left him with nothing to focus the interest on. Hence, the boredom.

“This is really not fun,” Harry said from behind him, shifting uncomfortably. “Everyone is looking at us.”

“Of course they are,” Draco said snippily, “You were just announced as the Mage Knight, what did you expect would happen?”

“That the muggles wouldn’t know what it meant, maybe?” Harry hissed in irritation.

“I doubt most of them have any idea what it means,” Xander said as he noted most of the looks were more curious than anything else. Most. “There’s a couple over there that I’d bet know more than the rest though.”

Harry followed his gaze to see two men in suits watching him with undisguised interest, and not the confused curiosity that most seemed to hold.

Draco eyed them as well, “Don’t recognize them. If they’re wizards, they’re nobody important.”

“Muggleborn, working for the Queen maybe?” Xander offered. “Or just non-magicals in the know.”

Harry nodded, “Great. What do I do now?”

“Mingle.” Nymphadora snorted with some amusement, getting a look of ire from Harry.

“She is right,” Draco nodded. “Parties like this are for making connections. Talk to people, be pleasant.”

Harry looked at the blond Slytherin with some consternation, “I thought you went to parties like this?”

“I do.”

“And you’re capable of being pleasant?” Harry asked in disbelief.

Draco shot him a glower, “When someone in the room is worth being pleasant to? Absolutely. You don’t need to worry, as you’ll never see it.”

Xander half turned away, masking his snickers.

“Nor will you, Harris,” Draco hissed.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t care.” Xander casually flipped him off before nudging Harry, “So go be pleasant already.”

“What about you?” Harry hissed as he was pushed toward the party.

“I’m your bodyguard, I’m not here to be pleasant,” Xander smiled widely at him.

Harry groaned but let himself be pushed forward against his will, pushing a smile on his face as the first of the onlookers decided to step out to greet him.

***** 

“How is the child managing?”

Her Majesty was resting, her age left her with little of the endurance she once had for such gatherings. She could manage well enough, but the pageantry wore on her deeply, while the real matters of import managed to be worse.

“As one might expect.”

“That badly, then?” She offered with a smile.

“He hasn’t attempted to curse anyone yet,” Her husband chuckled with easy amusement at the situation.

“There is that, I suppose,” She acknowledged, turning then to an aide. “Do we have the publicity packets ready to be disseminated?”

“Yes Ma’am,” the secretary confirmed. “Along with photos of the young man from this event will be in the papers and associated outlets by morning.”

“He’ll not thank us for that, but it’s good,” The Queen said wearily. “He will need the legitimacy if what we’re hearing from our own magicals is correct.”

“That does appear to be the case, Ma’am. The latest reports from within the magical world have grown ever darker,” The man said through firm pressed lips. “Rumors are spreading that their little Dark Lord is back.”

The Queen snorted, “In my day villains had the decency to stay dead when they were killed.”

“Next time they should put a bullet in his skull, just to be sure,” her husband said darkly.

“A body would be a requirement for that, unfortunately, your Majesty,” the aide said with an apologetic shrug. “All reports agree that the one thing they were rather lacking in was the man’s body.”

“No body, no death,” Her Majesty said simply. “An old rule when dealing with such villains, but a good one.”

The secretary nodded.

“Well, nothing to be done about it,” She went on as she rose from her seat. “Let’s see to the gathering.”

***** 

Harry felt like he was barely able to remember how to speak as he was lost in a blur of greetings and meaningless small talk.

He was glad of that last bit, if only because he doubted he’d have been able to remember much of anything anyway and if there was any meaning that would probably end badly.

Despite that, though, he wondered at why anyone would ever willingly subject themselves to this torture.

Through it, though, he smiled and nodded as best he could, explaining over and over that the title Mage Knight was an old family one from a time before anyone had much memory of and no, of course he didn’t know anything about ‘real’ magic.

Thankfully, Nymphadora… or Tonks as she insisted he call her, despite it sounding rather odd in the current surroundings, was there to guide the conversation when it got awkward. She’d clearly been coached by her mother, and Harry was incredibly thankful of that in the moment.

How do people do this all the time? No, better yet, why?

Of course he knew the answer, Andromeda had hammered that home to him over and over.

This was about making contacts, meeting people who could be leveraged to boost the House of Potter… and Black. Harry didn’t like thinking about people that way, but he supposed that it was ok for him to do so in this case… everyone else was looking at him that way, after all.

He was in the middle of yet another nonsensical conversation that was going out one ear just as fast as it came in the other when a hush settled over the crowd and he stopped like everyone else to look around to find the source of the change.

That was answered in short order when he spotted movement at the center of the courtyard where figures familiar to anyone born in the country had appeared.

The quiet in the crowd became complete as her Majesty stepped into a microphone that had appeared from nowhere as best he could tell and cleared her throat.

“Welcome, Knights of the Realm.”

*****