C48: Carpets

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Black Mansion | 3rd July 1987 | 11 AM

Sirius dressed up as a proper English gentleman. A proper English gentleman from the 1800s. He wore a white shirt and black pant. He also put on a red and gold tie without the Gryffindor emblem on it. On his shirt, he put on a grey vest. The final piece of clothing he had on was a black jacket made of wool.

On his head, he had a top hat, which was also black. He wore black Oxfords that had been recently polished. He had a Rolex on his left wrist and a white silk cloth tucked in his breast pocket. To top it off, he had a cane umbrella.

He looked stunning, and everyone acknowledged it. But Sirius had to find a way to make that awkward.

"By Merlin! Sirius, you look stunning!" Arthur had complemented Sirius immediately after seeing him. The Weasleys had been the first ones to come to the Black Manor. Everyone planned to go to the Black Manor first and then to the Black Mansion.

Sirius smiled widely and said, "You don't say! I tried this exact look around 7 years back and went to a muggle club. You won't believe how much of a hot chick I scored. Trust me when I say I had a great time - "

"There are children here Sirius! How about we go to your second living room and continue."

Arthur was going to follow Sirius, but his wife stopped him.

"Spend some time with the children. Tell them what wonderful work you are doing at the Ministry."

"Mollywobbles, I am sure the work I do is far from interesting. The kids would be bored. Maybe I'll talk with Sirius for some time... 5 minutes? And then we could tell some story while waiting for the Tonks and Longbottoms. I think the Bones are also coming too right?"

Molly gave Arthur a stern look and decided to attack Sirius instead.

"Sirius, why don't you ask Arthur what he is doing. Arthur has a respectable job at the Ministry, so maybe everyone here could learn something from him."

Molly looked at her children while saying the last part, but Sirius felt that that was an attack on him.

Arthur sighed and said, "Okay. So I work in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office in the Ministry. It is a division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. So what we do is we make sure that no one enchants muggle objects to do what they weren't intended to do. Well actually, we can't enchant muggle objects to do what they weren't intended to do with the intention of using the enchanted muggle object. Really good loophole. Wrote that one myself. Planning on buying a muggle wagon and gonna try to enchant it. Want to see what it does. It's nice to have a bit of personal fun."

Molly coughed a little.

"Anyway, what we are working on this week is there was some person who enchanted carpets to fly. We have to decide whether that is a violation or not. But it's an open and shut case. What was the man thinking? Carpets flying? The man must be out of his mind. So any questions?"

Charlus raised the most obvious question.

"But Uncle Arthur, we have broomsticks that fly. Why can't carpets fly?"

Arthur was speechless. He wanted to explain, but he couldn't. There was no possible explanation.

"Well, hehe. The thing is, there is a list in the ministry, classifying objects as muggle. Carpets are in the list, while brooms aren't."

Charlus wasn't satisfied with the explanation.

"So how do they classify objects as muggle. Don't we use everything that muggles do? We use carpets and we don't use brooms. How come one is muggle, while the one we don't use isn't?"

What Charlus said had some merit. Since cleaning was done with magic, there was no longer any use for brooms. But carpets were used by all families to decorate their houses.

Arthur was silent. He couldn't answer Charlus' question.

"It's just how it is Charlus. We just have to live with it. Why don't you go and have that talk with Sirius now, Arthur?" Molly tried to distract Charlus.

"Wait," Sirius stopped Molly. "He asked a question, and he should know the answer." He turned to Chalrus and continued. "Remember Charlus. The world that we live in is based on greed and money. There was a time when flying carpets existed, but that is no longer the case precisely because of brooms. All the broom manufacturers - Nimbus, Comet, Cleansweep; all of them banded together and made the minister ban carpets. This happened almost 200 years ago. They did this to make brooms the only option for flying enthusiasts."

"Wow! How do you know so much Padfoot?"

Every kid was there, sitting with awe, as they listened to Sirius' detailed explanation.

Sirius rubbed his head and said smugly. "What are you thinking of me? I am the Lord of the House Black. While I don't brag, I studied so hard at Hogwarts that I was very close to being the first in the entire grade."

"You mean close to first from the last."

Remus had been in the room the entire time listening to the conversation. When Sirius started bull shitting, he interjected.

"The only reason you know this is because you almost enchanted a carpet, but Lily stopped you."

"Hey! I already knew this! I read in some quidditch book. I just can't seem to remember which."

"So you are saying you knew what you were doing was illegal and you were still going to do it? Real role model Sirius."