Joining the society

The same evening, Vywin manor atrium.

Around twenty people had already gathered, and all four fireplaces were going off intermittently, signaling more people arriving. The first thing the new arrivals saw was a large house Vywin crest on the floor.

The next thing were the various animated murals on the walls, starting with what looked like a kid fighting a transformed vampire, a little girl beheading a grown man and a small force encircled by a sea of werewolves. However, the facial features of those depicted on the murals were obscured to the point that they couldn't be recognized.

Many of the people who had gathered seemed to be looking at the murals and discussing them. There was a gray-haired stern looking wizard near the fireplaces, greeting each new arrival by hand, beside him a boy that didn't look older than seven, girl that looked to be about ten, and finally a young lady that seemed to be around fifteen.

Just as the clock was about to strike 6 AM, young wizard with long platinum blonde hair stepped out.

Gaude (Charles) shook the man's hand, looked into his eyes and said: "Greetings, Mr. Malfoy. It's splendid that you found the time to come."

Gaude's intelligence network had made him well aware of Malfoy's habit of arriving just on the nick of time to appear busier than he was.

"Mr. Vywin, young Mr. Vywin. Oh, and who are the lovely ladies, I don't think I've seen them before?"

Charles looked at Amanda and Irma and said: "Girls, please introduce yourselves."

Amanda did a curtsy and presented her hand, and Malfoy followed etiquette, even though he had to almost kneel for a bit due to the great difference in their heights.

She said in a slightly cold, official tone: "Amanda Lestoat-Vywin. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Irma followed Amanda's example, introducing herself as Irma Vywin – while she wasn't adopted by blood yet,

A few moments after the introductions to Lucius had been made, one more person stepped out of the same Floo before the fire went out. It was a witch with a head of chestnut hair containing a few streaks of platinum.

Charles' eyes met the lady's and he said: "Mrs. Malfoy, I presume. Regardless of some of his less than admirable traits, Lucius turns out to be a man of exquisite taste."

Charles took the lady's hand and kissed the air above her knuckles.

Charles then said to the now slightly blushing future lady Malfoy: "It's a pleasure."

"Actually, it's Narcissa Black, we're not quite there yet."

Charles started at Lucius and said: "What the hell kid, are you waiting for this old man to become your competition before you grow some balls and put the ring on her?"

Narcissa's blush became deeper and Lucius immediately blurted out: "N-no, sir, I was just trying to find a good moment!"

Charles chuckled at that. Subtle compulsion charms could sometimes work wonders to make people speak their mind.

The whole sequence had caused Narcissa to glance at Lucius with wide open eyes, but the moment he reciprocated the gaze, she looked down with a reddening face, unable to meet his eyes.

"You have until tomorrow night, after that, I'll do my worst to steal your girl."

Amanda stared at 'Charles' with a bland expression and said in a chastising tone: "Grandfather!"

Lucius had a complicated expression, but an instant later he blurted out: "Yes sir, I'll get right on it!"

It was a good thing there were always a few elves on Malfoy – with them both knowing he was going to propose, yet still not doing it immediately, it was bound to be a whole lot of drama.

Once the clock struck, Charles flipped a large industrial-looking switch between the fireplaces, starting the flow of magic into the anti-Floo and anti-apparition wards.

"Now that it is time to begin, let us not accept late arrivals.

First, I would like to announce a few rules of the house.

One: no hostile action is permitted.

Those that break the rule will be punished.

Two: no impolite language.

Three: what transpires here should not be discussed elsewhere.

We are all civilized people so I trust that the rules will be followed.

Please follow me to the hall for some refreshments.

Tonight's theme is Argentinian cuisine, so I recommend you try a little bit of everything."

A minute later, everyone was seated, with Charles and the elf illusioned to look like Gaude taking a seat at the head of the table.

One thing Gaude had already noticed and became even more apparent now was that every single one of those people were no older than thirty, either there had been a serious case of dragon pox that had annihilated the older generation, or the actual movers and shakers didn't consider house Vywin worth their time. Gaude suspected that there had been rumors spreading about the Vywin heritage going extinct with the main family. He figured that in their opinion, sending their offspring to attend the event was already giving house Vywin a lot of face.

There were large serving trays on the table with various food on them, but no service staff to be seen.

One of the wizards looked at Charles indignantly and asked: "Where are the elves to serve us?"

"It's the elves' job to prepare the food and clean up after you. You've got a pair of hands and a mouth on you, I'm sure you can figure out how to use them."

At the same time, some of the people around the table had already whipped out their wands to summon the various food items to themselves. They looked quite proficient at using the spells as none of the people got splashed, that was, until the empanadas tucumanas were down to the last one – apparently, the guests considered the most pastry-looking item to be the safest. After a brief tug of war, the pastry was torn apart, causing the boiled egg and onion stuffing to rain down on the table.

With an almost inaudible pop, an elf with a maid uniform apparated behind the guests, waved her hand and made the mess float onto a tray in her hand. Once she was done, she disapparated to add the spill to the meal of some magical beast.

The half of the table that had seen it happen stared at the spot where the elf had been as if they'd seen a ghost before they started murmuring among themselves while the rest looked behind them, only to find nothing noteworthy.

After a while, many gazes had stopped on one of the wizards, who was eating one of the subjects of the small incident while sipping on some red wine on the side. They looked at him as if he was a barbarian.

"What?", he asked, only then noticing that everyone else snacking on an empanada was sipping some sort of a herbal tea from silver-lined gourd cups through a silver straw. There were a few who were eating dripping grilled meat with some green sauce, and they were the ones that were also sipping red wine.

Each time the guests tried something, their eyes widened, and a few whispers and murmurs could be heard, and they became more and more courageous, until finally, every serving tray on the table had become empty, save for a bit of crumbs and sauce.

Once everyone had finished with their meal, Charles started to speak.

"I have gathered you all here to announce my arrival in Britain properly and introduce my grandson Gaude to you all, as was stated in the invitation.

Some of you may have noticed that I have obtained a few businesses and locations for my own purposes, and you might be curious as to why that is.

The simple answer is, because I could. The long answer is that I didn't want to leave galleons lying on the streets and I couldn't bear to look at the ancient-looking storefronts."

Lucius, who was two seats form Charles asked: "As I understand, you are an American pureblood. Will you be joining lord Voldemort's cause of making Britain into the greatest nation ruled by Wizards?"

Charles replied: "Tom Marvolo Riddle, the son of one Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle, a Muggle nobleman's son?

I have no desire sully my name by supporting a half-breed lunatic. From what my agents have discovered, he marks those that render great service to him with a slave seal instead of rewarding them.

He tries to achieve the worst of Gellert Grindelwald's goals while instead of uplifting wizardkind he would rather see them under his heel."

Suddenly, one of the witches with unassuming looks drew her wand and aimed it at Charles.

She shouted in indignant rage: "How dare you smear the name of the great lord Voldemort! He is a hundred, a thousand times your better! Avada Kedavra!"

Just a moment before the curse can claim Charles' life, the wand flicks to the side a bit, the green bolt hitting a pillar in the hall, causing the piece of marble perfection to explode into fragments. The fragments as well as the witch are frozen in place, only the witch's eyes able to move as her face begins bubbling and reveals the visage of Bellatrix Lestrange.

The pillar that had been struck and destroyed reassembles itself, looking good as new. Every guest immediately understood that the entire house must have been enchanted from foundation to the rooftop and either built above a highly magical location or powered by massive Wardstones.

Charles rose from his chair and walked up to the immobilized Bellatrix. He took hold of her chin, looked her into the eyes and smiled wryly while saying: "Bella, Bella, Bella. It is impolite to commit an act of violence during a social gathering. Did you not hear the rules, or did you perhaps think that they were a mere joke? As a punishment you shall remain in this state for the rest of the evening. I'll think of what to do with you after that."

Charles then turned away from the paralyzed woman and commented: "Such beauty, yet all of it wasted on a madman. It is truly a tragedy."

Suddenly, five more wands were pulled at Charles. Two of them were Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, the husband and brother-in-law to Bellatrix. The rest were identified devout Death Eaters.

"Lady, Gentlemen. Please maintain at least some decorum. We have yet to get properly started with introductions and already I see so much violence. It's as if I was in the midst of violent criminals that escaped from Azkaban instead of civilized witches and wizards of nobility."

Even more wands were aimed at Charles after the statement, as if the hidden Death Eaters thought that he was aware of them.

Charles kept smiling amicably as he said: "It is truly a pity that my grandson's debut into the society has come to this. Maintenance, clean them up."

Gaude flicked his wrist, causing a transparent bubble to spread out from the center of the room and pass through everyone inside it within the blink of an eye. The only thing those present managed to do was widen their eyes.

Suddenly, uniformed elves apparated only to disapparated a split second later, taking with them every single one of the guests that had pulled their wands on Charles – it was easy to differentiate since all the guests were unable to move, courtesy of an immobilizing charm supercharged by four massive Wardstones and the ambient magic, switched on by a signal from Gaude.

Was it flexing? Absolutely. Hell, the guests were bound to be all sorts of insulted and aggrieved over what had just happened, but Gaude didn't really give a damn, he'd just turn this into an opportunity instead, that was his original plan in the first place.

With a sigh, Gaude said under his breath: "Haah, this is a disaster!" However, due to the room having descended into a deathly silence, he could be heard by everyone.

He then continued with a normal volume while trying to pack as much unwillingness and remorse into his tone as possible: "My honored guests, I do apologize for using such harsh methods. I would recommend you all not to do anything rash once I release the immobilizing ward. It would be a shame if I was forced to have you all taken away as well. Instead, I'll tell you some good news: this doesn't have to go to the DMLE, we can solve it in-house, so to speak.

Either way, I'll have a few conditions: one, no attempts to use violence to reclaim your people will be tolerated. Two: I will be open to negotiations starting Monday, no earlier. And finally, so you don't feel like this is too one-sided, there's the third condition: I'm willing to swear an unbreakable vow that each of the offenders will be returned alive and well once an agreement is reached.

I believe the vow is enough to ensure keeping to the agreement on my side, so I'll also let you know why trying to start anything near me is a bad idea. Knights, end stealth!"

As Gaude finished his monologue, twenty fully-armored knights appeared out of thin air.

"They are my private security force, well-trained and equipped."

Gaude then pointed his wand at one of the knights that was at the far end of the hall and chanted: "Bombarda Maxima!", causing a loud explosion. However, the knight had raised an arm to protect his face and was only knocked flying against a wall, recovering a moment later and returning to his former position.

"I believe that's enough of a demonstration of their defenses. Before you think of trying anything against me or any other member of house Vywin, just remember that they're always around and on guard. Knights, resume stealth!"

The knights thumped their chest with their right arm and faded into invisibility once more. The gesture itself was two-purpose – in addition to showing respect to Gaude, it was also the method of activating their stealth system due to most of the knights being repurposed Muggle criminals.

"Now that I'm done boring you with my words, I'll be releasing the ward. Just keep in mind I can reactivate it faster than any of you can cast a spell."

The moment the ward dropped, the room fell into a cacophony of people shouting over each other, most of them expressing how Gaude's actions had been an insult to their family, that they would report this to the Ministry and so on. It seemed that even after being completely immobilized, the people weren't capable of listening to what was explained to them in simple terms.

After a while, the commotion died down and Gaude said: "It is my understanding that you all feel wronged but put yourselves in my shoes: if I hadn't taken drastic action, I would've been a corpse on the ground and everyone present would've pretended that none of this happened."

After the guests had discussed some more among themselves, Lucius, one of the known Death Eaters that hadn't pulled his wand on Gaude spoke up: "If there is to be any kind of a public relationship between House Vywin and the wizarding society of Britain, we ask you to make that vow immediately. We also ask that we be shown the captives so we can be reassured in their safety."

Gaude, still masquerading as Charles, said in a solemn tone: "I, Charles Vywin solemnly swear on my life and magic that those captured for breaking the rules of the house will be returned alive and well once an appropriate agreement is reached."

Gaude was already mentally preparing himself for the shitstorm that was sure to follow – even if the magical families didn't give a damn about him wanting to make an entrance into the British wizarding society, they would be up in arms the instant they heard that their family members were held captive, no matter the reason behind it.

However, he had picked the words of his vow carefully, and they gave him full freedom to act, since even if magic considered the identity of Charles Vywin the same as Gaude, using loyalty potions and binding contracts was still fair game. Gaude had planned the entire event as a trap in the first place, betting on the probability that there was at least one Voldemort zealot among them.

Once 'Charles' had made the vow, the guests seemed to calm down, a hesitant-looking Narcissa Black approached him and asked: "How much do you want for the elf that prepared the food for tonight?"

There was no way Gaude was going to sell his investments, especially to someone that was about to marry a known elf abuser. "I'm sorry, but my elves aren't for sale. However, you can send your elf to my house for training for the small fee of let's say twenty Sickles a fortnight. The entire training should take no more than half a year, after which the elf will be up to the current standards of my own elves."

Gaude omitted the part about teaching the elf how to break free from the bond in case of abuse. Naturally, he would take in and put to work any elves that self-liberate.

After that, there wasn't much of a conversation, the crowd was still a bit shaken by how Gaude had handled things before.

"It seems that all of you would rather return home, and I don't blame you. The anti-Floo ward is one-way, so those that want to can leave any time they choose. I apologize once again for the commotion and hope that our houses can have a long and fruitful friendship once all this is put behind us."

Guests started leaving one after the other, not bothering to try and make some more polite conversation. There were some exceptions, of course, mostly those whose family members weren't captured. However, after another hour had passed, Gaude was left alone with Amanda, Irma had already left for the Academy.

Gaude finally dispelled the illusion on himself and said: "Damn, this was stressful. Remind me to never host a big event again."

"What are we going to do with those wand-happy witches and wizards?", Amanda asked.

"Well, I bought myself two days to process them, and I'd be damned if I didn't make full use of that time. I guess I'll get to it. Mandy, you look tired. There's a bath ready for you."