I found Lys bent over a desk in the school's metal workshops. No, not like that you pervs! Not that she's tall enough to be bent over anything, she'd just be dangling there. Anyway, she was focusing intently on something when I entered so being the considerate fella that I am I quietly made my way over to her and peeked curiously over her right shoulder at what she was doing. She was working on an ordinary-looking square piece of metal, possibly steel, but you never knew with Lys, might be some magic-smagic super metal thingy. I wasn't jealous or anything. She had some sort of material covering parts of it that formed a swirly pattern while she was using a brush to paint some metallic-looking blue paint on it.
Acid etching? No, I'm fairly sure that stuff is brownish, and it didn't look like it was corroding much of anything. I think the stuff they had around here was brown... Eh fuck it, I guess scaring the shit out of her is out, don't want to risk her dumping acid in her lap.
"If yer thinkin of trying something funny I'll tear yer nuts of an stuff em down yer throat," Lys said conversationally, not taking her eyes off what she was doing.
I smiled charmingly, which was totally wasted on Lys on account of her not actually looking at me. "If you wanted to handle my balls you could have just asked."
"Yer never gonna be that lucky, longshanks." Lys retorted without missing a beat. "I prefer them shorter and less... you."
I laughed out loud, "Hah! Nice one!"
"I'm happy for you." She said, sarcasm dripping for every syllable. "Are ya goin' to let me get back ta work now, or you planin to annoy me further?"
"Always so grumpy, Lys. You need to smile and have a little fun." I suggested with a smile, knowing it would just annoy her more.
"I was having plenty of fun before ye showed your face." She retorted with a snort. "Now do you want?"
"Why do you assume I want something? Maybe I just want to partake of your sparkling personality." I suggested.
"I'm ignoring you now." She said and I saw her roll her eyes.
I chuckled again, "Fine, spoil my fun. I need a favor."
"That's as obvious as the nose on yer face. Stop wasting my time and just tell me." She told me irritably.
"I need you to make some jewelry for me."
That apparently got her attention and she turned to face me for the first time since I stepped into the room. "You want me to make jewelry for you? Why?"
"Not for me, it's a birthday present." I clarified.
She looked at me suspiciously, "For who?"
"A girl I know," I said vaguely.
"A girl?" She asked and turned towards me fully and crossed her arms over her generous assets. "The only girls ya know are me and Nel, and it ain't any of our birthdays anytime soon."
"I know other girls." I protested.
Lys gave me a flat unimpressed look, "No, you don't."
"I know Tugwood."
"You hate Tugwood." She told me dryly.
"I don't hate her," I told her. It was true, I didn't hate her. I just found her to be... trying.
"You wouldn't give her jewelry either." Well, I had to give her that.
"Drew, what have ye done now?" She asked irritably.
"Ugh, why do you have to make it sound like I did something bad," I asked just a little offended. "I'll have you know that this is a good thing. A hero thing even."
"A hero? You?" She asked mockingly. "Right..."
"Yeah! A hero! I saved a girl! A real damsel in distress situation."
"That so? Ye know, I think I I'd had heard something about that." She told me smugly.
"Not if it was in the muggle world." I snapped.
Lys looked at me for a moment before she groaned and leaned back in the chair and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Andrew, did you reveal that you are a wizard to some random muggle girl you happened past?"
"She was going to kill herself! I had to do something!" I protested.
"She's just a muggle!" Lys exclaimed angrily.
I was quiet for a moment, looking down at her and feeling rather… disappointed. Well, that's new. Usually, I'm just disappointed in myself. I hadn't thought Lys felt like that seeing as she was quite enamored by the things muggles made. But there seemed to be a disconnect there. With a thought I threw up a privacy charm, this might get loud.
"And you are just a dwarf." I said simply, knowing it would strike a nerve.
Lys head snapped up, her eyes blazing in anger and her face twisted into an angry grimace. I simply stared back at her coldly. She'd just shown the same casual disregard towards someone that most wizard would show towards her own kind, the same kind of disregard that had once robed her people of all that they had had and almost caused their extinction. Part of what made her said was likely frustration at me, but... that was still indicative of what she thought
"Careful Andrew," Lys growled warningly.
"Or what, Lys?! Did you even just hear yourself? What do you think your dad would say to what just flew out of your mouth? He's just part house-elf, and he just has some squibs working for him, who also work for the muggles!" I snapped angrily.
Lys flinched as her brain caught up to the bullshit her mouth was spewing and caught a good whiff of the manure. For a moment she looked horrified before she clamped down on it and looked down at the ground. "It's against the law, if the ministry finds out they'll toss ya in the chokey."
I decided that I needed to really bring the point home so I leaned down and hissed in her ear. "Life is worth protecting, no matter what value you personally put to it, and if I have to choose between the law and the life of a person I don't know, I'll pick life. Every. Single. Time."
I can't say I was surprised since I recalled something I'd learned long before I'd ever ended up in this weird little world, and that was that people that were put down had a disturbing tendency to turn around and heap shit on others if they got the opportunity. Yeah, surprised the hell out of me... You'd think they'd learned better, "do onto others" and all that. But nuh uh! Why embrace wisdom when you can get some petty revenge against people that really don't deserve it! It'd been a real uncomfortable discovery.
Okay, so the situation wasn't quite the same. Lys was likely, hopefully, mostly apathetic towards anyone that wasn't a dwarf, or friends and family and I hoped she considered me friend, since that was generally the response she and her people got from the rest of the magical world. Basically; they don't care if I live and die, so I don't care about if they want to off themselves. Understandable, sure. Was it of the good? Not so much, especially if you were aiming to be the ruler of a people. And particularly a rule of a people as diminished as the dwarves.
Because no one is an island, as the saying goes. That holds true for a race as well. You try to go at it alone you'll get what the dwarves got. If you're alone you're weak, and you can be damn sure that someone will come along and take advantage of the weakness sooner or later. Probably sooner. Wizarding kind was likely to go the same way just as soon as the world at large found out about them, which I had no doubt they would once the technology level was high enough, despite my warning to Dumbledore.
A good ruler knew to form alliances and to ally with someone and expect it to last you had to understand the people you allied with. And unless you were a sociopath, which a depressingly high amount of politicians seemed to be, learned or otherwise, you tended to care for your allies. That again hinged on you being a good person who had allied with other good people. Something that had fallen out of practice in favor of making short-term deals of convenience, and that usually ended up with some shithole at the top. That never went well for the "little people".
I told Lys as much and watched her clench her teeth but say nothing. Not that the general masses were innocent. Really, when all your potential representatives are spineless assholes you don't select the one you hope is a bit less of an asshole, you toss them both and start again, but that was work and people were lazy. I didn't bother telling her that. I'd made my point, no reason to go on a rant and ruin it.
"Shortstack, look. I'm not saying you're a bad person here, because you're very obviously not. No one that cares as much as you could be, I think." A bit of hyperbole that, but I needed to get her mood up again. And I refused to believe that she was actually bad. Just a bit thoughtless, "And since you haven't gone on a murderous rampage through the school as revenge against all wizards I'm gonna assume you're not blaming the wizarding world as a whole for your situation. Which is good since the largest chunk of it is muggleborn right now after Grindelwald's little war decimated the "purebloods" that were mostly responsible for your situation."
"I know that!" Lys snapped irritably. "I don't need you to say it."
I held up my hands in surrender. "Easy. I'm just sayin'"
She shot me a glare. "I hope you don't count the bastard goblins when you say that."
I snorted in derision. "Fuck the evil little bastards; they are still squatting in the homes they stole from you, along with everything else. I can mostly forgive the wizards; the general public has been left intentionally ignorant by the Ministry of Magic… and Hogwarts… And while I'm sure none of them would give up their gold at this point I'd at least like to think that they wouldn't hinder you from reclaiming your old homes. The same can't be said about the warty little shits, who are still actively trying to fuck you over."
Lys harrumphed and looked away in a huff. "Well, good!"
"Still, Lys, and this is not me manging on about this, but you really need to have a think about how you view muggles, because you really can't afford to have that kind of view infect your thinking," I told her. "You don't have the luxury."
Lys groaned, "I didn't mean anything by it, Drew."
"Look, I don't blame you. It's the prevailing attitude of most in the wizarding world so it's not strange that you would share it."
That actually seemed to make her mood worse as Lys face twisted up in disgust. I realized that the notion that she felt the same way about anything that the wizarding public felt didn't sit well with her. I chuckled internally. I suppose that was one way to make her think things through. I'd take it since it made my work easier. "You know how smart and creative they can be Lys, how far they have come in such a short span of time. They are dangerous and should be respected."
Lys grunted dismissively, "Sure, but only to themselves. It's not like they can affect us here."
"Not right now, no. But a decade from now? Two decades? Three?" I said conversationally. "You've seen my cellphone. I might be the only one to have one right not, but that won't last. if I had to guess, we have about forty years before the general muggle public become aware of us in one way or another."
"Lys snorted in disbelief, "The ministry would never let that happen."
"The ministry doesn't even know there is a problem, and likely won't believe there is one until the whole hot mess gets dumped in their laps." I told her, knowing it to be true. I doubted Dumbledore would be able to convince anyone to the contrary. Being thickheaded seemed to be a required trait for politicians everywhere, in every world, "The wizarding world is stagnant, magic is stagnant. The same can't be said for the muggles. Science and technology are advancing at a breakneck pace, it's only a matter of time."
"Hum." Lys hummed and gave me a speculative glance. "You don't seem particularly worried about that." She observed.
"I'm not so sure it would be a bad thing, in the long run," I admitted.
"And in the short term?" She asked.
I sighed and gave her a weak smile. "That's a whole other kettle of fish. The religious community would likely go insane, but they are rapidly losing any real power they ever had, but the time we are exposed they should be almost toothless I think." I said, and for the most part, I think that would be true.
If this world followed in the tracks of my old one the only significant violence would likely come from the middle eastern countries. But since there weren't any wizarding communities there even today due to the low birthrate of wizards in those parts they really wouldn't be anything they could do. Most large wizarding communities were concentrated around, or in relative proximity, to the various schools which in turn all ringed the Atlantic ocean. The only school that didn't was Mahoutokoro in Japan, but it was the smallest of the large schools. I'd been surprised that China didn't have its own school, but apparently, despite the large population of muggles there were few magical births, really few. And those there were snatched up by Mahoutokoro.
I shook myself out of those thoughts, it wasn't important right now. "It's a long way off, but I think it might be good to have some inroads with them when the time comes."
"And that view has nothing to do with your new 'friend'" Lys asked pointedly.
"Actually no, it's just a convenient happenstance," I told her brightly. "It's not like I went out and looked for someone to rescue."
"Right..." She said, dragging out the word before sighing. "Fine, I'll do it, but it's on your head if the ministry finds you out."
"I'm not asking you to enchant it in the normal way. Just push some Ember into it, maybe do something with the metal." I told her.
"What do you want me to make exactly?" She wondered.
"I was thinking a necklace and a pair of earrings," I told her before I fished the chunk of ectotie I'd brought with me and held it out to her. "And I want you to use this in place of gemstones."
Lys gave me a dubious look, "You want to give her ectotite gems? Why?"
"They are magical without actually being 'magical'" I explained.
"It's ghost poop." Lys judged flatly.
"It's not ghost poop. Ghosts don't poop." I protested.
"It's garbage."
"It's not garbage, you know what I plan to do with it." I protested again.
"You gonna do it to this piece?" She asked pointedly.
"No..." I admitted. "I can't do that. You put a memory in it starts glowing."
"Then it's crud." Lys determined.
I sighed, "Are you going to do it or not."
"Fine, but don't come crying to me when you get slapped for giving a girl ghost crud." The half-dwarf said with a note of smugness in her voice.
"I'm not going to get slapped," I muttered.
"We'll see about that." Lys retorted. "When do you need it?"
"Day after tomorrow," I told her.
Lys gave me a look, "Cutting it a bit fine are we?"
"Can you do it?"
Lys snorted like I'd asked a stupid question. "I'll have it for you tomorrow. Now get out of here, you've been aggravating me enough for today."
I shrugged and made my way out of the classroom, "Sure, see you on the flipside."