by DrT - Sahits

Hermione frowned. "What about Susan's aunt. . . ?"
"The daughter of the last male heir of the Bones line would inherit before the sister," Harry pointed
out.
"Oh, of course." Another idea occurred to Hermione. "And what about Sirius?"
"Sirius is head of the Black line, a Noble First Family, but not Original or Most Noble, as they
would call it. If he dies without magical children and without restoring Andromeda Tonks, then the
eligibility dies out, as Draco is eligible already. The entire group of First Families would then
appoint a new family, or more likely an additional branch of a First Family, to the group. It was
decided back in 1803 that the Original group would not be allowed to drop below the current
numbers.
"So what counts is magic, not legitimacy?" Dan asked, interested despite himself.
"If there are any legitimate, magical heirs, the illegitimate don't count," Harry said with a shrug.
"Just like if there are any magical male heirs they can find, women don't count. They do allow for
magic skipping one generation, at the discretion of the head of the family, or if it will prevent a line
from dying out. In addition, there are two types of marriage, and the children of a magical bonding
would come ahead of children from a legal consort."
"So Voldemort could have entered power legitimately? At least of some sort, I mean." Seeing the
confused looks on her parents faces, Hermione explained, "He was descended from Salazar
Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts, who must have been from a Founding Family."
"True, but the Gaunts hadn't won a seat in hundreds of years. Riddle was the illegitimate son of the
last known heiress, Merope Gaunt, and a Muggle she'd seduced with a love potion. It would have
taken Riddle decades of hard work to restore his name to one worth being considered for the
Wizengamot, not to mention needing at least some form of fortune."
"Not to be crass, Harry. . . ." Dan started, but didn't know how to finish.
"Money?" Dan nodded. "Well, you know all about magical taxes, right?"
All three Grangers looked confused.
"Really? Well, I'll let Hermione research on how the Ministry was put under the Duchy of Lancaster
in 1663, and the deal which allows all magical land to be subject to no governmental taxation.
Essentially, we pay very little in taxes. There are no death duties, for example, and we pay a one
Knut per Galleon VAT on magical items, and two Knuts per Galleon on non-magical items sold
through magical shops."
"That's . . . that's almost nothing!" Emma exclaimed.
Harry nodded. "And, since magical ownership falls under a special trust of the Duchy of Lancaster,
we don't pay any Crown taxes on most of it. We do have to pay for any utilities, but even in the
cities most magical people don't bother with electricity. We do have to pay for water and the drains,
but we mostly use a system that looks like gas lighting and heat, but which is magical, and both
cheap to install and free to run. The Americans have a system that imitates panel lighting and which
38