Wizardry AU

The Speaker had been the defender of Parliament since before the English Civil War, and not all the threats they'd defended against had been human.~ "Fiends in Low Places"

A multi-author AU cluster, in which the central premise is that certain prominent politicians are wizards and use their powers to further their political ambitions, to troll each other, or to protect the realm from politicians in the first two categories.

Setting

Certain politicians have magical powers. The existence of magic is usually a secret from the general public, although the Speaker's Office is well aware of it and is charged with protecting Parliament and the electoral system from magical influence. The Government may also know about it, and in some universes like the RP there is a whole hidden bureaucracy set up to deal with situations like lycanthropy outbreaks.

Magical power derives from intrinsic ability, training, the powers vested in Parliament, or all three. The Speaker is generally considered to have special abilities conferred upon him by his office, including the power to wield the Mace against enemies and the power to bind the magic of wizards who are misbehaving. In some fics having a big majority grants a wizard more power, which may explain Chris Bryant and Michael Gove. In some branches of the AU the Speaker is assisted only by a single apprentice; in others such as the RP he is aided by his deputy speakers.

Magical History

Peter Mandelson used to cast nasty enchantments on the Brownite spads. Since neither of the Eds nor Dougie nor Yvette was magical, they couldn't retaliate.

In the RP, Michael Martin was an experiment in having a mundane Speaker. It didn't go well.

The Houses of Parliament

Magical protections were placed on the Commons Chamber sometime during or shortly after World War II. Parliamentary wizards can seal it so that nothing but MPs can cross the Bar of the House.

The corridors and basements beneath the Parliamentary Estate conceal an variety of magical chambers, including hidden doorways to places where eldritch horrors are lurking and the room containing the Machine. This maze doesn't seem to be particularly well mapped- even Bercow didn't know where the Machine was for a while, and Nigel Evans got lost once. (Once on camera. Given what RP!Nigel is like he's probably got himself lost hundreds of times). The Palace of Westminster is an old building and wizards have been faffing around in it for five hundred years. God only knows what's down there.

Random Trivia

Thanks to a secret clause in the party constitution, Co-op wizards can draw on the energy of all the other Co-op MPs, even mundanes, to cast their spells if they can gather them in one place. The trick is getting them all in one room but keeping Ed Balls out of it- for some reason he disrupts the link.

Fandom History

Peter Mandelson and PETER BONE'S sinister supernatural powers have long been evident even to casual observers, but the wizardry AU really took off with the fic "Fiends in Low Places", in Mandelson kidnapped Nick Clegg and sacrificed him to a demonic tentacled horror on his way out of office. John Bercow was charged to rescue him, establishing the principle that the Speaker's role included safeguarding Britain's democracy from supernatural interference.

A number of other fics were written by other authors, including the world-hopping saga "In Another Life" and a lot of Michael Gove tentacle porn.

Concurrently, Peter's supernatural abilities were being explored in the RP, where he and his Machine were wreaking all sorts of havoc. This brought him into contact with Bercow, resulting in a friendly rivalry which evolved into a close friendship and possibly UST. There was a major plotline in which Peter was turned into a werewolf and had to be imprisoned in the House of Commons for everyone's protection. The RP spawned a secondary round of Wizardry AU fics that followed RP canon.

Characters

Known Wizards
Character	Context	Specialty
John Bercow	Fic and RP	Safeguarding Parliament from supernatural interference, usually from Peter
Peter Mandelson	Fic and RP	Eldritch software design, securing Labour electoral victories by fair means and foul, trolling
PETER BONE	Fic	Creeping everyone the hell out, trying to take over the Conservative Party, animating a skeleton army
Chris Bryant	Fic and RP	Enchanting his ties to show interesting patterns, "helping" the Speaker
Michael Gove	Fic	Incompetence, having sex with tentacled monstrosities
Mark Harper	RP	Communing with animals, especially his owl
Sadiq Khan	Fic	Fire magic, for some reason
Tom Driberg	Canon	God only knows, but there is no way Tom Driberg is not a wizard in this AU
Frances D'Souza	RP	Safeguarding the House of Lords from Peter
Lindsay Hoyle	RP	Helping the Speaker, sarcasm
Dawn Primarolo	RP	Helping the Speaker, sarcasm
Nigel Evans	RP	Being frightened and out of his depth
Philip Davies	Fic	Helping PETER BONE in his sinister plots
Norman Fowler	RP	Not getting killed, being generally useless
Jacob Rees-Mogg's nanny	RP	Protective magic, folksy wisdom

Although the magical community varies from story to story, there are some people who show up regularly. The powers of the two Peters are almost invariably recognised, along with Bercow and his role as magical guardian. He often has an apprentice, either Michael Gove or Chris Bryant.

Over time a correlation between magical aptitude and parliamentary procedural skill was established, in part because of the central role of the Speaker's Office and in part because both the intrinsically eldritch BONE and Chris Bryant, who was pulled into the AU through his association with Bercow, happened by coincidence to be arch-proceduralists. We can extrapolate this trend to other possible parliamentary wizards: Paul Flynn, for instance, seems a likely candidate.

Shipping

The only ships in this AU that have any real plot relevance are the UST-filled Mandelberc of the RP and Gove/tentacles, although other pairings like Clameron, Sally/John, Mandelborne, Brycow or Goveballs often crop up in passing.