Epilogue
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Years later.
"Have you heard from Harry Potter? Did he tell you that his daughter, Rose Potter, received her letter? Is he sending his daughter to Hogwarts?" Pomona Sprout asked curiously prior to the start of the Board of Governors' meeting, the week after the letters had gone out to the first years.
"He mentioned receiving the letter when I talked to him the other day. He was surprised that Rosie got one, since they don't live in England and Rosie wasn't born here. He asked if I knew why she got a letter when the other expats' children he knows never did," Neville replied.
"So he's sending her to Hogwarts? They haven't sent back their acceptance yet," Pomona asked.
"No, he isn't sending her to Hogwarts, she doesn't want to come. Rosie Potter-Black-McGee has been attending a magical school for three years now and we would find it very difficult to accommodate her schedule, not to mention their annoyance that you couldn't use her full name even in official correspondence," Neville replied.
"What do you mean, the child is a first year, they will attend first year classes with all the other eleven year olds?" Madam Zabini said dismissively.
"Academically she's not an average first year and to ignore that would be doing her a disservice. She will be working at third year level or beyond in potions, astronomy, and herbology at sixth year level or beyond in Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures, probably second or third year in charms and transfiguration, she would only be in first year in History since the history she has learned hasn't been British history or focused on the Goblin wars, and heaven only knows what level she'd be at for Defence, since I know Harry's been teaching her how to protect herself for years," Neville said sighing. "She is also beyond the average seventh year at silent and gestureless or wandless casting. She'd be wasting her time and bored to death in the first year classes, and believe me none of the professors would want a bored granddaughter of a marauder in their class, even if she doesn't take after her grandfather as much as her sister and brothers do."
Minerva chuckled at the last sentence and had to agree wholeheartedly.
"She's that powerful?" Filius Flitwick asked in awe.
"She's a powerful little witch and she's been casting controlled wandless magic since she was four or five because she grew up seeing her daddy and her older brother do it and Harry has made sure that his children never listened to anyone telling them that it wasn't normal or that they shouldn't be able to do that, but the real difference is that she's so much better educated than our first years, her nine year old sister would also already fit better in some second and fourth year classes than first year as well," Neville replied dryly. "But it is a moot point, Harry has no intention of sending his daughters to Hogwarts.
"Why not?" Agatha Pinkerton demanded.
"For starters he has joined me in every proposal to improve the standard of education at Hogwarts that I've made here and in the Wizengamot and you have ignored every one of them. So why would he send his children here when they will receive a better education elsewhere? Neville said bluntly.
"Hogwarts is the premier school for magic in Europe. What's his real reason?" Agatha sniffed.
"That is his primary reason for not wanting his children to change from their existing school. The education they receive is better, almost 100% of the students will receive seven or more international NEWTS by the time they finish, and you know barely one in ten students here will go on to take international NEWTs and less than half the seventh years could pass internationally if they tried, since British NET standards have dropped so much over the past 50 years," Neville stated clearly. It was an argument he'd presented before but the board hadn't wanted to admit they needed to make sweeping changes to the way magic was taught in Britain.
"Harry was also highly insulted that his daughter even received an invitation when his son, who was born in Britain, never received one, and on a personal level he enjoys having them home every night for dinner from their current school. Harry and his partner and their three oldest children toured Hogwarts with me one summer a few years ago and all three children decided that they preferred their own school, and I can't say I blame them, I'm almost sorry that I cannot send Franklin and Ellison there too, but Hannah refuses to have them so far away."
"Potter has a son? How old is he?" Pomona Sprout asked surprised.
"Fifteen. Harry blood adopted his godson Teddy Lupin, making the boy the Black heir after Andromeda died. Teddy was born in England so unlike Rosie Potter-Black-McGee, according to our customs he should have received an invitation to Hogwarts," Neville replied. "Teddy sat his international NEWTs last year and achieved twelve outstandings scores, he began his mastery in Transfiguration a couple of weeks ago. Harry is justifiably very proud of him and does not tolerate any discrimination or bigotry against him."
"International NEWTs the boy is not yet sixteen!" Minerva exclaimed.
"Like I explained earlier, they live in a country where magical schooling begins at eight years old and moves along according to merit not age, Teddy is a very smart lad and an above average wizard. His OWL scores more than rivalled Granger's but here in England he'd have less opportunities that Granger would've had before the war due to what his birth father was. Where he lives now it doesn't matter at all. It wouldn't matter in their new country even if people knew his father had been a werewolf. It honestly wouldn't affect his employment opportunities if he actually did transform each month except for during the night the full moon itself, but he wasn't even welcome in a good percentage of the shops in Diagon Alley during the day weeks from the full moon and nobody would let their children play with him before Harry took him out of the country."
"Does he have any side effects from his father's affliction?" Madam Pomfrey asked.
"He had very few negative side effects, even before the blood adoption, he needs to eat a little more than an average child due to his metabolism and he is still a metamorphmagus and physically and magically stronger than most of his classmates and has faster reflexes making him an outstanding Beater and duelist, and he's an outstanding Seeker too for that matter though it isn't currently his position on his school team, he and Harry are evenly matched and a delight to watch.
"What does it mean to Hogwarts if the Potter's turn down their invitation?" Pomona Sprout asked.
"Nothing good, once the press find out," Agatha said sourly. "We need him to change his mind. You're in contact with him. Can't you talk to him? Make him see that he must do his duty to the school."
"Harry risked his life to save the whole school as a first year and again as a second year to prevent the school being closed, he sacrificed his childhood to fight Voldemort, actually went out into the forest to sacrifice his life at seventeen with no hope of surviving, just to stop the fighting and allow us time to rescue our injured and regroup. He has more than earned the right to live his own life the way he wants to live it. You have the effrontery to sit here arguing about what he should do for the good of the school. Hasn't he already given more than enough? What have you done for the safety of our children compared to Harry," Neville replied trying to stay calm. This was exactly why Harry would never return to Magical Britain.
"But couldn't you at least ask him? Perhaps he doesn't understand what's at stake if he refuses to send his children to Hogwarts. He's denying his children their legacy. The Potters have attended Hogwarts ever since it was first opened," Professor Tofty said disapprovingly.
"You can say the same for Ilvermorny and the Canadian and Australian schools. There were cadet branches of the Potter line involved in the founding of both of them as well. It's tradition for the Potter family to care about the education of their society, and Harry more than lives up to that standard, he's involved in the school board of his children's school and has used his seat on the Wizengamot to try to improve the Education of British witches and wizards. He is very vocal every time the topic is presented so his opinions on the current education offered at Hogwarts cannot be a surprise to any of you," Neville replied dryly.
"But the school could be in danger of closing if the public find out he doesn't think Hogwarts is good enough for his children," Professor Marchbanks said.
"I'm not asking him again, Harry's made his decision and I honestly think that it's the right one for his children. Pushing him will only make things worse. Harry's children are dual citizens and they cannot be compelled to return to Britain for their schooling. And Harry will not react well to anyone attempting to force his hand, he has many valid reasons for choosing not to live in Magical Britain and not sending his children to Hogwarts and he's been very vocal in the Wizengamot and trying to help me word the drafts for the changes he would like to see made to make Hogwarts provide his godson and his friend's children with an education similar to the quality his children are receiving elsewhere, he has frequently spoken up about those reasons before now. Harry and I have been arguing for years for Hogwarts to be brought up to international standards and to include nonmagical education, and the proposals for a magical day prepatory school for eight to ten year olds, even when he wasn't in attendance, Harry was informed of and fully supported every motion I've put forward both here with the board and in the Wizengamot. He had a hand in drafting quite a few of them and he's every bit as disappointed by the resistance to our requests as I am. If you attempt to use public opinion to force his hand he will not hesitate to fight back in kind and having him air his reasons for not sending his children to Hogwarts on the front page of every newspaper and magazine in the country and the major international newspapers will do even more harm than letting this go," Neville warned seriously.
"But…" Professor Tofty began.
"If we don't antagonize him we could claim that his reluctance to return to Britain has more to do with the level of bigotry still prevalent in our society rather than the inferior quality of a Hogwarts education," Neville interrupted him.
"Neville's right, Potter has been saying for years that he wouldn't send his children to Hogwarts unless the educational reforms he was pushing for were implemented, and we've made less that five percent of the changes he's been asking for. You shouldn't be so surprised he wants to leave his children in the school they're already attending, where they get the education we fail to provide," Daphne Greengrass said.
"So what can we do?" Minerva asked practically.
"Nothing! We could have made the changes he was demanding years ago, it's too late now to make the changes for the upcoming year and Potter doesn't strike me as one to change his mind after declaring something so passionately in the Wizengamot for so long. He'd never be able to push another bill through," Daphne replied buntly.
Neville was also doubtful anything could be done but he was more diplomatic. "I doubt anything will make Harry change his mind about his children's education or wellbeing and it's definitely too late for Rosie to start first year but if you could disarm most of his arguments one of his younger children might choose to come to his father's alma mater. Harry wouldn't deny them if they truly wanted to come. You can make the changes to bring Hogwarts up to the educational standards in America, Canada, Australia, Asia, and the Pacific Rim schools. Hogwarts has sat on its laurels as being the best school in Great Britain, forgetting that the others are trade schools and the rest of the world has advanced in leaps and bounds. The ministry's support of pureblood superiority and the British means of maintaining the statute of secrecy by isolating itself from the nonmagical world has allowed us to stagnate. The rest of the world manage to teach muggle subjects and still teach magic to a higher standard than we do. Part of that is that by teaching, literature, essay writing, critical thinking, ethics, they teach their students how to think and learn, and how to judge things for themselves instead of following blindly. And by offering portkeys to and from school they don't have the expense of housing and feeding the students so can afford to have more professors per student and smaller workloads for their teaching staff," he said repeating all the ideas he'd been pushing for years, hopefully their shock at having Harry decide that Hogwarts wasn't good enough for his family might finally make them listen.
"Your proposing throwing away one thousand years of tradition," Professor Tofty protested.
"Not all of the traditions. I'm just stating that the children's wellbeing and the quality of the education we offer should be more important than outdated traditions that no longer meet our society's needs," Neville replied. "Hogwarts wasn't built as a boarding school because parents wanted to send their children away for nine or ten months of the year. Students had to board because of the difficulty of transport back in the days before portkeys, the floo system or trains and automobiles. Now that it would be easy to get the students to and from school every day it makes no sense not to at least offer to send them home, or to send everybody home for the weekend so the professors get two days and three nights without students to supervise and can make time to have a life outside of Hogwarts."
-o0o-
Minerva caught him afterwards. "Are you in regular contact with Harry?" she asked.
"Yes, though he actually prefers to use his birth name these days. Our families spend at least a week together every summer and I'm his proxy on the Wizengamot, not his Regent. I consult him on every vote. He knows exactly what's going on in Wizarding Britain and he is still a British Auror even if he chooses not to live here," Neville replied.
"I thought that he left to get away from the scandal with Ginevra Weasley and let the press calm down a little, and then he'd be back," Minerva said.
"I believe he originally left with the encouragement of his bosses for fear that next time he was cursed in the back he'd be killed, though the Weasley situation was certainly part of the reason. After ending his engagement with good cause, the whole family were making it impossible for him to even do his job properly here, but Hadrian has made a good life for himself in his new country. He can walk down the street without being mobbed by well-wishers or attacked by the leftover Voldemort supporters. Besides the British press hasn't backed off since he's been gone. They still criticize his choices almost monthly as if they have the right to tell him how to live his life. There are still shops on Diagon Alley that wouldn't serve his husband or his son, and the school wouldn't accommodate his children's educational levels if he did send them here, and even if they did they'd be ostracized as the only ones on their schedule and younger than the rest of their class."
"So he will never come back?" Minerva pressed. "I had hoped to be able to offer him the DADA position when Professor Brownlee retires at the end of next year."
"Academically he'd be a good choice though he's more used to teaching Auror Cadets than schoolchildren, but he wouldn't accept. All his life Hadrian has wanted a family more than anything else in the world. He would never take a job that means living away from them for nine months of the year," Neville replied.
"But if his children attended Hogwarts, then he wouldn't be away from them," Pomona Pomfrey replied.
"Daisy will be ten, and the twins eight and little Jamie will be four next summer. While Daisy would easily cope academically with starting Hogwarts early and the twins might as well, it wouldn't be in their best interests to be the only students that much younger than all the others. And I doubt even Harry turning up in person to argue the matter and making it a condition of his employment, could convince the board to hire his husband or allow him to live in the school, even if he could persuade Tim to change careers, which I'd be extremely surprised if he could." Neville replied.
"What's wrong with his husband?" Professor Tofty asked. "Other than the fact that few people approve of the fact he didn't marry a witch?"
"Absolutely nothing!" Neville said defensively. "Tim's a great guy, intelligent, compassionate, with strong morals and impeccable ethics. He's a muggle version of a master Auror, he is a wizard but he was a victim of the obscene law in their country that allows parents to choose to have their children's magic bound instead of sending them to a magical school to learn to control it."
"Is Harry happy with his family?" Minerva asked.
"Yes, Hadrian's happy, he's a wonderful father and he and his husband are truly in love. He is godfather to my younger son and I am godfather to one of his daughters. We spend a week vacationing with them every year, not at his home since the children couldn't protect the information if they knew where he lived. I honestly think that they might be the happiest couple I know," Neville said.
"Does he miss Britain?" Minerva pressed.
"Hadrian is well aware that the good and safe magical world he believed in as a child, or that he hoped to achieve by defeating Voldemort never really existed, especially here in Britain. He misses the naivety he used to have, when he believed that Hogwarts and Magical Britain were wonderful, and a place he could call home. He knows he could come back to Britain at any time but he can never go back to that mindset, he's seen too much ugliness and bigotry from us. Home for Harry is where he lives now," Neville replied, sighing.
Minerva sighed resignedly. "Will you tell him that I wish him well when you see him," she requested.
"I'd be happy to take him a letter from you, so long as you genuinely want to contact him and care about his wellbeing and you aren't writing just to beg him to send his children to school here in order to save Hogwart's reputation, or to offer him a job," Neville offered.
"I'd like that," Minerva said gratefully.
"I would like to send him a note as well, I'm glad to hear he's doing well," Poppy said.
"What's Rose Potter like?" Minerva asked.
"It's funny, other than in looks you'd swear Rosie Potter is more likely to be Hermione's daughter than Rose Weasley is, she loves reading and learning and hates to fly though Harry has made sure she's more than competent at it and she is far more socially adept and confident in herself than Hermione was as a child. She tolerates watching her father and brother play quidditch but has no real interest in the game other than that, her main interest is potions and runes she'd probably be sorted into Ravenclaw if she did come here, though her other father could probably have been either Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, and is easily as smart and as brave as Hermione, himself, so I guess it isn't so odd that his daughter takes after him. She needs to be encouraged to join in on the prank battles the family have but her pranks are very inventive and are never harmful or mean spirited," Neville replied.
"And his younger daughter Daisy?" Minerva said smiling.
"Daisy, unlike her sister is a pure Gryffindor, she's sweet, sassy and affectionate, and already a prankster to rival the Weasley twins, she excels in potions as well but is mainly only interested in their pranking potential, and could easily be a chaser or seeker. The twins are both sports mad, keen flyers and into muggle computer games but they don't start magical school until September, they play football, baseball and basketball, and little Jamie is about to start muggle schooling, he was only three last time I spent time with them and tried to follow along behind them all trying to fly and play sports and prank and read because he adores all his siblings, I don't know what interests of his own he will develop though Hadrian was complaining the other day that he likes to take things apart. Harry's hoping he grows out of it but Tim's trying to teach him to take apart stuff in their workroom and put it back together and to leave alone what doesn't belong to him," Neville told her.
"Five children," Pomona said.
"Six!" Neville corrected. "Teddy is as much Hadrian and Tim's son as Jamie and the twins, and I wouldn't totally rule out them ending up outdoing Molly Weasley one day if Harry has his way and Tim seems inclined to let him so long as it isn't endangering his health. I half expect him to tell me he's pregnant again, any day now."
Minerva laughed, "I always wondered whether Harry's interest in Ginevra was more due to an interest in being part of her family than the girl herself."
Neville sobered her with a look. "No, their whole relationship was entirely based on the potions she and Molly fed him, Hadrian isn't at all attracted to witches. He never truly has been."
"So it wasn't just a reaction to the curse?" Poppy asked.
"No, the spell didn't alter his sexuality at all, it merely gave him the ability to conceive and carry a child of his own. It isn't a curse though it was a very effective form of attack because of the pain it causes. Hadrian researched it thoroughly. In most parts of the world, it is a spell that some wizards in a committed relationship may choose to undergo after consultation with their healers and partners in able for them to have their own children. It has no effect on whether a person is attracted to witches or wizards or to men or women. Hadrian was always attracted to wizards. Thankfully for him he found out about how the wizarding world looked on same sex relationships before he told anyone and managed to keep it to himself until he left the country," Neville replied.
"Is that really a thing?" Minerva asked astonished.
"Yes, it's not terribly common but more so than you'd think. It's reviled here in Wizarding Britain so Hadrian may have left us even if it wasn't for the Weasleys reaction to him breaking off his engagement and the fact that it is better for Teddy to live away from the prejudice against the innocent children of a werewolf, or he would've done what he thinks most witches and wizards who are attracted to their own sex in this country do if they don't leave the way Hadrian did, organise a marriage of convenience, an alliance for the purpose of producing an heir without the promise of fidelity offered on either side. There are plenty of marriages like that when you think about it, successful on the surface with no real romance or affection. A lot of witches and wizards who remain closer to their friends than their husband or wife, but none of the people in those marriages are anywhere near as happy as Harry and Tim are," Neville said.
"I haven't heard of him trying to change that. it seems like he's trying to change everything else about our world," Minerva said.
"Hadrian is all about treating people equally. He honestly doesn't see the difference between a wizard, witch, werewolf, goblin, muggle or house elf. They're all people to him and he cannot understand how it can be legal to subjugate an entire race of people," Neville replied.
"But he hasn't tried to change the marriage laws here," Minerva pressed.
"He doesn't need to change the marriage act. It doesn't actually prevent same sex marriage. I think that either the people who originally wrote the law didn't envision a wizard wanting to marry a wizard or a witch to marry a witch. That or they weren't bigoted about homosexuality and marriages like that were allowed. Hadrian said they weren't made illegal in the muggle world until the 1680's when we were already separating from their world. The issue isn't the marriage law itself, it's people's prejudices and the way we treat anyone who doesn't conform to our current view of the world. Something else that Hadrian is trying to change in the next generation by changing the curriculum and teaching our children to learn to think for themselves," Neville said dryly.
Minerva and Poppy looked shocked.
"It's a real pity witches and wizards here are forced to deny who they really love or even who they are to fit in with society's stupid rules, but it's so ingrained that Hadrian thinks that we'd have less luck changing it than getting rid of the unfair laws against werewolves and other creatures. He's talked about wanting to bring a bill before the wizengamot to recognise same sex marriages as having the same rights as any other marriage but he hasn't been able to get enough support to have it taken seriously. The prejudice is so widespread and so strong he's actually worried about my safety if I seconded such a motion. He's also worried about the backlash, that the bigots in the Wizengamot might move to make homosexual relationships illegal, or to ban homosexuals or children born from homosexual pairings from holding Wizengamot seats. He doesn't want to make things worse for those witches and wizards who live in hiding because they weren't able to walk away from this country no matter how much they're reviled in our world." Neville said. "You know quite a few of out population issues might be solved if our society stopped making people want to leave. Those fools in their need to stop worrying about where Potter sends his kids to school and worry about the fact that if he's pushed Hadrian will tell every newspaper on the planet that leaving Britain is one of the reasons that he's the happiest man alive."
The End.
A/N: Thank you to all those who have followed the story all the way through and thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.