Eriol was in the garden when the first owls started to arrive.
"Otou-san, they're here!" he shouted.
Eriol knew better than to take any from the birds...one of them could be laced with a port key spell, and Clow was very cautious because of Eriol's original name. Not to mention the people who were still looking for the 'missing Potter'.
Clow had all the owls line up and took them off with magic-canceling gloves...a must when handling dangerous magical artifacts.
"Here we are. All the acceptance letters for one Eriol Reed. I don't know how this one for your birth name went through...the register would have changed it the minute the adoption went through and you started using Eriol as your real name," said Clow.
The lone letter for one "Harry Potter" was from Hogwarts.
The phone rang, and Eriol answered it. It took a few moments to understand the surprised tone in Sakura's voice.
"She said she got letters too, one of them from Hogwarts."
"Not surprising, considering my main vault is in England and her magical signature was automatically added to the vault when she became the new Card Mistress."
"Yeah? Come on over and we'll figure out which school to apply to. Word of warning, Hogwarts doesn't even use lightbulbs so it's considerably out of date with the rest of the world."
It took Sakura an hour to come to the house, her brother and support group in tow.
"So what's this all about? I thought she was already in a school," asked Toya.
"Because she's registered as an inheritor to my account, her name was added to the magical registries in the European schools. Legally she can attend, though I wouldn't recommend Hogwarts just yet."
"Why not?"
"Very out of touch with the rest of the world, and they don't have any normal classes like some of the others," grimaced Clow. Back when he was headmaster that wasn't too much of a problem, but these days it was a big deal.
Especially since Dumbledore had decided to remove the class rather than keep it up-to-date with the rest of Europe.
"But I heard their magical creature and herbology class is second-to-none," said Eriol.
"Yes, but that's only because they have the castle next to a forest full of magical creatures that's forbidden from the students and their herbology department has a larger than normal budget. Aside from that it's not worth mentioning until at least third year when you can pick your electives...and don't get me started on what I heard about the potions department," said Clow grimacing.
Severus Snape was a premier potions master, but a teacher of children he was not. Clow had checked into his career as a teacher and the number of healers, potions masters and aurors had dropped like a stone since the man took over for Horace Slughorn. And he heard the man had it out for every house but Slytherin.
Clow didn't want to ruin Sakura's magical training because there was a very petty teacher on staff.
"What about Beauxbatons?"
"Very strict structure and it's rather gender biased towards males," said Clow.
He had done his research last year on all the European magical Academies, and he wasn't happy with what he found.
"Durmstrang?" asked Toya.
"Is run by a former Death Eater, who are like the magical version of the Nazis, and actually has a class where they show you how to cast the dark arts. Not something I would want Sakura-san to be exposed to with her kind nature," said Clow.
Toya grimaced. Once he had started his magical training, he had found he rather liked it and was taking his new education much more seriously. Chances were he would become a decent mage by the time Sakura graduated from her schooling.
"What about this one? Sun Tsu's Academy for Magic?" asked Sakura.
"Sun Tsu? Who named the Academy off of the man who wrote the Art of War?" asked Eriol. Seeing the location he grimaced.
"What?"
"Definitely not a place for Sakura-chan. China isn't exactly the best place for girls to learn magic, though it's getting better. The only female in power that I know of is Syaoran's mother, and that's only because she was the oldest descendant of the main line to inherit. They have a severe overpopulation issue in China," said Eriol.
Syaoran, who had also gotten several letters, didn't deny the claim. In fact he fully agreed with the assessment.
"I wouldn't recommend it either. It's more of a magical military academy than anything else, and it's stricter than France," he told them.
If the Cards hadn't shown up when they did, Syaoran would have been attending it last year. He hadn't been looking forward to it at all.
"So we have two rather strict Academies, one out-of-date castle, and one that even I wouldn't touch with a ten-yard pole," said Toya.
"Not a lot of options. And like I said, Hogwarts wouldn't be worth the trouble until at least third year, which would be around the time you three are thirteen. You could give it a go for a year, but it would be better all around to continue with the Japanese Academies until then," said Clow.
"So a polite 'maybe later' for Hogwarts then?" asked Eriol.
Clow nodded.
Minerva McGonagall was looking forward to this year. They would finally learn what happened to that poor boy. There was also the rumored heir to Clow Reed, a very famous pure blood who was half-Chinese.
Frankly she couldn't wait to meet this girl.
One owl came with twin letters.
She took the off and stared at the contents.
"Dear Deputy Headmistress McGonagall,
While we were glad to receive the invitation, I'm afraid my friend Sakura and I must decline the offer to attend Hogwarts at this time. Our magical guardians have told us that we would be better off waiting until third year before attending the school, as the classes are very out of date with the rest of the magical schools we've looked at, and that the inter-house rivalry is almost completely out of control.
While we would be glad to meet with you or one of the staff personally, we do not wish to attend the school at this time.
Sincerely
Eriol Reed and Sakura Kinomoto."
She immediately cleared her schedule and left the muggleborns to Pomona for the month. She had to find out what this child meant by saying Hogwarts was out of date with the rest of the magical schools.
Dumbledore had no idea about the letter, as he was still awaiting to see whether or not Harry Potter would show up in England after he went missing from his aunt's.
Minerva came to a rather beautiful English house on the outskirts of a rather quaint Japanese city. Outside was a young boy with raven-black hair and glasses pruning a bush while a young woman read what appeared to be a comic book at a table.
The boy wiped off some sweat and she realized it was the same child she had been forced to leave with those horrid people ten years ago.
Or at the very least was a mirror image of him. The boys eyes were a few shades darker than before and the hair wasn't the typical bird's nest that most of the Potter males had.
He took one look at her robes and immediately sent the girl in to inform his father of a visitor.
McGonagall nearly passed out from outright shock when a face she had seen countless times in Albus' office came out. A face belonging to a dead man.
Headmaster Reed.
"How is this possible?" she said once she had gotten over her initial shock.
"Long story short, Eriol. A few years ago he was going through a rather long magical undertaking with my ghost's supervision and a few gods took note. I was given the choice to either continue to supervise as a ghost which had limited ability in the world of the living or have a temporary rebirth with the agreement that I wouldn't stick around a second time once Eriol was able to handle me being gone. I chose to have a corporeal body so the poor child could have a real family instead of only half one."
If the gods had done this, then she could accept that. Even the Ministry knew better than to meddle in the affairs of the gods themselves.
"And what of this girl... Sa-ku-ra Kino-mo-to?" asked McGongall, sounding out the name because she didn't want to mangle it.
"A fail-safe so that my vault never fell into the wrong hands. I wasn't expecting to be brought back, so I left it to whomever could become the next master of my greatest work. Eriol here gets half because he's not only my son by adoption, but also my apprentice."
"I assume you are behind him calling the very school you once lead outdated?"
"Albus cut back the mundane classes that the muggleborns used to attend so that they didn't fall behind their friends outside Hogwarts and took out several core subjects just because the Ministry became riddled with Death Eaters who didn't want future graduates to be as strong as them," said Clow in disgust.
McGonagall blinked.
"There were mundane classes?"
"Math, literature, and history," confirmed Clow. He had been the one to bring them into the core curriculum because he knew for a fact that mundanes were catching up fast with their magical half. Something the European pure bloods had tried to so vehemently deny.
Clow handed her a list of the classes that had been in place when he left Hogwarts to Dippet. McGongall's mouth dropped in open shock.
Several of the classes would have been rather helpful for those leaving school... she knew for a fact several of her graduates went to trade schools in order to get the career they wanted...schools with classes that could have easily been taught at Hogwarts for fifth years and above.
"Hogwarts just barely rates as a magical school with how few classes are taught now. And don't get me started on the teachers," said Clow.
"What's wrong with the teachers?"
"Snape, Trelawny and Binns," listed Clow.
"Dad did a major background check on each school, including the teachers. Your department is fairly up-to-date, but it's being heavily restricted by the Ministry. Herbology and Magical Creatures are also pretty good, but History and Potions are a joke."
"History I agree with, but why potions? Severus is a very capable potions master."
"A premiere potions master I will agree with, but a competent teacher he is not. Here is the graph of the number of high NEWTs potions grades before he was hired and after," said Eriol.
The evidence was damning. The number of Aurors, healers and potion masters dropped like a stone after Severus was hired as a teacher.
"Like I said, Dad did an extensive background check on each school a year before we would have even gotten any letters."
She couldn't deny that they made a very strong point.
"What of Miss Kinomoto?"
"Her family trusts us to know what sort of school would be best for her, considering it was only recently they learned that they had magic in their lines. Sakura's brother Toya went for years unaware that his ability to see ghosts meant he had magic," said Eriol.
The British witch looked horrified that someone could go for years without knowing they had magic.
"How old was he when he found out?"
"Old enough to be a graduate. Fortunately he had been exercising his core for years without being aware of it because his best friend had been slowly leeching his magic and didn't know it. So it's not nearly as bad as it could have been."
Yue openly admitted when Clow noticed that Toya's core wasn't as small as it should have been since he had been unaware of magic until his core was almost fully settled that part of the reason why his human side had attached itself to the boy was because of his larger than normal magical core. Once they had become good friends Yue had started to borrow some of Toya's natural magic to sustain Yukito. It was why his food intake had only increased when Yue tried to change it to Sakura, who was too young to handle two familiars and he had to bond with Toya properly in order to survive.
Toya had been aware Yukito was borrowing something from him to live, but hadn't thought to ask why. It wasn't doing any harm, so he let it go.
McGonagall left with a list of classes that should be reinstated before Hogwarts slipped any further down the list of schools that magical children attended. Finding out her beloved school had gone from the top three to the fourth lowest one in Europe had been a hard blow.
"Minerva! How did it go?" asked Pomona.
"Are you aware that Hogwarts is currently ranked the fourth lowest magical school in Europe? And is in the top ten worst school to learn magic?" she asked tersely.
"What?" said Pomona Sprout in shock.
"You mean someone actually did their research for once? Good for them!" said Flitwick. He alone had been the only one aware, but he knew no one would believe him about the rankings.
"You knew?"
"Dumbledore would have simply placated everyone and no one would believe me about the rankings. Perhaps if we replaced Severus and Binns we might have a better one, but at the moment we're a laughingstock," said Flitwick bluntly.
McGonagall would have denied it, but even she had to admit after hearing the cold hard facts from Clow Reed himself that Dumbledore had snowed them all over. As much as she admired Albus Dumbledore, Clow Reed outranked him in several ways and had been headmaster for much longer than Albus had.
More people respected the Sorcerer Clow Reed over Albus Dumbledore. Hell, Clow had been the one to teach Dumbledore before he took the position as headmaster!
"What can we do to improve this?" asked Minerva sagging into her seat.
"First we need to bring back the mundane classes. They're standard in nearly every school around the world except for the so-called top three in Europe," said Flitwick immediately.
The minute he learned how bad the rankings were compared to everywhere else, he had asked around what they could do to improve it. The only reason he hadn't said anything was because he knew from experience that Dumbledore would cater first to the same pure bloods that had killed countless innocents before he would consider improving the school, just to keep his image intact. Dumbledore was a good politician and a poor headmaster. Flitwick knew from experience that the inter-house rivalry hadn't been nearly this bad when he was a student. It had grown entirely out of control once Dumbledore took over.
The others listened to the plan Flitwick had been revamping for the better part of ten years since Voldemort had been 'killed' to make the school better.
It was full of simple changes that wouldn't cause too many problems...and it wasn't like the school couldn't hit up a few alumni to help bring Hogwarts back to it's former glory.