Squib 24 Easter/Spring 1975
At home, Lily and their mother started planning the redecoration. There was a great deal of preparation to do, including scheduling the painters, roofers, and floor finishers for the Summer. Petunia and Harold were equally busy with catalogs from the Garden Center, taking frequent jaunts to see how some finished projects actually looked. At ten months old, baby Harry was crawling rapidly as well as pulling himself up on furniture and legs. By holding your fingers, he could and would take a few wobbling steps before collapsing, laughing. This was great fun and everyone was willing to do it repeatedly every day. Every electric socket in the house had a plastic stopper, and wires were taped up out of his reach! All stairs had gates, top and bottom, and the outside doors were all equipped with small buzzers. Drawers were tied shut and lower shelves emptied. It was annoying, but safer.
The Snape home was similarly equipped, because their two treasures were whirlwinds and could already manage a step or two by themselves. They were determined to investigate every shelf and drawer they could reach, and were clearly conspiring to reach the rest. Eileen had set up one lower cabinet in the kitchen with unbreakable pots, lids, and wooden spoons. The girls loved it, and would noisily pull everything out while Eileen was cooking. Then they used the empty cabinet for a cave! Sev read to the girls every night after their bath, giving his exhausted mother a break!
It was really too damp to let the children out to play at the nearby Park, but Sevi and Lily often met each other pushing prams on the sidewalks after lunch, trying to convince the little ones to take a nap. They were glad of all the songs their schoolwork required them to learn, because the little ones loved being sung to. They already knew many nursery rhymes, to which they would hum along (recognizable) or try to sing (gibberish).
When they went back at the end of the week, they were curious how their friends had done on the exams. Andi and Ted had passed with good scores, and had immediately applied to their choice of colleges. Ted was going into the pre-law program, and Andi was going to take Sciences for now, while thinking about a medical or Healer career later. The paper records would not arrive for several days, but they had been told they did well, so they had sent the applications in anticipation. Some of the 5th and 6th year students had also tried the exams. None seemed to have failed, which was wonderful news, though most would try them again next year. You could only improve your score. Now everyone put the exams behind them and began to focus on their OWLS or NEWTS.
Malfoy was astonished that THREE pure blood Slytherin had taken the "A" and passed with good scores. Most people considered it to be the best prank anyone had played on him!
Late in May, the Defense teacher decided to show the Seventh Year class some more advanced charms. Their week's chapter was on the history of Warding. He led the class up to the top of the Astronomy Tower, where there was an open platform instead of a peaked roof. He bounced up on the stone balustrade where he floated above the telescope mountings, and began illuminating the Wards that surrounded the towers, talking about the years of experts who had interlaced the safety nets and anchored them in the stones of the towers. The glowing nets were very interesting. Unfortunately, the wind was far worse than anyone knew, and a gust blew him right off the battlement and far past the reach of the nets. He was shouting, "Don't worry, my chair will always land safely!" He was wrong.
His shaking students all spent the night in the Hospital Wing, force-fed calming draughts and sleeping potions. They finished the year as a study hall. Flitwick administered the tests and finished grading the homework.
Spring 1975
The pool of Squib pure-bloods was drying up rapidly. Even Squib half-bloods were getting out. The families that had to remain careful were those with children like Lily and Sevi, between first and fifth years and already enrolled. Many older ones, up through NEWTS, were already in Guardianships, or Betrothals. Some of these the lawyers could help. There were Lawyers involved, both Magic and Squib. There was plenty of money from the discovered accounts, and this was a suitable place to spend it!
The Wizard lawyers, their wives and secretaries, (if Witches,) were the Magical Guardians of most of the children, even the Squibs. Even Petunia and the babies had a MG. Eileen had signed for her and baby Harry, just in case of trouble, and Catherine had signed for the twins. On the muggle side, wills were signed including matching Guardianship for all underage children. None of these children would wind up in orphanages or the Foster care system.
Minerva received the normal numbers of requests, pure blood families looking for brides, and a few grooms. She already had some suitable children in Hogwarts, but she had not been able to get MG or Betrothal Contracts on any of them. This year she was going to be careful to include those MG Contracts in the School Registration packets, and get those signatures early! She would have to do some editing on some of those Contracts being offered, too. The Muggles just didn't like some of those slanted Clauses. Contracts she wrote were fair, but some of the ones brought to her to present were not. She'd have to talk the other Heads into a larger-than-normal first year group, too. They usually accepted about 10 boys and 10 girls in each House, but there had been other years where more were accepted. There was plenty of room and they could hire some aides to do the paperwork..
What there weren't, were children to accept! They had the Book of Names. Albus helped her go through the children of the proper ages, looking for the ones that were actually pure blood families resurfacing. She mailed the automatically generated Letters. Or tried to – many of the birds literally refused to leave their perches! She grabbed the nearest Letter, and discovered the problem. The child had left the Country, and now lived in a different School District. Well, that did happen. People emigrated. She checked the next, and the next. A LOT of families had left. They weren't together, but were scattered all over the world. That sort of exodus suggested political upheaval or war, but she wasn't aware of any trouble in the mundane world. Well, she went through the stack of Letters, mailing even the ones they usually held back until they saw how many of the first choices accepted. With the usual rate of response, they would be hard-pressed to fill the normal 15 muggle slots! She might need to spend extra time visiting minor pure blood families that sent Refusals, choosing other schools or home schooling.
Albus was upset. There was no other way to describe it. Minerva was actually having trouble finding Squib lines! Hogwarts was not the only school searching for new students. Part of his job as Chief Warlock included some oversight of the other schools of magic. He often steered students of lines they didn't need right now to the other schools, or even cherry-picked students as they recruited. He was not as noticeably involved with the other schools, but he was still there, with his fingers everywhere. His Midwives were controlling those numbers, his agents were arranging marriages to his benefit, even among Squibs. He might need to allow the Light Pure Bloods to have a few more children!
Why were the Squibs leaving? Most of them had no more clue of the existence of the Magic World than the muggles did, on purpose. They were breeding stock, cattle, investments. Beyond that, his staff was telling him the Squibs were still having babies! They were supposed to be inhibited, using muggle techniques that Magicals wouldn't see. Lines they wanted, had one or two babies. Useless lines, either half-bloods or minor pure bloods with no money in the bank, were sterilized.
He sent out instructions for the Watchers (mostly midwife apprentices on their own school breaks) to check the families of the younger children, those that would be coming to Hogwarts or other schools of Magic in the next few years. Those families were also missing, apparently emigrated. Checking their 'backup' group found large numbers of single Squibs had apparently decided to go to various muggle schools, mostly outside the country. He had been steadily thinning the lesser Squib blood lines, but this was happening a generation sooner than he planned! He still had a war to engineer, and his cannon fodder was evaporating! 'His' funds, their bank accounts they didn't know they had, were locked out of his reach!
Sirius met Andi at the Slytherin dinner table one evening. "I know what you and Ted are planning. Do not leave without me. You need family to stand up with you, so I will go." Andi looked at him, shocked, and then burst into tears! Without saying a word, she nodded into his shoulder.
When his roommates asked about his Summer plans, he merely said, "I'm to be Andi's escort after her Graduation, so I won't be riding the train home. The family is coming, of course, but they all have somewhere else to be immediately after. After that, I am going to France again."