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The afternoon testing showed that Teddy was going to be a strong wizard, which didn't surprise either of his parents. It also showed he was ready to begin using a practice wand, and almost ready for his own wand.
"We could start him with his own wand in September, his magic would likely be ready for it but we do like to have the children complete a term with the practice wands and learn wand safety before we let them have their own except in a strictly regulated class room setting so it is easier for the staff if he isn't allowed to bring his own wand for the first term. I swear to you that the delay will not harm his magical development," Russell Howard the Charms master said.
"He's been stealing his nanny's wand and casting with it for about a year now and his 'accidental magic' seems more controlled than accidental," Hadrian said.
"How often would you say he has a burst of accidental magic?" the school healer asked.
"At least three or four times a week but never in front of anyone who isn't supposed to learn about magic," Tim replied.
"Perhaps more than that when he's alone, I haven't asked him about it other than to make sure he knows to come to me or Barbara immediately if something goes wrong instead of trying to fix it himself. It's been years since he's asked me for help like that though," Hadrian added.
"He goes to a non-magical school, I see what you mean about more controlled than accidental," Healer McCray commented. "What sort of magic do you do, Teddy?"
Teddy thought for a moment, "I summon things, erase the ink in my homework when I make a mistake, turn on and off the lights, change the size of my clothes so they'll still fit when I make myself bigger or smaller, tie my shoes, wash the kids hands," he listed.
"And your magic always does what you planned it would do? When you erase the ink does it only erase the words that you intended it to erase?" the charms master asked astonished.
"Yes, unless I'm upset about something and then it will erase whole paragraphs. I can usually get my magic to do exactly what I want it to if I'm doing something I've done before, unless I'm upset or angry then I mostly know not to try," Teddy answered.
"Do you have trouble remembering not to use magic at school, or with your non-magical friends?" the Charms master asked.
"Sometimes I correct my work without thinking but I don't think anyone has noticed," Teddy replied. "Papa made sure to buy me erasable ink pens to use at school once he saw me doing it so I could pretend to use the eraser, but I can do it with any ink."
"What made you think that you could control your magic like that without a wand?" Healer McCray asked.
"Papa does it all the time, he almost never uses his wand except for big things," Teddy replied.
"Papa being?" Russell looked at the two adults.
"I'm Papa," Hadrian said.
"Is he correct?" Russell asked.
"Yes, I use a wand for area expansion charms and wards or transfigurations that I want to last more than a day or two and in duelling or at work to teach the cadets, but not for small things most of the time," Hadrian admitted.
"It is rare that a witch or wizard has that much control," Russell commented.
Hadrian and Tim laughed. "I wouldn't say I have great control I can't touch the computer without latex or nitrile gloves on and I still burn out a magically hardened cell phone at least once a year. I just have more magic to use than most wizards."
"I see, and is Teddy your biological son?" Healer McCray asked.
"No, I blood adopted him, we used the potion and ritual that doesn't wipe out the genetics from his birth parents so he has four biological parents, all magical and while his mother and I were distant relatives, his grandmother on his mother's side was my third cousin so it wasn't too close for him to receive different magic and gifts from each of us, I wasn't related to his father and his birth parents weren't related to each other at all, not in more than ten generations, at least, and Tim isn't related to any of us," Hadrian explained.
"Gifts?" the healer asked sharply.
"Teddy is a metamorphmagus from his mother, he inherited intelligence, increased physical strength, smell hearing and eyesight from his birth father, the ability to speak Parseltongue and magical strength from me, and intelligence skills with technology and construction from Tim," Hadrian listed.
"I'm learning to control being a metamorphmagus, but it's hard and most of the time I take a potion so my emotions don't change my hair colour or stuff," Teddy added.
"Do you know where his birth parents sat on the Myrddin scale?" the healer asked.
"Not officially but his mother was an Auror so I might be able to find out if it truly matters. I'd say from seeing them in battle that both sat a little above the average for an Auror," Hadrian replied.
"And you and Tim?" the healer asked.
"I can't say, Tim's magic has been bound, there's no way to test it and my Myrddin Score is classified, I can tell you that it is higher than average," Hadrian stated firmly.
"We need to know Teddy's potential," the healer pushed.
"You can safely assume it will be above average. Why do you need to know more than that?" Tim asked frowning.
"It may make a difference which Healers are able to treat him if he has a transfiguration mishap," Healer McCray stated.
"Are you seriously telling me you don't have enough magic to heal my son if he's injured in class? He's eight years old, even if his potential is well above average, he won't reach it for another eight years or more," Hadrian said, totally unimpressed. "I'm sure I could arrange for the family healer to be called upon in case of emergency, he's never had difficulty treating me or any of my children."
Healer McCray flushed, such an arrangement would seriously harm his reputation but then so would having to call someone in because he was unable to effectively treat a child. "We also need to know in case he curses another student in Defensive magic," he muttered.
"I will pass along your request to the ministry, but I doubt it will be released after all I am only one of four parents. I doubt you have asked for any other student's grandparents to provide a Myrddin score," Hadrian said. He was suspicious why the healer was pushing so hard for the information and resolved to look up him and his personal connections.
-o0o-
Teddy excitedly told his Grandma Heather about his day over dinner, about the testing and the new friend's he'd made.
"Do they live close by?" Heather asked.
"I don't know. Teddy when did you meet these friends, was it at Salem or in the morning before the portkey?" Hadrian asked.
"I met Ryan and Ashton in the morning when in the playground after reading and writing and before we did maths, and I met Adrian, Harley and Seb at lunchtime," Teddy said.
"That means that Ryan and Ashton probably live somewhere in the tristate area or at least closer to here than to Salem Massachusetts but the others could live anywhere in mainland America," Tim said.
"With magical travel being so easy it doesn't really matter where they live," Hadrian added.
"So if we hadn't had Tim's magic bound, he could have gone to Salem and not had to change schools every time his father was transferred," Heather said regretfully.
"I don't think I could've travelled from Japan or Hawaii, let alone Germany," Tim said.
"You would've had to board, at least during the week," Hadrian agreed.
"It would've been murder with the time differences," Tim said. "Can you imagine. I'd have to leave Japan for school at 1800 and I'd get home at 0300."
Heather laughed, "Sarah was born while we were in Japan, it would've been a nightmare."
"I would have had to stay at school except for the holidays," Tim said. He knew that his father wouldn't have liked that he liked his son attending the schools on base especially since he was winning academic awards and skipping grades, in the Admiral's mind proving that he was definitely a future asset to any Naval command.
"Did you like your new school?" Heather asked ignoring her regrets about Tim's childhood for now to focus on her grandson.
"The playground is Huuuge! There's a river and sports fields and woods and heaps of space to run about," Teddy said.
"It is large, the brochure says the school sits on nearly fifty acres of land. It's an old plantation house that's been built on over time," Tim said.
"It's probably just as well seeing there are over a thousand students and only about fifty of them will arrive by car or bus, the size of the grounds and multiple gates will hide that from the neighbours. Unless they have a whole fleet of fake buses that arrive and leave each morning and afternoon," Hadrian said.
"Will Teddy be able to have some of his new friends come to visit, and perhaps to meet his current friends?" Heather asked.
"They should be able to come and visit easily enough, as to meeting his current friends, they could so long as they're familiar with the nonmagical world which most students here in America would be," Hadrian replied. "We will invite them to spend a day with us in a week or so, though it will be difficult to explain children visiting from other parts of the country fairly regularly, just for a single afternoon at a time."
"That's true," Tim said frowning.
"Don't borrow trouble, thousands of people from all over the country visit the capitol fairly regularly for meetings with their head of departments or things," Heather said from her experience with the Navy.
"Less people in non-military life do though, head offices of companies that span the country tend to be in places like New York or Los Angeles rather than the DC area.
-o0o-
"Hi Auror Black did you enjoy seeing the school yesterday, it's impressive is it not?" Auror Mica Pertinger asked when he saw Hadrian enter the training facility.
"It certainly was. Teddy had a great day and is very excited to be going there next year. I was especially pleased by the safety precautions in the junior potions curriculum and the alerts on the training wands. I'd never heard of them before," Hadrian said easily.
"So you're not regretting not deciding to send your son to Hogwarts?" Mica asked.
"Definitely not. Tradition is a fine thing, but Teddy's birth father was a werewolf, the lack of the prejudice he faced in Britain was one of the reasons we were keen to stay here," Hadrian said.
"Does he change on the full moon?" Mica asked.
"No, he doesn't sleep well the night of the full moon, but since the blood adoption that's his only symptom," Hadrian replied. "I did list it on his school paperwork but honestly I think they're going to have more problems from him inheriting the gift of metamorphmagus from his birth mother. That wasn't weakened by the adoption at all," Hadrian replied.
"How strong a gift?" Mica asked curiously.
"Enough to make him unrecognisable, even by Tim and me. He can't change genders or make himself more than a few inches taller or shorter and tends to conserve mass so he gets thinner as he gets taller and chubbier when he makes himself shorter, but he can change his skin tone, eye colour, his facial features a little and completely change his hair. I don't know if the skill will increase as he gets older or if he has only inherited part of his mother's gift. She could become anyone, male or female, even add some non human features like a pig nose or beak or horns, she used it constantly, I couldn't guarantee I ever saw her exactly as she would have looked without her gift," Hadrian said.
"That sounds like a great gift for an Auror and a lot of fun in a friend but it also sounds like a parent's worst nightmare," Mica said laughing.
"You're not wrong, thankfully there's a potion he has to take to stop his hair colour from mirroring his emotions when he's in the muggle world, so we haven't managed to lose him yet," Hadrian said.
Mica laughed. "Still better you than me," he said.
"I've got some questions if you've got a minute," Hadrian said quietly.
"About a case, or about Salem Academy?" Auror Mica Pertinger asked.
"About one of the healers we met at Salem. Healer McCray," Hadrian said.
"Can't say I've ever had much to do with him. My sons are both healthy little blighters thank Merlin. What did you want to know?" Mica asked.
"McCray seemed a little too interested in my Myrddin score and rating," Hadrian said.
"You told him?" Mica said surprised that he was even asked, it was normally never discussed and while Hadrian's own healer may have needed to know the school healers certainly didn't.
"No I didn't. He asked and I told him that mine was classified and I didn't know Teddy's other parents ratings. He didn't drop it," Hadrian said frowning. "Even insinuated that Teddy couldn't be properly treated by the school healers if they didn't know my Myrddin score. He didn't ask for permission to test Teddy's Myrddin score which might have made some sense if they had a reason to believe it was above average, he wanted to know mine, and given how insistent he was I'm slightly concerned about his motivation and how safe my son will be in his care."
"That is odd," Mica agreed.
"Did they ask you and your sons' other parents for their Myrddin ratings?" Hadrian asked.
"No they didn't, are you going to look into him unofficially?" Mica said.
"I've already asked Clancy for permission for an official investigation, with what you just said about not being asked I have it," Hadrian replied. "With your permission I will include the fact that you weren't asked in my report.
"I'll ask around quietly and try to find out if any of the other parents, especially this years' intake were also asked," Mica offered.
"Thankyou that would be helpful," Hadrian said.
"I contacted the parents of most of last years' first years and the incoming first year class. None of the other parents with children over ten were asked about their Myrddin rating but a couple of the other new parents in the upcoming year were also asked, by Healer McCray, none of the parents who saw one of the other healers was asked," Mica reported later that afternoon.
"Did you ask them their appointment times. Or is there something else in common among those asked?" Hadrian asked.
"There was nothing I could see they had in common, some of the parents were Salem graduates but not all, some have a mastery in an active form of magic others pursued nonmagical careers. I asked there Myrddin rating and those that knew it and were happy to tell me ranged from significantly above average to slightly below. But you have good instincts. They were all on Healer McCray's appointment list after he saw Teddy," Mica said sighing.
"As if he wanted it to seem normal for parents to be asked after I got suspicious, in case I thought to ask Teddy's new friends and their parents," Hadrian said sighing.
"Yeah, did your investigation into McCray turn up anything?" Mica asked.
"Nothing unusual, he was a middle of the range student, barely scraped into the healing program at John Hopkins, did a lot better at the nonmagical subjects than the magical which indicates that the problem might be magical strength not intelligence, lives within his income and has no unexplained bank accounts I could find, he drives a mid range SUV has a couple of parking tickets which isn't unusual for his neighbourhood, the only thing of note is that his mother was British. I've sent word to Robards who is looking into it," Hadrian replied.
-o0o-
It was two days before Robards got back to him.
"We've looked into McCray but there's nothing to find. His mother was a muggleborn who left Britain when she graduated Hogwarts and couldn't find work in Wizarding Britain. She isn't connected to any known criminals, and she had no criminal record herself. We couldn't find any record on the son either, or any contract between him and anybody on our watch list," Robards said.
"That's a relief but it doesn't explain why her son wanted to know my Myrddin score," Hadrian said.
"It could genuinely be that he is worried that he won't be able to heal Teddy because his own Myrddin score is lower than the average healer. That might be why he chose to work in a school.
"I can understand being concerned but I'm only one of four of Teddy's parents, the chance of him inheriting my magical strength is slim and even if he does it will be years before he reaches his magical maturity and it becomes a problem for a healer unless he's almost a squib, in which case he'd never have passed the training."
"I agree but I'm sorry I don't have anything on him," Robbards said.
-o0o-
Teddy had several of the boys from his new school over a couple of weeks after their assessment and orientation day and he seemed to have fun with them. The children from nonmagical families were fascinated by the easy use of magic around the house and they were all shocked at the number of house elves working around the house since they were fairly rare outside of Britain and Europe. Being boys they were also more than happy to go down to the park and kick a soccer ball around with Teddy's current school friends as well.
Teddy was quiet for a few days after the visit and Tim and Hadrian were both worried about him.
"What's up Teddybear?" Tim asked hugging him as he finished reading his reader to them. "Are you unhappy about going to Salem next year?"
"No, I'm looking forward to it," Teddy insisted.
"It's okay to admit that you're going to miss the friends you have here, or that you're worried that your new friends wont like you as much or be as much fun as your old friends, and remember that you'll still see them at soccer and on weekends," Tim said gently.
"I am going to miss my friends but they're angry that I'm going to a different school than them. I don't know if they want me to play soccer with them anymore," Teddy said. "They didn't like my new friends."
"And because they didn't like them you've been wondering whether there's something wrong with your new friends?" Hadrian asked.
"Yeah," Teddy admitted.
"I think your new friends are all nice boys, and I hope that you will all be good friends at school, but your old friends don't like the idea of you making new friends to replace them. They're feeling a bit jealous and left out that you're leaving them. It's not that they couldn't like your new friends, it's that they didn't want to like them," Tim said.
"I agree that there's nothing wrong with your new friends, your old friends are going to miss you just as much as you miss them and they don't have the excitement of going to a new school or being able to learn magic to distract them from the thought of you not being with them next year," Hadrian said.
"They also might be a bit intimidated by your new friends. After all they think that you're going to go to a school for really intelligent kids and your friends are afraid that your new friends are smarter than they are, and that if you hang around with smart kids all the time then you'll find them stupid or boring by comparison," Heather suggested.
"But my new friends aren't smarter," Teddy protested.
"I know that, and you know that, but the problem is that you cannot tell your friends that. Otherwise they won't understand why you're going to a different school," Hadrian reminded him.
"Your new friends might not be smarter, but you will be learning a lot of new things that your old friends can't learn, you will have to be careful how you talk about your new school," Heather said.
"And careful how you avoid talking about it too, so your friends don't think that you're keeping secrets from them or that you think they're too dumb to understand," Hadrian said.
"But I will be keeping secrets from them. I have to!" Teddy said.
"Yes, and that's where it gets really difficult. Like with Aunt Sarah, you can't tell her about magic or let her find out about it but we also can't let her know that we are keeping something big a secret from her or she won't rest until she finds out what it is," Tim said.
"That's going to be really hard," Teddy said.
"It is, but if you care about them then it's worth putting in the effort to talk about the things that are happening in their world rather than chatting away about people and things they won't know," Tim replied. "You'll understand better after you start your new school next year and your friends are talking about a new teacher or something that happened at school and you don't know what they're talking about. That sort of thing can make it feel like you don't belong, and I know you didn't mean to do that with your friends this weekend. You were just so excited about your new school and the new classes and everything but your old friends felt like there wasn't room for them in your new friendships."
"I didn't think that this would be so hard. What should I do?" Teddy asked.
"Be a friend, listen to your friends and reassure them that you like them just as much as you like your new friends or more. That you still want to play soccer with them and be their friend even after you're at a different school," Tim said.
"Did this happen when you went away to school?" Teddy asked.
"No, but it didn't happen because I didn't have any friends before I went to Hogwarts. My cousin Dudley would be really mean to anyone who tried to be friends with me and most of the kids at my primary school were too afraid of him and his friends," Hadrian said. "It has happened a bit since I moved to America, remember my friend Ron being upset by all the other friends I have now, and all the new opinions and ways of looking at things I do now."
"That's a part of growing up, very few people remain friends with exactly the same group of people for their whole lives, it's possible that even if you stayed at school with the kids you go to school with now the day would come when some of them may not be people you liked to spend time with anymore," Heather said.
"It happened to me a lot when we moved bases, but I didn't get to come back and try to stay friends with the kids at the base we were leaving, many of them I wouldn't see again or if I did it wouldn't be for years and years. there were a couple of friends I tried to stay in contact with through letters and phone calls, but it didn't really work well until I was a lot older than you are now," Tim admitted. "You at least still have soccer and summers with your friends. I know you can make it work if you want to put in the effort, but it is possible that the day will come when you decide that you don't want to be friends with these boys anymore. That it is just easier to be friends with people who know about magic so you don't have to hide who you are, and that will be okay too."
Teddy looked at his parents thoughtfully. "How long do I have to be friends with someone before they're allowed to find out about magic?" he asked.
"Generally, you can't ever tell anyone that you're just friends with, you wont even be able to tell someone you're dating until you're serious enough to want to marry them and ready to move in with them," Hadrian said.
"But Spencer doesn't have magic and you told him, he's a friend," Teddy argued.
"Spencer wasn't told about magic because he was my friend. He was told because he needed to know for his work and with his memory being so much better than everyone else's they didn't want to risk trying to make him forget," Hadrian explained. "There are quite a few people who work for the regular FBI and even NCIS that are allowed to know about magic to help keep it secret from everybody else."
"So, I'm never going to be able to tell them," Teddy said sadly.
"No, but that's not terrible, it means you will also never have to make them angry at you by telling them that you've known about magic all these years and have been keeping it a secret from them," Tim said encouragingly.
-o0o-
Teddy wasn't the only one to have to face friends' jealousy over changing schools. The other parents weren't reticent in showing their unhappiness to the couple at the next school function they attended.
"I should have known you'd send Teddy to some fancy private school. This one isn't good enough for you?" Troy's father, Jeremy stated.
"It's not that Teddy's new school is private, it's just that it will meet his needs better than mainstream schooling," Tim tried to explain.
"It will be an awful lot of effort to get him to school across town everyday," Ethan's mother Rachel said.
"We've got that sorted, and I think it will be worth it in the long run. This is a very good elementary school but I'm not keen on the local High school for a child like Teddy," Hadrian said.
"What does that mean?" Troy's mother Melanie asked.
"It's a very large school with a good reputation of dealing with troubled or problematic and non-academic students but its AP program especially in the hard sciences isn't as extensive as I would like and Hadrian and I both have serious concerns with their track record in dealing with bullies," Tim said.
"What are you going to do if Rosie and Daisy don't get into the same school as Teddy?" Chris, Ethan's stepfather, asked.
"We will cross that bridge when we come to it," Tim said. "Rosie's speaking well above the average for her age. So the chances of her getting in are fairly good."
"That will be hard on Daisy if she doesn't get in too," Melanie said.
"If that's where her interests and abilities lie it will be, but I'll be happy if she's happy doing her own thing, she doesn't need to be academic," Hadrian said.
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed, followed or favourited my story for your support.
