Harry looks at the collection of first and second year students waiting to learn how to enter Hogwarts House. Shaking her head she gestures to Ginny, "I think today is your show, as most of them are either following your example or trying to be with Azaria."

Ginny laughs, "Gee, thanks Harry, you give me the best jobs."

She laughs with her, "You know you love it."

"I do, I really do and I don't know why."

"It's probably because you see them succeeding because of the help you've given them."

"Maybe, but whatever it is I think we've waited long enough for any stragglers to turn up."

Stepping forward Ginny projects her voice so that everyone can hear her clearly, "OK everyone, we're going to start now. As such this is your last chance to back out."

When nobody made a move to leave she continued, "The secret is very simple, and very obvious. In fact we've already taught you everything you need to know to start with. You all know how to play the musical Simon says game, where you follow the tune that the previous person has played. Well, the first three notes that we taught you correspond to the three different parts of the school you can reach. If you change your magic so that you'd be playing that note while touching any of the Hogwarts crests around the school, it will take you to that part of the school. To start with you will probably need to be physically touching the crest, and maybe also actually playing the note. However by the end of the weekend you'll be able to do it just by being close enough to a crest for your magic to reach.

"We're going to take 20 minutes to ensure you can all play the right notes easily, then Hogwarts will open the door to a secluded part of the castle where you can all practice moving to the different parts of the school. This afternoon, and all tomorrow we're going to play tag in the Eastern courtyard, the rules will be simple, you can't leave the courtyard, but you can change which part of the school you're in.

"The last thing is, we don't want any of you telling anyone that's not part of the Hogwarts house about the association between the musical spell and moving through the school, as doing it at the wrong time could kill someone if they're not trained. As it stands, you need to be able to do this without thinking before we can move onto the next stage of teaching you. Just remember, if you do go there at the wrong time, which you shouldn't as it's after curfew, don't panic and keep playing the lowest note you can."

Harry steps up next to her and says, "We'll have a competition at the end of tomorrow to see who can keep up the low note the longest. The winner will get a box of Honey Dukes, the second will get a bar of their chocolate, and the third will get some sugar quills. The loser will get a pack of every flavour beans, that they have to eat here, describing the flavour of each bean."

Everyone made faces at the consolation prize, as it's not like every flavoured beans were bad, just you didn't really want to be eating them in front of people that weren't also risking them.

Twenty minutes later they were watching everyone else running around, care free, playing tag in the courtyard.

With a wistful expression on her face Ginny turns to Harry, "Do you think this is what the adults were trying to stop us from losing?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's just they're so carefree and innocent."

"I don't know, I've never really had that. My life was destroyed by people meddling in it far before I have any memories."

Daphne steps forward and pulls them both into a hug, "It is and it isn't, take Goyle over there, he's never really had that innocence either as his father is a death eater that claimed imperious. He's had a hard life, I know because I found him crying a few times at some of the balls we had to attend. I think that they do still have things that we've lost though, and that is an awareness of the larger problems in the world."

Hermione joins in with a sense of dawning comprehension, "I think that the reason why they won't let us spend more time in the dream is to learn how to let go and have fun like them."

Harry looks over at her, "Where did that come from?"

She blushes lightly, "I just put it together when Daphne told us about Goyle's life. Karen doesn't want us growing up faster than our peers, and she's said that multiple times. I've been trying to work out why, and it just occurred to me that she wants us to learn from them and stay able to relate to them."

With a sense of disbelief in her voice, Ginny says, "What, they expect us to forget about everything going on?"

Slightly distractedly, Luna contradicts her, "No, not forget. Put aside. They want us to learn how to continue to have fun. Now I think it's time for us to play. Tag, your it!"

With that she sends a stinging hex at Ginny's bum and runs off squealing as Ginny worms her way our of Daphne's hug and runs after her.

Laughing Hermione sends a stinging hex at Harry, "She's right, let's show these kids how to really play tag. Dudley, Nicole, that means you too."

Soon enough stinging hexes were exchanged for water conjurations and the sound of children having fun echoed out over all three eastern courtyards. Unnoticed, Karen and Minerva exchange a measured glance and smile as they supervise the childrens play.

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It took them nearly a month, and enlisting the rest of the staff, but finally Poppy and Gosling managed to drag Karen into the hospital wing to have her pregnancy monitored.

Once she was sure that they were repeating their diagnostic spells, Karen grumpily interrupted their quiet whispering, "So what's the diagnosis?"

Gosling coughs, "Yes well, we're trying to work out what's wrong with our diagnostic spells. As according to the spells you've been pregnant for several years, and you're on track to give birth in late August."

Karen sighs, "Why can't they both be true?"

"Bodies just don't work like that."

She puts her head in her hands, "Magic! We live in a world of magic and I routinely go to a place that's far more magical than this. So rather than trying to work out what's wrong with your spells, that I'll note have served you well for centuries, maybe you should talk to Magi Bethsheba, Septmia, and Hermione to see if together you can work out why it's happening. I'm sure we could recruit some non-magicals if you need controls for the experiment. God knows we need to bolster the British magical population anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"It's standard practice in science, have multiple groups, one of which is a control group that doesn't have anything done to them."

"I meant the bit about bolstering the British magical population."

"Oh, that. Well, you lost around 20% of your population during the second world war, and then you lost 30% during the last war. Even though the Emrys Academy still has 1000 students, that's down on the number it had during the 1970's. According to your records, the British magical population has been fairly stable since the 15th century, well before the statue of secrecy was introduced. That means that your birth rate has been fairly close to your death rate in all of that time. We're starting to see that more in the mundane world in developed nations where we ready access to food, water, and healthcare and children are surviving to adulthood more. However, what we saw after the second world war was a boom in children been born that quickly replenished the number of people that died during both wars. However, I've not seen that in any of your records."

"Hang on! When did you look at our records?"

"Ah! Well, I might have borrowed some after I read a few books from the library here about historical populations. They were only missing for a couple of hours while I was visiting Petunia."

"Did you ask anyone?"

"Well I did let the nice young mediwizard on duty know that I was looking at them."

"You're not supposed to take them away, did you read through them?"

"No! I just collated the births and deaths, which you handily stamp on the outside along with the names."

"Wait, where did you get the previous information from?"

"Oh, that, census data. Hogwarts has a copy of all of it up until 1810, I couldn't find any record of a census taking place after that."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. It's interesting that St Mungo's records only go back to 1790 too. I wonder if it's related."

Poppy interjects, "Wasn't that when they introduced the magic for that automatic record collection in the Ministry?"

"Oh, yes, I remember that. It was covered when they were explaining why we have a manual process for declaring deaths. According to what we're told, the magic doesn't work on squibs, so we have to manually stamp the record when we receive official notice."

Karen barks out a laugh, "That explains why some records had two dates of death on them, I had wondered."

"They do? I need to look into that. You, be back here in a week, Poppy contact Septima while I'm gone." Gosling points a finger at Karen while she's talking.

Karen laughs, "Yes Healer."

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Time passed as it's wont to do, Beth found an eager apprentice in the first year who has a rune as their visualisation of magic. Karen, Azaria, and Tonks were all hounded mercilessly by both healers along with Hermione, Beth and Septima; much to their displeasure.

Harry, Hermione, and Daphne finished their grand tour of North America and could now get to most places within a few steps if not directly. Much to her surprise, Daphne found herself becoming immersed in the mundane world after seeing just how widespread and ubiquitous it was. Nicole, Ginny, Luna and Dudley were called off their observation of the Library of Alexandria after Albus failed to turn up again.

Victoria found herself metaphorically living out of a suitcase as she was called all over the world by the magical governments all looking forward to currying favour with the re-emerged magi, and hoping to get special treatment with regards to training spots to have their own warlocks trained. In order to spare her the misery, Sirius opted to travel with her, much to his regret once it became clear just how much travelling was involved.

In the Sidhe world, the Yewglisten household waited anxiously for permission to appear before the court in order to present their clan heads declaration and be freed from the house and oaths that form their prison, open as it is.

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Karen sighs as she opens the door to her office and sees the pile of letters begging for attention. The plain white envelope with the NHS logo on it drawing her attention from the neatly folded parchments. Once she's sorted the letters by their seals, her magic is in the process of opening the letter from the NHS when Beth barges in closely followed by Septima.

"I've got it!"

"Got what?" Karen says waspishly.

"Oh… sorry to interrupt."

"No, it's OK go on."

"We've worked out how the wards connecting Hogwarts together work, and how they're different from the other wards that people used to connect different parts of the same location together."

"Oh good." Karen says weakly.

"Are you OK?"

"It's just Hormones, one moment everything's fine, the next I want to tear someone's head off, and the next I just want to cry."

While Beth steps around the table to comfort Karen, Septima discreetly steps out and calls for a house-elf to get one of the healers before returning.

"It's OK, you don't have to do all of this on your own. That's why you have a deputy."

"I know, it's just I was fine doing it all before this. And it's not that much work."

"That was before you started doing additional tutoring for the struggling students in the first and second year. Don't think we haven't noticed that."

"Yes, but…"

"Or how you monitor the structured play more often than any other teacher."

"Yes, but…"

"Or how you're meeting with Ambassador Victoria every few days."

"Yes, but…"

"Or that there's something stressful going on wherever Petunia is."

Karen sags into her seat, "But I spend time in my retreat every night."

"Compiling birth and death statistics on the magical world."

She puts her head in her hands, "They told you…"

"They did. You're one person, and you're trying to do everything. Dumbledore had 3 full time jobs and he did none of them well, why would you be any different?"

"But I can spend years in the dream relaxing."

"But you don't. You're driven, we get that. We only had to listen to Azaria's stories of the training you were putting yourself through before you sent her back here to recover to know that."

"But everyone's so busy."

"That doesn't mean you can't ask for help."

Hogwarts fades into view, "They're right you know, and Minerva would be here if she wasn't teaching telling you the same things. I picked you to be my Head Master because I knew that you would do the best job you could, and you weren't affected by the traditions of the school. But you need to learn to trust other people to be competent again."

"But I'm the one with the time to do these things."

"No, you're not. No, listen to me. Responsibility weighs on our minds like any other task. However it's something that we can never put down while we're doing something else until someone else takes the responsibility from us. Your first responsibility is as a Magi, your second is as the Head Master of this school. Your third is to your family. After that comes everything else. Why is this? It's because the first three are things that only you can do. Someone else could teach your classes, research birth and death rates, supervise structured play, and remedial teaching. You probably didn't notice the weight of the responsibility before, but you're pregnant now, which is a whole new set of stresses on your mind and body as is changes to accommodate your child as the earth journeys around the sun and your child grows within you. Even we knew that while Selene was the fertility goddess, and it would take 10 full cycles for a baby to be ready to be born, it was actually the relationship between Ge and Helios that governed how long the baby would take to grow. Especially given that not every place that Ge exists has the same moon."

A gasp sounded from the doorway to the office, everyone looked round to see Healer Gosling standing there.

Karen said the first thing that came to mind, "I didn't know you could get to the Library on your own."

"Yes, well, given that three of my patients live here, and a significant portion of the student body live here too, I needed to learn in case there was an emergency. I'm not going to be a healer or a magi, my oaths won't allow that. But I've spent more than a few hours just chatting with Hogwarts here. Now will someone fill me in as to why a healer was called for."

Once Septima finished summarising how they found Karen, and the conversation before Gosling had arrived, Gosling fired off a couple of diagnostic spells.

"You, young lady, haven't been eating properly, and you're showing signs of sleep deprivation. Now is there anything there that only you can deal with?"

Karen swallows at the diagnosis, "Erm, just this letter from the NHS."

"Very well, I'll give you 5 minutes to sort out the rest of the paper work into piles that other people can work on, and label it then you're coming with me. And you're not leaving the infirmary until your diagnostics come back healthy. Bring the NHS letter with you, you can deal with it there."

"Yes Healer."

"And no galivanting off in the middle of the night either, send a note with someone else if you have to."

"But…"

"No, you've not been taking care of yourself properly while you've been out there, so you're staying with me until you're healthy. I will dose you with dreamless sleep if you leave before I say you can."

Karen seriously considered just stepping out somewhere else, but then realised that she'd have to come back at some point, if only for Harry and Dudley, and Hermione come to think of it.

Her shoulders slumped in defeat, "Yes Mum."

"And don't you forget it."

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A tired and grumpy Karen slouched on a bed in the hospital wing staring at the letter from the NHS. She jumps as Gosling puts a gentle hand on her wrist.

"What's the matter?"

Wordlessly she hands over the letter.

After scanning it, Gosling looks up at her, "So they want you to come to a pre-natal appointment, what's the problem with it?"

"Look at the address."

Gosling looks at the address for a few moments before frowning, "It looks like it's addressed to you here, but I don't recognise the address."

"It's the mundane redirect address for the school."

"OK, what's the problem?"

"The NHS is the mundane National Health Service in the UK."

"I'm not sure why you're worried about it, as you're a British citizen aren't you?"

"I am, but I didn't tell my doctor I was pregnant."

"So who does know?"

"The school, and the people that were at Privet Drive over Christmas."

"Would they have told anyone?"

"Well, no, it's a magical… Actually, it's a magical town run by the mundane British government. I think I might know who told them, I've just got to pop over to little whinging."

"Not on your own you don't, you are under my care as you haven't been taking care of yourself."

Karen deflates again.

"Look, I know it feels like an imposition, but if you don't let me take care of you for a few days now, a few weeks or months in the future you could be in St Mungo's for a couple of weeks. I've seen it happen before, some of the witches that work in the Ministry will push themselves to keep up with the wizards and end up collapsing at work and needing to recover for a few weeks. In fact I was the one that drew the short straw when Madam Umbridge came in 5 or 6 years ago."

"Who's she?"

"Dresses in pink, looks like a toad."

"Oh, her. What happened?"

"She was functionary in the Department of Community Relations at the time, and trying to make a name for herself. They had some big PR push going on at the time, and she'd been living off of snacks and cart food for a month. She collapsed at work as her magic started rejecting the baby in order to prioritise her health. We tried to save the baby for two weeks before she finally miscarried at 28 weeks. You're not mundane anymore. You can't ignore your body and the baby just leaches off of your reserves."

Karen gasps and goes pale, "I had no idea."

"No reason you should have done, we normally cover it during the 4th year of education in a series of lessons that all the girls have to attend. The boys have similar lessons, though with less of the 'icky' details. As such you probably know it happens, but didn't know there was such a difference between mundane and magical."

"Does this apply to squibs as well?"

"I really don't know. There aren't many squibs that live in the magical world, I think the MacUSA has a larger population, but it's still tiny. I know that the Peoples alliance has a lot of land hidden away in a similar manner to the Indian magical states. However they're none too friendly to anyone with European skin, especially with how they've still got close ties to their mundane brethren."

"The People's Alliance?"

"Yes, it's the Native American magical community and covers most of North America. You wouldn't have learnt about them with Binns teaching, but we're taught about them so that we know what to do if we're ever called over to the USA in case of an Emergency, like the Obscurus incident in the 1920's. You'll never see them at an ICW meeting, even though they keep to the word of the Statute of Secrecy."

"I wonder how many mugg… mundane born have fallen foul of that. I've been spending too much time around purebloods recently…", Karen grouses as she falls into magical slang.

"Anything you want to talk to me about?"

"Just… Too many meetings at the ministry where they're trying to get information about the tasks or persuade me to implement certain tasks. Ludo Bagman is a fucking idiot that seems to have the morals of a rat faced with a pile of feed, and the intelligence of a Puffskein."

"You'll find that a lot of the heads of minor departments are like that, promoted due to their name or status, and often just to get them out of the way. Mr Weasley is actually a weird exception to that, as he comes across like that but actually knows more than anyone else in his department."

"Don't I know it, Emma told me about a spot check that they had from one of the staff members before she joined St Mungo's, they didn't even have the basic knowledge they needed for her to explain what things in the office did."

"I'll have to get that story out of her next time I'm at the hospital then. Enough side tracking though, I'll meet you here at 4 when Poppy takes over and you can take me to Little Whinging to find out what's happening. I'll also arrange cover tomorrow so that we can go to your appointment in Aberdeen. Now go back to work and I'll make sure the house elves know to serve you your potions."