Chapter 100

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Hadrian came down with Daisy after her nap. "Heather, it's great to see you. How are you doing?"

"I'm safe and well thanks to you and your security guards," Heather said smiling bravely and reaching for the toddler. Hadrian handed her over, and she buried her face in the spell of the healthy little girl.

"I'm glad they were there to protect you, though I'm sorry that they were needed," Hadrian replied gently.

"I'm sorry too, though it wasn't your doing," Heather said smiling at the two young men.

Tim and Hadrian looked at each other both feeling slightly guilty, the timing of the argument between Heather and the Admiral occurring on the day Tim had been at the base couldn't have been a coincidence. They both believed, quite correctly, that the argument had started over their relationship and Heather's support of them and the refusal of the Admiral to accept it.

"Did Tim tell you our news?" Hadrian asked.

He looked at his husband uncertainly and Tim nodded and smiled, his mother had accepted that wizards could have babies without a woman involved.

"Yes, he explained it all to me. It's wonderful!" Heather exclaimed, coming over to give him a gentle hug.

"It is, I just wish my stomach agreed with us," Hadrian said laughing. "I hope you like ginger, the elves seem to be putting it in pretty much everything they serve lately."

"That's fine," Heather replied. "I'm happy to go along with anything that helps. Is there anything I can do?"

"No, I'm not ill, just a little nauseas at times and more easily tired so I apologise if I end up falling asleep on you, but if on my days off I nap when Daisy does to catch up then I'm well enough," Hadrian replied. "I'm sure you'll forgive me if Tim and I turn in early most evenings."

"Of course, that's fine, you do what you need to do. Have you told Sarah?" Heather asked.

"Not yet, and of course we'll need to tell her that we are using a surrogate again so we probably won't tell her for another couple of months or so. You remember that she isn't allowed to know about anything magical," Tim reminded his mother.

"Does it create problems between you, not being able to tell your sister about magic?" Heather asked.

"It does create some awkward moments. It's not the magic itself because I can't use it and Hadrian's used to hiding it, but the ways that Hadrian being a wizard changes our lives like Hadrian being pregnant instead of using a surrogate or the elves and not having to spend hours every weekend maintaining the house and garden, or being able to pop over to London, Paris or Hawaii for the weekend for example. The biggest problem about Sarah not knowing about magic is that Teddy and Rosie know that she must not find out about magic so they're so careful not to allow themselves to use their magic or lose control of their emotions in fear of an accidental outburst that they're not really themselves while she's here, and Daisy picks up on that tension too. They do love their Aunt Sarah but they'd prefer her not to visit too often, which makes me a little sad but honestly is fine with her, she isn't exactly the maternal type," Tim said sighing. "It's a problem with most visitors to some extent, but Teddy's school friends aren't too much of an issue at the moment, I can usually convince them it's a computer effect or something if they won't believe it's their imagination, and their parents wouldn't believe them even if they did go home and tell them stories about flying toys or hair changing colour, though it will get more difficult as they get older and less willing to believe in imaginative friends and things. I'm worried that once he goes to Salem next year, he'll end up abandoning his nonmagical friends because it's easier to be with his new magical friends and not have to hide part of who he is."

"It will be hard for him to explain why he doesn't go to any of the schools in the area if he's home in the afternoons," Heather commented.

"Yes, I don't know quite how we are going to explain it. I'm beginning to understand why Britain demands that their students board so they're not seen around their neighbourhoods attracting attention.," Tim replied sighing.

"You're not going to make Teddy board at school. He's not old enough for boarding school!" Heather exclaimed.

"No, evn if he wanted to stay at school, we couldn't bear to have him away all term. I just don't know how we're going to explain it. I don't want to have to force him to stay inside on weeknights," Tim replied.

"I do, I've been looking into it. There's a fake school in DC and most other capital cities that Salem students claim to go to. It's a bit of a distance from here but it claims to be a school for the gifted so it's not unbelievable that we'd send him there, and there's an entrance exam for it and its sister school which is a genuine nonmagical school for the intellectually gifted, so anyone who wants to send their child to Teddy's school will have a reasonable reason for not being able to, even if they sit the exam and pass they'd be offered a place in the sister school and no explanation will be given on the differences between the two schools. The fake school has a website and produces a weekly newsletter so anyone looking it up on the internet won't find anything odd." Hadrian said. "As part of the cover Teddy will miss a day of school to attend the entrance examinations next month, his getting into Salem isn't in doubt but they will use the time to administer entrance examinations and testing that will enable them to place him in the appropriate grades, both magically and nonmagically."

"And he will be able to return to school and speak about the nonmagical assessments, preparing his friends for the idea that he might be going to a different school next year," Tim said nodding. "His soccer team isn't organised through his school, and games are Saturday morning so he'll still be able to play with his current team, which will help him keep in contact with his friends here if he wants to."

"Sporting games and other special events at the school are Friday afternoons so he could do both if he wants," Hadrian agreed.

-o0o-

"Are you sure the potions are safe for the baby?" Heather asked watching Tollie give Hadrian an anti-nausea potion as he sat at the table then turned green the next morning, remembering the disaster of Thalidomide medication and its side effects, side effects that were still appearing in following generations. There still wasn't a nonmagical medication safe to take during pregnancy that cured morning sickness the way Hadrian's potions did.

"Yes, witches have been using these for hundreds of years and they've been proved safe for pregnant wizards as well, unfortunately they don't work on nonmagical women," Hadrian said. "The ginger crackers are actually a potion as well. They're not bad tasting though. The elves have been making them for Tim when he needs to go on a boat as well and he's developed a taste for them."

"They work for that too?" Heather asked impressed. "We tried just about everything."

"They work really well and thank heavens DiNozzo and Ziva haven't found out they're actually a morning sickness remedy," Tim replied. "I think Gibbs realises because he has that tiny 'trying not to grin' quirk every time he sees me eating them."

Hadrian laughed. "He probably doesn't realise that they're a magical potion, but ginger and crackers are traditional muggle remedies for morning sickness too, though not as effective as the one's the elves make us."

Heather laughed as Tim put his head on the table and groaned.

-o0o-

Tim was almost more nervous than Teddy the morning that they went to Salem for his placement tests. They travelled to the sister school by car where Teddy would take his nonmagical academic tests along with the children who really were testing for placement at the school for the intellectually gifted, then after that they'd take the portkey to the Salem Academy of Magic for a tour, lunch and magical assessment. They were met at the arrival area by one of the senior students and a professor. Once their names were checked of a list the professor nodded to the student who introduced himself as Nathan Bysouthe led them up to the testing room. It looked like a normal classroom and Nathan explained that the students in this room were all destined for Salem Academy and that they were starting the testing with reading and writing skills, while the parents attended an information session about the parent association, the books uniform and equipment their student would need for school and potential travel or boarding options. Then Teddy would join the students testing for their sister school for a brief recess out in the yard before being tested on general nonmagical knowledge and mathematics while Hadrian and Tim had the opportunity to fill out the paperwork required to complete their son's enrolment then meet and greet the other first year student's parents then once the nonmagical students had left, they'd take the portkeys in small groups to Salem and be shown around the school and introduced to the professors who taught first years before lunch followed by individual appointments with the school healer and one of the professors which involved a quick scan to establish basic medical history and level of potential magic and magical maturity to make sure how soon he would be ready to begin active magic classes. Most students weren't until they were nine or ten, so would spend their first year learning theory of magic and practical classes only in the subjects which involved non-active magic like potions, herbology, care of magical creatures, arithmancy and ancient runes.

Hadrian and Tim watched as Teddy eagerly entered the room for testing, already talking with a couple of boys his own age, before joining the other parents in a nearby room where a motherly looking witch greeted them and introduced herself as Mrs Jessamine Frobisher the head of the first and second years. She gave them a brief overview of the structure of the school and what they could expect their children to be learning in the next two years, then handed out a sheaf of information and waited for their questions.

Many of the books on the booklist and the list of supplies and uniform was mostly what you'd expect in any nonmagical school with just a few additions. We don't expect our first years to have their own wands, in fact we'd prefer they didn't use individually matched wands at this stage. They will use training wands fitted with safety charms to prevent them from hurting each other or themselves and alert tones to warn us when they're getting close to the beginnings of magical exhaustion, so we can monitor their progress and ensure they're not exceeding their abilities. It may be some months or even a year or two before they reach the level that we'd recommend them be fitted for their own unique wand.

"What about Dragonhide gloves?" Hadrian asked.

"They won't be exposed to anything risky enough to require those until their third year. There's plenty of herbology and potions techniques we can teach using safe plants and ingredients for beginners," Jessamine replied. "In fact, their entire first term of potions is made up of a combination of theory, preparing ingredients for some of the older classes and brewing magical sweets where adding the wrong combination of ingredients or not following instructions will result in a perfectly edible though disgusting tasting result or a congealed but still nontoxic mess they can't get at to eat. We've found it a very effective way for young children to learn in safety."

"Are the first years allowed to bring their brooms to school and to join the school teams," another parent asked enthusiastically.

"There are junior teams for the children to join if they wish, as for their personal brooms they are not. The junior teams all play on the school brooms to level the playing field. The senior teams have the choice of bringing their own brooms, provided that they are a make and model acceptable for the level of competition they're playing at," Mrs Frobisher replied.

When one of the parents made an objection, Jessamine silenced them and said firmly. "At Salem Academy positions on one of the competition teams will be decided entirely by skill and not how much money the student's parents are willing to spend on a broomstick. There will be no exceptions allowed."

Hadrian was reassured by the safety precautions built into their beginner lesson plans remembering the dangers of even first year potions at Hogwarts, where it was rare for nobody to need to visit the hospital wing during their practical classes. Tim, who was used to the idea that schools were safe for children hadn't worried about any of those things and was more interested in the parent's association and the number of school events that parents were encouraged to attend. He was pleased to find that they provided the address for parents to be able to arrive by nonmagical means as well as portkeys, and that nonmagical parents and grandparents were welcome in the school for all activities that the magical parents were invited to.

There wasn't quite enough information to fill the entire time before Teddy was free to join them again after his non-magical testing but they managed to meet with the representatives of the bookshop and uniform shop to place their orders.

-o0o-

They met up with Teddy who chatted confidently about the testing he'd just completed and waited for a portkey to take them to the Salem Academy. They landed in a fenced off area on the front drive and even Hadrian had to admit that it was an impressive sight.

The school though modern in comparison to the 1,000 year old Hogwarts castle was still old enough to have a slight otherworldly charm and was furnished with what looked like genuine priceless antiques. Tim was used to what preservation spells and unbreakable charms could do from their house in Boston and the plantation house in Hawaii as well as Longbottom Manor and various Black properties but he was still shocked that such a beautifully furnished place could be a school full of rambunctious children and teenagers, instead of a museum or five star motel.

The school might have been ancient but the vice principal meeting them was anything but, looking fashionably dressed in business casual and in his early forties, he had a friendly and practical manner about him as he greeted them and assigned them to another senior student to show them around. The tour of the school was interesting, they went through the junior area or first where children were taught basic safety and magical theory in what mostly looked like normal classrooms. The potions lab looked like any junior high science classroom, light and airy with large widows and fans providing good ventilation for any fumes. The greenhouses also had their own adjoining classrooms and there were large walled gardens with various environmental charms creating microclimates so plants that normally wouldn't grow in Massachusetts could be seen in their own habitats and sports fields that would never be too frozen or covered in snow to use. One classroom which thrilled Hadrian was the astronomy classroom with a giant projector aimed at the domed ceiling so astronomy could be taught in the day time.

"You use a muggle projector?" he asked, surprised.

"It's been charmed to run on magic rather than electricity, but yes it is easier than re-charming the ceiling if we want to look at stars in other parts of the sky than those visible in North America," the Astronomy professor replied.

"Why study astronomy in such detail?" one of the other parents asked. Hadrian was interested in this too, since Astronomy had always seemed to be a waste of time to him.

"The stars have a great effect on magic on earth. By tracking their movements, we can predict flows of magic that influence the strength of wards and many rituals are influenced by the movement of the sky.

The meet and greet was interesting, the parents from wizarding families seemed more comfortable than those new to magic but given that this was the only school of magic in the Eastern USA, Tim realised that many of them had probably attended here themselves and knew each other at least by name and reputation if not in person. As a result, a lot of the nonmagical parents seemed to congregate together even though there was no sign of bigotry or lack of welcome from the witches and wizards among them. The people at the table with them were therefore surprised when they saw Hadrian doing magic.

"You're a wizard? Why aren't you sitting over there with that lot?" one mother asked.

"Do you work for the school?" another asked. "Is that why you're sitting with us new to magic parents?"

"No, in fact it's the height of bad manners in this country to ask anyone's magical status so I didn't assume that you were all non-magical and I doubt that's what's causing the division between you and the other group, I'm British so I didn't go to school here so I'm as much a stranger to those people as you are. The witches and wizards over there seem to be greeting each other with familiarity like at a reunion than deliberately excluding us," Hadrian said observantly.

"They were friendly enough while we were touring around in smaller groups," one of the fathers agreed.

"Our group was too," several others murmured agreements.

"Are you a wizard too?" the original woman asked Tim.

"Kind of, my parents had my magic bound instead of sending me here so I really haven't been part of the magical world except through Hadrian and I can't actively use magic myself though most potions and magical devices work for me like they work for any wizard," Tim tried to explain. He didn't want to seem to be putting himself above these parents without magic but Hadrian had told him that some of the parents here today would bind their children's magic if they weren't convinced that sending their children to Salem would be good for them so he wanted to give them an opportunity to discuss the possibility.

"For future reference you should perhaps understand that asking Tim if he was magical too is probably about as unacceptable with most wizards as asking someone whether they are part Negro was fifty years ago," Hadrian said gently but firmly.

"Do you regret you magic being bound now?" one man asked.

"If you mean since meeting Hadrian, or since seeing the school no it really hasn't added to my regret. Finding out what happened to me when I was a child was actually beneficial, at least I finally knew why I'd felt wrong for years after I turned eight. It was like I'd lost something important, the whole world suddenly felt different and unfamiliar, almost unwelcoming, and I didn't remember magic so I couldn't understand why I felt that way," Tim said quietly. "I will never understand how anyone thinks it is acceptable to do that to a child, but Hadrian and I mesh our two worlds fairly well, we have all the benefits of being nonmagical and magical as well."

"It's illegal to bind someone's magic in most of the rest of the world except in cases of incurable insanity where it is required for the person's safety, and there is a campaign to make it illegal for parents to do that to their children here too. The problem is that because of the statute of secrecy preventing us from telling people about magic, there are very few people who are in the situation Tim is in, who had their magic bound and then found out about it as an adult who can speak up and explain what they're really doing to the children whose magic they bind," Hadrian said quietly.

"So if Jake has magic, does that mean that his brother and sister will too?" Allen Gordon asked.

"Not necessarily though they may do. My mum was magical and her sister wasn't which isn't unusual but I've met families where neither parent had magic but all three children did," Hadrian replied.

"Was your aunt jealous? Jessica has an older brother who doesn't have magic, he seems to be okay with the idea at the moment, but I'm worried what will happen once they go to different schools and their friends will hear that Jessie got into a school for the gifted," Leanne Matheson asked.

"She was insanely so, but then my mother was already much prettier than Petunia and a straight A student where Petunia was struggling to pass and then Mum married into a very wealthy old family and Aunt Petunia married a petty, close-minded man that was destined to spend his whole life working in lower to middle management. The jealousy wasn't new or solely about magic, it just gained an additional reason when they found out about magic," Hadrian replied dryly. "She made sure that her son was never jealous of me by telling everyone that I attended a secure school for incurably criminal boys instead of a school for the gifted."

"I take it you don't see your Aunt?" Thomas Matheson asked.

"I haven't seen any of her family since they told me never to darken their door again the day I turned seventeen," Hadrian replied lightly, glossing over the hurt of being rejected by the people that at the time were his only living relatives close enough to claim to be family. "Luckily for Petunia their son didn't have magic, but his children have a greater chance than average of being born magical if he has any."

"But do people with their magic bound, have magical children?" Vincent Harrison asked.

"No. They tend not to though there's no clear reason why not, one of the most popular theories is that binding a child's magic affects them so much and magic is slightly sentient, it generally retreats from a family line to protect itself," Hadrian replied.

"But Tim's son has magic?" Anita Harrison asked.

"I'm adopted," Teddy answered cheerfully. "My biological parents were magical. Papa was my godfather, before my parents died in the war."

"Oh! I'm sorry," Anita exclaimed.

"You couldn't have known," Tim said smiling. "Our biological daughters also are witches but that probably has more to do with Hadrian's magic than mine."

"Did you make that choice deliberately, that he would be the biological father instead of you, so they would have magic?" Allen Gordon asked.

"Nonmagical children can be born to two magical parents, it's rare but more common per capita than magical children without magical ancestors, though of course there are less of them because there are less magical parents. It's more common in England for some reason, probably because they have a culture that cares how many generations your family have been magical so the small group who can trace their magic back hundreds of years are all at least distantly related, often on both sides of their family and you know what inbreeding did to the Russian Royal Family and what it can do to purebred dogs and cats. But we didn't have to choose like that. Tim and I are both the biological parents of our children, magic can do some pretty amazing things," Hadrian replied.

"Two men can make a baby together, would it work for normal people?" Janine Bramwell asked.

"Non-magical men cannot carry a baby the way we did, or father a baby with a wizard, it takes the magic of both parents to conceive even with spells altering the carrier's biology and a lot of magic to carry the baby to term, but a blood adoption to make a child genetically their adoptive parents, would at least partially work for non-magical parents and children, though it wouldn't erase the birth parent's genetics so non-magical DNA testing would probably show all four parents, biological and adoptive, as the child's grandparents. That's what we chose to do with Teddy's adoption too, since I didn't want to replace Remus and Dora," Hadrian said.

They were interrupted at that stage by the magical defence professor who actually did know Hadrian as a co-teacher at the Auror academy, Auror Mica Pertinger, and was thrilled to meet Tim. "I had no idea you had a child old enough to start school," he exclaimed.

"Teddy's my godson, his father was one of my father's best friends. With the second war since they were students occurring there weren't many of his peers still living by the time Teddy was born," Hadrian said. "I adopted him after his parents and grandfather were killed in the war and his grandmother died a few years later."

"A tragic story," the Allen's wife Brenda commented.

"And unfortunately, a far too familiar one in wizarding Britain. But he's a happy, well-adjusted, little boy and looking forward to starting at Salem, though he will miss his non-magical friends," Hadrian replied.

"You've sent him to regular school then, that's good," Mica commented.

"I went to nonmagical primary school myself but why are you so surprised, I thought it was normal for children to go to other schools before they start at Salem?" Hadrian replied.

"Most of the children will have gone but it's not normal among British expats, and among some of the more alternative pagan enclaves," Mica replied. "There are always a few children in each year that haven't been to school before they start here at eight, they catch up but it's tough going the first term and generally worse for the kids of the expats that don't really know anyone or have friends their own age before coming here."

"Well that's not going to be a problem, Teddy is an outgoing child with plenty of friends in his current school and plans to keep playing soccer on their team," Hadrian said smiling. "Luckily he is smart enough for his friends, their parents and his teachers to buy the school for the intellectually gifted story."

"Do you ever turn a child away because they don't have enough magic?" Leanne Matheson asked. "Jessie really hasn't had many episodes of accidental magic and nothing big like the others were describing."

"That probably has just as much to do with her personality and her social situations as it does her magical abilities," Hadrian said.

"No we don't ever need to turn a child away. Everyone who got an invitation to test today has enough magic to attend a magical school and will be accepted at Salem for preparatory classes next year, every now and again the tests show that a child is not quite ready to start using magic by the time the rest of their class is in active magic classes in third year and they're offered the choice of doing another year of pure theory and nonmagical classes or given the opportunity to take a year away from Salem and come back for further testing in twelve months time, sometimes we can tell before they start that they're more than two years off being ready and will delay their start but other times their magic just develops more slowly than we expected it will. In that case some parents will choose the option to take their child out of school and spend a year travelling the world but most children will stay here with their friends. We also had a child several years ago now, who when they came to their assessment day, couldn't read or write at all and needed twelve months of tutoring in non-magical skills before he could join a class with a reasonable expectation of success. We don't like to set children up to fail so if you're told it is in your children's best interests to wait another year to start at Salem Academy or before beginning to learn active magic then please don't take it the wrong way, every child grows at their own pace and some of the strongest graduates are those that weren't ready to start wanded classes the year they turn nine or ten, either because of the time of year they would've been one of the youngest or because their magic grew more slowly for some other reason. Nobody really knows why it happens but it is normal? It's also normal for there to be a vast difference in the type of accidental magic children express before they arrive here, like Hadrian said, that has more to do with their personality and life experiences than their magical power or maturity," Mica tried to reassure the parents.

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed, followed or favourited this story for your support.