Years ago, Jasmine Birtch had found out that Asperger's ran in her husband's family when he started looking for signs of Asperger's in their daughter. She suspected that she would have been a lot less upset if she had at least known that Asperger's ran in her husband's family before they got married, but she did not complain about that. She suspected that she would have known if her husband's family hadn't been dead for many years, and she wouldn't dare complain about that (This wasn't just because she probably wouldn't have even met him if he hadn't used some of his inheritance money to travel from his North American home to Europe, to compete in the Grand Tours, and then he permanently immigrated for her because she didn't want to live too far away from her still-alive parents.). He'd even said things, in the past, that implied that his father and brother were in some ways very weird, so she wondered if she should have suspected.
Jasmine had pulled Jane out of school, for a while, after the accident. Today she made her go back, and she was regretting that decision already.
Jasmine served lunch to Augusta Longbottom, Tracey, and herself.
"So I kind of have an ulterior motive in inviting you to lunch today," Jasmine admitted. "I don't want Jane to go away to Hogwarts."
Augusta looked puzzled. "Why?"
"This may surprise you because Jane and Neville made friends with each other so easily, but normally she fails to understand or relate to her peers, and she often gets picked on by other children. How other people treat her and react to her seems to have gotten worse as she's gotten older, and I'm mostly referring to people who know she has Asperger's. Do they even know what Asperger's is, in the wizarding world?"
"No. I didn't know what it was until meeting you guys."
"Well, she has enough trouble at her current school, where they do know what it is, and she doesn't live there."
"You don't have to let her go, but if you don't then she'll probably resent you, and she won't learn how to control her magic, which could be very bad. It's not like she would be going away to boarding school alone. She'll have Neville to look out for her."
"I know, and that does make me feel somewhat better. I guess I never fully got used to this whole magic thing. Seriously. I accepted the fact that she wasn't going to be a normal kid, or be popular, or much like myself at a young age. Then her magic started showing up, and it just terrified me."
"Neville didn't show any signs of magic until a later age than most, and I was worried that he didn't have any. I never accepted that, but it turned out that I didn't have too, but overall I'm probably not as accepting of him as I should be. Speaking of Neville, I was worried about him going away to Hogwarts without Jane. He's less timid and shy when she's around."
"Jane's less timid and shy when Neville's around too. I'm certainly glad we moved in next to you guys."
"I'm glad you moved in too."
A moment of silence passed.
"You know, you'll probably be able to talk to some of the Hogwarts staff about her. Muggle-raised children usually get their first Hogwarts letter hand-delivered. You probably shouldn't mention that she can talk to snakes, though."
Jasmine flinched. "Why shouldn't I mention that?"
"She might get discriminated against because of a famous wizard who could talk to snakes."
"Oh, she might get discriminated against for everything."
"My husband used to say that you'll never be able to do anything if you don't take risks."
Jasmine sighed. "That sounds like something my husband would say."