Chapter seven

Sirius, Amelia and Jamie arrived inside a nicely styled living room, 'Welcome minister,' Harry gave a small bow to Amelia.

'Thank you Mr. Potter, but please, call me Amelia.'

'And I'm Harry, I only put up with Mr Potter in the classroom. Let's get in, your daughter can meet my kids and my wife.'

After introductions and Harry giving his girls a warning about pranking Jamie Black or minister Bones, they all headed for the dining room.

'Sirius came home and he could not stop talking about your school. He would like Jamie to go here, so naturally I am curious.'

'If you can spare a few hours we can give you the full tour and introduce you to the staff. But for now I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.'

'Sirius explained that the students can go home every day. How does that work with quidditch?'

'The games are played ever second Friday and the racing league is only done once a month on a Wednesday. We did originally consider having the students stay all week and go home on weekends, but decided to work it more like a normal muggle school. With so many children having some type of afternoon activity or sport, it's the best solution all around. Now the staff can stay here, or they can go home. Pomona and Filius stay. Me, Sally and the kids have our own apartment but we also have our home if we want to get away from the school, which we do at least once a month.

'Would students be able to stay if it was needed?'

'Right now the only ones that remain are orphans or don't get on with their families. I'm sure you've heard enough stories where some muggles just can't handle the fact that their child is a witch or wizard. The school will also allow students to remain all year round. Again they are mostly the orphans. But we know that in some families both parent's work. So the children can stay all week and go home on weekends. It's another reason why some of the staff prefer to stay. I spoke with the queen about my situation but also about Voldemort. When she heard about some of his life as a child she realised that magical children should not be left in places like muggle orphanages. There are no official orphanages anymore, it's homes for orphans, but it's still basically like an orphanage except they have a lot fewer children. None of us will ever know if Voldemort might have ended up different if he could have been raised by a magical family, or even allowed to remain at Hogwarts.'

'When Hogwarts was first built, it did allow its students to remain for the entire seven years of their education. From what I remember of my history, some students remained until they found work and could afford to buy or rent a home.'

'I would have been one of those students if it was allowed. I did ask Dumbledore if I could, he said no.'

'He would have said more than that pup, so what did he say?'

'That I was safer with my family. I almost told him then I didn't think of them as family, just relatives I was unlucky enough to be related to.'

'Maybe if he knew exactly what your life was like with them he might have worked on another solution, I doubt it though.'

'True, he always went on about the wards. So back to the school, we worked it for those students to floo from here to a designated building that was warded. Their parent's would pick them up, but we had security there to make sure the student was safe until their parent's arrived. The security are house elves, free and paid a wage, just as all our house elves are free.'

'That sounds wonderful.'

'Tell Amelia about the points system.' Sirius grinned.

'After Susan explained about Snape, I wanted the point system changed or some type of charm to prevent what Snape was doing.' Amelia said.

'All we did was make it individual points, but if a student loses too many then I investigate to see if they deserved to lose them or if there was a problem. With how the point system is at Hogwarts, I always thought it was unfair. You get people like Hermione who was getting punished when someone else in Gryffindor lost points. Percy, Hermione and Neville were the biggest points earners in Gryffindor. We worked on some charms that we placed on a book. It shows every point given or taken, the reasons and which teacher gave or took points. Me, or Sally will go through that every week just to make sure no teacher was being unreasonable. So far we haven't had any points taken or handed out that they didn't deserve. We have a rule for how many points are given for a specific thing, like answering questions correctly, or helping another student or helping in places like the hospital or library. But with the points, I also thought of people like Ron. The Weasley's didn't have much, but Ron was lazy and Hermione had to force him to do his work. We started off by giving the top five students money. Fifty galleons for the highest, forty the next and so forth. Ron would have doubled his efforts if he thought he could get even ten galleons. Originally I thought of gift certificates but the magical world still hasn't caught on to them.'

'What are gift certificates?'

'Okay, you can go into a shop like Flourish and Blotts to buy a gift for a friend, but you might have no idea what book to buy. You also don't know if your friend already had the book you do pick. You buy what is called a gift certificate or gift card for a certain amount of money for that particular shop. You give the card as a gift then your friend can go in and spend the amount that's on the card, but they do not have to give up any money, the money is on the card that you buy. If they don't spend it all in one go, or they might not have enough for another book, then they either pay what is left with the money they have on them, or come back another day with the extra money. Now we do use some gift certificates for rewards to any muggleborn or muggle raised student. The pure bloods will be given galleons. You see, we have a system so any student who wants to help, whether it's the hospital, the library or in the gardens, they will build up the points then cash it in either at the end of the year or halfway through the year. Those are the students who know they won't win, but they earn enough they can get something without having to ask their parent's, or guardians for the money.'

'Those certificates sound fascinating. I wonder if I could talk to all the shop owners and see if they could work something out.'

'If you did speak with them, having a muggleborn with you would be best. Arthur Weasley is a great man but he really doesn't know a lot about the muggle world. A muggleborn could explain how the gift certificates work. I know giving someone money as a gift might not seem proper, but it does work. It's like if Sirius wanted to buy me a gift, he would not know if I already own what he planned to buy, or I might not like what he had in mind. Some of our friends give money to the kids because they don't know what they already own. Gifts are more personal, but sometimes they are not practical and that means it's a waste of money. I gave Hermione a gift certificate to one of the big muggle book shops since I knew she owned a lot of books yet I had no idea which ones she owned. Sally did help me out when we bought things like perfume or an article of clothing, but again you never know if those clothes are what the person likes. Gift certificates are a bit impersonal, but it works.'

'It does and the reward system could be used in other place, like the ministry. Imagine you have a bunch of trainee aurors, if you offer gift certificates they just might work harder in their training. I used to get so frustrated when some of the trainee's kept playing around instead of taking the lessons seriously. Most of those were ones that had relatives in the ministry, like Fudge. His nephew was an auror, the worst I had ever seen, yet I could not sack him. He ended up being Fudge's personal guard, even though I would not have trusted him to guard a flobberworm.'

Harry, Sally and Sirius laughed. They knew what some of those aurors were like, the ones that only got the job due to family or blood status.

Harry and Sally put their children to bed, but there was a spare bed for Jamie Black to use. It gave the adults time to talk without the children hearing things they shouldn't.

'I would like to ask you a question Harry. I know you were given a free pass from the things you did, which you should have as the ones you took care of were dangerous. Sirius also explained more about your life and some of the things you went through. I even spoke to Susan about what she knew for certain about you and what she saw. I believe anyone would do the same if they had gone through what you did.'

Harry sighed but noticed his wife give him a small encouraging smile. It had taken him a lot of years to get over what he had been through, and to stop being angry at everyone from his past.

'Ask.'

'Snape and Draco Malfoy?'

'I came upon Malfoy killing two young muggleborn kids, they were around seven or eight years old. I got there to late to save them, but I wasn't going to allow him to live so he could kill more kids. The MI5 have their own pensieve, I supplied the memory of what I saw and did. At the time I was technically a part of MI5. Since I showed proof, I wasn't prosecuted.'

'He was turning out just like his father. What about Snape? From what I learned he really was working for Albus.'

'Oh he was, but he was also keeping his options open. If our side lost, he would have returned to his former master. But that's not why I killed him and it's one reason I want the old man dead. Again I showed proof of what he was like and things he did, but I also told my story. I was again let off.'

'What's going on Harry?' Sirius asked sounding concerned.

'The prophecy. Did you hear the story about how Voldemort found out about it?'

'Only that he heard the first half, that's why Albus wanted your family and the Longbottom's to go into hiding.'

Harry ran his fingers through his hair, 'Snape was listening at the door when Albus heard the prophecy. Aberforth Dumbledore saw him and threw him out so he only heard the first half. He went straight to Voldemort with that bit of information.'

Sirius ended up shaking with rage, 'He also caused the deaths of James and Lily yet Albus got him out of Azkaban,' Sirius growled.

'Yes, and allowed that bastard to teach. I was one of his victims, but there were other kids whose families were killed or tortured by him. He was cruel and often said things about my father, yet he sent Voldemort after them. There was no way I was going to allow that man to live. I had the satisfaction of killing him, painfully and I made sure he knew who I was. Even though he deserved to die, it took me a long time to get over that. The wards I put around my place was just to keep me safe from Voldemort and his death eaters. I never went out to actually kill anyone, but I didn't care if he or his pets died by those wards. When I first decided to work on wards, I had to make sure I didn't kill innocent people, so with a bit of work I was able to get the wards to work on intent. Any ill intent, any dark soul, the wards would become lethal. The only ones that did come sniffing around were people like death eaters.'

'We understand Harry, at least I now know and the reason. I also understand about Malfoy. Now that can also be put to rest, just like everything else. That was information I couldn't get on two people that were killed. They had the lightning bolt, so we knew it was you, just not the reason. That's all over now. Thanks to you and the muggles, we've got a safe world to live in.'