Once they arrive at the grangers they find that Emma has gone in to cover the afternoon shift while Dan stayed at home with Hermione and Soopy. It seems like Hermione has retreated into a book for some reason. Petunia has Ceeley transport her back home to get the paperwork she needs, and with Dan's permission spends the next couple of hours on the phone to various people. Including a tearful hour on the phone to Dudley as she had to explain that his father had put her in the hospital, and that he was now missing. They also made arrangements for Karen to visit. At 6:30 Emma arrived home clearly rattled while Dan and Petunia were watching TV.
"Are you OK honey?"
"No! I've had a terrible afternoon, although I think there was only one problem I couldn't deal with covertly. You know we had Mrs Peters in for her filling, I'd just finished drilling out the cavity and Rach was handing me the filling when the tooth healed over good as new just the way I was envisaging the way the filling would have to look. Not to mention all the minor cavities that we see during our normal checkups that aren't yet bad enough to be filled, but get marked down on the sheets. I reckon that I've done around £20,000 worth of cosmetic work accidentally."
Dan gets up and gives her a hug, "Oh honey, it's only going to be temporary while we learn how to control this."
"Emma, how much experience does an assistant need?"
"In theory none, in practice to be more than a trainee you need to have completed a course that requires a few o levels to get on. Why?"
"I met a muggleborn working in the hopping pot that was only there because they didn't have the qualifications to work in this world, and no one would hire her because of her ancestry. So I was thinking that if you hired someone like that, they could gain their qualifications and also cover for any accidents."
"It could work, though we'd need to see her qualifications from Hogwarts, as if they don't have good grades they wouldn't fit with us."
They went back to watching TV until Karen turned up with Ceeley.
They were then witness to an epic argument between house-elves as Soopy accused Ceeley of being a bad elf, and Ceeley defended herself. They let it go on for a while until Petunia interrupted and suggested that if Soopy thought that Ceeley was a bad elf, then maybe he would like to show them that he could do better over dinner. Predictably, Soopy agreed.
"Dan, would you be averse to eating in the garden?"
"Not at all?"
"Oh, good. Ceeley, would you be able to conjure a place to eat in the garden, as well as the plates and utensils and have it well lit. I'll get the kids and we'll come out for food when you're done."
Harry and Hermione were collected, and they trooped out into the garden where Ceeley had set up a nice table and chairs with a tablecloth and all the utensils they would need. Soft lights bobbed around the table and a warming charm made the area comfortable. Petunia seated Karen at the head of the table.
Crouching down in front of Soopy she extricated Nixie from her hair. "Now Soopy, when Chirpy gets older this is something your family may need you to do on occasion. You are not allowed to take Nixie away from this area, and I need you to keep hold of her, and look after her while we eat. I don't want to have the table or any chairs disappearing because you couldn't, understand? You also need to do your best to stay hidden so that Karen doesn't see you. As that's something you'd need to do dressed as you are if we were at a muggle or wizarding restaurant"
"Soopy understands."
She then takes her seat and indicates that Ceeley can begin serving.
After an entertaining dinner where Soopy ended up standing there holding Nixie in full view of the whole table, a disgruntled expression on his face. Petunia asked him if he understood why Ceeley needed to wear clothes in the muggle world now. She then turned the matter over to the Grangers, as Ceeley was her family and Soopy was theirs.
Hedwig swooping down and landing on Harry's shoulder signalled the end of the discussion and the group moved indoors to talk about things.
As the next day was a Saturday Petunia took the children to the Magical Farmers market with both the house-elves while Dan and Emma worked the morning at the Dentists. They spent the day looking at magical whitegoods and buying all the things that Ceeley said she needed for their house. They also bought a couple of sets of magical knives that would slice, dice, and mince with the correct insertion of magic. Magical lights for the house, and a magical fridge that used stasis runes rather than temperature to work.
All to soon the day had passed and they decided to eat out at the Hopping Pot. This saved cooking and also allowed Dan and Emma to speak to the waitress to see what she was like, and whether she had good enough grades for them to invest in. They discretely find out that they can floo to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade on order to visit Hogwarts.
The next day they floo up to Hogsmeade and walk up to Hogwarts to introduce themselves to Professor McGonagall
It was later on Sunday reading the notes on the lessons they'd missed while sitting in their dorm that Harry finally voiced something that had been building over the weekend.
"You know, I almost can't believe that he's gone."
Hermione looks up as Lavender looks over, her ability to hear potential gossip greater than Harry's ability to talk quietly, "Who's gone?"
"My uncle. You grew up in the magical world didn't you."
"Yep, our family are considered pure-bloods."
"I'm sure that you've been told stories of The Dream."
"Yeah, they've been used to get kids to go to sleep for years."
"Well, they're real, the dream part anyway, I've not read any of them so I'm not sure about the specifics, but I've been to the dream. And I saw my mum's memories of it. I'm calling my Aunt Petunia mum now, long story." She adds at the look of confusion on Lavender and Parvati's faces.
"The reason that I needed to be pulled out on Thursday is that he put her in St Mungo's."
Parvati scoots over and gives her a hug, and she stiffens momentarily. Lavender on the other hand brings her hands to her mouth, "Merlin, is she OK?"
"Physically, yes. They healed her broken bones overnight. I think we're both going to need to see a mind-healer though. She's going to be staying with Hermione's parents for a few weeks so that if there's anything wonky with her magic there's someone that can get her to a healer."
"Wait, she's magical? I thought your Aunt was a muggle?" Parvati jumps in.
"Oh, didn't I tell you guys? Yeah, apparently if you take a non-magical far enough into the dream, they become magical."
"Woah, I need to tell my dad." Lavender starts to get off the bed.
Hermione's hand snakes out and grabs her arm.
"You can't" she hisses.
"We shouldn't even be having this conversation, but can you imagine what would happen if some of the purebloods at this school found out that muggles could become magical? You're a good person and I believe that your parents must be good people to raise someone like you, but what about their friends?"
"I guess, but it doesn't feel right keeping something like this from him."
"It's not like them being magical is going to stay secret for long, but they're my parents and I don't want them to be lynched because the wrong people found out and decided to take matters into their own hands."
"I agree, before I got my letter I wouldn't have cared, but mum has been doing so much better since then. She's so different that I think she was forced into who she was rather than being that way before. She said that she'd tried to take us to a shelter."
"What's a shelter?" Lavender interrupts Harry.
"A shelter is short for woman's shelter and they were first set up."
"Can we have the 30 second version please Hermione." Parvati interjected before she could get going.
Hermione harrumphed good naturedly "They're places set up for women to go to when they're escaping abusive husbands."
"Oh, there's nothing like that in the magical world."
"Any reason why?"
"Most magicals will use a contract as part of their marriage, and part of the contracts prevents either party from leaving. So, either the contract gets broken or the witch is stuck there. Saying that, you hear just as many stories of wizards in that position because the witch they married is a bit to quick with their wand. On the plus side, our magic will eventually wear through a contract forced bond if we weren't willing to sign the contract in the first place."
Hermione shares a glance with Harry, "That's… good to know."
"Yeah, trick is that not all contracts are written. We're always taught to be careful of our words and magic, as people have been known to be spontaneously married by sharing vows that they both accept. The stories go around for decades because they can often ruin a political match. My Mum's still talking about when it happened with Andromeda Black, though she did also say that it might not have been as accidental as people want to believe, as they say that Bellatrix needed to take up the contract instead."
Harry smiled to herself as the conversation followed from that into another topic, then another further away from her problems. This is why she loved it here, Lavender and Parvati could be relied on to lend an ear and then take the conversation so far off topic that you didn't remember what you were having a problem with. She started with that realisation, she did love it here. It wasn't home, now that Petunia had changed, but he didn't have any bad memories here.
"Harry, what's on your mind?" Parvati asked.
"Just thinking about here and home, and how I love it here and how home never used to be home."
"OK, it's just that you changed while you were thinking deep thoughts."
With that they continued to chat until dinner time while also looking through the notes while the conversation wasn't on something interesting. Harry slid down the stairs as he hadn't changed back to she before they went down, to the laughs of the girls following him. Over dinner Ron regaled them with tales about the Troll that got in the school and how it's only because of McGonagall that they all spent the night in the great hall rather than having the Slytherins or Hufflepuffs wander into it on the way to their dorms.