Hey, I'm still alive! Logically I know it hasn't been fuckin forever since I posted, but it has been forever since I've written this, so this was nice. I actually found my muse and have some vagueish plans for the future of this fic, which is always nice.
Sometimes it just takes rereading the entire 150K word fic to care about it again, apparently. If anyone is wondering, yes, this is how I write. I spend a month or two on one thing until I get bored, then reread something else I've written (maybe not the entire thing though) and then get to that. It is, truthfully, an exhausting way to do it.
Enjoy! Let me know anything you'd like to see in this fic in the future, too!
May 2nd, 1998
Potter Manor
James and Mia talked for only a few more minutes before a nervous Regulus knocked on the door, not at all surprising either of them. Instead of letting him in, Mia carefully got off the bed and walked over to the door and opened it.
"Mia," Regulus said, grabbing her when she grabbed the wall for support. "You need to lie down and rest."
"I've been in bed for eleven days," she said, smacking his arms. "I'm shaky because I need to move. I wanna see everybody and let them know what's going on with me. Who's here right now?"
"Us, Harry, Avery, Snape, Mum and Dad, Sirius, Narcissa, Draco, some of his friends, and Fred. He stopped over this morning with George. They're… terrifying with Fabian and Gideon- oh, they're here, too," James answered her.
Mia blinked in surprise. "Why are Narcissa and Draco here? And which of his friends?"
"Well those girls, Kat and Jess, they're staying here for now. As soon as Mum found out that they were orphans because of Dolohov, she offered to let them stay until they figure something else out. Aside from them, Theo Nott and Blaise Zabini are here. Daphne and Astoria Greengrass were here earlier but they left a little while ago. As for Narcissa and Draco, Sirius asked to let them stay. They're family."
"Merlin, that's so many people," Mia shook her head. "Right, okay. Let's go out there and… start explaining."
"You sure you're up for this, Mi?" James asked, touching her shoulder in concern. "No one would blame you for getting more sleep."
"I don't want to sleep," she huffed. "I want to see everyone and make sure they're all okay. The next person to tell me to sleep is getting hexed."
"No sleep," James agreed quickly, unwilling to risk being hexed. With a pleased nod, Mia stepped past Regulus and walked down the hall, ignoring the two of them as they followed her quickly in concern. She made her way shakily down the stairs and stopped on the library floor.
"Mia!" Fabian exclaimed, freezing in the middle of the hall. Gideon's head shot up and she offered them a smile. "You're awake!"
"For good," she confirmed, preparing herself for the tight hug he grabbed her in. "I'm okay, I promise."
James stepped past them quietly to gather everyone in the library. It took only a few minutes and by the time Mia, Regulus, and the twins made their way into the large library, everyone was gathered already.
"Merlin," Mia let out a small laugh. "You don't all need to be here, you know. It's not that important."
"Yes, it is," Avery disagreed. "If what you said is true, then it's important we keep Regulus safe just as we keep you safe."
"Believe it or not, we can protect ourselves," Mia scrunched up her nose at him. The stares of disbelief she received made her glare at them all. "You guys suck."
"What's he talking about?" Fred asked, looking between her and Avery. "What's going on?"
"Well, there's some good news," she assured them before pausing. "And a little bit of bad news. Mum, they said you knew somehow?"
"Of course I do," Dorea nodded sadly. "You're my daughter. It's my job to know about you."
Mia silently swore that someday she'd figure out how the woman had known and got back to the reason everyone was staring at her. "I'm obviously awake, that's the good news. Another piece of good news is that Regulus is completely healed now."
"Tell them why," Regulus requested softly. Something between them felt just a little different, Mia realized, and it took all of her self restraint to keep from pausing to analyze it instead of talking to the people around her.
"Right, so, uh… I can't exactly be healed," she admitted with a small wince at the looks she got. "I don't entirely understand it, but my magic said that I wasn't fully a Legendary before I killed Voldemort - which, by the way, one of you needs to tell me how it happened because I don't entirely remember - and basically my magic was transforming, so it wasn't able to help me in those first few hours, so I'm super fucked up forever. But what it could do is fix Regulus, so it did that and kept me stable while he couldn't help me, and now… I'm awake and he's okay."
"Sorry, you don't remember killing the Dark Lord?" Draco asked her, astounded. "How the hell do you forget something like that?"
"It wasn't the easiest fight I've ever been in," Mia snapped, feeling judged. "I don't even remember how I ended up so fucked, okay? I think I've got every right to not remember what happened at the end."
"We will tell you," Charlus assured her gently. "Keep going for now. What else do you know?"
"My magic told me that I'm… dangerously dependent on my bond with Regulus to stay alive," she admitted to them. "If our bond is broken somehow, I will die. Maybe not immediately, but soon enough. I think… I think it's sort of like he's holding me steady, like a stasis charm. I can't be hurt more, but I can't really get better."
"Thus why you need to keep him safe, too," Theo realized.
"So you are a Legendary now?" Jess wondered. "You had to, what, kill Voldemort to become one?"
"I think it's just that I had the characteristics of one, but I had to kill my first Dark Lord to qualify, I guess. I had to survive that to even have the potential of fighting another and therefore being a Legendary. I wanna make it clear that I still think this Legendary stuff is bullshit, though."
"But your magic said-,"
"I don't care what she said, she's fucking annoying," Mia huffed, glancing at all of them. "That's basically it- oh! The marks, they're still glowing, right?"
"Not as much," Blaise said, lifting his shirt at the same time as Kat.
"Have they been doing that often?" Mia wondered, amused. By the looks on Theo and Jess's faces, she guessed they had. "It's fine. It should probably go away sometime soon. I think the mark has to sort of adjust to my new… uh, standard of living."
"Shouldn't you be resting, then?" Sirius asked her with a small frown. "You don't look great, kitten."
"Rest isn't gonna do much more for me," Mia glanced at Dorea. "Right?"
"Unfortunately, she's right," Dorea confirmed. "She would have been ready to wake up days ago but she was still healing Regulus."
"So what? She's just going to be miserable?" Sirius continued, frowning at Mia. "Mia Mine, you need something."
"I will find her potions," Severus spoke up. "For the pain, something longer lasting than regular pain potions."
"Thank you, Sev," Mia smiled at her friend. "I'm really okay, guys. And that's all I needed to tell you, so you can all… go back to whatever you were doing, if you want."
For the most part, they did just that. After a few hugs and saying hello to everyone, most everyone left the area, leaving Mia with Regulus, Sirius, James, and Harry. Dorea and Charlus promised to check on her again in a while and with that, they were alone in the library.
"You know what the Atlas curse is?" Sirius wondered. Mia nodded slowly.
"Yeah, it's fucking terrible. Is that what hit me?"
"No, it's similar to what hit you," he shook his head. "The Atlas curse hit… who was that?"
"Oliver Wood," Harry said with a grimace, one that Mia matched. "He's okay now."
"Thank Merlin," Mia shook her head. "If you're under it for too long, it'll kill you. The entire world on your shoulders."
"What he used on you was called Omnis Dolor," Sirius said slowly. "It was why I took that book from you the summer before your fifth year, I didn't want you to read about it."
"You know you took it from me after I read about it, right?"
Sirius opened his mouth and closed it again, shaking his head. Mia snorted at the sight.
"You never said how I actually killed him."
"Deprimo, I think," Sirius answered. Regulus looked at Mia in alarm.
"Where did you learn something like that?" he asked her, suddenly concerned she had a larger knowledge of the dark arts than he'd originally believed.
"Grimmauld Place," she said, looking between the Black brothers. "You guys don't seriously think I'd read about something and not use it, do you? I learned a lot of dark magic there."
"Damn it, Mia," Sirius cursed, throwing his head back. "You didn't even tell me? You could've gotten hurt!"
"I hardly think that's important now," she scoffed. "Are you just going to lecture me for learning all the magic I could before the war that I knew was coming?"
"She's got a point," Harry nodded at his godfather. "I saw her in there a lot and she always looked like she was being super careful. Plus, it's Her- Mia. She's perfectly safe."
Sirius and James stared at Harry in disbelief.
"Careful was Hermione," Sirius told his godson. "Mia- Mia is not careful."
"I resent that."
"I don't see the problem," Harry continued. "You've made it so clear that Mia isn't Hermione, so why yell at her now?"
"He's got you there," Regulus muttered, pulling Mia into his arms where she immediately relaxed against him. "If Mia wants to learn more dark magic, I'll teach her."
"Why?" James asked, vaguely horrified. "The war is over!"
"I'm going to learn anyway," Mia pointed out. "But he'll make sure I'm safe about it."
"I don't get why you want to know," Sirius agreed with James. "It's over."
"And I'm supposed to live for a long time and fight a bunch of Dark Lord's, so I'll probably need this information later on, too."
"Oh, great, I forgot about that," Sirius complained. "Can't our lives be normal for, like, ten minutes?"
"I mean, no, probably not."
Harry snickered, but caught her attention. "D'you know what you're gonna do now that the war is over?"
Mia considered the question. "I really don't want to, but I need to go back for my seventh year. You should, too, Harry. You don't have to be an Auror. You've spent so long fighting dark wizards and I feel like you deserve a break."
The look on his face suggested that he hadn't actually thought about that. "I guess… it's all I know I'm good at. What else could I do?"
"Quidditch, for one," Sirius told his godson. Mia nodded along.
"Or you could become a Defense master and be the first permanent DADA professor at Hogwarts in over thirty years," she suggested.
"You can also get involved with House affairs," James nudged his son. "I'd like you to do that, anyway. If we can get you caught up, I'd like you to take over as heir."
"You want me to- what?" Harry stared at his father in shock. "Why?"
"It would be dependent on your agreement and catching you up on pureblood lessons and all the other stupid shit you were supposed to learn as a kid, of course. Truthfully, heirs are typically the grandson of the Lord of the family. The only reason I was named heir is because Dad is older than most parents were at the time I was born, and we were worried for how long they'd live for. Now that they've skipped ahead twenty years and Madame Pomfrey claims they're both in good health, I think it should go to you like it was supposed to."
"But…" Harry shook his head, his eyes wide. "But you're only a few years older than me, right? So why does it really matter if you stay heir?"
James looked to his sister. "Help me out here, Mi."
Mia shook her head at her friend. "Harry, your dad's got a lot going on, and he probably will for a while. Aside from the fact that he's right and it would be, traditionally, your role to be heir, it is still important to get you caught up on how to live as a pureblood or half blood in the wizarding world."
"Did you?" he questioned her. She tilted her head to the side, considering the question.
"Sort of. Parts of it, from different people, but mostly Regulus, Avery, and Mum. I wasn't too concerned with it with everything else going on. I do plan to look into this pureblood bullshit some more-,"
"Perhaps begin by not calling it bullshit," Regulus said, amused. She made a face at him before turning back to Harry.
"The point is, I think you should do it. Whenever you have kids, it'll be important for you to be able to raise them with this information."
Harry let out a sigh. "Okay. But about the Auror thing… Kingsley needs more, and I know how to fight."
"Harry," Mia began, trying to figure out how to say it without being rude. "Harry, I love you, and you're one of my best friends, so know I say this purely because I know you so well… you only use Expelliarmus in duels, and I get why, but it could be very dangerous for you to do so in a career as an auror. Ask Jamie or Sirius, they know what I mean."
"She's right, Pup," Sirius said regretfully. "You have to be willing to hurt people if you have to, or potentially kill them. Since the minute I met you, I knew you weren't a killer."
"Even though he threatened to kill you," Mia muttered, dodging the elbow Harry threw at her. He let out a sigh and deflated as their words got through to him.
"Okay, so I won't be an Auror. Quidditch was never something I really wanted to do professionally, either, because I'm really tired of being famous, so-,"
"Defense master!" Mia grinned. He nodded along.
"What do I have to do to become one?"
"Take your seventh year, for one," James began, thinking. "You'd have to specialize in Defense, which would probably mean extra classes and being an apprentice."
"And after your seventh year, you'd continue working as an apprentice," Sirius agreed. "It depends how long depending on who you work under. That's basically it. Being a Defense Master doesn't just mean being a professor, either. You can work with the ministry and teach the aurors and hit wizards new techniques or methods."
"I guess I'll… owl Professor McGonagall," he decided, looking at them.
"Oh, I'm going to go see her tomorrow," Mia assured him. "I can let her know we're both going back."
"I will be as well, Little Lion."
Mia looked at Regulus in surprise. "But you're eighteen."
"It turns out, if you miss your NEWTs for a raid, you can't go onto your seventh year," he explained. "I had to retake it, and I was at the end of the first semester of my seventh year when I went to the cave."
"Oh!" Mia's eyes lit up. "Okay."
"Man, I forgot how fucking old I got," Sirius complained, throwing his head back. "All of you are like… twelve."
"You sound like Emmaline," Mia snorted.
"And you're not alone," James assured him. "Moony's an old ass man, too."
Sirius looked at his friend. "You know what? You're right. I think I'm gonna go bug him about that, in fact. He can be miserable with me."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
May 3rd, 1998
Potter Manor
The next day, Mia got up at nine and got ready. It took her much longer than she'd have liked, but after an hour and a half, she'd managed to shower and get dressed. When she got down to the dining room to eat, she found the large table full of people. She sat down between Regulus and Avery, who had left a spot between them very purposefully.
"-ridiculous!" Astoria exclaimed angrily, glaring at Daphne. "I did my work! I got good grades, and if I can take my exams, I'll get amazing scores on there, too! I'm not going to repeat the entire year just because Voldemort replaced some of our professors, Daph!"
"Story, they changed the curriculum!" Daphne said, exasperated. "You didn't learn everything you were supposed to. I don't want to repeat my seventh year, but I'm going to."
"But I know it all!"
"You know, I have a meeting with McGonagall in an hour," Mia cut in, gathering their attention and that of those who had been watching the argument, including Draco, Theo, and Blaise, who had spent the night, along with a few others. "I can ask her if you can just take the normal NEWTs and move onto seventh year if you pass."
"Ooh, that's a great idea!" Astoria lit up.
"I doubt she'll have a problem with it," Severus said. He sat on Avery's other side, and held only a cup of coffee in his hands. He looked absolutely exhausted, something that was reflected on James and Sirius. All of them had been called to the ministry halfway through the previous day for their training and hadn't returned until nearly half past three in the morning. Kingsley hasn't been kidding when he'd told them it would be rigorous training. "I can attest to your potions scores."
"That is a great question, however," Dorea spoke up, looking to the teenagers in the room. "How many of you plan to go back to Hogwarts next year no matter exam scores?"
"I am," Draco spoke up immediately. Narcissa looked at him curiously, so he continued. "Slytherins were forced to master in the dark arts. That isn't what I wanted to spend my seventh year doing, so I'll retake it."
"What do you want to do?" Harry asked, surprised. He was still getting used to Draco not being evil, but luckily was able to speak to him without insulting or fighting with him.
"I did wish to work in the Ministry," he admitted. "In Creatures and Beings."
"No!" Mia exclaimed immediately, gathering stares. Draco just sighed and rubbed his temples.
"Potter-,"
"You tried to have Buckbeak executed, Malfoy!" she snapped, getting worked up. "He was innocent! You instigated him! Hagrid said not to be disrespectful, but the prat that you are, you made fun of him!"
"Mia," Charlus said in a tone that suggested she needed to be more respectful of their guests.
"What I was trying to say," Draco narrowed his eyes at her. "Is that I understand I was at fault for what happened that day, but it was out of my hands after it happened, Potter. As soon as my father found out, he had it out for the thing."
"Then I've just got one thing to ask you," she decided, meeting his gaze. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you want to join Creatures and Beings to help them or just enforce the law as it is now?"
Draco seemed to be having an issue answering her. She stared at him and waited as he put his thoughts together carefully. "Both. I have seen the things Greyback can and has done to witches and wizards and muggles and even his own followers. I've seen how loyal some of the people in his pack are. I want to arrest him, arrest some of the ones in his pack. I also want to protect people from werewolves in general, which would involve keeping them safe and provided for."
Mia blinked, surprised. "Oh. That's… reasonable. There's just one issue with it, though."
"Oh? What's that, then?"
"We'd probably end up working together."
"You want to join Creatures and Beings?" Harry asked her, surprised. "I thought you wanted to… what was it you said you wanted to do?"
"You never asked," she made a face. "I've wanted to do this since third year."
"Remus?" Sirius wondered. Mia, to their surprise, shook her head.
"Buckbeak, actually," she admitted. "At least, he was the first reason. It was horrifying to me that he would just be executed for something that, as much as I love him, was Hagrid's fault. Draco was an arse, but Hagrid was the one that brought such a dangerous creature around a bunch of thirteen-year-old assholes."
"Mia," Dorea sighed. "Language, dear."
"What?" she shrugged. "All thirteen-year-olds kinda suck, Mum. You should know that, you did raise Jamie."
"Hey!" her brother exclaimed, looking even more outraged when Dorea tilted her head as if admitting that she was right.
"So, aside from Draco and Mia," Charlus smiled at the group. "Who else?"
"I am," Theo spoke up. "There were too many interruptions for me to do my work to the quality that I hoped. If I'm going to be a curse breaker, I need to be the best I can be, even if it means going through it all again."
"Yeah, I did jack shit this year," Blaise laughed. "I'll go back, too. Give me some time to decide what I want to do."
"If anything," Daphne poked him. She turned to offer Charlus a smile. "I think I'll be staying back. I don't want to, per se, but Theo is right that our education was spotty at best this year, even more so than the rest of our educations."
"I'm going," Harry agreed, telling his grandparents and most everyone else for the first time. Severus looked at him in surprise, and Harry did his best not to make a face at him. "I got a bit of a wake up call yesterday. I guess I don't want to spend the rest of my life chasing dark wizards."
"I guess it's just me, then," Kat sighed, looking stressed. "I mean, I didn't learn much this year, but…"
"If Jessica is your concern, I'm sure we can find a spot for her to work in the school, if she wishes to," Severus informed her. Jess's eyes lit up.
"I heard Madam Pince quit halfway through the year."
"I'm sure Minerva will be agreeable to hiring you."
"What'll you do, Severus? Are you going back?" Charlus wondered. Mia expected him to say no immediately, but he hesitated.
"Sev?" she frowned. "You can't. Kingsley hired you as a hit wizard, right?"
"Temporarily," he corrected her. "Until we can catch Bellatrix and Dolohov. I believe I will return for one last year and help Minerva set the school in order. She will need as much help as she can get."
"You should come with, then," she decided, casting a quick Tempus. When it showed that they'd been speaking and eating for nearly fifty minutes, she let out a squeak and stood. "We should get going, actually."
So, they excused themselves and left the table. Travelling to Hogwarts wasn't much the issue- that only took a quick floo trip into the Headmaster's office, which hadn't been touched since Severus had left it during the final battle.
The issue was finding the woman they came to meet.
Minerva was running all over the place to help with rebuilding. Truthfully, a good bulk of it had been done. All of the structural issues had been dealt with in the first week, but that still left all of the small details. Luckily, the wizarding community had volunteered to help with that, which meant there was a great deal of people all over the place. Someone was repairing a stained glass window while another person was walking the grounds, trying to find the bits of creatures that had been left there, like the Acromentula carcass that was currently being levitated into the air and burnt away.
Severus and Mia spent fifteen minutes trying to find Minerva. When they did, she was in the Chamber, which they only realized when they found a man dressed in jeans and a t shirt walking into Myrtle's bathroom. When they followed him, the sinks had been entirely taken out and instead, there was a ladder fixed to the floor leading down into the Chamber.
It took quite a while to get down there, but when they did, Mia stopped short at the sight. Instead of the rubble of broken walls or the bones of animals, or the shed skin of the Basilisk, they found the place entirely cleared out. The walls had even been cleaned and were beautiful white marble.
They made their way through the halls to find that the entire place had been cleaned the same way. When they got to where the huge door was supposed to be, it was gone and with a tarp covering it instead. Upon entering the actual Chamber, Mia stopped short.
It was completely different.
The large place had been drained of the dirty water, and the statue of Slytherin had been taken away. The entire place was separated into different rooms that looked like they'd been built with everything else when it was originally made. The pair entered one of the rooms and found it much large on the inside, enlarged by magic. It looked a great deal like a common room, including stairs to dorms. They passed through that one to another, and found it was the same. There were another two, but all of them were empty, so they stepped out and Mia finally spoke.
"What the fuck?"
Severus shook his head and led her down a hall to the left. Mia recognized it as what used to be pipes, but it definitely didn't look like pipes now. It wasn't damp, either. It had been expanded and there were doors going all down the hall. Upon entering one, they found a classroom matching that of the transfiguration room. The one after that was charms, and then DADA, and then Potions, and so on. After all of the classrooms, it turned to the right, where they found an entire, huge and unfinished kitchen. Luckily, that was where they ran into McGonagall as she stared at a woman, looking like she was very nearly out of patience.
"We cannot possibly be out of money, Mildred."
"Er- it's just that the infirmary took a lot of work, and we've allocated a third of that budget to find people to put up wards around it and the rest of this place, in fact, so we don't have the money to hire the contractor again to make sure it's safe to knock out the wall."
"We can set up the wards," Mia interrupted, gaining both of their attention. "Yeah, I mean, we learned how to jack up wards like crazy not that long ago, for me, at least."
"Miss Potter, you don't have to-,"
"Well, I did bring Voldemort here, so it's sort of the least I can do," she shrugged. "Really, it's no bother. I'd like to make sure the school is even safer than when Dumbledore was alive."
"In that case…" Mildred glanced at the wall that was marked with a big 'x'. "I can go call Michael."
"Go do that, then," Minerva confirmed. Mildred hurried out of the partly done kitchen, leaving the three of them alone.
"So what is this, exactly?" Mia questioned. "You turned the Chamber into… what?"
"An emergency bunker," Minerva explained, waving them out of the room. "I assume you've already seen the dorms?"
"Yep."
She led them down the hall and past the dorms to another hallway, this one much longer and filled with as many doors as could fit. "I decided that it would be best to add in rooms for others to come stay with their children in case of an emergency."
"That's great, but what if someone finds out about it and finds anyone in here?"
"Impossible," she assured the younger woman. "Everyone working down here is under strict Vows, and once the work is done, they've agreed to be Obliviated. There will be a password that very few in the castle will know."
"We were unable to help the students," Severus pointed out. "Some students may need to be made aware of it."
"I intend to create a new position in the Houses," Minerva explained, showing them one of the rooms. It was, of course, enlarged. It held a small living room and two small bedrooms within it. "An Emergency Coordinator. I will hand pick each of the students from each house."
"Speaking of Houses," Mia spoke up. "I enjoyed my time in Gryffindor, but I'd appreciate it if I could return to Slytherin."
"So you are returning?"
"Oh, of course. I never actually got around to my seventh year, here or in the past."
Minerva hummed and led them down to the far end of the hall, where she opened a door and waved them in. It was a large office, reminiscent of the Headmaster office. They all sat, and she looked to Severus first. "Severus. I never got a chance to apologize for that night. I know we had an agreement, but there was no possible way to bring you in on what was happening at that time."
"As soon as Mia restored my memories, I understood," he told her with a short nod, an acceptance of her apology.
"You are, of course, free to return, Miss Potter," Minerva moved on, glancing at her student. "To merge your student files, you will need to merge your identities at the Ministry."
"I planned to do that today or tomorrow," Mia assured her, surprising her friend. She gave him a sheepish smile. "Wanna come with?"
"If you plan on keeping this from Regulus, then I have no choice," he told her, though he didn't really mind. It was nice to be around her again after spending so long with Hermione Granger. Truthfully, just as she'd been worried he'd hate her, he was worried she held some sort of animosity toward him over how he'd treated her.
"As for where you will go, we will be resorting every student at the beginning of the year," she informed them both. "You will be as well."
Mia pouted. "Can't you just take my word for it?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Potter, but I must insist."
She let out a dramatic sigh. "Alright, fine. Oh! Regulus needs to come back, too. He left during his seventh year, so he needs to retake it."
Minerva pulled out a quill and parchment and wrote down both of their names. "Anyone else that you're aware of?"
"Harry," she nodded. "But not to be an auror. He wants to be a Defense Master."
Minerva's lips twitched upward as she added Harry's name with the change in career path.
"And then Theo," Mia said slowly, thinking back to the conversation at breakfast. "Draco as well, but he wants to join Creatures and Beings."
Minerva jotted that down and looked up at her. "The same as you?" Mia nodded. "I'm surprised you're not against that."
"She was," Severus shook his head, trying not to roll his eyes at his friend. "They discussed the matter over breakfast after she insulted him."
"He was a prat," Mia defended, crossing her arms in front of her. "Can we continue? I know Daphne wants to return, too, along with Blaise and Kat Miles. All, assumedly, under the same career paths."
"I would suggest hiring Jessica Miles as the new librarian," Severus cut in. "Since she was hurt, they barely spend time apart. It would be best for them both."
"If I recall correctly, Jessica spent most of her free time in the library, anyway," Minerva commented. "That's no problem. Will you be returning, Severus? As potions professor, of course."
"For this year, yes," he confirmed. "I will help you replace me."
"Oh!" Mia exclaimed, sitting up straighter. "I owled Bill yesterday, and talked to Theo, and they're both hoping to get in here and try to remove the curse on the DADA position, or determine if there is one at all."
"I would appreciate that," Minerva said gratefully, marking down some more notes. "I will have to write up new contracts for Defense professors. I suppose I'll have to find one, as well."
"I have a thought on that," Severus told her. "Avery."
Mia blinked a few times. "What? Did he say he- Avery wants to be a DADA professor? Really?"
"He didn't say as much, but he does have an extensive knowledge on both the dark arts and defending against them. Aside from that, he told me he wishes to join you at Hogwarts."
"Why?"
"Because you are reckless and run into trouble constantly."
"Hey, that's rude," she scrunched up her nose at him. "I don't need either of you to stay here for me, Sev. And I'm sure Professor McGonagall wants someone more permanent than what Avery would offer her."
"Actually, I think it's a wonderful idea," Minerva disagreed. "I do trust Severus's judgement, and I would like to take the time to find someone… competent. Mister Avery can have the job for the year, but I'd like someone who has experience with it to join him." She thought for a second before looking to Mia. "Does Remus have a job lined up?"
Mia's eyes lit up. "No! Well, I doubt it. And if he does, he won't anymore."
After scrawling that down as well, Minerva looked up at Mia again. "As for your role in the school, I would like to name you Head Girl and an Emergency Coordinator."
Mia's eyes lit up excitedly, the most Hermione thing that she'd done in a while. "Head Girl? Really?"
"I've known since you were eleven that you would be, Miss Potter."
"But Emergency Coordinator, too?" she frowned. "I don't know if I could do that."
"I watched you do it before," Minerva insisted. "You kept all of the lower years completely safe during the battle by putting them down here. More than that, you were thoughtful and careful and used your resources to get everyone here safely. You are the best person in the school for the job."
Mia sighed but nodded. "Okay. Can I ask who the Head Boy is?"
Minerva considered the question. "Who would you suggest?"
It was Mia's turn to fall quiet to think. She put Harry out of her mind immediately - he'd hate the job. Ron wouldn't be fond of it, either. Regulus would agree to it, but likely only to make sure Mia was fine, so she skipped past him. Neville would be good, but she didn't think he'd want to do it. He'd have enough on his plate with his parents and being an apprentice to Professor Sprout. She skipped right over Blaise, because he wasn't an ounce responsible enough. That left her with two options. Theo or Draco. They were both responsible and serious, but something told her that Draco would loathe being Head Boy. She'd gotten the impression that he just wanted to be a normal student for once in his life.
"Theo Nott," she suggested after a few minutes of consideration. "Out of everyone I can think of, he'd be best for it."
"He was on my short list as well, given he wanted to return," Minerva agreed. She put a star next to Theo's name on her list, as well as one next to Mia's. "He will also be an Emergency Coordinator, then."
"I have a suggestion," Mia told her. Minerva glanced at her, so she nodded, mostly to herself. "I think it'd be a good idea if you leave Hogwarts open to parents visiting for the next couple of years. Maybe set up weekends, like Hogsmeade weekends, where parents can come visit and make sure everything is okay. I can't imagine how nervous parents will be about sending their kids back here after the past year."
"Would you also suggest we leave these open for muggles?"
"I would," she confirmed immediately. "Professor, my parents… I think they should've had many more rights to know what was happening than they did. I'm glad they didn't, because I would've been pulled from school, but I can't imagine how awful it must've been for them."
"Perhaps we can work on that together, Miss Potter," Minerva suggested. "I never did like the policy on muggle parents. Do you have any other suggestions?"
"I do," Severus cut in, gaining their attention. "I believe we should begin school a month early for second to seventh years so they may adjust to being back."
Minerva raised an eyebrow at him. "We can certainly allow them to come early if they wish to, but I won't force anyone away from their families before September 1st."
"I'm sure that will be fine."
"Oh!" Mia sat up straighter. "I also have a request. I'd like to be free to leave the school whenever I need."
Minerva hesitated, eyeing her. "Miss Potter, students aren't allowed off the grounds aside from Hogsmeade weekends."
"I know, Professor, I do, it's just," she sighed, leaning back in her chair. "My family is a bit of a mess. I know we've got time until school begins, but… Jamie just lost his wife, and it's partly my fault. I want to be there for him if he needs me. Not to mention Sirius, who lost another two years, and my parents, who lost twenty, I just- it feels important to me. Besides, I imagine I'll be required to go to plenty of trials when the time comes."
"Very well," Minerva agreed with a sigh. "But this does not extend to any other students, Miss Potter. Mister Black will have to stay here."
Mia did her best not to laugh at that but nodded as seriously as possible. "I'm sure I can convince him somehow."
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