Chapter 22 A Pregnant Pause and Other Concerns
I still wasn't exactly happy with the name of my youngest nephew, but like someone who has been named after a disliked relative, it was something I think I could come to terms with eventually. I had had no real knowledge of Professor Snape whilst alive, so what I knew of him was at best hearsay; my only real knowledge of Dumbledore was from the visit he made to Privet Drive before Harry's 6th year, and accused mum and dad of abusing me worse than Harry and 'attacked' us with those glasses of some wizarding drink. I'd read more about him after his death and that book although mostly muck-raking had some interesting things in it about him. I was sure by the time my young nephew had started to develop a personality of his own rather than that of just a crying infant I'd be happier with it all.
The new year saw the ministry back to normal with the usual problems cropping up, although we had been forced by her majesty to comply with all British law, and to treat all magical subjects equally, progress was slow. The ministry was still majorly pureblood, but some newer positions had been filled by first-generation magic users, previously known as muggleborns, or by half-bloods, previously unheard of. The only ministry post on record previous to her majesties proclamation had been mine, and the former Head of the Goblin Liaison Office, Dirk Cresswell, murdered by Voldemort's followers during the war. My situation had been slightly different in that my job had been created for me, and Kingsley had managed to rail-road the mainly pureblood ministry into making the post so they didn't have to deal with wizards that they felt were beneath them.
It was just one of those mornings where everything was falling into place when Kingsley, arrived late at the ministry with a pensive look on his face, like he'd had good news but he was anxiously waiting for the bad news to follow in its wake. Every time he got an owl, telephone call, or email you could see the tension in his shoulders until the call etc. was over.
I waited until lunch and seeing him sitting at a small table in the ministry canteen I walked across with my tray and asked if he minded if I joined him. Receiving his nod I sat and began to eat my lunch. "I don't mean to pry minister, but you seem awfully tense at the moment, is there anything I can do to help?"
"No, I don't think there is anything you can do to help, but thank you for asking. My wife has told me, she's pregnant again, and we're hoping it all progresses normally this time. We already have a five year old daughter, but my wife has miscarried twice since then, so it's just hoping for everything to go right."
"What does your gynaecologist say?"
"What's a guy-knee-cologist, sounds like someone who looks at men's knees?"
"I don't know the derivation of the word, but a gynaecologist is a muggle doctor/healer who deals with women's problems to do with childbirth, conception and all that side of healing. I understand they're quite advanced in comparison to wizarding healers in that respect. From what I gathered with Gabrielle and Ginny's pregnancy there's very little that wizarding medicine can do between conception and birth, but muggle medicine has progressed quite a bit in the last few years."
"How could we get to see one of these gynaecologists, if nothing else it would help put my wife and my fears to rest?"
"Blimey, now you're asking the wrong person, I'm primarily an ignorant male here, I know a little, but for more personal and pertinent advice you would need to talk to a muggle female, how would you and your wife feel to coming over to my house one evening for a meal, I know my mother went to see a specialist at some point during my childhood, but I don't know all the details, it's just one of the things you hear in the background conversation as a child."
"Personally I wouldn't have any problems with that, and I don't think my wife would. If you could talk to your mother first to find out if she's willing to help, and then I'll speak with my wife and we'll make arrangements for the visit."
"No problem, I'll phone my mother after lunch and see if she's willing to help; I'm pretty sure she'll have no problem with it, she's become quite a fan of the wizarding world since the year in Tinworth and dad's death. Her major problems with magic were all caused by fear of things she didn't understand."
"Thank you Dudley, I'll wait to hear from you then."
It was the following Saturday, Kingsley and his wife were joining us for dinner at Grimmauld Place and listening eagerly to my mother talk about problems with pregnancies and some of the treatments that muggle doctors could give to help a couple with problems.
"You mean to tell me that muggles have managed to make a baby in a potions vial!" Kingsley asked incredulously after listening to my mother talk about test-tube babies and in-vitro fertilisation.
"Yes and no!" I replied, they've managed to help with the process, its a little more complex than just mixing a potion, but the women's egg and the man's sperm are added to each other in laboratory conditions and once fertilisation has occurred they transfer the new embryo to the mother."
"How? They can't just spell the baby into the mother?"
"They inject it into the womb using a hollow metal needle. You must understand that a lot of muggle potions are injected into the bloodstream, as they can't just spell them into a patient and some potions can't be drunk."
"It sounds barbaric, doesn't it hurt?"
"Not too much, a small scratch, the needles are very fine, and if they do something that requires the use of a larger needle they will inject an analgesic first, basically a pain potion, numbing the area, and then inject using a larger needle."
"It all sounds fascinating, but I find myself wondering how muggles don't leak, with all these holes and needles being jabbed into them." I turned to Kingsley at this comment of his only to see the broad grin on his face, he obviously saw the humour of his own comment. "This is all fascinating, and I can see the muggles have made a lot of progress in the field of medicine, but how does that help my wife and I, we've never seen a muggle healer, er doctor; won't they want to know something about our medical history?"
"Speak to St. Mungo's about it, they must be able to do something about it, they must have to put the notes of a muggleborn into a form that a muggle doctor can understand after they've had some treatments there, and I know they deal with muggle doctors as this latest venture of theirs, this 'heart-transplant' surgery they do for the muggle health service. They're fast becoming one of the leading centres in the country for that type of surgery, they must put the notes into 'proper jargon' for the health service after the treatment has finished."
"Never thought of that, but how do we go about getting the appointment after that's done?"
"It depends a lot on where you live?" I saw the puzzled look on Kingsley's face. "depending on the area where you live will depend on which hospital you go to. Understand there are far more muggles than wizards, so they have more hospitals and they tend to be all over the country as muggles can't just jump in the floo to get to St. Mungo's."
"Err… we live in Birmingham, but I don't know the hospitals in the area!"
"St. Mungo's will know, and remember you'll need to go to the hospital by taxi, or muggle transport, no apparating into the hospital."
"That's a definite, a bad breach of the Statute of Secrecy, and I do hope muggle buses are better than the Knight bus, I absolutely hate that thing. Don't misunderstand me, it performs a valuable service if you're going somewhere without a floo and you don't know where to apparate to, but I'd really rather not be thrown all over the place on my journey."
"Muggle buses tend to be a bit slower than the Knight bus, but they are a lot more comfortable, stop at certain places on their route, you may have to catch a different number of buses to get from your home to the hospital, but they're usually fairly frequent."
The whole conversation went well and Kingsley and his wife were mildly optimistic at the end of the evening. One major concern that Aleesha, Kingsley's wife had brought up was not understanding what was going on during the hospital visit and subsequent procedures that she would undergo, but thanks to mum volunteering to go with her and provide moral support and a friendly explanation here and there, it seemed to be all smoothed over, at least until their first appointment.
The day after their appointment at their local hospital to check whether Aleesha Kingsley's pregnancy was proceeding according to schedule or whether there were potential problems, I was confronted by Kingsley about mid-morning. "Dudley, could you help me with something, I'm a bit confused with. The hospital mentioned something about a weak cervix and some procedure called a circle-age or something similar."
"I'll try, let me check something on the web," I put a few things into the search engine of my computer and after a few seconds, I got some information which I quickly read, and turned to Kingsley. "I think I understand, from what you have told me, your wife has a weak cervix and has a tendency to lose a child when it gets to large for the cervix to hold. Think of it a little like a drawstring purse, it works fine when you've only got a couple of galleons in it, but imagine trying to put the whole of your months wages into the purse at once, the money would push the drawstrings open and fall out. So, what the hospital are proposing is to put a stitch in the cervix to help hold the baby in, it's called a cerclage. This stitch is temporary until the baby is ready to be born, a bit like a mending charm if you ripped your clothes and needed to fix them till you got home."
"But won't this cerclage thing interfere with 'other' things?" I swear I could see the man blush beneath his already dark colouring.
"Not really the cervix is far enough inside the body that normal activity doesn't affect it."
"Err… right. Well thank you for that Dudley, both your help in the first place, recommending the muggle healer, err, gynaecologist and with that explanation about things today. Don't get me wrong, I could probably have talked to this muggle healer yesterday, but it was a woman, which I can understand was better for my wife, although it was explained that we might have a male healer at some point, but I just didn't feel confidant talking to a strange woman about such things."
"I understand, I'd probably be the same myself, its bad enough seeing examinations being done in front of you, but having to ask this stranger questions as well… it being a woman. I remember when Gabrielle was in labour and the medi-witch's fingernails suddenly grew a couple of inches when she ripped the caul from little Henri, this was something different from what I had observed when I'd seen labour shown in television drama's or in films, but I did understand when it was brought to my attention. It had been explained to me before the birth, but until then I hadn't particularly thought about it."
"I don't suppose you had; never really thought about women's problems before this, but it does show me how muggle medicine is advanced in some ways if a little barbaric in others, I heard something at the hospital which made me a little nauseous until I looked it up, I'm still not exactly sure on what its all about. What do you know about blood transfusions? I've realised you don't have to drink it like a vampire, its put in with one of these needle things, but what did the healer, sorry doctor, mean about blood groups?"
"OK! A small biology lesson here, there are four main blood groups, these are O, A, B, and AB, now O blood is the simplest; then A & B both have certain differences; err think of it like having a protego or a scutum (scutum-roman soldiers shield) shield around the blood cell, AB has both protego and scutum shields. Understand that?"
"It sounds logical and quite simple at that, but what does it all mean?"
"OK, do you understand how your body fights an infection?"
"Err, your magic attacks the foreign substances in your body and destroys it!"
"Right, never thought of it from a wizards perspective and that's probably right as far as it goes, but think of it as how a muggle or squib might see it!"
"Hmm! No magic, so I suppose something else in your body works to eradicate the infection?"
"Exactly, and this still all ties in with blood transfusions, so were not going too far off subject. In your blood are two main types of cells, red blood cells which take the oxygen round your body and have this shield attached to them, with me so far?" Kingsley gave me a nod, "there are also white blood cells, these are the body's defence mechanism and they attack any foreign substance in the body, be it an infection or foreign blood."
"Foreign blood, so that comes back to this transfusion thingy, how does your body not reject it?"
"I was getting to that; now imagine you've got type O blood, so no shield on your red blood cells and get given type A or B blood with these shields on it. The white blood cells attack the shield, a bit like constantly bombarding it with a bombarda, until its destroyed, destroying the blood cell as well in the process. But if you were given type O blood, your body would accept it as if it were its own and not attack it. Understand?"
"I think so, so your saying O can receive O type blood; A can receive A; B can receive B; and AB can receive AB?"
"Not as simple as that, O can be given to anyone, because it has no shield on it, the body does not reject it. A can be given to A, and AB, and B can be given to B and AB; AB can only be given to AB!"
"Sounds complicated in its way, but quite simple as well! So if you're giving blood the best group to be is O, but if you're receiving it the best group to be is AB!"
"That's basically it, there is another factor, called the Rhesus factor, but I won't go into that as it complicates it a lot more, but if you haven't got this factor in your blood, you can't receive blood from someone who has."
"I was just getting my head round the four blood types, now you add something else into the mix, blimey! OK I have the basics down I think, but I'm wondering where does all this blood come from? I mean they don't drain the blood from one person to give it to another do they?"
"Not exactly, although it does come from other people, donors. Never having given blood myself I only know from what I've read, but you go to the local blood donation centre where they test if you're healthy and then take about a pint. You then get your payment as it were, a cup of tea and a biscuit. I understand some countries abroad make a monetary payment for a donation, but not in England. I believe you can donate about three times a year."
"Sounds like a worthwhile thing to get into this blood donation thing, especially if Aleesha actually does need a transfusion after birth, not that I want her to, I mean, not sounding pure-blood elite or anything how would receiving non-magical blood affect her magic?"
"I don't think so, no more than having to take a blood-replenishing potion, from what I've read, that doesn't actually replace your blood, it makes your blood replace itself faster and acts as an additive in the meantime to help the 'real' blood in your body do the work with diminished resources. A bit like a pepper-up for your blood so to speak. The muggles have something similar to use in emergencies, some sort of artificial stuff that provides volume to the system, but it is only used in the first instance for a short time and then they give proper transfusions of blood to get things to normal. And as to affecting your magic, if blood is part of the reason behind how strong or weak you are magically, it should only matter for a short period of time, your body is constantly replacing your blood cells and discarding the old worn out cells, I think I read somewhere that you replace your blood about every three months or so."
"So, even if my wife had to have one of these transfusion thingies and magic is located in the blood, after about three months her magic should be back to normal levels?"
"I should think so, maybe a little longer, women tend to take a little longer to replenish their blood levels; monthly cycles you know."
"I, err, yes that all makes sense and puts me somewhat at ease."
"Glad, I could help, the non-educated man's guide to the clueless wizard; that's me!"
"Don't sell yourself short, you're not a non-educated anything! There is something else you could possibly help with. I received an owl from professor McGonagall, earlier today, something about an OFSTED inspection of the school. Do you know what this means?"
"Err. A little, OFSTED is the Office of Standards in Education, they check muggle schools to make sure that government standards in education are being kept to, and there's not any serious lapses in the running of the school."
"But, how does this affect Hogwarts, I mean we're not a muggle school and muggles can't even see the school unless they're invited by the headmistress and escorted onto the premises. Having a group of muggles in the school would be a serious breach of the Statute of Secrecy; I know Her Majesty, said we had to be more open in our dealings with people who discover our world, but this seems like a major breach to me; it would mean reports in some government office that could be open to anyone."
"I suggest you speak to Mr Blair about that!"
"Good idea, I think I'll speak to him in person about that!" he turned to the wall, where a portrait of a man who looked vaguely frog-like, wearing a wig of the type that was fashionable a couple of hundred years ago, "Ulrich, could you see if the Prime Minister is alone and if so enquire if it's possible to speak with him, please!"
A few seconds later, the frog-like fellow returned to his portrait, "he said about half an hours time, and that felly-tone thing rang as I was leaving, so I'll check back in about half an hour!"
"Thank you, Ulrich, (1) keep me informed as to when its convenient. Dudley would you mind coming with me on that visit? You knowing about this OFSTED might be of some help."
"I don't mind, I don't have anything that urgently needs my attention today, so I'm available all day."
A little over half an hour later, Kingsley knocked on my door, "Mr Blair is ready to see us, we can use the floo into his office." I nodded and we both made our way to the nearest floo.
"Muggle Prime Minister's office," said Kingsley as he threw the powder into the flames and they turned the familiar green, whisking us through the floo network to the Prime Minister's floo. We stepped out to find Mr Blair sat at his desk with a tea service laid out ready. "We really need to change the floo address here, considering what we now know."
"Indeed, and may I ask how you refer to this office, I find all this magic fascinating, just wish I was able to do it myself?"
"The address is 'Muggle Prime Minister's office', just strikes me as a bit insulting as if you were some subordinate we were visiting, while technically speaking as Court Mage, you are essentially speaking my superior."
"Hmm! As the Prime Minister, as well, as theoretically you're now a non-partisan part of my ministry, your position doesn't change regardless of what party is in power. Speaking of which we need some sort of protocol in place to introduce you to each successive Prime Minister and his cabinet; but you asked to speak to me today, might I enquire as to what this is all about?"
Having some familiarity with the concern in question I decided it was my place to address the issue at hand. "The headmistress at Hogwarts has received a letter from OFSTED about an inspection of the school, we were wondering how they managed to hear about the school, as technically speaking its not part of the Standard Education system and concerned about a breach in the Statute of Secrecy. I know her Majesty said that anyone who found out about about magic was to be 'brought into the fold' so to speak but this could mean a whole new problem. There would be the records that OFSTED made of their visit, the people making the visit and potential countrywide exposure if the results were made public, which I believe I've seen something about where some schools are outed in the press about not meeting standards or achieving excellent results."
"I can see your concerns here, I believe I can alleviate some of them, I had a memo from OFSTED about this, one moment," he sorted through the papers on his desk for a few moments and came up with a small file consisting of a couple of sheets of paper. "Hmm! The inspecting team will be made up of squibs who are already aware of the existence of magic, but have gone through the muggle education system or wizards who have gone through Hogwarts but returned to the muggle sector after being ignored by the pure-blood factions in the past; the report will be confidential in that no record will appear in the muggle press or in the records of the department, but the school needs to be assessed, for too many years, the muggle world has had to put up with wizards showing up, with no knowledge of said world and causing mayhem. The report will address things that need to be changed; in the case of its usual work they can give the school a certain period of time to implement changes, I believe that will be the situation here."
"Err! What sort of changes are we talking about?"
"Now you're asking the difficult questions, let me answer by example, there was a school recently that had several lots of bad results in the core classes, they were required to get new teachers, improve the equipment used in the classroom setting for the said classes, in one instance I recall the school had to get fume closets for the advanced chemistry lessons, err provide a safe area where experiments that produced toxic or noxious fumes could harm the students. You probably have a spell to deal with that, but it gives you a general idea."
"I think I understand all that, I understand there are several runic clusters built into the walls of the potions lab, I know there's some sort of fire suppression ward there and probably some sort of shield to funnel fumes in a potion. They were built in when the castle was first built, that's why the potions lab is in the dungeons as well, one of the first areas when the castle was first built."
"Interesting, there is another matter concerning the education system that has come to my attention via Ianto Jones, it seems we are having to hire healers from abroad to fulfil positions in St. Mango's is it, your magical Hospital, any idea why?"
"Its St. Mungo's, and it could have been due to the previous potions professor at Hogwarts, a Professor Snape who died in the war with Voldermort, while he was an excellent potions master, he was a dreadful teacher, and after five years of potions with him, there just weren't enough students going on to take their N.E.W.T.s in potions and then proceed onto masteries. I understand he's now teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts and is a far better teacher there."
"I thought you said he died, how can he now be teaching. Don't tell me you people can resurrect yourselves with a spell!"
"No! His ghost is teaching!"
"Good grief, ghosts are real as well, I know goblins rare as well, from that business with her Majesty giving a Royal Warrant to that bank and forming the new regiment in the army, I'm not likely to come across a unicorn in Hyde Park or something like that am I?"
"No the only colony of unicorns is in the forbidden forest around Hogwarts, they dwindled a bit a few years ago, but their numbers seem to be on the increase again; I understand that the elves want to establish a herd in the new forest area in a few years time."
"Won't that cause problems if they are seen by normal people, err muggles I believe it was you call us?"
"I don't think so, I believe your muggle idea of a unicorn is of a horse with one horn, in fact they are more related to goats although the do tend to be on the large size, about the size of a pony, err how was it Professor Kettleburn detailed them to me, when I was taking care of magical creatures at school… Capricornus Unicornus, one horned goat."
"They have a proper Latin designation, I wasn't aware you went into that!"
"Not so much these days, but unicorns have been around for a long time and it wasn't until 1692 that the Statute of Secrecy came into full force and even then for a time there was some contact between the two worlds so to speak. Wizards who were working out in the muggle world didn't just up and leave, they left their jobs slowly, by transferring out or retiring or some other means, it took several years."
"Fascinating, I'm sure. Anyway back of the subject of OFSTED, you should get the report by the end of the school year, and the recommendations that you will need to comply with."
It was in fact the end of May when Kingsley called me into his office and handed me the report from OFSTED regarding Hogwarts, a rather sour look on his face. I took the report from him and at his invitation sat down to read it in his office. The major points were; inadequate physical education classes and competitive activities for students; no study program for core subjects on the standard curriculum, English, Mathematics, Geography, Religious Instruction; no Arts program and no musical education. "Any ideas what we can do here? And when the students are going to study these extra subjects?"
"Quite easy in the first two years, a students day is from 9 to 4 with an hour for lunch, that's 6 hours a day, five days a week, thirty hours, now in first year they have 5 subjects of approximately two hours each a week, that's just ten hours a week of class work; they could study the other subjects in the free periods. From what I remember of talking to Harry and from my experience with the daydream that gave me my basic grounding in magic, the only organised sport is quidditch, of which only seven people a year participate in, fourteen if the team manages to have substitutes for all positions. In my school we had football, basketball, boxing, and several other things going on at various periods over the school year."
"But, Dudley the reason the students have so few classes in their first year is in order not to do damage to their magical core by over-stretching themselves, all this extra work could seriously damage their magical future."
"You're forgetting something Kingsley, these subjects are non-magical, so the student spends a couple of extra hours in a classroom, I spent the same amount of time in classrooms, admittedly goofing off most of the time but I couldn't do magic at that time, it did me no harm as a person. Now if you had two or three hours of English and maths a week, the same with Religious Instruction and Geography there would be no magic involved so the children's magical cores would not be overstretched, perhaps a few extra sports for the other students, I understand Quadpot is popular in the States, but you could have something similar to basketball, imagine the kids playing on the ground on a quidditch pitch, lower hoops, no snitch or bludgers, just chasers and keepers, playing with a non-magical quaffle, or even football, they don't need teams just a time for the kids to have a runabout get some exercise, I've noticed that most wizards are unfit, a good stiff walk and they're puffing like a bellows. Think about it, if you get in a duel, how are you expecting to survive if after a few minutes you can't cast a spell because you're gasping for breath."
"You make good points for those subjects, but what about this religion course, Hogwarts has never tried to force students to confirm to any religion and from what I understand from reading muggle newspapers their schools aren't allowed to either?"
"They aren't but that isn't the point of religious education, from what I understand up until Professor Dumbledore changed it at Hogwarts when he became headmaster, the school always used to celebrate Samhain and Yule, now they have Halloween and Christmas so as to not offend the muggle born students, but that doesn't take into account students from other faiths, I understand there were two sisters in Harry's year, the Patils or something, Hindu's probably wouldn't you say having Christmas was offensive to them? The idea of Religious Education is to inform students about other faiths, I remember we studied the Muslim Faith, Islam, for a term at school, I remember there being five pillars of Islam, but I can never remember what they are, there's prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, charity, and I can't remember the fifth but the point is I have a small understanding about Muslims and their religion, it wasn't trying to convert me to Islam. Now think about this, you have a class teaching muggleborns about the old religion which I understand is still practised by a lot of the wizarding world, teaching the wizards a little about Christianity, it makes for a more harmonious place to live if you are aware of the differences and the similarities between religions and cultures."
"I assume if we co-ordinate through Mr Jones of M.I.5¾, he'll be able to find teachers for these subjects for us, I shroud think we can get everything sorted before the new year starts on September 1st. Good grief! Now, if you'll excuse me Dudley, I need to make a side-trip to the Department of Mysteries, get a time-turner, go back several years and obliviate you before you found out about magic." I grinned at this last comment, it was an old joke between us… at least I hope he was joking.
Kingsley and Aleesha Shacklebolt's daughter was born that July, they called her Elizabeth, after the hospital that made it all possible.
September 1st came with more subjects being taught at Hogwarts than had been the case for a long time. All told this had been a very busy year so far…
A/N
Ulrich Gamp, first Minister for Magic, it is his portrait which resides in the Prime Ministers Office – Harry Potter Wikia.
Sorry about the long lectures in this chapter about blood groups and different classes in school, but I felt it needed to be said to illustrate how ignorant magical people still are even at this point of some of the progress made by muggle science.
My small piece about Islam is not meant to be disrespectful of Muslims or their faith, Indeed the facts mentioned by Dudley are some of the facts I remember from my own school days which I hate to admit ended even before Dudley started Primary school.
Happy reading and Please review.