Chapter 26 Educational Reform

I was reading at home, nothing of any importance, just some editorial in the Quibbler that had caught my attention and curiosity when Gabrielle finally came downstairs after getting little Henri settled for the night. He was at that stage where he always considered it too early to go to bed, even if he was cranky and overtired.

"I wish there was some way to get him to use up his energy and tire himself out during the day, I remember when I was younger, Maman and several of the other veela living nearby would take it in turns for looking after all the youngsters one day at a time. They could play with each other all day and this allowed Maman to get things done she needed to do. If I remember it right, there was one day every so often when all my friends would come to mine to play, I assume that was Maman's day to look after them!"

"Sounds like the mothers in the area round you had some sort of playgroup or nursery school organised between them!"

"Oh! It was not just the area round us, we used to travel each morning by portkey or floo with our mothers, I do not know where we were each day, but I know a couple of times we were speaking Spanish and once or twice Italian."

"Fascinating, I must say the cooperation on the continent between wizarding communities is a lot more organised than I thought, even though I recently learnt some of the secrets of the magical community at the ICW."

"I don't know whether it was all worked out through the ICW or what, it did tend to be a lot of veela children though, so we were mostly girls with some of the local wizard family's boys thrown in so to speak. After a while I went to the local muggle primary school, I had to wear a special bracelet on my arm to suppress the fire-charming ability I had as a veela, but I do remember I had made some friends before I went to Beauxbatons, indeed I think you may have met a couple of them yourself, by the pool that day in Spain." (The Start of Something New chapter 20).

"How was it you talked about them? A bit childish, wanting only to get drunk and dance to the awful muggle music!"

"You remember!"

"I still don't think I'm particularly handsome or cute either!"

"I don't think cute applies anymore!" I tried to look offended, but failed judging by her expression. "I think you look distinguished, but that's not right either, makes you sound old, like the boring old fart you said you didn't want to look like, wearing a tie; I don't understand the obsession with that particular item of clothing, its ridiculous and completely impractical. I think you look more settled, not having that young boy innocence, cuteness about you!"

"Young boy innocence, I think that's even worse than cute!"

"Idiot." I tried to look offended again and once again failed miserably judging by the giggles from Gabby and the kiss she gave me.

I sat quietly in thought for a moment, thinking some things over in my head. "What we need is some sort of nursery school or kindergarten for wizarding children, from what I've come to understand in Britain, most Pure-blood children are home-schooled until Hogwarts age and then they're off to boarding school, away from their parents for the first time. If anybody else looks after the children its for a couple of hours when their parents go visiting or something similar, usually leaving them with relatives."

"I think you're right, of course it is a good time for the parents to have, letting their parents look after the grandchildren, or whatever but I cannot see some parents paying out money for a stranger to look after their children!"

"I wasn't thinking of them paying or not all of it anyway!"

"How do you mean?"

"Well there's the Hogwarts Scholarship fund which for the first time in ages is fuller than ever, the money that St. Mungo's has not been getting in funding; if I speak to Kingsley I'm sure we could fund it part time, if a parent wanted their child looking after for longer than the basic hours they would need to pay extra, but nowhere near as much as Hogwarts can cost! It would give the children better social skills in dealing with their peers and maybe we could get a lot of pure-bloods attending a primary school as well, if more of them interacted with muggles before Hogwarts then a lot of the ignorance, could be negated. I remember that exhibition in Birmingham, some of the wizards and witches there stood out like sore thumbs, the ridiculous clothes they were wearing. I think I remember 1 chap in a paisley dress and high heels; now I understand there are certain groups that like to cross dress, but they usually try to make themselves look as if they were the sex they are dressed as, this fellow had a beard down to his shoulders."

"I know what you mean, in France all children muggle or magical attend school from age 6 some start earlier, of course at 11 magical children attend Beauxbatons but we all have the basic education."

"We need to look into this a bit more.

"If you could do it with the help of Mr. Blair or someone else in his cabinet it could be made more legal and possibly get some funding from the muggle government, I know he was interested in getting wizards more integrated into the mainstream society."

"Right, I definitely need I get my thinking cap on; its not Mr. Blair anymore, he resigned as leader / Prime Minister last year. Mr. Brown is now Prime Minister, but I understand the point you are making!"

The next morning Harry and Ginny came over and brought James, Albus and Teddy over to visit and as they were all playing quietly in the next room I broached the idea to them. Harry of course remembered nursery from when he was younger and Ginny was a bit sceptical as it would deprive her mother of her time with her grandchildren, something she seemed to look forward to. From what I remember of Molly Weasley I could understand, I only met her a couple of times, the first was when I spent the New Year with them and then later there was my wedding, she seemed to be in her element when surrounded by children… then another idea hit me!"

"Harry do you think Molly would be up to helping in this project? she loves children, or is it just her own family?"

"God no! Molly would happily adopt any child she could, I remember when I was at Hogwarts and she sent me a jumper and some sweets at Christmas, she'd met me for a few minutes at the station and probably heard from Ron and the twins that I was staying at Hogwarts for the holiday, so just thought she should send something to Ron's friend; him being the 'Boy-Who-Lived really didn't enter into it. She later got very protective towards me with that whole thing, but I think a lot of that was drummed into her because of Dumbledore, she would have included me even if I was a nobody from a complete muggle background, that is just the way she is!"

"Mom is always saying that she doesn't get to see her grandchildren enough, she'd welcome some way to spend more time with them and if other children were involved she'd be over the moon."

Nervously I knocked on the door to Kingsley's office, why was it every time I needed or wanted to see him over a new proposal or something, his secretary was missing from her desk. "Come in Dudley!" That almost convinced me the man was a seer, how did he know it could be me, I'd not communicated with him in any way that I wanted to speak to him about something, yet he knew it was me. I entered wondering whether this would be the point where he obliviated me and dumped me in a ditch like he was always threatening to do. Yet another idea here which would change something in the wizarding world. "So! I hear you want to make changes in how the wizarding world educates our children; care to explain more!"

"Its really about bringing us more in line with the continent and British muggle rules; but how did you hear about it, I've only really discussed it vaguely with Harry and Ginny and not in any great detail?"

"I overheard Arthur on the phone to Molly, he was saying about looking after more children for longer periods of time than they normally get to look after the grandchildren! Since its only ever ideas from you that involve changing the way we do things, I assumed it was your idea. Which you've just confirmed."

"OK! I suppose that makes sense. In muggle Britain, children from about 3 or 4 spend some time in a nursery school, they really just spend their time playing with other kids at first, get stories read to them and maybe do a little painting or colouring. At the age of 5 they go to primary school, this is usually from about 9 in the morning till 3, they learn to read and write, basic arithmetic skills, and a basic grounding in other subjects, but at the same time they are learning to interact with other children. It seems to me the first time wizarding children spend any time away from family is when they go to Hogwarts, on the whole they lack the social skills to get along with new people, this would start all Hogwarts students, muggle-born and wizarding off on the same footing."

"Sounds like a good idea, but where will all the funding for this come from?"

"Well, I was wondering about some of the funding coming through the Hogwarts Scholarship fund which is healthier than it has ever been thanks to some donations and then there is the possibility of having some assistance from the muggle authorities."

"Why would the muggle authorities assist us in educating our children especially preschoolers, and the ones in this primary school you speak of?"

"In muggle Britain, every child is required to go to school and is entitled to a free place in a state school, their parents are allowed to send them to a private school which they must pay for themselves, in essence what magical parents have been doing since Hogwarts opened."

"Good point, but won't they insist we send our children to a muggle nursery or primary school?"

"They could if they wished to, but I don't think they will, there is precedent in that certain religious or ethnic groups can elect to send their children to a specific school that is still partially state funded. The state funding will ensure that they have some say in how the school's curriculum is run and overall policy, but the communities rules are also allowed to be taken into account!"

"This is fascinating, please go on!"

"OK! Now this is where my knowledge is a little sketchy and based purely on conjecture from the little I've learnt at school. Take the Muslim faith for example, now I understand there are certain religious taboo's concerning men and women relating to closely to those not of their own family. So it would be completely inappropriate to have say a mixed sports team, but there would be nothing wrong with say a maths lesson!"

"Perfectly logical from that standpoint, anything else?"

"Well state schools are supposedly non-denominational which means that they have no religious agenda in regard to the pupils education, but they are required at some point to educate the children about other religions and cultures, now admitted, this usually occurs more formally at the secondary level, but there is some cross-over in the lower levels. Schools usually have some sort of religious assembly in their curriculum, this is mostly Christian as the country as a whole is a Christian one, but a Muslim school would have a Muslim religious assembly, someone of the Jewish faith a Jewish one etc. If any parent objects to these services they can remove their child from them, but on the whole they don't as during this time is when school-wide announcements are made."

"That all sounds fairly straightforward, and I agree with you that a lot of pure blood children are basically isolated until Hogwarts, this could help them get along better with their peers, anything else you can think of?"

"Primarily, there's the location of the school, as I understand it, most pure bloods live in isolation to each other, either in their own little country estate or hidden amongst the muggles blending in to a certain point. We'd need some sort of location for the school to teach the children, staff, and of course some way for the children to get there. Probably the floo or apparition with that. Though if we could include some of the younger muggle-born children in the pupil intake so that they could get a grounding in magical culture and pure-bloods could get some early interaction with them it could be a help, I don't know how they'd get there."

"All very good points, at this particular moment in time I don't have any locations in mind myself, but on one point I think I have an option about transport to the site, couldn't the muggle-born children use the Knight Bus. I understand that they now have at least one other driver for the bus, and there is even talk of getting another vehicle for use at popular times. The bus could have a regular pick up schedule for the schoolchildren."

"Brilliant idea minister, it reminds me of something that happens in the States, they have specially built school buses for just this purpose. They make a regular run each day to take the children to the school, if we had a bus to collect the muggle-born children it would provide cover for them, as being picked up by a school bus for transportation to their school would hide the school in plain sight from their muggle neighbours."

"Hide in plain sight?"

"A muggle expression, it means to put something in plain view, but in such a way that most people would overlook it. A bit like St. Mungo's, most muggles in London walk past the 'shop' where the hospital is located and don't even look at it, to them its just a vacant shop front."

"I believe I follow your logic, of course there are various charms on the hospital, but the principle is the same."

"Exactly, now if our muggle-born children were picked up every morning by a school bus for a school for gifted children and dropped off in the evening, the neighbours seeing this would think nothing of it. We'd probably need some sort of illusion on the bus to state the name of the school, but that's nothing too difficult."

"You've given me a lot to think about, leave it with me and I'll have someone look into sites and we'll coordinate with Mr Brown to get all this sorted, hopefully before September when we could start our first classes."

"OK! I look forward to hearing more on this in the near future." with that I left Kingsley's office knowing he would deal with this in his usual manner, after all he knew more about the magical community than me.

It was close to a month later when Kingsley called me back into his office, to update me on what had been happening with our proposed school. "Well, we've managed to find a location, it's located in Birmingham, a place called Perrott's Folly it's a magical site that has its connections in the muggle world; Mr Brown didn't know of the magical connection but he said it had some sort of fantasy connection through some chap called Tolkin, I think it was?"

"I'm sure he meant Tolkien, as in J.R.R. Tolkien, he's a famous author for his main three books, 'Lord of The Rings', these three books take place in Middle Earth, a fictional land where there are elves, dwarves, and wizards; there's another race of people in this story called hobbits. Anyway from what I heard the connection here is the speculation that Perrott's Folly is the real life inspiration for a location in the second volume of the trilogy called the two towers. Tolkien lived around that area as a child."

"Fascinating, now although the area is known to muggles, the land already has some charms laid down there, the main tower is known to the local muggles, but there's a large estate house on the grounds, that could easily be adapted to become our school."

"I know exactly what to name the school as well, St. Meriadoc's School for Gifted Children!"

"Why that name?"

"Well I know there's a St. Meriadoc's school in Cornwall, I happened to hear about it when I was in hiding that year, but Meriadoc is a character in the work of fiction I was talking about, Meriadoc Brandybuck, he's a hobbit, one of the heroes of the story. Now imagine at some point next year, in a muggle neighbourhood, you have the bus pull up to collect a child to go to their new school, proclaiming St. Meriadoc's on the side of the bus; if we could create a webpage for the school, with some details hidden by magic, so if a curious muggle in say Aberdeen sees their next door neighbours child going in a bus every morning to this school, they check the school on the internet and its located a few miles away, the same happens if another muggle in London or wherever checked it out, its always a few miles away. Hiding in plain sight so to speak. There's similar protections on the Hogwarts website, to an anonymous muggle finding the site its a private, exclusive boarding school located in the Highlands of Scotland, but to the parents of a muggle-born child who've had the correct software loaded onto their computers its listed as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"A clever piece of sophistry. Mr Brown has arranged for some teachers for our school a mixture of muggle-borns and squibs, he did insist that others we want to work there would need to undergo something called an NVQ in childcare, but this can be done in situ, during the school year. He was also adamant about proper safety protocols on the school bus, looking over the guidelines for these school buses I completely agree with them. All seats to have a seatbelt and be firmly fixed in place, the one thing I hated about the original Knight bus was the fact that the seats were not fixed and you were flung all over the place as the bus went about its way."

"I remember that from my own travels on the bus, not my favourite part of the journey."

"The one thing he insisted on was the new Headmaster for the school was to be government appointed and he insisted he had the perfect candidate and he hinted that he was known to you."

"I don't think I know any wizard teachers apart from the ones at Hogwarts and they are all needed there."

"No, this gentleman is a squib, one Charles Prewett, he's currently the..."

"Headmaster of St. Piran's, the school I attended in Tinworth. He seemed quite a good sort from what I remember and had a good grounding in muggle and wizarding culture, I think he would be a good choice." (A New Beginning).

"I agree with you, something you may not be aware of is, he has a daughter who attended Hogwarts a couple of years behind Harry."

"I had no idea about that, then again you don't normally discuss things like that with your headmaster; after all they're teachers and not that approachable about that sort of thing. You don't think about their social and family lives."

"Quite, I seem to remember the same from when I attended Hogwarts, apparently some of the staff were married but we never realised it until the one teacher had to had time off due to pregnancy. It was only then we found out that her husband lived at the school with her and worked in the Hogsmeade."

"So, the teaching staff is all arranged, any ideas as to when the school will open its doors."

"The muggle schools in the area start on the Thursday 4th September, so we will follow the same protocol, it gives the parents the opportunity to take their older children to Kings Cross on the 1st and not have to worry about getting their younger ones off on the same day. It seems to be the norm in muggle schools in the area to start on a Thursday after the summer holidays, it gives the children a shorter week to get used to things. All in all it seems a good idea and one we should adopt for this new venture."

"How is the reception from the pure-bloods, about having their children having to attend a day school with muggle-borns and half-bloods, I know we are trying to get past those prejudices but they do still exist?"

"Remarkably well, we managed to sneak in a special dispensation during one of the Wizengamot sessions, all children who attend the new school will have access to a training wand during school time and on successful graduation at the age of 11, we will purchase the proper wand for the child for when they attend Hogwarts. It only amounts to a few galleons per child, but even the richest pure-bloods will take any break they can."

"Seems some things are the same in the magical world as in the muggle one. The rich take whatever tax breaks they can get. I hope the same deal is being extended to the muggle-borns. What will they be able to do with these training wands?"

"Simple household spells, lumos, alohamora, nothing offensive, just the few spells that most magical children learn before they attend Hogwarts, the kind of things they would need if they lived in a magical environment, after all most magical households don't have electric lights."

"how will this affect the decree for the restriction of underage sorcery, from what I learnt its one of those laws that only seems to apply to muggle-borns as magic can't be tracked to a particular individual in a magical household so those children are free to practice magic outside of school."

"The law has been changed, muggle-born children are allowed to do magic in the confines of their own home. The magical wards that are placed when a Hogwarts teacher first approaches the muggle-born child will not react to magic in the house, but will react to it in the outside community, the same wards will be placed when the family first gets a visit from the staff of St. Meriadoc's, or from one of your social workers. Apparently that went down very well with the obliviators department; the number of calls they had to go out to, because some muggle-born child forgot they were back at home and had access to electric light and used a lumos instead; the savings alone should pay for the costs of all the wands for the students."

"That's great news, so its not costing us anything to to do that!"

"No, and we get funding from the muggle government for most of the teachers salaries, its costing us a lot less than I first estimated, we don't have to touch the Hogwarts scholarship fund at all."

"Brilliant, now how soon far in advance do I need to put Henri's name down?"

"It's already down, every magical child born in Britain has their name entered on the list as soon as they are born."

"Similar to Hogwarts then?"

"Same spell, indeed same book of records, we just tweaked the parameters of the spell, it now informs us at birth, instead of 10 years old when the Hogwarts letters would be sent out. That was done when your department was created. Its a very old spell dating back to the founders when someone could be living in a hut in the woods instead of a village; that's why the Hogwarts letters are addressed so accurately even to a room in the house."

"Never thought too much about that, I remember Harry's first letter was addressed to the 'cupboard under the stairs' as that was his bedroom at the time."

"I seem to remember hearing something about that!"

"Yes, well my mother had hate/jealousy issues stemming from when her sister went to Hogwarts and she couldn't; my father feared magic and I hate to admit it I followed their example; but luckily for us, Harry forgave us."

"Yes, a very forgiving young man your cousin. He never did anything about all the stuff that happened to him at school, I remember hearing things about him being the heir of Slytherin because he spoke Parseltongue and then there was the crap he got for being a 'cheat' as the fourth Tri-Wizard champion. When he took oath as Lord Potter, he could have done a lot to redress old slights to himself and his family name. don't get me wrong, I'm glad he didn't the disruption that would have caused had the potential to make Voldemort look like an amateur."

"That bad!"

"Oh! Yes! He could have gone after the Ministry for all the ridiculous stuff Fudge had about him in the Prophet, his treatment at the hands of that toad, Umbridge; I wonder if I could give him some sort of reward for ridding us of that odious woman; then there was the Prophet itself and Rita Skeeter in particular. That woman could twist the truth so much you could make a noose big enough to hang a dragon. I wonder what happened to that woman, she took a years sabbatical after the Tri-Wizard tournament, only to surface in the Quibbler of all places with that honest exposé on your cousin and Voldemort; then she vanishes again until that semi-fictional biography of Dumbledore. There were enough half truths in that book to make twenty whole volumes about Dumbledore's life, and no one's heard from her since."

"What happens after a transformed animagus dies?"

"No idea where your question is leading, but they change back into their natural human body. Why?"

"Check for any dogs or cats that have exploded, I think she was too large for a bird to eat in one piece."

"Pardon! you're making no sense at all!"

"Either that's the case or you keep your eyes peeled for a large beetle with a pattern resembling horn-rimmed spectacles on its back as she's probably on to her next exposé."

"I see, another unregistered animagus, we must up the punishment for that crime. How come I'm only finding out about this now?"

"Don't ask me, speak to Harry or Hermione; they trapped her in her animagus form at the end of the tournament and forced the years sabbatical on her, they blackmailed her into weriting the article for the Quibbler as the Prophet was under the thumb of Minister Fudge. She probably lost her job at the Prophet for writing for a rival publication."

"Not only do you cause more and more problems for me, but you let me know in a roundabout way that my staff and former staff have been keeping secrets. You'd better go home before I obliviate you myself and dump you in a ditch somewhere." He said with a huge grin on his face, so I knew he was joking this time at least.

A/N Perrot's Folly is a real place in Edgbaston, Birmingham and the facts about Tolkien and the Two Towers is one of the many rumours that surround his work. Whether or not it has magical buildings round it or not is unknown to me, I've never seen them.

Sorry this chapter took so long to write, what with writer;s block and depression, it just kept getting longer and longer between anything of any consequence being written.

Please review it is the only way a humble fanfiction author knows if any of his stuff is actually being read and it does help provide inspiration to write and no that is not a review or I won't write any more. Until next time, hopefully not as long until then.