Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day to all my wonderful readers.
The next few years passed rather quickly. Ivan was an almost weekly visitor after he'd had his fourth birthday. Every Saturday (except when either he or I were ill or had some prior engagement), he would Floo over to my office after lunchtime and spend the afternoon with me until five o'clock, which is when he would Floo back home. I would then take Ivan to my private quarters, which outside of the house-elf that cleaned it, Professor Dumbledore, and the other three Heads, nobody else could enter. My godson would present me with a picture that he had drawn for me that week. I would thank him for the picture and admire it, then take him into my bedroom (where only Ivan and the house-elf that did the cleaning were the only other people allowed to enter) so that he could help me hang it up on the wall. Every couple of months we would take down most of the older pictures to make room on the walls for new ones, and I would pack away the old ones in a box.
The rest of the afternoon would be spent in various activities. I often read to Ivan, and as he got older, he started reading to me, first to just practice his reading skills and later because he liked reading. He also liked to draw and so would do that sometimes. When he got older, he would talk to me about what he was learning during the week from his relatives and the family tutors (I was horrified to learn that one of them was Remus Lupin, though I didn't say anything to Ivan, and shocked when Lupin approached me when I visited Petrov's Potions the next week and he apologized for his behavior back in school) and from attending synagogue (and what I assumed was the Jewish equivalent of Sunday School). He also chattered on about his siblings and cousins, and the various things he got up to with his three friends, Cedric Diggory and Fred and George Weasley (the latter two were twins). The Diggory boy seemed to be a sensible and nice boy, while the Weasley twins had a mischievous nature and a fondness for pranks.
Ivan also showed a clear interest in Potions, so once he turned six, I started teaching him about it. Not about actual brewing, of course, but the theoretical portion of it, like what the various ingredients were and their uses. The only thing remotely related to brewing he ever did with me then was to occasionally help me make fruit drops, like he did with his grandmother (Mrs. Petrov). Once he turned eight (with Sarah and Niko's permission), I began allowing him to assist in the brewing of simple potions, but only for things like helping crush or grind ingredients with a mortar and pestle or measuring out ingredients. Ivan said that I was just as good at teaching him about Potions as his grandmother and Aunt Ana were.
One day, he declared, "I want to grow up to be a Potioneer like you, Uncle Sev. Can I be your apprentice when I'm older? Bubbe Ilsa and Aunt Ana says I have to be apprenticed to a Potions Master before I can become certified Potioneer. And if you get tired to teaching, maybe I can take your place."
"Of course you can be my apprentice, Ivan," I replied, smiling down at my godson. "As for taking my place as teacher, we'll see. I don't always like teaching, but I don't know if I'll be tired of it once you grow up. It might take many years before that happens."
"I can wait," Ivan said. "Oh, and I want to be in your and Dad's house too. Dad says Slytherin is a good house, and if I do take your place as teacher, I can be Head of Slytherin too, like you are, Uncle Sev."
"That's quite ambitious," I commented, smiling again. "So I suppose you do have the qualities of a good Slytherin and therefore have a good chance of getting Sorted there."
Ivan grinned happily back at me. I then explained to him that as a teacher, I was very strict, and once he started Hogwarts, I couldn't be as nice to him in class like I was now. Amazingly, he understood, saying, "Brewing potions can be very dangerous, so you have to be strict. Bubbe Ilsa and Aunt Ana got really mad when Beth and Alex put the wrong labels on ingredient jars as a prank. You don't want your students doing the same kind of thing my cousins did. And if you were nice to me in class, the other students wouldn't like it and might say that it's, what's the word, favoriting?"
"It's favoritism," I corrected. "Otherwise, you are entirely correct, Ivan. However, I can still be nice to you in private. When you start Hogwarts, you can still visit me on Saturdays, though it'll have to be in my office. We don't want the other students to know that you can go to my private rooms, after all."
Ivan nodded in agreement and continued, "If I don't teach Potions like you, then I'm going to brew potions that can be used in joke items. Fred and George want to open their own joke shop when they grow up, and they said I can be their partner and help them."
I really didn't think a owning a joke shop was a proper career choice, but I didn't want to dampen his enthusiasm (not to mention that he was only nine and so would likely change his mind later on), so I just said, "Well, if that is what you want to do, Ivan, then I'm sure you'll be good at it, and help make your friends' shop a success."
On September first of that year, Percy Weasley was one of the new students. Since he was friends with Ivan's older sister Vera and the older brother of the twins, Percy had cropped up in several conversations with my godson. According to Ivan, Percy was very serious, to the point that the only times he really seemed to relax was when he was with Vera or enjoying Quidditch (either watching family and friends play or occasionally taking part in a pick-up game). Of course, not everyone could be expected to be as easy-going and mischievous like the twins, but the other Weasley kids weren't that serious either. Since the two oldest Weasley kids, William and Charles (who normally went by Bill and Charlie) had already started Hogwarts, I could see that Ivan had a point.
Anyway, Percy was Sorted into Gryffindor like his older brothers (and the Weasley family in general) were, though it did take almost a minute before the Sorting Hat made its decision. I supposed it had seen that he had some Ravenclaw and Slytherin qualities in him in addition to Gryffindor qualities, since according to what Ivan said, Percy was really smart and had ambitions. For a brief moment, I entertained the thought of having a Weasley in Slytherin and how it would it all turn out.
As the school year progressed, I saw that Ivan's assessment was right, Percy was quite intelligent, or at least he was in Potions. He did have an annoying habit of sometimes writing a little too much in the essays assigned for homework, perhaps because in his mind he equated doing well in class with letting me, the teacher, know that he had all this knowledge in his head. After I marked down a couple of his essays for that and very pointedly added the comment that I wanted him to get his point across in a concise manner and not for him to just regurgitate all the information he knew, he apologized for it, saying that his teachers in Potions had said the same thing, and began writing more concise essays. His classwork was perfectly satisfactory, or rather, it was above that, probably because Mrs. Petrov and Ana had given him lessons in brewing.
The following year, the first child in the Petrov-Romanov clan, Vera Petrov, started Hogwarts. Since Ivan had said that his sister was very intelligent, had a thirst for knowledge, and devoured books voraciously (the last in my words, not his), it came of no surprise that she was Sorted into Ravenclaw. Vera had none of the annoying habits that Percy did, but she had a very inquisitive mind, and was not bothered at all by my strict and forbidding manner in class as she asked intelligent and insightful questions about Potions. Since I had a persona to uphold, I did snap at her for disrupting class every so often and assign her detention or extra homework, but those detentions consisted of Vera getting her questions answered as she assisted me with brewing. She completely understood the need of my having a strict persona and that I really couldn't be seen being overly nice to anyone that wasn't one of my Slytherins in public, and kept the fact of my relationship with her clan a secret.
The year after that, it was Ivan's turn to start Hogwarts, along with his three friends. The Diggory boy was Sorted into Hufflepuff, which based on what I'd heard about him wasn't all that surprising. The Sorting Hat was on Ivan's head for no longer than a few seconds before it declared him to be in Slytherin. He grinned at having his wish granted as he set the Hat back on the stool and dashed off to take his amid clapping from the Slytherin table, Vera, and his friends. Over at the Hufflepuff table, most of the students looked confused until Diggory said something, no doubt an explanation for why he had been clapping.
As soon as Ivan sat down, he caught my eye. I gave him the tiniest nod of acknowledgement and quirked the ends of my lips up slightly in a sort of half smile to let him know that I was proud of his Sorting. He gave me a brief nod back and then turned his attention to the rest of the Sorting.
The Weasley twins were the last to be Sorted. Fred was first and the Sorting Hat was on his head for at least three minutes. I was starting to wonder if he was going to be Hatstall (someone who took more than five minutes to be Sorted) when the Hat finally shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!" He didn't look entirely happy about that and shot Ivan an apologetic look as he walked over to the Gryffindor table and took a seat next to one of his fellow first-years, I believe it was Lee Jordan. It looked as if Fred Weasley had wanted to join Ivan in Slytherin (even if it would break Weasley tradition), which explained why the Sorting Hat had taken so long.
George Weasley looked rather resigned as he placed the Hat on his head. It didn't take nearly as long for him to be Sorted into Gryffindor. I suspected that he had wanted to also be with Ivan in Slytherin, but once his twin was placed in Gryffindor, the two of them being together took precedence.
After that, the feast commenced, followed by Professor Dumbledore's announcements at the conclusion of the meal and the singing of the school song. Once it was all over, I returned to my quarters and wondered what it would be like to have my godson as a student.