NOTE: It's back, though it will still be updated infrequently. Sorry.

Wednesday July 9, 1996

09:27:15 AM EDT

Greengrass Residence, Ontario

Harry Potter and his fellow Britons were finishing up the last bit of breakfast, made by the Canadian Greengrasses' elf, Leslie. Daniel and Michelle were out with their kids, though the Canadian Colonel told them that today, there would be some visitors, courtesy of Professor Dumbledore. He had spoken to Professor Hezekiah Thompson, who had arranged for the five British teenagers to receive some remedial tutoring, with several focus areas for learning.

While Professor Snape was admittedly a good potions master and was the best in Britain, he was nevertheless a poor instructor, as admitted hesitantly by Dumbledore, and had not helped Britain's deficit of potions qualified graduates from Hogwarts. The infamous Professor Binns had left Magical Britain with a rather terrible grasp of both non-magical and magical history.

The only good DADA teacher the group had was Remus Lupin in third year, though in fairness, the others were simply bad luck or circumstances. Professor Quirrell was given the post before he went to Albania for his encounter with Riddle; Lockhart was the only applicant the following year. No one knew that Barty Crouch Jr. was alive and this kidnapping of Mad-Eye before fourth year, and the Ministry's interference was why the infamous toad became DADA professor, albeit among the worst in history.

The Canadian Magical Education System was also different than at Hogwarts, as Languages and the Sciences were offered as courses, along with English, which was focused on writing and poetry. Further, the education system ran up to the age of 18, one year more than at Hogwarts, with further options to go to university in either Silvermoon or at a non-magical institution.

At 9:30, the door rang, and Leslie quickly went to greet the guests. The elf came into the dining room, leading three rather different looking people. One was a tall, broad shouldered man with a rather distinctive nose and sandy brown hair, dressed in a non-magical business suit. The second was a shorter, slender black woman also in non-magical clothes; she had a rather cheerful disposition compared to the other two guests. The third person, shorter than the first man was a Metis man also dressed in a business suit and was clearly the leader of the group. Though he had a few greys in his raven black hair his face showed authority and a firmness that eerily channeled Professor McGonagall. With piercing blue eyes that made Daphne's "ice mode" eyes look warm, he was clearly one not to be messed with. The man stepped forward, and his face suddenly softened slightly. "Good Morning, name is Professor Hezekiah, Headmaster and Senior Transfiguration instructor at the Orenda School of Magic."

The man smiled slightly and shook hands with Harry, "And you must be Harry Potter. Don't worry, we don't gawk at people. You won't to be singled out like in Britain." After shaking the other teens' hands, he looked at Sirius Black and smirked. "And I've heard about you, Mr. Black. You're not a convicted lunatic here in Canada, though we might be wrong about the last part." The Professor took out a manila envelope from the messenger bag that he had and passed it to Sirius, who quirked and eyebrow at the man before putting it on the table.

The taller man stepped forwards and shook everyone's hands. "My name is Matthew Darvill, and I am the senior instructor of Defense." The woman stepped "My name is Tabitha Peters, I'm one of the instructors of Magical History and Geography."

Professor Thompson continued, "So, now we've gotten past the pleasantries, let's discuss what you need to learn during this summer."

The discussion lasted the entire morning, with the Brits also demonstrating their knowledge in Charms, Transfiguration and some of their defense spells, which did impress the Canadians. Thanks to Professors McGonagall and Flitwick, they were actually on par with the Canadian magical education system, and Neville Longbottoms was actually surpassing current standards for herbology. However, the other subjects were clearly found wanting.

While the Brits were quite advanced in Defensive spells, including the Patronus Charm, which was taught in sixth year, they had to largely learn by themselves, having had only one good DADA professor during their previous five years. However, they were told by Mr. Darvill that defense against the dark arts was only a portion of Defense courses taught around the world outside of Europe. Defense, he explained, also included learning about non-magical tactics and weaponry, as well as learning the concepts and effects of the dark arts, to effectively counter such practices.

Only Hermione, Daphne, and Tracy had anything remotely near the appropriate knowledge of Potions, though it was a long ways to go. After hearing about how they learned potions, the Brits saw the other two teachers shaking their heads and could hear the headmaster mutter, "It's far worse than I thought." Mrs. Peters, who was also a junior instructor for Potions, explained that in North America, no one ever uses cauldrons and open fires to create potions, seeing those as imprecise, archaic methods for brewing what would be rather unpredictable potions, especially when they had to use raw ingredients. Here, potions are taught almost like chemistry, using beakers, test tubes, pipets, burets, and Bunsen burners for the brewing process. Softer and organic ingredients like hairs, weeds, animal parts (normally leftovers from dissection in Biology lessons) are typically boiled up in distilled water, extracting the essence of the ingredient without impurities. Harder ingredients like bones or teeth are typically ground to a fine dust and stored until use like chemicals. By using more scientifically precise measurements of ingredients and times, Peters explained that a potion brewed this way was more effective than those made by cauldron-based processes.

History, to Peters' dismay, was also very wanting. It was clear that they had been taught nothing about history other than various Goblin Rebellions (virtually all of those in Europe) and various treaties by their undead professor. They were to learn this summer about more recent history like the War of 1898 and how the Grindelwald Crisis was linked to the Second World War.

The Brits, helped by Sam, would also be taught about Runes and Arithmancy (which also included mathematics and statistics), along with conversational French; languages were also taught at Orenda. Further, they were to be given a basic overview of the sciences, as Biology (which includes some herbology and working with magical creatures), Chemistry (tied in with Potions), and Physics were also courses taken at the school.

It was agreed that tutoring would normally happen in the morning and afternoons from Monday to Friday, though the times were flexible and some days could be freed up for other activities. Harry offered to pay for the education, but was told that the Department of Magical Affairs (Department of Magic) is subsidizing some of the costs, with Professor Dumbledore apparently paying the rest.

July 19, 1996

9:59:32 AM EDT

For the past two weeks, Harry and his friends, often joined by Sam, were taught quite a bit on the subjects that they needed remediation. The Greengrasses had a small potions lab set up in their basement, and the "Hogwarts five" finally got some quality education in this field. Their tutor, Herb Gathwal, was a bit of an eccentric, a second generation immigrant from India, who occasionally went off tangents during his lesson. His Sikh turban initially caused Harry to be a bit uneasy, and Harry had been mercilessly ribbed about that. He was however a rather cheerful teacher, a far cry from the notorious Snape. Gathwal was very scientific during his lessons, and the potions instructions in the textbooks he brought were more like chemistry lab procedures than the recipes that were in the British texts. Arithmancy was proceeding nicely along with basic runes, which also included the study of some Asian runes as well as one made by the First Nations in North America. In History, they learned about the history of Magical North America, with a focus on Canada's history and its gradual separation from Magical Britain.

Today, there would be a joint lesson by both Darvill and Peters, who soon entered the room with a Projection-style Pensive and a long, battle rifle.

Peter's began the lesson. "Good Morning Everyone, today we are going to learn about the War of 1898 in France.

As I taught last lesson, Canada and the United States were the first nations to formally establish a regular magical army, and as we learned, the Americans were also dealing with a magical civil war in Mexico in the 1890s. At that time, France once again faced another Dark Lord, a fellow by the Name of Lord Henri Merovingian, better known as Le Bourreaur or 'the Executioner'."

Darvill continued, "The Executioner was a nasty man, cunning and ruthless, taking over the French Ministry via backroom deals, assassinations, and covert support from extra-nationals. This naturally led to a migration of many civilians to Africa as well as Europe. The Executioner despised all hybrids or 'half-breeds,' which I'm told was the same attitude of a certain toad you have encountered, an um-britch?" The kids, despite the abuse inflicted by the infamous ministry toad, giggled at the tutor's reference to Dolores Umbridge.

"Hypocritically, Monsieur Louis also wanted to have a personal group of Veelas, but many soon decided to move to Canada, including Mrs. Greengrass's grandparents, but I digress. Once he consolidated power, the dark wizard decided to take the auror corps of France and invade Spain, along with some Spanish sympathizers. Canada answered the plea for help from Spain and deployed 2000 troops to Europe."

Peters held up the rifle, 44 inches long.

"This here is a magically enhanced Magazine, Lee-Enfield rifle. It was used by the Magical Canadian Army during the late 1890s, during the War that destroyed that wicked wizard."

Darvill held up a vial, "This is the memory of the man that fired that rifle almost a century ago. That person is my Grandfather, Sergeant Nicholas McDonald, of the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Magical Regiment, on January 16, 1898, of the Battle of Belchite."