Author's Note: Thank you everyone for the words of condolences, they really lifted my spirits, and I'm back with another chapter. I do apologize for you guys having to wait so long for this next chapter, but I started a new job back in June, and as much as it doesn't leave me with a lot of free time for writing, I am enjoying it immensely. I hope you enjoy this next chapter.
Chapter 26
Monday morning: Minerva's house
After a busy weekend finalizing who Narcissa, Molly and she would interview for their daycare, along with keeping Harry out of trouble so they didn't have to extend his grounding, Minerva finally felt like she had two minutes to sit down and enjoy her coffee before it gets cold again and looking forward to seeing Mark this afternoon. However, just as she sat down in her favourite recliner, her landline started ringing. Silently sighing to herself, she sets her coffee down and heads to pick up the phone.
"Hello, Minerva speaking."
"Minerva, it's Petunia. I need you to come to pick Dudley and I up as soon as possible! Vernon somehow found out that we were going to leave him, and he's taken Dudley upstairs and padlocked my son in his nursery! Please help!" Petunia panickily whisper-shouts into the phone.
"Say no more, I'm on my way." With that, her morning coffee forgotten, and knowing Fawkes is keeping an eye on Harry, she apparates with a near silent pop to Number 4 Privet Drive. Once she arrives there, the story she sees is worse than anticipated. Picture frames are thrown about the room, broken glass on almost every spot on the floor, the recliners and sofa are overturned, Petunia is holding her right arm trying to keep it in place, and Minerva knows that the arm shouldn't be at the angle it was. With a wave of her hand, she vanishes the broken glass so Petunia doesn't get injured further and quickly conjures a brace and sling around her broken arm, immobilizing it until she can get Poppy or Remus to heal it. She then asks Petunia, "Where's Vernon?"
"Upstairs, guarding the door to Dudley's nursery so I can't get to my son. It's all my fault, I decided to pack just about everything that's important to me. I went into the attic to attempt to find some of Lily's old things so that I could potentially give them to Harry when he's old enough to understand what happened to her. That's when Vernon clued in that something was going on, I haven't entered the attic since I found out I was pregnant with Dudley. When he found me trying to carry Lily's old school trunk out of the attic, he completely lost it! He grabbed my arm and dragged me down the stairs and threw me into the sofa, then he went on a rampage, yelling obscenities and throwing the photos at me. He started yelling at me, saying that if I wanted to leave him, that's fine, but he will keep his son if it's the last thing he does. That's when Dudley woke up, and before I could do anything, Vernon ran upstairs and padlocked Dudley's room from the outside. Knowing Vernon, he's going to keep the key around his fat neck and leave Dudley in that room until he starves to death! So please, stop listening to me rant and go save my son!" Petunia says between sobs, glad that her pleas for help are now being answered.
"I have a better idea, Doc, Bashful!" Minerva calls for her two house elves, and within a split second, they are in front of her and Petunia, all while silently cursing herself of not thinking about leaving one of them invisible in the house for Petunia and Dudley's safety. "Doc, I need you to pop upstairs, stun Vernon, bind him in ropes, then take the key from around his neck. Once he's out, unlock the room, grab Dudley, and bring him home. Settle him in Harry's room with him, then what I need you to do after that, is carefully modify Vernon's memory. I need Vernon to think that the bobbies came because a concerned neighbour heard the fight and called them. He also needs to believe that it was the bobbies that tied him up once they tazed him due to his aggressive nature, and after that he blacked out. Can you do that Doc?"
"Doc will do, Doc is off to Dudley to save, I mean to save Dudley." With that, Doc pops away to fulfill his quest.
"Bashful, I need you to pop over to Hogwarts Infirmary and see if Madam Pomfrey is free, if she is, can you tell her to floo over to my place with her first aid kit including potions within the next half hour? Also, let her know she's about to have a new squib patient, that may impact which potions she can use. If you feel up to it, and Madame Pomfrey prefers, you may also pop her over to the house yourself, but I will leave that decision up to you Bashful."
"Ohh gosh Miss, thank you, I will do that now." With that, Bashful pops away before his blush becomes noticeable. Now that Minerva has medical assistance on route to help, she turns to Petunia and starts thinking about how to get her home, since apparating her would be a bad idea with her injury. "Petunia, do you have a vehicle of your own?"
"No, Vernon insisted that we only need one vehicle. I kept begging for my own car so that it would be easier for me to do the shopping, but he kept refusing, saying we couldn't afford it." Petunia says, grateful to the help she's finally getting.
"Ok, I'm trying to figure out the safest way to get you to my house, we can't call an ambulance because they'll take you to the hospital, we can't call the police because they'll call the ambulance, and we can't steal Vernon's car because he could report it stolen and it could get traced back to us. I'm currently drawing a blank, any ideas Petunia?"
"Arabella." Petunia says.
"Come again?" Minerva asks confused.
"Arabella Figg, she lives 4 doors down to the east, look for the house with a cat flap on the door and catnip planted down the sidewalk. How its still alive when we're coming to the end of November, I have no idea. She has a car but has never driven it as far as I know, she prefers to walk up and down the road with her carpet bag."
"Ok, I will ask if we can borrow her car, but I refuse to leave until…" before Minerva can finish her sentence, Bashful pops back into Petunia's living room.
"Minnie, Madame Pomfrey says to please give her an hour, she's just finishing up with a patient."
"Thank you Bashful, can you stay with Petunia while I run down the road to ask a neighbour for a favour?" Once Bashful agrees, Doc pops back in, "Miss, the whale is on the ground, memory's modified, and Dudley is playing with young Harry."
"Ok, perfect, Doc, go back and keep an eye on the kids, and possibly help Remus cook them some breakfast." With that, Minerva swiftly walks out the front door, looking for an apparent crazy cat lady house.
Two hours later
After Minerva talked to Ms. Figg, they figured out a way to get Petunia and Dudley out of Vernon's life for good. Once Minerva got over the smell of the cat nip, she knocked on Arabella's door and was promptly invited in for a cup of tea, where Minerva hesitantly accepts and recaps what has happened at Number 4.
Flashback
"I knew Vernon wasn't a nice man, but I never imagined that someone could hold that much hate." Arabella exclaims after Minerva has finished recapping the morning.
"Luckily, he has been taken care of for now, he's currently unconscious and tied up, the issue is we can't call the police until I get Petunia out of that house. This is why we would like to borrow your car. It will be returned to you as soon as possible, but it may be a couple of weeks before we can make it happen." Minerva replies.
"You know, all it has been doing is sitting there collecting rust, I would be glad to sell it to either you or Petunia." Arabella offers.
"I would have to ask you to still report the car as stolen, but I can give you galleons for the car, so that the police don't see any suspicious activity in your account, and we can meet up at Gringotts later to finalize the transaction if that works for you."
"I can work with that Minerva. Luckily the goblins don't look down on me for being a squib, and they give me decent exchange rate should I need the pounds for the muggle world." With that, Minerva uses the gemino charm to duplicate the keys, so that the police can confirm that the car was stolen (since most people lock their cars and keep their keys somewhere in the house) and goes back to bring Petunia to her home.
End Flashback
Once Poppy had given Petunia a calming draught, and healed her broken arm, Petunia immediately went searching for her son. Minerva then brought her up to Harry's room where they were playing with the train set that Filius had given her after taking custody of Harry.
"Petunia, I have to go and help Molly do some interviews for the daycare centre, would you be willing to babysit Harry for me? I will of course be happy to pay you for your time, and tomorrow I will take you to Gringotts and we will figure out a course of action for you and Dudley. Until then, I will get Bashful to set up one of the other spare rooms for you, and would you prefer Dudley in the room with you, or would it be okay to place him with Harry in his room? We still have Harry's old crib set up in there." Minerva asks.
"I would be glad to look after my nephew, for the first time in my life since marrying Vernon and finding out what kind of monster he was, I finally see a brighter future ahead of us. How can I ever repay you Minerva?" Petunia says, with hope shining in her eyes.
"I was only doing the right thing, there is no need to repay me." With her son in capable hands, Minerva heads to her room to get ready to help with the interviews, stopping quickly to talk to Bashful about making up the room for Petunia, and making sure that she has some say as to how its decorated.
That afternoon, at the daycare
"So sorry if I'm late Molly, my morning had a monkey wrench thrown into the works, but its all sorted out now." Minerva said as she came skidding to a stop at 1:02 in the nursery room. "Do we have time for me to look at the other rooms? I've been so busy lately it feels like I've neglected helping remodel it."
"Of course, Minerva, even though we told the applicants that we had scheduled interview times, some people never want to be the first person interviewed, so at the moment, no applicants have arrived yet, which doesn't look good for when they get hired, punctuality is important in any job." Molly replies, thankfully not mad that Minerva had other priorities, she understood where Minerva's mind has been lately, because she felt the same way when her oldest son Bill was born. Always making sure he stayed healthy and happy. With that, Molly starts showing Minerva around, starting with the baby room, and going by age groups, through all the rooms.
Looking around, she saw that Molly had completely outdone herself on making the daycare look welcoming to children of all ages. The baby room was decorated with large stuffed animals, plenty of cribs, a couple change tables, the walls were painted a sky blue with all different animals, both magical and mundane. In the toddler room, there were mega blocks, dolls, colouring stations, and a door to the back school yard, with slides, swings, and a sandbox. Minerva could also tell the goblins had placed a monitoring device around the entrance to the front door of the daycare, from the runes that she could see, they would alert the attendant on duty as to whether a child was magical or not. (This way, they could keep the child in question in the room they were in for a certain amount of time before pulling the parents aside and tell them that their child is gifted, and being moved to a more stimulating room in the daycare) The preschool room had beginner books, more toys, painting stations, another door to outside with more schoolyard equipment, the alphabet painted in fun colours, with an animal that started with the same letter underneath it.
"Molly, I have no words to describe this, it's amazing! You have exceeded my expectations, and I am so glad that it has come together so well."
"I can't take all the credit, Narcissa was an amazing help, and we came in under budget on the renovations, now, the proximity alert I set up has just gone off, so it's safe to assume that our potential new employees have finally started to show up. Shall we go see who's going to become the newest members of Play Castle daycare?" Molly asks.
Three hours later:
"Okay, if I had known how difficult it would be to interview people for a position, I would have bowed out of helping Minerva." Molly said after interviewing one of yet another prospective hires. Luckily, they had found a few people who were good with kids, most of the new hires were from the stack the goblins had sent over, however, they would like a few more members of the non magical community in their employ, but those that did show up for the interviews were either late, over privileged kids whose parents told them to get a job, or old grandmas that felt that children should be seen and not heard.
"I felt you wouldn't believe me if I told you, remember, Albus would dump a lot of his duties on me when he was headmaster, so I would actually have to host quite a few interview sessions. Speaking of which, how's Arthur enjoying his role as headmaster?" Minerva asks since they're taking a 10-minute break.
"He's enjoying himself immensely, as much as he misses tinkering in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, he has made some small but significant changes to the school. Unless there's a staff meeting, the headmaster's office remains open for any student who wishes to talk, he has talked to the teachers about standardizing the number of points given and taken away for correct answers given, being out after curfew, starting fights in the corridors, stuff like that. These changes may be small, but it's actually having a positive reaction from both staff and students." Molly states, glad that her husband is thriving in a different position of authority. While it's true he was the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, he was always looked at like he was the pond scum on the bottom of someone's shoe. Now, he's thriving as headmaster, and although it's temporary at the moment, Molly hopes that someone offers him the job permanently, even though Minerva was offered it, Molly has a feeling that she will turn down the job offer come the next school year. "Well, shall we get on with the last of the interviews?" Molly asks.
"We shall, if my hunch is correct, there should be a viable candidate coming through those doors shortly." As soon as the words left Minerva's mouth, Mark walked through the doors of the daycare.
"Good afternoon, I hope I'm not late for my interview, I didn't have a chance to send a resume ahead of time, so I brought a copy along, I do apologize for any inconvenience. Hello again Minerva, glad to see you."
"Minerva, how do you know this gentleman?" Molly asks, curious as to why he showed up at this particular time, and how does he know her friend.
"We ran into each other at the store last week, and we had coffee on Saturday." Minerva replies, hoping that Molly won't start interrogating her right then and there.
"Ok, well Mark, was it? Why don't we have a seat, and we can get this interview started?" Molly asks, hoping that after he leaves, she can start interrogating Minerva on this guy that's putting stars in her eyes.
"Sounds good ta me." Mark says as he takes a seat at one side of the desk in the main office at the daycare, sitting in awkward silence as Molly and Minerva do a quick read through of his resume. Five minutes later, Molly looks up from his resume and starts to talk.
"Now Mark, your resume is certainly enlightening, honour student from grade 5 to 12, in the top 20% at teacher's college, 6 years as a kindergarten teacher, also substituting for upper years, chaperoning day trips with the school that you're employed at, and also tutoring on the side. If I may ask, why do you want to work here?"
"As fun as it is teaching 5-year-olds their ABC's and how to share, I'm looking for a new challenge, and since I come from a large family, I have quite a few nieces and nephews, who I adore babysitting, and when Minerva here said I should apply, I decided to take her up on it. I am also a well organised individual, so if there isn't work in the rooms for me, I'd be happy ta help with the office paperwork." Mark replies.
"It just so happens that we still have an opening in the toddler room, if you would be interested in working there." Molly asks, hoping he would say yes.
"I would love ta, does this mean I have the job?"
"Yes, we would like to hire you as one of the staff in the toddler room, what were you looking for in terms of payment? I suspect you won't make as much working in a daycare than you would as a teacher, but we shall see if we can come to an agreement on wages." Molly says, although secretly wishing Minerva would help by taking over the interview at some point.
"Let's do some math, shall we? The going rate for a 12-year-old babysitter is $2.50 per hour per kid, do you know how many toddlers will be in the room when you open?" Mark asks.
"So far, we have 10 toddlers signed up to start when we open, in the toddler room, we would need one adult per 5 kids, whereas in the baby room we would need one adult per 3 kids. The daycare hours will be from 6am to 5pm, but we will have morning and afternoon shifts, the morning shift would work 6am until noon, and the afternoon shift will work from noon until 6, does that sound good to you Mark?" Minerva replies, silently grateful she was able to look at the enrolment papers yesterday afternoon, and glad that their daycare is starting off well.
"Okay, so I'd be looking after 5 kids for 6 hours a day, so if I were a typical babysitter, I would be making 12.50 an hour for looking after 5 kids, times that by 6 hours, I would make $75 a day, are ya with me so far?" Seeing both Molly and Minerva nodding, he continues. "With my experience as a kindergarten teacher, I would like to think that $15.00 an hour sounds fair, and I assume we will be closed on holidays?" Mark asks.
"Yes, we will let you know once we finalize how that schedule will work, and we are also planning on setting up benefit packets once we get our feet under us. With all that out of the way, we will agree to your pay request, and even though you have probably passed a background check with your experience as a teacher, we would need to run another background check for our side of the paperwork, is that alright with you, Mark?" Minerva asks, glad that Molly approves of him.
"Not a problem, if ya give me a copy, I will fill it out right away, and let you take it to tha coppers." Mark says, glad that a new chapter is beginning.
"Gladly," Minerva says as she pulls a copy out of a binder she had with her, "now, unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today Mark, Molly and I need to get home to our kids, but I am glad that I will be seeing you again Mark."
"I look forward to working with ya, until next time." With that, Mark stood up, held his hand out to shake both Minerva and Molly's hand, although with Minerva he planted a small kiss on the back of her hand after that, and took his leave.
End Author's Note: Happy New Year everyone, again I apologize for how long it took me to get this chapter up. As I mentioned at the start of this story, I am unsure as to how often I can update this story. Sometimes I can get a chapter written in a couple of days, and other times it takes me weeks, if not months, to get the chapter to a point where I am satisfied with it. I am thankful to everyone who favourites, follows, and leaves reviews on this story. I know I don't always reply to the comments you leave, but I appreciate them all, and take some of your opinions into consideration when I write my next chapter. Until next time.
