Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, settings, or worlds within this work, outside of a few OC's. Any recognizable characters are not mine; I'm just playing with them. Harry Potter and its associated works belongs to J.K. Rowling. X-men and Marvel belongs to... er... Disney, I suppose? I am not making any money off of this fan work, nor do I wish to.

Author's Note: I keep intending to write scenes with Dumbledore in them, I really do... And then I get to a point where I start trying to fit him in, and my brain goes blank. I just. Can't think of anything for Dumbledore to do or say that seems to fit the scene most of the time.

Hopefully I managed alright with this one. :P

Chapter 16

Visitors, Part I

After dropping Neville off at the Gryffindor Common Room, McGonagall went to see the headmaster. Dumbledore was expecting her. He sat her down with a cup of tea and a tray of biscuits as she went over everything that had been discussed with Charles Xavier.

The headmaster was rather surprised to hear that Xavier was already aware of wizards, and had merely required greater clarity rather than a full explanation.

"The rest of his staff remains unaware of us, I presume?"

"Yes. Xavier says he has always done his best to respect our desire for secrecy, and has never spoken of what he has observed about wizards to anyone unless there was a situation in which he could see no alternative. For example, there is another telepathic mutant amongst his students; he could hardly expect her to keep magic a secret without first ensuring she knew what he was talking about in the first place."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled brightly. "And he has given you no cause to distrust his word?"

"None that I could see."

"Excellent! I will trust your judgment on that. Now, you said that Professor Xavier suggested that we send our students over to his school for a time. Did this suggestion seem in any way suspicious to you?"

McGonagall thought for a moment. "Only in that he was very quick to offer it as a solution... But from what he's told me, the circumstances in which he usually finds his students often necessitate making lightning-fast decisions about whether they'll stay with him or go elsewhere, and the majority of his students do live at his institution. With that in mind, I wouldn't say it was particularly strange of him to offer, no."

"So, you would consider this man to be a good candidate to help us with our problem?"

"I'd say he's probably our only good candidate, from what little Severus and I have managed to research. While the Muggle world knows a good deal more about mutants than we do, they seem to focus more on identifying mutants and keeping them in check, rather than trying to aid them with integrating their powers. Professor Xavier is one of the few who is genuinely trying to give them somewhere they can go, and it certainly doesn't hurt that he is a mutant himself."

"I see. Well then, our next course of action seems clear. We have already determined that we need Xavier's help, but the question remains whether we will have him come to us, or if we will send our students to him?"

McGonagall sighed wearily. "To tell you the truth, Albus... If it were truly up to me, I'd send Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Longbottom to stay at the Institute for a few weeks in a heartbeat. Mr. Potter too, most likely. However, convincing their families that it would be wise, even if we asked Professor Xavier to come here instead... Particularly the Malfoys..."

"Yes. I suppose we should write them and ask for their input. We won't know what they'll decide until we ask, and it's not in our jurisdiction to send students across the pond without so much as a by-your-leave. There are some protocols we must follow, after all, even in an unpredictable situation such as this."

The two of them fell silent as they contemplated what would be the best way to persuade parents that Xavier's help was truly needed.

"You know," began McGonagall, "I'm fairly certain Neville is going to Owl his grandmother of his own accord and ask to go to Xavier's Institute. He has informed me in private that if he doesn't get a handle on his abilities soon, he just might need to leave Hogwarts for a time anyway. If he went to Professor Xavier, at least the time away from his schooling would be productive. Perhaps..."

Dumbledore tilted his head. "Perhaps?"

She met his eyes. "Perhaps if we approached the scenario from that angle- that is, the fact that the sudden surges of power which some of the stronger mutants are prone to are extremely disruptive to their education... Well, even the Malfoys can't exactly argue against it. After all, no matter where their son goes for schooling, his powers go with him. They may not be persuaded to send him away, but they just might be willing to allow someone from the Institute to work with him, even if the person does happen to be a Muggle."

"Hmm... It could work. Now that we've met with the man and confirmed his intentions, the next logical step would be to invite him here so the students can meet him as well. We could invite the guardians of those students who are most likely to need help- excluding Harry's, that is. I do not believe apprising his relatives of his mutation would do much to endear him to them. It was difficult enough convincing them to take him back after the little stunt with his accidental magic this summer. Although upon further reflection, I have to wonder if his mutant power didn't get involved with that incident as well... Hmm. A question for another time, perhaps.

At any rate, speculation can only get us so far. We shall write to the students' guardians, and see what happens from there. I'll have the letters ready to send by tomorrow morning."

"Thank you, Albus. I'll be sure to inform the students to expect a visit from their parents."

Three days later, there was much whispering throughout Hogwarts about a potential visitor who was going to help with the mutants. Nobody knew much about who it was, or where they were from, but the headmaster had been seen taking several of the known-mutant students aside for private conversations over the last couple days, and several people in Gryffindor had overheard Harry and Neville talking about some professor from another school who wanted to take the mutants away. The most popular theory was that the Unspeakables heard about the wizarding world's mutants and wanted to draft them into the Magical department of the secret service, using the guise of a Muggle professor.

The truth was both simpler and more complex than the Hogwarts Rumor Mill would come up with. Professor Xavier wouldn't force any mutant to come with him, of course, and he certainly wasn't involved in the Wizarding Secret Service. However, some of his teaching methods were a bit unorthodox, and his students did tend to have a natural drive towards heroics.

But then, the general student population of Hogwarts wasn't exactly meant to know there was a Professor Xavier, were they?

Charles Xavier arrived at Hogwarts at 7:00 in the morning. As requested, he brought Ororo Munroe as the most level-headed and even-tempered member of his staff.

Greeting them politely and settling them both in with cups of tea and an offer for a drop of lemon candy, Dumbledore sat at his desk and spoke.

"Thank you for agreeing to come. I know you must be very busy people, and the time zone difference makes for rather odd meeting hours no matter how you schedule them."

"It's no trouble, Headmaster," replied Xavier. "Our school runs on a loose schedule by necessity. We never know when a mutant will find themselves in need of our help, so we must always be ready for anything, at any time."

"I see! How exciting! Nevertheless, I appreciate your coming here at such odd hours. As Minerva has no doubt informed you, we are in desperate need of assistance with our students' mutations. You will be meeting the students in question and their parents soon. However, I felt it necessary to speak with you beforehand, which is why I asked you to arrive early. Our way of life is very different from yours after all, and there are some things you should be aware of."

"Of course. We're listening."

"Excellent! First and foremost, I regret to inform you that there is a good deal of prejudice and misinformation within the wizarding world regarding non-magical people. While there are many wizards who accept Muggles and Muggleborns and support their endeavors, there is also a not-insignificant number of wizard families who fall on the other end of the spectrum, and shun non-magical people and anything to do with them. There are also many witches and wizards who, while they have nothing against non-magicals, are woefully misinformed about you and your way of life. It is important that you be made aware of this now, because one of your prospective students-the very one who made us aware of the situation, in fact- comes from one of the... less accepting families. The Malfoys."

Ororo frowned in concern. "They are unwilling to accept this student's mutation?"

Dumbledore blinked. "Goodness, that's not the problem at all! It's certainly thrown them a bit off-kilter, but it's not as if he were born to a family in which having extra-human abilities is anything unusual. We're wizards, after all! No, I'm afraid the difficulty will be in convincing them to accept you as viable candidates to teach the boy. As I said, there are some families for which the prejudice against non-magicals runs very strongly. They may believe that their best options lie within the wizarding community, and will be hard-pressed to allow their son to be tutored by Muggles, let alone be permitted to go and live with a group of them."

Ororo nodded. "I see. Then we will need to put forth our best efforts to ensure they see reason."

"Indeed. I should also warn you that some of the other students and their families, while they are far less prejudiced than the Malfoys, may have many...misconceptions regarding Muggles and their culture. Most of us don't have much opportunity to have much meaningful interaction with outsiders, as closed-off as we are. I ask that you be patient with us, and forgive any misunderstandings that may arise from this."

Xavier gave a wry smile. "We understand. I'm sure anything that comes up will be easily dealt with. What time are we expecting the first family?"

"Mrs. Augusta Longbottom is scheduled to arrive at eight o'clock, with third-year student Neville Longbottom. She tends to be very prompt, so we can expect her to arrive a little early in order to have time to pick up her grandson. We should hear her knock upon the door right on the hour."

Author's Note:

I'm back! Maybe. For now... Sorry this took so long; I've caught a bout of "what the heck am I writing again?" that I'm trying to work through. Not super happy with this chapter, but at least it's finished and I can move on!

...I feel like a lot of this story has been taken up with meetings... I'm not sure why. It's not like I actually care for meetings all that much, LOL.

So, I was originally going to have all the parent-student-xavier meetings occur in this chapter...but I realized as I was writing it that each individual meeting will probably take long enough that I want those meetings to be contained within a separate chapter. Plus, it's been so long since I've updated, I figured I might as well get this part out now, and then write the second half later. So, it's a bit of a shorter chapter than it rightfully should be...but at least I updated, I guess? :P