A/N Here is the next chapter. I am on spring break so I may put up one more this week
Ch. 54
That Friday morning as Harry was making breakfast, Dobby came into the room with a grin on his face. "Harry Potter sir, Mitzy, the Hogwarts elves and I will be done with the house repairs this coming week. We thought you'd like to come home next Friday and see it." He said as he bounced on his toes.
"That's great Dobby. That way Hermione can get to work on the nursery." Harry grinned back.
As Dobby popped out, Hermione came in. When told what Dobby had said, she smiled and said. "That's great. We also have an appointment with the Tower next weekend." Mione informed him. "Did you know they have a wedding coordinator for magical weddings there?"
"No, I didn't." He smiled. He saw the excited look on her face and smiled.
"Mum, Jaime, Luna and I are going." She smiled.
"I didn't know I was going?" Jaime looked confused.
"Of course you are. You're in the wedding." She frowned. "You and Sarah are bridesmaids. You didn't know?"
"No. I wasn't asked." Jaime smirked at Mione
"Oh blast it!" Mione groaned. "Would you and Sarah like to be bridesmaids?"
Sarah and Jaime started to laugh at the embarrassed look on her face. "We'd love to." Jaime smiled.
Harry put his arm around Mione. "You feeling okay, Luna?" He asked as Luna went a little green. She got up and ran to the loo to be sick with Nev following her.
"Merlin, I'm glad that stage is over." Mione sighed.
"Me too, love." Harry laughed.
"Yeah. You were a nightmare before those potions." Sirius teased as Dobby cleaned up.
A few minutes later, while Harry was taking Teddy out of his high chair, Luna came back.
"How are you Luna?" Sirius asked in his most fatherly-concerned voice.
"I can't wait for this bloody phase to end." She grimaced.
"I was lucky, I never had much morning sickness." Sarah smiled. Mione and Luna just glared at her.
"Well, I think it's time to go to class." Harry interrupted. "Before Luna or Mione go for their wands, Sarah."
HP
That afternoon, after Mione had taught her last Second Year class, while she was settling down to plan the last few weeks of the Tower of London Unit, a pair of Hufflepuffs came up to her.
She looked up and smiled warmly at them. "Can I help you girls?"
"Yeah. We're kind of stuck. For our presentation on the "witches" in the royal family, we chose Elizabeth Woodville's mum Jacquetta of Luxenborg but we're having trouble finding primary source material on her"
"You would." She nodded as she picked up her Omni-Reader. Typing in a search, she found three books in her library and wrote down the titles. "I know these books aren't primary sources but they are very good secondary sources. Their bibliographies, I imagine, have citations for primary sources. Let me know what you need and I'll upload it."
"You said we'd be getting one of those." The girl said, pointing to the Reader. "Do you know when?"
"I have to check with a few people but it'll probably be next Monday."
The boy of the pair grinned. "Brilliant! Will it have the Hogwarts library on it?"
"Some. Not everything is scanned yet." She smiled at their enthusiasm.
"It'll be much more convenient, once that is done, to work in our common room."
She just laughed. "If you need any more texts just tell me."
"Will do, Professor." The girl called over her shoulder as they left. Mione decided to get on arranging the Omni-Readers. She had ordered them with Fleur right after the staff meeting and had set up Madam Pince with a scanner so she could start scanning the Hogwarts library. She had made it through a lot of the stacks but Luna and Mione hadn't put them on the library computer yet.
She left her classroom and walked up a few flights of stairs to Sirius' classroom. "Hey Pads." She greeted him.
"Hey Mione." He grinned as he came from behind his desk to give her a hug. "What's up?" He asked as he started packing up.
"Well, I was wondering if I could get the Omni-Readers from Fleur this weekend, could we pay for them?"
He barked a laugh. "It's already done, love. I took care of it a few weeks ago, right after you ordered them." She smiled as she hugged him tightly.
"Thank you Pads. My kids need them. This is the third day in a row I've had to help a student find information."
He just laughed. "No problem kiddo."
On their way back to the playhouse, Hermione called Fleur to discover they would be brought to the Playhouse the next morning.
"Luna!" She called as she walked in.
"In the game room."
She walked in to see most of the family relaxing. "Well, Fleur's got the Omni-readers ready and said she and Bill will bring them by tomorrow." She looked at her fiance. "They said they'd be here for breakfast."
"Great!" Luna grinned. "I think I've come up with a way to magically download Madam Pince's books to our computer here."
"How?" she asked, amazed. This was always going to be the hold-up in the process. Getting all that scanned information to the main computer that was usually sitting in the library at home. Currently it was in the study here at Hogwarts.
"Basically it's a modified Undetectable Extension Charm on the computer's memory." She smiled. "I did it to the Library computer here. We need to take it to the library to hook it up to Madam Pince's computer."
"You've become the computer expert." Mione smiled at her best friend. "Why don't you unhook it and we'll have the boys carry it to the library? I'll then leave you to it."
"Fine." she growled playfully as she got up. "But you can continue scanning books while I'm working."
"Okay." Mione grinned back. Luna headed to the study as Mione sat down with Harry. "My kids really need these readers."
He smiled back at her. "They've been talking about them in my classes too."
"You should plan on holding a demonstration of how they work for the school." Jaime suggested. "I know most of the older students don't know what they are."
"Good idea, love." Sirius kissed her head.
At that moment, the desktop computer that ran their library was being levitated to the floor of the game room. "Ready to go?" Mione asked Luna.
"Sure." Then she looked at Nev. "We should be back by curfew."
Both young men stood to give their fiancees kisses. "Have fun." Harry laughed, knowing anybody but his Mione would consider this a chore.
"We will."
As they left, Harry started racking balls. "Who wants to play?"
HP
After a few games of billiards and playing with Teddy, the young men settled down to study and grade.
"Seems like all we do now is study, grade or plan." Harry sighed as he finished his last paper.
"Yeah. We're 18, we should be out on the town having fun with our girls." Nev agreed.
"Never gonna happen boys." Sirius grinned as he popped his head in. "Dinner's ready."
"Where are the girls?" Nev asked
"Still at the library." he replied before he left.
They got up. "Should we send them some food?" Nev asked.
Harry nodded. "Why don't we make them sandwiches and we can take them down?"
"Already taken care of." Mark informed them. "Dobby already did it."
"It's my job to think of things like that." Dobby smiled.
"Thanks Dobby." Harry smiled back.
That night, the girls didn't get back until after curfew, and they were exhausted. So much so, they both went immediately to bed.
Saturday 24 January 1999
The next morning, Mione woke up a little later than usual. She had to rush but she got to the game room before Fleur and Bill arrived. When they did, they brought 3 small suitcases with them.
"Hey Fleur. Hi Bill." Mione greeted them. "You have all the Readers?"
"Yes, 'ermione." Fleur smiled. "You look amazing. You're glowing."
Hermione smiled. "I'm just glad my morning sickness is over. That and the tiredness are the most annoying things about pregnancy." She sighed as she dropped bottom first into a kitchen chair. "I'm getting big. I'll have to shop for maternity clothes next weekend."
"I will ask Molly if she still has any if you want." Fleur smiled.
"That'd be great. Any robes would be good. Minerva is being very lenient about dress code for us." Mione laughed.
"She's not the one that's in the loo every morning sick." Luna complained.
"Are you sure you're on the right dosage of anti-sick potion?"
"Yeah. Problem is, mine just doesn't last as long as yours did. I usually get sick once a morning, take my potion and I'm good for the day. You were lucky according to Poppy when I asked."
"Well now I'm getting bigger by the day." She groaned as Teddy crawled up her pants so he could cruise around the table. She picked him up. "Hello little guy."
He grinned at her and said, "Ma"
"Are you calling me?" Dora asked as she came in.
"MaMaMaMaMa" He kept repeating as Dora picked him off Mione's lap.
"That's right sweetie. I'm Mummy. Can you say Mummy?"
"Mummmmmmm."
"That's right!" she exclaimed as she kissed him enthusiastically. Everyone grinned and kissed him. He just soaked up the attention as he grinned toothily.
As everyone sat down, they began eating. Soon Fleur asked, "So, how are you going to distribute these Readers?"
"Well," Mione began. "I was going to ask Minerva if we could have a whole school meeting in the Great Hall after breakfast on Monday to hand them out and explain how they work."
"That sounds like a good idea." Bill agreed. "Can you explain how this process works?"
"Well, we have one central computer that has all the books loaded on it." Mione explained. "Then each reader magically connects to that central computer and can pull up any item from that computer."
"It doesn't have to plug into anything? You have things that are plugged in all over the place at the Madhouse. "
"Luna's better at explaining the charms but the ambient magic keeps them charged, just like the mobiles, and she's come up with some brilliant charms." She looked at her sister and saw her blush and decided to take a page out of Sirius' playbook. "I may be good at History and Transfiguration but she's a genius with Charms."
"Awwww." Sirius groaned. "I think you're embarrassing her, Hermione."
"Good." She laughed. "There's a reason she's a Claw-she's smart."
As Dobby cleaned up, they headed into the Game Room. "You ought to assign each student a number and put that number on the back so you can keep track of whose is whose." Jaime said.
"Yeah. Turns out we need to keep them as school property, not give them to each student." Sirius explained.
"So, how are you two doing?" Sarah asked Bill and Fleur, trying to change the subject.
"Great. We're both busy these days." Bill smiled at his wife.
After breakfast, Hermione sighed. "I better go talk to Minerva."
"We'll take the suitcases to the library. Come there when you're done." Luna laughed as she saw the disgruntled look on Mione's face. "I know you hate scanning instead of reading but we've got to do as much as we can to get the Hogwarts library on the computer."
HP
After the girls left, Harry sat down to read to Teddy. Meanwhile, Mark and Sirius were playing billiards.
"So, how's teaching going for you both?" Bill asked.
"Well." Mark made his shot. "The only problem is that I usually don't teach firsties. This is a new experience."
"At least you have experience teaching." Sirius complained. "Luckily Jaime's been there to guide me through the basics. We've hired two more Professors though, so that should help."
"I didn't know that!" Harry came over with Teddy in his arms.
"Yeah. They're going to take up residence in the castle in March and start helping with the younger kids. I'm thinking of having them take over first through third years by April." Sirius grinned.
"I have an interview this afternoon. I've already hired one but Minerva needs to stop teaching to take care of the school, so we need one more. It's exhausting being responsible for the hiring. I don't know how Mom does it." Mark replied.
HP
After talking to Minerva, Hermione understood that if it was a donation to the school and not a gift to each student it wouldn't count against the money given to Hogwarts from the Ministry. It seemed bizarre but she knew school finance in the muggle world made no sense either.
She levitated books next to Luna in the library. "We have the students first period Monday to get them sorted with the Readers." She told her as she opened her laptop.
"Makes sense." Luna smiled. They spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon scanning and sorting the readers.
Friday 29 January 1999
That week went very quickly for the family. Monday morning went off without a hitch with Hermione and Luna handing out the Omni-Readers and explaining how they worked.
"Okay, now that you each have one, we're going to go through how they work. Professors Black, all the unsundry Professors Richardson" This got the kids chuckling. Hermione continued after chuckling herself. "Professors Lupin, Longbottom, and Potter have all had experiences with this device, so they will help if needed."
"Now, here's what you do." Luna began.
It took a little over an hour to make sure all the students understood how to use the readers. During the rest of the week, there was an influx of confused students who sought Hermione and Luna out for help.
By Friday, the family was really excited to go home. They all wanted to see how the house had changed. So, Friday after classes, everyone floo'd home, where Mitzy was waiting for them in the front hall.
"Hey everyone." She greeted them as they came in. Then she went into a description of what had been done. "Now, there were only two changes to this floor that we made." She started as they went into the kitchen. "We made this room a little bigger so you can hold your Alliance dinners in here if you want."
"A little?" Dora snorted. "I think we can fit the Alliance plus Heirs at this table now."
"That was the idea." she smiled as we walked out to the patio. They had turned the whole eating and relaxing areas into a windowed garden room.
"What about the smoke from the outdoor kitchen?" Sirius asked.
"The fan above it now will dissipate that." She said as Sirius laughed. "Come on. Let's go upstairs"
"Wow." Hermione breathed as she looked at the stairs. While the entry room used to be divided between a front and back room, with the stairs being in the back, now the stairs were more of a grand staircase that was a focal point of the room. It was done in beautiful pine. The sitting room and drawing room were still off to the left.
"The first floor is now divided into 4 suites. Each one now has a small sitting room, bedroom, bathroom and an extra bedroom, except in Harry and Hermione's which now has two."
As Hermione went into her room, she was shocked. "Wow. Look at this Harry." She smiled. The landing door entered into the sitting room instead of the bedroom. The bedroom was just as she remembered it. When she came back into the sitting room, she went to the other end where there were two doors leading into one large bedroom and one smaller one.
"This is nice." Harry smiled at Hermione as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.
"Yes it is. We can put the kids in the big room until they need their own rooms." She smiled back at Harry.
Eventually everyone came back to the landing after looking at their own spaces. "This is really nice." Jaime said as they walked up to the next story.
"This floor is mostly the same. We did expand the library for you a little." She said as Hermione and Luna went in.
"This is at least double the size." Luna whispered.
"You ladies will need more room. The old library was too small." Mitzy smiled at their awed expressions. They followed her upstairs where there were eight bedrooms and three baths. "You can easily expand the number of rooms if need be." She showed them the panel in the wall to do just that.
Everyone was almost shell-shocked at the difference in the house as they walked up to the game room. Mitzy sat down by the fire. "So what do you think?" she asked.
"It's bloody amazing." Sirius grinned. "It's like you did exactly what we were thinking."
"Well, that's good."She laughed as the family went to the game room and just enjoyed being together in the almost new house.