Chapter Twenty-Nine
YaoiLovinKitsune: I have fixed the name typos! Stella's from a different fic I'm working on. Thank you!
Just the Epilogue after this…. I really hope everyone enjoyed this story. I cried so many times while writing it, both happy and sad tears. I don't know about y'all, but I grow so attached to fictional characters and it's so hard to let go of them. Fanfiction is a good way to hold those characters close for a while longer. If you get lost in stories as I do, I hope that you are peaceful and content and happy. Don't stop reading, and don't stop dreaming.
Dinner the next night was a loud affair, Hathor smiling brightly at all of the noise. She'd always wanted a loud home. Hopefully, she, Remus, and Sirius could work on making their home louder soon. Remus and Sirius just kept giving her adoring looks, both looking beyond in love with her as she interacted with her birth family. MawMaw came to the house as well, carrying a photo album in her wrinkled arms. Turned out MawMaw was Hathor's grandmother and mute. SHe sat beside Hathor on the couch, showing her the family album as Jennifer stood behind them, telling Hathor who each person that MawMaw pointed to was.
Pictures of Hathor as a baby cropped up for a bit before she stopped showing up again. Remus summoned Hathor's photo album and passed it to her so she could show MawMaw the years that they'd lost. Remus, Harry, and Ginny cooked dinner with the help of the elves and everyone ate in different parts of the house, all talking excitedly and animatedly in the process.
The next month was full of exploring Savahanna and getting to know their family. Their last day there, everyone came to the house again for a supper together. After long hugs and tearful goodbyes, they filed out of the house, Hathor promising to write and visit often. They took a portkey home, none of them wanting to take a plane home.
Hogwarts was reopening in a few weeks and classes needed to be prepared, the school needed wards and foundation checked, students needed to be sent class supplies lists. Hathor smiled down at her small stomach, Remus having spilt the beans just after the big family dinner when the food had made her stomach turn, causing Harry and Aster to just flat out ask her if she was pregnant. When she'd said no, Remus and Sirius had said yes, causing her to raise her brows and stare at them before catching Remus's smirk and realizing that he meant it.
"How many are you planning on having?" Minerva smirked as she saw what Hathor was doing.
"A whole litter," Hathor smirked.
"I don't know if that joke is aimed at me or you," Sirius sighed.
"Both," Remus smirked.
"Definitely both," Hathor nodded.
"Hoping for another girl?"
"No," Hathor answered as Remus and Sirius both said, "Yes!"
"Good to know you're all on the same page," Minerva smirked. "So, are your lesson plans complete?"
"Yes," Hathor and Remus answered while Sirius said, "No!"
"Again, same page," Minerva smirked.
"Come on, Minny!" Sirius smirked. "You know how much I like to live life on the edge."
"Edge of my last nerve maybe," Hathor mumbled, giggling when Sirius threw a piece of chalk at her.
The first day the school opened again, the seventh years had their own table, each looking a bit out of place as they all sat together. Hathor had suggested a new way of sorting the students, a way that she hoped would promote interhouse unity. After the new first years were sorted, the rest of the years repeating their grades, the seventh years were resorted. Ron and Aster were in Hufflepuff, Harry and Hermione got Slytherin, and Draco remained in Gryffindor. Remus and Sirius passed Hathor a few galleons each, causing her to smirk as she pocketed it. The seventh years were held back after everyone else was dismissed to their common rooms.
"Each house has had their own common rooms for centuries and the arrangement has caused prejudices to form that have been near impossible to break," Minerva told the eighth years. "Professor Boudreaux suggested an idea that, I believe, will help to combat this. We are separating the houses into smaller groups of eight, two people from each house in the three groups, and the three Professor Boudreaux's will be in charge of each group, just as each house has a head of house. We will be picking who is in each group now."
Ron and Hermione went with one group, Harry and Draco with another one. Aster gave Neville a smile as the two stood together, Neville having remained in Gryffindor.
"Can the professors be resorted, too?" Harry asked. "It'd be interesting to see where you all ended up after all of this."
"Why not?" Sirius shrugged, always up for a challenge as he placed the sorting hat on his head.
"Slytherin," the hat said immediately and Sirius's face filled with horror before the hat laughed. "Just a joke, Mister Boudreaux. You seem like you would do well in Hufflepuff. Loyal and hardworking, indeed."
"And for a moment there he almost made his mother proud," Hathor sighed as she placed the hat on herself, pushing Sirius towards Ron and Hermione's group.
"I told you before that you should have been in Gryffindor. My mind has not changed," the hat told her and Hathor smirked, placing the hat on Remus before moving to Harry and Draco's group, giving Pansy and Theo, now Ravenclaws, a gentle smile.
"Going to put me in Slytherin like you wanted to?" Remus asked the hat.
"Hmm…" the hat hummed and then remained silent for a bit, seeming to try making up it's mind. "You, Mister Remus John Lupin-Boudreaux, are unsortable."
"What does that mean?" Remus asked as Minerva's eyes grew and she gasped.
"There is a legend," Minerva whispered, "that is told to every Headmaster. It's said that the next great Headmaster or Mistress of the school will be unsortable. They will be someone who imbodies everything needed to lead the school to a new dawn, a new day, where the houses will work together, rather than against one another."
"Me?" Remus asked, unbelieving. "If anything it should be—"
"Don't put that on me," Hathor shook her head quickly. "I'm a Gryffindor through and through. Pulled a sword from that dingy old thing just to prove it and everything."
"I am not dingy," the hat complained.
"You kind of are. Don't worry, though. We'll find you a nice young lady hat to entertain you and you'll feel good as new," Hathor smirked.
"Can we get back to how badass our husband is?" Sirius smirked, staring at Remus with a proud look in his eyes.
"Oh, I always knew he was badass. It's about time that others began to catch on," Hathor offered. "Come along you lot. We'll show you to your new rooms."
They led the students through the castle to the fifth floor where multiple rooms common rooms had been built, the school's own magic helping them in the process, giving plenty of rooms and loos for everyone. Ten new spaces had been built in total and Hathor wondered if the school knew that the same project would continue in the future.
"Each common room had its own password. I don't care if you share passwords," Hathor admitted.
"Don't share passwords," Minerva immediately stated.
"If we find that you aren't sleeping in your assigned areas or spending time with your assigned group, then there will be consequences," Remus spoke up.
"We'll ground you, basically," Sirius smirked.
"I knew having all of our parents as teachers was going to bite us in the ass," Aster groaned, rubbing his face.
"As you are all of age, you will be given certain… allowances that the other students do not have. You can go to Hogsmeade every weekend, as long as you interact with your groups and as long as you keep your grades up. There will be no house points, but there will be group points. At the end of the year, which ever group has the most points, gets recommendation letters from all of us and Headmistress McGonagall to wherever you wish to work in the future," Hathor announced. "Most of you don't need those letters to be honest, but a few of you will."
"We also want you all to spend the next week really thinking about what you wish to do in the future. At the beginning of next week, come to us with a career that you want to follow and you will be given course work specifically for that career," Remus explained.
With that, they were all sent to bed. Hathor walked straight to Remus and held her arms up, giving him a big smile and causing him to roll him eyes. Remus picked Hathor up, causing her to giggle as he carried her to their living quarters right down the hall, Sirius walking behind them with a look of love on his face. Minerva just watched them go, smiling softly at her three adults that had been her favorite students once upon a time.
The school year was difficult to say the least. Argument broke out quite often that Remus, Sirius, and Hathor had to mediate. Mind healers were hired on as well for all of the students, the eighth years having mandatory meetings twice a month for the first three months of school before deciding for themselves if they wanted to continue. They almost all did.
After the first week, each group went to their assigned Professor Boudreaux to discuss career options. Harry wanted to teach Defense, Draco wanted to be a curse breaker, Pansy wanted to become an Unspeakable, and Theo just wanted to surround himself with books, no clue what he wanted in life yet. Hathor told him that it was okay to not know what he wanted to do; they were only eighteen after all.
Classes continued and Carolyn got bigger, as did Hathor's stomach. Just before the end of the school year, Hathor's water broke in the middle of a fifth year class.
"Oh," she stared down. "Would someone mind running to the Defense room and getting one of my husbands, please?"
Five students ran from the room to gather Remus and Sirius as three students ran to Hathor, asking if she was alright and what they needed to do to help. She smiled and waved them off, telling them this wasn't her first time giving birth and that she'd be fine. Sirius looked panicked as he ran in, Remus a bit more calm than him but not as calm as Hathor was.
Pomfrey helped Hathor through the birth for the next few hours before a baby's wail sounded through the hospital wing.
"A boy," Pomfrey smiled. "A beautiful boy."
"Severus," Sirius smiled, tears in his eyes as they baby was handed to Hathor.
"Oh, he's beautiful," Hathor said ,tears falling down her face.
"The other one should be along in a minute," Pomfrey told them.
"I'm sorry, what?" Remus asked.
"We only ordered one," Hathor spoke up.
"Must have shopped in the buy one-get one aisle," Sirius laughed.
A girl came along ten minutes later.
"Narcissa," Hathor whispered, taking the baby girl as Sirius took Severus into his arms.
"They're perfect," Remus breathed, staring at his spouses as they each held a baby in their arms.
The kids ran in a few minutes later, smiling at the little girl in Sirius's arms before Remus turned around, shocking them all with the little boy.
"Narcissa and Severus," Hathor told them tiredly.
Hermione and Draco both began crying at hearing their parents names, Hermione taking Severus and Draco taking Narcissa.
At the end of the year, Aster gloated as his group was announced to having the most points. Neville didn't need a recommendation for Sprout to take him on as an apprentice, training him to take over for her one day. Harry studied under Sirius and Remus for Defense Professor and Aster began working with Ollivander to study wand making. Draco worked with Hathor on Potions, learning the ins and outs of running a potions business over the summer and lightly running Shafiq potions during the school year. Ron worked as an auror for a while before working with Fred and George instead, wanting to bring joy to the world rather than dealing with anymore bad guys. Hermione began working under Kingsley as he trained her on how to be the next Minister of Magic.
Hathor went home with her two husbands, toddler, and twin babies at the end of the year as her eldest kids rode the Hogwarts Express for the last time as students. They laid the babies down for naps before taking one themselves, all curled around one another and holding each other tightly.
Hathor, Remus, and Sirius ended up having three more children, all boys (Andy, Reggie, and Matheo), after the twins before Hathor decided it was more than enough. She was becoming a grandmother now and didn't want to be pregnant at the same time as Ginny, who had married Harry as soon as she'd graduated from Hogwarts. They'd been married for five years now and had only just decided to start trying for children now that Ginny had sustained a bad injury while playing for the Holyhead Harpies.
James Sirius Boudreaux was born on Carolyn's eighth birthday and Hermione announced that she was pregnant two days later, Rose Emma Boudreaux being born eight months later, followed by Harry and Ginny's second child, Remus Babi. Hermione had Daniel Hugo two years later, just a few days apart from Lavendar, who had problems conceiving, giving birth to Arthur Weasley the Second. Harry and Ginny had their final child, a daughter named Lily Luna, the next year. Fred and Aster had considered adopting for a while before deciding that they'd rather spoil all their nieces and nephews, including Victoire Molly Weasley (Bill and Fleur's daughter), before giving them back, hands loaded with firecrackers that were safe for toddlers to handle.
The next generation of Marauders started at the school as Hathor and Minerva retired, neither wanting to be there at the same time as the army of children that were coming their way and Sirius laughed before taking over Hathor's classes completely, as well as dealing with the seventh year groups with Remus's assistance. Remus took over as Headmaster and the school truly did become something greater, something none of them could have ever believed it would be. It had been a home to so many that had passed through its halls before, but now it was a beacon to the future generations.