A Unique Start
Hermione and Endymion were the first ones to send their congratulations for the birth of Alexander Crouch. As Hermione was close to giving birth to her own son, they refrained from an immediate visit at Potter's Keep though, as they didn't want to risk triggering the birth by travelling via floo. Still, they sent a beautiful card with their owl and promised to come for a visit as soon as possible.
It turned out that the two of them had the right idea, as Hermione went into labour just two days after Jazzy and after nearly nine hours, she gave birth to Tristan Endymion Lestrange. Thanks to potions and Andromeda's skill, Jazzy and Barty were able to visit Lestrange Manor with Alex a day after Tristan's birth. The two couples of new parents enjoyed a chocolate cake that the Lestrange house elves had baked. They were as happy about the new heir as the Crouch elves were about Alex.
During the afternoon that the two couples spent at Lestrange Manor they discussed plans how they would go about their return to Hogwarts. Now that the babies were born, it was time to schedule when Hermione and Jazzy were going to restart their classes. The general plan had been October, as nobody could say when exactly the boys would be born. In the end, they decided that Endymion and Barty would travel to the school to also arrange things with the teachers and the headmaster to get them included in the work, which would be part of their apprenticeships in their chosen subjects.
Due to nobody knowing when the babies would be born, it had been agreed to let the two young men study some basic material at home to be there when their wives went into labour. But now it was time to really get started.
Three of the Professors of Hogwarts were waiting inside the office of Headmaster Dumbledore for the two young families to arrive. There was of course the headmaster himself, then Professors Flitwick and Babbling, who were waiting for their apprentices. Not to mention that they were curious to see the sons of their apprentices. While the circumstances of how the boys were conceived weren't good, thankfully things weren't as bad as they could have been. Like the quartet still being prisoners of their kidnappers and then having to fear for the lives of their children. Now the two families would be protected by the wards of Hogwarts and when they weren't there, they would have the extensive and upgraded protection of their family estates. And they had heard that Sirius Black had looked up any kind of ward that the Blacks had ever conceived, which were some of the strongest and nastiest ever created.
Still, nobody could care about the fate of those trying to attack the Crouch and Lestrange families after what had been done to the teenagers. They shouldn't have been forced into the position they currently were in.
The floo lit up with green flames and the first person stepped through, soon to be identified as Endymion Lestrange. He was followed not quite a minute later by his wife Hermione, who carefully held her infant son secured to not have him hurt by floo travelling.
"Welcome back to Hogwarts," greeted Dumbledore.
"Thank you, Professor," replied Hermione, adjusting Tristan to lie on her right arm.
From under the hat he wore some black hairs showed. Currently the baby was asleep, thus his eyes couldn't be seen.
"Yes, thank you. Have the Crouchs already arrived?" asked Endymion.
"Not yet, we are waiting for them," answered Professor Babbling.
Then a pop was heard next to Fawkes' perch and the expected second family was there, holding onto the hands of Dobby.
"Thank you, Dobby, this was much better than using the floo," stated Jazzy.
"Dobby is always happy to help his mistress and master," replied Dobby happily and then popped away.
"Why didn't you take the floo?" asked Professor Flitwick surprised.
"Because that isn't a safe option when I take it, especially with Alex to consider, Professor. I simply can't get the method to properly do it. The floo hates me. And I won't risk hurting my son if I can avoid it. Dobby Express is also much easier on the stomach," explained Jazzy, "Hello Professors, nice of you to greet us."
"Yes, welcome back. And those are little Alexander and Tristan?" asked Dumbledore, looking at the babies in their mothers' arms. Alexander seemed to have inherited his father's hair colour but his mother's eyes. He was awake and looked around a bit.
"They are," nodded the mothers.
"I'm just glad that Tristan decided to not be born on my birthday. That would have been a bit unfortunate when he's older and wants to celebrate with his friends," chuckled Hermione.
Her birthday was the 19th of September. With Tristan being born three days earlier, it would be better to organise when he was older.
"Quite so," chuckled Flitwick, "Now, before you go to your suites to get settled in before you start classes tomorrow morning, Mrs Crouch and Lestrange, I wanted to hand both of you and your husbands the schedules as well. Due to the need of caring for your sons during the day, we have taken you out of the normal Gryffindor schedules for the year. Next to that, we have compiled a list of the material that was covered or will be covered for the whole month of September, as we couldn't be sure when you would give birth and be ready to return to school.
"Madam Pomfrey has informed us which potions you are allowed to brew among the curriculum now that you aren't pregnant anymore. Some will only be possible three months after the birth, thus the curriculum was adjusted to allow this for both of you. One question we need to have answered before you go back to classes: What level of control do you have over your magic?"
"Well, I am back to where I was before the ritual," answered Hermione, "Thanks to being emancipated when I married Endymion, I used the free time I had to practice all the spells that we learned up to the summer break. The manor is unplottable after all and no muggles could have noticed anything. My spells are a lot stronger now than they were before, but there isn't any danger anymore to overload them and harm others accidentally."
"For me it depends on what spell I use," answered Jazzy, "I have control over all spells, but some still are overpowered, mainly those that have an emotional component to them."
"In what way?" asked Flitwick curiously.
"I better show you with a safe spell. Expecto Patronum!" cast Jazzy and her stag patronus appeared. Though contrary to other patroni that the teachers had seen before, this one was a lot more solid.
"My goodness," exclaimed Babbling and went over to touch the stag, only to be astonished that it was actually tangible, "A physically tangible patronus, that is unheard."
Alex held out his little arms to the patronus and the stag allowed the boy to clumsily pat his nose by bowing down.
"It also has some sort of consciousness," added Dumbledore.
"Yes, Prongs seems to be able to think when I bring him out," nodded Jazzy, "Not just to detect danger, but also to help with easy tasks. For example, he is great at calming Alex down when it's time for him to sleep and he's still too excited. It only happened twice so far, but five minutes of Prongs being in the room and he sleeps deeply and peacefully. Then he collected Alex's jumper suit when I was changing him one time from the cupboard. One with a stag motive on it."
Here Barty grinned. His wife's patronus was strange but in good ways.
"Extraordinary," exclaimed Flitwick, "I would like to see and research more of it, Mrs Crouch. This is really fascinating."
Jazzy nodded and then let her patronus fade away.
"We can do that some time when I have some free time. I don't know how much of that I will have this year with OWLs in May though. And we have to catch up on some things as well," answered Jazzy.
"True. Well, we will find a day when you can give up an hour or perhaps two," nodded Flitwick.
Then he handed the four their schedules for the first term.
"Professor McGonagall and I took the times you said your babies normally slept into account to plan your timetables," continued Flitwick his explanations, "Normally you said, they sleep about three to four hours each morning from nine o'clock on, which gives us the four periods of morning classes to let you participate in them normally. I expect that to change a bit over time when the boys are a bit older. But until the Christmas break, I believe that them sleeping fifteen to sixteen hours a day will continue. In case they wake up, your house elves can take care of things until you return over lunch. For the afternoons, we went with a flexible timetable, as you wrote that the boys normally are more awake during the early hours of the afternoon."
Hermione and Jazzy nodded at that.
"The number of subjects was also adjusted to allow you to concentrate on what you want to prioritise. We will continue the personalised lessons with Professor Hagrid in Care of Magical Creatures, as that will be easiest with your babies. We have already discussed his plans for the fifth years and what needs to be known for the OWL exams. He has promised that he can create a lesson plan for all students that will concentrate on him demonstrating how to handle the creatures. Some of those lessons can even be done with the babies coming with you, in case of larger creatures, they can stay in his hut. That way, you can spend time with them, be they awake or not.
"Potions was decided to change to you studying the material in theory on your own and then having a concentrated brewing period of four class periods with Professor Snape on Friday mornings. That way, you don't have to worry about your classmates making mistakes that could be problematic for you while you still breastfeed your babies. He agreed to arrange his time this way as long as you invest full effort into this subject."
Unsaid was that he might have used some very uncomplimentary descriptions about certain students in his fifth-year classes that couldn't even brew simple potions safely.
"The wanded subjects and Herbology are going to be taught three class periods each week for you, compared to the four that all others have. You will get common practice sheets with things that can come up in OWL exams and have often been part of the exams in the past. As you decided to do History in self-study, that already took out three class periods for the week," added Flitwick.
"Yes, thanks to Endymion getting us study guides for the subject, we should do quite well in that subject and manage our time better," nodded Jazzy, surprising the teachers.
"A study guide for History?" asked Dumbledore.
"Yes, one of my muggleborn classmates told me about it. According to her, somebody had enough of the horrible history lessons here at Hogwarts because nobody could get rid of Professor Binns. To help the matter of getting decent grades in the subject, which was simply impossible due to not being able to stay awake in Binns' classes, which I can only confirm, the author of the study guide got samples of OWL and NEWT exams from the Ministry. He used the information he got and created a well-structured guide in three volumes. Each has about two hundred and fifty pages, which are a mix of information about a topic, some questions to the chapter that was read before and mock tests. It's the sole reason why we in Ravenclaw got any decent history grades for the last few years. The study guide was published five years ago," explained Endymion.
"I never heard about that," admitted Dumbledore.
"Neither did I," agreed Flitwick, "but I noticed that my eagles did better in History than in previous years. I take it that this information is passed on to the new first years when they arrive here."
"Yes, the prefects take care of telling them all about the helpful tools that we discovered over time," nodded Endymion, "And the guide isn't too expensive either. I paid one galleon and thirteen sickles on all three books. A bargain compared to the annoyance of having to read through countless books about the topics, simply because the teacher is useless."
Barty had to hide his grin. He knew that the position of Binns as History of Magic teacher was what kept the DADA teacher roulette going. But he completely agreed with Endymion's assessment.
"Now, now. While Professor Binns isn't the most engaging teacher, he isn't completely useless," said Dumbledore.
"That is your opinion, headmaster, but I don't share it," replied Endymion, crossing his arms before his chest.
"Well, continuing with the schedules, as discussed last year, Astronomy and Divination for Mrs Crouch also switch to self-study, with Ancient Runes already having been added as independent study last school year," continued Flitwick, knowing how pointless it was to try and get Dumbledore to do something about Binns.
"I offer you to come and visit me during my normal consultation hours on Friday afternoons, Mrs Crouch to go over what you have already covered and what normally comes up in OWL exams. I can also equip you with the practice sheets that I offer in my normal fifth-year classes. As it will be outside of classes, you may bring your son as well," threw Babbling in.
"Thank you, Professor, I will take you up on this," accepted Jazzy gratefully.
"For Mrs Lestrange, Astronomy will be self-study, but by your request, you want to sit in classes for the subjects Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, as you want to include these two into your career planning," Flitwick took over again.
"That's correct, Professor," nodded Hermione.
"The classes will be on the same day in the afternoon, to make arranging care for your son easier for you. This way, you only need one day where your husband or your house elves have to look after him during the time he's normally awake," commented Flitwick.
"Thank you, that will help a lot," accepted Hermione.
"Now to the schedules of the gentlemen," said Babbling and looked at Endymion, who was going to be her apprentice, "During the mornings from Monday till Friday, you will accompany me to classes when I have them. As I teach an elective, I don't have as many of them as the teachers for the core subjects up to fifth year. Normally, I have at most about twenty-four class periods during the week. It depends on how many students choose Runes as an elective. That means, with the normal school day having eight class periods, you won't have to be present each period. During the free periods, I want you to work on tasks I will give you for the first month. They will include learning a new Runes alphabet and translating harder works that weren't covered at Hogwarts.
"Mostly this will take place in the mornings. For the afternoon that your wife will be in classes for Runes and Arithmancy, you will be free, you may use the time, if your son allows you to do it, to study on your own, but I expect you will be quite busy with him. Which is perfectly alright, as you should enjoy spending time with your son and seeing how he grows and learns new things all the time. Two of the other afternoons outside of the one where you will be the primary caregiver for your son, you will be given some homework to grade, mostly that of the third years, as their level is easiest to get started with grading.
"The remaining two afternoons are those when I don't have classes and I can concentrate on furthering your theoretical and practical understanding of the subject, which is part of every apprenticeship. The weekends are free of work for you but you will get to take one patrol shift on Saturday, as technically, you and Mr Crouch are part of the staff and we share the shifts fairly. Even if you, as apprentices, don't have to do more than one per week," explained Babbling.
"That's okay, I can work with these arrangements," nodded Endymion.
"For you Mr Crouch, it will be similar. Even if your wife doesn't have the same number of classes as Mrs Lestrange, but I have more classes that I teach each week, meaning you will get more practical experience in how to conduct a class. As your goal is to become a teacher when you have finished your apprenticeship, this has more importance in your schedule. You also wish to gain mastery in two subjects, Defence and Charms. Defence builds up on several areas of Charms, thus we will concentrate on Charms for the first six months. Afterwards, Professor Snape will add some lessons on Defence as well. This will come up to six class periods overall.
"As we have a new Defence teacher again, this time somebody who doesn't have a mastery of the subject, we decided against letting you work with Professor Montgomery. We will see how we arrange things for next school year," said Flitwick, "Next to that, you will also grade the essays of my first to third year classes and I will give you some guidelines what to look out for while doing so. I have reserved Thursday afternoons for you to work with you one-on-one to further your knowledge of Charms. Due to me teaching forty-two class periods, I don't have as much free time during the day as Professor Babbling to set aside for teaching an apprentice.
"Once you have finished your first year of the apprenticeship, I plan to let you teach the first and perhaps second-years one class period a week, then I can free another afternoon for more teaching you in advanced charms outside the Hogwarts curriculum. Of course, you will get books to read and research papers to create, but the latter will start next term."
"Alright, that is something I expected," nodded Barty.
"Good, now, as your situations are unique at the school, we have decided to add something else," mentioned Dumbledore, "The students were informed about the special situation and how your forced participation in the ritual that was reported about after you could escape, led to both Mrs Crouch and Mrs Lestrange being pregnant and how we kept things secret to allow a mostly normal school term for all students. Most have taken the news well, some are annoyed about what they consider special treatment, but they shouldn't act out. We made it clear that it wouldn't be tolerated.
"You may of course invite friends to visit you in your suites, but that has to be kept to the afternoons. Not only because your children will need their sleep during the evenings and the nights, but also to not distract the other students from their homework. I also wish to tell you that while it is perfectly normal to breastfeed your babies, this isn't to be done in public. If it happens that you are outside the suites with the babies and need to feed them, find an empty classroom and take care of it there."
The two young mothers nodded. They understood why it wouldn't be proper to do it in the open.
"Madam Pomfrey will take care of the normal examinations that babies get at certain points in time. It is simply easier and safer than arranging trips to St. Mungo's. In case of illnesses that she doesn't know what to do, that is of course still possible, but for security reasons, we would like you to not venture out without an escort too many times. I know that you gentlemen are of age and thanks to your marriage your wives are emancipated, but we still haven't caught Peter Pettigrew and I don't want to leave open flanks until he's in prison," continued Dumbledore.
"Okay, does that also include Hogsmeade visits?" asked Hermione.
"No, we already arranged proper security for them, thus you may enjoy them just like all other students," cleared Dumbledore up.
The two couples nodded. They could manage this.
"Now, this was everything we needed to talk about for now. I suggest you go to your suites and then you can join the other students for lunch in the Great Hall," said Dumbledore and the two couples nodded.
They knew that the other students would bombard them with questions, but they would manage. Though they would leave the two babies back at their suites with the elves watching over them. They wouldn't do well with all the students being curious about them.