‘There must be some potion or spell that we could use to reverse the effects’, Neville muttered under his breath.
He looked over at his companion, who was barely visible over the stack of library books dividing the space between them.
It felt strangely comfortable to be back here in the Hogwarts library doing research with his fellow Gryffindor.
‘We’ve been here for ages, Nev, and I am pretty sure that by this time, we have scoured every single document in this place. If we haven’t found anything by now, it cannot be found,’ she said, with determined finality, as she closed the last book in annoyance with an almighty bang, which would have seen her banned from the library for eternity, if she wasn’t the headmistress of this school.
Neville couldn’t stop himself from laughing.
‘Just because we haven’t found anything here, doesn’t mean it does not exist. First of all Hogwarts is not the only school with an extensive library. It is possible that the dark arts section in Durmstrang is more extensive than our one. I also seem to recall that some of the homes of the so called ‘Sacred twenty eight’ turned out to have very impressive collections, as we discovered after the war, most of which have not yet been catalogued or archived. The Malfoy collection, in particular, could be of some use.’
Hermione harrumphed as if to express that she would highly doubt that, but Neville’s raised eyebrows refrained her from voicing her disdain at the notion that there were superior libraries. Her fondness for the Hogwarts library may have clouded her judgement just a tiny bit. She really loved this place, where she had spent so much time during her school days and if truth be told, this was still her sanctuary after hours, when the students were supposed to be in bed.
There had been more than one occasion when a student had been thwarted in their attempts of a nocturnal dalliance by the presence of their headmistress in the library when they tried to sneak in.
Thankfully there were no students enrolled, who were in the possession of an invisibility cloak. Not yet, at least. It would be at least another eleven years before any of the Malfoy-Potter brood would be eligible to attend school. It wouldn’t be long now before Harry and Draco would welcome their first into the world.
She was brought back to the real world, by Neville’s continued listing of all other possible locations of books and interrupted him.
‘That’s not much use to us here, is it. We have no access to any of those potential resources.’
‘Merlin, you are dense tonight,’ Neville exclaimed.
First of all, I am sure you can use the Durmstrang’s headmaster’s affection for you to persuade him to lend you some of their library collection. Surely you know how Muggle libraries work? Secondly, I am sure the Ministry would be delighted to give one of the ‘heroes’ of the second wizarding war access to the vast collection of confiscated books for research purposes and possibly even with a view to cataloguing them. He used air quotes when referring to himself as a hero, as he was always uncomfortable with that term, but he wasn’t beyond using it, when it suited him.
‘Talking about cataloguing, we really should look into digitising our school collection, as Lou suggested,’ Neville continued, 'that would make doing this type of research so much easier and faster.'
After their first date in Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop and an interesting muggle Valentine’s Day party as Lou’s date, they had grown quite close.
Dressing up as Romeo, thanks to Jo’s assistance, might have had the desired result of Lou not being able to take his eyes of him, but it had also annoyingly led to everyone he was introduced to starting their questions with ‘Romeo, Oh Romeo’. Be that as it may, despite his initial misgivings, dressing up had been worth it, as the upside was that Lou and himself were now most definitely some sort of an item and Neville was, not very subtly, being educated by his newfound partner in the many ways the wizarding world was lagging behind when it came to technology. Sure, magic could in many ways be very practical, but there were aspects of the wizarding world that were archaic. The lack of mobile phones and computers being a case in point. ‘Research could be so much easier when using computers,’ Lou had argued, and after showing Neville what computers could do, Neville was now a definite fan of technology and was on a campaign to embrace those aspects of muggle technology that could complement and enhance their magical existence.
He also had come up with a solution to get around the ‘No electricity’ limitations of Hogwarts, by proposing a state of the art Hogwarts Annex on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. They could still conceal it from the muggle world with charms and enchantments, but it would allow for electricity and broadband connections and everything else, a modern research laboratory would require. Neville was also planning on including some nice living quarters for himself and hopefully Lou, when he would get up the nerve to ask him to move in with him.
He had not yet convinced Hermione of the merits of his ideas, but he was definitely on a mission to bring Hogwarts into the 21st Century.
But first things first.
They really had to get their hands on those other books.
‘I am not dense, just tired and upset,’ Hermione said more defeated than Neville had ever seen her.
‘I tell you what, you get in touch with Krum to try to get a lend of some of their books and I will try to convince the Ministry to give us access to all the confiscated Death Eater books,’ Neville said, ‘but first you need a hot bath and a good night sleep.’ And with those words he ushered Hermione out of the library and pointed her into the direction of the headmaster’s bathroom, which was even more impressive than the prefect’s one and that was saying something.
Although Lou and himself had seen some very impressive bathroom ideas on their visit to the Home and Garden Expo last weekend. Lou had gotten tickets, because he thought Neville might like the garden designs, but the Home part of the expo had been equally interesting, especially in light of Neville’s budding ideas of maybe setting up house with Lou in the future.
‘If you like this, I will definitely have to get us tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show,’ Lou had said after visiting the expo.
Neville loved how Lou was very much in the driving seat when it came to planning their leisure time. Literally in the driving seat, as Lou refused to use side along apparition, so they generally drove in Lou’s forest green Morris Minor 1000 Cabriolet, his pride and joy and envy of many muggles, as evident from the admiring stares they were getting, wherever they went. Maybe Neville would talk to Ron’s dad, Arthur, to ‘soup up’ the car with some magical improvements, as the car always felt a bit cramped for Neville’s long legs and there was no boot space to speak of.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Since taking over the school, Headmistress Granger had abolished the Tri Wizard Tournament. It helped that the headmaster of Durmstrang had been a past Tri Wizard Champion and had no fond memories of it other than meeting a young Gryffindor girl, who was now headmistress of Hogwarts. While Madame Maxime had retired, she was quick to agree with Hermione’s assessment that the international magical co-operation that was supposed to be at the core of the tournament, would be better served through some sort of exchange programme rather than a series of lethal tests. And so the Tri Wizard Tournament was replaced with the International Wizarding Exchange Programme. As a result, Hogwarts was now hosting three foreign exchange students, Janislav Ivanov from Durmstrang, Sylvia Dubois from Beauxbatons and Louise Kingsnorth from Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a school heretofore excluded from the formerly European centred Tri Wizard Cup, and maybe rightly so, as it was the Ilvermorny student who was the reason for headmistress Granger and deputy-headmaster Longbottom‘s current frantic search for some way to reverse a case of accidental magic involving this exchange student.
Miss Kingsnorth, was by all accounts a talented young witch, but unfortunately did not play well with others and had a clearly overinflated estimation of her own abilities.
Ignoring the concerns of her colleagues, including the very capable Jo Parkinson-Smyth, the Hogwarts student liaison in the International Wizarding Exchange Programme, she clearly had embarked on some magical testing, without informing her fellow exchange students, and foolishly appeared to have used herself as a test subject rather than, as is customary, though much to Professor Longbottom’s dismay, a toad or rat.
To say that Louise and Jo had not hit it off from the start was an understatement. Louise refused to use the correct pronoun when addressing Jo, and insisted on referring to them as she, which infuriated Jo and was highly embarrassing for the other two exchange students, who supported proper pronoun use wholeheartedly. Furthermore she clashed with Jo on the treatment of Marwood, their resident Giant Squid, who in Louise’s opinion should be kept in line, by being locked up in a cage, in accordance with guidance from the US Body for Protection of Magical Creatures, instead of indulged with chocolate frogs and invited to participate in Waterpolo matches. The inclusion of Lou Metcalfe on the Squid research team, who Louise disdainfully referred to as a No-maj was a further bone of contention between the two students.
In fact, Louise had turned out to be an overall bad fit for the Exchange Programme and Hermione was sorry she had suggested the inclusion of a representative of the American school and now the silly girl had managed to turn herself into a statue of a Sphinx somehow, without leaving any notes behind how she managed to do so and foolishly the statue seemed to be unable to communicate in any way, which made finding out what happened all the more difficult. Sending her back to the States in this condition, while tempting, would not improve any international magical co-operation, so that wasn’t an option either.
Providing there would be any future programme after this disaster, Hermione vowed to make a recommendation to the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons Heads to exclude Ilvermorny from future Exchange Programmes and change the name to European Wizarding Exchange Programme when they managed to reverse the spell.
On the plus side, Louise having silenced herself this way, was a major improvement, according to the remaining programme participants, who, in her absence, were enjoying spending time with Marwood, exploring Hogsmeade and participating in quidditch matches, chess games and, at Janislav’s suggestion, they took turns in providing traditional home cooked meals for each other. To avoid strike action from the Hogwarts elves, they used the kitchenette in Neville’s private greenhouse for this and they included Lou and Neville in their dinner parties. Janislav was an excellent cook and confessed that he would love to train as a chef, if his parents would allow this. Sylvia wasn’t quite as proficient in the kitchen, but made up for it with her French accent and wit and by sticking with the basics. In comparison, Jo was a complete disaster, when it came to cooking and had to enlist the help of Lou, who turned out to be nearly as passionate about cooking as Janislav. By all accounts, none of them were missing the company of Louise Kingsnorth, and if Neville didn’t know any better, he wouldn’t have put it past them to turn their fellow Exchange Programme member into a stone Sphinx, just to get a break from her.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Having been successful in getting a lend of some of the Durmstrang books and having been given sole responsibility for the safeguarding, cataloguing and storing of the entire confiscated library content of the former Death Eaters - trust the Ministry to see an opportunity to wash themselves of this responsibility at the earliest opportunity - Neville and Hermione had continued their search for a possible reversal spell or potion, as it was unclear which of the two methods Louise had used to cause the, likely accidental, transformation. According to Jo, it was more likely that Louise had tried to create or summon a sphinx to make it work for her, rather than turning herself into one, given her disdain for magical creatures.
Given the fact, that some of the materials in the books, could potentially be too dark for students, Hermione and Neville had set themselves the task to scour the books for a solution.
Lou had pointed out that now that Hogwarts had been officially tasked with cataloguing, what he referred to as ‘His Dark Materials’, it would make sense to do this as they were going through the many boxes of books sent over by the Ministry, to avoid double handling. He offered to record any books they looked at in a computer spreadsheet. He suggested that the daily battery life of his laptop should be sufficient for this task without requiring electricity. This would make it easier to later sort the books by title, author, subject, original Ministry box, or whatever way Hermione would like to sort them.
While Hermione still pretended to only reluctantly agree to this offer, she actually welcomed it wholeheartedly. Like Neville, she was no fool and had already conceded in her mind the merits of the proposal for an off-site Annex by her deputy-head and his partner. In fact she had surreptitiously put out feelers among the board members and had quietly looked into the possibilities of buying a suitable site in Hogsmeade and had undertaken some cost analyses. But she took pleasure in seeing the two lovebirds putting together solid plans for the longtime survival of their school and the longer she held out, the better refined the plans became. Hermione was no fool, indeed.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The friends worked in companionable silence, only interrupted by either Hermione or Neville reading out the Author and Title of the book they were looking at and maybe a few words to describe the content, and the box number, just in case that information would ever be needed, which Lou recorded and saved into his spreadsheet.
‘This might be it,’ Neville said all of a sudden, while continuing to read.
‘Inanimate object…’, he muttered,’
‘... requires Dragon blood,’
Neville… mumbled to himself, ‘… that should not be too difficult… just a matter of finding Draco…’
‘That is barbaric!’ Hermione shrieked, ‘I know he has put you through hell during your school years in Hogwarts, but really Neville…’
Both Neville and Lou stared at her, as if she had lost her marbles.
‘What are you talking about Hermione? Dragons blood is a herbology term. It refers to the red resin from the fruit of the Daemonorops draco or the Dracaena draco tree,’ the two men said in unison.
Hermione looked at them sheepishly. She didn’t know why her mind had jumped to her best friend’s husband, Draco, who was due to have their first baby any day now.
As if on cue, they were interrupted by a bluish-white light that suddenly materialised in the library and turned into a prancing stag shouting in Harry’s excited voice ‘It’s a girl, it’s a girl. Eight pounds five ounces and we named her Hyacinth or Cinta for short.’ As sudden as the stag had appeared, it vanished, probably to announce the news to other friends.
‘Cinta Malfoy-Potter,’ all three of them said, amazed at the sudden news.
‘Nice name, in keeping with the flower names of both their mothers,’ Hermione said.
‘Well, I guess we’ll better go and visit our goddaughter,’ Neville said to Hermione, as both of them had been asked months ago, to fulfill this role. ‘Miss Kingsnorth will just have to remain a sphinx a little while longer. Hope you don’t mind using the floo, Lou?’ Neville, asked, ‘I really do not want to drive right now, I am too tired,’ which wasn’t the real reason, he simply couldn’t wait to see the new baby.
Lou could see right through his partner and laughed, ‘Floo I can do, side along apparition may take me a while after all Ron’s stories of how he nearly died after splinching.’
‘That is such an exaggeration,’ Hermione said, as always a bit sensitive when the subject of Ron’s apparating mishap came up.
'We can use the fireplace in my office.'
When they arrived at the Headmistress’ office, the cacophony of portrait voices was deafening. Clearly Harry’s patronus had made its appearance here first before finding them in the Library.
‘A daughter, how wonderful,’ Professor Dumbledore said, as they entered the office, after he had silenced the other portraits. ‘Give Harry and Draco my best wishes.’
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Visiting Harry and Draco had been a wonderful distraction from their research and had been exactly what they needed.
Cinta was the spitting image of her father Draco, but seemed to favour Harry’s eyes.
‘Slytherin eyes and Malfoy good looks, what better combination could we have hoped for,’ a proud Draco had said, which had earned him a playful shove from his husband.
Neville couldn’t believe how small and light she was when he cradled her in his arms.
The look Lou gave him, while he was holding the baby, made his heart soar. ‘Thunderbolt City’ he thought, now well familiar with the movie reference.
Lou and Neville had presented the new parents with a squid cuddly toy for the baby and a miniature training broomstick, which had resulted in a appreciative laugh from Harry and Draco, but an indignant look from Hermione, who couldn’t believe that Neville of all people would be giving a broomstick to a baby. ‘I already have to put up with loads of Quidditch stuff at home, no offence Ginny’, she said to her wife, who had joined them with their daughter Faye, after receiving Harry’s patronus, ‘and I can’t believe none of you see any problems with putting baby’s on broomsticks.’
Lou laughed, ‘You have my vote, Hermione, as I would not know my way around a broom, but in all fairness, the store clerk showed us all the safety features and it looked to me as if it was no different, safety-wise, from the muggle baby walkers.’ This earned him a scowl from Hermione and four and a half high-fives from the others, three year-old Faye wanting to join in with whatever the adults were doing.
After congratulating the proud parents for the umpteenth time, it was time for Neville and Lou to floo back to Hogwarts.
They promised Harry and Draco to come back soon.
Hermione said she would see them in the morning, as she left with Ginny and Faye for her own home, for a rare and well deserved midweek night off.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Having successfully extracted the Dragon blood resin and brewed the potion that should hopefully reverse the statue back into a human being, they encountered the problem of how to administer the potion, as the statue had no means of swallowing it.
‘Maybe, we can use one of the fine mist nozzles we use for spraying the orchids in the greenhouse?’ Jo had suggested.
It was a credit to them that they would try to come up with a solution, despite their dislike of the exchange student.
‘Well, that sounds about as good a suggestion as any and we have nothing to lose,’ Neville said.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It took a while to completely spray the statue, but once they had successfully covered every inch in a thin layer of potion mist, the statue slowly reverted back to Louise, who seemed to be none the worse for wear and seemed to be completely oblivious of what had transpired. She could not even remember how or why she had tried to turn herself into a sphinx.
‘What are you talking about? Why for Merlin’s sake would I try to turn myself into a sphinx? What use are they? Are you people for real?'
There appeared to be no signs of remorse or thanks or any type of feelings on the part of the student.
‘The statue had more personality,’ Hermione heard Jo mutter under their breath to the other exchange students.
‘I wonder how she is going to explain the fact that several weeks have elapsed since she last saw us,’ Janislav mused.
‘Stone-faced, probably.’ Sylvia joked.
Jo laughed, the three students had really bonded over the past few weeks and it would be a shame, if Miss USA would ruin that.
As headmistress, it had been her duty to send Louise to the hospital wing for a checkup and when all appeared to be normal, she went to visit the girl.
She knew that she would have to send the girl home, as it was unfair on the other three students to continue dealing with her, after what they all went through, but she was saved making that decision, as the girl had already packed her bags.
‘Professor Granger, I am going back home to my own school. This Exchange Program,’ she said, deliberately using the American pronunciation, ‘is not living up to my expectations. I will be leaving as soon as transport can be arranged.’
‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Hermione said, as society’s rules of politeness dictated, but in her mind she was dancing a jig of delight.
‘Good riddance,’ Jo and the other two students agreed, when the headmistress informed them, not bothering with any false pretences.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
After Hermione sent the Durmstrang books back to Professor Victor Krum with a letter of thanks and the promise to come visit soon with her wife Ginny, the exchange students, Janislav, Sylvia and Jo spent the rest of the week helping Lou cataloguing the Ministry’s boxes of books, just reading out the titles and authors to him, not opening or leafing through any of the books, as per headmistress' Granger's strict instructions. Most of the titles were actually very mundane, it appeared that not all Death Eaters were into the dark arts, to the extent that their leader had been. Some books were very valuable first editions and collectors items, but few books were considered forbidden. It seemed that the Ministry has simply confiscated all books, rather than just Dark Arts books, the lazy gits. As a result, the catalogue that he had jokingly named ‘His Dark Materials’ now also contained a range of classics such as the full works of Shakespeare, a copy of Moby Dick, a first edition of The Tales of Beedle the Bard and a first edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, to name but a few of the books being catalogued. At least by recording the box numbers, there may be some way of returning some of these books to their owners, where there clearly was no legitimate reason to confiscate them on the basis of being 'dangerous'.
When the students showed an interest in what he was doing, he also showed them what a spreadsheet was, how to enter data and what you could do with the entries, once they were properly entered into the database.
Seeing their enthusiasm, he showed them all the Squid research that he had painstakingly copied from the handwritten scrolls kept by Jo and their colleagues and showed how all those data could be analysed at the push of button, displayed into graphs or tables, which then could be copied into presentations.
When Hermione found the three engrossed students in the library bent over Lou’s laptop, she made up her mind to sanction all Neville and Lou’s proposals to bring Hogwarts into the 21st Century in full.
No more dilly-dallying.
There was still plenty of room for the beautiful centuries old Hogwarts traditions, but she had to agree with Lou, magic should not be a hindrance to the development of the students.
Now that she had made up her mind about the future of the school, she hoped that Neville would also have the courage to take the next step in his private life.
Maybe the school should consider admitting squibs in the future. She would have to talk to Lou about that, but maybe without using the term squib.
Who would have thought that hiring Lou Metcalfe as a squid biologist many moons ago, would lead to all this.