Rating:
G
House:
Riddikulus
Genres:
Humor
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Chamber of Secrets
Stats:
Published: 03/19/2004
Updated: 03/19/2004
Words: 1,644
Chapters: 1
Hits: 517

The Visit

PeterMurray

Story Summary:
Why doesn\\\'t Hogwarts have visits for the families of Muggle-born pupils, so that they can see what their child is getting into? Maybe they used to ... before Penelope Clearwater\\\'s parents came on such a visit.

Posted:
03/19/2004
Hits:
517
Author's Note:
Thanks once more to Anne for first inspiring, and then beta-reading, this story.

The Visit


'Hello,' said Minerva, greeting the family as they got off the train and stood on Hogsmeade's station platform, looking round and blinking in the bright August sunshine. 'I am Professor McGonagall, and I'm the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts. You're the Clearwaters, aren't you? And this must be your daughter Penelope.'

The girl nodded happily. 'Can you do magic?'

'Yes, I can. All the teachers and pupils here can.' She led them to a horseless carriage, which took them to the edge of the trees, where they got their first clear look at the castle.

'Wow!' breathed Penelope. 'That's lovely.'

'I'm still not quite sure about this,' said Mr Clearwater. 'Where's this castle we heard about, then? You can't teach people in that ruin, unless you're completely mad.'

'It's protected by magic, so you can't see it yet. Veritavisio.'

Mr and Mrs Clearwater gasped as they were suddenly able to see the castle. 'What happened?' asked Penelope.

'That castle suddenly appeared!' her mother gasped. 'Didn't you see?' Penelope looked puzzled.

'Your daughter saw the castle as it was, even before I cast the charm to allow you to.' The carriage travelled towards the castle's main entrance. She hoped that the giant squid would stay hidden; it had worried too many visitors in previous years.

'It's massive,' said Mr Clearwater, clearly overawed.

'It's a real fairy-tale castle,' said Penelope happily. 'I want to go to school here. Is there a princess?'

'No, it's not that sort of castle,' said Minerva.

'What sort is it?' asked Mrs Clearwater. 'And what's holding that tower up? Why doesn't it just fall?'

'It's magic,' said Penelope, looking up at it.

'Don't be silly.'

'That is the right answer,' said Minerva. 'The castle's structure is strengthened by magic.'

'Oh.'

They reached the entrance, and Minerva took them briefly into the Great Hall, and then showed them around some of the classrooms. The girl was taking it all in with wide-eyed amazement, but her parents kept looking around as if they were expecting someone to leap out with a camera. They also had a disconcerting habit of poking at anything they didn't recognise, and of not looking where they were going, as they were constantly craning their necks to see where the lights were, and other concealed devices that were the real cause of the unusual things they were seeing.

'Where do you plug things in?' asked Mrs Clearwater in the Charms classroom.

'Good point, I hadn't noticed that,' said her husband.

'We don't. We use magic, not eclectic sockettes and the like,' said Minerva.

Mr Clearwater grunted, and walked out of the classroom again, looking suspiciously around as if he thought people were looking through spyholes at his reactions. There was an urn on a pedestal in the corridor outside, and he encountered that. 'No! Oh, I'm sorry,' he said, vainly grabbing at the urn as it slipped from its stand and smashed on the floor.

'Reparo,' said Minerva, and the urn was repaired. She levitated it back onto the pedestal.

'That's incredible,' said Mrs Clearwater.

'Yes, it was,' said her husband, pushing it off the pedestal and watching it smash again. 'Isn't it going to repair itself again?'

'It didn't repair itself,' said Minerva patiently. 'Watch.' She again repaired it and levitated back into place.

'That's great!' he said, pushing it off again.

'You tell me off if I break things at home!' Penelope complained.

'We're not at home,' said her mother. 'It doesn't matter here.'

'Of course it matters,' said Minerva through gritted teeth. 'Will you please stop setting your daughter a bad example?'

'That's our problem. Do it again.'

'We should get on with the tour if you want to be getting home on time,' she pointed out. 'The next classroom is along here.'

'You didn't repair it!'

'I hardly see the point, as you smash it every time I do!'

Mr Clearwater frowned. 'I'm not sure we're going to be sending our Penelope here, if you're going to react like that.'

Good, thought Minerva, and then regretted it. The girl was the only well-behaved one of the three. She'd probably make a good witch, once she was away from her parents' influence.

The tour brought them up to the fifth floor. 'Is that boy having a tour as well?' Penelope asked, pointing at a slightly older boy, who had red hair and a bored expression.

'Yes, of course,' said her mother immediately.

'No.' Minerva looked at the boy. 'Why are you here, Mr Weasley?'

'Father was showing me what a day at work is like for him, and he had to come here to meet the Headmaster,' explained the boy. 'I was talking to Nick, but he got boring. He won't stop talking about his execution.'

'His what?' asked Penelope, fascinated.

'The school has several resident ghosts,' Minerva explained. 'Nick is one of them.' The girl's eyes grew round with wonder.

'Is that safe?' asked Mrs Clearwater, plainly not enjoying the idea as much as her daughter.

'It's quite safe, the ghosts can't harm anyone.'

'Not unless they bore you to death,' muttered the boy.

Minerva decided to ignore his comment. 'Well, we're falling behind on our tour, so we'd better get moving.'

'What sort of colour hair is that? Does he use magic or dye to get it like that?' asked Mr Clearwater, as though the boy couldn't hear him.

'It's red,' he said acidly, looking at Mr Clearwater as he might look at a Flobberworm that had just announced its candidacy for the Minister of Magic's post.

'Come along now,' Minerva said loudly. 'Say good-bye to him, Penelope, we have several classrooms to see yet.'

'Good-bye. The letter about the school said that pupils get put into houses,' said Penelope. 'What --'

Her father interrupted. 'Where are these houses? I didn't see them near the castle -- they're not too far away, are they? I don't like the idea of her having to walk a long way in the dark evenings.'

'They aren't separate buildings,' Minerva explained, 'they're a system of managing the numbers and different aptitudes of pupils. All the dormitories are inside the castle; they are grouped by house, though.'

'What house was --' Penelope began again, but this time her mother interrupted her.

'Different aptitudes? Do you mean what they know? Penelope doesn't know any magic yet! Do you just have a house for kids who haven't learnt anything yet, and let them lag behind everyone else? Why should we put up with that?'

'Magic is used to deduce their aptitudes from their present personalities,' Minerva explained as calmly as she could. 'There is no house like the one you just described.'

'I want to know what --' the girl started again.

Her father interrupted her. 'So she'll be treated fairly? This is very important to us, you know -- we don't want to jeopardise our Penelope's future.'

'Yes, she will be treated fairly. The effort she puts into learning, not her background, will determine how well she does in this school.'

Penelope tried again, 'And what --'

'You're sure about --' Mrs Clearwater began.

Penelope had had enough. 'What house was that boy in?' she yelled. Minerva tried to hide her smile. She'd been tempted to yell at the parents herself a few times.

'Penelope! Don't interrupt!' said her father sternly. His daughter stared at him, annoyed.

Minerva ignored him, to answer the girl. 'He is in Gryffindor. He'll be in the second year for this coming year.'

'Thank you,' said Penelope.

'Who cares?' grumbled her mother. 'He's older than you, he won't even talk to you. Nobody older than me talked to me at my school.' Minerva was very tempted to retort that she was not surprised.

The tour continued up to the Gryffindor common room, which she showed the family as an example of what the house areas were like. Mrs Clearwater slipped and grabbed at a tapestry, pulling it down from the wall. Minerva gave an exasperated sigh, and didn't help the woman to stand up again. Nor did she waste time rehanging the tapestry while the Clearwaters were still there.

Rather than let them into her office, she decided to keep them in the common room. They sat in front of the empty fireplace, and she conjured tea, pumpkin juice and sandwiches for them. The parents looked suspiciously at the tray of food, and the father crouched down to look for hidden doors under the table where Minerva had made the tray appear. Their daughter, though, simply accepted that sandwiches were to be eaten, and juice to be drunk, and took their appearance in her stride.

Minerva ignored the parents' reactions, and invited them to ask any questions they had about the school. This meant some time spent demonstrating magic.

Penelope looked at her parents, then at the Professor, and asked, 'Can you turn things into frogs? Witches in books can.'

Minerva looked at Mr Clearwater, and counted silently to ten, hoping to resist the temptation. 'Yes, I can,' she told the girl, and looked around for something to transfigure while counting further to sixty. She transfigured a poker into three frogs, and then Stunned them to stop them escaping, before transfiguring them back into the poker.

Finally, the tour was over, and she led the family back to the station to catch the next train. Penelope thanked her politely, something neither parent remembered to do.

'Never again,' sighed Minerva as she returned to the school. 'The girl was interested, polite -- if only I could have shown her around without her parents breaking things and being rude.' She remembered she still had an urn to repair again, and a tapestry to hang back up, and her waning enthusiasm hit a new low. 'I must ask Albus if he feels these visits are really necessary.'