Chapter Text
art by elivrayn
At the end of a rather desolate street in Herefordshire, a woman appears seemingly out of nowhere. She is smartly dressed, almost impeccably so, appearing to be perhaps a solicitor of some kind.
She smooths her skirt and straightens her posture before taking off at a brisk pace towards the red-brick house with the number 20 to the left of the door.
She stands there for a minute, though she doesn’t seem to be lost or confused. She taps a wooden stick on her wrist and mutters an indecipherable phrase under her breath, the number 8:59 appearing in front of her.
The average passerby may have stopped to gawk at such a sight, or even rub their eyes and shake their head in disbelief. But there were no people about on this bright summer morning, for it is a Saturday, and the inhabitants of this street do rather enjoy having a lay-in on the weekends.
The woman places a delicate knock on the doorway the minute the numbers in front of her turn to 9:00. The paint on the door in front of her is starting to peel away, the weathered wood underneath visible to those who choose to look closely.
The woman hears footsteps approaching the door from the other side and takes another moment to smooth out her clothing, though there were no wrinkles to begin with.
“Hello?” answers a portly man at the door, “how can I help you?” he asks, as if remembering his manners. His hair is dishevelled, and the woman suddenly feels rather guilty for interrupting his morning. But she quickly swats this feeling away, reminding herself that she is, after all, a very busy woman.
“Hello,” the woman smiles. “I’m Professor Granger, I was wondering if I might speak with you and your wife about your daughter Elizabeth for a moment.”
The man furrows his brow, evidently shocked by many things all at once. Perhaps it is Professor Granger’s early arrival or the fact that she knows his daughter's name. But no matter, he opens the door a little wider and beckons her inside, hollering for his wife in the process.
The house is a cosy one. One that is evidently lived in, arts and crafts lining the walls, shoes tossed carelessly at the door. The Professor smiles, for this is her favourite kind of home.
The smell of sausages greets her nose as she follows the man down a hallway, entering a small kitchen at the back of the home. The windows are open, allowing for the warm summer air to float through the space.
“Hello, Mrs. Beverly,” the Professor smiles. The woman smiles back, though wearily, the tips of her smile not reaching as far as they would if she was genuinely happy to see the Professor.
“Hello Ms…” she trails off, waiting for the strange woman to introduce herself.
“Professor Granger,” she adds, extending her hand towards the woman. The woman accepts, confusion still riddled across her face. Though, interestingly, the title Professor seems to inspire some confidence.
“Is Elizabeth here?” the Professor asks as she takes a seat at the kitchen table. She had not been invited to sit but decided that the lack of invitation was most likely due to Mrs. Beverly’s confusion, rather than a lack of manners.
“She’s down at the stream, just behind the garden,” Mrs. Beverly explains, glancing towards the back of the house. “Would you like me to fetch her?” she inquires.
“Not at the moment. I would like to speak with you and your husband first if that’s alright,” the Professor explains.
The couple comes to join her at the table, sharing a brief glance of worry with one another. The professor smiles inwardly, memories of her own parents floating through her mind.
“Now I’m sure my presence is quite a shock, but you need not worry,” the Professor begins. “Has Elizabeth ever been able to do things you consider to be… out of the ordinary?” she asks with a smile.
The Professor knows the couple will reply in one of two ways. The first, and the rather preferable way, is that they tell the truth, deciding that this strange lady could be the answer to the questions they’ve been having ever since their daughter first showed signs of accidental magic. The second, and unfortunately the much more common option, is that they deny the accusations, thinking the Professor to be something of a lunatic.
The Professor holds her breath for a moment, attempting to decipher what their response will be. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Mrs. Beverly begins, looking positively aghast at such a suggestion. Her husband places his hand over hers on the table, sending her a glance of what the Professor can only assume to be reassurance.
“When Elizabeth was six-years-old,” he begins, “she was climbing the tree just there,” he points to the tree visible through the open window. “She slipped and fell, and I rushed towards her, hoping to catch her,” he continues. “But then, it was as if her fall was slowed as if she was floating,” he adds, a slight grin on his face, surely due to how silly he feels for admitting such a thing. But Mr. Beverly, for whatever reason, feels as if he can trust the strange lady with such a tale.
The Professor keeps her reaction on the border of neutral and positive the entire time. After many visits over the past few years, she has this process down to a perfect science. If she reacts at all surprised by the tale, the parents typically withdraw, not wanting to be considered nutters or what have you. If her reaction is overly positive, however, the parents tend to think of her as a nutter.
“And have there been any other occurrences such as this?” Professor Granger prods, looking directly at Mrs. Beverly. The woman opens her mouth to speak but quickly snaps it shut. The Professor remains patient, allowing the mother to open up in her own time.
“Well,” she begins, fidgeting slightly with her apron. “Just last year, there was a boy who was picking on her at school,” she continues, looking toward her husband. “Elizabeth was somehow able to leave the school and walk over a mile home by herself, undetected.”
The Professor nods. “I had a similar experience when I was Elizabeth’s age,” she explains. She allows the parents to come to terms with what she has just said before continuing.
“I am actually visiting today to offer your daughter a place at the school at which I am a Professor,” she continues. “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” she adds with a kind smile. She pushes a small envelope towards the parents, the letter addressed to Elizabeth Beverly.
They open the letter together in silence, skimming through the information. The mother looks up with a concerned expression on her face, staring at the Professor as if seeing her for the first time.
But now is Professor Granger’s favourite part of the visit. She removes her wooden stick once more and points it at the kettle, it suddenly reaching a boil. Next, she summons three mugs, adds the teabags and pours the hot water all without laying a finger on the objects.
The father grins immediately, a look of bewilderment on his face, the mother slightly less shocked than her husband.
The Professor spends the next half hour explaining the basics of the wizarding world, being sure to include that she was also not born to a wizarding family. She watches the mother start to relax as time goes by. This makes the Professor happy because she hasn’t even gotten to the best part, the part she is the proudest of.
Professor Granger, motivated by her own time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, created a program for other witches and wizards such as herself. She did not want these new students to feel as lost as she had, as confused and othered . She wanted nothing more than for every single student who passes through Hogwarts’ doors to feel welcome and at home.
The Muggleborn Integration Program was implemented the year that Professor Granger was hired at the school after the completion of her Double Mastery in Charms. In fact, she had made the program a condition of the acceptance of her role. Headmistress McGonagall had supported the initiative wholeheartedly, mostly because she was struggling to keep up with her visits to all the muggleborn students that seemed to be born at a rate much higher than ever seen before.
Professor Granger has a theory as to why this might be, something she had begun to refer to as Magical Self-Replenishment. She knows that magic is far more than what we can see, more than even witches and wizards will ever be able to comprehend. She knows that magic is around us, perhaps stitched into the very fabric of our lives.
It is for this reason that the Professor believes magic is able to detect when the number of magic users is dwindling—an unfortunate repercussion of the war. It seems that magic was determined to repopulate its users, placing the gift of being able to manipulate it in the homes of more muggles than ever before. The Professor has seen the numbers, and they are shocking. By her calculation, there will be more muggleborn witches and wizards in the world than those born to magical families by 2023, should current trends progress.
But the Professor has never been someone to look at the facts and accept them as such. No, she is someone who wants to do something about it.
The Muggleborn Integration Program was created for this reason. From the end of June to mid-July, the Professor travels across the United Kingdom, visiting 2-3 muggle families each week. The encounters range from one brief hour to many consecutive hours, depending on the acceptance of the parents. The visit always follows the same structure, the Professor making her way through the flowchart in her mind.
If one or both of the parents seem to be reluctant to believe the words she is speaking (and rightfully so, she can remember her own shock all those years ago), she will carefully pull her wand out of her pocket, and perform a simple task, nothing too daunting. Most of the time, much like today, she will prepare tea.
The Professor then explains the Muggleborn Integration Program at length. She used to come prepared with PowerPoint slides that she would cast in the air next to her, but her friend Harry assured her that this was over the top and unnecessary.
The program is simple, in her humble opinion. All the first-year muggleborn students are invited to arrive a week prior to September 1st. A member of the staff escorts each family through the floo to Hogsmeade. At first, there had been some reluctance to allow the Muggle parents onto the premises, but the Professor had been adamant that it was necessary.
She argued that the parents needed to understand the world that their child was entering, not only so that they could be reassured that they would be safe, but also because it’s crucial for them to understand their child.
Far too often are muggleborn wizards and witches forced to choose between their two worlds, and the Professor didn’t want this to be the case any longer.
An agreement had been reached between her, The Wizengamot, and the Hogwarts Board of Directors: the parents would be allowed on the premises for three days only and had to sign a non-disclosure agreement of sorts, one that was charmed so that they could not breach The Statute of Secrecy. The parents would stay at the Hotel in Hogsmeade, a short walk away from the castle.
The muggleborn students stayed in the castle, the first week of their stay almost like a summer camp, filled with excitement. But, these students are not sorted until September 1st. Instead, they stay in a general common room of sorts, each house’s colours proudly on display.
The Professor had insisted on this, mostly because she remembers how lonely it had felt her first few days at Hogwarts when everyone else already seemed to know one another. No, the Professor was determined to assure that all the muggleborn students have the opportunity to make friends before they were split into their respective houses. It is also a fantastic way to promote inter-house unity, something that she had included in her lengthy, 300-page proposal.
The week leading up to September 1st is filled to the brim with a variety of activities and workshops. For some, such as the workshops on wizarding culture, the students and parents are both welcome to attend. Headmistress McGonagall explains The Statute of Secrecy, the structure of the student's studies for the next 7 years, and even invites some of the more friendly ghosts to introduce themselves.
For some other workshops, such as the history of wizarding kind, the students are invited to explore the grounds with Professor Longbottom who is always far too eager to urge the Giant Squid to reveal itself to the eleven-year-olds.
While the students explore, the parents are given a crash course of sorts on the more complex aspects of their history, including, of course, the last Wizarding War. This lesson, delivered by Professor Granger herself, is one of utmost importance, for she believes that it is crucial for the parents to know and understand the world that their children are entering.
Each workshop curriculum was meticulously designed by Professor Granger who used her own experiences as a place to start but continuously modifies and improves them based on the feedback they receive. She sends a modified version to the Ministry of Magic and the board of directors each year, though she doubts that they read it.
The third and final day of the parents’ visit involves a trip into Diagon Alley to fetch the students' supplies. The staff of Hogwarts happily take on a few families to show around, visiting Flourish and Blotts, Madam Malkins, and Ollivanders.
There is, of course, a scholarship fund in place for families who cannot afford such things, generously funded by various supporters, and one anonymous donor in particular who donated over half the funds.
At the end of the parents’ three-day stay, they are offered some reading materials, free of charge. The collection of books offers further information on the Wizarding World, and Hogwarts in particular, should they like to know more. Some parents happily accept, evidently eager to read through the pages. Others accept with a kind smile, though Professor Granger can tell that the books will most likely sit untouched on their shelves. The last group of parents, and consequently Professor Granger’s least favourites, are those who refuse the books outright.
Actually, her least favourites are those who do not attend at all, quite happy to send their child off to a strange place without a care in the world. Though, she supposes that there will always be people like those who raised her dear friend Harry.
When Elizabeth comes barreling into the kitchen, covered head to toe in dirt, the Professor can’t help but grin. “Hello Elizabeth,” she adds, her voice transforming into a pitch slightly higher than usual.
“Hullo,” the child replies, a devilish sort of look in her eyes.
“Would you like to be cleaned up?” the Professor asks.
“Okay,” the child replies simply. The Professor loves the simplicity of children, the way they don’t overthink things such as a strange person offering such a thing.
With the wave of her wand, the dirt disappears, Elizabeth’s hair pulling into a plait at the same time.
Elizabeth grins, her mother uttering something under her breath about wishing that she was able to do such a thing, the ability likely saving her countless hours of housework.
After the Professor gives a rather simplified version of Hogwarts to Elizabeth, she readily accepts before quickly running back out into the garden. Not a moment later she returns, a stick in hand.
“Can you show me how to do that?” she asks, holding the stick out towards Hermione.
“I will, very soon Elizabeth,” she assures her. She doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the object she is holding is nothing but an ordinary piece of wood, for the Professor is a firm believer that half the fun of learning about magic is the ability to start to see it everywhere.
After setting up the Beverly’s floo, and arranging for their appointment in two weeks' time, the Professor steps out onto the street once more. She casts the same spell as before, and at the appearance of the numbers, disappears quickly from where she had stood as if she had never been there at all.