“What is wrong, Granny?” he asked worriedly.

Minerva laughed and told her grandson, “I have sent the owls this morning, and I have already received so many replies from people who want their children to start immediately that we have to look for teachers urgently.”

“Oh,” Harry said. That was unexpected. From September onwards, it would not be such a problem, as they would have Anna and hopefully Hermione as well and they would surely be able to hire two more of the seventh years, but to need five more teachers within five days time was a problem. “Alright, we can ask Mr. and Mrs. Potter, if one or both of them would be willing to teach at least until the summer, and we could also ask my other grandmother if she perhaps would agree to take over a class at least until summer. Ginny and I will go and ask Mrs. Weasley as well, but we still need more people. Maybe Ginny or Poppy could take over the Potions and Herbology class. They don’t have to be together all the time, do they?” Minerva seemed to relax visibly.

“Thank you Harry, for a lot of good ideas.” She floo-called all the people Harry had named as well as her husband and invited them over to her office for a few minutes. After fifteen minutes, everyone had assembled and listened to the Headmistress’ story.

Half an hour later, everything was fixed. The Potters and Harry’s grandmother only agreed to teach until the summer holidays, but until then they would be able to hire three of the seventh years, especially as Anna had already confirmed her availability. Poppy confirmed that, depending on their normal work, she and Ginny would share the position to teach Potions and Herbology, Mrs. Weasley wanted to teach Charms, Albus would take over the Wizarding Etiquette class, and the three others would help out for the moment and teach Reading and Writing, Maths, and Introduction to the magical world. Harry would hold a Transfiguration class twice a week only for the final class, which he could do during two free periods.

Harry thought for a moment and asked, “The lesson and meal times are the same as here, right?” When his grandparents nodded, he went on, “I think the students will need someone apart from their teachers to talk to. Therefore, maybe I could have lunch at the school and spend some time there until the start of the afternoon lessons. How would that be?” Poppy and Ginny frowned, but Minerva agreed immediately, and Albus promised to set up another fireplace in the Headmaster’s office of the Primary school.

Glancing at Harry, Mrs. Weasley suggested, “When you reply to the parents who want their children to start from Monday onwards, maybe you could invite them over to the school for Sunday so that they have the chance to have a look at the school and to get to know the teachers as well as the other pupils?”

Harry nodded affirmatively and said, “I think that is a very good idea. Granny, if you give me the letters you received, I will write the answers and send them today or tomorrow morning the latest.”

Pomfrey glared at him and said sternly, “Didn’t Ginny tell you not to use ANY magic today? Could you perhaps listen to us once?”

Harry threw her an innocent glance and replied, “I did not intend to use any magic; I solely wanted to write a few letters – without magic.” Minerva frowned and said,

“I don’t know what the problem is, but anyhow we will do it together; I will show you how to answer the letters using magic most efficiently, and you can watch in order to know the next time. Poppy, I promise I will not let him use magic,” she added noticing the stern glare she received from the healer.

Harry turned to Ginny, “Ginny, are we still going to visit your mother today?”

Ginny shook her head and told him, “No, it’s already late; let’s go on Saturday.” When Harry nodded gratefully, she turned to her mother and whispered, “Would it be alright for Harry and me to visit you on Saturday?” Mrs. Weasley smiled fondly at her daughter and nodded affirmatively.

When everyone floo-ed back, Harry stayed in his grandmother’s office and awaited her instructions. Together they invented a letter, and Minerva showed Harry how to copy the parchment exactly how they needed it as reply to the letters they had to answer. Harry was stunned, when he realized that everything was already finished in spite of them starting to work only minutes ago. The letters had put themselves into envelopes and even addressed themselves. Finally, Minerva called a house elf and instructed him to take the letters to the owlery and send them as fast as possible.

“Now, what is left to do is the timetable, however we will think about it later. We have to put two of your free periods in at first, and then we can arrange everything else around them. It is easier with magic than manually, but as you are not allowed to do magic today, we will do it tomorrow or on Friday,” Minerva told Harry.

A few seconds later, Albus entered the office and informed them the new fireplace at the primary school had been connected to the floo network. He turned to Harry and asked, “Now, shall we go and show Granny the school?” Harry smiled and shrugged. Albus stepped back into the floo and shouted, “Headmaster’s office, Hogwarts Primary school.”

Minerva and Harry followed him to the school’s office, although Harry would have preferred to return to his quarters. He had seen enough of the school for the day. They showed Minerva the classrooms and all the other rooms, until she asked astonished,

“When did you do this all?”

Albus laughed and told her, “We have been here this morning for about two hours, and Harry spent here about two more hours yesterday. Harry did most of it; I only decorated the staff room and your office.”

Minerva frowned and stated, “So I assume this is the reason for your problem with Poppy.” When Harry nodded dully, she continued, “Please be more careful, Harry. However, what you have done here is brilliant. The school is very nice so far.”

Harry threw her a tired smile and said, “The rest, the hall and everything else we will do tomorrow morning.”

Minerva looked around, and with a few small waves of her wand, the hall was decorated beautifully. She went downstairs, waved her wand, and the hall on the lower floor was done as well. With a glance at Harry, she said, “I think that’s all, or is there anything else that needs to be done?” When Albus and Harry negated, she suggested, “Alright, then let’s go to the Snape quarters and see if we can get tea there.”

On Sunday morning, Ginny and Harry went over to the primary school directly after breakfast in order to see if everything was prepared for the party. Several house elves were bustling around preparing snacks and drinks and everything they imagined that would be needed for the guests who would be arriving shortly. After a walk around the school, they decided that everything was fine and retired to the staff room to wait for the other teachers to arrive. About thirty pupils arrived together with their parents to get to know the school they were starting to attend from the next day onwards. Fortunately, the multi-purpose room was huge enough for all pupils and their parents as well as the teachers.

Minerva as Headmistress of both Hogwarts schools spoke the greeting and introduced Harry as organizer and Deputy Headmaster of the school. Then Harry took over from his grandmother and introduced the teachers as well as the short-term teachers, before he proceeded to reading the names of every student beginning with the first class, so that the guests stood together class-wise in order not only for the children but also for the parents to get to know each other.

Finally, he went over to every class and handed each pupil a small coloured phoenix on a silver chain, which would take the child directly to the appropriate classroom and back home in the afternoon on school days. When everyone had a portkey and the password, he invited the children to go upstairs and visit their classrooms, which would be the room in the colour the phoenix was, and come back in a few minutes for tea and cake. In the meantime, he spoke to the parents about the different classes they were going to teach. He also told them that it had been difficult to find teachers on such a short notice, but that the teachers’ team would be complete from the next school year onwards. Finally, he asked the parents for their support:

“As you know, this school is new; it was my idea to found it because I thought it would be good to have such a school in order to properly prepare the children for Hogwarts. However, as we are just going to start it, we don’t have the experience with small children, and we will be very grateful, if you have ideas or suggestions for us. You are very welcome to address Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore, who will be teaching fulltime here, or myself. I am teaching fulltime at the main school; but I will be instructing the primary sixth class in Transfiguration. Moreover, I will spend lunchtime at the school as well as the break between lunchtime and the first period in the afternoon. Please feel free to contact me during this time in the Headmaster’s office. Probably from the next school year onwards, we will appoint a class teacher for every class, but I would like to wait with this until our permanent teaching staff will be complete. Our Hogwarts elves have prepared tea and cake for everyone; please help yourself and enjoy your time here at the school.”

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly and fairly uneventful. Everyone seemed to approve of what they had heard and the children were already playing together. Harry tried to talk to as many parents as possible, as he knew that knowing the parents would help him to understand the children, whom he would have to teach during their sixth year and of course later at Hogwarts too. At 4 o’clock, he and Ginny gathered the children to sing a final song, which they had already practised with the teachers as well as Marina, Violet and Brianna. His sisters liked the song very much, as it told of going home and telling of the nice experiences one had shared at school and coming back the next day happily and healthy. Albus would make the whole school sing the song every day before sending the children home. Finally, Harry thanked everyone and dismissed the children until the next day.

It took a while for everyone to floo home, and when Harry with Ginny in tow finally closed the entrance door, the carriages with the students coming back to Hogwarts from their Christmas holidays were just passing by. Harry groaned and told Ginny,

“I didn’t think it was so late. Let me transform and flash us to the castle.” Harry transformed, Ginny held his tail feathers, and Harry flashed both of them into the Entrance hall, before he transformed back and together with Ginny entered the Great Hall just in time for dinner.

The first few weeks at both schools passed well and relatively uneventfully. Harry still had to get used to the additional work and to letting Julia help with the grading. Finally, Ginny asked Julia to approach her brother in order to take over some of his workload. Therefore, Julia proceeded in spending the evenings at her parents’ quarters. As the door to Harry’s office was always open, she could easily ask him to let her help, and she also could help by putting Marina and Violet into the bath and to bed, so that Harry didn’t have to interrupt his work. Harry appreciated her help very much, although he was very sorry for her. She should not be bothered about helping with his work or even about caring for her little sisters but enjoy the evenings in the common room. Therefore, it was only about every third time he asked her for help and instead told the students that they could not always get their homework back during the next lesson and sometimes had to wait until after the weekend.

Harry enjoyed his work very much, although Ginny, who was still joining him every evening after curfew and sometimes even stayed for the night, was very worried about his health, especially as he seemed to be so busy talking to children and parents while he was at the primary school that he hardly managed to eat lunch at all.

A few weeks into the New Year, Harry had again started to teach his seventh year students the animagus transformation, and as before, this was his favourite class, although so far none of the students managed to change even a little part of their body. Ginny and Amelia had finally succeeded in transforming completely, so that he could abandon their Sunday evening lessons, which meant more time to spend with Ginny or his family. And it also meant of course that both of them were going to join the Marauders during the nights in the forest.

When he saw that the primary school was doing well and the children as well as the teachers enjoyed themselves, he proceeded to think about summer classes for muggle born students. Minerva had told him that there would be ten muggle born students to enter Hogwarts on September 1, and he had discussed with her the possibility of visiting the respective families in the near future in order to prepare them for the wizarding world and to recommend the attention of their planned summer class for the soon-to-be Hogwarts students. Finally, they had agreed to visit the ten families together during the Easter holidays.

One day after his animagus class, Harry remembered something and said, “Ms. Granger, please stay back for a moment,” and Hermione came over to his desk glancing at him curiously. “Do you have a few minutes?” he asked hesitantly, and when Hermione nodded positively, he continued, “I just wanted to ask you if you would be interested in becoming a teacher for our new Hogwarts Primary school. We need three more teachers for the kids, and Anna has already agreed to become one of them.” Hermione shot him a shocked glance, but there was something else – was it confused, maybe even hopeful – Harry was not sure how to assess Hermione’s reaction.

Finally, she replied, “Harry, I would like to teach very much. However, what would I have to teach?”

Harry thought for a moment, before he answered, “I am not sure, and such things can change anytime. However, I think it would probably be Reading and Writing for the lower classes and language for the upper classes, Maths or Introduction to the magical world, although I can imagine that Anna would like to cover the last one.”

“And she would be better at it, because she is not muggle born like I am,” Hermione agreed immediately and continued, “I have to talk to my parents about it, but I would love to teach, and it doesn’t matter if it is language or maths. Would I still be able to live at Hogwarts and use the library here?”

Harry gave her an encouraging smile and told her, “I will ask my grandmother, but I think so. Probably at some time, we will also have a class about the Muggle world, but I don’t know when and in which frequency. As the school is new, I have to see how everything develops. The only thing I know is that I need people like you or Anna. Do you know anyone else I could ask?”

Hermione thought for a moment, before she suggested, “What about Neville or Luna? I don’t think a teacher has to have best marks in school but should be able to deal with kids and teach them, and I think both of them could be good teachers.”

Harry slowly took in what she had said and replied pensively, “That’s true; both of them would be alright. Maybe I will talk to Neville first; however I am sure he wanted to do something with Herbology.” They continued to talk for a while, until it was time to head down to the Great Hall.

Just before they reached the Entrance hall, Hermione stopped and said, “Harry, I have thought about it enough, and yes, I would like to teach at the Primary school.”

Harry’s eyes started to twinkle and he threw her a huge smile. “Thank you, Hermione. I am very glad to have you with us.” During dinner, he happily told his grandmother that Hermione had agreed to join them as a teacher and that she had even proposed two other people he could ask. He also asked about the possibility for the primary teachers to live at Hogwarts, and Minerva promised they would be offered their own quarters at the castle as well as all meals in the Great Hall except for those they took at the primary school.

After dinner, Harry went over to Hermione to tell her the good news and was rewarded with a huge smile. “Harry, I am very happy about it. Thank you so much. I can’t imagine anything I would prefer to do after school,” she told him and seemed to be very relieved.

As Harry had imagined, Neville had other plans, and Luna wanted to step into her father’s footsteps, so he had to search for someone else. Suddenly he had an idea, which he shared with Julia in the evening, when they were sitting together in his office grading essays.

“Julia, I would like to ask you something. Just in case I could convince one of the Potters or Mrs. Weasley to teach for two more years, would you be interested to teach at the Primary school?”

Julia threw him an astonished glance and replied excitedly, “Yes, of course, Harry, I would like that very much. Do you think it would be possible?”

Harry shrugged and said, “It depends on whether one of the three will agree to teach until the summer after next summer. I will ask them tomorrow.”

Julia ran over to him and pulled him into a fierce hug. ”Thank you Harry, thank you so much.” Harry sighed contently. Now he only had to persuade his ‘half grandfather’, Mr. Potter, or his soon-to-be mother-in-low, Mrs. Weasley, and the teachers’ problem for the Primary school would be solved. He immediately asked them, when he arrived at the school at lunch time the next day, and Mrs. Weasley indeed agreed to stay for two more years.

A few days later, he did not feel quite well in the evening and went to bed as soon as he returned from the common room. He did not even stir when Ginny came, checked on him, and lay down next to him. However, he shot up in his bed when the alarm at his office door went off. A moment later, his father entered his room and told him that two Hufflepuff students had tried to practise the animagus transformation, and now they were stuck with a few transformed parts of the body, which they couldn’t transform back. Harry groaned and went over to his office in order to follow Professor Sprout over to Hufflepuff. It was as Severus had described from Professor Sprout’s explanation, and Harry quickly changed both students back. As he was too tired to scold them properly, he just gave them detention in his office at 7 o’clock the next evening and took the floo from the Hufflepuff common room back to their quarters. He went back to his room, lay down in Ginny’s arm and was asleep within seconds.

When the two students arrived for their detention, he scolded them in a way, in which nobody ever had heard the friendly Professor Snape-Dumbledore scold someone. And when he finally was sure that they would never try such a stunt again, he led them over to his father’s office, who was already awaiting them in order to have them scrub dirty cauldrons – without magic of course.

One day, Minerva came into the Headmaster’s office at the Primary school during Harry’s office hour after lunch. When Harry finished the conversation with the parent he was just talking to, he threw her an inquiring glance.

“Harry, we have a problem,” she started, and Harry was already imagining the worst, when she continued, “As I am sure you will have noticed, we are getting more and more students every week, and we have already reached our capacities. The classrooms are only intended for ten people, but all classes are already exceeding this limit. Therefore, we have to find a method to enlarge the classrooms.” Harry frowned. He had no idea what she wanted him to do. “Do you think,” she went on, “you could try to enlarge the building? I am sorry for asking you, but as you are the one with the largest amount of magic, if someone can do it, it will be you.”

Harry shook his head and replied, “I don’t know. Granddad still has more magic than I do, hasn’t he?” Seeing that Minerva shook her head, he continued, “I have no idea if and how I could do that.”

Minerva smiled and suggested, “I thought maybe with wish magic like you told me you did the rooms. However I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t want you to put yourself into danger. Only do things you know that they are safe for you to do please.”

Harry snorted. How should he know if it was safe? “I don’t know, I will just have to try, but I cannot try this on a normal weekday when I have classes left afterwards; I have to try it during the weekend.” They agreed to try it on Saturday morning, and Harry hurried back through the floo to his afternoon classes.

Harry groaned; Saturday was still two days away, so he had a little time to think about the whole thing. But in fact, he had no idea what to do about the building. However, he knew that Albus was capable of arranging new rooms, doors and passages to Hogwarts. How and why did that work? He considered visiting his grandfather, but dismissed the thought, because it would take too much time, which he needed for preparing the end of term tests for next week, especially as he didn’t know if he would be able to do any work during the weekend after trying to expand a two-level building. He decided to ask the house elves first. As soon as he called Dobby, his friend arrived with a POP.

“What can I do for Master Harry, sir?” he asked, and Harry told him,

“Dobby, I need your help.” He told him the whole story, and Dobby said pensively,

“Wait a moment, Master Harry. I will call Nina, sir. She is the elf responsible for the communication to the castle. Maybe she will be able to help.” He popped away and was back within seconds with another elf in tow. Harry greeted her friendly, and she said,

“Master Professor Snape-Dumbledore, sir, I is Nina. How can I help sir?” Harry gave her a smile and told her,

“First of all, just call me Harry please or Master Harry if you have to.” He once again told the story, and noticed that while he was speaking Nina’s anxious expression changed to a confident smile.

“I think, I is able to help you, Master Harry. I will take you to speak to the castle. Except for Twinkle and I, only you and maybe your sisters will be able to talk to her.” She took his hand, and they were gone with a POP.