Family Matters: Chapter Nineteen
Chapter 19
Both the Grangers walked carefully into the staff break room on their first day of teaching and sat heavily in side-by-side chairs. "Rough day so far?" Minerva McGonagall asked sympathetically.
"First day teaching, ever," Helen said, "and I feel like such a fraud. I have all these eager faces out there looking to Doug and me for information, and I am as lost in their world as they would be in mine." Well, now I see where Suemione gets her nauseatingly false humility from. Barf.
"That, Helen, is something you must get used to. As much as I will never truly understand the Muggle world, you will never completely understand so many things - things that are ingrained in us so deeply from childhood that we don’t even think about them."
Despite pretending to be so humble because they are so inexperienced, the Grangers have great ideas to change the Hogwarts curriculum. If they insert sex ed, I will tear out my hair. They want to make Muggle Studies mandatory, and start a "Wizard Studies" class for Muggle born students.
Helen sighed. "I’m not expecting the entire curriculum to be rearranged immediately. Just suggesting things to be considered in the future. BEND TO MY WILL, FOOLISH MORTAL! What we could do right now, though, is get a new textbook. Not only is the current text one of the most soporific things I’ve come across since Russian literature-" Oh bitch, do not go there. Some of us actually enjoy Russian literature!
"You haven’t read the History of Magic texts then, have you?" interrupted McGonagall with a smile.
"-but it’s so out of date it isn’t funny," said Helen firmly, refusing to be derailed from her chosen train of thought, although she smiled at Minerva’s effort. "There is a full chapter in there on care and maintenance of your crossbow. Do you have any idea just how long it has been since any of us had to worry about a crossbow? There does not need to be an entire chapter on the care of crossbows and long and short bows! The only reason I’m going to use the book at all is as a history text, and that’s because I don’t want their parents to have wasted their money!" Huh. If it was that laughably out-of-date, I would have thought that Hermione would have mentioned something about it.
Doug smiled, as did Minerva. "No, darling, tell us how you really feel," he chuckled, making Helen blush furiously. She was about to respond when Severus Snape slid into the room. Dumbledore had installed a slip-n-slide in the staff room, to the delight of the teachers. "Minerva," he said conversationally before sliding his eyes across them and saying nothing.
I'm cutting most of the next section because it makes me so angry. Hermione's parents throw a fit because Snape doesn't love Harry and Hermione as they deserve. I know McGonagall had probems with the grossly unfair way that Snape treated Harry, but she had the class to not have a hissy fit about it.
"Because the cavalry arrived," Snape retorted. "Without the Order and the Aurors arriving, I have no doubt that you would have been mourning the loss of your daughter, and she simply can not see that it is that glory hound’s fault that she was hurt that badly. He kind of has a point. It was Harry's fault. If she can not separate herself from his entourage, then she shall suffer the penalties of feeding his overweening ego."
She snorted. "This young man with the ‘overweening ego’ that you so rant about informed me that he should be thrown on the curb with the rest of the garbage for what his actions had done to Hermione. Were it not for the fact that he has forbidden us to explain his upbringing, I’d tell you just why you are so wrong about him. If you can lower yourself to deal with anything Muggle, then get your hands on the transcripts of the trial ‘Crown vs. Vernon Dursley’ and read it carefully. It will tell you everything you need to know about his home life." Wah wah wah. I don't think that would move Snape either. But you never know. Maybe if he heard about how tasty Harry's grilled hand was, he would weep with remorse.
The Grangers flounce out of the break room.
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The Grangers give a lecture that tries to explain why wizards aren't superior to Muggles, but it just ends up sounding like a lecture about Muggle superiority. Also, apparently wizard medical technology is laughably primitive or something.
"Genetics is an interesting Muggle science," Helen interjected. The class whipped around to look at her. "It’s used all the time in breeding animals. Most people forget that man is an animal too. Anyone out there in the classroom have anything to do with animal breeding?" A girl in Ravenclaw robes raised her hand. "Miss Thomson, isn’t it?" At the girlAPOSTROPHEs nod, she continued. "What type of animals do you breed?"
"Your mother Dogs, ma’am - uh, Professor. We breed Jack Russell Terriers."
"Calling me ma’am is all right. I’m certainly not going to take points for it. Now, what happens if you breed siblings?"
"Depends. Sometimes you get a stronger dog, but more often you get a trait you’d rather not have. It’s one of the reasons that Dalmatians are almost always deaf, and more than a little psychotic. They’re having to breed in other breeds of dog that are similar, just to increased the breeding population."
"Exactly. You get undesirable things happening when you breed animals with close relatives." You get undesirable traits when you REPEATEDLY breed close relatives. Also, it's not the case with all animals. Plenty of insects (like bedbugs) interbreed with no problem.
"Unless you cull," put in Miss Thomson.
"True. When breeding close siblings, strict culling is necessary. For those not familiar with the term, ‘culling’ means to remove individuals showing weaknesses or undesirable traits from the breeding line. With puppies, this means unfit ones are not permitted to breed. Humans, however, are permitted to breed no matter what weaknesses they have. And with an inbred line, those weaknesses multiply and build on each other." She paused. "Is there anyone not following this so far?"
A Hufflepuff boy raised his hand. "Yes, Mr. Cholmondeley?" she asked, pronouncing it Chumley. I DON'T CARE IF YOU PRONOUNCE IT PRINCE SHITHEAD. WHY IS THIS NECESSARY?
"Are you saying that’s the explanation for - well, they matched my eldest brother with our cousin Hope. None of their children have survived more than a year." That's pretty drastic. We didn't even see that with the Blacks, and they were just about as inbred as you can get. I got the impression from canon that it's only a few families that are that fanatical about blood purity.
"Birth defects and the like?" Helen asked. At his nod, she said, "I am sorry to hear about your brother and his wife - I am truly sorry for what they must be going through. But that is precisely what I am referring to. Cousin marriages are even worse than brother sister marriages, as odd as that may seem. But to keep the bloodlines pure, that’s what you need to do. And you heard what Miss Thomson said: they have to breed in other lines to keep the breed even remotely viable. To put it in terms that you can immediately relate to - if you’re a pureblood, it’s safe to say that there aren’t too many more generations before you’re literally marrying brothers and sisters, if you insist on keep the blood pure. And if you’re lucky, those children will merely be gibbering idiots." Wow. That's just a little bit offensive.
"I am sorry to say, Mr. Cholmondeley, that the best hope for your brother and his wife would be for them to divorce and find other mates. Wow. Interfering, much? Creepy. Ones not related to them at all. And they should go to a Muggle geneticist to undergo screening to make sure there’s not something nasty and unexpected between them and whoever they choose the next time. Yes, before you ask, this happens in Muggles, too. Any group isolated by cultural factors and forced to breed with a small number of related individuals will inevitably develop problems."
Cut for some copypasta about replacement rates and genetics. It's boring, and it pisses me off, because Kinsfire is moving in a direction that makes me very uncomfortable.
Doug interjected. "There’s another side to the purity issue." He walked to his podium and looked at the students. "Grindelwald." Oh, I cannot wait for this crap. They gasped. "I learned a little something about him recently, and I thought that those of you out there who were raised with a knowledge of the Muggle world would find it interesting. Adolf Hitler. No, Grindelwald was not Adolf Hitler, but he was known to the Muggle world as Reinhardt Heydrich, the father of The Final Solution." WHAT THE FUCK? NO. JUST NO. THIS IS WHY IT IS TAKING ME SO LONG TO SPORK THIS FUCKING FANFIC. SHIT LIKE THIS. Several students paled, while the wizard raised children looked puzzled.
Blah blah blah. Cut for lecture about the Holocaust. Apparently Grindelwald was trying to eliminate groups of Muggles who were likely to give birth to wizards. That's what the Holocaust was all about, guys! Wow. Now I'm REALLY offended.
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The first week went well for them - word of their disciplinary measure against Pansy had been enough to point out that these new teachers did, in fact, want to have sex with students have teeth. They shared a pleasant dinner with Harry and Hermione on Saturday, Harry talking with some enjoyment about the robes the gentlemen would be wearing at this wedding. With Ron’s amused blessing, Harry had sprung on Remus the request that Lupin be his best man. WHAT? What's Ron, chopped liver? "I told him that, at least in that way my parents could be there in some way," Harry said. "It’s safe to say that none of us exactly had dry eyes." The conversation continued pleasantly, except for a short moment of nausea on Helen’s part. Let me guess. She's preggers. And it's Harry's child.
"Sorry," she said, exiting the water closet. "I think it’s going to take a while for me to get used to the food you eat here. It’s a tad bit richer than I’m used to eating, and my system simply does not want to accept some of it. AND I'M DEFINITELY NOT PREGNANT OH NO NO NO. Not exactly going to complain, because it seems to be the more sugary foods that set it off."
"Pity," Harry said. "Some of the desserts here are to die for." He blinked. "I do not believe that I just quoted Lavender Brown." Hermione chuckled warmly at him. The night ended after curfew, but Doug escorted them back to their rooms to avoid any detention problems, and Harry made Doug promise to have Helen talk to Madame Pomfrey about her nausea, in case it was an allergy to something. That's not at all condescending! But I'm sure Harry knows much better than either of them. "I love her, Doug," he said simply, "and I don’t want to see anything happen. Get her checked out, okay?" Doug had grinned and nodded, even going so far as to hug them both before ushering them into their room.
The next week worked well, although the rumours about a secret orgy nest in Harry and Hermione’s rooms disturbed them. They had a feeling that the nastier of the comments were coming from the girlfriend of one of the seventh year student, who didn’t like her boyfriend noticing other women. Well, I wouldn't be a fan of my husband hanging out with a bunch of naked chicks. If that makes me super eeeeevil, then so be it. There was no proof, however, so nothing could be done.
It was in their Thursday class, however, as they taught the fourth year students about music recording that their sense of foreboding took hold. They were nearing the end of class when a student exploded through the door. "Professors! You need to get to the Hospital Wing! Harry Potter just carried your daughter into the infirmary! She’s unconscious!" Oh, I bet she's preggo, too. Or that nothing will come of it, just like the stupid cliffhanger in the last chapter.
Chapter 18 ~ Table of Contents ~ Chapter 20