Dan was struggling to understand how people could treat a child in that manner, but especially Harry, when a pair of welcome arms wrapped around him from behind. The kiss on his cheek from Emma was also a very welcome surprise as he watched Hermione slip into the seat beside Harry and kiss whatever troubles he had away.
"You were right, dear, they really are good for one another." Emma whispered in his ear, then moved around to sit beside Dan. "We were making our way here when Hermione practically broke into a run. What were you both talking about?"
"Oh, I was concerned about the amount of work and responsibilities these two were taking on when Harry told me what happened in his previous summers - purely to emphasise how much better things are now. We waited on you both coming before ordering anything. What do you want?"
By this time Hermione and Harry had separated, allowing her to answer. "Just a juice, and something to keep us going for the next bout of shopping. The elves spoil us at home, so need to go overboard buying things they will certainly make better than what's on sale here."
Emma quickly agreed, claiming the cappuccino the elves served was the best she'd ever tasted. Dan and Harry joined the food queue to get their ladies what they wanted.
.....
The group had then hit the Naples magical shopping centre with even more enthusiasm, again in awe of how light and spacious everything was. With everyone having gold in their pockets too, it was an excited bunch of teens who took the shops by storm. This time Hermione and Harry stuck with her parents, Dan and Emma being the 'visitors' here.
Hermione had her mum help to choose a few robes, looking at material, style and colours, with the intention of using these to help design PI's uniform robes. Harry and Dan were working for the institute too, buying a range of brooms that would then be assessed for teaching beginners, casual flying and quidditch use.
It was therefor a very happy group who arrived back at the house, only to find a reception committee waiting on them. Dan and Emma tagged along to see what was so important that no one else could make the decisions.
Remus went first, having both good and bad news. "The building work starts tomorrow, the company doing the foundations dropped other work to get right on this. There's going to be a fair bit of prestige associated with working on this building, and everyone wants to be involved." Getting the good news out of the way, Remus then gave them the shock he'd received at the Italian Ministry this morning.
"It would seem that European OWL and NEWT courses are rather more advanced than the ones taught at Hogwarts. I was asked this morning which version we would be teaching our students?"
Harry and Hermione thought the answer was obvious, looking at Remus, Minerva and Pomona - he could see they were troubled by this. "Remus used the word 'prestige', one I'm very happy to have associated with what we're trying to do here. How much of that prestige would disappear if we weren't teaching and sitting the advanced courses? Is there a problem having those courses available for September?"
Pomona knew Harry was correct, but admitted it put a lot more pressure on them as all their course work and lesson plans would have to change. With the work needed to get the school up and running and now the extra burden of new courses to learn and produce as well was leaving the senior staff worried about the imposed deadline of September the first.
.....
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