Chapter Text
The school year continued on during the winter term as the staff got more used to deferring to the founders. There were a few more run-ins with the headmaster, but he was learning that fighting them was futile. At least in their own school. Which was the hardest part for him. He had long claimed the school as his fiefdom. For the same reason, though not as good intentions, as the founders did. If one changed the children, then they changed the world. He was only a generation away from having at least taught every magical in the isles if not been their headmaster. And the cover of two wars had done a pretty good job of getting rid of all but a few in his generation that didn’t follow him. But now it was all falling apart around him thanks to the return of the founders and he was still trying to find a way to fight it. Especially when he had to consider the pending return on Voldemort too.
As for the founders, they were managing things well enough. Damon had most of Slytherin house eating out of his hand, but there were still a fair few troublemakers, mostly death eater kids. They were learning not to be as obvious and confrontational about their trouble though after quite a few detentions and quite a few points lost. The rest of the house hardly cared how many times the idiots got detentions, but in regards to the points they were dragging the rest of the house down with them, so peer pressure…and maybe a few threats, quickly brought them in line. They still bucked Damon’s authority, but every time they told him that he wasn’t even a Slytherin so how could he presume to lead them, he resisted the urge to laugh. They would be very surprised come May.
Stefan and Elena were among those having an easier time in the house, and were happily taking Damon’s lessons on how to be cunning and ambitious without being a jerk to heart. They’d been getting better about their manipulative and controlling tendencies at least, so were just continuing their improvement. Stefan had never had that much trouble in Slytherin house. Salvatore was a pureblood name at least thanks to Perwyn’s descendants, though not having any ties to the currently in power Salvatores took away from the issue, as had having friends in other houses which was becoming less and less of a problem. Elena, on the other hand, had a ‘muggle’ name, but her association with Stefan protected her from the worst of the discrimination which was also getting better with Damon in charge.
Enzo was having almost as many issues with Gryffindor house who were so used to running wild without even a token supervision. Most of their issues centered around nighttime wandering, wild parties, and the contraband that came with them. He had no problem with the smugglers bringing in sweets or butterbeer or the like. Aside from the fact that they were sneaking out of school to do it. But they could hardly be blamed what with being blocked from Hogsmeade for all but three visits a year. Owl order left a lot to be desired when it came to some things even aside from the fees. That Jeremy was among the smugglers didn’t even bother him, mostly since Jeremy at least had some sense in that.
No, what Enzo objected to was things like firewhiskey, which was even stronger than muggle alcohol, being brought in and not even any care taken to keep it out of the hands of the younger students. If it was kept to the seventh years, or even the sixth years, he wouldn’t care so much. He was getting things in hand though. Just spending a couple hours an evening in the common room was enough to make a difference and he and McGonagal traded off nights to get the alarms of students sneaking out. After getting caught a few times, most of them were much more careful. Aside from the Weasley twins who just kept getting more creative. Enzo was married to /the/ Slytherin though. Couldn’t get one over on him.
It took them a dozen times to be caught before they were out of ideas on how to bypass the wards and stopped bothering to sneak out at night. While there was some bitterness over the loss of their fun, of course, most of them found that having a head of house who was there for them and listened to them and helped them more than made up for it. Especially those who were being bullied and found it put a stop to. There were some issues, mainly those that couldn’t be handled until the summer anyway without ‘public’ authority, that they were waiting for the reveal to bring up, but the rest of this year was just about keeping the cart on the rails and setting some groundwork anyway. Whatever students they could help along the way was the icing on top.
Among the students helped was a little first year Ravenclaw who was being mercilessly bullied by her house mates. They were careful enough to escape casual notice, and the little blonde girl didn’t complain, but once Emrys was paying attention he soon picked up on it. It did take about a month given how eccentric the girl was in the first place. Walking around with one shoe on wouldn’t be out of place, but once he noticed the house got a blistering lecture on bullying and the house being their family and how dare they treat their own family that way. Alaric and Luke had at least /tried/ to help her, though without access to the girl’s dorms and two years ahead of her at that, they couldn’t really do much. They did realize that they probably should have gone to their new guardians and trusted them to handle what none of the other teachers would, but they’d had so much else on their minds while hanging out with them that they hadn’t thought of it and felt bad about it once Emrys started addressing the issue.
He started paying a little more attention to that particular student though and was starting to form a suspicion by the time the reveal was approaching. A suspicion he would have long figured out if he had the girl in his classes or even if she spent more time in the common room. Part of the reason that heads of house were supposed to meet individually with all their students and have house meetings and the like. He would figure out if his suspicion was correct soon enough though, and if he was right, he would be able to help her control and manage her gift. The fact that, if he was right, then she was a descendant of himself and Bonnie had nothing to do with it.
The Hufflepuffs, unsurprisingly, were the easiest of the lot. They didn’t have any major behavioral issues. They didn’t have any bullies, though a few arrogant sods who tried to lord over everyone else, but even they didn’t cross any lines. Bonnie looked forward to putting the boy in place who claimed to be the heir of Helga Hufflepuff for one thing. But overall they were all good kids and Professor Sprout had done her best for them in the little bit of time she had. Bonnie greatly enjoyed the time she got to spend with them in the common room in the evenings. At least once she’d managed to get across to Caroline that she needed to be there for /all/ the students so Caroline stopped monopolizing her time. Which just led to Caroline bringing her other students who needed help or someone to talk to instead, which Bonnie found much more agreeable and made a mental note to do something nice for Caroline soon. Liv wasn’t nearly as much of a social butterfly as Caroline was, but she did do her best to help within her own limitations.
Damon continued with the counseling of Harry, and by the end of January his statement for the paper was ready, so Damon took it, along with the contract to print it as it was, to the Daily Prophet and it was front page the next day. Which was something that brought another confrontation with the headmaster in which Damon again shut him down. Just like himself, Harry had the right to manage his own reputation in the press and Harry had even passed Damon a sickle as a retainer for a contract as his ‘public relations manager’ to cover any legalities and prove that he had an experienced adult in his corner. It was only a temporary contract of course, lasting until the end of the school year. At that point, either Sirius could take over as Harry’s guardian, or he could be the one to retain Damon on a more formal basis.
Sirius’ healing was going well and they had a tentative court date for mid-may. He and Pettigrew would be tried together since their cases were connected, and he was being held with animagus-proof cuffs so that he couldn’t transform. As was Sirius for most of the day. Just because he’d gotten used to using his dog form as a crutch to suppress his feelings which wasn’t healthy. They were taken off to allow him an hour a day in his animagus form, but that was all. In addition to addressing the Azkaban related problems, there were also the abuse issues that he grew up with and the sadly common in magical Britain prejudice against dark magic, exacerbated by his abusive family clinging to the more evil extreme of the dark. Helping with that was also helping with his Slytherin prejudice as well, which would turn out to be a very good thing when he found out the real identity of his new friends.
Sirius and Harry continued writing back and forth at least weekly, sometimes more often, passing the letters through Damon or Enzo, whichever was easiest in any given moment. Sadly, not everything was going as well though. Hermione was becoming more and more difficult. She wasn’t being as overbearing about it as she had been, but was even more defensive about the headmaster who none of her new friends trusted, and trying to encourage Harry away from them and the professors leading them. She refused to even speak to Enzo during his evenings in the common room. Even when he was offering tutoring or homework help. The headmaster has tasked her with a special and important job that only she could do and she was determined not to fail him. She, like many others, were in for a rude awakening as April gave way to May and the day of the school-wide meeting arrived.