Entry: Wednesday, August 4th, 2021

Today was a long day of meetings and negotiations. Ever since my birthday last year, me, Mom, and a fair number of our people have been struggling to figure out how I’m going to get my magical education. We’ve found records on file to indicate that it’s compulsory, and for good reason… but we haven’t been able to figure out what that reason is. Nor anything else.

Then, a couple weeks ago, a single letter arrived in the mail… without a stamp. Mom’s secretary inspected it, then photographed and e-mailed it to us rather than hand-delivering the original, just in case it’s spelled. It was the expected- and, admittedly, feared- Hogwarts invitation.

We have no idea where Hogwarts is. No way to protect me there. And wizards are unlikely to allow non-magical guards in their school.

Then, on Monday night, Helia suddenly e-mailed me a request for a private meeting with myself, mom, and ideally Sienna as well. Yes, she has my direct e-mail address, and mail from hers is allowed through my filterwall. She’s a close friend to both myself and Sienna, after all, no matter how much she disappears.

I immediately forwarded that e-mail to Mom and talked to her about it. She talked it over with some of her people, then yesterday, we finally sent her a reply- that today would work.

So she came. As usual, since my birthday at least, security never told us she’d reached the gates, she was simply there, in the room with us, without ever having gotten there. Our Guards have gotten used to Helia’s crazy mobility, so they hardly even bat an eye, beyond the initial check to make sure it’s really her. She’s aware of that, though, so she appeared at the far end of the room, where the guards were expecting her, rather than up close to us.

But then she got before us… and handed me a Hogwarts welcome kit. And a map, with Hogwarts marked on it.

“Is that…?” Queen Vanessa began, looking at the package Helia had just handed her daughter.

“Hogwarts,” Helia confirmed, nodding her head. “As it turns out, Hogwarts is something like a Private Charter School- that is to say, it’s a private school, but tuition is fully Ministry-paid… if you know how to sign up for it, which is really easy. But it’s owned outright by the House of Potter- and as I just became Regent and Proxy to that House, that means that I now own Hogwarts, by proxy.” She sighed. “The school is a nightmare. Easily the worst-performing magic school on earth, but also the only one that’s likely to even think about accepting your daughters and the myriad security or education requirements of the Royal Family.”

“And how likely is Hogwarts to allow us to post guards and send tutors?”

“Guaranteed,” Helia answered immediately, “because I said so.”

Arienne snorted. “Because you said so,” she agreed, then looked up. “But if it’s the worst school…?”

“It’s still got a reputation that says it’s the best, but it’s really not. The actual class lineup is less than half as large as the official lineup, and the staff less than a quarter, leaving the actual staff painfully overworked. I’ve already gotten started on correcting some of that, but I don’t expect to have the school properly shaped up into the record-setting school it’s supposed to be for a couple years yet.”

“How many guards do you think we can get away with?” Vanessa asked.

Helia shrugged. “How many can you send?” She paused. “Hogwarts Castle is around a hundred times the size of Buckingham Palace, and that’s not even counting that it’s bigger on the inside, and will dynamically get bigger on the inside whenever and wherever it is needed. You could probably house half of Britain in that castle before you overwhelmed the magic involved- and that’s assuming it wasn’t given time to acclimate to the numbers. If it is, there’s theoretically no limit.”

“How do they keep a castle that big clean?” Sienna asked.

Helia shrugged. “They don’t. Well, I suppose they hand one man a mop and tell him to keep the whole thing clean, but that hardly counts.”

“Wha-!?” Vanessa asked.

She nodded. “That’s one of the things that I’m going to be able to change before this year even starts. Same with the solitary mediwitch to serve the entire castle- Hogwarts is a school of magic, so it really needs at least one Healer per one hundred students.”

Vanessa nodded. “And non-magical doctors…?”

She shook her head. “Are a poor substitute, unfortunately. They’ll be better at some things, but well over ninety-five percent of ailments in a magic school are magical in nature, so non-magical Healers just aren’t counted.”

“So what’s the student body?”

“Three hundred and twenty for the coming year, if you include Princess Arienne.”

She nodded slowly.

“So how’s the education?” Arienne piped up. “Aside from absolutely terrible, of course.”

Sienna giggled.

“Disappointingly incomplete,” Helia answered. “If you ignore the History of Magic class that is literally a broken record, and Astronomy which consists of staying up well past bedtime to stare at the night sky and little else, and Divination where making random stuff up improves your grade, Ancient Runes where skiving off is the best way to get a good grade, Arithmancy that only barely reaches long division by the end of the seventh year, Muggle Studies where pencils are technological marvels, Potions that’s really just institutionalized bullying in a potions lab, and Defense that gets a new classroom monkey they call Professor each year, that leaves Care of Magical Creatures, Transfiguration, Charms, and Herbology, of which only the first is an elective.

“But those last three are taught, like Potions, by Professors that are also Heads of one of the four Houses at Hogwarts, making them personally responsible for a full quarter of the student body, in addition to other duties. Transfiguration has the Deputy Headmistress that’s also responsible for Castle repairs; Charms has the resident Cursebreaker, a crucial support role to the school matron; Herbology oversees the production of all the food they put on the table and the ingredients they use in potions, both the class and ones they actually need; Potions holds the resident Potions Master- another crucial medical support role- and also the resident Dark Expert, providing knowledge on various dark magic that might be affecting the school- a crucial support role to the Cursebreaker.” She sighed. “It’s really no surprise Potions lessons are essentially guided self-study while the Professor brews his own potions.”

Arienne blinked. “What about math, science, english…?” She trailed off.

Helia shook her head. “They don’t have any of that. That’s some of the stuff I’m working to correct soonest- as well as introducing Etiquette and Wizarding Culture classes to help the muggle-raised- which would include you, ‘muggle’ is a term they use to describe non-magical people that aren’t directly descended from magicals- to understand the magical world.”

Vanessa raised an eyebrow. “How much will they have?”

“By the time the school year starts next month? Not nearly enough, but there should be at least some. My resources may be vast, but even I can’t find over seventy new staff members overnight.”

“Seventy?” Sienna asked.

She nodded. “Including assistants and secondary Professors for the other subjects, and splitting all the various non-instructor roles- Heads of House, Deputy Headmaster, Potions Master, Dark Expert, Cursebreaker, Farming Manager, Maintenance Manager, and so on- off into separate positions.” She scowled. “For the first year, we’ll probably just have to make do with adding a few subjects and having their Professors help out with other duties around the Castle, reduce the workload on the Heads of Houses, and expect more improvements as the year goes on and next summer. I don’t think I’m going to be able to replace any of the confirmed bad Professors very quickly at all. Oh, and a word to the wise? Do not attend Professor Quirrell’s defense classes. He’s one of those Defense Professors who is a threat to his students, and will be fired as soon as I can find a replacement.”

“I imagine you could probably pull from quite a lot of places for that,” Vanessa observed.

“In theory, yes,” Helia agreed. “In actuality, no single Professor has ever held that slot over the summer into the new school year in almost forty years, so people think it’s cursed- and all the best-qualified people refuse to apply.” She scowled. “And Quirrell is technically qualified, he’s just evil.”

“Evil?”

She nodded. “Dark Lord Voldemort sticking out the back of his head and everything.”

“What.”

“Yeah. Too bad being evil, and hosting the soul of a rebel and mass murderer, isn’t illegal. I checked.”

“And the Dark Lord…?”

“Oh, being a Dark Lord is very illegal, to the point that they have no rights whatsoever. But for some strange reason, hosting one in the back of your head is not illegal.”

Entry: Friday, August 13th, 2021

It’s Friday the 13th today, an astoundingly unlucky day. It’s also the day I will be doing my Hogwarts shopping.

We figured everything out on Monday, and Mom found a way for me to go to Hogwarts but still get the quality education I’m already getting- that is to say, to simply add on the magical education that I’m… admittedly less enthusiastic about after I heard Helia’s scathing review of Hogwarts. She later clarified which courses were ‘core’ classes and which were ‘elective’ classes… and when only three out of seven core classes are worth anything, and all three of them have Professors that have way too much on their plates, you know there’s something wrong. But she’s working on that, and Hogwarts is likely to be the only way that either me or Sienna can learn magic.

I was actually surprised when Helia informed us that I could probably just test out of the compulsory education bit, since magical education is only compulsory to the point that we can consciously control our power, therefore keeping us from fearing it and becoming something bad called an ‘obscurial’. She also said that Sienna is probably a very tiny amount of effort away from the same thing, just like I had been on my last birthday, when she first told me I was magical.

When I asked her why, she said it was probably the strong self-control that was pounded into our skulls from a very young age, allowing us to hold a very high degree of control over our magic- and the only thing left to do was to push that control from subconscious to conscious.

But back to today. Today was the day that we were able to schedule my shopping trip for- and I’m equal parts excited and concerned.

First off, I’m the Crown Princess, and to hear Helia tell the story, a magic wand is a deadly weapon. Not only that, but I don’t want to be recognized. Helia said she’s got some decent diversion magic that will keep anyone from noticing who I am, and she’s accompanying me today so I’ve got some hope. She’s also covering the full dozen guards that’ll be going through the Alley with us; none of them are comfortable without it, and I probably wouldn’t be willing to set foot anywhere near the Leaky Cauldron without her. She’s just… I don’t know. She’s lightning fast and, while I don’t have any evidence to back this up, I think she’s deadlier than an entire battleship. That might just be that the first three or four times I met her were when she was saving me from severe bodily injury or even likely death once, but I still remember when she lifted… at just six years old. She was insanely strong then, and now she’s probably only stronger.

Second Entry: Friday, August 13th, 2021

Well, that was… a rather stressful day. Exactly where Helia got that bag of gold from, I may never know- but she recited the exact value that we spent out of it, so if we really want to, we can repay her, but she said she’s not worried about it. Honestly, I know I’m perhaps a little jaded when it comes to big money, but at just under ten thousand pounds, I think the shopping trip went a bit on the pricey side.

And that’s not counting that she contracted a half-dozen or so of the stores to serve as suppliers for the various magical clothing and equipment that my guards will need at Hogwarts… and since the Royal Family doesn’t have an account at Gringotts- we checked, after she did a lot of explaining about the bank- it’s coming out of the Black accounts.

Mom made her promise to send us the receipts, of course, so it can be properly paid out from the budget already set aside for our protection. I guess Helia also has a non-magical bank account?

But anyways, we got my stuff. Everything off the official list, and a whole bunch of extra stuff- books, supplies, even a broomstick.

A broomstick.

They really fly on brooms.

Apparently, while at Hogwarts, I’m going to learn to ride a broomstick, and Helia is of the opinion that a broomstick is one of the fastest ways from Hogwarts to the nearby airport, should I be needed elsewhere in the world in a hurry; normal aircraft can’t go anywhere near the castle, since they’d crash into the flight wards- either the vehicle itself… or the rotor holding a helicopter up. She did, however, observe that non-magicals- like all of my guards- can’t ride brooms, even with special equipment, so providing guards over that flight might be… difficult.

Especially since the flight wards around Hogwarts extend for almost two full miles around the Castle, though only up twice as high as the towers themselves- which would be why no planes have run into them already. I suggested just flying high enough that fighter jets could rendezvous with me- the broom she got me can make speeds high enough that a plane can hold formation no problem- and she immediately pointed out that doing that would place me in a highly visible and unprotected position. Then she mentioned invisibility cloaks- if the guards can’t follow, I merely need to make sure no one else can find me.

When Mom asked about the first year broom rule, Helia laughed and said she’s already ordered it rewritten, so now students of any year are allowed to have their own brooms, they just aren’t allowed to use them until and unless they have the Castle flight instructor’s approval. Apparently, learning to fly is technically a club activity rather than an actual class, and the flight instructor is properly certified for both that and as a referee for Quidditch, the wizard’s sport that uses broomsticks and sounds like it was designed to make a single player shine above the rest of the team as a hero. Anyways, Helia said that with my control, I’m probably going to be a natural on a broom- but I’m not going to want to even think about joining the Quidditch teams, as the game is dangerous.

When I asked her how dangerous, she told me that three people have died playing Quidditch at Hogwarts- and only one of them died from falling off her broom. The mortality rate is apparently much higher in professional games. She then told me that it’s pretty rare for there to be a Hogwarts quidditch match that doesn’t send at least one player to the infirmary with something like a broken bone or shattered rib cage, and again, professional games are even worse.

When I asked her about other forms of magical travel, she said that Hogwarts isn’t connected to the Floo Network and the anti-portkey wards are nearly twenty miles across and form a spherical dome over the Castle. It’s possible to synchronize a portkey with them to bypass them, but only a portkey expert would be able to do that. Finally, there’s apparition- which is how she’s been getting around… except that she’s technically doing it illegally, as you have to take classes, turn seventeen, and pass a test before you can get a license to apparate legally… and for good reason.

When I asked her why she does it, she said her apparition works differently from most people’s, allowing her to bypass anti-apparition defenses and also rendering it completely safe. She can’t teach it, because apparently it’s an artefact of what she is, rather than something she learned.

She refused to elaborate on that point.

She also refused to explain why my new wand feels so much like she does. Why Garrick Ollivander seemed so amused to see her in his store.

Or… what else she’d given him, and what instructions she’d given him with it. It looked like a wand to me.

Author's Note

Patreon, Discord.