The Lion & The Badger

"Dear Father-in-Law"

CHAPTER 6

"DEAR FATHER-IN-LAW"

Tic... Tac... Tic... Tac... Tic... Tac...

Professor Dumbledore's old Muggle pendulum clock was the only sound that could be heard in the room despite the presence of six people. All of them in silence, waiting for the moment when four more were going to gather for the meeting that was urgently scheduled that afternoon, the owls having been dispatched that morning.

It was silent because almost all adults there had already spent their share of screams, severe reprimands, disapproving looks and even disappointment for the two teenagers.

Minerva McGonagall, alpha, Head of Gryffindor House, was already known for her natural severity, her sense of discipline and order, repudiating anything that brought chaos and mess - exactly the news she received and that left her deeply irritated.

Pomona Sprout, beta, Head of Hufflepuff House, was seen as an eternal source of good humor, generosity and compassion for her badger students; She had no children, but she took these teenagers as her own, giving them the same measure of affection and discipline... However, hours earlier the same Pomona showed a ferocity worthy of a violent badger.

At first Severus Snape wasn't supposed to be present.

The beta and Head of Slytherin House, didn't hide his disdain for students from other houses, giving preference to his "little snakes". But his presence was more than necessary, since he was the closest of a parental figure that one of the teenagers there had there, being indirectly "responsible" for the minor; Snape seemed to have been able to deliver an Unforgivable Curse if it weren't for the intervention of his fellow professors.

But of all them, the most curious figure was undoubtedly Dumbledore.

Sitting at that very moment on his headmaster's chair, the old wizard alpha was looking intently at a sewing magazine that floated in front of him, his knobby fingers gripping the needles in slow movements while knitting what looked (or tried) to be a hat. He looked completely relaxed and unmoved, as if there was no bomb about to explode at that moment.

For many hours the possibility of expelling the two was discussed.

Undeniably, they broke a series of rules in the school's code of conduct as students, as well as breaking the abstract moral and social code they had as alpha and omega; the expelling was also seen as necessary: first to declare that Hogwarts was a serious educational institution which didn't support or endorse the illicit acts of its students, and most importantly, to quell the scandal they would have, as it would possibly tarnish the credibility that the school had to the parents of the students.

But Dumbledore rejected it.

In his view, it would be "absurd cruelty" to expel the two boys, since both already suffered the consequences of their actions.

'Hogwarts...' Dumbledore said after listening to the three professors '... first of all, must be concerned with the future of students who depend on the education they receive here. The only thing we would get by expelling them is to deprive from a young father, mother and their future pup a dignified life'.

This ended the first part of the problem.

But the second part - and the biggest part - was still literally on their way there.

Cedric took a deep breath, collecting the air in his lungs in an attempt to calm himself.

The news that he would be father had not yet been fully settled in his mind. On the last 48 hours, it was like he was out of his own body and watching as a spectator the entire world to collapse around Harry and him, both too shocked, too immersed in themselves.