In which Minerva Becomes Fed Up and HEREC is Formed.

Every few years, Hogwarts has to deal with a . . . troublesome child. More specifically, the extremely understaffed Admissions Office (more commonly known as Professor Minerva McGonagall) has to deal with a trouble child. These children are troublesome, not because they willfully cause mischief, but because they inadvertantly ruin the entire admissions process.

Occasionally, very occasionally, this is because the Enrollment Quill will miss a name. The Enrollment Quill is a giant, pure black feather that is rumored to have originally come from an augurey. Whether this myth is true is unknown; however, in the years since it was plucked, it has been subjected to some massive, incredibly complex enchantments, which allow the Quill to detect when a magical child is born and automatically enroll said child at Hogwarts. The parents have absolutely no say in the matter, though many do attempt to say things when it comes time to pay tuition. Should the Quill miss a name, if the name belongs to the child of an established wizarding family, the issue is resolved when the child does not receive the much anticipated Hogwarts letter. If the child is muggleborn, the child will likely live a long and healthy life having never experienced the backwards nature of wizarding culture.

However, more often it is the fault of the owl delivering the letter, not the quill. Even more often than that, it is the fault of the sole staff member in charge of the letters (this being the Deputy Headmistress herself). After all, one person, however exceptionally capable she may be, is likely to have a bit of difficulty ensuring that all fifty letters make it to out to all prospective students.

The letters must have the student's name and address, often down to the room they are sleeping in, and contain the list of items the student must buy for his or her first year as well as a brief introduction to the wizarding world if the student is a muggleborn. With an annual change in DADA teacher, the list is not even the same each year and must be tailored accordingly. As if this weren't enough, different years receive entirely different lists. In addition, some students decline to attend Hogwarts, and then proper steps need to be taken to assure they are being properly tutored at home.

All of this must happen on top of Deputy Headmistress McGonagall's other duties: arranging the student's schedules, teaching confused thirteen-year-olds about puberty, grading papers, setting up childishly weak security measures around artifacts of immeasurable power, arranging the seventh years' apparition lessons and, among many, many other things, keeping Professor Trelawney as far away from the sherry as possible.

Keeping all of this in mind, Professor Minerva McGonagall was fairly certain this particular troublesome student was not her fault. At the time of his birth Minerva had made a point of watching the Enrollment Quill and had seen his name go down on the register. After all, he came from a very old Light family, and it was important he end up at Hogwarts. His importance only increased at the age of one and a half, and Albus seemed all the more determined to have the boy close under his wing. Minerva also had a bit of a soft spot for his parents (may they rest in peace) and thought it would be nice to get the boy to Hogwarts, even if only to remove him from his awful relatives.

Therefore, when Minerva sent out his letter and did not received a reply within two days, it was with a bit of added vigor that she rewrote the exact same letter to the exact same address and sent it with the exact same owl.

Like the last time, the bird returned without a reply.

Over the next two days, Minerva's concern and irritation deepened. She began to lose sleep over the matter, eating less and growing simultaneously listless and frantic. Minerva could not fathom why the young Potter refused to answer his mail; all of the instructions were present within the letter, and if he did not want to attend Hogwarts (another thing she could not fathom), then he should have sent a letter communicating that. While Potter's father's manners had always been of debatable quality, surely someone in his life would have attempted to instill some kind of courtesy?

It was at this point that the vastly overworked, slightly malnourished, incredibly frazzled professor decided to wash her hands of the issue. Thirty-seven years of teaching teenagers, her other administrative duties and four days of obsessing over a child's letter had taken their toll, and she was not going to play along with the whims of a petulant eleven-year-old who refused to answer his letters.

"Tinkywinky!" Minerva cried out in a rather irritated tone.

With a loud crack, a small, wrinkled house elf appeared in the middle of the room draped in a royal purple towel, simultaneously resembling a sari and a toga, and stamped with the Hogwarts crest. The elf bowed low, his bulbous nose dipping perilously close to the carpet.

In a surprisingly childish, high-pitched voice, he asked "What does the Professor McGonagall require of Tinkywinky, sir?"

"Tinkywinky, I have had a particularly long and trying past four days which directly followed a rather long and trying summer. Albus and the rest of the staff - excluding Severus, Argus and Binns - have all been going absolutely insane over Harry Potter's arrival at Hogwarts, which unfortunately coincides with the moving of the Philosopher's Stone. I am exhausted, and to make matters worse, Potter seems to take after his father in taking utter enjoyment from irritating authority figures! Twice now I have sent him his acceptance letter, and twice he has completely ignored me. As if I don't have enough to do already, he also expects to keep me waiting on tenterhooks to find out if the most important child of the century deigns to attend Hogwarts.

"Well, I have important things to do and waiting on the whims of an eleven-year-old is not one of them. As of now, I delegate all responsibility for Harry Potter's acceptance letter and attendance of Hogwarts to you Tinkywinky! It is your job to make sure that he gets here by the proper date. If you need to, you may call on the other elves to help you out. You can form the House Elf Reply Enforcement Committee for all I care, just get it done!"

And thus, HEREC was born.