WHO. Bill, Fred & Fabien WHERE. Diagon Alley WHEN. Saturday 15th August WHAT. Bill is shopping and Fred is a troll WARNINGS. unlikely there's a kid around
Time was bloody well flying, as it always seemed to do when small children were involved. Not only was Gwin a month away from turning two, Fabien was due to start school in September. The decision had been made a long time ago that they would teach the kids at home, though now the time was actually approaching Bill couldn't help but feel nervous about the whole thing. They had worked out a four-day schedule where at least one day would fall on a weekend, meaning that he could at least partially share the load of homeschooling with Fleur. While he had no doubt that his wife would manage admirably - she had after all already managed to teach them all a second language - he had rather more doubts where he himself was concerned; he had no teaching experience and not much recollection of his own early school years. He mostly remembered there being a lot of small children around, which pretty much summed up his entire childhood, come to that.
His mother's advice had been to try to get Fabien involved, particularly so early on when the curriculum didn't need to be totally regimented. "Let him show you what he wants to learn," she had said, which while it sounded wise didn't actually bode well for the boy learning about anything other than, for example, what poo was made of, or whether you could eat bugs, or why the sky was blue (why, why did every child ever born always insist on asking that question at least once a day?)
Fabien hardly needed to be encouraged in his enthusiasm; he was a naturally curious child who picked things up like a sponge. Bill thought one way to give him some percieved control over the transition was to take him to Diagon Alley and let him pick out some of his supplies. They could have cobbled together a basic kit out of what they had at home, but Fabien had heard enough stories about Hogwarts from his extended family that he practically exploded with keenness at the prospect of going on a school shopping trip. Bill had to quickly quash his hopes of getting his own owl, but he found a small second-hand trunk, not big enough for a Hogwarts student but enough to keep some parchment and quills and a couple of books in.
In Flourish & Blotts he let the boy browse the childrens' section on his own while he went to see if there was anything in Education that could supplement the well-loved but somewhat out of date textbooks his mother had leant him. As adorable as it was to read scribbles in the margins from all of his siblings - Percy's handwriting the only one properly legible - he knew Fleur planned on something a little less hodge-podge than his own early education had been.