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Albus Potter and the Deathly Hallows | ||||||
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Category: Post-Hogwarts Characters:Harry/Ginny, Other Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama, Humor, Romance Warnings: Death, Intimate Sexual Situations, Violence, Violence/Physical Abuse Story is Complete Rating: R Reviews: 77 Summary: Albus has his challenges during his first year. Cleopatra is obviously his soulmate, and has brilliant insights into magic, except she cannot do it like anyone else. Albus has to help her while keeping peace between the two brightest and most competitive students at Hogwarts, Scorpius and Rose. It doesn’t help that people are out to get Albus. Harry is not sure he can keep everyone safe. Then you have Ginny and Cleopatra. Hitcount: Story Total: 79307; Chapter Total: 2601 Awards: View Trophy Room Author's Notes: “I am the (author)” is a direct quote from a student to their professor. If you want the story ask in a review. Arnel and FriendofMolly did their magic on this chapter as well, and I cannot thank them enough. |
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Ginny could tell as soon as Harry appeared in the drawing room that he had gone to the exercise room and tried to exercise to exhaustion to get rid of the frustration of the day. Harry plopped down onto a chair. “Tough day, dear?” Ginny asked. Harry said, “The Department of Paranoia says that it will take ten to twenty years to get ready to reveal ourselves to the Muggle world, and we need the new King and Queen of the Magi to do it right. They feel that we will lose secrecy in five to ten years, and that it will be a disaster.” Ginny said, “Does that mean we have to stop going to Muggle restaurants, and shut down Dursley, Potter and Weasley, the company making Muggle parts with magic, and just hide?” “It is not that simple,” Harry said. “People who live partly in the Muggle world have to stay there; disappearing suddenly could be as bad as revealing something. Besides we need the money companies selling to Muggles make to do the right thing.” “Are the people in the Department of Paranoia being mean, unreasonable?” Ginny asked. Harry said, “You will meet them at the Harpies game Saturday. Ms. Robin Ravenclaw and Mr. H. H. Hufflepuff are, as you might guess, direct descendants of two of the founders. They are trying to be reasonable. They are just very frustrated, as am I. “I think calling the next chief witch and wizard the King and Queen is a very bad idea, and they agree with me. That is just one bad habit we have to change before we are revealed to Muggles.” Ginny said, “Mabel will have dinner ready in about an hour. Meanwhile come here, put your head in my lap, and relax.” Harry went over to the large sofa and put his head on Ginny’s lap, and tried to relax. Albus was not the only problem he was going to be confronting. Professor Chen was rattling on about things he didn’t know much about, again. Albus was sure he and Rose knew more than he did. Scorpius had almost certainly read more than the teacher had. Scorpius seemed to spend half his free time, when he was not studying with and arguing with Rose, reading something, anything, to give him some obscure fact that Rose didn’t know. Cleo hadn’t read nearly as much, but she had uncanny instincts about how potions should look, smell, and feel. She could also see into some other dimensional world of sight and smell and feel about potions. The more Albus got into Cleo’s mind the stranger her world seemed, but the more he was learning about magic. Cleo seemed totally comfortable knowing that, if she really could not begin to describe what she was seeing and feeling and tasting and smelling and Cleo seemed to have senses that other people didn’t have, if she could not describe it, then Al could, and would. Al thought learning magic was going to be easy, since he knew most of the spells; even most of the seventh year spells. It’s just that he didn’t know the magic behind the magic. He couldn’t see the various dimensions that Cleo could, until now, and seeing the world through her eyes taught him a lot. To describe it, using her insights to teach others, now that was going to be brutally hard, and probably take years and years. In potions, Al was paired with Cleo, Scorpius with Rose. They always received the best marks because they followed the directions exactly, and besides, Rose and Al had made all the potions when Rose’s mother was revising the text book. The problem was that the teacher was very high on Chinese Potion Making, but not all that bright, and did not take the instructions seriously. About three weeks into school, the week after Al and Cleo met Moaning Myrtle; they were supposed to make up a perfume potion. “Perfumes are potions that you can experiment with,” Professor Chen was saying. “This is the first time you get to decide how much of certain substances you put in your potion.” “There are limits, or things could get nasty,” Rose said under her breath to Scorpius. “The instructions tell you what the limits are, and I assume there are good reasons for the limits,” Scorpius said quietly to Rose. “Assume,” said Rose dismissively, quietly so just Scorpius heard her. There were very clear instructions warning not to put too much of several common scents in the perfume, but the teacher did not take the warning seriously. When the teacher said, “What could the harm be if you doubled the amount of Apple Blossoms?” Rose jumped up and yelled, “Please, it will explode and make a horrible smell!” “That’s stupid. How do you know so much? Did you write the text book?” Professor Chen said. At this he put a pile of Apple Blossoms in the cauldron, and it exploded. Rose and Al both said, “Run, get out of the room.” When they were all out of the room Rose said to the professor, “Do you even read the text book?” Dragon answered “Of course! Did you? How do you know so much?” Rose said, “See the front of the text.” She took out her copy of the text book and pointed to the title page, and said, “Compiled by T.T. Chang and Hermione Granger Weasley. Hermione dedicated the book to, ‘My daughter Rose Weasley and nephew Albus Severus Potter, who over the last three years have made all these potions.’ I’m the Rose Weasley, Al is my cousin, and Hermione Granger Weasley is my mother.” Professor Chen gave Rose a furious look, dismissed the class, but from then on followed the text book exactly. He did tell Rose and Al to stop raising their hands in class, since he assumed they would know the answers. Scorpius took over and almost always raised his hand, to the great disgust and frustration of Rose. Saturday the thirtieth of September was a horrible day, and at least at the start of the day Quidditch practice was going to be impossible. “Too windy and rainy,” Al said to his friends. “Rose and I know an Elf who is studying here, Martin. I would like to go to the kitchen and Elf area and meet with him.” Scorpius said, “Cleo and I also were raised with a house-elf, Rosa, and she is supposed to be here too.” Al said in Elfish, “Do you know how to speak Elfish.” Scorpius said “I learned Elfish as an infant, as I was learning Magi English.” Cleo said, “I started to learn elfish when I came to live with Scorpius at five and a half. It was hard. It was real hard. Concepts like all the deferentials, all the who is in charge of who. Who loves (amore love, roughly brotherly love) who and who loves (eros, passionate usually sexual, erotica comes from eros) who, and who loves (friendship, what the Greeks call philia) who, and who loves (storge, means affection within a family) who. (Cleo actually said four words for love here, affection within a Magi family, affection within an Elf family, and affection of Elves for Magi and of Magi for Elves, in a family context, which is very different that the same things not within a family context), and who respects who and who owes what to who. “I’m still trying to learn all of that. And it’s real hard when you are talking to someone about love or affection and you mean amore love and they think you mean eros love or phila love.” Rose said, “It is almost impossible to translate Elvish to English, or English to Elvish. The deferentials are all different. In English it doesn’t matter who he or she is, but you cannot say he or she in Elvish. Even ‘he’ or ‘she’ has to indicate if it is an Elf or a Magi speaking, and who they are speaking to, and who is related to whom. It is really frustrating trying to translate.” Al said, “Ready to go?” The four stood up and walked down to the Elf area. As was most often the case, Scorpius and Rose were talking about something academic, and Al and Cleo were talking. Cleo said, “I didn’t know you grew up speaking Elfish? Do you know any other languages?” Albus said, “I know French real well, because Aunt Fleur is French, and we learned French as little children, and even go to France at least once a summer. Later on Rose and I learned some German and Spanish and Chinese and Korean with other Magi who also were learning Elfish, and the goblins at the factory my dad owns with Uncle Bill and Uncle Dudley taught me some Gobbledygook and a goblin variation of Elfish.” Cleo looked at Al with awe in her eyes, and said in a breathless tone of voice “Oh Al, you are just amazing! I’ve never met anyone like you!” Al though that Cleo often talked in exclamation points. There was nothing too subtle about her. He said, “A little hero worship?” Scorpius and Rose laughed at the Elvish expression that Al used, hero worship being the best translation for a funny Elvish expression. “But you are!” said Cleo. “Do you like talking to the Elves?” asked Al, trying to change the subject away from himself. “Oh, house-elves were my friends at the Malfoy house,” said Cleo. “I do not know what I would have done without the friendship between Scorpius and the house-elves and me. I love to cook and they let me help make breakfast and dinner, and even use a wand down in the kitchen. I’ve had a little wand practice since I was five, just like you, but only a little, and just for cooking. “I could hug the house-elves. I really need human touch,” she said, grabbing on to Al’s hand with her hands. She then turned to continue to walk down the stairs, but kept holding on to Al’s hand and swinging the arm that was holding on to Al. “Grandma Malfoy would kiss me good night, but we could not touch out in public. I do not think anyone was allowed to touch anyone else in that family, and it was so hard.” “You need to meet Grandma Weasley,” said Al. “She gives everybody a great big hug when she meets them. My mother and father hug us and kiss us and touch us a lot. They sure hold each other lots! I think they are still madly in love with each other. Sometimes even when we kids are around they kiss, and I don’t think they even notice us.” “Eros …” said Cleo, getting red in the face. The Elfish word she was using was rather explicit. “Yea,” said Al, getting red himself. “Sometimes I know they are anxious for us to go to bed. And sometimes we go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house so they can be alone, and I am sure it is at least partly for sex.” Scorpius and Rose were a ways ahead, and there was no one else close. Cleo looked and made sure. Then she said, “If you like touch like I do, there has to be something just fantastic about having all your clothes off and touching all of you to all of someone else.” Al did not know how to respond to this remark. He had always been in control, of himself, and with most relationships. He really liked Cleo, but somehow he felt that she was not all that … all that … it was not like he wanted to control her but … but … but he could always put everything into words, and with Cleo that was very hard to do. Al did know that being with Cleo felt very good indeed. She was way smarter than she gave herself credit for being. She was just so exuberant that she was a little out of control sometimes, and the way she saw the world was both so different and so very much more, more, well, more. So Al did the only thing he knew how to do with Cleo. He held on to her hand, and smiled, and sort of laughed, and kept his mouth shut, and kept walking down the stairs, waiting to see what Cleo would come up with next. And Cleo, having become aware of what she said, and that maybe she had said too much, maybe way too much, but aware that Al was less shocked than amused, held on to his hand and kept walking. Walking hand in hand with Al felt very good indeed. It felt right! It felt like the very start of a Happily Ever After ending. When Scorpius and Rose reached the picture that was the normal Magi entrance to the Elf area they waited for Al and Cleo to show up, then tickled the pear and went in. An Elf said, “Can I help you?’ “We’ve come to see Martin and Rosa who are studying here,” said Al, all but the names in Elfish. “They are our friends/house-elves we were raised with/family but not blood relatives.” The Elf went to get someone. Rose said, “Relationships are real hard to translate from Elfish into any other language. ‘Elves we were raised with’ in particular implies that we are Elves, which we obviously are not, but that particular phrase is used by all the Magi who have learned Elfish to refer to the Elves we grew up with. I hope it is all right to refer to you and Cleo as friends/house elves we were raised with/family but not blood relatives.” Martin and Rose came, and the six friends had quite a talk. There were more students than just Martin and Rosa, in fact quite a few more, including about half of the Elves that had been raised with Magi. Hogwarts had by far the most formal and best program for educating Elves, except possibly for the Swiss program. When asked why Martin and Rose took the students outside by another door, one they did not realize existed. Albus had seen his father’s map of Hogwarts, but there were obviously parts of the castle, especially parts where the Elves lived, that were not on the map. The students were brought over to the mound and monument where the Elves were buried. “Your father did this,” said Aristotle, who had come along with the students. “Every Elf in the world knows your father buried Dobby, with tears and with a marker,” said Plato, a much younger Elf who seemed to be prominent in the house elf hierarchy. If they understood the Elfish correctly, Aristotle was the acting head of the Elves, and Plato was heir apparent and second in command; it was hard to talk very long in Elfish without some of the relationships becoming very clear. It turned out that it was also very important that Minerva McGonagall, as headmistress, had paid for and approved of the monument. Having all the Elves, not just the ones with Magi names, listed was a major change, had never been done, and had changed the magic. It had “broken” something and “allowed” other things and “mandated” still others all very rough English translations of major changes that took place when Harry Potter cried over Dobby and buried him, and then had a monument made and had buried, with Hermione and with other Magi watching, with publicity, the other two Elves killed in the battle of Hogwarts. Most of the rest of the afternoon the students talked to Martin and Rosa, Aristotle and Plato, and a number of other Elves. Most of the discussion was in Elfish. Aristotle, the Elf Harry had met and worked with after the Battle of Hogwarts, was fairly old. The Elf who was training to take his place was Plato. Both of them gave the four students a little history of what Elves wanted and did not want, and what had been done. The whole question of clothes came up. Albus, Rosa, Scorpius and Cleo were raised with Elves with clothes, and none of them had any idea that house-elves, for centuries, had to wear just a minimum of clothes, not really clothes but rags or towels, and if given clothes they were free but not really free to find a new job, just alone and abandon. The American Compromise to allow Elves to wear rented clothes seemed to be working well, and no one had any great desire to change it, although some of the younger Elves really did want that changed. Change in the clothing law was one thing that would have to wait for the fabled Head Wizard that was rumored to be coming, since without a formal Head Wizard instead of regents some of the ancient laws and spells could not be changed. Al was the only one of the four Magi who really became upset at the “head wizard” problem. Al had a very hard time thinking that waiting for some stupid head wizard made any sense. Elves did all want to belong to or be associated with some household or institution. They did not want to live on their own. This was deep magic, and the Elves liked it, and liked that they were part of a household. They did want better rules concerning their treatment, including the ability to be taken away from really abusive or really bad owners. Some of this was done at a local level, but nothing internationally, and there were limits to what even a local Ministry of Magic could do without the full approval of the International Confederation of Wizards. Elves also wanted family ties respected, so mates would not be separated casually, and children could be raised with both parents. There was some progress on these issues in individual ministries, but no approval for any changes from the International Confederation of Wizards. The Elves who had been raised with other Magi really wanted the Magi they were raised with to be with them. When Albus suggested that they could easily come to Hogwarts the next year all of the Elves who had been raised with Magi thought that was an excellent idea. Since the house with the fewest students was Slytherin Al and Scorpius thought that maybe they could get all the other students to be in Slytherin. That would change the character of Slytherin in a hurry. About once a month for the rest of the school year the four Hogwarts students met with the Elves. Al and Cleo did take the mapping program down with them the next two times. Some Elves were grateful that Al and Cleo considered this part of Hogwarts part of the castle, and some were a little suspicious of what they were doing. |
| Reviews 77 |
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