I'm forever blowing bubbles
Disclaimer – 'Tis not mine, not even a little bit, well maybe a teeny weeny bit.
I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.
There are some things that just 'say' the quintessential British summer. The lazy droning of a heavily laden bumble bee, the scent of jasmine, lavender and sweet-pea, roses of every shape and colour rioting from suburban garden to stately home…and the sight of a bubble drifting over the fence, escaping an attempted popping. Ah summer, from May Day to the start of term in September it's all gingham school dresses and sitting on the beach in your rain mac…how very very British!
I am quite well acquainted with muggle bubble mixture thanks to my fairly normal childhood, by which I mean muggle-ised, as even the most normal wizarding childhood can't really be considered, well, normal. But me,well, I got muggle primary school and life on the edge of a muggle (well kind of muggle) village. So I did the usual study of the Victorians (a good period to study as there is a lot of it) a hearty blend of period costume, ye olde nursery toys and child labour. A nice day out to the local re-creation pit or mill to see just how lucky you are to be born these days and then it all rounds up with a jolly school play about the Victorian music hall. Which finally gets us round to the point of the story; after that blasted red red robin has come bob bob bobbin along we move to the charmingly mawkish 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles' you know the one: then like my dreams they fade and die/Fortunes always rising, I've looked everywhere/I'm forever blowing bubbles/Pretty bubbles in air…Hmmm you know I never knew until I went to Hogwarts that it was the song the West Ham fans all sing at their matches, probably about as tunefully as a class of seven-year-olds but there you go. So yes I know a lot about bubbles.
Now for wizards' bubbles come out of a wand. You can charm them to take shapes or change colour or sing or whatever but basically you flick your wand and bam there are your bubbles. All of which is great unless of course you happen to be an under-age witch with a bubble obsessed cat during the school holidays. So obviously since my mother, as she told me quite firmly, had better things to do than stand there all day conjuring bubbles for a cat old enough to know better, I high-tailed it off to the local shop and bought me a tub of bubble mixture (because it was the summer holidays and I didn't have anything better to do with my time than spend all day blowing bubbles for a cat who was old enough to know better; nothing that I was admitting to anyway).
When I went back to school it made sense to back a 12 pack of our favourite mix in my trunk, although Filch did give it a very good look over, I dunno what he thought I was smuggling in, maybe he wasn't a bubble man, or maybe Mrs Norris wasn't a bubble cat? Who knows?
The girls in my dorm had a great time with the bubbles. Sally-Ann knew what they were, being muggle-born and all, but Lou, Susie and Hannah were well impressed. Sometimes we would charm the bubbles (easier that conjuring them to start with) other times we just behaved like a load of big kids and bounced around the room franticly popping bubbles left, right and centre. It quickly became our OWL escape route, even if Hannah did end up having regular calming draughts as well. It was also something that would probably have really annoyed That-Umbridge-Woman so you can imagine how much fun we had with it.
The following year was a nightmare, Susie lost her aunt over the holidays and really early on Hannah lost her mum so she went home for a while. Even when she came back the tension was horrible, we were all trying to be really normal, but not too normal because we all liked Mrs Abbott, but it was all so unreal, even for Hannah once she was back I think, because somehow Hogwarts seemed to be in a bubble of its own and the outside world seemed far away. Hogwarts seemed so safe and well 'hogwarty' especially after the reign of That-Umbridge-Woman the year before. We lost Lou that year as well, her family decided Hogwarts wasn't safe anymore. They went to France in the end, and Lou finished school at Beuxbatons, which did wonders for her complexion, and given what came after was probably the wisest decision. The girls in my dorm hadn't always been hugely close, Hannah and Susie tended to hang out with Macmillan and Finchey, While Sally-Ann, Lou and I tended to hang out with some of the younger girls and a couple of 'claws. That year with all that went on bought us much closer together. By that time we all knew that 'it' was coming although nobody was totally clear or agreed on what precisely 'it' was. I guess because of Hannah and her mum my dorm-mates and I had a better idea than most of what was really going on in those early months, but as time went on the world outside just got worse and worse, and there was nothing nothing we could do about it.
By that year we could all conjure a fair patronus, yeah I know, 'the patronus charm is very advanced magic' but stuff it, we were very scared and very defiant. I had already learnt it of course and Susie and Hannah had learnt at their little club thing the year before. We would sometimes gather in our room and cast the charm just to watch our patronuses move around and to try and warm ourselves a little on their positive glow. But it was sometimes really hard and we were sooo tired. That was when the bubbles came in.
There was something infinitely peaceful about sitting on our beds or in a secluded corner outside huddled in our cloaks and just blowing bubbles. It was monotonously simple, but each bubble carried patronus like memories of laughter and friendship and mucking about like the kids in the warm sunshine. Yeah all our lazy dreams were going pop pop pop on the breeze of reality but somehow it calmed us all down and we each grew a little stronger as we watched the drifting bubbles together.
Everyone knows how that year ended. Death-Eaters fighting students in the corridors of Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore killed, somehow, on the top of the Astronomy Tower. We were all stunned and numb, we knew that whatever happened to Hogwarts this would probably be the last time we were together. Lou was already gone, Hannah understandably had pretty much decided to stay with her Dad anyway, Susie's family had always been big supporters of Dumbledore and prominent with it so they were quite concerned about what they should do to protect themselves. Sally-Ann's parents were waking up to the dangers of the wizarding world and were talking about her doing some muggle qualifications 'just-in-case'. I at least knew that if Hogwarts was open I would be there; still there were a fair few 'ifs' in that.
The four of us were sitting in a row on the chairs in the front row that had been vacated by the dignitaries looking at the white marble tomb when I found the last tub of bubble mix in my pocket. We sat there in silence and blew bubbles, carefully passing the plastic wand along the line, holding the tub for each other to dip into. I think Professor Dumbledore would have liked it; he seemed to me like the sort of person who would appreciate muggle bubble mixture.
As we walked away to gather our stuff up ready for the train ride back to Kings Cross the summer sun was shining down on us, and a bee bustled past us on it's way to Hagrid' roses. I spotted Dean Thomas standing with some of the other Gryffindors. As I watched a bubble floated past him and he reached out a finger and popped it with a slight smile on his face, and I knew that the sound of thousands of people singing 'I'm forever blowing bubbles' was ringing through his head.
In Late Summer that year I turned seventeen and with the change of staff at Hogwarts I decided not to take muggle bubble mixture to school with me. When I was expecting my eldest though I saw a bubble machine in a muggle toy shop, a quick charm on the batteries later and both baby and a cat who is most definitely old enough to know better are happy to wile away the summer chasing bubbles; which is just the way it should be, don't you think?
A/N: This came to me just as I ran out of puff while blowing bubbles for my offspring, which was great timing.
A/N: I think WWW probably make wizarding bubble mixture – it is probably like the episode of 'Sponge-Bob' when they blow bubbles that come out in shapes and then make an appropriate noise when they pop – like a tug-boat that pops with a sound like a fog horn or an elephant that trumpets. Loud and highly amusing to a four-year-old sounds like the sort of thing the twins would invent!