Captain Bligh Chapter 1b
Synopsis: Given some disturbance in her new family, Lady Black (aka Luna Potter-Black), like Lieutenant William Bligh of Bounty fame, takes control to rectify the unacceptable situation. This is described in a letter to her father.
Rating: M, AU
Warning: Consensual polygamy (feline and human). If that gets your knickers in a twist, stop reading. Now.
Disclaimer: The situations and characteriszations are mine. Original characters belong to JKR and her cohorts. No money being made off this drivel.
A/N: This is an additional scene to 'Captain Bligh and the Mutineers', suggested by a review by Covante, for which I thank her (gender assumed given the profile picture; either that or he is a really sharply dressed transvestite). It has taken me a while to work out a way to have it fit into the narrative.
June 19, 2005
Dearest Daddy,
Thank you for coming up to the Canadian prairies to participate in the 'unveiling' of the latest addition to our family. As you have taught me, things are unimportant, people are important, and family are the most important of people.
As you also taught me, during our many journeys to seek out rare and unknown animals, when confronted by a new creature you should make careful observations and keep clear notes to determine their habits and customs. Accordingly, I have been making careful observations of my new daughter, and also the medi-witches who attended her birth.
The midwives were very strange, and absolutely would not let me fulfill my obligations as is normal for a mammal mother. Not only did they refuse to let me eat the placenta, and were disgusted by the very thought, but they refused to let me lick Patty clean so she would learn my scent, and I hers. Very strange behaviour for people trained in birthing procedures.
I have been observing the newest member of the Potter family, very closely. I would call her a captive creature, but given her current sleeping and feeding schedule, and the time she spends attached to my chest, I am not yet completely clear which one of us is the captive.
It is apparent that Patricia does prefer my left breast to that on the right side. I have come up with two hypotheses for this preference, either that she prefers the one because of the proximity to my heartbeat, or that there is a significant difference in the characteristics of the milk from the two sources.
I have discussed these with Hermione and her parents who both have medical training, and they tell me there is a muggle procedure where the heart can be stopped and then re-started, and this is used for conducting surgical operations on the heart. At the moment, I have postponed trying this as an experiment to prove or disprove the first hypothesis, at least until I evaluate the second.
I have decided to see if there is a significant difference in the quality or flavour of the milk form my left and right breasts. As I am not sufficiently 'well-endowed' to sample directly, I have expressed enough from each to run some tests. Both Hermione and I have tasted the two samples, and found no significant difference in taste, and she ran some diagnostic tests showing that the levels of milk sugars, milk fats, proteins and other components showed no significant differences as well. Harry insisted on sampling the two options directly from the sources, and appeared to have been distracted by the experimental procedure, as his observation notes were quite useless.
As my testing of the second hypothesis has failed to show any noticeable differences, I may have to try stopping my heart while she is nursing, and attempt to observe any differences in behaviour until I pass out or they restart my heart. As I am unfamiliar with spells for accomplishing this in a hopefully reversible manner, I may have to wait for the arrival of my next child to test this idea, and that will also depend on whether the new 'they' show a similar preference. Otherwise the experimentation would be pointless.
I have also found out that kneazle males, or at least Crookshanks, display very different behaviour than male of other feline species. Instead of being a serious and lethal danger to kittens, Crookshanks is a very proud father, and very caring. In the days following Patty's arrival, he brought a couple of the farm's female cats to my side, bringing their new kittens with them, I guess to show that he and I were both bringing new life into the world. He was even prouder that Harry is, and insisted to bringing each kitten up to me personally (felinally?) to be appreciated. He seemed surprised that Patty's eyes were already open.
One other observation I made in the course of these studies was that Sally Granger looked very wistful while I was nursing, and she and Hermione kept glancing at each other. I believe I told you that the Grangers still had some reticence accepting Hermione as their daughter, because of her obliviation of them before effectively sending them into exile for their safety. As you taught me, family is the most important, and this problem could not be allowed to stand.
I had seen Mr. Granger using a muggle camera which developed the pictures almost immediately, and had an idea. I had Harry retrieve the pensieve that Headmaster Dumbledore had bequeathed to him. I then explained the process of memory recovery and display to the Grangers.
I had Harry, Hermione and me draw out memories of Patricia's birthing, and display each of them to show the Grangers how individual memories of the same event would be seen from different perspectives. I then had Harry and Hermione draw out memories of the gathering after the birth where the Grangers and you were present (I having fallen asleep by then), so they could witness events where they had direct personal knowledge of what happened, although from different points of view. This was to assure them of the validity of the method.
I had Hermione and Harry draw out some memories that she had told her parents of, notably the meeting with the troll, Harry's flying against the dragon, and our marriage ritual surrounded by the dead nargles and broken nutmeg trees. I then had her show some memories of some of the events where she had been with her parents but Harry and I were not, including when she obliviated them – with the display of that one memory, you could clearly hear her crying, as they all did as it was being shown.
I then had the Grangers request specific memories from her, of which that she had no warning, so if they had any suspicions that the memories had been prepared or doctored, these would be allayed. They then saw, from Hermione's point of view, coming home from getting her first perfect mark on a test, meeting with Professor McGonagall when she came to them with Hermione's letter, and her fifth birthday when they gave her a ginger-coloured kitten (Harry and I now know at least one reason why she picked Crookshanks as her familiar).
It was several hours later by the time they finished crying in each others' arms. Harry complains that his face still hurts from smiling for three hours straight.
There is still hurt there, but it is well on the way to healing. As it should.
While I have you reading, I have some new safaris for us to take as soon as Patty lets me travel again. I have been watching a muggle device called 'cable TV", while the little girl has me pinned to the couch, and have seen some strange creatures that need to be investigated.
It seems that there are some of the oddest creatures roaming around Washington, DC in the United States (the shows claim that they are in America, but so are we in Canada and so are the Mexicans, and Brazil, and other countries – it seems rather presumptuous of them). Anyway, it seems there are strange sub-species of donkeys, elephants and ducks (which appear to have congenital disabilities as they are always described as being lame) in great numbers. They make loud noises about being free, but they all seem to be owned by other creatures called lobbyists, according to the announcers on the programs. Although each of the usual species of these kinds of creatures are herbivores, these all seem to feed from barrels of pork.
In the US south-western deserts, there seems to be a new species of tool-using coyotes, which I fear will become extinct if they are not investigated very soon, as from the documentaries they seem quite unable to catch their prey. I expect they will die off from starvation quickly.
One serious disappointment with the TV programs is a channel called Fox News. Actually this was the cause of two disappointments. The first is that the experts show as little contact with the real world (as we know it to be, and I am gradually getting Hermione and Harry to accept) as most of the students at Hogwarts, and the second is that, after several hours of watching, they have had not a single show related to news about foxes. They have some shows about the life and exploits of entertainment persons called celebrities (although they do not show them celebrating anything except becoming intoxicated on vastly overpriced liquor in flashy establishments), usually equipped with large breasts, lots of money and apparently very little talent, and they are referred to as 'foxes' for some unfathomable reason.
Looking forward to our next journeys once my addition lets me become more mobile,
Your loving daughter,
Luna
