Disclaimer: I am not blonde, female or wealthy. I do not own or even rent any of the Harry Potter world, which is owned by JK Rowling and her associates. But you knew that already, because I am not blonde, female or wealthy. My loss. However, I do like to imagining what happened afterwards.
Rating: T, no warnings
Chapter 7: A Long-delayed Holiday
July 26, 2018
Esmeralda Potter lay in her beach chair, clad only in a skimpy bikini with a nice pattern of swaying bamboo. Sitting, so to speak, beside her in another chaise lounge type chair was her good friend Myrtle Sotherby, wearing a demure one-piece swim suit with a bit of a skirt around the hips. In spite of the tendency on Australian beaches for women to go topless, as Essie's mother and co-mothers did regularly, she had not been able to convince Myrtle to try even a modest two piece suit, much less a more revealing outfit. The dead girl was loosening up over time, but it was a long process to shed the habits and attitudes of over eighty years.
Since Myrtle had been killed in the early 1940's with little experience with even the beachwear of the time, the ghost still clung to what Essie's Mum teasingly called her 'maiden modesty'.
Myrtle and Esmeralda had become good friends since her mother had introduced the two when she had taken up the job of teacher at Hogwarts. Although Myrtle was chronologically in her mid-eighties, by the way ghosts aged, she was effectively about fifteen and a half, which was the age that the young (still living) witch had been when they met. Although Myrtle was still the incorrigible flirt she was when Essie's father had first encountered her when he was in his second year at the school for Witchcraft and Wizardry, almost thirty years ago, she still behaved as a shy girl just into her teens. When she was in a swimsuit, and there were boys around, she would still arrange her long black hair in front of her chest to obscure the view – if she was feeling flirty, she might shake her head to give a bit of a rather modest 'flash' of her (covered) bosom.
Esmeralda's younger sister, Tourmaline, had also become close friends with the dead girl, and Essie could see that friendship growing stronger as she herself got older, and was starting to look ahead to a life after Hogwarts. She had one more year at the school in Scotland, and then the world was open to her and she planned to pursue her Mastery certificate in both Potions and Astronomy. Having talked with her mother and Lady Fiona, the ghost at Castle Dhu where she had grown up, Essie knew that one of the sources of grief in a ghost's 'life' was that any friendships they made with the living was doomed to end - this disturbed her greatly because, as a Hufflepuff, loyalty to her friends and family were a key part of her character.
Since Luna, Esmeralda and Tourmaline had befriended Myrtle, the spirit had reduced her wailing and moaning. She still had bad days when her loss and self-pity overwhelmed her, but these were becoming fewer as her interest in learning and their friendship helped her reengaged with the world.
While her mother's original interest in Myrtle had been from an intellectual curiosity and a love of all magical beings, Esmeralda had inherited some of her father's 'saving-people-thing', as Hermione called it. The young witch wanted, even craved, to do more for her spectral friend, but so far had not figured out how.
As the two friends watched the sky darken with the sun setting leaving the light of the almost full moon, Esmeralda thought on how nice it was to have a rich and famous father. Like many British noble families, the fortunes of the Potter and Black families had been enriched by Caribbean sugar in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, and this left the family coffers full and a list of real estate on several tropical islands in the West Indies. Many of these holding had been turned into luxury resorts (by Harry and his ancestors), and the extended family and their friends regularly partook of a winter vacation at one or other – all of her full and half-siblings had learned to swim in the warm waters.
At Harry's insistence, all the resorts were open to both magical and mundane people, of all races and species. Of course, like much else in Harry's life, what he wanted and what the wizarding world allowed differed. Although the slogan for the resorts was 'Come and Share the Magic', when the resorts first opened under as a mixed facility, the first muggle's first view of a goblin woman in a bikini needed to be explained away as being the product of too much of the (family brand) rum, or smoke from the ganja plantations upwind. Fortunately, this had been the case.
Steps were quickly taken. The coloured wrist bands identifying guests as staying for one week or two, whether they were in the executive wing or not, and so on, were impregnated with strong disillusion charms, and the section of the beach for the magical guests had signs incorporating muggle-repulsion spells.
The hardest areas to treat were the gift shops. Until Hermione's team at W3 Research (a branch of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes) managed to develop magical-hardened electronics, similar to radiation hardening use in satellites, the gift shop sold only T-shirts, swim suits and drinking paraphernalia. Once it was possible, they also sold picture frames showing either wizarding photos or muggle videos (the display samples showed palm trees waving in the breeze in both versions). The plastic identity/access cards which served as on-site credit cards were coded according to the status of the guest, so that the gift shop staff (all either magical or magic-aware muggles) could provide the appropriate products.
Other family holdings included several wine properties in the Hunter, Murray and Barossa valleys in Australia. When her father started visiting these to check on how they were being run, he also looked around for some property. When he found this location just north of Cairns in Queensland, he purchased the land and built this resort. The main part of the development was up on the highlands, across the Captain Cook Highway from Ellis Beach.
The resort had been named 'Club Sirius', as it was directly under the path of the star Sirius, and was located here specifically to honour Sirius Black. Although Esmeralda had never met Harry's godfather, from whom he had inherited the titles and holdings of the Head of Family Black, as he had been killed three years before she was born, she knew that honouring the man was extremely important to her father. Every year in January, her father and mother would come to the 'Club', and spend the entire night up on the hills watching the star pass over. Since Harry had located the site when she was small, Esmeralda had accompanied them to watch the stars she had learned to love, as the southern hemisphere's sky was so much richer than in the north, and the winter sky was very different from the summer sky. Although that was the height of the rainy season (known locally as 'The Wet'), he mother had arranged an introduction to the South Pacific Weather Elemental (by way of an old family friend), and managed to always schedule at least one clear night.
Luna had fallen in love with the place as it lay in the Queensland rain forest, and there were many of the magical creatures she loved so much. She was especially fond of the 'mob' of uniroos. When the joeys' first horns started erupting (similar to the milk-teeth in other mammals) they were permanently evicted from their mothers' pouches, and were rather put out by this fact. For a couple weeks, there were some definitely upset little roos.
Some other creatures that Luna fell in love with were the small flying koalas, which like flying squirrels, would glide from eucalyptus tree to tree. There were quite tame, and if you were gentle, would curl up in the crook of your arm to sleep.
Occasionally, a rare marsupial wolf or bunyip was sighted, although various warding spells keep these predators away for the guest accommodations.
Gil and Elly Granger had a permanently reserved cabin on the site, as they had moved permanently to Australia after their involuntary exile by Essie's half-mother Hermione. Essie loved her half-grandparents, although sometimes she wished that her dad had not been required by Wizarding law to have multiple wives, because the terms for relationships got very confusing. Since the Grangers had moved Down Under to work with the Flying Doctor Service, they still came 'north' from Christmas and the New Year's (Hogmanay) ceilidh, and the New Year's Day snowball fight which had become a family tradition. They also made it a point to join the family and friends on the Queensland coast during the southern hemisphere's winter and the local dry season. Although cooler than in the tropical summer, the temperatures were still warmer than Scotland on a balmy day, and still allowed for outdoor bathing wearing next to nothing.
Other family in attendance included the Delacours and the Weasleys, while some of the friends included the Longbottoms and the Greengrass-Davises. Tracy and Daphne had been together since their school days, and being among the only 'light-side' supporters in Slytherin at the time, had been forced together for mutual protection. Mutual support became something more over time, and the two had gone to Canada in 2009 to get married. Although their marriage (or 'mirage', as Daphne called it) was not recognised in Great Britain or Australia, in the UK they were under the protection of House Black (being closer to its Slytherin history), and their children were legally wards under Lord Black's authority. They had come to reconcile with Harry when he was setting up a means of keeping track of his enemies, and looking to hire staff who might have Slytherin connections (as that house had been the primary bane of his existence for most of his life).
The 'Stellar Information Bureau' was both a talent agency and Harry's private spy service, with Tracy running the show. Tall blonde Daphne had pursued her career in the fashion industry, but was also a covert agent for the SIB – she found that when women are in their underwear changing clothes, all sorts of interesting gossip occurred.
Through some delicate potions work at W3 Research, a way was eventually found to combine genetic material from both women into a viable embryo, and they subsequently gave birth to children (due to lack of Y chromosomes in the source material, by necessity, all daughters) who were truly their children and theirs alone. Their first two earlier children (James, and Harriet) had Daphne's green eyes, and Tracy's dark hair – of course, there was much speculation as to who the sperm donor might have been, but no one was talking too loudly. Of course when the family and friends got together, kids played with kids, and there were lots of kids to go around who didn't really care who belonged to whom.
The new in-vitro fertility technique (which Hermione had dubbed 'Artificial BiMaternal Parthenogenesis', or ABMP) was kept as a closely guarded secret for many years due to the potential political fallout. The old patriarchs in the Wizengamot might be able to tolerate the Potter-Black-Weasley-Longbottom faction taking political supremacy, as they had seen factions come and go, but to be informed that they were not only politically irrelevant but also genetically superfluous would have been beyond what they would accept.
As the sky quit getting darker, due to the strong moonlight in the clear sky, Esmeralda looked over at her friend. Myrtle was very pale in the daylight, but unlike Essie, did not have to worry about sunburn. Although most people seeing Essie thought she had strawberry blonde hair, it was actually one strand of red hair (inherited from her paternal grandmother) to three strands of white-blonde, from her mother and maternal grandmother's Nordic ancestry. From both sides, she had inherited a strong tendency to burn in the sun, and learned from a very young age the spells to prevent it.
In the bright moonlight, Myrtle seemed to almost glow.
The two girls had spent the day off-shore out at the Great Barrier Reef. The first time they had gone there, it had taken several hours on a bumpy boat to get to the spot where they went diving, but after that with the location firmly in her mind, Esmeralda was able to apparate to a suitable spot, as Myrtle just 'shifted' her location to the place they had decided on. Sometimes it was nice being a witch – at least it certainly beat being seasick for a couple hours.
While at the reef, Esmeralda had used gilly-weed rather than scuba equipment, while Myrtle did not require breathing assistance. The two girls had spent several hours below the waters, with Essie having to come up occasionally to renew her dose of the herb which only lasted about an hour per 'serving'.
Sometimes, the two swam with other groups either from the 'Club' or other tourist boats – when swimming with a group of muggles, both appeared to be wearing snorkel gear, and surfaced at regular intervals to maintain the illusion (and the requirements of the Stature of Secrecy). Other times, when they were on their own, Myrtle would occasionally smile at Esmeralda and have her swim suit disappear. Sometimes she would add a mermaid's tail. Once, apparently feeling very daring and flirty, the ghost had 'vanished' her suit, added the tail, and swam over to where a group of muggles were scuba diving – the news of a confirmed mermaid sighting hit the international new services, and the Club did booming business for years afterwards.
After the first trip to the reef a year or so back, Myrtle commented how some sections of the reef seemed to be under serious stress. She remembered reading something at Hogwarts about care of aquatic plants and animals, and had decided that, when they returned to the school she would look it up again. She would speak with Professor Flitwick, and try to find out where Pomona Sprout had retired to, and would ask her as well. She told Luna that there were magical creatures down there that needed help, and that, as a Ravenclaw, it was up to her to figure out what to do. Luna and Myrtle formed a plan to restore the reef where they could.
January 1, 2019
That New Year's, the Hogmanay ceilidh was expanded to include all the ghosts from Hogwarts and the surrounding areas. A number of Australian guests, some corporeal and some not, were also in attendance. The castle's staff were included in the party, as Harry as Chief of the Clan Dhu insisted that all clansmen (and women) were equal in his eyes, and so if he was holding a party, they were not to be left out.
This was Esmeralda's first ceilidh since graduating from Hogwarts. At her graduation commencement, her father had praised her ability to get through school without anyone trying to kill her. He did not mention to her that three kidnapping attempts had been thwarted during her school years, although two of these appeared to be more for ransom than for political purposes.
She and her boyfriend, Geoffrey Wood (the younger son of Harry's first Quidditch captain) were there, with his parents Oliver and their teammate (and now Ollie's wife) Katie. When Myrtle saw Essie with Geoff, she smiled but had a tear in her eye, knowing that another of her mortal friends was moving on beyond her.
As had become the custom, a local 'dancey' had come to the castle some days before to teach Scottish Country Dancing to those in need or instruction (or refresher lessons). Because of this, and their military background, when the 'Reel of the 51st Division' was danced, members of the Headless Hunt made up two 'sets', and to his delight, allowed Sir Nicholas to dance in their grouping.
The next day, as many were nursing hangovers while the potions were being distributed, and Luna and Harry were coyly looking at each other remembering the morning twenty years before when their elder daughter was conceived, Brother Hiro asked to speak to 'The Chief' and his family, particularly those of Luna's birthing. He also specifically asked that "Rady Myrtre' be included.
The Buddhist monk, who had arrived at the castle many years before after Father Ian's visit to Japan, bowed to the family. Although he had been in Scotland for many years, his work in the hinterlands of the estate had limited his opportunity to have his speech lose the flavour of his native land. He began "Rord Harry, Rady Runa, I saw your friend Myrtre at party rast night. Rady Runa, Rady Esmerarda, I know you can see future. I can see past, can see aura, can see karma, what you carr destiny. Rast night, I rook at Rady Myrtre – I see she dad destiny not furfirred. Her destiny is to have chirdren, grand chirdren. Because she murdered, could not furfill her karma. This is why she stirr ghost, why she stirr at Hogwarts."
"My Rodr, Radies, in my homerand, many spirits carred kami. When I was young monk, my abbott speak of sperr to rerease spirits who not supposed to stay here. Supposed to move on. Supposed to fulfill karma, rike Rady Myrtre."
This sperr, not rerease spirit right away. Arrows return to body to furfirr destiny. In my country, bereave in reincarnation. This sperr, supposed to herp reincarnation. Ret ghost take on new body, become human again. Chance to furfill destiny."
"If you arrow and if approve, I return to Japan to ask how to do this sperr. I come back, herp Rady Myrtre reincarnate, give new chance."
Harry looked over at his wife and daughters who nodded. He looked at Myrtle, who seemed to have tears in her eyes again, but instead of a frown she had a wide smile. He asked "Myrtle, do you want this? It sound like you would be taking a bit of a risk, in becoming a baby and having to go through growing up again, with all the joys and sorrows that will entail. If you want this, I will help in any way I can."
The man, who had been so embarrassed when a girl hugged him, was immediately hugged by the ghost, as she said, over and over, "Yes, yes, ..."
Harry smiled and nodded. Turning to Hiro, he said, "Brother Hiro, what do you need and how can I help?"
The monk thought for a moment. "I wirr need traver documents, and way to trever. When I arrived, as poor monk, it took me many months walking across Asia to get here. Would be better if I could go faster."
Harry nodded. "Brother Hiro, did you ever become a British citizen? Or do we need to speak with the Japanese embassy?"
The monk looked a bit embarrassed. "I don't know. When I came, I did not have papers. I think I may be here many years, irregarry."
Harry smiled. "Don't worry. Since the wars, there have been many people travelling, as they say, 'Without Papers'. We will arrange something. I will arrange for first class travel to Tokyo. Where will you need to go after that?"
Hiro nodded as he thanked Harry. He added, "I wirr need to go Kyoto. I was monk at Kinkakuji, Temple of Gorden Pavirion there. I wirr need to go speak to abbot, ask for his guidance and herp. I wirr write retter to abbott, ask his herp and an audience."
Harry looked at Myrtle, and said "If you want to back out, now would be a good time." The spirit shook her head.
Harry looked at his blonde wife. He smiled and asked "Luna, would you like to go along? There must be a lot of little animals you haven't discovered yet."
Hiro nodded. "Many of what muggres carr 'kami' or spirits, actuarry magicar creature. Maybe, My Rady, you come too."
Esmeralda spoke up. "May I come along as well? If there is something we can do to help Myrtle, I want to be part of it." Myrtle smiled and hugged her mortal best friend.
Planning continued through the evening, and by the end of it, a group of thirty Potters, Weasleys, Delacours and others were figuring out a suitable time to go on a Japanese vacation – going that far called for an extended visit as there would be much to see. It would also need to fit into Luna's schedule at Hogwarts.
