Chapter 7: Portuba Muff

After breakfast he says thanks again for everything, and he'll be on his way. I didn't even think about the possibility he'd be leaving. And I can't allow him to go; he's so tired he can hardly keep his eyes open. But I can sense I mustn't push.

Carefully, cunningly, like he was one of the tiny woodland fairies that share his genes and are close to impossible to capture, I ask him to stay for a couple of days, just till he has recovered from everything. Maybe got some ideas where he wants to go. I tell him he can sleep in the second bedroom. It's little more than a closet, but there's a camp bed in there, and he can shut the door. And he can use my Y-pad to pass the time, or watch telewizard.

"I got twenty channels, even a couple of Muggle channels."

"What, Muggles have telewizard, too?"

"It's similar. They call it television, and they need a device for it."

"A device?"

"The shows appear on a screen."

He doesn't seem to be able to envision that.

"Anyway, check out their programme. Watch their news. Or check out the Muggle internet. You can access it via the Y-pad. You'll learn a lot about what's going on in the Muggle world. It's important."

"How can it be important what's going on in the Muggle world," he says, having no idea how blasé he sounds.

"The worlds aren't as divided as they used to be, Draco. Muggle culture is everywhere. Technology, too. We're having classes on Muggle weaponry and electronic communication and computer surveillance in the Auror Department. Voldemort's Death Eaters relied on nothing but magic in fights, for reasons of ideology I assume, but more and more of today's wizard terrorists use Muggle explosives or firearms. I'm taking Muggle combat sports classes, too…"

He sits down on the couch, obviously having trouble to keep his lids open. Okay, not the time for filling him in on my job. He definitely needs to rest. So I cut short my lecture and tell him to just watch what he likes. I'm in the middle of explaining how to switch channels in my flat, which is quite a tricky business, when he falls asleep.

When I leave to go for work, I don't lock the front door. But I make it blend in with the walls with a Porta Muro hex, effectively making my flat invisible. Nobody will be able to disturb him like this. Or to harm him.

Last night's Dementor attack can't have been anything else but coincidence, but I don't seem to be able to get rid of that feeling that he needs to be kept safe. -

I spend the better part of the day in my office, reading. It's not at all uncommon for me to spend a workday at my desk in the Ministry. Contrary to what school kids might be imagining, being an Auror doesn't mean you're fighting all day. The fighting is five percent of it, if that. The rest is investigating crime scenes, interrogating suspects, and general research. And keeping fit. I spend half my days in the gym. I know that Muggles spend a lot of money on gym memberships, and I'm getting paid for working out. So that's pretty cool.

I don't really have a boss. Technically, the Minister of Magic is my superior, but he never interferes with what I do. Nobody would dream of controlling my working hours or anything like that. One of the perks of being Harry Potter.

And like every Auror in the Department, I've got my own Y-Mac in my office. Mac is short for Ministry-Accredited Research Tool, meaning I've got full access to every bit of information stored in the Ministry's internal data pool, the internet. It's being managed by the Y-Mac Department, and there's everything in there from the latest findings in ongoing investigations to scientific articles of general interest to simple protocols of daily routines.

So the first thing I do on coming into the office is boot up my Y-Mac and check Azkaban's data log. I filed a report to the Ministry late last night, told them I sighted a Dementor on the loose in Knockturn Alley. I didn't mention Draco's name or the attack on him. Media exposure is the last thing he wants. It's also the last thing the management of Azkaban wants in such cases, or the Ministry. The entry in the prison log about last night is very short. It only says a Dementor broke out of a cage due to a technical defect at a door lock. The Dementor returned before sunrise. No known victims. The lock was repaired, all the other locks were checked and found to be in order. That's all they write.

It doesn't add up. Dementors are kept in cages in groups of ten to twelve. They are swarm creatures. So if there actually was a technical defect, it would have been more than likely that all Dementors in the cage would have escaped, not just one. Perhaps they did, perhaps this is the prison management trying to play down a major incident of negligence. For now I've got no way of finding out. I decide to let the matter rest till later. There's something else I need to look into.

I never took a particular interest in Care of Magical Creatures back in Hogwarts, and as far as I remember, fairies never came up in class. The bottom-line being, I don't know anything about their special characteristics, biology, or history.

Or sexuality.

For starters, I open the Mac-version of Magical Creatures in Alphabetical Order.

Fairies is the first entry under the letter F. -

When you look through the literature on fairies, you'll soon come to realize there's a lot of projection. Fairies are being described as superficial and vain, as spending whole days grooming, and making a fuss when they get their wings removed. It's being done for beauty potions. Apparently there's not just the notorious classic, Beautification Potion, but all kinds of products. Like fairy-wing facials. They are advertised as being highly effective, and sell at astronomical prices.

And then there's Girding Potion. Used by athletes, but mostly by those who need help getting it up.

Yeah, this is why I don't like potions guys. It's just what they do, seeing everything as a potential ingredient. Using living things. Chopping them up and grinding the parts so some ugly old hag can change into a chick magnet, or cover his pimples with permanent glitter make-up.

Or have sex seven times in two hours.

Almost every article on fairies and fairy wing potions I come across contains the same sentence, stating the amputation doesn't kill the fairy. Whether that's true or not, the fact remains that cutting off any creature's wings is a mutilation. How can such cruelties be going on on an everyday basis, and I didn't even know about it. Or cared to know.

I guess I always considered fairies to be animals. But in Magical Creatures in Alphabetical Order, they say that today's woodland fairies really are descendants of the ancient human-like race of elves and fairy-elves, just diminished in size and intellectual capacity.

There's only one reference to sex in the article. It says that the fairy-elves of yore were the sexual counterparts of the elves, although both fairy-elves and elves were all male.

That's exactly the kind of information I was looking for, but it's all there is. One frigging sentence.

Shit. Looks like I'll have to face the limits of the internet and ask a flesh-and-blood expert after all. -

"What exactly did you mean by obscure sexuality."

"You know," Hermione replies, sipping at her soy margarine beer.

"I don't."

"For one thing, fairies are gay..."

"And that's obscure."

"You want to hear me out or not."

I indicate to her to go on, taking a swig of my own bacon butterbeer. It's really good, in spite of the strong flavour. Certainly better than that vegan stuff Hermione had me buy her. We are sitting at our usual table in the Flying Pumpkin, although it's a Tuesday. There's just the two of us. I called her in the afternoon and invited her to join me for a drink after work. She said she'd be thrilled to see me, and she sounded like she really was. Ron is having his weekly telewizard evening with his pals. They meet up every Tuesday at Ron's and Hermione's place to watch the week's games of the National Quidditch League. It's always useful to know people's routines, not only when it comes to terrorist hunting.

"Okay. Fairy sex," Hermione says. "To get the full picture, we'll have to go back to the days of Middle Earth, to the ancestors of today's woodland fairies, the elves and fairy-elves. They were of one and the same race, and they looked like humans. Both male, with the fairy-elves playing the female part in the sexual relationship. Meaning they could be impregnated by the elves."

"Okay. And how would that work."

"The original sources about Middle Earth aren't exactly explicit when it comes to sex. That's why I used the term obscure in the context. But maginetical research has answered a number of questions in recent years. Namely Portuba Muff has done some excellent work in the field."

"Portuba Muff? I haven't come across that name on the internet."

She smiles condescendingly.

"Not every scientific publication is on the internet, Harry. There's still a lot of stuff that can only be found in libraries. Okay. Back to Portuba Muff. Her data show that the fairy-elves of Middle Earth were closely related to insects. They had wings and were able to lay eggs. Their respiratory system was probably similar to that of insects, too. In every other respect, fairy-elves shared the physique of the elves and of human males, including the genitalia."

"What happened, why did the fairy-elves disappear."

"Over time, the elves started mating with human women. Abandoned by their elven partners, fairy-elves were left to have sex among themselves, which led to genetic degeneration over the centuries. The result are the woodland fairies we know today. As you know, they are no more than half a foot in size, and their minds have developed back to an animal-like state."

"And the fairy-elves died out."

Hermione nods.

"The only human-like carriers of fairy genes today would be wizards who are part-fairy. But they are extremely rare. Fairy-elves had been kind of scarce in number compared to elves even in the days of Middle Earth, but women who mate with part-elves today seem to almost never give birth to a part-fairy child. As a rule, their children are part-elf. We don't have any exact data though. Portuba Muff says the biggest problem for statistics is the effect of infanticide. It shrouds the true numbers."

"Infanticide?"

"Latin for child killing, Harry. You know a part-fairy witch or wizard would rank among the least respected of the known half-breeds, so it's only natural for parents to try to get rid of such a child."

"Natural."

"Don't look at me like that, Harry. All I'm saying is, people who set great store by public opinion won't want to raise a part-fairy child, and they won't commit open murder, either, ergo they might be tempted to resort to suffocate a baby who shows early symptoms, then make it look like SIDS or something. It's not like I'd endorse that kind of thing. It's obviously barbaric, and incompatible with modern society's stance on diversity and tolerance. I'm just giving you the facts. Like you asked."

"Well, thank you, I guess."

"You're welcome."

She doesn't ask me why I wanted to know all this. That's the personal charm of Hermione; to her, simple thirst for knowledge is sufficient reason for wanting to learn about things, even about something as particular as the love life of fairies and their extinct forefathers.

I drink up my beer, then suggest we head to the Apparition lot outside and go home.

I've heard enough for today.