Jump Chain Gothic 8 - Harry Potter - First Year

Part 13

Ottery St Catchpole. England.

During the second week of the Easter holidays I left the house in order to visit a small town, more of a village really, that was located in Devon. It was presumably named after a Saint Catchpole, however I'd never heard of that person, and he didn't exist in my records, so perhaps he only existed here.

The village was both a Muggle and a magical community, the latter quietly established after the passing of the Statute of Secrecy in the seventeenth century according to my research. I didn't know why some magical families chose to settle near muggles, yet they did and the system seemed to work.

While I suspected that there were some Muggles out there who helped to hide the existence of magic, just as there were magic users doing the same, I doubted that they needed to make much of an effort.

Even some wizard was seen doing so spells on camera and the footage was shown to the whole country, people would just dismiss it as a hoax since as for some reason most humans needed to believe that they were the greatest thing in all creation. I could only assume it had to do with feeding their fragile little egos.

I knew that the Wizarding families that lived in or near Ottery St Catchpole included the Weasleys who lived in The Burrow, as I would soon see for myself, the Fawcetts, the Diggorys, and of course the Lovegoods, who I was also on my way to see.

The Knight Bus had dropped me off near the Burrow, and I'd gotten directions to the Rookery from the driver, as I walked to the Weasley home I saw the Burrow. It was an odd looking structure, it looked as if extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high and so crooked that it really should have fallen over.

While planning my trip here I'd tried to think of reason for me to visit the Burrow, if only to see what it was like, but I didn't know any of that family well enough to justify simpply popping in. I barely knew the twins, I hardly ever saw Percy and I loathed Ron.

I decided in the end to use my Wizard Monopoly game as justification since Arthur Weasley worked at the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office, and I was making a wizard version of a Muggle game.

Of course I could have gone to see him at the Ministry, but I wanted to avoid that hive scum and villainy for as long as possible. Plus visiting on a quiet Sunday afternoon made my trip seem more casual.

Plus this way I got the chance to see the Burrow in person, and maybe annoy Potter's sidekick in the process, which was always fun.

The Burrow had a small yard at the front of the house, with a garage that I knew stored Arthur Weasley's flying Ford Anglia and Muggle artefacts, and there was a chicken coop that housed the family's chickens. A sign in the ground read "The Burrow" by the main entrance, which would have clued me into the fact that I was in right place even I hadn't recognised the house on sight.

I knocked on the front door and was soon met by the family matriarch Molly Weasly, who looked very maternal, to put it nicely.

"Hello, dear" she greeted "Are you one of Ron's friends?".

I resisted the urge to deny that very loudly.

"Not exactly" I answered "My name is Damien Pendragon. I'm actually here to see your husband if that's okay. Its about a project I'm working on that's based on a Muggle invention. I know he works at the Misuse of Muggle Artefact office so I was hoping for a little of his time".

I presented the box which contained my modified monopoly game, and soon I was led into the kitchen of the Burrow, right away I could tell that it was the social centre of the Weasley family.

The kitchen contained a large wooden table with room enough for eight chairs. All the chairs that were present were mismatched. In fact nothing in this room made much sense, and I was barely able to locate that cloak which told me where all the members of the family were. All of the hands were pointed at home.

I could actually hear the children, judging by the sounds they were playing in the back garden, most likely on brooms. I had no desire to go and socialise with them if I could help it. Ron no more cared for me than I cared for him, in fact as far as I could tell, he didn't like anyone who was outside of his house at school.

"Arthur dear" Molly Weasley said "Got a young man here who needs your help with some Muggle game he's been tinkering with".

That got the man's attention and before long I had the game out and we were trying it out. Already I was pretty sure that the game would be approved off, which meant I'd be able to copy and sell it in the future.

"So how does this work" I was asked.

There was no mention of seeing him during office hours, if anything Mr Weasley seemed thrilled that I'd come to see him person. Clearly he was much more friendly than his youngest son.

"The game isn't that simple" I said "But its not so hard that kids can't play it".

I showed Mr Weasley the inventory, which showed the contents of the box.

One Monopoly board. Two dice. 6 game tokens. 32 houses and 12 castles. 16 Ministry cards and 16 Spell and Potion cards. A title deed card for each property

"I changed a few things from the Muggle version, and kept some things" I explained "Muggles use hotels, but my version uses castles, which is important later".

Before long I had a plate of biscuits and a glass of milk in front of me. Mrs Weasley clearly was interested in what was going on, yet for some reason rather than sit down and listen she busied herself in the kitchen while I talked business with her husband.

"The object of Monopoly is become the wealthiest player in the game, by buying, selling, trading and collecting rent on properties" I started by explaining "Depending on how long you want to play, you can either keep going until all but one player has gone bankrupt or set a time limit and make the richest player the winner".

Wizards weren't big believers in time limits. I suspected that it had to do with them living for well over a century, some magic users lived for hundreds of years, so they saw no need for time limits as they had long lives to fill.

"To start the game, each player chooses a token which acts as player piece" I told Ron's Dad.

I'd created new tokens, which were, the sorting hat, the unicorn, the broomstick, which, the potion bottle, the phoenix, in honour of Sol, and the owl. All of those tokens suited the magical world much better than the tokens used in the classic Muggle version of this game. Plus they all moved by themselves.

"One player is selected as the goblin, as he or she is a banker" I was now saying "The banker distributes a starting amount of money".

Granger had worked out to represent such large sums of money without using too many coins. The wizarding world made use of bank drafts of a sort, kind of like cheques, in order to make large purchases without having to carry sacks of gold around.

"On the board we have four corner squares. GO is where play begins. Every time you land on or pass GO, you collect 200 Galleons" I informed Mr Weasley "The Ministry and Potion & Spells squares you see on the board require players to draw a card, which can be good or bad".

Some of the Potion and Spells cards were amusing. One of the cards made you lose money after falling victim to a love potion and spending a fortune on gifts. While another card led to the player having been hit by a cheering charm and having a positive attitude led to making profit on a deal.

"Free Parking is the only space in the game that requires you to do absolutely nothing" I said next "The "Go to Azkaban" square only results in jail time if you land on it, not if you pass it. The Azkaban square has two sections: "Just Visiting" is if you roll and land on Azkaban; and "In Azkaban" is when you get sent to jail".

I spent a little time explaining about the squares which contained properties to buy, and the services, as well as how buying these things made money. I'd changed all the squares so that they were relevant for wizards.

The services hadn't been to hard to figure out, stuff like the Floo Network, Platform 9 and 2 quarters, and the Knight Bus, replaced the traditional train stations, however finding enough properties turned out to be much harder work as they had to be group together. I'd ended up putting together Hogwarts with Hogsmede and the Forbidden Forest as the most expensive of properties to buy. Some of the businesses in Knockturn alley made up the cheapest.

"When you actually start the game the highest roll of the dice goes first" were the next words to come out of my mouth "You start in the GO square, like I already mentioned, and move clockwise around the board according to the number on the dice".

So far he seemed to be understanding everything. Which was good as if the wizards and witches of this world couldn't grasp the game then they'd never play it and all my efforts, as well as those of a certain young witch, would have been for nought.

"If you land on an available property, you can buy it by paying the goblin the price listed on the deed card" I explained next "If you buy all of the properties in the same colour group, then you have a monopoly, allowing you to charge double the listed rent. Once you have a monopoly, you can start to build houses and eventually a castle, raising the rent further. Of course, you have to pay rent whenever you land on an opponent's property".

There was more to say

"If you land on an available property, but decline to buy it, then the banker can auction the property to the highest bidder" I told the man from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office "The banker starts the bidding at any price and all players can participate, including the banker and the player who originally declined the property".

Hopefully that wouldn't be too hard to remember.

"You can get sent to Azkaban three ways, by landing on the square marked "Go to Azkban" by picking a "Go to Azkaban" card or by throwing three doubles in a row. You can also get out of jail three ways: using the "Get out of Azkaban Free" card, by rolling doubles within three turns, or you can your bribe your way out. If you don't roll doubles after three turns, you have to pay to get out of jail".

I was nearly done.

"Players can also loan each other money, or sell properties they own without the bank getting involved" I said "The goblin banker acts as judge if any arguments break out".

It was a good thing that milk had been provided as my mouth was going dry.

"A player goes bankrupt when he or she doesn't have enough cash or assets to pay the bank or another player" I explained "Players can sell houses and hotels back to the bank for half of their original value, but if that doesn't provide enough cash, the bankrupt player forfeits all properties to the bank or an opponent and is out of the game".

I'd written down the rules, and how this version differed from the Muggle ones, the changes were mostly cosmetic.

"Well I can get my boss to approve this game" Mr Weasley told me "But it will require some testing, so we'll need to play the game".

Hopefully it wouldn't take too long. I still wanted to visit Luna. At this rate I might have to come back tomorrow.

(Line Break)

Ottery St Catchpole. England.

It took me hours to escape the Burrow, I'd had to play my version of Monoploy while answering a large number of question, not all of which had anything to do with the game, mostly they were about Muggles. A subject I had a fair bit of knowledge on.

Then came dinner, which had involved even more questions from Ginny, all about Hogwarts, Harry Potter and other school stuff. All of which her brothers should and could have answered, however they chose not to.

Finally I'd been able to leave and begin making my way to the Lovegood residence. When I saw the Lovegood House which was a black-coloured cylindrical house on top of a hill with a stream at the base of it, I forgot all about the odd appearance of the Burrow as this home was way cooler.

It really looked like a rook, and I quickly saw that the front yard could be entered by a broken down gate, which Xenophilius had tacked a sign to which said "Editor of the Quibbler" it needed replacing.

From here I could see that the front door was thick and black, studded with iron nails, with a knocker shaped like an eagle. It was so Ravenclaw, and while I'd not checked what house Luna's parents were in I was sure that they had been in Ravenclaw just as I was now. Just as Luna would be.

Despite the chill in the air, which could now be felt much more keenly as the sun began to reach the horizon, I found Luna Lovegood, who was totally adorable, in the garden, talking to herself as she poked some plants with a stick.

"Looking for Snorkacks?" I asked.

The Crumple-Horned Snorkack was an elusive, or possibly just imaginary, magical creature. I didn't simply assume that it wasn't real just because there was no concrete proof of its existence. After all Muggle scientists found new species all the time, and the magical ones could find ways to hide more effectively than the non-magical animals.

"No they live in Sweden" the young witch replied as she studied the garden with interest "I'm looking for Nargals".

This made sense to me.

"They're known to infest mistletoe" I said.

I did read the Quibbler, well I skimmed the articles, most of which were silly, but the runic word search could be fun. However while most of the stuff in that magazine made little sense I had found something odd.

Heliopaths, which were also made up, happened to resemble flame atronachs, or at least a drawings of them did. Now this could just be a coincidence, but like Buffy Summers there were two things I didn't believe in: coincidence and leprechauns.

Although leprechauns did exist in this world, so it could be a coincidence, and there had been no other sightings of daedra as far as I knew, no Seer dreams from Morgana or Force Visions for me.

Still it was best to investigate even if if the hand drawn picture shown in the last issue of the Quibbler was just of a flaming humanoid. It might just be a child's nightmare, or even a person who'd been set on fire with some sort of spell, and had hopefully used the flame freezing charm.

"I'd like to speak with your father if I may" I told the young witch.

Apparently stranger danger wasn't something magical folk worried about as Luna led me right into her house. Sure I looked like an innocent young boy, but given that stuff like polyjuice potion existed she should be more careful.

The front door lead into the kitchen, which was a perfectly circular room, with stove, sinks, and cupboards all curved in order to fit the walls. Everything in the kitchen had been painted in bright colours and many things were decorated with pictures of flowers, insects, and birds. Clearly this was house for hippies.

In the centre of the floor was a spiral wrought-iron staircase that I assumed lead up to the upper levels. Which Luna soon led me up. The first floor above the kitchen was a lot more more cluttered, and also entirely round, as far as I could tell this room served as both a living room and a workplace for Xenophilius Lovegood.

There were piles of books and papers covering every surface. The ceiling was dotted with small delicately made models of creatures that could flap their wings, or snap their jaws. They actually moved around up there, some of them looked as they'd eat each other if they could reach that far.

The strange device that took up a lot of space up here had to Xenophilius Lovegood's printing press, which printed out copies of his magazine The Quibbler, which of course I recognised on site.

"Daddy!" Luna called out.

A man appeared from under a pile of papers. He looked as if been sleeping in them. Maybe he was a Hufflepuff and had been hibernating like the badger that served their house as a symbol. Did badger's hibernate? Not relevant right now.

"Yes, Pumpkin!" he shouted out.

His daughter was right here in front of him, and yet he still felt the need to yell.

"I'll make some tea" the witch said "You can talk to Daddy. Just don't get to close, he has a terrible case of Wrackspurts".

A Wrackspurt was an invisible creature which floated into a person's ears, making their brain become unfocused and confused. Wrackspurts could be seen with aid of Spectrespecs, but I'd not tested this out. Those suffering from Wrackspurt infections could dispel them by thinking positive thoughts.

While Luna busied herself in the kitchen below I made some small talk with Mr Lovegood, who clearly needed to take better care of himself. I wasn't upset about his poor parenting and odd sleeping habits, as he must still be in mourning for his wife, but those things did concern me.

I'd have to keep a close eye on his daughter, which I would have anyway since I knew she would be bullied and I loathed bullies more than anything, be they school ones, or space vampires who liked to prey on pre-industrial humans.

"Mr Lovegood" I started by saying "I have some questions about an article you recently printed".

The man seemed somewhat alert. Which was good.

"Where did you get the image of a Heliopaths?" I asked "The one you printed in your magazine".

Mr Lovegood muttered to himself as he sorted out some papers.

"Ah yes, here we are" he said after a while "My Luna drew it, she has strange dreams, ever since...".

He trailed off and went back to lying on his papers, leaving me holding the original drawing which could be a daedra or the product of a child's nightmare. As for Mr Lovegood I decided to leave him to it, and headed down the stairs.

I knew what I needed to know. Luna had dreamt the creature, which meant that it was either a product of her damaged mind, which must be messed up after seeing her mother die, or she'd dreamed about the future.

Morgana's Seer powers didn't manifest until after her stepfather died and she went to live in Camelot. Which meant that tragedy could be a trigger for Seer abilities, or she could just be loony. At this point I simply didn't know.

"Your father is taking a nap" I told the younger Lovegood.

Since she'd made the tea I decided to drink it, the flavour was exotic to put it nicely. As I drank the little witch made some small talk, and asked a few questions, I would have happily answered all her queries, alas it was getting dark and I needed to get home or my Au Pair would be upset.

"Listen Luna" I said while taking off my adder stone "Do me a favour and wear this, I don't think I need it any more, you do".

My adder stone did more than shield me from nightmares, and while removing it did lessen by defences I was immortal, also I had other ways of protecting myself. Heck I might be able to make a new one as the ritual was recorded in my magicron, a magical version of Jedi Holocron.

Giving the gift was not a totally selfish act as if she was simply having nightmares the adder stone would stop them, however if she was really seeing the future then the adder stone wouldn't block out the stronger visions and once I had her trust she would confide in me, letting me know if she was a real Seer, or just a bit crazy.

While she tried on the the adder stone, which was worn as amulet around the neck, I wrote down the address of my home and my name, the one I was known as in this world.

"I've got to go back to school soon, so send me an owl over the summer, and I can come visit" I told her "We can go to Diagon Alley when its time to get your school things".

While I did want to know when and how her mother had died, because I was morbidly curious, this wasn't the time to pry.

"Oh are we friends?" Luna asked "Ginny is my friend too".

Well it wasn't normal to actually enquire if you were friends with someone, as you were suppose to simply known, I decided to form the friendship now. If she was a Seer then I wanted her on my side because real Seers were few and far between as well as priceless since their ability to glimpse the future was a very useful tool.

"Yes, Luna we're friends" I said "Now I'll be at home for the rest of the holidays so you can call me on the floo if you need anything".

On the way I couldn't help noticing that the young witch had silver eyes, not greyish-silver, they were really silver, it was an interesting feature. I figured that she'd be quite the beauty when she grew up.

As I moved the garden, intending to summon the Knight Bus once I returned the road, I consider that even if she wasn't a Seer she be a worthy recruit anyway. I'd had my eye on a certain bushy haired witch for a while, however I found Granger to be annoying at times and very set in her ways.

Granted she might grow out of that, but Luna could be easier to groom into a companion, I could guide her and help her avoid becoming Loony. It was something to think about, and I was sure that today I had planted the seeds of what could be a good friendship.

(Line Break)

Diagon Alley. Wizarding World.

This time when I visited the shopping district of Magical Britain it was much quieter and far less packed than before. Which was to be expected since Wizards didn't celebrate Easter as such they kept working, and far more of the children at Hogwarts stayed at the school than they did over the Christmas holidays.

I was pleased by this as it allowed me to do some shopping without feeling rushed. Plus I got spend more of my father's money, and that suited us both fine as he just kept sending me more of it as I spent it.

Adele did make some protests when I tried to buy a Pensieve, however I just tuned her out as I really wanted one of the magical devices.

The Pensieve was an object used to review memories. It had the appearance of a shallow stone or metal basin, into which runes and strange symbols were carved and precious stones were fitted, which was all for decoration I felt sure.

When in use the Pensieve is filled with a silvery substance that appears to be a cloud-like liquid/gas. These were in fact the collected memories of people who have siphoned their recollections into it.

Memories could then be viewed from a non-participant, third-person point of view. Owing to the highly personal nature of extracted memories, and the potential for abuse, most Pensieves are entombed with their owners along with the memories they contain.

Some witches and wizards will pass on their Pensive/memories to another person, as is the case with the Hogwarts Pensieve, which according to Hogwarts A History gets passed down from Headteacher to Headteacher.

While I had a good memory it wasn't flawless, and there really was too much crap in my head. Sure it was possible for me to view memories as holograms, a Pensives allowed one to be a ghost while in the memory. Which I figured could come in handy.

Perhaps I could do something like that with downloaded memories and a holodeck, however using Pensive would be much simpler.

I'd already looked in Cranville Quincey's Magical Junkshop hoping to find a second hand Pensieve, but I hadn't been too optimistic about that, and I'd been right not to be.

As it turned out you could place yourself on a waiting list for certain objects. For my pensive I would have to wait two years, and sure that sounded like a long time, until you recalled that wizards can live for well over a century, and I didn't really need the Pensieve right now so I was willing to wait.

I was able to make the order by visiting Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment which was a shop in North Side, Diagon Alley that sold a wide variety of magical instruments like telescopes and hourglasses, as well maps.

"Will I need all of this for Hogwarts" Luna Lovegood asked me.

The young witch had taken me up on the offer to spend time together before I went back to school, and since I'd needed to come to alley anyway I'd decided to bring her with me. This had been much to the delight of Adele, who teased me about having a girlfriend.

As for Luna there were already signs of improvement with her, no doubt thanks to the adder stone that I'd given her, which prevented nightmares. A few nights of peaceful sleep could do a person a world of good.

It was also suppose to protect against snakebites, and since basilisks are giant snakes the adder stone might protect against the venom of the basilisk, however it might not even how dangerous the venom happened to be, and this wasn't something you wanted to test in case it didn't work.

"Some of it" I said "You'll get a list of supplies with your acceptance letter, I can help you with that".

This store sold Armillary spheres, one of which I'd brought it since it looked cool, binoculars, brass scales, brass telescopes, compasses, crystal balls, glass phials, crystal phials, magnifying glasses, charts of the Moon, star charts, globes of the Moon, and what looked to be galaxies in orbs, which I was told would serve me well in astronomy lessons. However I had no desire to learn more than I had to in that subject, in fact since I could remove memories I'd delete the entire subject once I finished the OWL exam.

"I just need to pick some treats for Sol, and the some stuff for potions" I said to Luna as we left the store "After that we can visit Rose Lee Teabag for afternoon tea".

My study group needed some potion supplies as Serana would want to take us through the creation of the boil removal potion as that was bound to term up on the end of year exam.

Once that was done we could head for some refreshments. Aside from tea I would order cakes. I remembered from the books/films that Luna was a dessert person, and the skinny girl could do with some feeding.

"Who is Sol?" Miss Lovegood asked.

I realised then that she'd never met my familiar. While he came when called he was often off somewhere doing his own thing, and I'd not seen him for a few days.

"Sol" I called out.

The Phoenix appeared in a burst of blame which startled a few passersby.

"This is Sol" I explained "He's my Phoenix familiar".

He was also a total babe magnet, no human female I'd seen him go near had been able to resist the urge to pet and fuss over him, the fire bird loved the attention. Oddly few others seemed to care once the novelty wore off, despite the famous Dumbledore also having a Phoenix familiar.

I couldn't understand why this was the case, so I just assumed Jump Chan was behind it, and I guessed that it might have something to do with how most people simply accepted the backstory of a Jumper who didn't select Drop In.

Sol began to sing for Luna. The Phoenix Lament was a form of song expressed by Phoenixes. Its tunes were known to touch the soul, in positive or negative ways. Its most powerful performances were known to be present when the Phoenix suffers emotional instability, such as the death of its master.

Since I was fine the song wasn't as potent, but I could tell that it touched Luna, who would of course be feeling rather sad about her mother. The music would be touching her soul, helping her in ways I never could.

Luna actually smiled once the song was done, and of course reached to pet the avian, who decided to remain perched on my shoulder until the petting was done, then he took off and flamed away, leaving a sole feather behind, one too large for a wand, but the right size for a quill.

"He wants you to have this" I said to the young witch "They make the best quills".

Apparently hugging was a thing that Luna Lovegood did to people was I discovered next. Not that I minded.