Crossworlds 1 - Harry Potter
Part 3
Hogwarts School. Wizarding World.
Thanks to me actually paying attention to the students around me as well as my own memories, I now had a fairly decent idea of how my time at Hogwarts would be spent. I wasn't yet sure if I was going to spend all seven years here since I had someone after me, however there were worse places to hide out than a castle that was known to have magical defences. If nothing else I could spend my time preparing for the future will enjoying a degree of safety since trouble here was spread out over the school year and normally only involved members of Gryffindor House.
Since it would be best for the multiverse and everyone in it if I blended in as a student, as I didn't wish to do anything to draw attention to myself, I needed to understand my place here and how the school worked. Hence why I'd started asking questions and gathering a lot of data. Thankfully an older student called Roger Davis was happy to show off his knowledge of this little part of the magical world.
The School Year here at Hogwarts School begins on September 1st when the Hogwarts Express leaves King's Cross Station at 11 a.m., bringing students to Hogsmeade Station, where the 2nd through 7th years ride horseless carriages up to the castle and 1st years cross the lake in boats with Hagrid as I'd experience for myself just yesterday.
Then at the start-of-year feast we have the Sorting, a few words from Dumbledore, we consume vast quantities of food and drink, get a few more words from Dumbledore, including the start-of-term notices, the school song gets sung and that's it for day one.
Today, was important because classes begin on September 2nd or later if it was the weekend when we arrived, and the schedules handed out at breakfast on the day when classes started. Since we'd arrived on Saturday the 1st we'd not done much the next day aside from having been given a tour of the castle and the grounds.
Something else that I felt sure didn't happen in the books and yet made sense. I'd used my free time to write a letter with a borrowed Quick Notes Quill and to sneak out of the school so that I could use the Owl office in the nearby village to spend the letter to Pandora Lovegood. Hopefully it would arrive before she killed herself with a new spell and prevent her needless death.
I hadn't yet looked at my time table which I had been given during the start of breakfast because I was taking mental notes on what happened the rest of the year so that Cortana could warn me about the important stuff. I didn't wish to go into anything unprepared and I needed to keep acting the part of a normal first year student.
Quidditch trials took place during the second week, also around that time were the flying lessons for first years. I didn't like the idea of flying, and since I could shapeshift into birds, learning how to ride a broom seemed completely pointless. However learning to fly on a broom was mandatory here due it being such a big part of the culture.
The Halloween Feast was on the evening of October 31 and this is a very important day in the school year, not just because of Halloween, this is also the day that Voldemort was defeated. If it wasn't called Halloween already I felt sure it would be named Harry Potter Day.
According to one of the older students there would be hundreds of live bats flying and many delicious pumpkin treats. That sounded great only I already loathed pumpkin everything and I was very glad that water was an option for every meal. I hoped that there would be food served that didn't involve pumpkins as I had young person's metabolism again and it would be a shame if I couldn't take advantage of that.
The first Quidditch match of the year took place in the beginning of November, and it would be Gryffindor vs Slytherin, which to me seemed like something they should have at the end of the season since those two houses were the big rivals. Instead the last match of the year was Ravenclaw vs Gryffindor.
In the second week of December our heads of houses would take the names of those who are staying over the Christmas holidays. I fully intended to stay since I could use that time to fully explore the castle and research what interested me and it wasn't as if I had a home to go to.
The end of first term is usually about a week before Christmas and most of the students and some of the teachers go home, however if I recalled correctly from the books that some of the staff and students would be around.
On December 25 there would be the Christmas Feast which is important for the school even if few people actually ever attended it. I intended to be there every year because why would I pass up on some of my free room and board?
On January 2nd the Hogwarts Express returns and starts the second term which lasts until the Easter holidays which like Xmas has a two-week break, students can go home or stay as they please. Oddly you don't need permission from parents or guardians, it's up the student to decide although I would imagine that anyone with a decent home life would want to go back for a visit, and they likely arrange it well in advance.
There is also a half-herm between those two end of term holidays, and while there are no classes that week we stay here in the castle. It was a good time to prepare for exams and to catch up on any missed work.
The exact dates vary every year for exams, but they are normally held during the first week of June unless you're doing OWLs or NEWTs. After the exams we'd have the end-of-term feast, which takes place the evening before the Hogwarts Express goes back to London. All staff and students leave Hogwarts during the summer holidays.
I'd be expected to return to the orphanage only I had no intention of doing that as I should have more than enough money to stay at the Leaky Cauldron over the summer while disguised as an adult thanks to my shape shifting powers. Perhaps I'd be able to travel, but I had to get through the school year first, and I didn't think that I'd be able to go over seas since I didn't have any valid ID for travelling.
As for my classes the students at Hogwarts all the students take the same basic classes their first and second year. Before summer term in their second year, they choose several elective courses which they will study through fifth year.
The results of the O.W.L. exams and the careers advice given toward the end of fifth year determine which classes a student will pursue in their final two years. Instructors are free to require specific passing grades in their subject area in order to accept a student into NEWT studies.
For the first two years I would study, Astronomy, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology History of Magic, Potions and Transfiguration. Then students choose two or more additional classes to take in year 3. These choices include: Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Muggle Studies and Magical Theory. Since you can drop these extra classes I was going to see if I could just not do them at all since I knew what I wanted to focus on.
At the end of fifth year, each student sits an Ordinary Wizarding Level (O.W.L.) for each of the classes he or she takes. These are standardized tests administered by the Wizarding Examinations Authority; the teachers may proctor exams outside their own subjects but do not attend the Ordinary Wizarding Level (O.W.L.) in their own subjects in the interest of fairness.
Each O.W.L. has a theory portion, and for applicable classes a separate practical portion is given, so that many O.W.L.s are in two parts, although only one O.W.L. score is given for each subject.
I'd even made mental notes about the grades.
Pass Grades: Outstanding (O) Exceeds Expectations (E) Acceptable (A)
Failing grades: Poor (P) Dreadful (D) Troll (T)
I'd never understood why they have so many grades. I get passing levels of different types because it tells you who is highly skilled at the subject matter and who has average knowledge. What confuses me is why you have grades of failing. If you've failed the subject then you've failed, why add insult to injury by calling someone a troll?
That was the long term stuff, of more concern right now was how I would live day to day. I'd gotten the details for that as well. Every day I would wake up, shower, change, and have breakfast in the Great Hall. During breakfast, the morning mail arrives in a flurry of hundreds of owls, but I didn't think anyone would write to me.
On a day with classes a bell signals the start of the first class at 9 am. There are two morning classes with a break between (also signalled by a bell), followed by the midday meal. After lunch, classes resume at 1 pm. It is not clear if there are one or two classes in the afternoon as I'd not yet gotten my time table, but mostly it would be two lessons in the same subject put together according to older students.
Dinner is served in the Great Hall in the evening and the library doesn't close till seven giving plenty of time to do homework, after which the students are expected to be in their House common rooms for studying and socializing, apparently were expected to do a lot of that and I thought that sounded like a nightmare. Thankfully I was in Ravenclaw House so I imagined that many of us would be reading or working on something.
There is no set bedtime, however you are confined to the common room after curfew which is seven pm for the first years and it goes up as you get older. Curfew doesn't apply to perfects or the head boy and girl, who don't have to be perfects.
Breakfast was served between 7.00 am and 8.45am allowing students to prepare for the day at their own pace. Dinner was served between 5.30 pm and 7pm which also allowed people to come dine at their own pace.
When I looked at my time table I wasn't surprised by that I saw having gotten an idea of what my timetable would involve from questioning an older student.
Monday - Herbology - Break - History of Magic - Lunch - Double Transfiguration
Tuesday - History of Magic - Break - Charms - Lunch - Double Potions
Wednesday - Potions - Break - Astronomy - Lunch - Double Charms
Thursday - DADA - Break - Transfiguration - Lunch - Free Time - Dinner - Astronomy (Night)
Friday - Free Time - Break - DADA - Lunch - Double Herbology
Saturday - Flying
I'd been hoping for more Defence Against the Dark Art lessons as that was the subject I felt I needed the most. However, given the number of core subjects that made sense that they couldn't devote more time to it and I also figured that DADA double lessons would appear in later years when the students would be more prepared for a more dangerous subject.
I was grateful for no double history and that we got a quarter of an hour break during the double period. I might have much more in the way of an attention span than my peers, at least when I bothered to pay attention, but that would have its limits.
Astronomy had both a theory lesson and a practical one, that had to take place late at night or early depending on the season as it gets dark every early in winter when compared to other times of the year so it makes sense that Friday mornings were free for me as my sleep schedule would change on Thursday over the year. I didn't really care for stargazing, but I had to go through the motions.
Herbology would mostly be practical so it was a good subject to have on a Friday afternoon when people were already starting to wind down for the weekend.
I was not looking forward to the double potions. I could only hope that Snape didn't care enough to criticize everyone and since we Ravenclaws got paired with Hufflepuff that meant Snape shouldn't show any favouritism, but I wasn't going to hold out much hope.
(Line Break)
Hogwarts. Wizarding World
Having Herbology first thing in the morning proved not to be such a bad thing as it was just gardening with magical plants all of which would be harmless for our first year, and all the theory stuff was handled as homework. The teacher, Professor Sprout who was also the head of Hufflepuff House, taught practical lessons only and wasn't much for giving out homework according to the other students so the theory exam must be easy.
The greenhouse was warm and smelled pleasant enough despite the use of compost and dragon dung as fertilizers, and the mess I made was easily cleared up by a wave of my wand as I'd already started learning the basic cleaning charms so I could more easily get ready in the mornings. A messy student quickly caught the attention of the members of staff so I figure that it would be best for me to look neat.
While she seemed like a nice teacher I no interest in Sprout's subject as I cared little for plants and since I didn't intend to stay in this world in the long term, why would I when there were other worlds for me to go and explore, I was never going to have a garden full of such magical plants, nor would I ever have a job that involved working with them.
Despite my lack of interest I managed to pay enough attention not to get into trouble and with Cortana being able to recall any information that I knew and display it for me. Then should I ever be called upon to answer any questions that I would be able to do without trouble. However unlike the teacher's pets I had no intention of volunteering anything.
History of Magic turned out to be nothing other than theory, I already knew that the lesson plan usually consisted of lectures on the 'History of Wizards and the Magical World, in which goblin rebellions appeared most memorably. This class was similar to the study of History in the Muggle World, as particular emphasis was placed upon remembering dates, names and events. None of which mattered at all to me or anyone else in the room as far as I could tell.
The class was taught by the ghost of Professor Cuthbert Binns. According to Hogwarts folklore, Professor Binns had taught here while alive and then failed to notice that he was dead: he simply got up from his chair in the staff-room one morning and left his body behind. He sounded as if he'd fit right in with the staff at the Unseen University over on the Discworld.
His lack of corporal body made me wonder how he could mark our essays or our end of year exams which were internal unlike the OWL or NEWTs. Since he didn't take a register or show any sign that any of us were even in the room would it matter if I just never came to another one of his classes?. Would anyone even notice, or care if they did notice? I'd stop coming and find out since it was unlikely that they'd expel me even if the teachers ever did find out and the times for the exams must be posted up somewhere.
History of Magic was exactly as expected. The ghost teacher droned on about something I couldn't care less about so I decided that I would soon either locate or create via magic something that would cancel out noise so that I'd be able to read whatever I liked during History class.
Something I was already doing my best at, having stopped by the library during break for a book on ghosts so I'd be better prepared for dealing with one. As such I knew that ghosts were the transparent, three-dimensional imprints of a deceased witch or wizard, which continues to exist in the mortal world.
Muggles cannot come back as ghosts, and the wisest witches and wizards choose not to. It is those with 'unfinished business', whether in the form of fear, guilt, regrets or overt attachment to the material world who refuse to move on to the next dimension. However the ghosts are not souls lacking a body so that they can not move on if they deal with their unfinished business.
Having chosen a feeble simulacrum of mortal life, ghosts are limited in what they can experience. No physical pleasure remains to them, and their knowledge and outlook remains at the level it had attained during life, so that old resentments (for instance, at having an incompletely severed neck) continue to rankle even after several centuries.
For this reason, ghosts tend to be poor company, on the whole. They are especially disappointing on the one subject that fascinates most people: ghosts cannot return a very sensible answer on what it is like to die, because they have chosen an impoverished version of life instead of accepting death.
Although I recalled Nearly Headless Nick mentioning to another ghost about Harry Potter becoming the new Seeker for his House's team. This was not news Nick knew before he died so could ghosts acquire new information but not really learn? As in the sense that they couldn't obtain new skills? Something about that didn't add up. Perhaps I should look into the matter further.
Ghosts can pass through solid objects without causing damage to themselves or the material, but do create disturbances in water, fire and air. The temperature drops in the immediate vicinity of a ghost, an effect intensified if many congregate in the same place. Their appearance can also turn flames blue. Should part or all of a ghost pass through a living creature, the latter will experience a freezing sensation as though they have been plunged into ice-cold water.
And that seemed to be the sum knowledge on the subject of ghosts and by the time of my double transfiguration lesson in the afternoon I'd already stopped caring for the most part. Ghosts were dull creatures of no importance as far as I could tell.
I'd sat through lunch mostly wondering if McGonagall would sit on her desk as a cat and if I could come up with some reason as to why I should already know that she is a cat because I would not be surprised if she transformed. In the end I figured I'd just tell her that an older student warned me before I came to her lesson.
When I got to the classroom I just sat down at the back of the classroom and let my fellow first years be impressed by the sight of the cat becoming a teacher. If she noticed my lack of a reaction she didn't comment on it and instead she began a speech about the dangers of the type of magic she had mastered.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts" she said "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned".
She explained further about transfiguration, a subject she was clearly passionate about was a branch of magic that focused on the alteration of the form of an object, not merely its appearance as there were charms for that.
Transfiguration is the alteration of the object's molecular structure, and I was surprised to hear her use that term since I'd not know that wizard's even knew that molecules existed.
I soon found out that McGonagall considered Transfiguration to be very hard work and more scientific than any other form of magic. This was proven somewhat by the fact that there were a number of factors a wizard or witch had to take into account when carrying out Transfiguration spells.
The intended transformation was directly influenced by an object's weight, viciousness, that was the liveliness of the target object, as in living things will resist being transformed, your wand power, your concentration and your visualization. You have to imagine the transformation, see it happening in your mind's eye and then as you apply magic you need to keep focused on the transformation as it happens.
Due to the precise nature of Transfiguration magic, there was a large potential for it to go disastrously wrong, even for the experts. This was especially true if the practitioner wasn't taking things seriously and/or punching above their weight, with respect to the magic they are attempting to perform.
For example a statue of a dragon done to scale should in theory be easy to turn into an actual dragon because they are the same size and it already looks like a dragon making it easier to picture the transformation in your mind, however because of the scale and because dragons are magical, the sheer amount of power involved meant that unless your Merlin it's not going to work.
However the statue of an animal that is much smaller and not magical would be much easier to transfigure. Although since you could make a statue act as if it is alive with the Animation Charm I wondered why would bother creating potentially dangerous animals
While the more advanced forms of transfiguration, such as becoming an Animagus, which would be pointless for me since I become any animal that I have seen up close, or conjuration a type of magic that you make something from nothing for a time, might seem rather useful to get to that point you have to master the simple stuff like turning a match stick in a needle.
This seemed odd to me since I'm a wizard. I don't need matches or needles. I'll be able to summon fire and repair things with charms. Yet I had to start with such simple things if I wanted to master this branch of magic.
Hopefully Charms would be more interesting and easier. I looked forward to that subject.
(Line Break)
Hogwarts. Wizarding World
The Room of Requirement is a magical room here in Hogwarts castle that really did deserve to be called magical in my opinion as not only can it be discovered by someone who is in need, the room will change to suit the needs of the person seeking to enter it. Meaning that it can be anything you require it to be.
I didn't know yet if it was limited to providing you with stuff that had been dumped in here over the last thousand years or had some means of changing itself using other parts of the school, such as redirecting pipes to make a bathroom, and I figured that some experimentation was in order so that I could find out.
Already I knew that it was called the Come and Go Room by the house-elves of Hogwarts and that the Room of Requirement is located on the seventh floor, opposite a tapestry showing Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach trolls to dance the ballet. Why anyone would do such a thing I couldn't imagine it didn't look at all safe or rewarding.
To make the Room appear, a person has to walk past the section of blank wall three times concentrating hard on what is needed. As to what I wanted, that was the place where things were hidden. I had a feeling that while this room had been used to store broken junk, lost personal effects, and forbidden items for the last thousand years. There would also be some real treasures mixed in with the rubbish.
In fact I was counting on it because I needed to make some money. My life in this world would be much easier if I had access to more wealth as being rich was a super power all its it own even it would create other problems. Plus I would need to obtain resources while in this world and during my time spent in others, and since gold was valuable it many dimensions it would be good to have a lot of it.
I began to look around, making sure not to touch anything in case hostile spells had been placed upon the item, what I mostly identified was broken and damaged furniture. Bits of wood really that must have been damaged in ways that magic couldn't easily repair or someone would have just waved their wand and mended it rather than throw it away.
While looking around I found plenty of bottles because one of the teachers, a woman called Sybill Trelawney, used the Room of Requirement to hide her empty sherry bottles and I didn't think she was the only teacher to hide some booze here. Some students likely had as well I guessed as I found many piles of empty bottles that smelled bad along with stacks of harmless butterbeer.
I was most happy to find what must be thousands of books. Most of them would be too damaged or useless to me since I had no interest in stuff Charming My Own Cheese and Early History of Many Noble Wizarding Families, but there were more than a few school text books that I felt sure wouldn't have changed much given how static the wizarding world is when compared to its muggle counterpart, and this would allow me to read ahead.
As I wandered around the piles I imagined that some students who'd gotten their hands on dark art books must have stashed them away in this room, but I would resist reading them as the dark arts could be dangerous for the user as well.
The House Elves had dumped a lot of stuff here I was sure, and I found items that Flinch the caretaker would have confiscated had the objects not ended up here. Proof of this was when I found some winged catapults and Fanged Frisbees as well as many prank items I cared nothing about.
My focus was on stuff I could sell at Borgan and Burkes for profit or make use of myself. I had a bottomless bag so I could lay claim to quite a lot of stuff once I felt sure that it was all safe. Also if I found enough money perhaps I could hire curse breakers to check out some of the stuff here. If items were clean and repairable I might be able to sell them in second hand stores.
I ignored the chipped bottles of congealed potions since they would not be safe to drink and while some of the clothes look nice enough I couldn't wear any of them because I was supposed to be a poor little orphan boy. As such I ignored the hats, the cloaks and such.
What I did care about were the bits of jewellery no doubt left by female students over hundreds of years, none of the earrings were in pairs as far as I could tell and I was careful not to touch any of the rings in case they were cursed. I'd not put it past someone attending this school to have attempted to recreate Sauron's work.
Instead I placed anything that looked like it had value inside the pouches I'd found, pouches that I only touched while wearing dragonskin gloves and I carefully levitated objects into the different pouches so that I could sell the contents in groups or study them when I had some expertise.
I figured that Gringotts, a bank known for hiring curse breakers, could put a price tag on what I found here. Perhaps they'd even purchase the gold, silver and bronze so that they could melt it down into coins. I would risk going to see them only under disguises.
One of the expensive looking things I found were eggshells made from silver which I knew to be the eggs of a magical creature called Occamy, they had egg shells made of pure silver, which accounted for why they were so much sought after. Occamy egg shells were also an essential ingredient for the brewing of Felix Felicis, something I knew from reading ahead in potions.
In the first Fantastic Beasts movie, which I'd greatly enjoyed watching despite the opinions of critics online, a muggle called Jacob Kowalski found an occamy egg on the bench next to him, inadvertently dropped by Newt Scamander. While trying to return it to him, the egg began to hatch. Later in the movie, Newt showed Jacob a nest of Occamies newly hatched from their eggs, including the one hatched from the egg he found, which Jacob was allowed to hold.
Newt would later anonymously give Jacob a case of Occamy egg shells to use as collateral with a bank so that he could open his bakery. This would work because Occamy eggs in real life are much larger than seen in the movies and that much silver, the value of which could have been much greater back then, would be enough for a deposit on a new business.
There were weapons here too, so far I'd located several rusting swords, some equally rusty daggers and a heavy, bloodstained axe that somehow just seemed evil so I made sure to keep my distance from it. As for the daggers and swords I would have to learn some cleaning charms and dark arts detection before I dealt with them and try to find out if there was any market for old weapons. If they weren't magical perhaps the Muggle world antique stores would take them.
I'd just pulled myself away from an enormous stuffed troll when I spotted something that made my mouth go dry. It was the bust of an ugly old warlock that sat on top of the cupboard, and upon that bust perched a dusty old wig and a tiara.
This tiara, as it turned out, was the Diadem of Ravenclaw, hidden there by Tom Riddle in 1965. Ravenclaw's Diadem, also known as the Lost Diadem of Ravencla, was the only known relic that once belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw, who was the founder of Ravenclaw House. Etched upon its surface was Ravenclaw's famous quote: "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure."
It was said to enhance the wisdom of its wearer, which is Ravenclaw House's most treasured attribute. It had a big blue sapphire shaped like an oval in the centre and I wondered if the gem itself was the important part and the tiara was just a way of placing the gem on the head of the person who wore it. Like how the Gaunt Ring was the horcrux but the stone was a separate object even though it was attached to the metal of the ring.
As Rowena Ravenclaw was a very intelligent and powerful witch, it is most likely she enchanted the diadem herself, charming the object to increase the wearer's intelligence. The diadem was later stolen by her daughter, Helena, a fact Rowena kept a secret from the other founders until her death bed which wasn't long as Rowena died shortly after her daughter stole the diadem. This made me wonder if Helena did something to her mother when she stole the item or if Rowena had somehow become dependent on it.
Only she herself would know and it wasn't as if I could ask. Well actually I could. I'd just need to go after the Resurrection Stone and then ask her.
As for the stone, it was passed down from Cadmus Peverell through the generations, and made into a ring for some reason. This ring was still in the family in the early twentieth century, when it was owned by Marvolo Gaunt, who believed the symbol on it to be the Peverell coat of arms. It was later stolen by Tom Riddle, turned into a Horcrux and eventually hidden in the ruins of the Gaunt House.
"The stone might not actually drive people to kill themselves" I heard Cortana say to me "Don't forgot that Harry Potter had already decided to let Voldemort kill him before he used the stone and what killed Dumbledore was the curse that Voldemort placed on the ring not the Hallow itself".
Those were good points and the stone had passed down in a family for what could have been hundreds of years. Granted the Gaunts were a mess, but that was due to the pureblood habit of inbreeding and poor money handling, not a result of them having the stone.
"I think as long as we are careful we should be able to use the stone if you can acquire it" advised Cortana who projected herself as a life sized image that only I could see "It's not like you have any dead family or friends to call up and join on the other side".
Also me dying would leave the world-seed unprotected, I couldn't allow that, not with the fate of entire worlds hanging in the balance. I had an important role to play and my life had only just started getting interesting. That should help keep tethered to the land of the living.
"So I need to acquire the stone and call up Rowena Ravenclaw so I can find out if the whole diadem is important or if it's just the gem. If it's all one piece then perhaps the dark magic can be removed without damaging the artefact".
Even if the entire item is required and nasty magic could be removed then I could only ever make use of it when alone as people would kill to possess the Diadem.
Thinking about it, if anyone would know how to unmake a horcrux it would be Herpo the Foul, the inventor of the horcrux, however he might not be in the afterlife if he split his soul. Unless he also was the one to figure out how to reverse the process as there was a way.
Getting pack to the Diadem I knew that this wasn't the only founders object to be cursed, aside from Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem, Helga Hufflepuff's Cup and Salazar Slytherin's Locket, made up three of Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes. He'd defiled those treasures because of his ego rather than do the smart thing and make a rock his horcrux before throwing it into a lake or something like that. Although I could understand not wanting to use a rock to house a bit of your soul.
Now that I knew where to find the diadem horcrux I had to decide if I was going to destroy it or wait and risk using the stone. I should be able to kill that great big snake down in the basement and claim a few of its fangs. I'd do some reading first but I was fairly certain that the crow of a cockerel is supposed to be fatal to one.
Perhaps I could use the ring to draw the bit of Voldemort's spirit in the founder's relics out of them and then banish them. That would get around the cup being in Gringotts and the Locket also being out of my reach at least for now.
I would consider my options next summer once I could test if the Trace was on me and get out on my own. If I could cast spells without detection even with my wand then I would be free to do a lot of fun things.
For now I had some looting to get on with.
