LOST PERSPECTIVE 7
PAYBACK TIME
By Bellegeste
A/N: So we all want to discuss what's going on with Remus, right? Sorry! Not in this chapter... But there is more about Neville's miserable holiday.
Chapter 13:GREAT UNCLE ALGIE
Harry hurled his half-eaten biscuit into the fire.
"It's not true, and I'm not going to discuss it. Got that? So either you talk about something else, or you can both sod off!"
But the thoughts of Remus were circling in their heads like a whole pack of prowling, hungry wolves - how could they possibly discuss anything else?
"We'll have to ask Snape when he gets back. Harry, you'll have to make him tell you - "
"I meant what I said, Hermione - drop it!" Fierce and frightened, Harry warned her off. The subject of Snape and Remus was fraught enough at the best of times - but now, to tread into that minefield of conflicting loyalties was to court disaster. Whichever way he stepped, another part of him would be blown to smithereens: his friendship with the werewolf, his faith in him as a flawed but fundamentally decent adult; or his uncertain, inexplicable loyalty to that difficult, unlovable man whom he was still learning, painfully, to regard as his father.
"Bladderwrack," snuffled Neville.
Harry switched his incomprehension to his classmate, seizing on the distraction. Even Neville couldn't be any more confusing than the supposedly sensible 'grown-ups' in his life. Or could he?
"What?"
"Aye, it's like a kelp forest down there - all round the underwater pier stanchions…"
"What? Neville, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Bladderwrack. It's a type of seaweed. It's well interesting. Do you know it composts to a nutrient-rich, but superbly friable loam in less than…" He tailed off into mumbles at Harry's Snape-like glare. "Well, you said yourself, Harry, we can't be sat around here all day like cheese at four-pence…"
Harry was positive he had never said anything of the sort.
"Oh, that's another phrase of Uncle Algie's."
One of the more repeatable ones.
Hermione was dying to hear more about this uncle - Neville was always so secretive about his family she hardly knew anything about them. Or perhaps it was because she'd never asked. Well, she was going to ask him now. It would take their minds off Remus to hear about somebody new. She was counting down to the launch of a couple of well-aimed but tactfully phrased questions, when Harry, preoccupied with his own problems and seeing no cause for undue sensitivity as far as Neville was concerned, lobbed in a grenade.
"Your Gran doesn't speak with a Northern accent, does she? I mean, I've only met her the once, but I didn't notice anything funny."
Neville recoiled then reconsidered. It seemed to be a day for disclosures – he might as well toss in his ha'porth. He was upset about Professor Lupin, of course, though nothing had been proven yet, but his own family skeletons were rattling around in his head like a cupboardful of Boggarts. It might just do him good to let them out for Harry and Hermione to laugh at. He could have made up any old story and his friends wouldn't have known different. But for reasons which he couldn't explain properly even to himself, he decided to tell them the truth.
"Funny? Have you noticed the really funny thing about accents? It's alright if you're Scottish - you'd never say Professor McGonagall sounds stupid, would you? No, she's refined. And if you talk Yorkshire you're a salt of the earth type, and Geordie's are 'hard', and Scousers are 'quick-witted'… But if you've got an ordinary northern accent - or Brummie(1), for that matter - people assume you're thick… And yet there's Crabbe and Goyle, who haven't got half a brain between them, and just because they sound educated…"
As those two dullards rarely said anything more than a grunt it was not easy to tell, thought Hermione. Harry, thinking of Dudders, agreed more readily.
"So, when you get to Hogwarts, you catch on pretty quick that the best thing to do with an accent is to lose it… I've had to, and I reckon it wasn't so different in gran's day." That had answered Harry's question, but Neville seemed to think he had to elaborate. He started obliquely: "You know Ginny? She's a sharp lass, isn't she? Even though she's young."
"Ginny Weasley? Sharp? You mean clever?" Harry had been doing fairly well keeping up with Neville's esoteric logic so far, but he couldn't see where this was leading. Neville nodded.
"Aye. It can go that way in families - no disrespect to Ron, mind. And there are seven of them - just goes to show. 'Appen she's on a scholarship?" he mused out loud.
"I've never heard of Hogwarts offering scholarships or bursaries or grants or anything," Hermione replied. "Neville, what are you getting at?"
"My Gran's younger than Great Uncle Algie. But she was always the clever one in their family - into herbal lore and Charms right from when she was little and later on, well, you wouldn't think so to look at her now, but she used to be really good at Arithmancy too. Actually understood what it was on about… I can't make head nor tail of it myself."
"Really?" Hermione made a mental note. "I must ask her about it sometime."
"And Uncle Algie wasn't so fussed about book learning. Not that he's stupid - he was more of a hands-on, outdoors type, not interested in the theoretical stuff."
They were trying to follow his drift. They'd just about cottoned on to the parallel with Ron and Ginny, when Neville referred to the Weasleys again.
"Just cos a wizard family is Pureblood, it doesn't mean it's rich - I mean, look at the Weasleys. And the Longbottoms - well, maybe we had money once, I don't know, but it must have been a long time ago. At the time my Gran and Uncle Algie were growing up they were nigh skint. That would have been round the turn of the century - times were hard up North. So, when my Uncle Algie got his letter - the letter from Hogwarts - their parents had to make a choice… They couldn't afford - "
The sentence stumbled on his lips. Neville sniffed wetly, swallowed and visibly braced himself for ridicule, pushing himself back into the chair as though it would cushion the impact of their scorn. "They couldn't afford to send both of them away to school," he stated bluntly. "My Great Uncle Algie never went to Hogwarts. So he speaks like he always did - and proud of it! There! Now you know. It's nothing to be ashamed of." His stare was defensive.
"No, no of course it isn't." Hermione had blushed scarlet. They'd only meant to be interested, but had ended up seeming inquisitive and nosey.
Harry and Hermione really didn't mind at all whether Uncle Algie was educated or not, but to Neville it clearly mattered a great deal. They could imagine how merciless Malfoy and the Slytherins would be if they got hold of this snippet of Longbottom shame. Hadn't Professor Dumbledore once said something to the effect that all wizards received their Hogwarts' letter when they were eleven, but not all chose to attend? They hadn't really listened at the time. They hadn't given it a second thought. Harry remembered his moment of panic when he had first seen the school's list of requirements: robes, books, brewing equipment, potions ingredients, and an optional animal… That had been before he realised that the Potters had left him a stash of Galleons in Gringotts. Ron's hand-me-down robes had always been something of a standing joke… but it had been friendly teasing; no one was malicious… well, the Slytherins maybe…
"But can he still…? He is a wizard, right? So, even if he didn't… Look, Neville, don't take this the wrong way, OK? Can he still do magic? If he's not properly trained?" All Harry could think about was the awful scrapes he had got into by using accidental magic before he had learned to control his powers. He couldn't imagine how he'd have coped without the self-discipline that had been instilled into him at Hogwarts. He was sure he'd never have realised the sophistication and finesse of his magical talent.
"Trained? There's more ways of learning magic than from books," said Neville.
Hermione's lips tightened with scepticism.
"You learn from life." Judging from Neville's pummelled ego, life had been a tough teacher this holiday. "You learn the spells you need to use everyday. I don't know what Muggle-borns do, but with wizards it's like you're apprenticed to your family. They show you the stuff you'll actually need to know. Forget all that playing at lifting feathers with Wingardium leviosa - Uncle Algie learned levitation by raising bales to build haystacks. Or by using Evanesco to get rid of the dead runt of a litter of Nogtails, or Scourgify to clean the slaver and slurry off his keks(2) - "
"Was he a farmer, then?"
"Sort of. Something to do with Experimental Breeding. That's where he met his mate Wigan. Then he worked for a time at the Mill - you can't live in Lancashire and not have some connection with the mills… And - " Here Neville managed a lop-sided grin; he was relaxing a little now. "…no cracks about 'Trouble at t' Mill…'! It's actually quite a skilled job, you know Harry, weaving fabrics that incorporate - oh, I don't know - say, Acromantula silk, or spinning Demiguise hair for Invisibility Cloaks. Someone has to do it."
"I suppose so." Harry had been taking advantage of the properties of his Invisibility Cloak for six years and it had never occurred to him to wonder where, how and by whom it had been made.
"Then," Neville had started so he might as well finish now. "Then, when he got old he had a Ministry job - nothing posh - it was with the Department for the Control of Magical Creatures. I think he had to patrol the moors and dales, checking the Muggle-repelling charms - the ones that stop trespassers disturbing the centaurs and so on. Sounded a nice job - flying round in the fresh air all day… Convenient too."
"Convenient?"
"For his house. He's got this place on the other side of Bowland Forest, towards Bartlebrook."
Those were mere names to Harry and Hermione, but they nodded anyway.
"The other side?" Their part in the conversation had been reduced to a series of prompts.
"My Gran lives over Pendle(3) way. Uncle Algie's house is further west, on the way to Blackpool."
A close-grained knot of memory seemed to halt Neville in the midst of his recollections. He scratched his head thoughtfully; rubbed his itchy nose on the back of his hand; sniffed some more.
"So, did your Uncle make you do Potions too?" Hermione couldn't guess which Potions might be appropriate to everyday life in rural Lancashire. Weatherproofing Wax? Cotton dyes with built-in Self-drying Charms? Traditional country cures for 'Bobbin Burn' or 'Weavers' Wilt'?
"Potions? No - thank goodness, no. He took me to Blackpool. He likes the seaside. It's a kind of thing with him - he's been doing it ever since I was little."
…making me scour the length of the Golden Mile and beyond, searching the shingle for Tern eggs or Plover nests to plunder for their shells; collecting the tufty grass-heads of sea lyme, marram or plantain; catching cinnabar moths in the dunes and pulling off their frail wings, putting the ragged, torn petals into a little jar to be stewed down later into Potion Redder; trudging through the salt-marshes, eyes downcast, scanning the shores for sea spurrey, purslane, cord grass and glasswort, splitting the tiny stems into tight, scratchy bundles – some for drying, some for immediate brewing; picking the helpless, flailing pink starfish from the rock pools and later grinding them into a gritty, peach-grey paste…
…strapping me into the seat on the Big Dipper… "Yer mun do it. Stop tha skrikin'. Enjoy tha'sen, lad!" "But Uncle, ah'm afeart!" "Th'art nesh; th'art nobbut a big jessy…"(4)
…smuggling my learner broomstick to the top of the Tower and lifting me up over the railings of the viewing platform… launching me into the air… "…nobbut a big jessy…"
…dangling me over the pier edge… dropping me… "eh, lad, us'll shock the squib outta thee yet!"
"It's his idea of a family day out," sighed Neville, digging a giant hole in the beach, burying his memories, patting them down flat and upending a plastic bucket 'sand-pie' on the top. All he needed now was a paper flag.
"Gosh, you poor thing. It must be perishing at this time of year. Isn't it frightfully tacky?"
Hermione's ideal holiday consisted of finding a warm, secluded spot on a picturesque, sandy cove in Devon or Brittany… somewhere she could laze for hours undisturbed with several good books, interspersed with wholesome, nutritionally sound meals in quaint tea-shops, visits to the local galleries, museums and anywhere with a National Trust or SSSI(5) rating, or a 'highly recommended' star in her 'Holiday-makers Guide to Magical Monuments'…
To Hermione, Blackpool conjured an image of faded glamour, tawdry tat, seedy amusement arcades, whey-faced workers bent on grim pleasure supping jellied eels from paper cups, and a featureless, plain, windswept slice of exposed sand tugging at the fraying shores of a drab and filthy ocean. It was a Dickensian stereotype, she knew, and she was ashamed to admit it, but the picture was lodged in her mind as firmly as the fallacy that the Danube is blue.
Neville didn't protest as vociferously as she'd expected. He was working himself up to a defence of the many bracing charms of the Lancashire Lido, when Harry asked,
"Blackpool? Isn't that where they have those Illumination things? I've heard of them. At Christmas when all the houses in Privet Drive rigged up their decorations - you know, the neon-effect 'Santa Stop Here' signs, and reindeer sleighs in lights on the garage roof… and twinkly fairy grottoes round the wishing wells… that sort of thing. Uncle Vernon always used to say, "Dudley, it's a sight for sore eyes. We'll give the Illuminations a run for their money any day." Never had a bloody clue what he was on about. What's the big deal?"
For all her 'correctness', Hermione couldn't resist.
"It's like an open prison, but with ark-lights so that you can see the day-trippers trying to escape! Oh, Neville, I'm only teasing. I've never seen them myself; I'm sure they're very impressive."
"It's funny you should say that…" Neville seemed about to say something, but then, reticently, thought better of it. "No, you wouldn't be interested."
"Yes we would. Go on Neville." Hermione encouraged him.
"Yeah, we've got nothing else to do…" Harry was less diplomatic.
Partially appeased, Neville was arranging his answer. There were very few complimentary anecdotes about Great Uncle Algie, so he was anxious to make the most of this one - he didn't want his friends to think he came from a family of Northern non-entities. In a strange way he felt he owed it to the 'owd codger' to get it right.
"It's a Muggle thing, Harry. They're lights, that's all. You know, electrical ones? With bulbs? And they're an Autumn attraction - they finish in September, so they weren't on last week, but the Christmas displays were almost as good. But they're more than just lights. They go on and on… hundreds of thousands of bulbs. They go for nearly six miles, all along from Squire's Gate to Red Bank Road. When I was a kid, Harry, you know before my proper magic had, like, 'kicked-in', it seemed like magic to me… I used to be allowed to stay up late, after dark, and we'd all walk along the Promenade - me, my Gran, Uncle Agie, Aunt Enid, and Great Cousin Ethel, and sometimes Uncle's friends would come too - right up the 'Mile' and further… and the lights would be flashing and twinkling - all colours, mind - and, well, it was incredible…" Neville's eyes shone with nostalgia.
"The Illuminations began over a hundred years ago. To begin with they only had a few lights, but the Muggles were awfully taken with it - the whole electricity thing - and they called it 'artificial sunshine'. And each year they seemed to add more and more lights, especially when there was some special event like a royal visit or something.
"Then, some bright spark - " Neville paused and looked up shyly to see if they had noticed the pun - he felt quite the raconteur! "…hit on the idea of making pictures out of the bulbs - that was back in the 1930s. My Great Uncle Algie would have been a young wizard in those days. Anyway, he says that he and his friend were there on 'Lighting Up Night' - there's always a big celebration ceremony, and they get a Muggle celebrity to throw the 'On' switch - and that friend of his friend, Wigan Parbold his name is, dared him…"
"Dared him to do what?" Harry and Hermione were both caught up in this tale now.
"Dared him to make the bulb pictures move. Turn them into, like, animated tableaux…"
"Like wizard photos?" asked Hermione, breathlessly, rather stunned that Blackpool's world-famous, animated Illuminations might owe their existence to a mere wizard dare… "Neville, you're not serious?"
"It's true! The Muggles thought the Corporation had excelled themselves! Of course, there was all hell to pay afterwards - the Ministry got wind of it - they had to Obliviate some of the, er, bulb-workers…"
"Electricians," corrected Hermione.
"But then there was the war so there was a blackout for several years. By the time the Illuminations were allowed again, the Muggles had learned about getting the bulbs to flash in sequence. Of course, it'll never be as good as that first time…"
"And that's your Uncle Algie's claim to fame? That's cool! He must be a great old bloke. I'd like to meet him," said Harry.
No, you wouldn't, thought Neville, not really.
End of Chapter.
1 Geordie – from Newcastle; Scousers – from Liverpool; Brummie – from Birmingham
2 keks - trousers
3 Pendle – several covens still flourish near this Lancashire town
4 mun – must; skrikin – shrieking; nesh – soft, 'wet'; nobbut a big jessy – just a cissy
5 SSSI – Site of Special Scientific Interest
A/N: I know some of the chapters end rather abruptly, but, as I said before, I originally had about four massively long chapters and I decided to cut back and forth... but we are children of the media age - we can handle it!
Next Chapter: QUIG'S CURE. Cut to Snape. Will the elf's attempt to cheer up his master make Snape feel better or worse?