Chapter the Fourth: Harry
There was no way I could have finished washing all the dishes that night, so the work carried over into the next day, and by noon, I was still nowhere near being done. I scrubbed at the mess on the bottom of the pot, ignoring the piece of hair bobbing back and forth in front of my face. I'd tried pulling it behind my ear two dozen times in the last five minutes, and it always sprang right back. By this time, I was ready to stick the glop from the pan on top of my head to hold back the hair, but I can't say I had any hope of it working.
I didn't feel resentment at Sir Vernon for him making me clean the pots. I probably would have had to clean them anyway, for one demerit or another. After living in his castle all these years, I at least knew that much.
I also knew that I wasn't Sir Vernon's son. He and Lady Petunia would often scold the memory of my "drunkard father" and "good for nothing" mother, and once, when I asked where exactly my parents were, Lady Petunia looked down her nose at me and said that they were dead, having been eaten by a troll. Dudley, eleven at the time, found the whole thing absolutely hilarious. Lady Petunia also added that I was abandoned at their doorstep and they graciously took me in because "Duddles" was lonely and wanted a playmate. But I think they just wanted a whipping boy to punish for all of Dudley's pranks and shortcomings.
Whatever the case, I'm lucky they took me in at all and I think I can take a little pot washing in return for food, clothing and shelter. I may even be allowed to be Dudley's squire when he becomes a knight. Sir Vernon said this is quite an honorable position for someone of low birth like me. I hope I don't mess it up.
I rubbed at an itch on my nose with the back of my hand and moved on to another pot, the walls of which were so sticky that my soapy scrubber only came away with effort. I sighed loudly, the sound echoing off the grimy stone walls of the kitchen.
"Amazing!" said a voice behind me. "It's as if they've lined the whole thing with flypaper." I jumped and jerked around to face Albus Merlindore. He was smiling serenely, a finger at his lips, examining the inside of my pot.
"H-hello, sir," I mumbled, standing up. "I didn't notice you there." He stayed crouching in front of the pot, peering into it with curiosity.
"Call me Albus, my boy," he answered vaguely, not looking at me. Nodding, I sat back down, glancing from his face to the pot, wondering what was so interesting about it.
"Excuse me, si-Albus, but what's flypaper?" He had taken out his wand and was poking the walls of the pot with it. He waved his other hand in the air as he tried to explain.
"It's a sort of...eh, a bug-catcher, you see. A sticky surface that catches bugs. Won't be invented for a while, I'm afraid." The wizard mumbled something and tapped the wand against his temple in thought, leaving small patches of sticky goo on his skin and in his hair.
"Oh! Sir, you're getting--" but he paid no attention.
"Aha!" he exclaimed, and waving the wand in a loop de loop over his head, shouted, "Picatus Lum!" A thick cloud of white smoke billowed from inside the pot, and when it cleared, the pot was clean and shiny. I stared.
"Um, Albus, thank you and everything, that was a great bit of magic, but I really should be the one--" But he cut me off.
"Nonsense, my boy, you don't have time for this! Now, I believe Picatus Lum would take far too long to perform on all of this dishware, so perhaps we'd better improvise. Harry, what do you know of assembly lines?"
"Nothing, really, sir. Albus." At my answer, he scratched his beard and adjusted his half-moon glasses. He seemed almost sheepish.
"Yes, I suppose you wouldn't know much, considering Henry Ford won't be born for another nine hundred years, give or take. But I'll teach you." He stood up and rounded on the dirty mountain of dishes laying around the wash basins and threw his wand hand in the air. "The assembly line process is designed to greatly shorten the time needed for the completion of work. Each member of the assembly line," he flicked his wand and rags and scrubbers from all around the room scurried to arrange themselves in a formation, "has a specific task." He flicked his wand again and two mops from the corner dipped themselves in their water bucket, and stood at ready. "Once the process begins, each member performs his task and passes the result onto the next." He waggled his wand at the dish mountain and it rumbled menacingly. "Ready, men?" The rags, scrubbers, and brooms bobbed as if in agreement. The wash basins gave an enthusiastic slosh. "Tempatum Vicalorio!"
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a tiny tea saucer rolled off the very top of the pile and without breaking, landed on the table in front of the leftmost scrubber. The scrubber dumped itself into the soapy wash basin, scooped up the saucer and gave it an affectionate scrub in midair before bumping it into the basin with regular water. The saucer somersaulted out and landed in the grip of a rag, which dried it off and set it aside. Everything stilled.
Albus frowned. "Say, this is going to have to go a jolly lot faster, or we'll never get anywhere. And you two," he pointed at the mops in the corner, "come on." The mops gave a startled twitch, like Dudley would sometimes do when Sir Vernon found him nodding off during early morning archery practice, and started frantically swishing back and forth across the floor.
"We'd better get out of their way, lad," Albus said, and stood up on a stool, motioning for me to do the same. Then, he rolled up his sleeves and glared at the dish pile. "Now don't make me repeat myself," he scolded, shaking his wand at the dishes. Somewhere deep inside the stacks of dishes, there sounded a hollow answer like the clattering of a fork. Whatever the dishes meant to say, it probably wasn't very nice, because in the next instance, Albus huffed, his wand jerked backward and the whole pile lurched as if struck by lightning. At once, a whole cascade of dishes tumbled at the scrubbers, knocking them from their places and upsetting the first wash basin. "No, no, no," snapped the wizard, halting the avalanche in thin air with a wave of his wand. The dishes crashed into each other, but stayed still. Sighing in frustration, Albus mumbled something at the basin and it filled again, soapier than before. "Palmolive," he added, winking at me. I nodded, pretending to understand. Finally, he pointed his wand at the whole mess, and repeated the Tempatum Vicalorio spell. The dishes obediently filed in to be washed, and one by one began coming out of the other side of the assembly line, absolutely clean.
"Think of this as a lesson, Harry," Albus murmured tiredly as we walked up the stairs to the dining hall, "Magic isn't everything. There will be times when it just won't work for you. You need to have a quick mind to figure out how to proceed. Well, and some brawn, too, I suppose, but living with these brutes should teach you a bit of that on it's own." He stretched the cricks out of his fingers and peered out through one of the tall windows. "That said, it's a beautiful day outside and I would hate for us to waste any more of it than we already have. I believe it is time for a real lesson."
I felt myself smiling as he put an arm around my shoulder and led me into the dim hallway. Then something occurred to me.
"Albus? Where's Snapeamedes?"
The wizard chuckled. "Oh, he's off sulking somewhere. He just doesn't want to teach you how to fly. Don't worry, we'll find him."