For Harry the rest of the Christmas holiday seemed to fly past, what with needing to teach 4 people how to use the interface and how to use Glimmerstones, especially from their inventory. On the plus side, Susan was back at Hogwarts early, so Sally-Anne had another girl her age to talk and socialise with. Surprisingly, or in hind sight not so surprisingly, Andromeda was the first person to get the hang of using her eyes to do things in the interface. She was also the last person to get the hang of letting the system guide her when she wanted it to do a repetitive task.
On the other hand, she was also the first one to really realise the implications of being able to see the quality and freshness of ingredients. Especially for an aspiring Potions Mistress. Same as for being able to brew potions using ingredients out of the inventory. Both Amelia and Andromeda had trouble with the idea of a handheld phone that could do everything the phone did. Brett and Fiona both picked it up faster, given that they had had access to computers for two months. He lost Fiona when he showed them what they could do at a mirror, wardrobe, or chest of drawers. Especially when he pointed out that they could change their gender options.
That lead to the really embarrassing talk about WooHooing and how it couldn't happen without explicit consent. In addition, pregnancy was also an explicit question and positive response. After that conversation he quickly told them about build mode and then ran off and changed his own gender options to a feminine figure and voice before he went to find Susan and Sally-Anne and socialise in embarrassed disguise. He had the yellow moodlet to prove that he was embarrassed too.
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
On new years eve Harry remembered the cake that he was trying to bake with Sally-Anne. So, as her Aunt was off learning her first spell from L – Deleriate for some reason, while Andromeda was learning Scruberoo from Simeon, he invited Susan and Sally-Anne to make the cake with him in the Hufflepuff common room. In the end they had so much fun, they made 3 cakes. They then carefully carried them to the painting of a fruit bowl and tickled the pear. When they walked in they were accosted by the sight and sound of 30 or 40 small humanoid creatures with floppy ears, bulbous eyes, and slightly squashed heads. Every single one of them was wearing a pillowcase. Suddenly all activity in the kitchen stops and they turn their eyes towards the three children.
Harry was distracted by a notification in the top right of his vision that stuck around rather than disappearing like normal ones. As such he didn't notice one of the house elves come forward and look carefully at the three of them, his eyes crossing when he looked at Harry.
"I is Tipsy, Head elf at Hogwarts. How can Tipsy help Mistresses Reddy, Limpy, and Mastress?"
Harry's attention came back to the room at this point, but Susan took the moment of inattention to speak for the group, "We, well it was Harry's idea and we agreed, decided that we should thank you for cooking such delicious meals for us. So we baked a cake for you. Well, three cakes. These cakes are for you to say thank you."
Reverently Tipsy took the cake from Susan's hands and placed it on a counter. Harry wasn't sure which elf started it, but suddenly it was like dominos falling as one elf after another started crying. He could make out some words like best mistress/mastress, and how they weren't worthy of such thoughts. The three of them carefully looked at each other before placing the other two cakes on counters and leaving.
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
Once they're outside Susan turned to the other two, "I honestly didn't know that House Elves could be like that."
Harry shakes his head, "What are House Elves anyway? I mean I can see what my notification says, but I mean socially."
"What does your notification say?"
"They are a magical race that relies on the magic of places of power or strong Magic Users to survive. As such they have thrown themselves into a position of servitude as a way of paying for the 'gift' of life-giving magic."
"Well, for me, our house elf is a member of our family. She practically raised me after my parents were killed just after the end of the last war. Just don't ever talk about giving them clothes, as they will think you're trying to get rid of them. I know that there are some families that actually bond their elves so that they can't share their secrets or disobey their orders. The symbolic act of giving them clothes releases them from any oaths. Those elves tend to be poorly treated though."
"So, as a race they're not slaves?"
"No, certainly not."
"We probably need to ask Professor Sprout to do a class on them then, as without the summary from the interface, I'd probably have assumed they were slaves given what we learnt in primary school. Especially given that many slave owners reportedly said that their slaves were happy to be slaves."
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
Andromeda screamed in frustration and let out a stream of inoffensive words and phrases. Which made her frustration mount even more. This Scruberoo spell didn't make any sense given everything that she knew about magic. But it was clear that it actually worked, and thus must make sense. It didn't help that Simeon was so patient with her, explaining new mathematical concepts that were used as well as going over the spell diagrams again and again.
In frustration, she conjures a small rubber ball… the size of her head and then vanishes it along with a section of the floor beneath it.
Before she can try to fix her mistake, Simeon says, "Don't worry, I'll fix it. Why don't you go fishing by the bridge, focus on the fishing sign and choose 'fish here'. Let the interface take control while you relax and calm down."
She storms out of the library through the back door and past the scientists that were looking in the new subplot that was still around. They'd stripped the kitchen equipment out of it so that if it failed they wouldn't be crushed and they had some sort of measurement devices in and outside. Then she goes to the top of the bridge and tries to find the fishing sign that Simeon told her about. It takes her a couple of minutes to realise that the unassuming wooden sign was probably the one he was talking about. As she goes over the bridge and over to the sign she sees the picture of a hook and a fish painted on the board in white.
She focuses on the sign and selects fish here, and the action appears in the bottom left of her vision before disappearing again. It takes her 5 more tries before she can let the interface take over and drive her body in the process of fishing. Such is her instinctive need for control.
It takes an hour for her brain to calm down enough to start thinking about the spell. When she does, she also starts to think about the different cleaning spells that she uses in her day to day life, from Tergeo and Scourgify to Evanesco [Vanishing Spell]. Each time she goes over the arithmancy for one of those she can see it in she Scruberoo spell formula that she's been struggling with. Then it hits her, the spell isn't doing a specific cleaning spell, it's doing all of them, even the specialist cleaning spells she learnt in her Potions Mastery. With that in mind she starts going over what Simeon has been teaching her again, this time not trying to fit it into the spells she already knows. Instead, trying to understand how the spells she already knows can be derived from it.
She loses track of time in the depths of her mind as her body goes through the repetitive motions of fishing. She only becomes aware of her surroundings again when she stops fishing and face plants on the ground nearby, and then only briefly before she falls asleep. When she wakes up an hour later with an impression of the grass in her cheek and a sore back, she has the presence of mind to stagger to the portal and get home before she collapses again. The sun is high in the sky when she next wakes up to the smell of a cooked breakfast. After taking care of her immediate needs, she staggers downstairs and gives Ted a Hug, partially wondering just how he can stand to hug her back with the way she smells.
As she dives into the food he's prepared he greets her, "Morning Love, what brought you home so late that you collapsed on the floor with your arse in the air sound asleep?"
"Mmm, this is good. I've been learning a new spell for the last 10 days, and should only have taken me a week. So my teacher suggested I go fishing to calm myself down. Which it did. However, it also gave me space to think, and I realised that I was approaching the lessons wrong. I was treating it like another wand spell and trying to work it into everything I already knew. But it isn't, it's like someone took every single cleaning spell ever invented and put them into one massively complicated spell. Then made the spell easy to use for general use, by sacrificing how easy it is to pick the specific things out of it. In theory, I could cast the spell to only clean the oil off the plate and leave the rest of the breakfast untouched. Look, I'll show you."
With a swirling light from her hand she casts Scruberoo on Ted before realising just what she's done. She then casts it on herself, for science obviously, and shivers at the feeling while noting how the whole thing combines to clean her hair, teeth, skin, cotton, wool, silk, and leather slightly differently but thoroughly.
"Huh? When did I learn the spell well enough to cast it?"
Ted laughs, "Sometime yesterday I'd imagine."
Andromeda barely acknowledges his joke as she's looking through her Notifications from yesterday and getting rid of all the fishing notifications. While it's nice that she's got level 3 fishing and caught umpteen minnows and gold fish, and a couple of trout, that she idly grabs out of her inventory and puts on her empty plate. She finally leaves only the notifications that she's interested in. She apparently learnt Magical Theory level 1 first, then she learnt the Scruberoo Spell, and finally her Magical Theory went up to 2.
She becomes aware of the fact that Ted is staring at her, tapping his foot.
"What?"
"Where did the fish come from?"
"My Inventory, why?"
"And when did you get an Inventory, and when were you going to tell me about it?"
"Ah, erm, boxing day when I went to that emergency, and when I realised that you didn't know?"
"That was when you were caught up in the magical accident at the party, wasn't it?"
"Ah, yes, though in fairness, I didn't know anything about my changes until I had lessons with Harry over the next few days. Amelia also has the same changes, though hopefully she's had less trouble learning spells than I have, as she was always more interested in the practical side.
"Hey, now that Nymphadora is moving out soon, do you want to try for another baby?"
"What? And put up with your bitching and complaining?"
"Oh, I was thinking that you could have it this time, after all that's what I threatened."
Ted laughs, "Sure, as long as I get to name it."
Andromeda smiles an evil smile at his receding back, "Done."
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
While Andromeda was getting Ted pregnant, Amelia was having her own issues. Though these were at work.
"Who are you and what have you done with Madam Bones?"
The person currently shouting in her face is her long-time colleague, Alastor Moody. An Auror that has, for the last 30 years, resisted all attempts to promote him away from street and investigation work. Not that there have been many attempts at those due to the fact that he is the most effective Auror they have for catching dark wizards. Something that is written all over his body, in the way of multiple disfiguring scars, a magical eye that can see through damn near anything, and a peg leg. He is also well known for being paranoid.
"I am Madam Bones."
"If you were you'd have a spare wand on your left leg."
"I never kept any of my spare wands there. One at the small of the back, and one down my right boot. Plus a knife on my left leg."
He Harrumphs, "Legimancy."
"Fine, you try and get my secrets then, if you think I was so weak as to let someone into my mind."
"Not you, Amelia after you roughed her up enough."
"You stupid ducking rectum, why the afterlife are you being so awfully difficult?"
Alastor just looks at her.
"So I can't swear worth an afterlife anymore. It's this brilliant new interface I have. No, the interface is fantastic. The profanity filter that comes with the interface is a P.I.T.F.A." She carefully spells out the last acronym so that it doesn't get caught.
"You are going to explain that then."
"You heard I was involved in a magical accident on boxing day?"
He barks a laugh, "Who hasn't, Madam 'I never take holidays' Bones."
"I take holidays."
"Yes, 5 days a year, Susan's birthday, her parents death, your husbands death, Christmas Day, and one day I'm not sure the reason of."
"I'm sure I've taken more off than that, there was the time we went to the south of France for a week."
"3 years ago."
"Duck. Well you know little miss 'holds a grudge for decades' Tonks?"
"I do, now that's a witch to never piss off. What did you do?"
"Ditched a double date with her in 7th year."
Alastor laughs heartily, "I'm taking this at face value for the moment, but you have a bottle of verataserum with your name on it when we get in private."
"The female dog persuaded me to do the Rite of Ascension with her, with the justification that there's no way I'd let Susan go somewhere I couldn't get to in an emergency. Anyway, we've collected the last mote of magic needed, and just before we head back in, she casts a compulsion spell on me and hands me a Polyjuice potion with a freshly plucked hair in it. Next thing I know I'm wearing her face, and she's dragging me in front of L, she's the sage of Mischief magic there. Once there she says that we've got the motes and are ready. Next thing I know I'm bathed in magic and suddenly there's ice picks going through my brain and my body is screaming at me. Then I have an illusion in front of me saying 'Thank you for testing the integration of Polyjuice potion into the game'. She then says, 'That's for leaving me to deal with both Malfoy and Cummings on our double date'. Now I can't swear, and I've spent the last week learning a new spell. To top it all, my niece is envious of me."
What she doesn't say is that during the entire process her body was changing from one person to another as the potion was reapplied again and again before returning to her birth form.
Alastor laughs, "That's a good one. And gives you an excuse for having been away for a week."
Finally pissed off enough, Amelia forms the deleriate spell in her hand, a blue spark of magic visible to everyone behind her. The gasps of amazement are all the warning that Alastor has, which in fairness would normally be enough, before her wandless spell slams into him as she holds her palm out. He has an instant to look for where the wand is pointing before realising that it's wandless and being hit. That is his last coherent thought for a couple of hours as his brain unscrambles itself.
When he does finally come round, and all the other Auror's in the office swear that she has not had anything to drink for the entire time, he is forced to admit, that the balance of probabilities suggests that she is who she says she is.
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
Pomona Sprout whistled as she focused on the tend garden option of the interface menu. After being around Harry for the last 4 months, she'd had no trouble picking up how to use the interface. As such, she only needed a little instruction from L before she was able to use all the obvious features. She'd have gone to Simeon, but Petunia was around and they were flirting. She idly marvels at how her body effortlessly fends off the venomous tentacular while it's weeding and watering it properly.
Given that the students that were away return to the school tomorrow, Pomona reviews the changes that she's made over the last week.
Every Dorm room now has a Lin-Z speaker and an on-suite toilet and shower. All of the lights have been changed from the old eternal candles to a mix of bug like and bowl like wall lights that are powered by magic. The girls and boys dorms now have girls and boys only doors on them. She had Harry leave the cooker and counters in the common room, and added a dishwasher as well as a bin that converts rubbish to energy to power itself. Which was a pleasant surprise, as having 4 people with the interface in the dorms full time had bumped up the individual item cost to 2,000 Simoleans. Though, she knows from her phone calls with L, that L has been complaining that the value they can buy has dropped to 1,000 Simoleans in the Realm of magic, after having 5 people forcibly inducted to the interface in 24 hours.
Apparently, the scientists are just as put out, but they're also excited about it, as it's given them an opportunity to measure the equilibrium point of the nano-machines behind the interface. Though she's still not entirely sure what they are, but as long as someone does it doesn't bother her.
Ah, she's dealing with the snap-dragons now. Oh, yes, reviewing changes and preparations for this term. She's expanded all of the greenhouses so that the plants don't need to be so crowded, and moved them around a bit now that she can do it without endangering herself or needing 5 other people to help. She's moved her personal greenhouse, which she also uses for her occasional mastery student, and the 7th year NEWT students, to the Realm of Magic. She's also placed a large warning sign on the door and outside the portal leading to the Garden area. She has also started a new Greenhouse for mundane plants hopefully leading up to having Cow Plant. Though that plant will probably need to go into the 5th or 6th year greenhouse given what she's learnt on the Gardening Forums she's joined. Apparently, it's a plant that can't be maintained by only 1 person without killing them.
Severus wants to see if their versions of mandrakes can be used in a depetrificaiton potion, if it can then it would decrease the cost of the potion to stockable levels. As it stands, the main ingredient is only available from dedicated growers, schools like Hogwarts, and a small region in spain where they grow wild. Which makes the demand far higher than the supply. Combined with the atrocious shelf life and sensitivity to stasis magic, and you pretty much have to get the ingredients fresh.
She stops what she's doing and sends a text message to Andromeda suggesting that it might be possible to turn that particular potion into an alchemical potion. Then she starts tending the garden again.
Oh, yes, she needs to prune the Whomping Willow, and also send a cutting to one of the Gardeners on the forum that expressed interest in it.
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
Andromeda wakes up early the next morning having had a very pleasant night with Ted. She discreetly casts a pregnancy detection charm on her husband and smiles as it comes up positive. Then the smile widens when the notification pops up in the corner confirming it. He always said that she was making a big thing out of it, let's see how he deals with it. She quickly apparates to the Leaky and pops out to a nearby chemist to buy a pregnancy test. After smiling at the clerk who wishes her good luck with the test, she heads back and cooks Ted breakfast in bed, and places the test and a pot beside the plate.
"Good Morning Love, I made you breakfast in bed before I head back to School for the new term."
Ted stirs and groggily sits up, "Morning Hunbun. Thank you, this looks delicious. But what's with the box?"
"Oh, I just thought you might need it after our activities yesterday."
"I thought you were joking."
"Nope." She says smugly.
"How?"
"I'd say magic, but it would be a lie. However, it might as well be magic for all I understood the explanation."
"You, not understand something?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm a genius and I know it. But I also know that I'm rubbish with muggle stuff, and this is really advanced muggle stuff."
"Huh! I thought I'd be freaking out about this."
"I put a calming draft in your coffee."
"That would explain it. I guess I'll have my freak out once you've left for School then."
"Yep, maybe you can commiserate with Louise at the office, isn't she due in March?"
"She is, and I swear she's getting grumpier day by day."
"Don't worry Ted, you'll understand yourself in June."
"Wait, how am I going to give birth?"
"The same way we do, though according to my diagnostics you have more to contract than we do."
"Wasn't there something about men not having a large enough gap in their pelvis to give birth?"
"Yep, which is why this will be interesting to monitor, as I'm sure your body will be undergoing all sorts of changes. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll just give you a feminine body."
Despite the calming draft, Ted goggles at that, "And I thought the magical world was strange."
"Anyway, I'm off to work. Do let me know how the pregnancy test goes."