O joy! O fear! there is not one
Of us can guess what may be done
In the absence of the sun:-
Come along!

—Percy Bysshe Shelley.

#

Regarding Laundry.

A sedan chair with doors? You've got a lot of weird rubbish in here, whoever you are...

Well, see if any of it's got my name on, will you, Harry?

#

It was 5:42 AM at Hogwarts and the Potter was caught in a paradox on the third floor.

On the one hand there was a KEEP OUT sign hanging over the Forbidden Corridor, which meant PLEASE INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY as far as he was concerned. On the other hand, both hands belonged to H. J. Potter rather than himself — along with assorted arms, legs, pineal gland and pancreas (what did a pancreas do, actually? whatever it liked, really, so long as it kept on doing it with no interference from him) and so not risking harm to H. J. Potter balanced the demand from the KEEP OUT sign exactly, which is why he was mopping in circles and had been since 5:37.

Yes no yes no yes yes no no — why must these things happen to me, classic Buridan's Ass paradox (equidistant equal sized piles of hay, result: deadlocked donkey) (asses aren't donkeys, donkeys are domesticated) (in any case I don't want to be a donkey or an ass, thank you) (and incidentally, it produces insulin, glucagon, somatostatin, and pancreatic polypeptide, in case you still cared) (I'd rather be a pony!) (glucagon sounds like a spelling error, but isn't, and is secreted by the islets of Langerhans) ((Latitude 38° 54' N, longitude 77° 00' 13" W?)) (Godric Gryffindor, what are you going on about now?) (I'd be 20% cooler if I were a pony animagus!) — arrgh! Got to break deadlock, use a side issue, half of fourth floor still unmopped, stairwell is nearer now, make a break for it!

He made a break for it.

Coo! that was a relief.

It had actually been worse than the similar incident on the second floor, with the sound of crying from the bathroom. On the one hand, crying, on the other hand the shoe-bearing nature of the helpful graphic on that particular bathroom door. He wasn't about to invade the ladies loo — not with Mrs Norris watching, anyway. Then again, she might have been willing to supervise... Fortunately it had stopped as soon as he knocked on the door, and did not begin again.

#

He scrubbed his way down the hallway, pausing to doff his cap to a portrait of Ruprecht von Mumpitz and a statue of Vetruvio the Architect. (The portrait responded in kind, the statue didn't.) Tomorrow he'd do the first and ground floors, and Sunday it would be dungeon time. He was looking forward to that, the kitchens were down there, and he wanted to meet some of those house elves —

and what have we here?

It was a jar, again.

TRANSFIGURATION said the inscription on the window.

"Well!" said the Potter. "Isn't this interesting? I think it's interesting. How about you, Mrs Norris, do you think it's interesting? Every door on every floor tightly shut but one, and the same one again." He leaned into the opened crack. "Hello!" he called. "Are you in there, Brian?"

Silence.

"What do you think?" he said to Mrs Norris. "Think he's in there but damaged?"

Mrs Norris expressed skepticism.

The Potter drummed fingers on his mop handle.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is...the charm. Albus Dumbledore, what are you up to? Are you careless? Or just a fan of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and want to see what H. Potter does when presented with a tempty mystering? Dare we look inside for the fizzy lifting drinks or should we just file a request-for-maintenance form regarding the defective latch?

Ah well, carpe diem.

He pushed the door wide, revealing darkness within. It went squee.

"See any unconscious Dumbledores in there, Mrs Norris?"

Mrs Norris did not.

"Right, then — going to use the wand. Not using it to tidy up, please note." He Harried a lumos and shone the light inside.

Something flashed blindingly back at him.

When the sparkly floating magenta afterimages had faded (Laserium eat your heart out!) he found Mrs Norris gone from the hallway...

...and inside the room, judging by the direction of the purring. Mrs Norris, purring? Now that merits investigation!

He stepped inside, wand pointed floorward. There was, as he surmised, a mirror up against the far wall, and there was a Mrs Norris, indeed the Mrs Norris, up against the mirror, rubbing against it enthusiastically.

Strange, thought the Potter. I love a mirror, but rarely for its own qualities — sterling though they may be. He waited. Get it? Sterling? Silver? Hello, are we awake in here? Or do you think it's a tin-mercury alloy? Oh, I just don't know sometimes...

He advanced into the room, shining the light around at long unused desks and chairs. There was a desk with an upturned wastebasket on top of it, and in a world where you could Vanish your rubbish into Non-Being how much sense did that make? Maybe it was a recycle bin.

The dusty floor showed signs of activity: fresh shoe-print trails leading to and from the mirror. Or rather mirrors, for there were two. The second one hadn't reflected due to a large sheet of parchment pasted over its face. The sheet had DO NOT REMOVE WITHOUT APPROVAL FROM THE HEADMASTER written on it in very faded ink.

Mrs Norris was now sitting in front of the other one, looking up at the Potter's reflection with an unusual degree of affection.

He leaned in and looked at himself, or, technically, H. J. Potter with red hair and a happily inquisitive look. Nothing unusual there. He stuck his tongue out. Nothing unusual there either.

He looked down at the rumbling Mrs Norris. Well, this was Hogwarts — perhaps it was a catnip mirror.

Or, more probably — he raised the glowing tip of the wand to examine the mirror's frame — some form of magic mirror —

Bong went the great Clock Tower bell.

Ah.

Bong.

Pity.

Seven o'clock — he could bong tell because they bong silenced the main bell bong from midnight to bong six — had arrived.

Bong, concluded the Clock Tower bell.

"Well!" said the Potter, lowering the wand. "I'd love to stay and investigate, but — things to do, people to see, bananas to slice onto cornflakes. Come along, Mrs Norris!"

She ignored him.

"Well, I can't force you. Except that I could, but you'd bite me, and we can't have that.

"I'll just leave the door open a crack for you, shall I?"

Apparently he should, and so he did.

#

After a quick run up to the owlery to post a note to the headmaster to tell him about a stuck cat behind an unstuck door — he couldn't bring himself to sign it Harry, and settled for Acting Sub-Assistant Janitor Potter — he returned to the dormitory to change clothes for the day.

Hogwarts had a convenient laundry service. It consisted of leaving things under your bed at night and finding them laid out on top of your trunk in the morning, cleaned and pressed and with razor-sharp creases in everything, including things you wouldn't expect to take a razor-sharp crease and which were quite difficult to put on as a result.

He had wondered briefly what would happen if he slept under the bed, but decided it was probably unwise to try.

Not that it would have gotten him anything other than clean, and that was well taken care of already. Within days of his post-Herbology experiment, scourgifying first-years had become something of a game-shaped craze among the older students, with points awarded according to how well the job was done (did you get under all their nails? did you leave them with a fresh lemony scent?) and deducted for things like accidentally taking off buttons and zipper pull-tabs. (The Hufflepuffs were winning conclusively.)

Who did the laundry? House elves.

Really want to meet the house elves, thought the Potter, sliding a foot into an envelope-like sock.

#

"Light and fluffy pancakes again?" said the Potter come breakfast-time. "This isn't right."

"So what would you rather have?" said the Weasley, taking one and dunking it in a bowl of syrup to the considerable disgust of the Granger.

"I don't know, some proper magical breakfast, like — cauldron bubble and squeak...?"

Tap tap tap on the table went the wand of Percy the Prefect.

"Minor social note," said he. "As you do know, we have an exchange student this year. As you would know if anyone paid attention to the notices I post on the common room bulletin board, in return for said student, the school gave up Sarah Jane Murray, seventh year Ravenclaw."

Several of the older boys sighed.

"Steady, gentlemen. Our Miss Murray is now at the California Institute of Magic—"

"And mayhem!" said Fred and George.

"Trust you two to know about that sort of thing," exhaled their brother. "Anyway, Ravenclaw's putting together a care-package for her — apparently you can't get decent crisps in America — and since she's representing us all, we're all going to participate. There will be a box for donations in the common room; please include only foodstuffs of which magical Britain is proud."

"Ksinski's Musical Popcorn!" said the Longbottom.

"Excellent suggestion, young man."

"Where is the California Institute of Magic?" asked the Granger. "Other than California, I mean. I've never heard of it before."

"It's located near a town called Yreka, which is twin-city to Hogsmeade. —That out of the way, I've got your latest schedule updates. They're still sorting out a broomstick issue — apparently they were stored incorrectly over the summer and several escaped — so the start of flying lessons has been pushed off to next week.

"Firsties, as some of you have doubtless worked out by the process of elimination, Potions class begins today — double-length, with Professor Snape, in the dungeons. Which is not a Cluedo outcome, incidentally. It's chilly down there, so if you've got jumpers apply them as necessary."

While Percy was speaking, the morning mail service was arriving in the form of dozens of owls, landing on the tables and getting feathers in the butter (that's tradition, I can tell, thought the Potter) and dropping off letters and small packages.

And then, quite unexpectedly, a letter-bearing falcon zoomed through the fluttering owls like a jet through biplanes and plunked itself down in front of him, landing with such grace that hardly anyone's orange juice was knocked over.

"I've got mail!" said the Potter, setting his untouched orange juice in front of the dampened Longbottom with one hand while accepting the offered envelope with the other. It was addressed simply "To Harry" — five Potter Points to that falcon. He tore it open with his teeth.

"Who's that from?" said the Weasley.

"Hagrid!" announced the Potter. "Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper and grinder of the keys! Or something like that. Ooh, I've been invited round for tea this afternoon at three. Anyone want to come with?" He gave everyone from his dormitory (plus the Granger) an inquisitive look.

The Weasley and the Longbottom seemed interested. The Granger looked mildly surprised when he included her, but nodded.

"We've got a field booked," said Dean Thomas, looking at Seamus Finnegan.

"For what?" said the Weasley.

"I'm going to bring footy to Hogwarts," said the Thomas. "Seamus is going to help."

"It's so bizarre a game it just might go over," said the Finnegan.

While listening with 1.25 ears to the ensuing conversation, because footy, the Potter returned to his correspondence.

P.S., it said. Dont know what your having for brekky but if you have any to spare Mordecai loves sardines.

He checked the table, but there were none.

"Pancake, Mordecai?" said the Potter. Mordecai did his best to give him the eyebrow raised, and accepted a bacon strip instead. The Potter drew a quill from his quill pocket to write his reply under the footnote.

Thank you, yes, and I trust you won't mind a friend or three?

"Going to minister to the savage, Potter?" drawled the Malfoy, who had snuck up behind him and was now dropping toast crumbs down the back of the Potter's neck.

"Have you never read Tarzan Of The Apes?" said the Potter, bending his head backwards to look at the Malfoy upside-down. "Savages are cool. Also very useful when you're being attacked by lions."

"Are you mad? He looks half-giant."

"Even better! Some lions are quite large!"

"There are no lions in Scotland."

"Not any more! See how useful he is?" He beamed up at the Malfoy.

The Malfoy stared down at him. "You're bonkers," he said, and bit into his remaining toast.

"Quite possibly! Want to come along? Meet the cryptids and bunyips and that?"

The Malfoy continued to stare down at him for a few heartbeats. "Thank you, no," he said, and wandered away.

The Weasley gave a disgusted snort. "Why do you put up with him?"

"He's not doing me any harm," said the Potter, closing up the letter and returning it to Mordecai.

After the falcon had flown away (knocking over hardly anyone's orange juice, and it was mostly empty anyway), the Potter didn't put his quill away; instead he took out his copy of Magical Draughts and Potions.

The Granger watched his next action while horror crawled up her face like pink-suited ninjas.

"You're writing in your coursebook!" she said.

"Of course I am," he said. "Nothing wrong with writing in books, so long as you do it sensibly..."

"Why?"

"Because I read the book, and someday somebody else might."

#

Professor Snape took roll in alphabetical order, but upon arriving at the P's, he skipped over Potter, Harry and continued straight through to the end of the alphabet.

"Zabini, Blaise?"

"Here, sir."

There followed a significant pause.

"And the celebrated Harry Potter," said the Professor.

"Present!" said the Potter. "Although to be honest, sir, fame is a vapor and popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion." Oops. "—Sorry, that came out a bit dark. I was aiming for Horace Greeley and got Mark Twain."

Professor Snape stared the Potter straight in the green and silver tie...

(Oh, look at you, thought the Potter. Those robes — not the cool black robes — you've got the kind that go grey with wear, and you don't even care, do you? Do you even have them laundered regularly? No, you don't, because you're not even grooming yourself. If you were a bird you'd be moulting all over the floor. But then you're not a bird, are you, because hope is the thing with feathers. And what a waste of nose, that's a brilliant nose, Sherlock Holmes would be proud of that nose...)

...and then made a tick mark on his class sheet.

After a brief pause he stepped away from his desk to — apparently — tour the room, and began to recite with a peculiar mixture of boredom and dedication:

"This is Potions, a class unlike any other at Hogwarts.

"In this room a glass rod shall be your wand.

"In this room you may use mortar and pestle to combine power and beauty — a centrifuge to separate death from glory — scales like these to weigh life itself.

"All these things you may do, all these things I can teach — provided I can dig the cotton batting out of your thick little heads. I am not an optimist.

"Mr Potter. What do we obtain if we add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

The Potter rose slowly and brightly.

"Broadly speaking? A sedative called the Draught of Living Death." Although there were quite a few varieties of asphodel and the book didn't distinguish between any of them...

The Professor paused.

"I see no quills moving," he said.

Quills started moving, as did he.

"—Where might I obtain a bezoar?"

"Bezoar orientale or Bezoar occidentale? India is lovely this time of year, but Peru is nice, too — but no, you'd mean a garden variety, wouldn't you? So I'd try the gamekeeper's house, I believe he keeps goats. Unless there was one in that equipment cupboard over there. A bezoar, I mean, not a goat, although of course you never know, with magic."

"A bezoar," said the Professor, fixing a glare on the green and silver tie as though hoping to burn it red and gold, "may also be derived from the poisonous tears shed by certain stags who have fed upon snakes to regain their youth.

"What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"Oh, now there's a thing," said the Potter. "I know they're the same plant, but this is magic, and to change the name is to change the thing. So I'm going to have to go with Don't Know, Sir on that one."

Another pause. The slightest flick of an eyelash suggested that the Professor had found something of interest in that.

"Distinguish between occulting argentum and occulting beryllium."

Wow. "No idea whatsoever, sorry, sir." Which was strictly a lie, but there was nothing in any of the coursebooks about either of those things.

"Occulting argentum is used in magic mirrors; occulting beryllium is used in time-turners; both are used in the pensieve." He flicked a glance around the classroom. "—You need not write that down; it is well above your level." He resumed staring at the Potter's tie. "There is always someone who knows more than you, Mr Potter," he purred.

Well, good, thought the Potter. I'd hate to be alone in this.

The Professor took up the Draughts and Potions book from his desk. "We will today create a notional cure for boils that by convenient happenstance involves the use of the majority of common laboratory equipment in its preparation. It is found on page — what is it, Potter?"

The Potter had had his hand up since the word "boils".

"No offense intended, sir, but did you approve this text? or was it a bureaucratic decision? Because it really is rubbish." And one reason he felt sure that although H. J. Potter might feel that he was dreaming during the day, the world was real, because you didn't get cruddy coursebooks in people's fantasies. "It uses terms before they're defined, the glossary is a joke, the sidebars are generally irrelevant when not actively misleading and frankly it opens the school to lawsuits."

"Lawsuits, Mr Potter?" drawled the Potions Master.

"For example, the preparation of this boil cure involves the mixing of porcupine quills and snake venom in a cauldron under heat, but ten pages on from that it warns never to mix porcupine quills and snake venom under high heat, though it doesn't say why or even define high heat. Disaster could ensue."

"Yours is not to question the decisions of the Ministry, Mr Potter," said Professor Snape, idly turning pages in the coursebook. "And in the future needless interruptions will result in lost points.

"However," continued the Professor, "the muggleborns in the class will take note that high heat is actively bubbling."

My goodness, half the class is muggleborns, thought the Potter dryly. He thought about raising the issue of air pressure, but decided not to push his luck.

#

It was a long three hours.

The Longbottom lost five points for Gryffindor for breaking the end off a glass alembic. The Granger didn't earn any points at all, even though she finished her potion first and correctly, which drove her pink with irritation. But nobody died or even exploded, so that was all right. (And the Malfoy earned five points for Slytherin due to his expertise with stewing slugs —had someone spent time teaching him to cook? it was possible. Of course, that still left a ten-point gap in Gryffindor's favor, since somehow Slytherin had lost twenty points Thursday...)

Eventually the great bell tolled the end of the period, and, after receiving the peculiar homework assignment of identifying five conspicuous errors in the coursebook, the class began to stream into the hallway with varying degrees of wild enthusiasm.

"Mr Potter will remain," said the teacher, and sorted through papers on his desk in a desultory manner until the classroom was as empty as it was going to get.

And then finally, finally he looked the Potter in the eye.

Ooh, gravity well...! You are my favourite teacher. You're going to be difficult.

"I will have one thing clearly understood," said the Potions Master. "I do not tolerate pyrotechnics, spectacle or showing off in any form. In this classroom, I am the master, and you will obey me."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, sir," said the Potter, unobtrusively shaking some toast crumbs from inside his razor-creased trouser leg onto the floor.

"Good. Do not let me detain you."

#

"I think Professor Snape hates me," said the lunching Longbottom, depositing pickled celery on a gloomy hot dog.

"Yeah, probably," said the Weasley, drenching his own in buffalo-wing sauce. "Good for you!"

"I can't believe you said all that about the book!" said the Granger. "It's the book, Harry!"

"Yes, well," said the tie-retied Potter, contemplating a rubbery bun. Look, it stretches. "Never put up with bad coursebooks. School's going to interfere with your autodidacticism, so you should insist that it interfere constructively."

The Weasley bit fiercely into his hot dog bun. Its contents shot across the table and bounced off the Granger and disappeared under the table somewhere. She stared at him. He cheesed a grin back at her.

"Did you know," said Percy Weasley, raising a finger from behind a very dull book, "that the most common form of serotiny in pine trees is pyriscence, in which a resin binds the cones shut until melted by a forest fire?"

#

The Potter inexplicably lost to the Weasley at wizard chess at 2:42 PM, and when three o'clock rolled around, a party of four departed the back steps of the school for the Hagridal Hut.

It was going to be a tricky meeting, of course: Hagrid had met Harry, spent some time with him — had some sort of feel for how he behaved.

The Potter decided that if he drew suspicion he'd blame it on the radishes at lunch, because there hadn't been any. That should confuse the issue; it certainly confused him.

#

The Longbottom bounced backwards from the door, driven by a storm of barks and growls that erupted from behind it as soon as he knocked. The voice that responded to the storm was no less impressive. "Back, Fang — sit! Good boy."

After Fang had settled him, her or itself, the door opened, and the epic Hagrid overspilled the doorway.

"Harry!" said the epic Hagrid, looking down as though from a mountaintop, hand above eyes salute-like. "—You're not Harry."

"No, I'm Neville Longbottom," admitted the Longbottom.

Hagrid looked from Neville to the equally black-haired Weasley, who shook his head.

"I swopped hair with Harry," said the Weasley. "Fun, innit? I'm Ron Weasley."

"Well, I suppose — Weasley, hey, I know yer brother Charlie — good lad, Charlie, loves his animals."

Hermione unexpectedly punched the Potter in the arm. "What?!" he said.

"You were going to say something I didn't like."

"Oh, was I? Well, all right..."

The epic Hagrid looked down — continued to look down — and blanched.

"By gar and by scrumbag, Harry," said the epic Hagrid. "With that hair yeh look scary like yer mum..."

Oh. Oho. Aha. Is that why...?

"Come in, then!" said the epic. "Tea's on. Made scones. Think they're scones, anyway."

#

"Oh, look! Rock cakes!" said the Potter.

"Help yerself," said Hagrid, pouring tea with enormous care. Under his tea-cozy was a newspaper clipping about the attempted Gringott's break-in — the same article as in the Potter's only copy of the Daily Prophet. Interesting.

A Harry memory bobbled up. Oh. Hagrid had picked something up from Gringott's when he'd taken Harry around Diagon Alley...

"Um, Harry," said Hagrid, "don't wanna be rude, but — Slytherin?"

"Only half," said the Potter, waving his red and gold tie. "And I've got an excuse." He ran through l'affaire du Sorting Hat one more time.

"Hufflepuff?" said Hagrid. "Really? Thought I tol' yeh — well, no mind..."

The Potter took his tea. The scones were like rocks, and the rock cakes were some hitherto unknown form of matter beyond mere solid. Never a Jammie Dodger around when you need one. When Fang offered him a charcoal bikkie he took it gladly.

"Speaking of potential offense," said the Potter, "I want to ask you some questions about people. Parents — people they knew, a lot of social stuff..." Wash your dirty laundry in public, it's embarrassing, but shame is so counterproductive... "And this Lord Voldemort."

Hagrid spilled his tea. "We don' like sayin' that name," he said. "I tol' yeh that, but..."

"All right, then, we don't have to say that name, but I need to discuss him, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has too many syllables, so let's just respell him. Something like—" the letters rearranged themselves in his mind — "Trevor Doom, LL. D."

There was a pause. Even Fang stopped scratching himself.

"Trevor the Evil Lawyer," said Neville slowly.

"A complete barrister," said Ron.

The Barrister, thought the Potter. Not bad...

"All righ'," said Hagrid reluctantly. "But I don' see what yeh need to know about him now, he's gone eleven years...even if maybe..."

"That's a telling maybe," said the Potter. "I've seen how this sort of thing works — the Barrister may have been splattered to the four walls, but then some minion swoops in and collects the the remains and I end up dangling upside down over a box of instant-villain-just-add-blood, and I'd like to avoid that sort of thing."

Hagrid looked appalled. "Blimey," he said. "Shouldn' need to think about that. Dumbledore...great man, always two steps ahead..."

"Where did you get all that from?" whispered the Weasley.

"Scars Of Dracula, Hammer Studios 1970," the Potter whispered back.

"You what?"

"I'll explain later."

#

It wasn't such a great way to start off, but Hagrid cheered up after Neville explained how Slytherin had lost twenty points for laughing at him. "And it was Harry who talked me into leaving Transfiguration," he said. "Smartest thing I did all week!"

"I did?" said the Potter.

"Yeah! —Hey, Hagrid, do you know a song called 'Bread And Marmalade'?"

He did, and oh, it took him back, too...!

So that was all right.

#

"Trevor Doom, Barrister of Darkness," said Hermione on their way back to the castle. "Honestly, Harry!"

"We could call him Frau Blucher," said the Potter absently. A pony whinnied in the back of his mind.

"Why not just say You Know Who like everybody else?"

"I don't think anybody does know," said the Potter. What does a dark lord think when he gets toast crumbs down his collar? he wondered. "Besides, being an evil lawyer would be a spectacular business model, being responsible for the ambulances you chase..."

The Longbottom half-turned with a look of unexpected betrayal. "That's not funny."

"No, I suppose not," said the Potter, raising his fingers to the Scar. My dear Neville, who did you lose?

#

Once they'd gotten back inside, the Potter parted from the others and headed for the library. He wanted to look for school yearbooks. He also wanted to investigate some dictionaries...

...but neither the library's Oxford nor its magical supplement had an entry for "valeyard".