Far more than just another one of those installments, the kind that lose me follows, net, and ensure I'll never get that page on TVTropes: this is, Complete In One Installment For Your Skipping Convenience, THE SECOND ACT. (q.v. David Mamet et al., "Second Act Problems"). —Ed.


A coin, a penknife, a pebble, which has long been carried in the pocket or worn by any one...these small familiar friends become at last fetishes, which bring luck, giving to those who firmly believe in them great comfort and endurance in adversity...the object becomes something which knows, possibly, a great deal which we do not. Therefore it is to be treated with care and respect, and in due time it becomes a kind of god, or at least the shrine of a small respectable genius...
— Charles Godfrey Leland.

[T]he tendency of animals' every moment is toward dissolution...they are kept from it by foreign powers.
— John Brown.

Something has to be said for the fog.
— Friedrich Waismann.

New York customs barred Kendal Mint Cake on the grounds that products labelled 'cake' should have flour in them, and a ship load of the product was dumped in the Atlantic in the 1950's.
— Helen Skelton/BBC

#

Thanksgiving (IV: Susque Deque 2).

Harry restarted the Bluebottle at one hundred feet, and brought it down onto the Hogwarts dock in a smooth and gentle curve that ended in a perfect two point landing in the middle of a group of gulls. They didn't even scatter, they just gave him a look that said Rude.

Why the dock? asked the Rupert.

"Distance from the Quidditch field. Didn't want Madam Hooch to see me plummeting. Did you see Malfoy walking toward Hagrid's?"

Did you see my life flashing before your eyes? It's hard to concentrate when you're plunging toward someone else's death. Also, yes, yes I did.

"Hey!" said a person at the end of the dock. (The Rupert silently added the usual horse-y countersign, and then wistfully erased his mental note about becoming a pony animagus.) "Potter! I've been looking for you!" He couldn't pronounce his R's properly. Oh, right, that chap from the land of iron and milk.

"In the lake?" said Harry. "You came on the wrong day." He shouldered the Bluebottle and started down the dock, crunching over the small pebbles that littered the decking.

"No surprise there," said the exchange student. "—Hang on a second, I think I...caught something...that's new..."

At the end of the dock was an old and crumbling statue of a figure with a fishing pole in one hand and metal ring in the other; its base read NODENS. Harry set the broom down into the ring and watched the iron-and-milk-man wind up his reel.

The end of the line rose out of the water; hanging from it by one of many tentacles was a smallish grey wibbly thing with quite a lot of eyeballs. Once it had gotten a good look at the two of them it made a rude noise and dropped back into the water with a vaguely derisive beloit.

"Well!" said the near-fisherman. "That was odd."

"That's Hogwarts," said Harry. He looked more closely at the business end of the fishing line. "Hang about, are you fishing with a plumb bob?"

"Yeah," said the exchange student. "I like fishing, Catching — eh!" He finished winding up his reel and folded up his rod. "I'd rather visit an aquarium."

"Oh," said Harry. He leaned against Nodens and pulled off his floppy-soled trainer to shake a pebble out of it. "Where do these even come from?" he wondered aloud.

"The stones? Birds, probably," said the exchange student. "Gizzards, you know. They come out one end or the other, stones."

Dear me, Harry, said the Rupert, have you never heard of puking duck...?

Harry coughed away his reaction. "So, um — what was it I called you? milk-man of steel? What is your name, anyway? I'm just Harry at the weekend."

"Uh...technically, Bob."

"Not going to call you Technically Bob," said Harry firmly.

"That'd be better than American Bob. Lots of Bobs in Ravenclaw for some reason."

How about Robin, supplied the Rupert. "How about Robin?" said Harry.

There was a Harry - Potter - just - named - me - Robin I - am - so - sick - of - being - "Bob" Harry - Potter it - might - actually - stick! type pause.

"Robin's good!" said Robin. "Those coins of yours. My dad finally got the Wixell tests back. If you want to sell them, he'll buy them. The Fugio cent has a duplicate somewhere, which cuts its value significantly except to the owner of the other. The dime is unique. "

"What's are Wixell tests?"

"Nodality — that's a transfigurational copy check — grade enhancement illusion and...well, you know, no offense, you found them, if you can't trust Harry Potter who can you trust, but he had to verify they weren't stolen by somebody else."

"Oh. Um, okay, so...old money for new, how does it work? I've got a Gringott's account, but if I could get at it I wouldn't be. you know...I'm going to say penniless..."

Robin grinned. "Owl Postal Order. It's the standard for international transfers. I know they accept them in Diagon Alley, they probably take them in Hogsmeade."

I bet the Gringotts goblins appreciate that, thought the Rupert. Their gold stays in their vaults, and it saves them the bother of getting into the paper currency line themselves.

"It's a deal!" said Harry. "How much is he offering? ...Wait, I think I got that backwards."

Robin named a number.

"Oh," said Harry. "Yeah, definitely a deal there."

They shook on it.

New trainers first, Harry...

{ You're no fun at all, you know that? }

#

Harry flew back to the quidditch pitch at the standard legal altitude.

Fortunately Madam Hooch hadn't noticed his dive-bombing, as she'd been paging through the photo album Harry had left with her. When he reclaimed it she thanked him, presumably for helping with broom-testing.

The last of the checked brooms having been stowed, or bundled off for repair, or dumped in a barrel in bits, Harry planned out the remainder of his Saturday while shuffling over the grass towards the Great Hall.

{ Okay, } he said, { after lunch there's going to be quidditch on the wizard wireless and then the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw match at two. After that, I'll be messing about, and after dinner I'll put off doing my homework until Sunday night. Right? }

You have Herbology on Mondays.

{ Oh yeah. Okay, then, I'll put off doing my homework until Monday night. }

Sounds about right. You're starting to remind me of me, I think.

Harry's trainer caught on an invisible root.

{ Well, } he said, { maybe I'll do a little homework... }

Oi! What's that supposed to mean?

#

There was a cloud of chattering Ravenclaws on the front steps, ("A teacher? I didn't know you could get a teacher expelled.") ("Quite a nasty one, too — hideous, apparently she was very nearly Medusa.") Harry weaved his way through them, smiling at people abstractedly. The upper-year Ravenclaws were big on smiling at people abstractedly, it let them know you were vaguely well-disposed toward them even though you weren't going to remember their names until five minutes after you'd forgotten meeting them.

One of the Ravenclaw prefects was perched at the top of the stairs, reading aloud from a letter. "Vicky and Peg didn't think it was possible," she said, "but we did it. It's amazing what you can accomplish if you make enough noise, or at least the right kind. Love to all, Sarah. P.S., please find enclosed samples of our candied thyme." She picked up a box that was lying next to her, gave it a rattle, and passed it to her left. "P.P.S., Diane says to say hello to Terry in Slytherin if anyone sees him."

She looked up at the blank-to-sour faces of Ravenclaw.

"What," she said, "Am I the only one smart enough not to get involved in a Slytherin betting pool? ...oh, that's sad."

She turned back to the letter. "P.P.P.S.—"

"How many pee-esses are there in that letter?" asked a small Ravenclaw.

"Well, it goes on another three pages..."

...

The Kitchen Elves had a fossilised British Rail ham and cheese toastie nailed to the ceiling as a reminder of what they were fighting against, and so when Harry arrived at table he found on his plate a croque-monsieur: jambon et Gruyère avec sauce Mornay, with grated parmigiano reggiano, salt, pepper, grated thyme and a dab of dijon mustard under a fried slice of pineapple and a maraschino cherry. Cubed pears in vanilla ice-cream to follow.

Percy, who was in conversation with Neville re a Careers in Magical Agriculture pamphlet from the rack outside the school store ("It's jolly interesting," said Nev, "you don't just cut the limbs off, you put them back on again after you repair them."), reached over and removed the Beanie of Shame from Harry's head while its wearer was in the process of sitting down, without even saying anything because clearly Potter was never going to remember to take it off at table and there was no point even mentioning it any more, was there.

Across the table, Hermione was studying a book full of charts and diagrams — not a textbook; volume M of Burke's Wyrd Connexions: A Magical Geneology — in between disapproving sidewise glances at Ron's Gryffindor tie avec sauce Mornay.

"All right, Harry?" said Ron, nodding at the photo album.

"Yeah, pretty much," said Harry, the Scabbers incident now in the distant past of four, maybe even five hours ago. "I guess. It's just...complicated, getting a bunch of descendants all at once."

"Ancestors," corrected Hermione.

"Yeah," agreed Harry, not really listening.

He picked up his sandwich, and the Rupert stepped back into the mental fog to do a bit of thinking.

...

The Rupert immediately leaned back out of the fog.

Harry, I think you're supposed to use utensils with that.

{ You don't eat sandwiches with a knife and fork! That's the whole point of sandwiches! }

Paradoxes! They're everywhere. Especially France.

...

The Rupert leaned back into the fog, and wondered why the wizarding world didn't fall apart or explode. It didn't work, physically or socially.

I mean, forget M-Space: between Aguamenti and Evanesco, why even have plumbing?

Well, no, not Evanesco, student difficulty in conceptualising Evanesco is that that it's a memory spell, you have to allow for getting the stuff back exactly as it was when you got rid of it...

...

Harry! Ultra-important! Never Vanish your chamberpot!

Sandwich halfway to his mouth, Harry paused to evaluate this warning..

{ Okay, } he said.

"Harry, you're supposed to use utensils with that," said Hermione.

"You don't eat sandwiches with a fork!" said a smeary Ron. "That's the whole point of sandwiches!"

Harry hugely into his croque-monsieur and redecorated his right sleeve avec sauce Mornay.

...

Where was I? Right, between Aguamenti and...not Evanesco...what is it, Scourgify?

(Tergeo.)

Tergeo, thank you, why even have plumbing? It's inconsistent. It's...

It's...

It's...

(Monty Python's Flying Circus!)

Yes! Exactly! I mean no, shut up! But it does ring a bell. (Which bell?) I have no idea!

Okay, forget the bell, take it from the top. Take it from Lumos.

Sourceless light = free energy = free matter = Sorceror's Apprentice scenario. Set up a broomstick duplication loop and pile up brooms to the point where they undergo gravitational collapse. If you can make unlimited light you can make unlimited matter. Set Mickey Mouse loose in the wizarding world and he'd destroy the universe, and that's just careless and ridiculous and why is it still here?

Take it from Lumos.

Sourceless light = free energy = post-scarcity society. And yet they still buy second-hand school books, and teachers don't get paid enough, and there's no money in the budget for new brooms. Why is it so?

Hypothesis: muggles have a magic of their own, sociomorphic magic, so low-level and omnipresent that no one's ever noticed it. It's water to a fish. Muggles shape wizard culture. Muggles can't, ergo wizards don't. It never even occurs to them to try.

Ha, there's your anti-Muggle ideological start-point: blame the non-magical for holding wizards down. Imagine if Grindelwald had come along in the Seventies and just packed up the whole wizarding world and moved it to the moon. Moon's way more magical than boring old Earth!

Sociomorphic magic would stop the accidental Apprentice scenario.

...byyyyyy preventing wizardry from ever emerging in the first place. Right, toss it, doesn't work either. Not consistent. No model. And it's all about the model. If you don't have a model you don't have anything.

You make observations, filter for noise, let your unconscious intuit the shape, derive a mathematical description of that shape, and presto: natural law. Get the shape right and the math will follow.

Shape of the wizarding world thus far: a grey wibbly blob with lots of tentacles and even more eyeballs that makes farty noises.

Nodality checks on coins, he thought. Reference-counted objects. Don't violate conservation law by creating new things, create pointers instead. Use an entropy stack model to simulate uniqueness. Good, eh? An improvement, yes?

Nope! Doesn't even help, though it tries. Geminio copies are all individual, and even reference-counted transfigurative copies act as though they have individual mass. Mickey mass. Instant singularity, just add oops. Paradox, paradox, paradox. Paroxysms of paradoxes.

(Well, strictly, paradox just means beyond expectations, to indicate a violation of natural logic in Aristotelian terms you probably want paraendox...)

Paradox, paraendox, praecox, whatever you call it, by Mickey Merlin's yellow pants, it's—

It's...

(Bong! goes the the Liberty Bell.)

—ludicrous! Not the Liberty Bell, Merlin's deep wide doorbell, that's what it rings. Merlin. The first and last word in wizards. Never died, just went missing. Tom Riddle might be the center of a storm but you can't spell meteorology without Merlin, or at list his initial.

Merlin, the prime lacuna. If it all starts with a hole, the paradox is the paradigm! A work in progress, a universe still under construction! It persists because something's propping it up, moment by moment. Something? Someone!

Merlin!

...huh...

I wonder if he secretly invented Quidditch?

...

Harry finished his sandwich and gave his gooey fingers the wary speculative look of someone contemplating an act of socially-incorrect but nutritionally rational digit-cleaning in full sight of Hermione Granger.

His debate concluded with a perfectly reasonable decision.

"Oh for heaven's sake!" said Hermione. She snapped her book shut, got up and went off somewhere. ("Boys!")

"What's with her?" said Ron, swiping her glass dish of cubed pears and vanilla ice-cream. It promptly squirted out of his saliva-wet fingers.

"No idea," said Harry.

"Oi!" said Percy. "Use napkins, you two. That's disgusting. Do I have to start taking points?"

"Scrubbadubbio!" said a passing wizard.

#

On the wireless, Tewkesbury lost the toss but won the match...

On the field, Hufflepuff beat Ravenclaw through sheer doggedness...

In Gryffindor tower, Ron and Harry spent fifteen minutes chasing after Scabbers, who had developed an interest in escaping from his cage, the dormitory and the common room...

...and now Ron, Harry and Neville had their heads together, working studiously and with great concentration on...their...joint ongoing cartoon project, 1001 Actual Uses For Professor Snape.

They were up to number 112, Replacement Floor-Waxing Mop For Mr Filch.

"What's that?" asked Neville, pointing at one of Ron's finer details.

"Mrs Norris sliding on the greasy floor into an open manhole," replied Ron, adding an explicatory label with an indicator arrow. "One of these days she's going to get Scabbers, and I swear I won't miss him cos it'll be his own bloody fault."

Hermione, not seen since lunchtime, swept by their table —

("Ron, you've got cheese on your socks," said Hermione.)

("I'll bung 'em under the bed sometime," said Ron.)

— and passed Harry a note so deftly that only the Rupert noticed.

It read Owlery, after dinner.


...with the owls began my song,
And with the owls must end...
— Wordsworth.

Bells toll in the still air of twilight
and the watchman calls the numbered hours.
A breeze strokes the heads of the trees,
lo! and the earth-shadow Moon
rises in secret; dreamily comes the night,
filled with stars and little worried about us.
Sparkling, astonishing night, the stranger supporting mankind,
rises over mountains melancholy, glorious.

— Friedrich Hölderlin. (tr. Jon Kitman)

#

Thanksgiving (V: Susque Deque 3).

"What ho, sorceress!" said the Rupert as Harry bounced up out of the stairwell into the —

— the —

Someone had cleaned the Owlery.

Normally the stone floor wore a centuries-thick layer of gudge-spattered compressed mice with a garnish of feathers avec sauce guano, but it was bare now, gleaming in the moonlight, so sweet and clean that Hercules would have wondered how they'd got the river up the stairs.

Even the owls looked scrubbadubbio'd. Unusually pop-eyed. Amazed, that was the word.

"Must you do those horrid drawings?" said Hermione, from her perch on a window-sill that last week she'd never have thought of going near.

"Of course!" said the Rupert reasonably. "It's a proud British tradition!"

"Being rude and disgusting?"

"Have you ever read Shakespeare?"

"Shakespeare?"

"Worse than Chaucer. —Hello, what are you reading now?"

She held up the large paperback she'd brought along. In the bright moonlight, black lettering on the bright yellow cover read:

The Wit's-End Wizard's Guide To
Ludwig O.F.W. Freebl's
Grundgesetze der Arithmagie
Painstakingly Wrested Par Anglais By
Severity Foot-Lambert

"I'm getting an early start on arithmancy," she said.

(Arithmancy! Tell me more! The usual muggle sorts of -mancies were about divination by looking for patterns in random phenomena, but if you followed the root all the way back to Proto-Indo-European it was about thinking. Why predict when you can direct?)

"Learn anything good?" said the Rupert.

"Apparently," she began — and oh he loved the way she stressed the paarr, no idea why but it gave him a squee — "in magic all numbers are actually zero. Or special cases of zero. Zero is what they call a —" she took a quick look at the inside of the fold-out cover — "variably empty signifier — it doesn't want to be just zero, it has aspirations. That's the foundation of transfigurative multiplication. Nothing that acts like something."

Well! thought the Rupert. There you go. You can create as much mass as you like, and because it fundamentally doesn't exist, it doesn't matter. Now that's what I call physics! ...Because saying "arrrgh" just makes me sound like a pirate.

"Does it say why you can't make food from nothing?" asked Harry.

"This book? no, but didn't you see today's It's Debatable in the Daily Prophet? Well, no, you wouldn't have asked, would you... An Egyptologist at the University of Göttingen just translated a fired clay tablet. Apparently an ancient muggleborn Mesopotamian fig-pedlar locked out food creation to preserve his job."

Oh, there you go, scarcity mugglethink.

"It's quite exciting," continued Hermione, "they might be able to knock down one of Gamp's exceptions now that they've got a name to conjure with...wait a minute...why are we up here?"

"You passed me a note," said Harry. "We're having a secret rendezvous, it's exciting and mysterious!" added the Rupert.

"Oh yes," said Hermione, and sat down on her book to avoid further distraction. "I worked out the mystery of Iphitus Malfoy. —Now what are you doing?"

The Rupert was taking a couple of envelopes out of Harry's inside pocket. "Multitasking," he said, "carry on, just posting a letter home. Loosely speaking."

He showed her the Privet Drive address with one hand and slipped Hedwig a kipper with the other.

"I'm writing to the Dursleys. It'll be winter hols next month and unless they want Harry James Potter grinching up Dudley's Christmas they're going to make certain pre-emptive concessions."

Hermione's eyes got very large. "Winter vacation!" she said. "We've got exams in a month! I haven't even drawn up a revision timetable! And it's all your fault!"

"My fault?"

"I got distracted by your mystery! ...wait a minute, what do you mean, pre-emptive concessions?"

"Permission slips," said the Rupert, to Harry's sudden intense interest. "You've read your Hogwarts Blue Book — we're going to need permission to go to Hogsmeade starting in third year. I'm making arrangements in advance. Dursleys agree to sign, wretched boy stays at school, Dursleys hold out, it's wizard caroling time in Little Whinging."

{ See, this is why I put up with you, } said Harry. He handed Hedwig the letter, and she launched herself into the night.

[ Flying through the snow / on a broomstick with an owl / casting spells we go / making Dudley howl, troll-lol-lol —]

"That is thinking ahead," said Hermione. "And extortion of course."

"Of course! Now — tell me everything you know about Antonio Gaudi! Ahh! I mean, Iphitus Malfoy."

Hermione said, with minor portentousness, "There is no Iphitus Malfoy."

She let the words hang in the air a moment.

"But you'd guessed that, hadn't you?" she continued. "You said the reason you were interested was included in the secret. You meant you were interested because he is a secret."

The Rupert nodded, which certainly looked like a confirmation. "The Purloined Letter approach. A painting ignored is a painting well hidden."

"Well, I looked everywhere in the geneology section for an Iphitus, even by marriage. I even asked Madam Pince to check for Vanished ink on the scrolls. I had to explain what a palimpsest is."

The Rupert emitted a "Hm?" carefully designed to occupy the center of the triangle whose corner points consisted of A, I don't know what a palimpsest is either; B, Please tell me more although I know perfectly well what a palimpsest is; and C, I just didn't hear that word, please repeat.

"A bit of a muggle concept for her," she said, "but it turns out that a lot of scrolls in the library actually are copies of other scrolls with the ink removed." She paused. "I think maybe some of them shouldn't have been in the open section, actually — she looked a bit alarmed..."

She pulled herself back to the Owlery. "Anyway, definitely no Iphitus. So I went and looked at the painting again, and that's what the nameplate said, but then I thought, well, how do I know the nameplate's right? Why would a Malfoy be up in our tower in the first place? So I stopped looking at the nameplate and looked at the picture, and I saw that he was wearing something on his lapel, something like a leaf."

{ Why didn't you notice that, Rupert? } smirked Harry.

Mr Filch hadn't cleaned the paintings yet.

"So I thought, hmm, and I went and got Neville," she continued, "and he looked at it a while and said, that's celery."

"Celery?" said Harry. "Who wears celery? And why?"

"That's what I said. We thought it might be Victorian flower code — they didn't use only flowers, flowers don't necessarily mean anything anyway, but celery, that's got to be a message. So I looked at all the flower code guides I could find." She coughed imaginary dust, just thinking about it. "Call me Library Girl if you like, but I still had to get Madam Pince to run a Trace on one of them. It wasn't in the library, it wasn't out of the library. We found it in something called the Silent Study."

Oops, thought the Rupert.

"...Oh, yeah?" said Harry.

"Which was quite interesting, too — apparently it used to be the school chapel. There's a plaque. A room where only thoughts should speak, it says...

"Anyway, celery means I will not forget my promise."

The Rupert interjected: "And you said to yourself, oh ho, this sounds like one of those tragic love stories."

She shifted uncomfortably. "Basically. I've probably been reading the wrong books..."

"So...then?"

"So I took the portrait off the wall and went and asked the Bloody Baron if he knew who it was," she said matter-of-factly.

"You what?" said Harry.

"That was a bit scary," she said.

"I imagine so!" said the Rupert. "He puts Draco off his feed. He puts Peeves off his feed, and Peeves doesn't eat!"

"No, no — sneaking the picture all the way down to the dungeon was scary. There's nothing in the Blue Book that says you can't do it, but I think Mr Filch makes his own rules."

"And...the Bloody Baron..."

"He's rather sweet, really, he seemed quite stricken by the celery. I'm going to be helping him with his presentation for History — he's doing a special ghost lecture on Hogwarts. Early Days Of Our Alma Mater. Anyway, he took one look and said, yes, of course, that's little Cass Malfoy."

"...Cass?"

"Or Cassie. Casmilus. technically. Who left school without graduating, summer 1822. Last words, I love my House but Beverly more, be back when they find the esplumeor. Meaning never."

"What a...terrible rhyme. And who's Beverly?"

"Beverly du Potier, sorted to Gryffindor 1816, left without graduating summer 1822."

"Ah," said the Rupert. "It all falls together. Gryffindor & Slytherin pair up like Gilbert & Sullivan. Matters come to a head. They elope! Not like Gilbert & Sullivan. And so embarrassing do the Malfoys find the association that they expel his very portrait from Casa Malfoy and onto the wall in Gryffindor Tower where they think it belongs — a portrait lost among portraits, under a different name so that if anyone even tries to wake it, it won't respond. Secret secured.

"And back at Casa Malfoy they never speak of him again. Or turn him into a sort of desultory family legend of betrayal so they can hate on Gryffindors even more, making sure no Malfoy gets sorted there. Not that Lucius remembered to pass it on. Draco gets all that languid from somewhere..."

"Lost to name and fame," said Hermione in a dreamy-quotey voice. "He's not in any of the geneologies under his own name, either, I checked. ...But why not just destroy the portrait?"

"It is a magical portrait. Who knows what might happen? Burn it and the image might go everywhere. Could be embarassing."

"And how did they put it to sleep?"

"Eyes that can follow you around the room can follow a pocket-watch. Why shouldn't you be able to mesmerise a portrait? —Hang about, did you just say lost to name and fame? Where'd you get that?"

"Erm," she said, shifting uncomfortably off the sill, "a book."

The wrong sort of book? "A book about...Merlin?"

She took a step backward. He took a step forward.

"Yes, possibly," she said, backing towards the stairs. Definitely the wrong sort of book, you could hear the blush.

"A book titled Merlinimue?" said the Rupert. "As in Merlinimue by Camecia Lovegood? Ha! So you're the one who keeps renewing it! I've been waiting weeks!"

"Oh," she said. "Um. Yes. Sorry. You're not missing much."

"Historical romance, is it?"

"Something like that...not much history, though...not to say it isn't educational in its way...can't imagine why it was in the open section, really..."

"Oh, ho, that kind of historical romance! A thousand pages and two thousand oblique metaphors? No wonder Professor Binns said it was a scandal."

Hermione frowned. "I wondered who left the Hogsmeade Historical Society bookmarks in...interesting choice of pages, my goodness, who'd have thought..."

"I don't wish to know that!" said the Rupert. "Quick precis, though — what's it got to say about Merlin that differs from the usual stories? You know, meets a bad girl and she gives him the old sapphire shores song-and-dance and locks him in a box forever sort of thing."

"Oh. Um." She looked down at the air and raised her hands slightly to rearrange invisible note-cards. "Nimue was an Epimelid — an apple-tree dryad — and society couldn't cope with their love."

"Even kings aren't allowed to talk to trees," observed the Rupert.

Hermione (who wasn't really listening) continued: "And he grew old, and she didn't; she'd live for thousands and thousands of years, or longer, and he wouldn't; and in the end she concealed him in her heart rather than give him up. Forever old, forever young, forever love. It was so sad..."

"How many times have you read it?"

"Three."

There was a short delay while she realised what she had said, whereupon she gave him the stink-eye and announced that she going to go help Ron with his homework, goodbye, and punted off down the stairs.

He rattled after her. "Hang about! You didn't try calling Cassie Malfoy by his right name, did you?"

"No, why?"

"I'd bet a bikkie it would wake him up, and when there are two loving hearts involved you don't want to restore just one. There may be a Beverly du Potier portrait somewhere in similar straits. Come along, we need to have a word with Marguerite du Mont..."

#

{ You know, Rupert, } said Harry —

— they were climbing back upstairs; the Rupert had chatted his way through a chain of portraits across the castle that ended down in the dungeons with that of Julian St Mungo Lestrange, who knew a painting of Alexander in the Tate Gallery hanging opposite another painting titled Asleep In Blue, and which would need a new title now that Sandy had given it the good word —

— { I spent every night in August wondering about what I'd be doing when I got to Hogwarts. }

How's the reality measure up so far?

{ I certainly never expected it to involved this much walking, } said Harry.

The Rupert nodded sympathetically (using Harry's head to do it, which seemed somewhat ironic).

The interconnectedness of all things uncrosses all stars eventually, Harry, he said, but blimey it'll make you wish for roller skates. He cast a backwards glance; no sign of Hermione, who'd gotten sidetracked by the Bloody Baron into a discussion on visual aids. Well, I won't be dragging you out of your way too much longer...

...He cast another backward glance. Still no sign of Hermione...

...but, er, mind if we stop by the library? I wanted to look at Lestrange's Gypsy Magic Concordance, it sounded jolly interesting...!

Harry Potter sighed all on his own.

#

Monday's Owl Post, when it arrived — on Monday; irritatingly you had to get through Sunday to get there, so the Rupert formally turned that day over to Harry in its entirety in favor of hanging out in the fog with his mental blackboard, a mistake given the gingerbread pig incident, which he was sorry he missed out on — was full of nice things.

There was an envelope from the Dursleys, containing a signed form and a note in which they caved on everything, not that he'd asked for anything unreasonable.

There was was an informative pamphlet from the Department of Magical Transportation titled Take Your Next Trip On DMT!

And there was a box from the Lake Vermilion Numismatic Society containing A) an Owl Postal Order for a rather useful amount of money and B) an unexpected bonus in the form of a couple of Albert chains with sovereign cases, which contained geminio copies of his Fugio cent and Mercury dime. (Supposedly the Mercury dime was actually a goddess Liberty, but you could never be sure with Hermes.) They were grey, of course, but it was an expensive-looking polished grey and quite handsome.

All in all it nearly made up for Hermione Granger somehow beating him to the Gypsy Magic book...

Library Girls, tchah!


...he addressed the river, which, in a distinct and clear voice, in the hearing of all his associates, answered, "Hail, Pythagoras!"
— Iamblichus.

Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.
— Vincent Van Gogh.

Some say that a merlin may not be slain in dreams, or in all realities; I say a merlin may not be slain at all, for he is Falco aeternitatis.
— Camicia Lovegood.

#

Thanksgiving (VI: Right Angles).

Herbology class met three times a week — clearly not often enough for the class to do what it needed to do, or they wouldn't all be late to lunch so often.

On the other hand, Herbology class met three times a week — clearly too often, as the class was frequently left waiting for nature to do what it needed to do, with nothing to occupy their time but little quiz-puzzles that spelled out funny messages in circled letters if you did them properly, while Professor Sprout went off to her cubby to dictate Hufflepuff administration paperwork to an autoquill.

On the other other hand, possibly the right foot, Herbology class met three times a week — clearly, by providing too much and not enough time more or less simultaneously, and in consequence a thorough practical education in what it was like to work with plants, the correct number.

Today was one of the greenhouse-as-waiting-room days.

"Neville?"

"Yes, Ron?"

"What herb freezes water?"

"Coriacesia. C-o-r-i-a-c-e-s-i-a."

"Too many letters."

"Try callisia. C-a-l-l-i-s-i-a."

"Thanks."

"It never worked when I tried it, though. —Er, Hermione...?"

"Yes, Neville," said Hermione, leaning over his shoulder, "spelt is spelt spelt. ...How can you spell coriacesia and not spelt?"

"I can," said Neville. "I just don't believe it. Seems like a trick, somehow."

("To the head of Slytherin, regarding the matter of Miss Axicia Evenfall," said Professor Sprout from within her cubby, "I will point out that, however surprising it may be, there is in fact no specification in the school dress code regarding socks and shoes comma the wearing of. I assume this is because the castle floors are non-metaphorically stone cold and no one would normally consider barefoot conduct and no countermeasures were deemed necessary. Regardless, the disciplinary measure cannot be concurred with and I have restored an appropriate number of house points. Sincerely yours, et cetera, end memorandum.

("—I don't know, if more people took time out to be happy about their toes the world would be a better place. Get a bit of dirt under those nails, good for the soul...I said end memorandum! Erase, erase! —Not that far! Oh, bother...")

"Nev...?"

"Chamomile."

"Ta."

"You know, you could try feeding Scabbers chamomile. It might calm him down."

"I should feed him to Mrs Norris," said Ron. "It's what he wants. If I hadn't made it to the sticky stair first, she'd have got him this morning."

Harry quietly filled in callisia, spelt and chamomile, and said to the Rupert, { Are you trying to get me to study while I'm asleep? }

Er, said the Rupert guiltily, probably. How so?

{ The New Arrivals shelf in your library had Magic Mirrors For Harries by Rupert Saladin Paracelsus de Lambertine Evagne von Smith. }

Really! My unconscious must have written it. I'm probably trying to cheat meself out of royalties. ...How did all that name fit onto the spine? I'd think it would go off the end and up inside the book.

{ It just said Smith. }

How dull. Well, I hope it was good!

{ It had funny cartoons in. I liked the one with the lady dancer with the mirrors — "Clara never gave up her dreams of joining the Rockettes". }

...You'd have to see it, I suppose, decided the Rupert. Learn anything?

{ I guess. Silver reflects your image, but occulting argentum reflects you personally. I guess that's why I'd need a magic mirror to do that autolegilimency thing you want me to do — so I can look at myself as though I were someone else.

{ And I can turn it into a pair of walkie-talkies afterward. }

How's that work?

{ Make a transfigurational copy of the mirror. That gives you linked identical-twin mirrors. Then you give them opposing charges of ecstatic electricity to swap the reflections. Opposites attract. }

Sorry, meant the talkie part.

{ The sound waves strike the surface of the mirror and turn to heat. Heat is light, so it goes to the other mirror, and then charms turn the heat back to sound.

{ —And then there's Vanishing Cabinets! } Harry sat up straighter on his stool. { Really big souped-up twin mirrors in automatic transfiguration boxes. Step in the box, it turns you into light. You go in one mirror and come out the other, and the other box turns you back into stuff! }

"You look happy," said Hermione to Harry.

"Huh? Oh," said Harry. "I was just thinking about magic. ...It's really cool, isn't it?"

She looked surprised, and then thoughtful. "It is, isn't it... You know, I don't think you can really appreciate magic unless you grew up without it."

Psst! Ask her about the gingerbread pig!

Harry said, "What happened to the gingerbread pig?"

"I took it back to the kitchen. I met Pokey the sous-elf."

"Sous-elf?" said Harry. "Is that like sous-vide?"

Aunt Petunia cook out of plastic packets much, Harry?

{ Don't want to talk about it, } said Harry darkly.

"No," said Hermione. "Like sous-chef. Second in command. The Head Elf is off doing prep for pre-Christmas dinner. "

"How'd the interrogation go?" said the Rupert. "I hope you didn't cause an interspecies incident."

She gave him a look that implied eye-rolling without actually involving it. "I just asked him a few minor questions."

"Like what?"

"Like why they dress in tea-towels."

"And?"

"And... he said, Do you not like tea, Hermione Granger?"

"Maybe they're Buddhists," said Harry. "You should have done, make me one with everything."

She rolled her eyes. "I asked if they were Buddhists, actually, and he said no, elves came first! ...That was when I started being direct."

"Oh no," said Harry.

"I simply asked why elves do all the work around here."

"And?"

"And he said it was because they're the best qualified until the human race grows up."

"Oh."

"I said that humans in his place would be slaves. He said you can't steal a gift. Then he gave me a gift."

"Oh?"

"A bouquet of Scots heather. Straight off the mountainside. He said. Hermione Granger, it is all free. He just Apparated away and back." She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. "You've read HOGWARTS: A HISTORY, haven't you?"

"Er," said Harry. "Flipped through it a bit, yeah."

"There are wards in place to stop you doing that. Never been overcome by any wizard in history." She thought a bit. "I suppose if you can't be held but stay anyway, you're not really a slave..."

Harry looked at her. "So what was the story on the gingerbread pig?"

"Hm? Oh. I thought the pig was escaping to escape, but it was just in a hurry to be eaten. Pokey says to a gingerbread pig, people are just travelling funfairs."

"Oh," said Harry. "Weird..."

He looked back to his quiz, read another clue off the paper, thought for a while, wrote banana, realised that was wrong and started to rewrite it —

— stopped —

— and transfigured the word to plantain.

You're improving, Harry!

{ I am? }

Yes, your mind is beginning to work. It's entirely due to my influence, of course. You mustn't take any credit.

{ Plbplplplt! }

#

"What on earth is this?" said Ron, poking at his lunch object.

Whatever it was, it had been fried in butter. Also it was a plant, so they turned to Neville, who picked some up on his fork, examined it carefully, and said "Wild spinach."

"Yuck!" said Ron, pushing his plate away. "I have to eat spinach at home, I'm not going to eat it here too!"

"No, wild spinach," said Neville earnestly. "It's better than spinach, or at least they think so in Lincolnshire. Also known as English Mercury and Good King Harry."

Harry stared at his plate and picked up a wary forkful.

"Huh," he said. "Well, if you are what you eat, I guess I wouldn't mind being king..."

"Well," said Ron, getting up from the table. "I'm going to go turn myself into a box of chocolate biscuits. Unless Scabbers got into them. Or Mrs Norris."

Harry tried a mouthful of English Mercury while watching him leave, shifted indecisively in his seat, and then got up and carried his plate upstairs on his photo album.

#

He found Ron on his hands and knees in the common room, looking under the couch in front of the largest window.

"What now?" said Harry, around his last mouthful.

"What else?" said Ron. He got up, removed the cushions and started poking inside the couch cracks. "He got out of his cage again. The Fat L— Miss du Mont says he didn't get past her. He's hiding somewhere, waiting to make his escape."

"Tried the other dormitories?"

"He wants out, not elsewhere."

"Have you tried the Pinkerton method?"

"The what?"

"I...read about it somewhere, you divide the room into squares. It's systematic."

"I'll try anything once," said Ron.

They tried the Pinkerton method, but didn't find a rat, not even behind the bookcase using the fishing-rod method.

"You're going to break your necks doing that," said Hermione, who'd come in the door while they were climbing the shelves. "Or worse, damage a book."

"That's all right," said Harry, leaping to the ground. "You know reparo."

"Doesn't work on living things."

"I meant for the books!" said Harry, and bounded out of the way of a plummeting Weasley.

"Maybe he went out a window?" said Ron.

"Not unless he closed it after himself," said Hermione. "And locked it again."

"Oh, yeah..."

The main door opened, and Lee Jordan passed through on his way upstairs with a brief "Hello, smaller people!" A few other Gryffindors trickled in after him.

"Wait," said Harry. "Wait a minute, you said he got out of his cage, but you didn't really search the dorm, did you?"

"Well," said Ron. "I...well, no."

"Night before yesterday he crawled into bed with me," said Harry, heading for the stairs.

"Great, he likes you more than he likes me," said Ron, following after.

"Then he chewed up my photo album, so, no."

"He what?" said Ron.

"It's all right, I got it fixed." Harry headed upstairs, the others trailing after.

...

Once upstairs Harry set about disassembling his bed. Pillows—

"Good grief," said Hermione. "Is this the boys' dormitory, or where sheets go to die?"

— blanket —

"Please tell me that's rat pee I smell..."

— hello, lump under top sheet, whip it off —

"If that's leftover pizza, why is it blue?"

— and at the foot of the bare bed was a curled-up Scabbers —

"Oh," said Harry. "That's not good. That's not good at all."

— staring, motionless and cold to the touch.

#

"Come on, Ron," said Percy, not much later in the common room. "He was my rat too, you don't see me..."

He trailed off because you can't tell someone not to cry when he's not crying.

Ron wasn't crying,

He wasn't making a sound.

He was just staring at an abjectly dead animal in his hands while tears ran down his cheeks.

"Assuming he's actually dead," said Fred.

"It's Scabbers, after all," said George.

"Curled up rigid with his eyes popping out is normal for him," said Fred.

"De rigeur mortis," said George.

Lee Jordan idly scratched at his cheek and said "If Tara ever goes claws-up, don't comfort me, all right, guys?"

"But dead of what? " said Hermione.

"Probably just old age," said Percy. "I think he was nearly twelve."

"Just so long as it wasn't a spider bite," said Lee.

The Rupert, who never liked not knowing things, reached into Harry's inside pocket and drew his wand. Give us a lumos, will you, Harry?

"Do you mind, Ron?" said the Rupert, holding out his hand. "I'd like a look."

Ron flinched, then deliberately pulled back, but finally abandoned the rat into other hands. He said something, but it was one of those times when your voice comes out like paper on paper. Not that it wasn't clear: inaudible isn't unintelligible. My fault, he said.

Well, thought the Rupert. Of course it was. You momentarily hated it, it died, Q.E.D. Magical thinking.

He held Scabbers up to the light of magic and two things became clear.

Item the first was that there was a black semisolid at the back of the rat's mouth.

"I think he's been into my salmiakki," said the Rupert.

"Salted liquorice," explained Harry. "Maybe he accidentally choked."

"Or poisoned himself," added the Rupert. "It's got an astounding amount of ammonium chloride in, among other raticidal ingredients."

"So it could be my fault," said Harry.

The Rupert said, Didn't this rat sort of eat your parents?

The words brought up an echo of emotions, swept away as soon as they rose.

{ I don't care what he did! }

Even Ron hated him, he said so.

{ Are you stupid? Just because you hate something doesn't mean you don't love it too! }

Now that's my Harry Potter, declared the Rupert, and came to the second item.

"Granger," he said, "would you unlock the window for me please?"

"Why?" said Hermione — but figured it out before he needed to tell her.

"Cos I need to get to Professor Kettleburn's office!" said Harry, who'd also worked it out.

"What?" said Percy.

The Rupert said, "It's called a pupil contraction, Percy!"

"And I don't have time for stairs!" finished Harry.

"Alohomora!" said Hermione Granger — and Harry Potter, not quite dead rat in one hand and wand in the other, bounded across the Gryffindor common room, hurdled the couch, and hurled himself straight through a partially opened eleventh-story window.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

#

There was no sign reading Care Of Magical Creatures over the open French windows, but it wouldn't have been entirely correct anyway; when Harry ran through them he found Professor Kettleburn seated at a table before a small support apparatus that held a legless but otherwise ordinary-looking unconscious jackdaw.

"Sorry to interrupt, sir," said Harry. The Rupert added, "But have you got time for a life-or-death walk-in?"

"There is someone ahead of you," said the Professor, "but he isn't going anywhere."

He turned away from his unconscious patient and spared a flicker of his attention to the boy in the Slytherin beanie before focusing on the rat in his hands.

The Rupert supplied, "Possibly asphyxiated, possibly poisoned, not dead as of one minute ago."

With mechanical precision Kettleburn reached out and moved the rat onto the examining table with a black-gloved hand while taking up a small iridescent-transparent box with a bare one. With one smooth motion he placed the box over the rat and rotated it twice. He pulled the box away (it took a copy of the rat with it) with his left hand, pointed his wand at the living rat with his right, and said "Evanesco" just as Ron and Hermione arrived at the open windows.

This was Professor Silvanus Kettleburn: balding, greying, sixtyish; steel-rimmed glasses, white laboratory coat, and one black glove that probably didn't have a hand inside it; possibly of county Caithness, definitely of House Hufflepuff. He didn't mess about.

Under his direction the translucent rat in the box unfolded itself diagrammatically, revealing internal organs of electroplasmic grey that shifted into various colors as he directed the wand tip at them, and in some cases unfolded themselves to display their own internals.

Without looking up from his analysis, he said, "Which of you if any is the owner of this unfortunate creature?"

"Me, sir," said Ron. "Weasley. Ron."

Kettleburn folded the image of the rat back up, and then folded the box into flatness.

"People are foolish and wicked, Mr Weasley," he said. "It's why I prefer to work with animals. At least when they take your hand off you know they didn't put any calculation into it. Please tell me this was the result of ignorance and not malice..."

Ron opened his mouth and shut it again and eventually shrugged helplessly. "I thought we took good care of him."

"Bad heart, bad kidneys, the liver seems inclined to give up. And that was before engorging nigh unto the LD-50 of sal ammoniac. I'm almost surprised the poor fellow survived long enough to choke on his own vomit."

"So he is dead," said Ron in a small voice.

"No," said Kettleburn turning back to his unconscious jackdaw. "Your pet is neither dead nor conscious, surely the best of both worlds at the phrase in abeyance.comes to mind.

"It's a pretty problem, though; he needs what amounts to a whole-body transplant." He stroked the stubs of the bird's legs with his wand. "Time is magic, Mr Weasley. Time to think. —Would anyone care to tell me what I'm doing?" he asked, more like a lecturer now.

Hermione said, "It looks like you're regrowing limbs."

"I can't regrow my own," said Kettleburn, raising his black-gloved hand, teasing out a claw with the bare one. "Some wizard of the past thought such things ought to be prevented. Foolish and wicked.

"But he never thought to prevent anyone regrowing the limbs of a bird, because who cares what happens to the birds?"

He looked at the three of them, counted four hands and said "It was a rhetorical question." They lowered their hands.

"In any case, I couldn't take the head of a man and regrow a body, such things have long been locked out for humans, but who cares what happens to rats, other than vets?

"But as I say, it's a pretty problem, I shall have to do a bit of reading. Possibly call in consultants.

"Cuaran, probably," he added, mainly to himself. "Flagre-Genert if I can find a translator...

"Suffice it to say that you needn't hang about here unless you want to learn something."

Ron backed toward the window. Hermione took a step forward.

Kettleburn snorted with amusement. "The bit about learning something was also rhetorical, madam. I actually am quite occupied. Go back to your dormitory, Mr Weasley. I will contact you, when and if. Try to remember that hope comes from unexpected directions."

Ron left; a rather disappointed Hermione followed after him.

"Mr Potter — "

"Sir?"

Kettleburn unbundled the repaired jackdaw, which was now stirring from its imposed sleep. "Would you mind taking this outside and setting it loose somewhere?"

"Erm," said Harry, holding out his hands. "Okay. But—"

"I did teach both your parents, you know," said Kettleburn. "Your mother — very good with animals. She was so kind. So kind. It was always in her eyes, you see, almost elemental. Ask Hagrid about the gryphon. "

Harry backed out the window. "Um. I mean, I didn't tell you who I was. "

"Who else could you be?" said Kettleburn, puzzled.

#

"Good heavens, Potter, what on earth were you thinking?" said Percy, who had met them at the foot of the main staircase. "You could have been injured."

"Hello, double-team Quidditch trainee," said Harry, waving his hand in the air. "Kind of on the menu. And I was in a hurry."

"There were other options!"

"Did you have any Floo powder?"

"Well, no."

"Any broomsticks in the common room?"

"...No."

"Did you want me to run in the halls and get docked points and arrive too late?"

Mr Filch, who was passing by pushing what looked like a rotary floor polisher, gave everyone a penetrating look.

Percy sighed. "No."

"So," said Harry reasonably., "why not do it, you know, Granger style?"

"Granger style?" said Ron, looking to Hermione.

"It was her idea," said Harry.

"Jumping out the window?" said Ron.

"Erm," she said, "I suppose it was..."

Ron looked at Hermione. "That was brilliant!"

"Thank you. I think."

Ron continued looking at Hermione. He didn't seem inclined to stop, really.

Hermione shot a look past him at Harry. It said, Oh, no, now he thinks I'm even more awesome.

Harry shrugged in a way that said Is he wrong?

She grimaced an I hate you!

He smiled a You don't!

She glared at him, then reached into her inside pocket, took out her wand and pointed it at his trainer.

"Reparo! — Learn it, stupid!"

#

"Okay, so I was thinking,"" said Ron, peeling off his cheesy socks and tossing them under his bed. "You saw that diagnosis box thing,"

"Yeah?" said Harry, remaking his bed without so much dead rat in it.

"So, what if you, like, scan lots and lots of healthy rats, right, and make like the combined image of a generally healthy rat, and then...push that pattern into him? So he's less old an' less tired an' less sick."

"What about his brain?" said Neville. "Rats have memories."

"He wouldn't lose anything, it'd just get a little faded."

Less like a past, more like a dream, said the Rupert, and Harry repeated it.

"Well, how bad is that?" said Ron. "You just do things over again for the first time. Or the second half-time, or something."

"Deja vu all the time?" said Harry. "I'd sleep on it if I were you."

"Yeah," said Ron. "Probably a good idea."


Man's sleep is not a negative state, nor is it simply the absence of wakefulness; modifications of this state have taught me that the faculties of a sleeping man not only are not suspended, but that often they continue to function with more perfection than when he is awake.
Franz Mesmer

Sorrow makes us all children again, destroys all differences of intellect.
— Emerson.

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from [redacted] in your hair.
— Chinese Proverb.

#

Thanksgiving (VII: The Shortest And The Longest).

...