6-Sep-91
"Pardon me, Heiress Bones, but I would like a moment of your time," Daphne said as she neared the exit from Binns' classroom at the same time as Susan. With careful emphasis, she added a key phrase to ensure Susan gave her full consideration to the request. "This would be a House matter."
Susan looked sharply at Daphne, before waiving her peers to continue onward without her. After stepping back from the doorway and standing closer to Daphne, she clasped her hands to her elbows and appeared to give her full attention to the matter. "Is this urgent? I do have a free block now, but wanted to get some reading done."
Daphne nodded once, with a sharp hand gesture indicating they should follow the last of the other students down the corridor. "I believe it is, in the sense that if we do not act urgently, someone else will – probably to our disadvantage."
Susan fell in step with Daphne, recognizing both the request for dialogue and the implied 'win or lose' context behind it. While Susan's family was a traditional one, it fell on the lighter side of the spectrum. The Bones, however, respected all others who followed order and did not actively seek to harm or exploit others. She knew that the Greengrass family was strongly in favor of order and traditions, though they fell a bit further down in the grey areas on morals and magical intent. "Alright, then. And let's stop with the pretending to be adults, right? None of the snooty ones are around. Where would you like to talk? I can use a Family shield in a small area to ensure privacy?"
Daphne shook her head briefly. "Let's move out onto the grounds. It's only the end of the first week, and the weather is quite nice. We'll miss it soon."
Susan chuckled slightly, remembering from her tutors that the Greengrass family was down near Dover, while her family was north of Antonine's Wall, near Killearn. "Oh, Daphne," she said while laughing, "I promise you that your fair weather blood will thicken up soon enough. We get real winters up here!"
Daphne shuddered at the statement, keeping Susan in good spirits as they navigated out the front doors and to the grounds. As they walked, Daphne looked at her briefly before restarting the conversation – after Susan's laughter abated. "I'm not that weak, Susan, come off it. I just don't want to think about the winters here, all right? How's your family doing since we last met during the solstice fair?"
Susan smiled a bit more, shaking her head as she thought about discussing the weather at Hogwarts being far worse than the weather at her home – which Daphne really did not want to hear. "Mum and Dad are doing well. Mum's still complaining bitterly to Auntie about the inflexibility of some of the elders of the Wizengamot, but Dad's happy to keep the family businesses going. I think he was off to the continent earlier this week to look over a new supplier in the muggle world, actually."
Daphne smiled a bit in response, but kept steering their path toward the circuit around the Black Lake. "Give my regards to them when you write them next, will you? And for the record, Father keeps laughing at your mum's behavior in debate. He sent me a note last night that she set a new bar for shouting down Elder Ogden over that new excise tax break for 'libations' that are also used in potions supplies. What a self-interested proposal!"
Susan let out a brief giggle before slapping a hand over her mouth. "You didn't hear that! Auntie and Mum have been telling me I have to get that under control before they let me do anything serious, that whole Matriarchal line thing." She sighed dramatically, knowing Daphne was getting some of the same headaches but for different reasons. "Are we far enough out yet?"
Daphne looked around in a fairly blatant manner, before nodding. "I think we can skip any protection charms, this isn't that secret. Have you noticed the glaring problem in our year group?"
Susan lost her smile and stared back at Daphne, noting that Daphne's smile had also disappeared. Susan was certain that she was not asking about their lack of a Potions professor, which meant it could only be one other topic. "Heir Potter."
Daphne nodded her head slowly. "Exactly. I can't figure it out – the clothes, the confusion, any of it."
Susan shrugged absently. "I haven't talked to him, and haven't really seen him talking to anyone much other than Ron Weasley – and maybe that girl, you know, the annoying crazy hair one. But I do agree, he doesn't act correctly for his station."
"I've been wondering why," Daphne said after a long pause. "We all know each other, all the old families and relations. I understand he was isolated for safety, or so they told us. But why wouldn't he act like a proper Heir?"
Susan started tapping her fingers against her forearms, a bad habit she was repeatedly told to stop. "I haven't really thought about it. We all got this training, and surely he did too . . or I'd assume so. He's also dressed rather poorly, from what few things I've seen when his robes get caught on something."
Daphne looked up quickly. "Really? Poorly how?"
"The clothes don't seem to fit well, and have holes in them," Susan said as she tried to remember what she saw in Herbology. "I want to say they're too big and too used."
"That's surprising. I wonder if it was just for that class." Daphne went silent for a while before she nudge Susan's shoulder with her own. "What if we're doing the classic error in assuming? What if Harry never did get any training in how to integrate into our culture?"
Susan went very still at that thought. It was completely alien to her – a proud, long lineage of magical impacts and innovations from the Potter family, and it was not conveyed to the only primary member? Or that same member did not receive basic education in how their culture worked, and the traditions that underpinned everything? The entire idea seemed ludicrous. "How would that even be possible?"
"I don't know," Daphne quietly offered. "But I can't understand why anyone of the Potter family would act ignorant, dress as you said, and ignore all of us so thoroughly unless they just didn't know any better."
"Wow." Susan felt her brain go into overdrive. There really was not a decent explanation for it, and like many of her peers from the traditional side, they all were given years of lessons in how to dress, talk, and behave to reflect their station. If Harry Potter had none of that behind him, and yet would still have the Potter family legacy to wield, what did that make in the way of opportunity? And for families who deeply believed in tradition and ensuring Magick itself moved ever forward, what did that mean in the way of obligation to help Harry learn what he may not know? "How do we find out?"
"Well," Daphne started, "I wanted to check with you just to make sure I wasn't seeing things first. Then I thought I'd just go talk to him."
"Really?"
"Why not?" Daphne asked. "It's our first week, shouldn't we be meeting people we don't already know?"
"Ha!" Susan smiled briefly. "You're not worried about too many people telling him to avoid Slytherins for being sneaky and cunning?"
"There's a strange thing there," Daphne said with a slight grin. "This Slytherin is probably thinking what you were a moment ago, and happens to know this friendly Hufflepuff who would love to say hello to our Mr Potter as well."
"Touche, Daphne," Susan said, letting out her smile all the way. "Now I see why you wanted to talk to me, and not another snake."
"Of course," Daphne said, nudging her to start heading back toward the castle. "And it might just help that two of us working together can probably get Harry alone tonight, and at least try to start the conversation."
Susan nudged her back as they both started walking back to the castle. "Count me in, then, my distant cousin. Shall we grab him before or after dinner?"
- Fragments of Thought -
AN:
There are more "political" fanfics out there than you can shake a stick at, where most are frankly pathetic constructs where a couple of teenagers suddenly outmaneuver dozens (or hundreds) of wizened folk (male and female) who have been playing politics for in excess of 50 years each. In those tired tropes, it's always Harry discovering his lost heritage via Gringott's at 14-16 years of age, when some special event or sudden contract issue or some other weak premise - or some other mindless lazy author setup.
That thought led to a more basic idea, that if children were raised to take the reins of political superstardom by the age of 11-15, maturing into their Wizengmot seats in the age of 15-20 . . . well, there are consequences to this. Adults don't keep their Wizengamot seats very long (20-esh years after the firstborn) apparently, so what do they do when their late teens/early 20s prodigy children take over their seats? And this means children are steeped in political theory and grounding and a bunch of other things that take "mundane" folks decades to learn, apparently mastering social skills, dialogue, and intrigue about 30 years faster than mundanes – without those painful real-world lessons about real subtlety. Where is this genuinely explained in a sane way? Oh, we'll make Hogwarts start 2-3 years later and shove it under a rug. The Amazon Lord of the Rings and Netflix Witcher prequel both feel the same way – trashy bad fanfic plots.
It makes me a bit crazy that in all that pile of FanFic, for all these brainwashed political mini-adults, everyone lets years go by before saying, "Gee, something's wrong here!"
Anyway, I got tired of the trope without any thought or real plot formulation. And it gave rise to this little bunny that wanted to be chased . . . but not too seriously by me. Feel free to adopt and run with it. No beta's were harmed with this work.
To be fair to those mindless trope authors – while their plots may seem ludicrous, just look at the US politics of self-interest-trumps-all to see that sometimes even terrible fanfic is more believable than real life.
