"We were discussing certain things about the Potter family that have been kept secret and he feinted." –Icarus1475, "Harry Potter and the New Ability"
"So, Potter," Lily Evans whispered, flying up alongside Harry as their respective teammates wrestled for the Quaffle, "is it true what they say about your mother being a wizard in drag?"
"What?" Harry blurted out. (His mind had been on finding the Snitch, and he'd forgotten for a moment that Lily thought he was James – which, of course, had made her question seem peculiarly macabre.)
"Oh, don't think I'm passing judgment," said Lily. "Some of the finest people I know were born by the Rites of Mapreg." She shot a glance at Lucius Malfoy, down in the stands, and sighed. "Such a waste. But I can see why you'd be shy about admitting it, of course; after all, the last thing you need is to seem more of a slug than you already do."
It was just the standard demoralising raillery of a Slytherin Seeker to a rival, but to hear it from his own mother's lips triggered something in Harry. He was suddenly overcome with loathing for this whole filthy parallel universe that Voldemort had trapped him in, and he spontaneously determined, in some small way, to get back at it.
He glanced ostentatiously downward, and then abruptly kicked at his broom and started swooping toward the ground. The bluff worked; Lily lowered her own broom's handle and sped after him, and he led her on and on until, barely a foot from the ground, he jerked himself upward again and rose back into the air.
A muffled crash and a high-pitched scream told him that his rival had been unable to pull out of her dive in time. He smiled sourly to himself. "Sorry, Mum," he murmured, "but it's not my fault if you don't know a Wronski Feint when you see one."
"Luna then approached me with a suitcase. 'Here is the thirty thousand gallons as promised[,]' stated Luna." –Evil Computer, "The Porno"
I took the suitcase, and hefted it experimentally. "Bottomless Pit Charm?" I said.
"Naturally," said Luna. "You'll want to be careful when you open it, though; glass jugs don't stack very well in infinite space, and some of them might come out wrong end up."
"Got it," I said. "Thanks for warning me."
Luna nodded, and sighed. "You know, Hermione, I do hope that Ginny has a good time tonight," she said. "After all the work we've put into her bachelorette party, it would be a shame if it finally flopped."
"Flopped?" I repeated. "Luna, don't be silly. The royal suite at the Hotel Sia, the Weird Sisters performing, all her old friends from school, and thirty thousand gallons of firewhiskey: what's there to flop about that?"
You talk about famous last words…
"Tree, five, seven, continue this sequence!" –o .v .matt*, "MAGI"
"What did you get on question nine?" Teddy Lupin asked Delilah Pillow as the two of them exited the Ancient Runes classroom.
"Talking, Atlantis, handy," Delilah responded briskly.
Teddy arched a neon-green eyebrow. "Dare I ask how?"
Delilah's eyes gleamed. "Well, I knew the sequence had something to do with the translations of the American Hot 100 records that we were given to search," she said, "so I performed a runecall on the three words to see how many times each one appeared in the various song titles. There were no titles that began with the word tree, but plenty that ended with it, so I figured it must be a sequence either of last words or of alternating last and first words. That's logical, isn't it?"
Teddy shrugged. "I suppose so."
"So I looked for a sequence of three songs," Delilah continued, "at regular intervals from each other in terms of both their week and their chart position, that went '(something) Tree', either 'Five (something)' or '(something) Five', and '(something) Seven' – and, of course, that left room to be continued at least one more step. And out of all the hundreds of possible combinations, there was only one that worked exactly: K. T. Tunstall's 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree', #50 for the week of 14 October 2006; Brownstone's 'Five Miles to Empty', #41 for the week of 14 June 1997; and Squeeze's '853-5937', #32 for the week of 13 February 1988.† So I just kept going from there – back 487 weeks and up 9 positions, as many times as I could. #23 for the week of 14 October 1978 was 'Talking in Your Sleep', by Crystal Gayle; #14 for the week of 14 June 1969 was 'Atlantis', by Donovan; and #5 for the week of 13 February 1960 was 'Handy Man', by Jimmy Jones. So that's the sequence: tree, five, seven, talking, Atlantis, handy." And she smiled up at Teddy, glowing with pure intellectual satisfaction.
Teddy stared at her for a long moment, and then heaved a mighty sigh. "Remind me again why I decided to take Study of Ancient Runes?" he said.
"Schoolboy crush on Professor Lime," Delilah replied promptly.
"Oh, right."
"They kissed and it was no longer Hermione [G]ranger the girl who was standing there[;] instead it was Hermione [W]easley, the married women." –alivevalkyrie, "Goodbye"
"Yi!" Ron yelped, jumping backward. "How… what…"
The four future versions of his girlfriend laughed in unison. "That's what happens when you kiss a girl with Aging Potion on your breath, Ron," said the grey-haired one on the far right. "Don't worry, it'll wear off in a minute or so. I should know; this is my fifth time experiencing this, after all."
"While we're here, though," said a distinctly pregnant Hermione who looked to be about 25, "we'd just like to let you know: When you go into the Ministry, be sure to keep on your toes. We can't go into details, but not everything about Voldemort's infiltration program is what it seems."
"Too true," said the middle-aged Hermione next to her. "You'll be tested in ways you haven't even imagined, darling. Don't take anything for granted, don't believe your eyes, and, whatever you do, don't let go of your wand."
"That's right," said the youngest of the four Hermiones. "And one more thing: don't be afraid. Cautious, yes, but not afraid or distressed; you have what it takes to make it through, and we're sure you will." She winked at him. "After all, if you didn't, we couldn't be here, could we?"
Before Ron could reply, a brilliant light surrounded his fourfold future wife; the next moment, the Hermione he knew was standing before him alone, rubbing her forehead dazedly. "Wow," she murmured. "Libatius Borage never mentioned that side-effect."
"'You may sit[,] my dear[,]' he said after a few moments of thumbing threw her records." –SiriusUntiltheVeryEnd, "You Think You Know Me? You Have No Idea!"
"What is this?" Voldemort demanded of the enchanted LPs. "Why have you returned without your mistress? Did you not understand that I commanded you to bring her to me?"
The leader of the band – a normally cocky and self-assured copy of the Beatles' White Album – shuffled awkwardly in its slipcover. "We… we lost her, My Lord," it said. "We followed her as far as the Old Kent Road, but then she and Dumbledore Disapparated, and we don't know where they…"
"Don't know where?" Voldemort repeated. "Don't know where? Miserable creature, do you not realise that I gave you the power to trace Disapparation spells at the same time as I brought you to life? And now you come to me with don't know where?"
"Well, we didn't know he was going to Disapparate," Whitey tried to explain. "He just sat there, thumbing for a hitch, so we assumed he didn't have his wand with him. So we took a few moments out to check ourselves for scratches…"
"Sœmundur's shadow!" Voldemort exploded. "You were thrown by a dodge that transparent? A first-year Hufflepuff could have…" He stopped abruptly, quivered silently with rage for a few seconds, and then pointed sharply to the door. "Out!" he snapped. "All of you! Get out of my sight, and be thankful that I don't shatter you where you stand!"
Elizabeth Black's record collection obligingly scurried for the door, their Lord's parting shot echoing behind them as they left. "I always said that Muggle rock and roll rotted the brain!"
*See second footnote of chapter 24.
†As of 5 December 2015, this appears to have been entirely true. Special thanks to Dane Batten for providing me with the means to determine it.
