Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor - Chapters: 75 - Words: 74,437 - Reviews: 125 - Favs: 81 - Follows: 79 - Updated: Dec 16 - Published: Jan 18, 2016 - id: 11739934
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"Are you saying you didn't pick a handy craft because you couldn't make a gift of it[?]" –Tsurishi Arashi, "One Hundred Magic Words"
"That's about the size of it," Draco agreed. "My father's Christmas list was quite specific; either a Chinese junk of the T'ang Dynasty, or nothing at all. I don't intend to let him down."
"And did it occur to you," said Hermione acidly, "that your study partner might have better things to do with her afternoon than go gallivanting off to the South China Sea for the sake of her Charms homework? Did the thought even cross your mind that you might at least ask whether I wouldn't prefer to practise Uncapsizing Spells on any of the small craft lying handily at the bottom of the waters surrounding Britain?"
Draco cocked his head. "Should it have?"
Hermione's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment or two; then she groaned, and shook her head. "Never mind," she said. "Let's just get this over with. Have you found the quickest Floo route to Hong Kong yet?"
"'It is nearly your birthday, [L]eibling,' he murmured, cautious not to wake his brother in all but blood." –dustbutterfly, "The Life and Lies of Ariana Dumbledore"
"Yes, that's true," said Ariana. "But why do you mention it?"
Gellert flickered a dismissive orange. "I was only reminding myself," he said. "It is so strange for me to think of my friends as having been born – that there was a time when you, and Aberforth, and even Albus, were merely soulless fragments of brute matter waiting to be united into a living organism. My fellow force-matrices on X27 Trianguli would surely recoil at such a notion."
That, Ariana thought, was probably very true. She remembered how uppity Gellert himself had been, when he had descended from the sky in a blaze of violet light three years before; it had taken him nearly the whole winter to so much as acknowledge that humans had minds at all. But Albus's intellect had finally convinced him – and then, slowly, gradually, he had come to recognise that organic life had (as he put it) a peculiar fragile beauty all its own. When he had started addressing Ariana by a nickname of his own coinage, which had turned out to be German for "little body", she knew they had won – and now, hearing the humble, wondering tone in his telepathic "voice", she was all the surer of it.
"Well," she said with a smile, "I'm glad we Leiblinge could broaden your horizons, then."
"So are you looking for a run down on [D]isney stories[,] then, Ron? Or perhaps just the Andersons? Ooh! Or even the Grimm tales." –ayebydan, "Cinderella Dragonpox"
"The Andersons sound good," said Ron. "Tell me about those."
"All right, then," said Hermione. "Let's start with The Broken Sword. It seems there was a man called Orm the Strong, who…"
"Hang on," Harry interrupted. "Why that one? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to start him off with Three Hearts and Three Lions?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Don't get cute, Harry."
"I liked The High Crusade, myself," Dean commented.
"No, no, no," said Seamus. "If you want to introduce Ron to Anderson, you've got to start him off with Trader to the Stars."
"Are you daft?" Hermione demanded. "That's not even a fantasy!"
"So what?" said Seamus. "Who needs elves when you've got Nicholas Van Rijn? Ron, let me tell you about this fellow; he…"
But at that moment Professor Snape entered the classroom, causing everyone to fall abruptly silent – and, by the time the class ended an hour later, Ron was, as usual, too steamed with the Potions master to spare a thought for Muggle fantasy writers. So it wasn't until many years later, when his daughter fell in love with the Ys books, that he actually did discover Poul Anderson's fairy tales.
"Lily figured he had more flubber than internal organs, and she'd heard that the small intestine could stretch out pretty far if it was unraveled." –Callisto Nicol, "Christmas with You"
Vernon Dursley, perfectly normal mad scientist, unwrapped his sister-in-law's Christmas gift and cried out with delight. "Lily, it's beautiful!" he said, as he withdrew the human intestine from its satin cushion. "Where did you find it?"
"Igor's," said Lily. "They were having a 50%-off sale on the 5th, and I saw that and thought instantly of you. There were also some nice gift baskets of flubber canisters, but I figured you had plenty of that…"
"Oh, of course," said Vernon. "Any fool can make his own anti-gravity polymers; you don't need to spend money on that. But this…" He unrolled the long, fleshy tube with loving tenderness. "I'd have to rob half a dozen graves to find this much material – and in such pristine condition, too!" He began to laugh. "Why, I could make a whole army of clones out of this in no time flat! Let's see if the Fools Up Top would waste funds on Granger and his HRM 'noids then, eh, Petunia? Ha-ha-ha-ha! AH-HA-HA-HA…"
Lily felt it indiscreet to reply aloud; in her own mind, though, she couldn't quite help thinking, "Perfectly normal", Tuney? Su-u-ure…
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