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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"Write in it? Isn't it your dairy?" –ZoomieZoomie324, "An Ode to Death"
"Well, it's also my study," said Emi. "I've always found a dairy to be a soothing place to think and work: the smell of the hay, the gentle lowing of the cows, the birds singing in the fields outside – all the quiet evidences of burgeoning life and health."
"Which just makes it an even weirder place to write an ode to Death," Harry pointed out. "And why are you bothering with that, anyway? Didn't Swinburne already write the definitive poem like that?"
Emi frowned. "You know, that's a fair point," she said. "Not that I'm not still going to do it, but I should make sure that I don't come across as a mere plagiarist of the Hymn to Proserpine. Fetch me my copy of the Poems and Ballads, would you, Harry? It's right through there, on the top poetry shelf in the library."
"You mean the buttery?"
"That, too."
"Thus dismissed, Petunia made her way through the doorway Professor McGonagall had indicted . . ." –LBraum, "Petunia and the Little Monster"*
Minerva McGonagall withdrew a parchment from her robes, and cleared her throat. "Doorway of the third-floor girls' washroom," she said, "as Head of Gryffindor House, I charge you with the following indictment: That you did, on or about the 13th day of March in the year of our Lord 1943, give aid and comfort to the Monster of the Chamber of Secrets in its efforts to cause grievous bodily harm to Miss Mnemosyne Gladstone, then a third-year student of Gryffindor House. Have you anything to say in your defence?"
"It wasn't me!" the doorway shrieked. "You can't prove anything! Lots of apertures in this castle look like me! I've been framed!" "No, sir," said McGonagall sharply. "The basilisk was framed – against you. And, if Miss Gladstone's glasses hadn't happened to still be fogged from her recent shower, that sight would have brought about her instant demise. As it is, once she was de-Petrified, she signed an affidavit testifying exactly what she had seen and where; it has been on file in the Headmaster's office for twenty-two years, and only Armando Dippet's reluctance to prosecute an integral part of Hogwarts has kept you from paying for your negligence hitherto. Headmaster, I move that the defendant be recorded as having pled no contest."
"So ruled," said Dumbledore, and banged his gavel on a convenient stretch of wall and turned to the waiting pair of Menehune bricklayers. "Gentlemen, seal away."
"I'll beat this!" the doorway screamed, as the two masons set about bricking it up. "I'll get out on appeal! You wait and see: within ten years, Hogwarts students and their siblings will be passing through me as though nothing had ever… mmph!"
"And on the day Libra tried to crawl for the first time but hit his head on a hard toy instead, they found out rather painfully that they could feel each other's fiscal pain." –Fai Fiction, "Draco's Siblings"
"Oh, my poor darling!" Narcissa cried, kneeling over Libra where he lay stunned from his collision with the rocking horse. "Dobby, quick, Apparate to St Mungo's and have them bring a stretcher and a qualified team of paramedics! The poor dear may have been concussed, and we mustn't take the risk of moving him and making things worse!"
Dobby hesitated. "Is Mistress sure?" he said. "Dobby knows how much those Floo calls cost, and Master has ordered Dobby not to touch the family's Gringotts account except under the most…"
"Oh, never mind that!" said Narcissa impatiently. "We'll take it out of the joint fund Abraxas set up for the sextuplets. Just hurry!"
(Joint fund?) Sagittarius kythed uneasily to his siblings. (Does that mean what I think it does?)
(Well,) said Lyra tartly, (if you think it means that we all get a big bite taken out of our fiscal resources whenever any of us incurs a major expense, then yes.)
(Ouch.)
(Seconded.)
"Ron, whose anger had risen when he found out that his daughter stole one of his most valuable materialistic possessions, suddenly felt pride take its place." –aimeedaralyon, "The Story of Ron's Deluminator"
"So, Rose," said Ron, "Scotie tells me that you absconded with it yesterday afternoon while I was away…"
Rose flushed as red as her hair. "I'm sorry, Dad," she said. "It was a pure impulse – just my stupid inquisitiveness getting the better of me again. I promise it won't…"
"And," Ron continued, "that you managed to persuade it of the essential fallacy of thinking that all things can be reduced to physical processes."
"Oh." Rose turned, if possible, even redder. "Well… yes, I suppose I did. Honestly, it wasn't that hard; once you point out squarely that materialism is a belief system asserting that all beliefs are just random motions of atoms, even a Deluminator can see that it's invalid."
"Maybe so," said Ron, "but the fact remains that I've spent fifteen years trying fruitlessly to make the crazy thing see that, and you pulled it off in five hours. I've always said you inherited your mother's brains, but this is something special." He leaned over, and ruffled her hair. "I'm proud of you, sweetie."
Rose beamed. "Well, thanks, Dad."
"Now if you could just convince my wand that there's more to history than class warfare…"
*Sorting-Head tip to DoranVanneau for having spotted this one.
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