Disclaimer – It has come to my attention recently that I unfortunately do not own Harry Potter. Who knew.
To everyone planning on celebrating National Play In The Sand Day, I wish you a most enjoyable holiday and wish you have better luck getting sand out of everywhere for the next couple days. And to all those who chose to stay sand-free, I hope you are still having a wonderful weekend celebrating National Son's and Daughter's Day.
For everyone who was looking forward to me posting last weekend just to learn what National Holidays it was. I apologize for both the lack of chapters and the lack of the educational tidbit. But not only was it American Family Day and National Sisters Day but it was also my 21st birthday ... so it was a big weekend! Just got back from trip with friends to celebrate and wanted to make sure to get this chapter up! Hope you enjoy!
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The Great Hall at Hogwarts was buzzing with excitement as students chatted eagerly about the upcoming holidays, most of the conversations relating specifically to the Yule Ball and either potential partners or outfits, all the while the enchanted ceiling above mirrored the starry winter night outside, giving a magical glow to the room.
Suddenly, George Weasley stood up from his seat before immediately jumping on top of the Gryffindor table, catching everyone's attention. However, it was when he started clearing his throat dramatically that all the chatter in the Hall died down as everyone's curiosity took over and all eyes found their way to him.
"Oh, Professor McGonagall," George called out in a sing-song voice, smiling as it echoed through the room.
McGonagall raised an eyebrow as she looked at him sternly. "Yes, Mr. Weasley. What is it?" she responded, her tone wary.
George took a deep breath, trying to keep a straight face. "With everything going on and before anyone else got a chance, I've decided I need to stop ignoring the obvious chemistry. Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the Yule Ball?"
Not expecting that, a collective gasp filled the hall, followed almost immediately by murmurs of amusement.
McGonagall's eyes widened and she shook her head, ready to deny his request. However, before she could open her mouth his twin jumped up from his own seat, clutching his heart dramatically.
"Betrayed by mine own brother! How could you do this to me George-y?" Fred cried out, his voice full of exaggerated anguish. "You knew how I felt! Wasn't it my idea in the first place to get in trouble all the time with a certain transfiguration professor, in order to simply draw her attention."
The hall erupted in small outbursts of laughter as Fred picked up a dinner roll and tossed it at George, who deftly caught it before taking a bite and throwing it back. The brothers began throwing food back and forth, theatrically flinging pieces of bread and other harmless items at each other.
"Traitor!" Fred yelled, dodging a handful of chips, which bounced off the head of one of the sixth year Hufflepuff Prefects that had been sitting right behind him.
"Drama queen!" George retorted, before launching a spoonful of peas in the the direction of his brother, although it seemed to have purposefully have gone towards the same Hufflepuff girl who was still attempting to get the last of the potatoes out of her hair.
Hesitating for a second, a small smile tugged at McGonagall's lips as the handful of other professors present watched the deputy headmistress standing and staring at the boys, watching the scene unfold. As McGonagall had stood she couldn't help but remember years ago, when a young James Potter had jumped up in a similar fashion asking Professor Dumbledore to a dance, much to the amusement of everyone present, including the headmaster. The proposal had been followed almost immediately by Sirius Black jumping to his feet, exclaiming in mock betrayal that the headmaster was unavailable as he was supposed to be his date. Dumbledore, amused by their antics had decided to watch the ensuing food fight which looked almost identical to the one that was threatening to break out now.
"Enough!" Professor McGonagall finally called out, raising her voice to be heard above the twins arguing, her stern expression barely managing to conceal her sparkling eyes.
"Mr. Weasley, as much as I appreciate the offer, I will of course decline. The both of you will of course clean up the mess you caused immediately. Mr. Weasley," she added, looking away from George and directly at Fred, "you'll be serving detention with me tonight for goading your brother into this little food fight of yours and five points from Gryffindor for the both of you."
Fred opened his mouth in exaggerated shock, but before he could respond, George cried out, "You sneaky good-looking red-haired devil! This was your plan all along, wasn't it? Manage to snag a detention, just to get to spend more time with her!" As he finished his accusation he leaned down to grab a handful of mashed potatoes, which he promptly flung at his twin, smiling when it hit him squarely in his chest.
The Hall erupted in laughter and cheers as Fred retaliated, but after a stray piece of fruit caught Lee Jordan in the shoulder the entire Gryffindor table, followed shortly by the rest of the houses joined in.
McGonagall stared open mouthed as she shook her head, watching as food was flying everywhere.
"Enough!" she called out again, though this time her voice was lost under the shouts and laughter that filled the Great Hall. Realizing the futility, she sighed and shook her head, before raising her wand and casting a sonorous charm to amplify her voice.
"ENOUGH!" she commanded.
The hall quickly quieted down as students returned to their seats, although some were still breathless and giggling.
"While I appreciate you fighting for my attention, Mr. Weasleys," she said addressing both Fred and George, who both looked more like the grossest upright charcuterie boards then themselves at this point, "You will both serve detention for this disruption." She paused looking at the general state of the room as she waved her arm around. "Starting tonight, with cleaning the entire Great Hall – without magic or help from the house elfs."
A collective groan of sympathy, mixed with a few laughs, rose from the students, as George looked at Fred, shaking his head and shrugging.
"And," McGonagall continued, smiling now, "since I don't want either of you to worry about the attention the other is getting, I will ask either Filch or Professor Snape to supervise and ensure that you don't leave the Great Hall until the cleanup is complete."
At this, Fred and George exchange horrified glances and the hall erupted into laughter once more.
- HP - HP - HP - HP - HP -
As Harry climbed the stairs to the Gryffindor common room, he was still chuckling over the food fight that Fred and George had caused, and he was pretty sure the memory of seeing Ron jump in the way of about three servings of Sheppard's Pie to protect Lavender was enough to keep him grinning until the middle of next week.
He was halfway to the common room, just stepping onto the landing of the fourth floor when he suddenly felt a set of hands clamp over his mouth while a second set of hands grabbed his arms, stopping him from grabbing his wand that he had already begun reaching towards.
Instinctively, he began to struggle as he was pulled off the landing and into the darkened hallway.
His heart pounded as he strained against the grip of his captors, but just as he got his wand arm free he heard a familiar voice whisper in his ear, "Calm down there, mate, honestly you are more wild than a hungry clabbert on a Tuesday morning."
Harry stopped struggling, his hand freezing just above his wand, as he mumbled through the hand on his mouth, "Fred?"
The hands slowly released him, allowing him to spin around to see the twins, looking amused and waving at him.
"Well, it is George actually, but I won't hold that against you," said George, shaking his head in mock disappointment.
Harry paused, looking around before shaking his head and looking back to them, confusion evident on his face. "Why the mystery? Why didn't you just ask me to meet you somewhere?"
George shook his head. "Besides our love of the dramatic? Well, we are supposed to be serving out detention right now, so it might look a wee bit suspicious if we're seen gallivanting through the hallways with the future Triwizard Tournament Winner/Boy-Who-Lived/Youngest Seeker of the Century. Honestly, Harry, even though you might not try for it, you draw attention to yourself."
Harry nodded slowly before looking to the twins with a raised eyebrow. "Right, why aren't you at detention?"
Fred looked over to Harry and smiled. "Well, for some unexpected reason, it seems like whenever anything suspicious happens around the school, we are automatically among the first suspects, even though I'm pretty sure you, Ron, and Hermione get up to at least as much mischief as have ever gotten up to. So because of that, we thought it'd be a good idea to have a foolproof alibi for tonight, just in case."
"What's tonight …" Harry asked before trailing off, as his eyes widened. "You two are ready already? I had thought it would take you until sometime after the holidays." He paused, shaking his head. "Wait, so that entire thing in the Great Hall this evening was part of a plan?"
The twins nodded in unison, smiling.
Harry continued, "But won't Snape, Filch, or whoever Professor McGonagall has making sure you get the cleaning done, just say you weren't in the Great Hall?"
George clapped Harry on the shoulder, winking over towards his brother. "Oh, Harry, you dear sweet naïve child, we've got that all sorted out. Stick with us and you might learn a thing or two … or twelve."
Harry opened his mouth to ask a follow up, but both twins shook their heads.
"Sorry, Harry, can't give you all our secrets, said Fred. "It's part of our mystique, besides would you rather talk all day about boring stuff like how we manage to get out of detention or get on with our plan, which I might add is at least slight time sensitive."
Nodding, Harry looked between the twins unable to stop a smile from forming. "Alright, alright, I won't pry, what's the plan?"
Fred held up his hand. "Not right here. Here's what we need you to do though – head back to the common room and hang out there for about an hour. I know how much you love the attention, so it shouldn't be too much of an ask, but you need to be memorable. Snog Neville right in front of everyone, knock over Ron's chess board mid-match, propose a marriage or blood feud to Katie. It doesn't really matter; just do whatever devious little thing that crosses your mind in order to be noticed."
"But in an hour, use your cloak" George said, taking over for his brother as he passed over Harry's Invisibility Cloak that the twins had borrowed, "and meet us just outside the main entrance to the castle. Until then, we need to head back to the Great Hall and make sure everything is going to be okay down there and you are going to be memorable. We'll see you in about an hour's time."
Harry nodded, but a sound from the direction of the stairs caught his attention before he could reply and caused him to spin around. Seeing no one or nothing there he turned back to the twins, only to find that they had already managed to vanish.
Shaking his head with a bemused smile, Harry continued up to the Gryffindor common room. As he entered, he spotted Ron, who had already managed to clean himself off from the food fight, and Hermione in their usual places. Ron was engrossed in a game of wizards chess with Neville, while Hermione was deeply absorbed in a book that Harry was pretty sure he recognized from the Room of Requirement.
"Hey, Harry!" Ron called out, barely looking up from his game.
"Hey," Harry replied, trying to appear casual as he made his way over to them. As he past by Katie and the other Gryffindor Chasers he was unable to fully stifle a small laugh from escaping, thinking about the twins suggestion, as she looked up and smiled at him, a laugh which he mostly gracefully managed to disguise as a coughing fit, before nodding and smiling at her.
As he made his way over to Ron and Hermione the twins suggestions made their way through his mind, and he quickly dismissed them, deciding he didn't want to cause actual trouble.
Several minutes after sitting down with Ron and Neville watching them play, his eyes shot up in excitement, as he came up with a more subtle idea than any of the twins suggestions. Smiling to himself he immediately got up and ran to the dorm room, grabbing the golden egg from his trunk before making his way back down the stairs.
This, of course, had the desired effect as almost immediately all eyes were glued onto him, or more specifically they were glued onto what he was holding as he came down the stairs, before he sat down next to Ron and Hermione and began examining the egg.
Lavender who had been leaning over Ron's shoulder got an excited look on her face. "By the stars, Harry!" She exclaimed loudly. "Have you figured it out?"
This outburst caused everyone's eyes to simultaneously shift towards him. Harry fought to hide his smile as he looked back towards Lavender and shook his head, letting her know that he hadn't made any progress yet but wanted to hopefully have it figured out by the Yule Ball. This statement served to allow most of their housemates to return to whatever it was that they had been doing before, although he was fairly certain that he felt constant attention directed at him during the next hour as people tried to covertly see if he'd made any progress and was about to reveal the egg's secrets.
As the hour drew to a close, Harry 'accidentally' dropped the egg which of course popped open upon hitting the ground and once again treated his house mates to the wailing, screeching sound for several seconds before he hurriedly bent over to close it, thankfully stopping the sound.
"Sorry, sorry everyone!" Harry apologized, trying to look sheepish as he looked up and saw all eyes on him. "I thought I had something but apparently not and then I dropped it … maybe I'll go up to the room and keep trying to figure it out, so that doesn't happen again."
Harry turned and forced himself to slowly walk up the stairs. Upon entering his room, he quickly stowed the egg back in the trunk, shut his bed curtains, and donned the Invisibility Cloak. Making an effort to avoid drawing any attention to himself he quietly snuck down the stairs, through the common room, and out the portrait, careful to avoid accidentally bumping into anyone on his way out.
Reaching the designated meeting spot just outside the castle, Harry scanned the area, but saw no sign of the twins. However, he didn't have to wait long, as less than a minute later the twins appeared from the shadows, grinning broadly.
"Good to see you, Harry," Fred said, clapping Harry on the back.
George waggled his eyebrows. "Ready for some real fun?"
Harry nodded eagerly. "Absolutely. What's the plan?"
Fred and George exchanged mischievous glances before starting over towards the Durmstrang ship, motioning for Harry to join them.
George looked over his shoulder and nodded to Harry, "Karkaroff, the sod, is currently on his way to Hogsmeade to meet up with someone he thinks has something for him, so we're good to access his quarters," George explained. "We did find what we are pretty sure is the book you're looking for, as judging by the magic coming off it, it is definitely about Dark Arts."
"It's similar but yet so much worse than any of the restricted Dark Arts books we've found in the Restricted Section." Fred agreed, with a slight shiver.
Harry's eye's widened. "I just want to say just how impressed I am with how much progress you made."
The twins shook their heads and shrugged as they looked at each other. "Honestly, it wasn't that hard. You should see how difficult it is to get into Professor Flitwick's office . Although admittedly we did get a little lucky." George said, looking a little embarrassed.
Fred patted his twin on the back and looked back to Harry. "If it wasn't for the fact that you need three wizards, or enough time to brew a polyjuice potion of Karkaroff, to prevent yourself from getting trapped, we would have had this book for you yesterday."
As they made it to the halfway point, Fred suddenly paused and stopped Harry. "So we need to know before we go any farther … what did you do to make yourself memorable before ducking out?"
Harry laughed as he shook his head, "I just opened the egg again, definitely caught everyone's attention."
George groaned before chuckling. "That's too bad, although admittedly would do it. I was personally hoping you were going to arrange a marriage contract with Katie. Would certainly have made the Quidditch team even closer next year."
Harry just shook his head rather than respond as he started walking towards the ship again.
Fred smiled towards his twin before running to catch up with Harry. "Not that it mattered anyways."
With a confused look on his face, Harry looked back towards the brothers who had caught up to him. "What do you mean? I thought this was to give me an alibi if someone starts asking questions."
Grinning, Fred shrugged his shoulders. "We made a deal with the Fat Lady that she wouldn't mention to anyone that anyone left the common room under any circumstances tonight. In return, we're going to introduce her to the painting of that Greek god on the second floor. And on top of that, we get the feeling she's pretty fond of us."
Shaking his head Harry looked between the twins. "So then why did you want me to do those things then?"
"Thought it would have been pretty funny," Fred said, shrugging his shoulders. "And honestly I get the feeling Neville is in need of a good snog."
Unable to come up with an appropriate response, Harry shook his head again in exasperation and continued in silence behind the twins all the way to the ship. As they reached the shadow of the ship, George motioned for Harry to put on his cloak whispering that they were going to cast a disillusionment charm on themselves but Harry should still be able to follow them especially if they are in motion and Harry was looking for their outlines, as they had not mastered the spell yet.
And true to their prediction, though their attempts were likely better than any of their year mates, likely due to the practice with the spells for pranks, Harry was able to follow their disillusioned selves up the gangplank and past the two Durmstrang students who were standing watch on the deck.
Quickly and quietly, Harry followed as the twins made their way across the ships deck before disappearing through one of the doors at the far end, which led into a hallway with only one door at the end of it.
After making it about halfway down the hallway, Harry watched as the twins ended their disillusionment spells, once again becoming visible.
Looking back to Harry, who had slowly taken off his Invisibility Cloak, Fred shrugged, "Only needed it to get passed Thing 1 and Thing 2 up there on the deck." He paused before shaking his head and scoffing. "Who needs students guarding a school ship? Where's the school spirit? Honestly though, even Snape doesn't make his Slytherins watch over his potion ingredient room."
George smiled as he looked to Harry, "Lucky for us!" He chimed, before he turned back and started down the hallway.
Reaching the solo door at the end, Fred surprised Harry by pulling out two small pieces of metal, rather than his wand, and crouched down beside the door where he began picking the lock.
Looking over to George, the confusion must have been evident on his face, as the other twin smiled and patted the door before looking back to his twin. "The door is locked, but we are pretty sure it has a spell on it that detects if it is forced open or if magic is used to unlock it. So rather than trying to find an incredibly convoluted way to get around it sometimes it makes sense to just find an alternative." He paused and shook his head. "Personally, we are grateful for the fact that most wizards purposefully chose to remain oblivious to anything related to muggles … otherwise our life would get that much harder."
Harry nodded looking back to Fred just as he managed picking the lock.
Fred looked back as he pushed open the door, an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face. "Okay, George, you're up."
George nodded to his twin as he motioned for Harry to follow him into the room. Harry had barely taken two steps into the room before he heard the door slam shut behind him, causing him to look back in panic as he drew his wand.
"Calm down, Harry," George said, standing right behind him, his hand calmly resting on the shoulder of Harry's wand arm. "It's alright, the door does that and it's impossible to open the door from the inside. I mean, Karkaroff obviously knows how, but we were lucky last night that Fred was still in the hallway after I came in and was able to just reopen the door for me. We just need to knock when we are done."
Harry took one more look at the door before slowly lowering his arm and nodding to George, who had walked over to the wall and pulled a weird looking object, one that looked like a cross between an inside out light bulb and a stone tablet covered in glyphs of some sort.
Preempting Harry's question, George turned back to Harry and smiled. "It's a gift from Bill. Something he found while in Egypt. We are not technically allowed to have it but he thought we'd find a way to make use of it … don't tell mum. When it senses a ward foci or alarm spells it will …" he paused when the object began to glow. "Well, it will do that. Okay, Harry, I need you to hold this rune stone right here on the wall." He said, pointing to the area the object had lit up over as he pulled a rune covered stone the size of Harry's palm out of his pocket. "This stone should prevent Karkaroff's spells from being triggered when we touch things in the room."
Harry nodded and after taking the stone from George, he held it directly where the boy had showed him, noticing that almost immediately it started vibrating and warming up very slightly.
After confirming that Harry was holding it properly in the correct place, George patted him on the back and walked over to Karkaroff's bed, before kneeling down and reaching under it. Harry noticed that as he reached underneath and felt around for several seconds, every time he touched something the stone got a little warmer and the vibrating increased in frequency. Finally George pulled out a wooden box from underneath the bed and opened it revealing an old, heavy looking leather-bound book, which caused Harry to nod, as even from where he was standing on the other side of the room he could feel something dark seeming to come from the book.
George met his gaze, a triumphant look on his face. "Told you we'd be able to get it," he whispered across the room.
Looking back to the book, he pointed his wand at it and began muttering a spell that Harry didn't recognize. After several seconds, Harry almost dropped the stone in surprise, which had become uncomfortable to hold by that point, when an identical copy of the book popped into existence with a flash right in front of George.
The twin began swapping the books as he looked back to Harry and smiled. "Easy as treacle tart, Harry. Took all day to find and practice up this duplication spell but it should be good for about a month before it starts to wear out. So we have until then to get the book back. And while admittedly not identical I think the book would pass anything except the most in depth examination … even has the same greasy feeling." He finished with a shudder as he turned around to close up the box.
As he began pushing the box back under the bed and putting the objects the way they had been, Harry noticed that the rune stone vibrations had increased to the point of pain and his fingers felt like the one time he had accidentally brushed them against the element while cooking breakfast at Privet Drive, however he forced himself to ignore the pain and maintain his grasp on the stone, keeping it positioned where it was. He was uncertain how long he was in that state but all of a sudden he felt someones hand on his and heard George talking in his ear.
"Sorry about that, Harry. You did good … we are good now. If you can manage till we get outside we have something that should help with the pain. Didn't want to tell you about the pain as you would have built it up in your mind and we were sure you could do it. Hold on one second and you'll be ok."
Harry nodded numbly, feeling the stone, which he absently noticed had stopped vibrating, drop from his grasp.
After watching George bend over to pick up the stone, he followed the twin to the door and watched him knock out an over complicated knock, before he heard the small metallic clicks on the other side of the door.
Several seconds later the door swung open, revealing a smiling Fred whol looked towards the small book shaped bag that George was now carrying, before looking to Harry. "See Harry, told you we'd be able to get it."
Harry shook his head and snorted as he looked over to George, remembering him using that exact wording moments earlier.
However, Harry was saved from having to respond as George stepped forward patting Harry on the shoulder as he looked back to his twin. "No time to celebrate Fred. It took a little longer than I thought, so we need to get out of here and get Harry's hand looked after."
Fred looked down to Harry's hand which hung limply at his side and winced before looking up to Harry sympathetically, "Think you can get your cloak on or do you need a hand with that?"
Harry shook his head before managing to throw the cloak over himself, wincing as the cloak brushed against his hand, causing a fresh wave of pain to shoot up his arm. Looking up he saw the twins nod to him before casting the disillusionment charm on themselves and proceeded to follow them onto the main deck, past the two students who were huddling around a small fire, down the gangplank, and about hallway around the lake before he ran into one of the twins, who had stopped suddenly.
"Here's good," Fred said, after he ended the disillusionment charm and looked back to Harry who had run into him. "Watch it Harry, no need to run me over, I'm about to help here." He said with a small laugh as he knelt down by the edge of the lake.
Shrugging off the cloak, Harry knelt beside Fred, noticing that he had pulled a small tube out of his robe and was uncapping it. He considered asking what it was, but by that point the pain had gotten to the point where he didn't care if whatever was in the tube would dissolve his entire hand as long as it stopped the pain.
"Hold out your hand, Harry," Fred said looking over to him.
Gingerly, Harry lifted his hand trying to ignore the increase in pain with each movement, before watching Fred carefully drop three drops of the solution onto his hand, which were instantly absorbed.
However, other than a mild itching sensation which began almost as soon as the drops hit his hand, he felt no decrease in the amount of pain. After several seconds of looking at his hand, he looked up to see Fred who was looking in confusion from Harry's hand to the tube and then back again before looking up and shrugging as he met Harry's gaze. "Well that's not what's supposed to happen. Did I forget something George?" He asked, looking over Harry's shoulder to his twin.
As Harry spun around, he was greeted with the smiling face of George, "Sorry, mate." He said with a laugh before leaning forward and pushing Harry right into the lake.
Sputtering and shivering, Harry pushed himself up out of the knee high water using his hands and spun around to the twins, an angry look on his face. "Merlin, what the hell was that for? Now's not the time for pranks, I need serious help with my hand!"
However, as he made eye contact with the twins he saw the two of them were laughing so hard they were bent over. It was Fred who managed to stop long enough to make eye contact and talk to Harry. "I'm pretty sure that's what we did."
"What do you …" Harry started before trailing off as he glanced down at his hands. Both of which were clenched in fists and completely pain free. "What did you do?" He asked in shock, still standing up to his knees in the lake.
George smiled as he pulled Harry towards him, out of the lake. "Well the solution was a gift from Bill, came with the rune stone and the ward detector that you had seen me use. Wizards aren't really supposed to be able to hold onto raw magic in their hands which is basically what the rune stone allowed you to do. And the potion is the easiest way of treating the negative effects of that. At least without going to Madam Pomfrey and that usually raises more questions than we want to answer."
Harry nodded slowly before looking at both of them. "Okay … but why'd you push me into the lake?"
George looked to his brother in confusion before looking back to Harry, an innocent look on his face. "Well it needs water to be activated." He said simply as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Harry paused before nodding slowly. "But why push me into the lake? Couldn't you conjure some water or summon some or even just have me stick my hand into the lake."
"Oh, we definitely could have. But consider this payback for pranking us with the egg, fair is fair after all."
"Consider us even." Fred added with a laugh before turning to his brother, clapping him on the back and heading off towards the castle, whistling completely different songs.
Harry stood in shock for a second before a chuckle escaped as he shook his head. Noticing that he was shivering he cast a drying and warming spell on himself before bending down to grab the Invisibility Cloak and then run to catch up with the twins. "You two are unbelievable."
Fred and George turned to face him grinning. "We've been called worse. But we aim to please." Fred said.
Harry nodded. "But honestly, thanks again. I owe you for helping me."
George shook his head. "Pretty sure we still owe you. But if you need anything else, you know where to find us." With that, he passed Harry the bag containing the book. "Plus this was fun, at least for us that is. After all how often does the opportunity come along to push a Dark Lord vanquishing wizard into a lake. I mean if we did that to you, does that mean we could have defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named just as easily? Honestly, it's a pretty good feeling!"
Kind Regards,
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Story Note 1 – To the best of my knowledge there is no reason a clabbert would be more wild on a Tuesday morning but that doesn't mean the twins wouldn't be aware of such a thing.
Thanks to those of you out to those of you who enjoy my stories, I promise to keep updating the stories as long as you enjoy them, and a special thanks to those of you who have taken the time to leave feedback or reach out to me directly.
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cameron1812, starboy454, Hudy Leak 613, VoldiesBedroomSlippers, RaiDaniels, Guest x 4 - Thanks so much for the review and I am so glad you are enjoying the story and the direction it is going!
OfInkAndQuill - It's always such a treat when the chapters arrive! Glad you thought they were a treat.
Antex-The Legendary Zoroark - I always thought that Harry practicing/flying with others was something that could have added something to the story as a way to feel closer to his dad and really enjoying writing these little bits. As far as the Fleur thing ... I guess we'll find out! But definitely what happened at the World Cup made an impact on someone, that's for sure.
Believer1991 - I really appreciate the review. Thank you! Definitely will reach out regarding the Elfs. Have some ideas I am tossing around but honestly Dobby's death was just so intense. And not sure how to make it fully work.
Ariadne Venegas - Huh, I had never thought of their age gap. Had just looked it up though and from everything I could find it looks like only 5-7 year gap, so not terrible. Not sure how common horcruxes are though. And obviously huge variation in interpreting time scales in the ancient world much less for a fictional one. But I think Herpo the Foul (accepted inventor of the horcruxes) was Greek and the timeline has ancient Egypt appearing before ancient Greece, so possibly no horcruxes would have been in Egypt as they were invented afterwards. But again up for interpretation.
And definitely know where the tropes come from, have certainly seen several takes on them. The monster in his stomach could also have just been JKs attempt to write realizing feelings and his jealously. That being said, the relationship with Ginny was not written well.
Oakhurst - Really appreciate the heads ups, sometimes an error can sneak through the reviewer ... who I am of course incredibly grateful and would never say anything negative about! I imagine reviewing is hard work
Nevarus - Really enjoyed writing that chapter as it is interesting coming up with new ways the story could have gone, which at least I thought turned out really well and it's always nice to hear back. As for the words - I stopped the reminder starts as pointed out its easy to just look to previous chapter. As for the author notes I try to keep them relevant and interesting, but working on cutting out anything unnecessary. And finally for the reviews the only thing I felt comfortable changing was grouping replies to similar responses together. If someone takes the time to leave a response, I feel guilty not replying. And unfortunately AO3 allows easier message responses, so what I'm doing now is the best I think but will keep adjusting.