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[alt_harry]

Mrs Longbottom, could I come visit Moddey today?

Or are you doing NEWTs there, too?

Comments

Private message to Draco

[alt_harry]

Is it odd thinking of everyone else taking their Charms NEWT without us, or has it been long enough for you that you're used to it?

Re: Private message to Draco

[alt_draco]

Oh. I reckon it's a bit odd, but yeah, I've got more used to it. I was really anxious about missing 7th year back in September, but I don't care near as much now.

[alt_selwyn]

You should DEFINITELY come visit Moddey!

We have exams sometimes but it's not like at Hogwarts, Evelyn says.

Re: Private message to Draco

[alt_harry]

Maybe if when we win we can all take whatever exams we missed.

And Hermione can come in first in everything and Patil will know she was never the cleverest student in our year.

I don't know, though. In another year, I'll have forgotten all the bits I'd need to put on the written NEWTs. I don't think I'll get a very good mark on anything and I doubt I'll care all that much by then.

[alt_alice]

Of course. That would be lovely.

Re: Private message to Draco

[alt_harry]

I suppose when we win we'll all be heroes and no one will care if we have our NEWTs or not, though.

Private message to Sirius

[alt_harry]

Since you were my godfather, you were the one my parents wanted to raise me, not Voldemort.

I guess that wouldn't have been in 12GP, though. Do you think you would you have taken me to France? Would I still

[alt_alice]

Yes, you're quite right, Arista.

Once students get more advanced, they tend to take apprenticeships, like Patty with Miss Melli, and Lisa with Mrs Lee, or go to Sherwood and work with someone there. But even then, they come back on Sundays for dinner and training. There aren't any exams they have to take once they are an apprentice, but there is rather a lot of hard work they're expected to do, and they do learn quite a lot about it as they work.

Perhaps you'll apprentice with someone some day, Arista dear.

And we can't really teach all of the things they can at Hogwarts, but we do teach some things they don't, like literature, and writing, and the history of everyone in England, not just the witches and wizards.

Re: Private message to Draco

[alt_draco]

You've got a point. And we probably won't need to complete any special programme to be Aurors, either, if we fancy it.

I've transfigured today's rats to the size of small ponies, by the way, so if you hear any stomping from the attic, that's what it is.

I think they roughly have the same mass and weight as an adult wizard, though the fact that they are transfigured skews some aspects of the curse. But still, the ones that were goat-sized lasted almost four hours before they expired, so we'll see how these compare.

Re: Private message to Draco

[alt_harry]

We should try to figure out if there's a way to defend against it. If we knew what would keep it from landing, that would be almost as good as knowing how to reverse it.

Do you want to be an Auror? You know you'd probably have to report to Kingsley Shacklebolt, and he probably calls everyone who works for him 'son.' Unless they're older than he is. And maybe even then.

Re: Private message to Draco

[alt_draco]

Yeah I'm working on that end, too. It's really hard to defend against magic this dark and this powerful. I've tried a number of shield spells and they don't seem to prevent the curse from landing at all.

I don't know, really. It might be a lark, but then again so would playing quidditch. Or managing a bunch of teams, or something. Or producing music acts. Or ordering people about in some upper branch of the Ministry.

Re: Private message to Sirius

[alt_sirius]

I don't know. I've been thinking about that for a long time, even longer than since your arrival.

It wouldn't have been here. My mother was still here, for one thing. I never expected to set foot in this house again, since the Christmas I left when I was sixteen. It's still something of a shock to realise we've made it a home.

I think if the adoption hearing had gone forward, I might have taken you somewhere in the country and Fideliused the entire village. Or we would still have had to flee, so, my house in Monaco might have been where you would have been raised.

What I ought to have done was convinced your parents to give you into my keeping when we put the Fidelius on their house in Godric's Hollow, but there was no way to know we would need to take that sort of extraordinary precaution. The benefit of hindsight, I suppose.

Re: Private message to Draco

[alt_harry]

I think I'd like to play quidditch and never have to think about protecting anyone from anything bigger than a bludger.

In the meantime maybe I'll come up and see if I can protect giant rats from the Black Curse.

[alt_evelyn]

Yes please!

[alt_harry]

Okay.

I'll come this afternoon.

Re: Private message to Sirius

[alt_harry]

It's hard to imagine it.

I wouldn't have known Draco, and he wouldn't have known me. I wouldn't have got to know Ron. Or Hermione. Well, maybe Hermione, once she was in the Order.

Would you have wanted me to call you

Re: Private message to Sirius

[alt_sirius]

No. But you would have been safe, and you would have been raised with someone who loved your Mum and Dad.

There are so many stories I could tell you about your father. You might not even be old enough for some of them yet.

I hope we'll be able to make up for lost time. What you said yesterday - I ... I have to think about what it means. How we can find a workaround.

He's not having you. He never should have had you in the first place.

Re: Private message to Sirius

[alt_harry]

How much older do I have to be?

Lana S-P is older now than my parents were when they died. I worked that out one night when I was especially annoyed with her.

Re: Private message to Sirius

[alt_harry]

I did grow up with someone who loved me, you know. But as a brother.

Re: Private message to Sirius

[alt_sirius]

Well, I don't want to corrupt your idea of who James was. I mean, someday you're going to want kids of your own and I don't want to scar you so badly that every time you get near a woman you think of your dad in a pair of your mother's lacy pants, dancing about with a bottlebrush for a microphone. For example.

The ones from school - well, it was a more innocent time, then. We had the freedom to be berks. And I'll tell you now that in a lot of those tales, we were not ... kind to Snape. He rather invited the rivalry but we did humiliate him on more than one occasion. Compared to the Protectorate, it wasn't nearly as malevolent. That doesn't make it admirable, either.

Re: Private message to Sirius

[alt_harry]

I want to hear all the stories.

Even the ones with the lacy pants, if you're not having me on about that.

Re: Private message to Sirius

[alt_sirius]

Plenty more where that came from, and all true. James was my brother, too. And just as well, because it's obvious that what he did for me is what you've done for Draco.