Toppers Wallow

At Friday coffee time Peter came to see Harry. “Professor, is there any chance of me staying the weekend in Godric’s Hollow, please? You see my grandparents are coming over there for the weekend.”



“Have you asked Professor Holderness about accommodation?”



“Granddad and Nanny have booked me a room at the Farmers Arms for the three nights. So I won’t be staying at Granary Cottage this weekend.”



“What about your head of house?”



“Professor Flitwick says he is content, as long as I place myself under your protection. He gave me this note to give you.”



Harry unrolled the parchment and read it. “All seems to be in order Peter. I have no objections either; of course you can stay over at the weekend. Report to me after dinner and I’ll take you through with the others.”



“Erm … Professor … Granddad has asked me to have Dinner with them this evening. He also asked me to give you this; there’s one for Professor Malfoy as well.”



Peter gave Harry two white, sealed envelopes. Harry opened the one addressed to him:

‘Dear Professor Potter,

My wife and I would be most pleased if you would share dinner with us on Friday next. We would be most pleased if Professor Malfoy would allow Septimus, Honorius, Crassus and Mordant to attend as well, and ask that you use your good offices to persuade him.

We and all their parents are looking forward to seeing the teachers of whom we hear such good reports.

Yours sincerely,

Malcolm Thomas.’



Draco had homed in so Harry handed him his envelope. Once he had read his, they swapped notes. Harry saw that Draco’s was in the same vein except for the formal request to him as deputy housemaster.



Harry looked round the hall and saw four hopeful smiles trained in his direction, so he beckoned them over.



“Did you get Peter to do your dirty work for you then?”



“No H … Professor. We regard Granddad as the head of our family group. He said that it was proper for his grandson to deliver the invitations,” Crassus informed.



“I see! The only problem pending is that about overseeing the fifth-years when they come to Magnet Cottage.”



“Err … I hope you don’t mind, but we asked Professor Holderness. He says he will oversee them for you. Coach says he’ll be there and so will the two practical tutors.” Mordant pretended to look sheepish.



“You had this all sewn up before you asked, didn’t you?” Draco scowled slightly.



“Sort of! Oh but you will let us off early, won’t you D … Professor. Please … Pretty please?” Septimus smiled engagingly.



“Well … I must say that one of Mavis’s home cooked meals is very tempting. However, there’s an amount of potions homework owing, and your schoolwork cannot be circumvented,” countered Draco.



“We thought you’d say that, so we worked off the Grand Marnier haze last night. Here are our four essays, as requested, Professor.” Honorius gave Draco a pile of parchments.



Draco smiled and looked through the presented schoolwork. “Thank you! Five points each for the excellent diagrams.”



While Draco was looking through the essays, Honorius had thrust another pile of parchment into Harry’s hands.



“Well, well! This is well in advance of the requirements, another two points each for assignments completed early.” Harry marvelled. “Draco; we are no longer able to object, mmm?”



Draco had been writing on a conjured parchment, he gave it to Peter. “I’ve answered for both of us Harry, in the affirmative, of course. You five had better move; there’s the bell for the next lesson.”



“GREAT!” Five of them rushed off down the corridor whilst Harry and Draco, gown-tails flying, moved swiftly to their own classrooms.



At teatime, Harry saw the five students chatting and beckoned them over. “Have you any more classes today?”



“No Professor; but we have some homework to do,” answered Cassius.



“Does it require dozens of books?” Harry queried.



“Only a couple each. Why do you ask?” Honorius quizzed.



“I have a study period now, I thought, perhaps, that you might like to study at Magnet Cottage, it will be quieter than in the main hall,” suggested Harry. “So maybe we would achieve our aims earlier.”



“Ooh! Can we? Yes please! We’ll just collect our satchels.” The smiling ones went off hurriedly, leaving Peter behind.



“Does that include me, Professor?”



“Yes Peter, as long as you don’t have to use the entire library.”



“Thank you. It’s just neatly writing up various notes for Professors Flitwick and McGonagall. I took them during their lessons today and I want to put them down properly before I forget some of the details.”



“Do you need to get anything?”



“No thank you, Professor. I have it all here. The house-elves took my clothes this morning. At least I hope they did.”



The Smiling Ones reappeared carrying full satchels; Harry joshed them about bringing the library with them and took them to the apartment. As they passed thorough the foyer Draco stuck his head out of his study door.



“It’s a bit early to go home, isn’t it?”



“Harry says we can do our study at Magnet Cottage, Draco. It’ll be much quieter there, won’t it?” Honorius smiled ingratiatingly.



“Mmm … Yes … I suppose it will. I’ll come and join you.” Draco picked up a few papers and joined the procession through the portal.



“Masters … You’re early.”



“I hope you’ve no objections, Kreacher?”



“No, Master Draco; just surprised, that’s all.”



“Did we catch you doing something you shouldn’t, then?”



“It’s only masters who get up to those kinds of shenanigans. We elves are pure and dedicated; surely you know that?” There was a hint of irony in Kreacher’s voice



Harry spoke up: “I seem to remember a certain elf being very insulting and hiding several of the Black heirlooms.”



“It’s a good job I did so; otherwise Voldie wouldn’t have been defeated, would he?” Kreacher gave his locket a quick polish and looked meaningfully at Harry.



“What does he mean, Professor?”



“Well Peter. Voldie did some murder magic, and split off parts of his soul and hid them. His idea was to make himself immortal or at least un-killable. We had to go to find them and destroy each one. There were all kinds of vessels, including the locket Kreacher wears. One Horcrux, for that is the name of those special vessels, was hidden inside the locket. Once it had been destroyed, we knew that Kreacher was very attached to House Black so we gave him the Black heirloom as a memento.”



“Later on he earned our thanks too, because he led the elfin army in the battle of Hogwarts,” added Draco. “That was when Harry finally defeated Voldie.”



“Why do you call that evil magician by such a familiar name?”



“That’s easy, Master Peter. He would have been livid if someone had been so familiar with him. All the Death Eaters were very reverential when they addressed him; sometimes going as far as to crawl towards him. So his opponents started to take the piss; treating him as a thing of fun. The humour was a way of dealing with the real horror that he truly was.”



“Thank you Kreacher,” said Harry. “I knew that we called him Voldie, but I’d never heard a rational explanation of why we did it, before.”



“It really arose from an elf-slang usage. You see, below stairs we tend to be disrespectful of our Masters, especially the overbearing ones. It helps us to be civil when dealing with them. Harry, we all called Potty, same as Dragonet used to, before they became reconciled.”



“Why was I called Dragonet, Kreacher?” asked Draco.



“A pun on your name, and the fact that a dragonet is a small thin spiny fish.”



“I suppose I was prickly and I still don’t have that much extra flesh. So my father was the dragon, then?”



“No! He was Lucky; mainly because he managed to change sides just at the right time, more than once. Though he’s not had much luck this time, has he?”



“Chameleons find it harder to change colours quickly as they age, maybe that’s it,” mused Draco. “Anyway, I’m glad to be on the side of light. Apart from the moral outlook, everything is so much more relaxed.”



“I think we had better be more purposeful,” suggested Harry. “We came here to carry out some quiet study. Much as I love the insights Kreacher has given us.”



“Spoilsport!” Draco pulled a face and winked at the students. “However we’d better knuckle down; and that includes us two professors, as well.”



Under the patio canopy, they chose a table each and seated themselves to catch the best light. Silence reigned, apart from the scratching of quills and the ripple of pages being turned. Occasionally one of them would look up, thinking about what they had to write. If someone else was doing the same, they would smile, look down and reapply a greater diligence than before. The result of just over an hour’s labour was a number of contented sighs over jobs finished. There was ample time to take a shower and dress languidly before strolling towards the Farmers Arms.



“Why do professors have to study?” asked Peter as they ambled along.



“To check that the lessons for next week are relevant to what was learnt last week; that we have our facts right; that the lesson is in the kind of language our students understand and that we have a teaching style suited to that group of students’ needs,” replied Draco. “For instance if I referred to potions ingredients that the seventh years use regularly, and just named them to you first-years, without teaching you first what they look like, their properties and drawbacks; you may well do yourselves some harm, or not find the correct item. In the same way the Seventh-years would be bored if I listed all the properties etc. In fact I would probably get rude comments from them. Then again, I might just drop a hint in passing, or ask someone to repeat the drawbacks, just to make sure they knew what they were about.”



“Yes I see.”



“We have to keep up with the present state of things,” Harry added. “No use teaching you an old defence charm if a new one would do the job much better, is there? For us young professors and tutors, we are still learning how to teach; with Ms Longbottom as our professor. And we have to take exams, just as you do.”



“Hey Harry? That means you work harder than we do, doesn’t it?” Septimus’s eyes were registering shock. “Here we were thinking it was a doddle to spout in front of a class. Yet you still find time to relax with us, too.”



“Relaxation’s necessary as well. It helps you put a perspective on what you’re doing. Severus had little relaxation; it’s probably why he was so foul tempered all the time.”



“Mmm … I know what you mean … When I get all uptight about something I go and tootle on my flute,” put in Honorius. “It makes all the difference.”



“Harry and I go flying and chuck a snitch around,” Draco explained. “Ron does too. Hermione has a sketch book. Bloody good pictures she draws, very lifelike. Hers is Muggle art, so the image doesn’t move around, but they’re good nevertheless.”



They were now at the door of Richard’s pub. Richard had screened off a part of the back room to give them a private dining room. He ushered them in there, introducing everyone, discreetly leaving them with the sherry decanters. There was an awkward silence to begin with.



“Granddad, did you know that our professors have to work harder than we do?” Peter blurted out.



“I should hope so, too. I’ve had to show people what to do so I know all about it. I hope you respect them for it.”



“Yes well … They make it such fun … Least these two and Ham does … Oops!”



Everyone tittered.



“I imagine Ham is Professor Holderness.” Draco suggested with a smile.



“Why Ham?” asked Nanny.



“His forename is Hamish and he’s fairly rotund, I suspect.” Harry giggled.



That exchange broke the tension. The conversation started on the subject of nicknames and wandered off, as all good conversations do, into many other topics. Some were erudite, some embarrassing [especially for Harry when Voldie was talked about], so he turned the tables and praised his latest rescuers. Various revelations were exposed, ‘when we were young’ did not always have a censorious moral tone to it. The children learnt that the adults had fooled around when they were kids. The food and the wine built up and easy camaraderie. Some time during the evening the business about the five cottages was revealed and a promise to introduce Francis undertaken.



“If we come to live here, the parents will have to have some way of Apparating in. Being warned beforehand we all came by train to the station. It was easier anyway, both of us don’t like being charmed and side-along Apparated,” admitted Granddad. “We are happy using the train, but our adoptive sons and daughters prefer the other way.”



“We hope to make an Apparating area in the old station goods shed. It will have a comfortable waiting area attached, so you can appear at the tail of the arriving passengers. We already have too many witches and wizards coming out of our front door, so they now use the other gateways too,” explained Draco. Why not come to Magnet Cottage and we’ll show you why.”



As the group walked along John appeared out of the vicarage and had to be introduced.



“Three won’t tingle, John,” Harry explained; whilst Draco explained the phenomenon to the others. They avoided any discussion about houses, because, as yet, nothing was certain.



Once inside the Cottage, Draco made an explanation about the portals and then took them to Hogwarts. Granddad and Nanny had to be reassured four or five times about the two locations. The parents had great fun in exploring their old haunts whilst Peter went to the Ravenclaw common room and introduced some of his friends to his grandparents. Back in the cottage the elders stayed for chocolate and listened to Harry’s Draco-embellished story.



“That’s not quite the same story that you told us,” accused Peter.



“Do you remember the discussion on teaching and how we vary the elements to suit the hearers?” asked Harry.



“Oh; right! I understand now. You’ll not be telling us the same story again will you, Harry?”



“We haven’t got that far yet, Peter. Maybe we’ll do something different, who knows. I’ll just wait for God’s inspiration. Mmm?”



“Oh yes, the vicar was telling the choir and servers about that at last week’s practice. He said we had to look for guidance and that it often came disguised and from the most unlikely places. We were talking about miracles and magic; I think it started when the Muggle members were asking about green men. He said he sometimes takes ages to prepare a sermon and then the Spirit takes him and he talks about something entirely different. He compared it our singing and playing when we get carried away by the music. He talked about coincidence being God’s hand guiding us; like this weekend and the five houses for sale.” Peter was very enthusiastic.



“Well Now, looking back, I can see some of those coincidences, too. Maybe that’s why I’m still alive. I was sent back, you know …” Harry went on to describe his experiences in the heavenly Kings Cross.



“That’d make a good basis for your next story, Professor. It’s awe inspiring,” Granddad encouraged.



“Really? I was quite frightened by the experience, but it worked out well in the end. Except for the deaths and injuries to my friends, that is.” Harry looked sorrowful so Draco quietly held his hand.



Goodnights said, students safe in their dormitories, Harry hugged Draco gratefully as soon as they entered their bedroom. There was little need for talk; Draco received the message clearly through their mental link. Soon another message was being sent, it required an urgent physical response. Clothes were shed, hot water turned on and a soapy experience entered into. Steamy was a good description for the shower and the goings-on beneath it. Satisfied, they stole into bed, snuggled under the sheets, and slept in soporific somnolence.