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The Harry Potter universe is the creation of J.K. Rowling. This is fanfiction. The standard disclaimers apply.


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Chapter 33: Interlude: Breakfast


Thursday, November 29, 1990


"Says here there's a new Prime Minister." Erwin was reading the Prophet over breakfast. "Here's a photo of Fudge posing with him."

Bernard looked over. "Goofy-looking. His glasses are too big—makes him look like Trelawney."

"Heh. A little. He makes Fudge look dignified. Look here—it says the muggles are digging a tunnel to France, and they'll be finished tomorrow. Weird."

"I guess boats and aeroplanes and such weren't good enough."

"Yeah, they really seem to love their cars. Digging a tunnel to France just so they can drive there is just . . ."

"Yeah."


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Over at the faculty table, Dumbledore was giving Eeles a hard time. "So, when do we hear about your lesson plan for bowling?"

"Are you ordering me to come up with one?"

"No, no, just wondered what you were up to today."

"Squirt guns."

"What, those muggle toys that shoot water?"

"Yes, those."

"What for?"

"Dodging."

"Of course."

"Would I be correct," interrupted Flitwick, "in assuming these aren't ordinary muggle toys anymore?"

"You would! They don't need refilling, and the water turns to fake blood if it hits. Non-staining, of course. You can scourgify it off."

The other professors didn't look entirely comfortable with this, save for Severus, who was quietly laughing.

Flitwick gestured with his fork. "Do you have any particular reason you think they need dodging practice?"

"It's not so much practice—this isn't an auror academy or something. I'm just worried about their tendency to stand still and hammer away at each other's shields. Hopefully making a one-time game out of it will remind them that they can move around when something threatens them."

"You know, Erasmus," said Dumbledore, as Filius nodded in approval, "I suppose I really ought to inquire—you are getting these things approved by the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department, right?"

"The what?"

"I was afraid of that. I guess I know what paperwork I'm doing this afternoon."

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A great grey owl soared gracefully over the Gryffindor table, its dignified yellow eyes shining in its huge facial disc, gaze fixed on the Weasley twins. It adjusted course with a single flap, turning upwards toward the ceiling as it released its package, dropping it precisely onto George's eggs and sausage.

No one was fazed by this sort of thing; it happened hundreds of times a day. That's what cleaning charms were for.

Fred poked it. "Well, go ahead, what is it? Is it from Sirius?"

"Let's see—I think so. Yes. We'd better not open this at the table."


"What," asked Oliver, "is he sending you yet more ways to get in trouble? Why do you even bother to hide it?"


"Maybe, and because grease won't come out of paper with just a scourgify."


Charlie laughed. "I should tell mum you said that! She'll be thrilled."


"Please don't!"

"I know it means she gives us fewer chores, . . ."

". . . but we make up for it with our charming presence!"

"And explosions!"


"Oh, it's okay. Just promise to look after Ron and Ginny, and help win a few Quidditch matches before I graduate, and we're good."


"Deal!"


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"Ooh. Cho, listen to this. 'Muggle Malcolm Nelson, interviewed by this reporter in last week's expose of Harry Potter's childhood, has gone missing. In response, the Ministry has tripled the number of aurors assigned to the Little Whinging area, and urges the public to remain calm. An auror speaking on the condition of anonymity had this to say: "They're going to have to protect each and every one of those kids from the article—no doubt about it, some nutter will come after them sooner or later. Fudge and Bones have no idea what to do, and nobody else does either. It's a real pain in the ————, I tell ya." This reporter can only agree, and hope for the well-being of all of those civic-minded individuals who have been willing to share their stories with the press.'" Several Ravenclaw girls were peering over Marietta Edgecombe's shoulder at her copy of the paper.

"Well, that's one less of them. Good job, whoever got him."

"Maybe he ran away," suggested Cho.

"All the better. Easier to catch him, and no aurors around."

"Can't the aurors track him down? Wouldn't you need magic to hide him?"

Marietta pointed to the article. "Well, you can't expect the Ministry to go too much out of its way. My mum works for the Ministry, and says nobody there has any sympathy for the muggles. Fudge and everybody just want to make a show of doing something."

"Well, why can't they prosecute the little bastards? Toss 'em all in Azkaban."

"They're just kids." Cho looked torn. "I mean, a year younger than us, but when all this happened they were younger. Maybe the Ministry wants to let the muggles deal with it."

"Um," said Marietta, "mum says that's not really happening. The muggles don't seem to care. 'Boys will be boys' and all that. So it's Fudge and Bones do something, or . . ."

"Or somebody does it for them?"

"Yeah."

Several seats down, Rachel Comrie poked at her eggs in silence. She wasn't hungry. The paper had never managed to get an interview with Harry, and honestly in his position she wouldn't have talked to them either. It made her feel a little better about that embarrassing letter she had sent him several years back—if Harry wasn't talking to anyone, at least he wasn't talking to them about her.

She still had hope that maybe he had gotten it, and didn't know what to write back, but was secretly holding on to it, and they'd meet next year in the hall. And by then, maybe, she'd have figured out what to say to him. Would he even recognize her? Her hair was about the same. She laughed to herself, thinking maybe he'd have trouble if her clothes were on. That would be a nice problem to have. She could live with that.





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Author's notes:

About this chapter specifically:

IRL, John Major (who really did wear goofy glasses, IMO) became Prime Minister on the 28th, and the Chunnel workers met in the middle on the 1st.

Also, Cho and Marietta started in 1990 in canon. I knew this, but haven't had any use for them yet.


In general:

This story has reached several milestones and is approaching some others. If only because this is my first fanfic, I think I've earned the right to some lengthy author's notes!

One milestone is the 100k-word mark, hit with the posting of chapter 32. I won't have a buffer after I post this, since I was kind of racing to the 100k mark once I realized it was in reach. :) Lots of words are author's notes, but it's close enough.


For perspective, according to the Internet:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - 76,944 words
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - 85,141 words
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 107,253 words

Like I said, though, this is not a novel. The original conceit was just "write a very complicated time-travel fanfic", although there are a few very specific features of it that won't turn up for a while yet (it is my hope that by the time I get to them, they won't seem weirder than the rest of the story).

To the extent this story has themes, I think they are mostly variations on pushing the boundaries of the canon universe -- socially peripheral characters, both canon and original, aspects of the world that were never really fleshed out, and so on. It is also my hope to write characters with complex motivations, which takes a while to show. I think the Kettleburn chapter is a microcosm of what I'm often trying to do -- have a whole bunch of individually reasonable actions end up with ureasonable results.

On the topic of rules I have set for myself, there are a few I want to either clarify or at least remind people of:

- I'm trying very hard not to engage in what other fanfic authors would call "bashing". Characters may insult each other, and they may believe horrible and wrong things with great confidence, but I, as the author, don't have it in for anybody (I might need them later!).

- While there are a few obvious "factions", mostly people are opportunistic and out for themselves. They will have their own set of ethics, sure, but ethics are not the same as blind loyalty. Loyalty should be interesting and not the default.

- Similarly, self-centeredness may result in very bad consequences, and you don't have to be evil to be self-centered. Outside of the Weasley family, I can count the number of characters I intend as unqualified "good guys" on one hand. Hopefully, characters can be both evil and sympathetic.

- I am largely going by the Harry Potter Wiki (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/) as a reference for what canon actually is. That site draws on every official source it can find, and then makes some inferences of its own as well. J. K. Rowling was not very good at making sure all her dates and claims about when things happened all lined up sanely. As a result, fanfic authors disagree on things like when Charlie and Tonks were at Hogwarts or when Quirrel took his sabbatical. You may safely assume I'm deliberately fudging or trying to make the story work.

- I am rarely sitting around thinking "is this AU or not?" I'm just writing stuff. Only Trelawney and her doings are consciously AU -- anything accidentally non-canon is retroactively on purpose. :)


So a second milestone is that I've almost made it to Christmas break, which is usually a nice interlude in the canon books. I had no clear idea starting out of how long it would take to get to this point, especially since very few fanfics begin at the time I selected. So, aside from being much funnier than I expected, the story is going more or less as planned.

I don't know what the pace of the story itself will be like going forward -- it might remain slow. As to updating, that might happen more in bursts and less regularly for the foreseable future, since I want to try writing things out of order again in order to have more time working on important chapters.

To the extent this story has parts, Christmas will be the end of Part I (I will probably not bother labeling it as such, though). I have some darker material coming up eventually which will need stronger warnings than I've used so far, so the story might feel a little different going forward. Some of it might take longer to write. I hope the (deliberate!) slowness of the first part of this story doesn't mislead people into thinking there will be no sex or violence ever.


Finally, a very, very exciting thing is that mirabilos wrote fanfic based on my fanfic: http://ficwad.com/review/249371

This was coming from someone who says they have never written fanfiction before, and for whom, if I recall correctly, English is a third language. I am simply awed.

For a little perspective, fanfics with far more words, readers, and reviews do not get this. My gold standard of fanfic popularity -- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality -- has gotten a lot of fan art, but I think fanfiction based on it has happened exactly once. That one was written for MoR's chapter 53, and Eliezar (author of MoR) has much longer chapters than I do!

I will take this as a sign that I must be doing something right. :)

Thank you to everyone who has read, rated, or reviewed!