A most enjoyable chapter that I came to late, after a long day. I love the way Rita takes apart Albus and I hope this is just the start of a most uncomfortable time for him. The fake-out using magic with the toy lightsaber was a touch-back to one of your other stories as well as a very pragmatic move, what authority figure is going to believe that there's a kid with a "for real" lightsaber out there?
Marge and Ripper getting their just due was a delight and I hope she suffers for her manifold sins.
Author's response
Thanks, man. Good to know it’ took off the edge. Anytime I can zing Dumbley, I take it.
Lightsaber: Not intentionally. I wanted him to be dressed as (ostensibly) Luke and Leia, but I had a wild idea, having been snatched from, I decided to, let us say...enhance Harry’s image a bit. Since the lightsaber was in fact a toy, he had to use ‘other methods’ to do the job. On the other hand, you’re right. Most likely any authority figure would decide their story was the result of the ‘something a bit stronger’ they’d been ingesting.
It’s a real shame about Ripper. As a dog, he was trained by a bigot who liked to torment a child. Unlike people, dogs don’t have the cognitive capacity to reason things out…and I know I’m gonna catch hell from every single dog owner in the world for saying that!
Be that as may be, Ripper was trained to behave the way he did, and killing him is not punishing the person who made him that way. Marge on the other hands will be facing a year or more in jail before she sees trial and after that, she’ll spend some more quality time behind bars. (But that will also be outside this story arc.)
Dave.