MetaFic

“Harry,” Aoife said as they all shucked their coats and boots into the cupboard under the stairs, “Petunia said you’re to visit her starting Boxing Day.  It’ll just be five days this time before you’re back here with us.”

“Okay.”  The glum answer came from the center of a writhing mass of heavy coat and sweater that had somehow become entangled.  She released the stuck button to help him escape and had to sympathise with his depression at the idea of yet another visit to that place he called home.  “I can survive for five days.”

“And how was your first term, then?” Aoife asked the boys as her children, real or live-in, walked into the kitchen and dropped into seats around the table.  She tried to suppress a grin as Cat obviously hovered near Harry, and she fleetingly wondered just how much longer that would last.

“S’all right,” Seamus said immediately.  “The lessons seem a bit . . .”

“Slow,” Harry finished.  “You’ve been letting us do stuff for years, though you never really taught us.  They are teaching us, and all they do is, is, . . . what’s the word, Seamus?”

“Dither.”

“Yeah, dither.  Dither over the theory, gripe about wand grip, that sort of thing. Why?  Seems trivial, really.  I rather thought we’d be learning loads, not watching toads.”

“Hmmm.”  Aoife said nothing for a moment, ignoring a fake cough from her son that sounded vaguely like ‘stool.’.  Yes, she had not done anything to impede them when they ‘discovered’ her old school texts.  Given whom she was raising, she thought it was prudent to let them figure out as much as they could on their own.  Of course, they had never noticed that she was close by whenever they were trying something new – they just assumed it was safe.  Given all of that, she tried to consider the question from their point of view.  “Have you tried asking your professors that question?”

Seamus laughed, and Harry grinned along.  After a moment, Seamus shook his head.  “Nah, Mum.  I can’t even imagine it, really, as I don’t think Professor McGonagall would like us asking why she’s such a nit-picker.”

Given her own memories of Hogwarts, Aoife had to agree with that comment.  Minerva definitely would not take a question in that tone well, though if asked properly she would probably explain at length.  “First, you might try asking politely rather than implying she’s a hag, Seamus.  Second, I might be able to give you an example, if you’ll listen to it.”

Harry sat up straighter, and she could tell that he was almost entirely focused on her now.  Seamus was paying more attention, but he always had been a bit less intense about his learning than Harry.  

Aoife nodded at Harry.  “I would imagine that you could probably make a brick out of clay fairly well, whether by magic or by hand.  Would you agree?”

“Except for the heating part, yeah, maybe,” Harry said cautiously.  He obviously anticipated some kind of logical trap in the example.

“Ignore the baking,” she agreed.  “You could make a brick about the right size and shape, couldn’t you?”

Seamus and Harry traded a look before nodding.

“Now imagine you’re making a few hundred bricks and building a wall out of them.  Sure, each brick looks fine by itself, but when you start stacking them, you might realise that they’re not shaped right at all.  Maybe they’re not quite square, so the wall leans to one side.  Can you imagine that?”

Aoife did not expect more than shrugs from the boys in reply, so when they came she took them for what they were worth.  “Now, what if you wanted to learn to be an animagus, like the way your Professor McGonagall can turn into a cat?”

Three sets of eyes fixed on her as though she had just promised them they would vacation on the moon.  She knew the boys would be willing to jump through hoops of fire to learn that trick, and Caitlin’s obsession with Harry ensured her interest.

“That level of Transfiguration is very, very difficult.  If you don’t understand the real reason why things work the way they do, or how to make the spell work exactly the way it should, then it’s a bit like building a wall with uneven bricks.”

The doubt on their faces told her that they were not convinced, but least she had tried.  As the spells became harder, they would either have to re-learn whatever they were doing wrong now or else invent some totally new way of doing magic.

“Well, think about it, at least.”  She paused to catch Harry’s eye before continuing.  “Did anyone tell you anything more about that fall you took at the pitch?”

Harry shrugged briefly, which was an answer in and of itself.  “Not really.  I ran into the headmaster right before we came here, and he mentioned that Filch and Flitwick had found a few other things to fix.  He said it was all taken care of.  Sounded like it was just a freak accident.”

“What about the prank pulled on you before it happened?” she asked, careful to keep any hint of paranoia out of her voice.  It could not be a coincidence that he had been held behind until there would be few or no witnesses.

“Hard to say,” Harry replied after exchanging a long look with Seamus.  “We’ve sort of been playing a bit with those Weasley twins.  They’re good, and they know we’ve done some things that they haven’t been able to prove yet.”

“I still think it was the Gryffindor first-year girls,” Seamus cut in.  “You were kinda scary there, acting like a stalker.”

“What?!” Cat screeched, making everyone wince at the horrible tone.  “You’re stalking the girls in your year?”

Harry groaned and dropped his head into his hands, which was enough to make Aoife and Seamus start laughing even though Cat’s displeasure and flaring jealousy were almost palpable.  “You just had to describe it that way, you arse,” he said into his palms.

“Harry!” Aoife half-scolded while reining in her amusement.  “Be nice, now.  Why would you suspect the girls, Seamus?”

“Eh,” her son said with a bit of a wild grin, “Harry was trying to talk them into a game of rugby.”

“I was not,” Harry muttered.

Seamus ignored him.  “He went through the pros and cons of each girl as a team member as though he’d been watching them every second of every day.  That Padma Patil’s sharp, doesn’t miss a thing, and she was shocked.”

“You only know she’s sharp because you like her,” Harry shot back.

“What?!” Seamus spluttered.

He flushed a bit, and Aoife knew that Harry had hit the mark – and that the conversation would turn to rough-housing in a heartbeat if she did not stop them.  “Boys!” she called sharply, getting their attention back.  “Whether Harry’s a stalker or Seamus is crushing on a girl doesn’t answer my question.”

Seamus glowered a bit at Harry before facing her.  “Nah, Mum.  We really don’t know who did it or why.  Lots of options for both, though.”

She sighed, not particularly happy with the answer.  “All right, then.  Did anything else unusual happen?”

“Just a pile of fan mail,” Seamus said, his grin coming back in a wicked fashion.  “Harry got love letters from about twenty concerned girls.”

“Seamus!” Caitlyn shouted.  Aoife could tell from the way she was edging around in her seat that she was about to jump onto Harry to hold him down.  “You never told me that!”

“Leave off, Cat,” Harry told her a bit loudly.  “He’s just winding everyone up. The letters were mostly just that – letters hoping I’d get better.”

“And you wrote back to all of them, thanking them for their concerns?” Aoife asked, instinctively knowing what his answer would be.

“Err, no.  I didn’t think I needed to.  I was only in the infirmary for a day or so,” Harry told her with a shrug.  “Most of them were from people I didn’t know.”

“Harry,” she said, knowing she had to act the parent now but also seeing a way to diffuse a brewing three-way battle, “that’s not acceptable.  Those letters you didn’t write are just like thank-you notes for presents.  You’re going to sit at this table and write a reply back to every single letter you received.  If they took the time and effort to write you, you will return the courtesy to them.  Is that clear?”

Harry sighed, and she knew that he did not truly agree with her no matter how well he understood her intentions. “Yeah.”

“Then get to it.  Cat, Seamus, you’ll not bother Harry at all until he’s done.”