Chapter 17
30 July 1991 Tuesday
Still rainy. Today we brewed. Remus hadn't heard of Mrs. Figg's potion, but he let me demonstrate the proper preparation of ingredients and then we went over the differences between chopping, dicing, mincing, and he'd never heard of chiffonade, so I showed him. We worked in the kitchen this time instead of the potions lab, because we were using regular vegetables and herbs, and when we were done, we gave the chopped, etc. bits to Kreacher to make Spaghetti Bolognese.
Oh yeah, Kreacher. I was a bit freaked out by him because I had never even heard of house elves before, so Remus gave me a crash course on house elves. I asked Kreacher if he would be willing to wear livery like Lord Black's elves, and he said yes, so now he does. I get that he's my servant, and that he's quite proud of that fact, but I hate seeing him in rags. I also met Walburga Black's portrait, which was another thing Remus had to explain. I'm still not sure I get it, cos the painting isn't actually her, but still it kind of is, and you're supposed to treat her like she was still alive, except that she's in a picture? I'm sure it will all make sense eventually.
Anyway, after doing initial stages in the kitchen, we went downstairs to the potions lab and worked with actual magical ingredients. Remus said there was no point until I was comfortable with ingredient prep, because when you're brewing, it's important to get not only the prep but the intention right.
I asked him what that meant and said Mrs. Figg had mentioned something about that too, and he said that brewing isn't the same as cooking, cos anyone can cook and it doesn't matter what you're thinking when you're doing it, but to brew you have to be able to do magic, and you have to focus on the ingredients as you prepare them. If you just mindlessly chop stuff and stir it together, the potion might work, sort of, but what you're supposed to do is channel your magic through your knife or pestle into the ingredients, and that it's kind of like meditating. I said I'd never meditated, so we went back upstairs to a sitting room and we worked on meditation until lunch. (Kreacher's an excellent cook.)
After lunch we went back down to the lab and I made a calming draft. Remus made one first all by himself and had me watch, then I did it, with him watching and critiquing. He said that part of being a good brewer is being able to concentrate on your ingredients even if people are mucking about in the background and that I'd really need that skill at school, so starting next week he was going to start doing stupid stuff to try to wreck my concentration. I said that wasn't quite fair, since I didn't know what I as doing and he said he'd be showing me anything we were going to brew before having me try it, but that my classmates were likely to be worse.
Watching the potion come together and change color was wicked. I wonder what color Mrs. Figg's potion turns?
Once we finished up brewing and cleaning up after, we still had some time left in the day, so we went back up to the drawing room and discussed the Potter alliances and I did some more quill practice, and then I flooed home and had dinner (bubble and squeak, carrots, mushy peas yuck, and trifle) and I just finished up my essay on what I could find on the Black alliances. Tomorrow is field trip day, I wonder where we're going?
31 July Wednesday
No rain today, just muggy. We started at Diagon Alley to see if Madame Malkin had any of my new robes ready and I changed into one of them, a nice dark blue with cut sleeves and a red shirt underneath. I think I look pretty sharp for a guy in a dress. I really don't like wizard hats, though. At least it doesn't say "Wizzard" on it.
After that, we spent the morning watching a Wizengamot session and ate lunch with Elphias Doge, the Potter proxy and Cassiopeia Black, the Black proxy. Mr. Doge had the proxy written out by my father, as he thought I would like to see it, and anyway I should see what a proper proxy looked like. The date on the proxy was from long before I was born. Why am I not surprised?
Mr. Doge went to school with PD, but he doesn't look it. He kind of looks like an elderly bulldog and he seems really nice. We talked about a few recent votes and why he voted the way he did. I decided I like him. He's a very straightforward guy who doesn't go in for big words or fancy sentences and I got the feeling he was the last guy in the world you should ask, "Does this dress make me look fat?"
Lady Cassiopeia, now AC, gave me permission to call her Aunt. She's tall and had her hair all piled up on her head in fancy loops and stuff and she looked very grand. I don't think the actual Queen looks as regal as she did. She was nice, though, and while everyone else says I look like my father, she said I looked so much like my grandmother that it really took her back. 'Course, after she said that she said that we obviously need to feed me up, and everybody started treating me like Harry-the-skinny-kid rather than the Most Honorable, the Viscount Potter. It was a little embarrassing, but more comfortable, really. PD dropped by the table and greeted us all and asked what I thought of the session. I told him that watching it was very instructive and I was glad to find I had such a good proxy to take care of things until I was old enough to step in. PD mentioned that he and Mr. Doge had been in Gryffindor together and the discussion turned into a friendly argument over which house I should be in. Mr. Doge said Gryffindor, AC said Slytherin, Remus said Ravenclaw, so PD argued for Hufflepuff. It was all a lot of fun, and the others treated Remus like he was almost as young as me!
When we finished up lunch, we bade the elders goodbye and then Remus took me to the public owl post, the public floo, and the house elf hiring agency and we finished up at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream. I tried the cashew turtle flavor, and it had actual cashew turtles digging their way out of it. They were blobs of toffee with chocolate on top and cashews for a head and legs and they were so funny. Remus and I ended up chasing them all over the shop and laughing ourselves sick. After, he magicked me clean and apparated me straight to the Dursleys' back garden. I was early enough that I got to help AP fix dinner, and she let me make a chocolate mousse all by myself. I think I am going to remember how to do that for when I start dating girls, so I can make it for them.
250 g chocolate (preferably cadburys)
2 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream
6 eggs, separated
Melt chocolate over hot water, stir in Bailey's and egg yolks, whip egg whites until stiff (them, not you) and fold half of the fluffy egg whites into the chocolate. Then put the rest of the egg whites on the chocolate in a bowl and beat them together and put the mousse in wine glasses in the fridge for three hours or so. Put whipped cream on top. Eat. Die happy.
1 August, Thursday
In the morning we did penmanship and I wrote thank you letters to AC and Mr. Doge and we had Hedwig deliver them. Remus said that my handwriting is coming along nicely. You can actually tell it's letters now and not drunk flies walking in ink and over paper. We spent the rest of the time before lunch looking at the other Noble and Most Ancient Houses and I found out why I can't marry Luna Lovegood. Her mother was the last of the Selwyns, so Luna's first son will be the Earl of Selwyn, and you can't be two earls at once. The last of the Lestranges are in Azkaban, so unless they get released and have kids, the next Earl of Lestrange will be a Hufflepuff third year named Cedric Diggory.
Of the viscounties, I'm the Viscount Potter because there are no more Potters, Neville is the Longbottom heir because he has his grandmother to stand as regent, the Gamp heir is Methuselah Gamp, who is around two years old (poor kid, his parents must hate him), and the Burke heir is Rodolphus Burke who works at Borgin and Burke's until his older brother the Viscount has a son (all daughters so far).
The Abbotts, Boneses, Greengrasses, Macmillans, Notts, Patils and Rosiers are all baronies. Susan Bones is the Bones heir and Honoria Macmillan is the Macmillan heir. Both of their husbands have to take their name, so they'll be looking at younger sons or commoners. The only remaining Rosiers are very old and unlikely to have more children, so Draco Malfoy is the Rosier heir. Theodore Nott, the other boy at Madame Malkin's that time, is the Nott heir. Hannah Abbott's cousin Benjamin is the Abbott heir. He's in his twenties. Leland Greengrass, the Greengrass heir, finished up seventh year this last June, and one of his younger sisters, Daphne, will be in my class. Karan Patil is also in his twenties; his twin cousins are the girls I ran into on the way out of Madame Malkin's.
Remus said he had me study the heirs because so many of them are at, or have siblings or cousins at, Hogwarts, so it was more important for me to know who they were, especially since I'll be meeting some of them tomorrow. Eep! Well, at least I know I'm not going to marry Neville or Susan. That helps.
After lunch we did more brewing, this time a potion to turn someone's hair green. I asked him wouldn't hair dye work as well, and he said yes, but it's a lot easier to slip someone a potion than it is to dye their hair without anyone noticing. I thought about it for a bit and I decided that turning someone's hair green isn't that embarassing, and I wouldn't mind if it were done to me, so it's OK.
Went home, helped with dinner (chicken pot pie, green salad, banana pudding) and just finished my homework, which was to find out everything I could about Hannah, Neville, Susan, and myself from the resources I have available to me. I had just started reading when I realized he didn't say "my books" he said "the resources available to me", so I spent a few minutes thinking about the resources I have available to me. Owling someone would take a while, so he probably meant resources closer to home, so I asked AP if I could go see Mrs. Figg. She said it was a bit late, and why didn't I call her, so I did. Turns out Neville and Susan lost their parents to Deatheaters as well. Neville is being raised by his grandmother because the Lestranges tortured his parents until they went mad, and now they live at St. Mungo's, and Susan is being raised by her aunt Amelia, who is the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, because Deatheaters killed her father, mother, and baby brother. Hannah's a halfblood and her family was in Canada until after the Fall of Voldemort. I asked AP too, just in case, and she said that Alice Longbottom was the Matron of Honor at my parents' wedding, and she thought she might have been my godmother as well, and she thinks that she has some pictures of me & Neville in the bath together in a box in the attic somewhere. I wonder if Remus already knew that.
Tomorrow is dancing and deportment lessons. Eek!