Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
He waved Lee and the Weasley brothers into the room, then squawked in surprise when Oliver’s Patronus appeared, nearly hitting his nose. “Harry! We’re here, come meet us, we’re at the pitch. You said to be discreet, so we don’t really want to traipse in through the entry hall.” Harry sighed. He was never going to be able to get to his shopping at this point. He brightened at realizing this was Ollie, though. His absolutely unflappable Captain, who’d gone on to drag Puddlemere to the championship more than once by sheer force of will. Unshrinking his broom, he asked the room for a door to the outside, closest side to the Quidditch pitch, and to please leave it open for now. He told Linmy he was heading out for a few minutes and would be back with Oliver Wood and whichever friends he brought. Heading for the door at a trot, he jumped on his broom for the brief flight to the pitch.
He was still half focused on what he needed to ensure he picked up during his animal acquisition trip as he approached. Nearing the pitch, he shook his head to pay proper attention and rose so he could clear the stands. Suddenly he inhaled fit to choke himself and nearly turned right back to the castle. Ollie didn’t. He wouldn’t. Except that, still staring dumbfounded, he clearly had.
His broom drifting down to the ground without his notice, he whispered “Ollie, what did you do?”
“Heya Harry! Your Patronus caught me in the middle of a last couple of games. Coach had just told us there wasn’t going to be a League, the ministry was already cracking down with all sorts of “no money will be spent on…” stuff. Mostly they meant No Fun Allowed. Well someone’s bum was hanging out the window on that, Harry. I’m a Quidditch player. Getting slapped in the face with no Quidditch at all? Nah, we were NOT havin’ it. Your Patronus came in right before the riot would have started. And y’know, since we were all right there, your Patronus was heard by a few who told a few, and … well. Here we are.” He spread his hands with an angelic look that Harry knew full well was a lie. Ollie was a lying liar who lied. But he wasn’t really wrong, now was he?
Harry looked over the field. Despite not being in their uniforms, he recognized the entire lineup for Puddlemere standing tall behind Ollie. And that was Alasdair Maddock from the Montrose Magpies, talking to one of the Broadmoor Brothers from the Falmouth Falcons, wasn’t it? And, and, and … was that gentleman actually Devlin Whitehorn of the Nimbus Broom Company? And was he really standing next to Finn McWhistle from the Ballycastle Bats?
Harry held on to his sanity with white knuckles. “Ollie… did.. did you just bring the entire Irish, Scottish, and English Quidditch League with you?”
Ollie laughed, causing Harry to narrow his eyes at him. “Nah, Harry, not the whole league. We did get the better half, though. Of course, we brought their families, too. Well okay, so we brought everybody who’d come out to watch the last few games we could sort of officially play. Once Campbell caught the final snitch, it wasn’t, I mean, they were already packed up, wan’t any hardship to just… go here instead of there.”
Oh my lord, that was Lennox Campbell, also from Montrose and he was chatting with Sassy Wiggins from the Kenmare Kestrels.
Well. Okay, so he had in fact told Ollie to bring whomever, this was on him. He could own that. He gave himself an internal minute to squee like the Quidditch fan he was, then got back to business. He cast a quick Sonorus, “Well, okay then, glad to have you, and looking forward to the first few games! Obviously, we’re in the middle of mad scramble to make sure we have the basics covered, and hadn’t gotten to things like quidditch gear yet, so hope you brought yours,” he said with a smile. “That said, everybody, follow me, we’re heading directly to the Room of Requirement, which is up on the 7th floor. We’ve opened a temporary door for you, so we can head straight there. It’s a bit of a walk, though, so if you want to put the kids up on brooms with an adult, they’d probably appreciate it.”
“Naw, we got this,” came a very American, very Southern voice. “Kids, y’all just pile on now, same as before.” Harry watched as most of the adults mounted brooms, some riding tandem with what was probably a spouse, some with trunks on a tether spell bobbing behind them. Behind the group was a very large carpet, piled high with luggage, kids, a few adults minding the littlest, and being pulled by … was that a flying pickup truck?
Harry was not going to ask. Just… no. Telling himself to move on, he pulled himself together, he mounted his broom with an “Alrighty then, this way to the party!” He then led them back to the castle. Cancelling the Sonorus, he dismounted and entered the room. He took a very deep breath, counted to five, then took another before asking the room to please expand to accommodate another two hundred or so. Catching Fred’s eye, he waved him over. “Fred, did anyone explain how the room works to you?” Fred nodded, he’d been given at least the basics. “Great. I’m making you housing manager until we transfer. Room, could you please add George to the list of those able to make changes? Ollie brought, as he put it, the better half of the Quidditch League, a honking great chunk of the reserves, a bunch of regular quidditch fanatics, and they all brought their families. Get ‘em organized with a place to stay, answer questions, get ‘em to the right people, etc… Draft anyone you need to and thanks, mate.”
He climbed back up on his desk, and once all the newcomers had made their way in, he spared a thought to wonder where they parked the pickup. Casting another Sonorus, “Hey everybody, welcome. Don’t be afraid to get acquainted, we’re all in the same boat and will be living in each other’s pockets for a while. Best to know your neighbors,” he flashed a quick grin. “George Weasley, raise your hand George, is going to get you assigned to a room for at the very least tonight, and is available to answer questions for you. Remus Lupin, hand up? Remus is working with our planning team to get us up and running with as few problems as possible. If you have skills that would be of immediate use either now or on the other side, go see him. Angelina, where are you? Angelina is our current trainer for the Pack! spell. If you want to go back to retrieve buildings or belongings, and she can elaborate on what’s meant by that, she’s your girl in a strictly platonic way, unless you hit if off with her, and with that, I’m totally staying out of her love life. Ginsey, where are you?” Ginsey stood on a chair, waving her clipboard. “Ginsey’s holding our food shopping list, if you have something you’d like to add to it, please see her. If there are any special needs food wise, please make sure you alert her so we can accommodate them, but feel free to request favorite foods as well. Linmy’s on the chair next to her. Linmy is keeping track of people’s location so we can do our best to reach everyone quickly if there’s an emergency. Cisley? Cisley, can you start a list of must have items, i.e. medications, mobility assistance devices and the like? People, see Cisley if you need or are going to need something critical. Seamus? Seamus is assigning various tasks generated by the planning committee, so it wouldn’t hurt to check in with him, especially if you know how to drive or own a pickup, er… vehicle. I meant vehicle.”
“Speaking of, we all know why we’re here. It’s currently 5:30. I’m going to ask that everyone be back to the room by 9 PM, we’ll pick up errands and shopping again in the morning. Fred, check with Linmy and get word to anyone not here, please. The Patil’s might not be able to be reached if they’re still in India, but they’re supposed to be back well before 9 PM, so just keep an eye out for them and give them a heads up. Seamus, if it hasn’t already been handled, please send someone out on a dinner run to a muggle shop or shops; we’re trying to avoid using Hogwarts food stores and letting the refugees take them. Also, if they can find something for breakfast at the same time, that would be great. Make a note that we’ll need to have something on hand for lunch and dinner tomorrow, just in case we’re still in a jumble. We don’t really want to leave much before we have to; the longer we have to plan and accumulate supplies, the fewer headaches we’ll have on the other end. We think we have until 3 PM before we have any cause for concern, and we know we’ll get at least a one hour warning, but if anyone is travelling to the mainland for any reason, we want you all back well before noon, and even that has its risks, so think four times before heading across the channel. By all means rescue your dog, but Aunt Irma’s tablecloth, lovely though it might be, isn’t worth it. Tonight at ten, we’d like to sit down with everyone and hammer out a wish list for what we want in our final destination. For those needing to catch up with what that’s about, check in with the elves, they probably have the most complete story. Talk with your families, or others in your group, if there’s something you really want, propose it. We’ll be agreeing on things as a group, and working for the benefit of all, so if it benefits you but hurts twelve others, it probably won’t fly. Not everyone needs to be at that meeting, and I wouldn’t expect the kids to be awake for it. If your family can come to a consensus, one person can represent them to help keep the numbers down a bit. We absolutely are not trying to limit requests, but a smaller group will be easier to work with, with the bonus that the rest of you can get some sleep. Either make sure you’re willing to go along with the majority or there is a person there to make your case. Hoping to have it hammered out by midnight, but it’ll take as long as it takes. Once we get it done, we can turn it over to Hogwarts and let her do her thing. I think we’d all prefer that happened sooner rather than later.
10:05 PM
Once again standing on his desk with an active Sonorus charm, Harry called the gathering to order. “Hey everybody, get yourself a seat facing this way, please.” He had a fresh chalkboard beside the desk, with a series of notes already in place. Some were lifted from previous board notes, some randomly jotted down during the early evening, and some were added just a few minutes ago.
must support magic for an eventual population of at least 20,000 (globally)
space available for small city or cluster village, likely not to exceed one or two thousand, additional sites would be a future consideration
must completely support elves’ healing magic
gold must have comparable value
mostly self sufficient communities
other villages within a days travel
magic use would be accepted
magical travel would be accepted
land suitable for growing crops from UK
nothing we take with is considered an invasive species
compatible with current language(s)
comparable physics and mathematical principles
large amounts of unclaimed land, nothing sapient that would be displaced by our claiming ownership/use of the land
He enlarged the board to ensure visibility to the back row. “We’re here to knuckle down and put together our wish list for a new home. As you can see, we’ve already got some notes based on early ideas. None of these have been vetted beyond the spur of the moment thought, and while they made sense to the two or three people who put them there at the time, I’ve no notion if they’ll appeal to a majority of you who’ve joined our mad quest. So with that said, and bearing in mind that we’ll get to adding new items to the list in a bit, does anyone want to address any note currently on the list? If you’d like clarification, or if you think we can word things better, or you think it’s a bad idea and want to say why, raise your hand.”
Devlin Whitehorn raised his hand. When Harry nodded at him to continue, he said “In regard to your physics and mathematical principles, I think you should revise that to read identical instead of comparable. Arithmancy and rune work are magical shorthands based on those principles. We might find ourselves needing to reconnect that language to the result and you’d need to start from scratch to do so; a comparable thing is not an identical thing.”
Harry nodded and said “I see your point. We’ll change that,” he said, erasing comparable and replacing it with identical.
Remus raised his hand, and Harry pointed to him. “I think we may need to reword, or possibly rethink the ‘other villages within a days travel’. Our group is now considerably larger than our initial trio. Going forward, while we may not have all the necessary skills we’ll be needing in house, we will certainly have the necessary manpower to brute force most things should we need to resort to that sort of approach. I’m not sure if having several other villages so close would be helpful or if we’d get in each other’s way. Added to that, our definition of “travel” could be quite different from the local version of travel by the time you take things like brooms into account.”
Harry nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, so let’s break the note into two parts for discussion. One, other villages and any thoughts that we need to work through on that in our first year in the new place. Any time frame after that might be whistling in the wind so far as planning goes. Two, travel. I propose moving that to the “new items” section of our meeting, as it’s going to involve a whole lot of new ideas and options at this point. Agree?” He split the note in two and shifted it around when Remus nodded. He further removed the note on magical travel, as it would be covered under the new Travel item, and magic itself was covered by the previous line.
Lee Jordan raised a lumos tipped wand, and Harry tipped his head to him. “Lee? What have you got?”
Lee said, “I think we need to remove the limitation from line one, there. We have no solid idea what our future population will be in generations to come, we have no idea how big the new planet will be, and we don’t know if the existing population is magical or not. If they are and we add to their numbers, that limitation could be problematical if it’s actually applied instead of being what I’m pretty sure was intended as a suggestion or guideline. So long as magic is freely available to anyone able to use it, like here, I think we’d be fine. Anyone want to check my logic on that?”
A murmur ran around the room, but no one spoke up, so Harry said, “Really good point, Lee. We’ll leave it at must support magic.” He erased the last several words of the line. “Oh, I’m adding to at least current standards. Feel free to amend if you have further points to make on this.”
Harry scanned the room. “Is that all for comments regarding existing notes? Okay, briefly, let’s get back to other villages. Show of hands for yes, do we want contact with other villages at all?” All hands went up with a few lit wands interspersed. “Outstanding. Leaving out magical travel for the moment, how close do we want them? Average travel is about 15 miles per day walking, 30 by horseback or wagon. For comparison, it’s 560 miles from Inverness to London, assuming no travel difficulties it’d be a bit over two weeks of horse powered travel by non-magical means. If you can, cast a number of miles you’re happy with over your head, if you can’t, raise your hand and we’ll send someone around to do that for you.” He looked over at Angelina and Seamus, raising his brows in a silent ask for assistance.
There was a flurry of movement, with Angelina and Seamus wandering through the assembled crowd. Some quick math by Remus, and they wound up with an average of 200 miles as the preference for the closest settlement. Harry wasn’t thrilled about that, he’d have preferred additional human resources closer in case of emergency, but he understood the apprehension most of them were feeling, and they’d find a way to make things work.
“All right, looks like we have a good consensus on distance. I’d like to word this as none currently closer than 200 miles, if you are all good with it? It opens up future options, and we’re wizards, we have the ability to make the limit stick if we choose to do so. When he saw a majority of heads nodding, he adjusted the line. “Also, it just occurred to me that we’ve got this worded as villages, but that doesn’t negate the odd settlement or household here and there, we could still have people within the limit. And so we’re all using the same frame of reference, I’m using a single farm size to define a village size, it’s about one square mile to support 125 people, pre-industrial.” All those adventure stories had been a gold mine of odd information that had stuck with him and were being put to good use now. He also added a note to the new items once he realized he was thinking in a certain historical era and he didn’t want to get bogged down in that train of thought quite yet.
“Next?” Harry asked, pointing to a remaining lone hand.
“Sassy Wiggins. It’s not much known outside healing circles, but the healing magic that supports elves, also has an effect on wizards, it’s just pretty low key. We might as well take advantage of it if it would still be the same energy; can we remove the limitation that says it must support the elves? We might wind up depriving ourselves of energy that we rely on more than we’re currently aware.”
Harry nodded, in theoretical agreement with her. “Anybody have any thoughts to add? Send up a Lumos.” He waited a moment, then said, “Okay, we’ll remove the caveat specific to elves. I suppose we could add humans, but then we’re maybe limiting other creatures, so we’re just going to say must fully support healing magic.” He adjusted the board.
“Okay, last call for current item discussion, anyone?” Harry saw no more hands or wands raised, “Moving on, then - new items. For now, we’re just going to make a list, then we’ll discuss details. Bear in mind that this is for properties of the world that we’ll need from the beginning and are things we can’t make for ourselves. If we can do it on our own, I think we should, as it’ll ensure we’re deeply involved with our new home and keep us open to new approaches for problem solving. For me, I don’t want to walk across the doorway into an identical world, neither do I want one that in no way challenges me. I don’t want the danger level to be such that bumping into an unknown plant would probably be certain death, but I really like the idea of taking what we already know to new places, having new flora and fauna to investigate, and generating boatloads of new ideas. Under the parameters noted, what are your thoughts?” He scrolled the current items up on the board to minimize space used, leaving the new items section in readiness.
must support magic to at least current standards
space available for small city or cluster village, likely not to exceed one or two thousand, additional sites would be a future consideration
must fully support healing magic
gold must have comparable value
mostly self sufficient communities
other villages, none currently closer than 200 miles.
magic use would be accepted
land suitable for growing crops from UK
nothing we take with is considered an invasive species
compatible with current language(s)
identical physics and mathematical principles
large amounts of unclaimed land, nothing sapient that would be displaced by our claiming ownership/use of the land
New Items:
Travel
Relative time era
Several hands were raised, and Harry picked one at random. “Hello, I’m sorry I don’t know your name. If you could please let us know who you are? I apologize for not considering sooner that just because I recognize someone doesn’t mean everyone else does.”
“My name is Stepan Morozov, I am Assistant Headmaster of Durmstrang. I understand thinking in terms of farming as a first and very necessary task and ensuring we have compatibility is vital. But we of Durmstrang have also fostered a strong maritime tradition and have long offered training in sailing as an elective course. It is why our first choice of transport is a magical boat.” He smiled. “We believe we will be able to bring our boat with us, and so we, or I, at the least, would like to ensure we have large spans of open water available to us. In the event we can’t bring our boat, we still have the knowledge to build many types of sailing vessels.”
“Now that’s a thought, indeed. Okay, so lots of oceans, lakes, navigable rivers.” Harry added it to the list.
He pointed to the next hand he saw. “Oliver Wood. I know it seems like ‘must support magic’ should cover it, but I’m taking no chances. The new home absolutely needs to support the mechanics of flying on a broom, Harry.” There was a rousing “AYE!” from every quidditch player present, while many of their wives or husbands just hid behind their hands.
Harry didn’t try very hard to suppress his smile when he added the note. Oliver was just adorable.
Harry chose another hand. “Aisling Byrne. Coming from Ireland, I’m in full support of the notion of waterways. I’d like to add in a bit of detail that we’re going to need unobstructed ports. If we don’t specify, we might wind up with all the water running up against cliffs, and better to put in an ask that might not have been necessary rather than take the risk of getting what we ask for but not what we need.” She sat back down. There was a “Brilliant save, Coach Byrne,” from Stepan Morozov. Harry combined the comment with her remark of being from Ireland, realizing she was the coach of the Kenmare Kestrels. The fanboy inside him gave off another faint squee, and he noted the port distinction to the board.
Next hand, “Borenya Patil. It’s not a ‘the world must have’ issue, but we do need to be set down near a water source, a strongly flowing creek would be best if we need the water power. Fresh water would be easiest, but we’re capable of making any water potable.”
Harry nodded. “That’s a valid concern, so we’ll definitely discuss.” He added site location, water access, water type.
Next hand, “Rhys Geddings. Mining’s not the prettiest of occupations, nor the most environmentally friendly, but we’re going to need at least some basic form of it. Access to iron deposits will be a must. How we go about the actual mining is a different issue for discussion somewhere down the road. For any building we’re going to be doing, the best option is stone, and we’ll need a lot of it. A quarry site will also be a must have.” Having said his piece, he sat back down.
Another hand, “Bill Weasley. No natural disasters that are known to happen regularly, please. I’d rather not live someplace that’s constantly smashed with hurricanes or prone to earthquakes.” He twitched his shoulders, probably remembering some of his travels, and sat back down, where Charlie slung his arm over his shoulders in comfort.
Harry nodded in fervent agreement and selected the next hand.
“Jenever Ogden. I agree with the lass, better to be sure than to be oh so very sorry. Might seem kind of ridiculous to say out loud, , but we’ll need a liveable, hopefully comfortably so, climate that is stable, and a roughly equal day length or we’re going to have all sorts of health issues, and even with greenhouses, the crops will need a certain amount of daylight.” Chagrined agreement was indicated by several, who had completely missed the obvious and it could have had a devastating impact.
There was one last hand still raised, and Harry nodded at the elderly woman. She was assisted in standing by who Harry assumed to be her son. “Elzbieta Zielinska. No ongoing wars, no more invasions, no more death camps,” She grimly showed a wrinkled forearm with an aged tattoo that everyone in the room recognized and was chilled by.
Harry gave a solemn and resolute yes in response, and it was echoed by every soul present.
New Items:
Travel
Relative time era
oceans, lakes, navigable rivers
must support wizard flight options in general, and very specifically broomsticks
unobstructed ports
site location, water access, water type
Nearby iron deposits
Nearby quarry site
No regularly occurring natural disasters
Equivalent day/night cycle
Human livable, comfortable, and stable climate
No wars, peace is a priority for all.