I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_ron]

Well. It's the usual here. Good food, but loads of things Mum needs done before she'll let us eat!

Half-seven this morning, I think, she comes tromping in my room, carrying a pair of wellies she'd got by bartering stuff and says she hopes I enjoyed the lie-in, but the chickens need feeding. And then she says while I'm out there, maybe I could just pop up on the roof of the chicken coop and patch it where the shingles blew off. Says she'd meant to get that done before we came home, but she'd been so busy cooking and baking...

Yeah. And this afternoon we're fixing the fence at the bottom of the garden that's meant to keep the goats out of Mum's vegetable patch.

Anywiz, breakfast and lunch were well fantastic, and she's making roast for supper. And Bill's coming, so there'll be at least two kinds of pie or maybe pie and a cake. But it's going to be good whatever it is, because she's being all secret about it.

Oh, and Nev. I asked Mum about getting new shoes on her barter network--actually, I told her that instead of wellies it would've been better to get me shoes, but she didn't get cross about me being smart 'cause she got grumbling about Professor Carrow, instead. She's really, really cross they've let him stay at the school. And, y'know, she doesn't usually say things about teachers like that because she doesn't want us to think it's all right to talk rubbish about adults and teachers or whatnot, but she was just fuming about him. And she said it was okay, she'd work out how to get new shoes for me before we go back, and I don't have to keep wearing these awful ancient things Madam Pomfrey found for me. Well. They won't be new shoes, but y'know. So that's good. I was worried she'd be cross with me for getting mine melted.

So.

What are you lot up to? (Since none of you wrote back to me the other night. Or rode home with us.)

If you're not too good to be talking to us now.

What about you, Terry? Castle's dead quiet now, I guess. What do you get up to when we're not there?

Comments

[alt_pansy]

I told you we'd ride together on the way back, silly.

It's good to hear about your shoes. Those old ones looked like they were straight out of the history books, and I'd bet they were stiff as anything.

That does sound like a lot of good food. Your mum is the best cook I know. I'm having to help Rosa with the Easter party that she and Prospero are putting on, so it's an awful lot of moving around furniture and sorting out games for the little kids to play, and arranging flowers, and dying things different colours to match, so I've been up to my ears in chores too.

I think I'd rather fix a fence with you.

[alt_ron]

Yeah, but what'll you do if Malfoy makes a fuss about it? Probably ride with him again.

Whatever.

Yeah. Those shoes were really dead ancient. I don't even know how old. But I was afraid to try transfiguring them cause, well, y'know. At least they're shoes.

I rather like thumping about in wellies, though!

D'you know what she had for us last night? Bangers and mash, which is one of my favourite things, but we don't have it that often because Mum won't keep pigs, so she has to buy sausages or barter for them. Says she just doesn't like pigs and won't have them here. But who doesn't love bacon and sausages and pork roast, y'know? Anywiz, Mum got in a whole load of sausages so we'd have them while we're home.

[alt_pansy]

A promise is a promise. I'd told Draco I'd sit with him before you wrote, so I wasn't going to go backsies on that, and I won't go backsies on this either.

Maybe you could use them to practice Transfig once you get your new pair?

I'm trying to imagine you wearing wellies and your school uniform. That'd be rich.

And I love bangers and mash! Toad in the hole too. Mina makes it every now and then, even though mum doesn't like it because it's fattening, and it is ace.

[alt_sally_anne]

I've heard you can eat the whole entire pig, that there's no bit you can't use, even without transfiguring. Everything you'd have to throw away from another animal, like the guts, you can eat when it's a pig. Even the FEET. And the NOSE.

Which sounds like pretty much the world's most perfect animal to me. Why doesn't your mum like them?

[alt_ron]

Says she can't bear the smell. I guess the pens stink. Or maybe it's really the pigs. I don't know.

I'd ask her, but I don't really want her to think about keeping more animals. That'd just be more work for everybody.

And I don't care how she gets sausages. Just wish we had them more often.

[alt_sally_anne]

Sorry I couldn't write earlier, Gemma was sticking to me like spellotape earlier. I never know when she's going to get all curious about the journals again, so writing in the invisible ink isn't really on, not unless she's well occupied.

The Strettons are being decent enough so far. Maureen's still here. (You know, the muggleborn nanny.) Gemma's Sing-Ami quit working but I think I've got it going again. I'm not sure if it would still be on key with the others but she only has the one.

You know what's odd? As I was coming down the corridor a few hours ago a door opened suddenly right by me and I flinched. And I realised it was because part of me still worries that I'm going to come round a corner and one of the Carrows will be there. I didn't have any friends to watch my back and I knew THAT but somehow I didn't KNOW the Carrows wouldn't be there.

I'll probably get used to NOT being afraid I'm going to run into them alone just in time to go back to school.

(And it was Maureen coming through the door.)

[alt_neville]

I'm sorry I didn't sit with you or Perks, Ron, but Evelyn grabbed me right before we got on the train and asked me to sit with her. She sounded almost panicked about facing the other girls without me there, so I did. It was sort of boring hearing that lot natter on about fashions, but it made Evelyn happy I was there, so I guess I can't mind too much.

I asked her about it last night. I haven't talked with her very much the past few weeks, but I guess she's been hearing a lot of nasty little digs about our parents. I guess it's on people's minds because of the play. I had hoped she'd escape it since she's IN the play, as one of the portraits, you know, and I hoped it'd show people that she supports the Protectorate. But I guess for some people Evelyn and me could never do enough to make up for our parents.

Good luck on your mum finding shoes for you. I'm still awful sorry that happened.

[alt_ron]

That's all right.

Why don't you tell Evelyn the two of you should sit with us on the way back? The twins may smell funny, but they don't bite. Usually.

What are you doing while you're home? You could come here for a day if you wanted. The twins are talking about getting up a Quidditch match sometime, and y'know, if you didn't want to do that, we could just go for a ramble. Do you remember the lunch Mum packed the last time we did that? Last summer when we went down the river?

[alt_neville]

I'll tell Evelyn that. Thanks! I think she felt a bit guilty that I had to sit with all the girl talk, so she'll figure that turnabout is fair play for the trip back.

I'd love to come over sometime. Just let me know when. And would you like to come over here, to spend the night, say Wednesday or Thursday? Whenever's convenient. I can show you all the auror books I got from my parents.

[alt_ron]

This week Wednesday? Like in two days? That'd be wizard. Mum says yes.

And she said at lunch that we could ask people over for flying Wednesday next. I asked her after whether it'd be all right if you wanted to come a different day--do you?--and she said you could come any day that your gran agrees. I think if you wanted, you could come Tuesday next week and stay over for the flying. But only if you don't mind about that.

Check with your gran.

[alt_terry]

The Headmistress has some meetings with the staff who are here, and sometimes she leaves the grounds to see other folk, so I don't see her much. She pretty much leaves me to my own devices. I'm going to spend some time helping Professor Sprout in the greenhouses and Professor Brutka with the animals. At least that's what it's supposed to be, but I think both of them are really teaching me stuff, sort of in the guise of helping them. I wonder if it's because of something the Headmistress said to them, or if everyone's just sort of pretending. I like both of them, because neither of them ever treats me like a mudblood. They're just real matter of fact about everything.

I also spend some of the rest of my time in the secret classroom Hermione and I have, working through the old essays and textbooks that Fred and George and Lee have given me, and some time reading books in the Headmistress's library. So I'm learning a lot.

Still no progress on the animagus stuff, though.

I haven't seen Master or his sister at all. I wonder if they've left the grounds for the holiday. I dunno, and I don't have any intention of asking.

[alt_ron]

Well, be careful, yeah?

I mean, it'd be loads safer if you at least knew whether they're there or not. What would you do if you came around a turn in the corridor and ran into one of them?

Shame nobody's figured out a way to put a sensor spell on them so you'd get some warning. We talked about it one time--the twins and Lee, y'know, and me--and we figured a sneakoscope wouldn't do you any good because the castle's full of sneaks. But it would work better during holidays like this when all the students are gone. And it could be pretty hilarious to find out which of the teachers a sneakoscope would warn you about! Besides the Carrows, I mean.

The trouble is, most sneakoscopes are rubbish. And the good ones cost a tonne.

[alt_sally_anne]

If anyone finds a broken one in a drawer somewhere I might be able to fix it.

It would be better if it had started OUT as a good one, mind you! If you fix rubbish it's still rubbish.

[alt_sally_anne]

That's odd Brutka's one of the ones who teaches you. He immigrated here -- I mean, from the continent. They try pretty hard to only let people in who think the Protectorate is the greatest thing EVER and the Lord Protector is the WIZARDING HERO OF THE AGE or whatever.

[alt_terry]

I don't think anyone could find fault with anything he says to me. It's quite clever, really, the way he makes it all part of the instructions: he's simply explaining that I have to add chopped grasses to this animal's feed because it needs extra chlorophyll in its diet, or I mustn't wake that one up because it does best if its sleep schedule follows the moon.

I don't know what he said to convince them to let him in, but he never talks about politics.

[alt_gredforge]

Well, you'd know for certain about Carrow and his fellow troglodyte if you'd remember to check that certain useful artifact we gave you.

[alt_terry]

Oh, of course! I simply forgot about it, but I do still have it.

Just checked. They're holed up in their offices. Guess they're taking their meals there, too. That's fine with me. The less all of us here see them the better.

[alt_ron]

Hang on!

So you found something to give him after all? You never said! What is it?

[alt_gredforge]

Just a little magical artifact we found in the old caretaker's file cabinet. It's up to the Professor if he wants to tell you about it.