[FFML] [HP] [XOVER] Drunkard's Walk VIII, Chapter 2

[Bert Miller]

Interesting how little time we spend with Harry and co. in this chapter, 
given it's an HP fanfic.

On 9/5/2012 7:59 PM, Bob Schroeck wrote:
>
> Charlie bellowed something into the carpet that I'm sure would
> have gotten his mouth washed out with soap if it had had more
> vowels among its consonants.

Such adult behavior; good to see our teachers setting
such an example to the students.

>
> ...And into a leftover set from a film adaptation of a Dickens
> novel. 

Interesting insight into the filming of the HP movies...

>
> Well, not *entirely* non-humans, given Bill and his girlfriend
> worked for them.  But the public face of the bank was exclusively
> made up of short, sallow-skinned humanoids with solid black eyes
> and long, sharp features.  Oh, and bad attitudes.

Given that this is a bank, shouldn't Doug be assuming these are
gnomes, as in "the gnomes of Zurich"?

>
> new acquaintance's hand, I was taking it.  When I straightened up
> she was giving me a funny look, as though she were a bit confused
> by something, but then she smiled brightly.

Figures Doug isn't affected...

> I smiled, not unkindly.  "I'm a happily married man.  It takes a
> lot more than a pretty face and a magical aura to sway me."

At least, given his Field...

>
> and round like one, too; on a chrome background it depicted what
> looked like a red and white croquet mallet. 

Manufactured by Skuld Motorcycles, Unlimited.

>
> Fred nodded, then continued, "...but it hurts like the dickens."
> He shuddered.  "Trust us."

Heh.


> "Not even the trace magic that we'd expect it to have from simply
> being in the possession of a wizard," Fred added slyly.  "Not
> even *background* magic."
>
> Hermione's eyes widened again at the implications.  "But *that's*
> impossible, too."

Heh.

>
> snagged a book as I passed each one, starting with "The Dark
> Forces:  A Guide to Self-Protection" by Quentin Trimble for the
> first year classes and ending with "Advanced Topics in Animation,
> Conjuration and Invocation" by Crispin Gillespie-Barnes for the

These two authors' names don't strikes me as being as funny
as JK's own inventions (thought the first ought to be hers...).

>
> I sighed as I stepped around a remainders table holding a hundred
> or so copies of "Defensive Magical Theory" by someone with the
> amusing name of Wilbert Slinkhard, marked down to 10% of cover
> price.  (And deservedly so, I decided after quickly skimming a
> copy -- how someone could stretch "call the cops, surrender or
> hide" into 350 pages *and* call it a reasonable approach to the
> topic was beyond me.)

Heh.  So much for Dolores' fav...

>
> Half an hour's search had turned up only two more of Remus's
> recommendations:  Benjamin Hoddypeak's "Practical Defensive Magic
> and Its Use Against the Dark Arts" and "Dark Lords, 1750 to 1981:
> An Analysis of Goals, Tactics, and Weaknesses" by Hereford
> Lichtsohn.

Well, this second book ought to introduce Doug to Harry's name,
assuming Doug ever finishes it (since Voldemort is presumably
the last chapter).

>
> box, before turning a more placid gaze to me.  "The wand chooses
> the wielder, Mr. Sangnoir, but it would appear that these wands
> do not wish to have anything to do with you." 

Heh.  This is kind of funny.  It seems inevitable in hindsight, but
not what I'd have anticipated.  Given the Field, thought, the
wands risk being transformed into something else.

> "Did we hear you right, Professor?"  A Weasley twin seemed almost
> to materialize out of nowhere.  "You can't use an Ollivander
> wand?"

Heh.

>
> "I think..." Harry started hoarsely, then stopped and licked his
> dry lips.  "I think we may have a decent Defense professor this
> year."

Oh, ya think?  (heh)

> "Maybe he's one of those superheroes you were telling me about,"
> Ginny offered, giggling again.

Hmm, maybe...

>
> "When *hasn't* there been something strange about a Defense
> professor?" Ginny asked rhetorically.

Well, first year, for most of the year.  Ginny wouldn't remember that, 
though.

>
> subtle tradecraft of a drunken bull.  Their every motion in
> passing through the crowd behind me amply demonstrated that to
> them, stealth was a concept that applied only to other people.
>
> In a culture with Disillusionment spells and invisibility cloaks,
> *this* is how the two of them decide to follow someone?  Feh.
> Amateurs.

This is rather amateur.  Of course, given that their goal is
intimidation, this approach may be appropriate.

>
> Daily Prophet" in one hand, a tea cup in the other.  "Merlin's
> beard!" he suddenly exclaimed.  "Would you listen to this?  Two
> known Dark wizards were found just off Diagon Alley yesterday
> afternoon, bloody, unconscious and beaten nearly to death.
> They'd been left propped up in a sitting position against the
> wall of a shop, and..."  He looked up, stunned.  "Their left
> hands were held up above their heads by their wands, which had
> been driven through their palms and into the side of the
> building."

Shame on you!  Violence obviously inappropriate for a juvenile audience!

More seriously, Umbridge made this arrangement with "known Dark
Wizards"?  What precaution did she take that they wouldn't name
her if caught?

Also, this is England, not the wilder parts of the U.S.  Is Doug certain
that the authorities will overlook such violence if the "known Dark
Wizards" name him?  Given the time sequencing you've given us,
they didn't have time to get a first shot in.  Doug escalated from
words on his own.

>
> I confirmed this claim by the simple expedient of quizzing the
> Hogwarts students I had handy.  These, I determined, constituted
> a reasonable sampling of the student body:  one over-achieving
> genius, one slacker, one borderline underachiever, one normal
> student, and the twins, who defied easy classification as readily
> as they defied authority.

Even before Dumbledore's Army, this isn't a random selection of
Hogwart's students in terms of Defense against the Dark Arts, not
in terms of what they can cast and what they know.

> By the time word came that the Board of Governors had
> rubberstamped my hire and I should prepare for the move to
> Hogwarts, I had a list of books to give to Minerva McGonagall.

I thought his deadline for this list was earlier than this?  Doug's
changes have to be reflected in the letters sent to each student,
and Flourish and Blott's has to be notified so they'll have the
required books on hand.

>   in the best-defended department in the
> entire Ministry, so that a 15-year-old boy with no experience in
> breaking and entering could waltz in when he finally took it into
> his head to follow up on the dreams and compulsions the Dark Lord
> was sending him. 

Heh.  My, are we casting aspersions on the plausibility of canon, here?

> Worse, it was frightening.  If, as all his previous Defense
> professors had done, Professor Sangnoir attacked him before the
> end of the year, 

I'm not sure the year two clown's attempt to erase their memories
counts as an "attack", nor Lupin's werewolf form's glare at Harry.

> how could he defend himself or his friends from
> someone Charlie's co-workers called, however jokingly, "Merlin
> reborn"?  A man who, if Charlie's stories were to be believed,
> was also capable of knocking out a full-grown dragon with a
> single punch?  When the inevitable finally happened, how could he
> fight a monster like that?

You're not supposed to.  You're supposed to die, followed by an
instant resurrection (sans Horcrux).

>
> about Professor Sangnoir that way, she would inevitably ferret it
> out -- if not here, then in Hogwarts' library once they went back
> to school.

Since trans-dimensional magic has been outlawed, that means both
that there *is* a body of knowledge available, and this it's hard to
find, labeled "Dark".  So one might have thought that the Black
family library might be the perfect place to look.

>
> grunts and one vociferous diatribe about how school discipline
> had gone downhill since they stopped using the rack, the iron
> maiden and red hot pincers on students.
>
> I made a resolution then and there to *never* discuss the Weasley
> family with him ever again.

Heh.

>
> "Nice work if you can get it," I murmured.  Then it hit me.
> Phoenix.  Fire.  The phoenix wasn't named "Fox", but "Fawkes".
> As in "Guy Fawkes". 

Remember, remember, the fifth of November!
Gunpowder, treason, and plot!

> Argh.  I gave Dumbledore a flat look.  "Oh,
> geeze.  A phoenix named 'Fawkes'.  I just got that."

An annual burning in effigy is a little often for a Phoenix, perhaps, but...

>
> The little creature looked up at me and wrinkled its nose as we
> stepped through the office door together.  "Twonky's name is
> Twonky, not MacDuff."

I'll be sure to remind Henry Kuttner of that.

> age as the ponytailed girl on my arm.  Farther back, two older-
> looking girls stood and watched the horseplay with a kind of
> amused disapproval -- a tall, slender blonde with short hair who
> stood arm-in-arm with a girl whose shoulder-length locks were the
> color of seawater.

Outers?  Interesting.  The description of 'S' seemed to imply first season.

>
> And I'd thought Irma Pince was embracing a stereotype -- Sybill
> Trelawney looked like she'd robbed a New Age store at wandpoint
> and worn all her ill-gotten gains out the door.

Heh.  That's both very apt and very funny.

>
> "Just kidding.  Hufflepuff!" it shouted out loud.

At first, this surprised me; we're so used to "Gryffindor!"  But, upon
reflection, it seems warranted; Doug is *very* loyal to his wife, for
instance.  Given a choice between a brave-but-disloyal act or a loyal-
but-less-brave act (foregoing a battle to defend a commitment),
Doug would choose the latter.

It also seems fairer to Hufflepuff, which, in the books, always seems
to get the least impressive students.

And works for you, as it means that much less exposure to
Harry and company.

> To put it in other terms:  Given several dozen programming
> languages *without* their compilers, the researchers were able to
> deduce the existence of and derive the complete instruction set
> for the CPU's machine language. 

Your metaphor strikes me as impossible.  COBOL-74, FORTRAN-77,
and C are/were all available on everything from Burroughs-level CISC
to puritanical RISC.  Deducing the existence of a machine language,
sure; deriving it?  Without any part of the compilers?  No.

Suggest "...with only fragments of their compilers,"

>
> dimensional magic.  And Septima Vector had noticed the notes I'd
> taken in UTM notation and gotten curious.  I passed it off as my
> own work, purely an ad hoc system of abbreviations and whatnot,
> but she insisted on being taught -- and bribed me with some
> intense graduate-level tutoring sessions in Arithmancy that later
> turned out to be critical to my understanding of the topic.

Change the destiny of this world much?

> There was only one thing I hadn't managed to accomplish before
> the students finally showed up.  I'd yet to start my intelligence
> gathering on ol' Flight-of-Emo.  I'd barely had a chance to
> sketch out a plan of action.

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that Dumbledore evidently
hasn't informed Doug about Snape's moonlighting.  What's Doug
going to do the first time he finds evidence that Snape apparently
works for Voldemort?  Nail his hand to a wall by his wand?

The only reasonable idea is that Dumbledore doesn't expect
Doug to be able to find out even that, which seems a bit short-
sighted of him.

Or, possibly, Dumbledore isn't yet quite sure that *Doug* doesn't
work for Voldemort?