Drunkard's Walk Forums - Drunkard's Walk VIII: Harry Potter and the Man from Otherearth

Song of the Day, 4/2/2026

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 13:28:43 -0500

I am incredibly surprised that no one has suggested this previously. In fact, I just spent the last 20 minutes searching the boards to make sure I hadn't overlooked or forgotten a recommendation, but other than two fic links, this is basically the first time Kpop Demon Hunters has been mentioned here. I will admit that I haven't actually seen the film yet -- getting Peggy to stop watching her European crime dramas long enough to watch something else with me is a superhuman task that I have to date failed at -- but I've fallen in love with this song. So much so that I find myself re-choreographing the Ministry Battle to use it. If I'm forced to choose between it and Sergey Lazarev's "You Are The Only One", I honestly don't know which I'll pick.

Ugh, you came at a bad time
But you just crossed the line
You wanna get wild?
Okay, I'll show you wild

Better come right, better luck tryin'
Gettin' to our level
'Cause you might die, never the time,
Tryna start a battle
Bleeding isn't in my blood
뼛속부터 달라서 (Because we are different to the very core)

Beating you is what I do, do, do, yeah

Body on body, I'm naughty,
Not even sorry
And when you pull up, I'll pull up
A little late to the party (la-la-la-la)

Locked and loaded, I was born for this
There ain't no point in avoiding it
Annoyed? A bit
불을 비춰, 다 비켜, 네 앞길을 뺏겨 (Shine the light—get out of the way, or lose the path ahead.)

Knocking you out like a lullaby
Hear that sound ringing in your mind
Better sit down for the show
'Cause I'm gonna show you
How it's done, done, done

HUNTR/X don't miss
How it's done, done, done
(Hey) HUNTR/X don't quit
How it's done, done, done

Run, run, we run the town
Whole world playin' our sound
Turnin' up, it's goin' down
HUNTR/X show this,
How it's done, done, done

Yeah, something about when you come for the crown
That's so humbling, huh?
갑자기 왜 그래? 먼저 건드려, 왜? (Why are you acting like this all of a sudden? Why did you provoke me first?)
이제야 포기해 what? (You're only giving up now? What?)

Nothing to us, run up,
You're done up, we come up
From sunup to sundown,
So come out to play
Won either way,
We're one in a million
We kill 'em, like, really? You want it? Okay.

Heels, nails, blade, mascara
Fit check for my napalm era
Need to beat my face, make it cute and savage
Mirror, mirror on my phone, who's the baddest?
(Us, hello?)

Knocking you out like a lullaby
Hear that sound ringing in your mind
Better sit down for the show
'Cause I'm gonna show you
(I'm gonna show you)
(I'm gonna show you)
How it's done, done, done

I don't talk, but I bite, full of venom (uh)
Spittin' facts, you know that's
How it's done, done, done

Okay, like, I know I ramble
But when shootin' my words, I go Rambo
Took blood, sweat, and tears to look natural (uh)
That's how it's done, done, done

Hear our voice unwavering
'Til our song defeats the night
Makin' fear afraid to breathe
'Til the dark meets the light

(How it's done, done, done)
Run, run, we run the town (Done, done, done)
Whole world playin' our sound (Done, done, done)
Turnin' up, it's going down (Done, done, done)
HUNTR/X, show this,
How it's done, done, done

We hunt you down, down, down, down (down)
We got you now, now, now, now (got you now)
We show you how, how, how (show you how)
HUNTR/X don't miss,
How it's done, done, done

-- Huntrix, "How It's Done"

The meaning of "mugwump"...

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 17:46:05 -0500

... is, apparently, different in the UK than it is in the USA.

Cambridge Dictionary definition of mugwump:

Quote:US informal (also Mugwump)

a person who likes to be politically independent and does not support or remain loyal to any political group:
As a reporter, I've met with political groups large and small, Democratic and Republican, Green Party, mugwumps, you name it.

UK informal old-fashioned

a stupid person:
To make a fresh milk cheese at home is the simplest of processes; any mugwump can do it.

So, is "Supreme Mugwump" Dumbledore a person who by definition does not take part in partisan politics, or is he the biggest idiot?

Don't ask me why the Scarlet Pimpernel decided to intrude...

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 14:31:19 -0500

They hate him here, They hate him there,
Death Eaters hate him everywhere.
Is he still living? Is he no more?
That demm'd, annoying Dumbledore.

Bob, if you like it, it's yours.

A far future teaser...

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 15:01:27 -0500

Even though most of my output currently is directed toward My Apartment Manager Is Not an Isekai Character, I am still doing work here and there on the in-progress DW projects. Just to reward you for your patience and forbearance, here's a little something that I've had staged in my dev files for quite a while now. It is actually the (incomplete) third of DW8's four epilogues, and while it dangles tantalizing hints of what happened during the course of the story, it doesn't really have very much in the way of spoilers. I'm figuring it should be just enough to re-invigorate the flagging, and whet the appetites of those still waiting eagerly for more...

Epilogue III

Life's like a movie,
Write your own ending,
Keep believing,
Keep pretending.
-- "The Muppet Movie"

June 18, 2015
Nineteen years later...

Albus Dumbledore slid deeper into the shadows cloaking the end
of the booth in which he sat and stared into the amber depths of
the glass of firewhiskey before him. It wasn't Ogden's Finest --
even if his budget had allowed for it, he wouldn't waste Ogden's
on a drink on this of all days.

He picked up the glass and held it before him. "To Douglas
Sangnoir and Harry Potter," he muttered the annual toast too
softly to be heard by anyone else in the Leaky Cauldron. "Merlin
damn them both." He took a swig and toughed out the mouthful of
rotgut as steam shot from his ears.

In a year it would be an even two decades since the pair had
utterly and completely undermined his plans for the future of
Wizarding Britain by defeating Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
And not just defeating them, but doing so in a dramatic and
public manner using magics beyond those known to any other
witch or wizard of the time.

*And without me there to guide it all.* That was the worst part.
The mystic power of the DA, collectively and individually, was
undeniable, and when they attributed it all to Douglas, well,
that sealed the fate of Albus Dumbledore. Harry's star rose
while Albus' began its slow fall to ignominy.

At least Douglas, however much they had disagreed on methods and
means, had been above it all, even refusing an Order of Merlin.
"The kids did everything -- I was just there as backup." Not
that anyone believed his denials. The stories had spread of him
striding unaffected through a veritable storm of Killing Curses
to strike Voldemort down with a punch, then falling to a point-
blank curse from Tom himself just to *get up again* -- well, the
carefully-crafted folklore around young Harry had faded away in
the face of the *true* stories about Douglas Sangnoir, the now-
legendary Man-Who-Would-Not-Die.

And Douglas' subsequent "mysterious disappearance" upon his
departure from this timeline had only served to deepen his mythic
status, just as Harry's childhood hidden in the Muggle world had
deepened his. What had a mere man like Albus Dumbledore to offer
Wizarding Britain when it had two living gods in its recent
history to inspire it?

At the thought of gods, Albus scowled and took another swig of
his firewhiskey. Of all the things he hated Douglas Sangnoir
for, calling the Norns to Hogwarts was one of the greatest --
because afterward they had *never left*. For nineteen years now,
they had roamed the halls and classrooms with impunity, only ever
glimpsed by the staff at a distance, but *always* available to
the students. Albus doubted there was any student who had
attended Hogwarts in the last two decades who hadn't met one of
the gods who seemed to have taken it upon themselves to keep a
close and personal eye on *his* school. And although he
suspected their presence had as much to do with the continued
appearance of magical abominations among the children as Doug's
teachings had, he knew that it was also a direct message to him
-- that they were *always* watching and judging him.

Damn them.

A commotion at the Muggle-side door of the Cauldron dragged his
attention away from his firewhiskey, and his scowl deepened. It
was one of the abominations, Lavender Brown, in robes of the
brown and saffron which had been her signature colors since her
fifth year. With her were several of her pack, impeccably
dressed, as always, in the height of fashion. And... Albus
squinted and peered. Four young women accompanied her, wearing
outfits that were neither recognizably Muggle nor Wizarding...
and one looked to be almost a twin to Brown, right down to
wearing the same colors.

Was one of her hands *gold*? How odd.

From Brown's gestures and what little he could overhear at this
distance, it was clear they were strangers to the Cauldron and
Diagon Alley, and she was playing tour guide.

Albus shook his head and ignored them. Brown practically ruled
British werewolves these days, and under her influence they had
prospered even as "unfortunate incidents" dwindled away. It was
perhaps emblematic of his fall and the rise of the D.A.'s power
in Britain that when Brown had turned her eyes toward improving
the lot of her followers, abundant supplies of wolfsbane potion
had suddenly appeared, and new werewolf legislation more liberal
and comprehensive than any he had ever hoped to see had sailed
through the Wizengamot with appalling ease.

Her casual dismissal of his offer to advise her on that
legislation only underlined the degree to which his influence
had declined. Albus took another swig and reflected on how he'd
become an artifact of the "Bad Old Days", an unwanted fossil.
Even most of the Weasleys, who had always been his staunchest
supporters, now thought of him as an out-of-touch antique,
although they were too polite to say so to his face.

And the "why" of that all came back to Douglas -- Douglas and his
philosophy of overwhelming victory on the battlefield and off.
Under his tutelage the members of the Defense Association had
accepted and embraced his maxim, "Never leave an enemy behind to
attack you again". Far too many had seen the aftermath of
Voldemort's first campaign, erroneously concluded that nothing
had changed and sought to strike out at those who had followed
Tom even after they had been given a chance at redemption -- a
chance that those like young Severus had eagerly grasped.

Albus scowled into his firewhiskey. If there was anything he
hated Douglas for most, it was the murder of Severus Snape. (He
barely wrestled down the automatic urge to add "the Betrayer and
Oathbreaker" to the name, even in his private thoughts.) With
his death Albus had lost the greatest demonstration that his
approach had been the only correct way, that forgiveness could
trump hate. Instead, the Ministry and Wizarding society as a
whole now returned violence with violence, evil with evil,
depriving those who had foolishly embraced the Dark of the chance
to repent and turn back to the Light. Instead the massacre of
Tom and his followers had become a *model* for the Ministry's
future dealings with those who would overthrow it.

It didn't matter that Britain had enjoyed nearly twenty years of
unheard-of peace and prosperity because of it, that the economy
and population were both booming, and that two would-be Dark
Lords (poor, deluded Draco, Albus briefly mourned) and their
followers had been cut down almost as soon as they'd risen. The
stain on the nation's very soul would prove even more corrupting
than Voldemort's influence ever had. Albus *knew* it was only a
matter of time.

He just hoped he would live to see the day that it happened, when
Wizarding Britain would come crawling back to him to save them.
It was that hope, not some "curse of life" those gods had claimed
to have laid upon him, that had kept him going all these years.

In the meantime, the darkness had grown endemic. The resurrected
Myrtle Warren (he refused to acknowledge the hyphenated
"-Sangnoir" she preferred) had finally, after a half-century
hiatus, graduated with honors and gone on to become the first
certified Ministry necromancer in nearly a century, undoing all
Albus' efforts to bury that irretrievably Dark magic once and for
all. And Pansy Parkinson -- Harper, he corrected himself -- now
headed a cult of Darkness. Oh, they didn't call it that, but
there were hundreds of wizards and witches who had been deceived
by her claim that Darkness itself was Neutral and sought to
balance the evil done in its name, while extolling the concept of
"good" Darkness with talk of warm summer nights, the womb and
other nonsense.

Pansy had grown *dangerously* clever, he noted, and not for the
first time. Considering her sweet, endearing dimness as a child,
Albus suspected she had been possessed by some dark entity during
her fifth year, possibly even at Douglas' behest, and what had
posed as her since then was actually some manner of supernatural
evil in disguise. He shook his head. If only she had accepted
her proper destiny as Draco's loving wife -- both of them might
have been saved.

And he still had no idea what Hannah Abbott had become, except
terrifying and profoundly *dangerous*.

Fortunately not every student had been corrupted by Douglas'
influence. Percy Weasley had become an invaluable ally over the
years, replacing his father as Albus' loyal man in the Ministry.
Percy was in total agreement with him that the abominations were
a threat to traditional Wizarding culture, and had dutifully
proposed law after law restricting them and the magics that they
practiced. Sadly, none had ever made it past committee; like
Albus himself, young Percy had found himself in the minority as
the new generation swept into power.

Albus took another sip of his firewhiskey. A shame, that. A
good, pliable boy, Percy had been one of Albus' choices for a
future Minister, too, but like his father before him he'd been
sidelined into a dead-end post in the Ministry because of his
politics. Such a pity he'd never reconciled with his family,
either.

Lavender Brown, her retinue and her guests had now left the
Cauldron's tap room, but in their wake a wisp of conversation
drifted back behind them, with a single recognizable word:
"firstborn". Albus scowled. Yet another perversion of the
proper order of things. The Muggleborn were supposed to keenly
desire assimilation into the greater Wizarding population, not
rejoice in their origins. That was the prime reason he'd seen to
it that no Hogwarts student had been truly punished for using the
term "mudblood" -- the sooner a Muggleborn or half-blood child
learned that their origins did them no favors, the sooner they
would become truly Wizarding. It was only logical, and had
worked so well with so many. Of course, some -- like Dolores
Umbridge -- went a bit too far, but that was the risk one took
when working to sculpt an entire society. It was another
pollution of Wizarding culture that Albus was sure he could lay
at Douglas' feet.

Resource - Character Analysis Podcast

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 19:31:15 -0500

Bob,

I thought to recommend this podcast as a source of research for this step. The hosts analyze the characters based on their actions in the books. Considering all the headcanons running around this could serve as a check for their characterizations at the point you are in the story.

https://www.realweirdsisters.com/

Just saw this on Quora, and immediately thought of Doug

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 14:47:25 -0500

Like the title says..
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d...43ad4e6-lq

teal deer version, it's a bunch of hypothetical reactions of muggleborn (or half-bloods) coming to Hogwarts from the non-wizarding world.

(On a side note, I'm guessing that Doug is never going to end up in the World of Darkness and bump into the Technocracy? Because it seems the missing element in the GUT he describes is that he treats magic and science/technology as different things, rather than the latter being just being another 'tradition' of the former... See Clarke's Law, the corollary, and the Florence Ambrose commentary....)

Edit: Gah, thought it was one picture with the whole thing, not just one portion. What I wanted was in https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-...-have-seen
third one down (as of this posting), by Finch Darcy.

Edit2: Or maybe better, first entry in https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-stra...re-popular

Electricity vs Magic?

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 15:59:52 -0500

StackExchange: How can electricity not work at Hogwarts?

The question was asked because nerves and brains use electricity.

The best answers look at the source material and point out that it isn't electricity that doesn't work, it's mundane applications of electricity that "all go haywire around Hogwarts, there’s too much magic in the air" (Hermione, in Goblet of Fire).

So... I assume (and seem to recall a statement from Bob) that Doug's helmet is protected against EM interference. That should provide protection against magical-field interference, too.

Or am I way off-base here?

A flash of silliness

Sat, 06 Mar 2021 15:20:34 -0500

This got stuck in my mind somehow. Maybe posting it will exorcise the silly thing.

"Douglas, do *not* ask me to wax poetical. My talents in that direction are akin to those of my namesake."

I just had a flash of inspiration...

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 19:51:23 -0500

... for a scene at the Ministry Battle at the end of DW8 that I simply can't write -- because it won't let anyone else have any fun, and that's not how I'm rolling in this story. It goes something like this:

Doug walks into an atrium filled with all the Death Eaters, grins, and says, "System. 'Bad Apple'. Play." Fast cut to the ministry janitorial staff cleaning up the resulting mess.

(I suspect I don't have to footnote that for anyone here, but just in case I'm wrong, see here for an idea what would happen. )

Plot hole in canon?

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 14:18:59 -0500

Well, yeah - plot holes accumulate when a series is plotted out one book at a time, and it doesn't matter which series we're talking about.

Quoting from entry #5 in this list of plot holes:

cracked.com Wrote:We're picking on Harry Potter especially for this because after they use the time machine that one time, that was it. For the rest of the saga, the entire wizarding world is under siege from a magical Hitler, and they never again find the time travel useful? Despite all the people who die in the Harry Potter series (and post Azkaban, they start killing them off like it's a Friday the 13th movie) he never goes back and saves any of them?

Selfish prick.

I assume the easiest way to address this particular plot hole - "Why not simply use the Time Turner to assemble an army of Harrys, Dougs, etc. and take down Mouldyshorts once and for all?" is to paper over it - make sure Doug never finds out about the existence of time travel in the setting. But it might be fun to come up with a reason not to use it... or a reason to use it, and have it go wrong... or go horribly right.

("Mouldyshorts" is from the Sluggy Freelance parody of HP, BTW. It comes to mind because it's a setting where the Time Turner is used to short-circuit the entire plot.)

Build Your Own Weasley Clock

Tue, 19 May 2020 12:16:54 -0500

Instructions and software to build your own location clock. Even the "Mortal Peril" section works, thanks to Clarkean magic.

Yet another teaser from Chapter 5

Thu, 02 Jan 2020 14:06:01 -0500

Sunday, October 6, 1995, 7:49 AM. The Great Hall.

Albus paused in eating his breakfast, a forkful of egg midway
between his plate and mouth, as a set of familiar robes appeared
on the other side of the staff table from his seat.

"Yes, Douglas?" he said mildly. "Can I help you?"

Douglas leaned down to bring his face closer to Albus'. It did
not bear its usual cheerful, indeed mischievous, smile, and a
certain foreboding seized the Headmaster's heart. "Albus," he
said in low and quietly angry tones, "you have the ghost of a
*murdered child* bound for eternity to a moldy, broken bathroom,
and everyone I've spoken to in this castle not only knows about
it but treats her as a minor *inconvenience*!" He leaned in
closer and snarled, "What is *wrong* with you people?"

Albus closed his eyes and suppressed a sigh.

Another teaser from Chapter 5

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 07:47:18 -0500

Actually, this is more of a twofer... Enjoy.

As soon as I could politely do so, I had finished my dinner and
left the Great Hall for the Mansion. The Lovely Lady Innsmouth
had seen fit to sit in on my class the the last period of the day
(seventh-year Ravenclaws) and had spent much of it, clipboard in
hand, interrogating me.

Now, not only do I have considerable experience fencing verbally
with bureaucrats, I'm smarter than the average bear. Tying her
in mental knots was both easy for me and entertaining for my
class, but it did little to relieve the anger I felt at her
blatant bigotry and sickeningly-sweet but insulting insinuations.
I'm not an egotist (I'm *not* -- stop laughing) but even though I
made a literally metahuman effort to maintain my cool simply to
spite her, I was still was *furious* about the self-righteous
malice the bitch dripped from every pore.

Fortunately I took dinner early enough that I avoided her at the
staff table, but as soon as I could scarf down my dessert, I bade
my coworkers good night and ran all the way up to the eighth
floor with my helmet in hand. As soon as the Mansion door
manifested, I slammed it open, blew past Summerfield, and threw
myself into the Danger Room, bellowing for the computer to start
the Million-Mook March right fucking *now*.

An hour later, the endless slaughter had done little to soothe my
anger, and I ended the simulation before I could get caught up in
another wave of suicidal crunchies. I needed something different
to calm me. I needed something *constructive* instead of
destructive.

I stood there in the chill, empty Room, staring blankly at its
dimpled white walls, panting from the effort of the last few
minutes of the sim, while I wracked my brains for something,
anything, that might help.

And then it came to me.

"Computer. Give me Hef's shop."

The real Mansion's Danger Room would have no idea what I was
asking for, even after downloading the records in my helmet, but
I was counting on whatever magical mechanism was behind the Come
and Go Room to know or figure out what to give me the same way
it had known how to provide the Mansion.

I wasn't disappointed.

A familiar shop, one I had spent many weeks in, swirled into
existence around me. Concrete walls with open glass windows, a
floor of packed sand, and at one end a pair of double doors
almost like the doors of a barn. One of these hung half-open,
wide enough to let in a cooling breeze and reveal bright summer
sunlight and an open yard in which a rusting pick-up was parked.
Here inside, though, it was warm, almost uncomfortably so, thanks
to the gas-fired forge, its interior already up to temperature
and glowing red, that stood in the center of the shop.

Surrounding and between it and me were bins of metal stock, racks
of tools, barrels of water and oil, an assortment of anvils in
all sizes, and a power hammer just the right size for one or two
people to use. I took a deep breath through my nose and savored
the scent of hot metal and oil and, incongruously as always,
burning coal.

It brought me right back, and I immediately felt calmer.

Walking through the shop, I collected up a pair of tongs, a thin
bar of one grade of steel stock and a much larger ingot of a
certain different grade of steel. I stacked the bar on the
ingot, then slid them into the forge. As I waited for the steel
to glow cherry-red, I thought back to the last time I had been in
this building.

I'd met Tom Hefner a couple of worlds earlier at a ren faire and
SCA event in southern California. It'd been late summer of that
world's 1997. My adopted daughter Utena and I had gone
specifically to look for a swordsmith, and Tom'd had a booth of
his wares set up near the ring where they'd been holding their
mock combats. A former quarterback sidelined by an injury that'd
left him with a permanent limp, Hef was a mechanic by trade but
made knives and swords on the side; he turned out some absolutely
beautiful -- and *functional* -- blades, about which he was
justifiably arrogant. When Utena expressed an interest in one,
he pretty much dismissed her with words to the effect of "move
on, little girl, and stick with your dolls."

Well. You just *don't* say stuff like that to Utena. Long story
short, we broke one of his blades (not to mention Buckaroo's
katana) while proving she could use and was worthy of owning a
sword. This impressed Hef no end, and we ended up involved in
the process of custom forging one for her.

I'd already acquired a minor interest in smithing from long hours
watching Skuld at work even more worlds before that, and having
had Buckaroo's katana shattered in our no-holds-barred Rose Duel
over, around, through and above the faire's arena, I decided that
this would be the time to learn how to do it myself -- by
reforging his blade.

In the end, both Utena and I learned swordsmithing from him, as
well as general blacksmithery. With her help and Hef's
instruction I had repaired Buckaroo's katana. And as is typical
for anything on which I do work with my hands, it ended up
accidentally enchanted -- at least, that's the only explanation I
have for why it now gives off the scent of roses when I draw it.

And all three of us worked on Utena's sword, which proved it was
more than up to the task for which it had been made not long
afterward.

The night we completed the blade which she and I had dubbed
"Calyx" was the last night we saw Hef and his shop.

In any case, I had come to find smithing was very relaxing, and
I realized it was exactly that kind of relaxation I was needing
after having Dolores Umbridge in my face all afternoon. So as
the ingot heated up, I took off my robes and shirt, selected my
tools, and visualized what I wanted to make -- nothing fancy,
just a simple serviceable broadsword.

I rummaged around in one of the many cabinets and pulled out a
plastic deli container labeled "borax" in black indelible ink.
From a nearby rack I grabbed a scoop for the flux and, after a
moment's thought, a different hammer from the one I'd initially
decided upon. There was also the power hammer, which would make
the job faster and easier, but I wanted to do this manually, to
feel the work deep in my muscles.

I put the hammer and scoop down on a small table next to the
largest anvil, then opened the container of borax and set it down
next to them. I stepped back over to the gas forge, took up the
tongs, and using them withdrew the now-incandescent slug of
steel. With quick but deliberate steps I carried it over to the
anvil. I laid the glowing steel down on the top of the anvil,
held still by the tongs in my left hand as I took up the hammer
in my right.

And then I began pounding.

In between repeated trips to the forge to reheat the ingot, I
slowly stretched it out and folded it over, sprinkling flux on it
with each fold to better weld the alternating layers of different
steels together. The repetition of the pounding and folding was
almost hypnotic, and I lost myself in it as the two pieces of
steel became one, and slowly lengthened, thinned, and narrowed
until it had begun to look less like a block of raw steel and
more like the sword it was intended to be. It was nowhere near
done -- it normally would take me at least two or three days of
hammering by hand to shape the blank properly, a lot less if I
used the power hammer -- but it had served its purpose in the
hour or so that I'd been working it. My fury at Umbridge was
expended, transformed into constructive effort.

I studied the results of my hammering and decided I liked what I
saw. I stored the cooling blank in the rack reserved for blades
in progress, and turned back to clean up my workspace.

"That was very pleasant to watch," a dreamy voice suddenly said,
and I started. Glancing around the shop, I finally spotted Luna
Lovegood perched on an anvil in one of the more shadowy corners
of the shop. "I do believe I enjoy watching sweaty men without
shirts."

I snorted at her bluntness as I wiped the sweat off with a towel
that hadn't been draped over the anvil a moment before. "Good
evening, Luna." I dropped the towel back on the anvil, and it
disappeared as I reached for my shirt.

"Good evening, Colonel Sangnoir." I raised an eyebrow at her
choice of address as she hopped off her perch and stepped into
the well-lit center of the shop. "You were very focused on your
work," she continued, "and I chose not to disturb you."

I waved off her concern, then finished buttoning my shirt. "That
wouldn't've been a problem."

She regarded me for a moment. "If you say so. I was speaking to
Kat earlier," she continued on without any warning, "and she told
me your full code name. Are you the one the Sorting Hat sang
about?"

I thought back to the moment when the Hat had mentioned "The
Music of the Madness". I grimaced, and after a moment I
muttered, "Yeah, I think so."

Luna nodded slowly as I put the lid back on the tub of borax and
put it back in its cabinet. "I thought you might be. My father
sent me an owl today."

She was going to snap my neck with these sudden topic changes.
"Oh?"

"Yes. He says he's free to speak with you tomorrow or next
Saturday."

I nodded to myself as I put the hammer and tongs back in the
racks where they belonged. Tomorrow was no good -- it was a
Hogsmeade weekend, and I was one of the chaperons. I couldn't
ditch that for the hour or so it would take to talk to Mr.
Lovegood. "I think it'll have to be next Saturday. Please ask
him if noon at the Three Broomsticks will work for him."

She nodded. "I'm sure it will be."

"Thank you, Luna."

"You're very welcome, Colonel," she replied, smiling brilliantly.

Hogwarts model with interiors made of Lego

Thu, 26 Sep 2019 16:18:30 -0500

Video showing a model of Hogwarts with interiors made out of LEGO blocks.

A little crowdsourcing

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 15:36:52 -0500

I'm already using "À Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)" by Megadeth... but what other songs might be worth trying to snap the leash holding Moaning Myrtle to her bathroom?