Drop The Teabags

Next Gen’s New Year’s Resolutions

Teddy: find a place near Uncle Harry’s, because he spoils him

Victoire: binge watch all the Disney movies in one night ( “That’s impossible, Vic.” “Go die in a hole, Scorpius.” )

Dominique: disarm Aunt Hermione in the family duels

Louis: eat an entire pizza in 3 minutes ( “Does the Weasley-Delacour family have any realistic resolutions?” “SHUT UP, SCORPIUS, I’M GONNA DO IT!” )

Molly: get better grades

Lucy: learn how to speak Punjabi with Molly and mum to hide stuff from her dad

Fred: drink nine bottles of firewhisky and not pass out ( “Fred, you’re not even of age.” “WATCH ME.” )

Roxanne: go viral on YouTube with a video of her “miraculously moving things with her mind” ( “Against the law, Roxy.” )

Rose: get better grades, become a prefect, learn how to speak Gobbledook, defeat at least two of Hogwarts’ Quidditch records, write an award-winning book, skip a few grades, beat Uncle Harry out of his Head Auror placement, singlehandedly join the wizarding and Muggle cultures together… ( “Dammit, Rose…” “I’m gonna do it, Scorpius. Watch your mouth, you’re gonna wanna stay on my good side.” )

Hugo: make the Quidditch team

James: get good enough grades to get into Auror training ( maybe even find out what his sexuality is ffs )

Albus: spend more time with his boyfriend ( “That’s sweet, Al.” “Also, learn how to make you less grumpy all the time.” “I’M NOT GRUMPY!” “Of course, Scorp.” )

Lily: jump while simultaneously doing a handstand on a broomstick. while it’s in the air.

Scorpius: find a new boyfriend (this one’s family is exhausting)

okay, well not that.

he really likes his.

crazy, unnecessarily large family and all.

They forgot that we are Women

They called her a know-it-all. They told her that she was annoying and would never have any friends. They told her she was a mudblood, not worthy to flourish a wand or brew a potion or stand beside the ones they called purebloods. They told her she couldn’t. They forgot that she was persistence, she was strength, that the most important things were friendship and bravery. They forgot that she was Hermione Granger.

They called her crazy. They told her that she would never be anything more than the loony girl who read the quibbler, that crumple-horned snorcacks and nargles were fairytales her father told her to help her get to sleep. They told her that she would never fit in. They forgot that she didn’t want to fit in, that she was secret wisdom and serenity, that they were just as sane as she was. They forgot that she was Luna Lovegood.

They called her small. They told her that she was overshadowed by her brothers, that she was a slut who dated too many boys and who loved the Boy Who Lived because he brought her recognition. They forgot that she didn’t need a boy to bring her recognition, that quidditch and power and rebellion and the bat-bogey hex flowed in her veins. They forgot that anything was possible if you’ve got enough nerve. They forgot that she was Ginny Weasley.

They called her needy. They told her she was clingy and useless and that she needed a boy to define her. They forgot that she truly loved him, she just didn’t know how to show it. They forgot that even though she was afraid, she fought and died for her friends. They forgot that she was Lavender Brown.

They called her self-absorbed. They tpld her she had no right to be in Gryffindor, that she was a sucker for attention from professors like Trelawney, that Harry Potter had only taken her to the Yule Ball because he had no one else to take. They forgot that she was intelligence and small doses of courage and a true friend. They forgot that she was the prettiest girl in her year. They forgot that she was Parvati Patil.

They called her shallow. They told  her that she was gorgeous only on the outside, that she was stuck-up and patronizing. They forgot that she would die for the ones she loved, that looks meant nothing to her, that she was as much a fairy princess as they were. They forgot that she was Fleur Delacour.

They called her weak. They told her to get over her tears, that she would be happy again if she only tried, that she wouldn’t survive a storm. They forgot that she was the storm, that she was hidden strength, that her fury was as strong as her sorrow. They forgot that even if they had the emotional range of a teaspoon, she didn’t. They forgot that she was Cho Chang.

They called us many names

but they forgot that we are W O M E N

Sense? Is that what they call undying love these days?

New Master List Organisation

Thanks to Tumblr essentially looking at my list of fics and saying “ahaha no way, get a hobby u spammer”, I have spent several hours reorganising my master list between bouts of crying and wondering why I spend so much time on something I don’t get paid for. 

For those of you that can access my blog proper, you will now see three tabs at the top, where my ficlets are organised. Below are the quick links and little summaries:

Canon and Post-Canon 

Usually Harry centric, but other POVs too, these ficlets are set at any time between Harry living with the Dursleys up to the birth of James. Head to this tab if you want some canon-compliant, usually Harry centric character exploration. This is where the most stuff is. 

Next Gen 

From the birth of James onwards, this is where to go if you want more stuff on Teddy and Vic, James causing havoc and raising his father’s blood pressure, Hugo being awkward, some Scorbus softness, Lily being sweet but deadly, etc. 

Marauders

Are you too happy? Do you want to read something fluffy and sweet and then suddenly realise at the end that oh my god they’re all dead and Harry will never know about just how loved he was or how hilarious his parents were? Click on this tab for sweetness so bitter you won’t know how to feel. 

As usual, this all comes with the caveat that none of these lists can open in the tumblr app, which annoys me as much as it annoys you. For some mobile devices, there is a way around it to open it in a browser, but for the rest of us it’s laptop only, I’m afraid. Also apparently Tumblr can just strip out ALL OF YOUR LINKS at any time, so, uh, save your favourites, I guess? 

If you spot any missing or broken please send me a personal message with the link NOT an ask about it.

Happy reading. 

Regarding the Amazon Rainforest

I barely have followers here, but here we go:

The Amazon Rainforest has been burning for the last 16 days straight. The Brazilian government says the wildfire is caused by the winter itself, since it doesn't rain a lot there... in a rainforest. It is actually, partially true. Winter is indeed a dry season and wildfires may happen, specially close to the Cerrado (a brazilian biome similar to the african Savanna), but what they're not telling us is that:

The deforestation has increased 80% since last year

The native peoples and animals are being slaughtered for their lands (legally protected green areas)

The government is hiding and lying about scientific data, saying that environmentalists and NGOs are communists trying to destroy the nation. They are brainwashing people to think that sustainability is terrible for the economy

Our Minister of Environment is couldn't care less about the environment and is only there to support the livestock producers and give them what they want. The President and his Minister won't put a single dollar on environmental safety

The wildfires are just so huge that its black smoke and ashes reached the skies of São Paulo, a state over 2.000 kilometers away from the Amazon.

We are hostages or our own government

I could just keep going all night about how our environment is being threatened by this new government. We need every single help we can possibly can.

Please don't let this go unseen. Search for yourself, talk to people about it, make noise, be angry and be scared. Let the world know about it and demand action. This is not about Brazil, is about the planet. The Amazon Rainforest is one of the most important biomes in the world, being responsible for the climate, rains, biodiversity, carbon sequestration and life itself.

The Train

The last train out of Newcastle was almost empty. It rattled across the large bridges over the black water of the Tyne, and for the most part was quiet, just one or two people per carriage, snoozing in their seats or tapping away on laptops, ignoring the ping of the intercom and the Geordie-accented voice announcing the stops.

The exception to this was the very last carriage, where a large family was making a lot of noise indeed. Dressed head to toe in green and draped in scarves and flags and badges with words like 'Harpies rangers!' and 'These witches have talons!', they stretched across two table seats and the aisles behind too, the tables themselves laden with drinks and tubs of food bought last minute from the M&S in the station.

'-And then I can't believe you just openly told me it's rude to stare!' Albus was bursting out furiously at his father. The rest of the family was roaring with laughter, and Al was occasionally laughing too, though his face was as red as his mother's hair.

'It is rude to stare!' Harry replied, holding out his hands helplessly.

'I wasn't staring!'

'You WERE!' several people shouted back at him, pink faced with laughter.

Scorpius adopted a vacant, dreamy sort of expression, staring into the middle distance. 'H...ello,' he croaked, which only made the rest of the family laugh even more. Teddy's stomach ached from it, and he could see Lily wiping tears from her eyes.

'I didn't say it like that!'

'You DID!'

'I said it normally! A normal hello!'

'You absolutely did not, and you stared for so long - I have never seen you look more like your mother,' said Harry. 'I was transported back to my first visit to the Burrow.'

'Oh!' said Ginny, with mock crossness, and she leaned over the table to place a protective hand on her son's shoulder. 'Ignore them, Al, they don't know what it's like to meet your heroes-'

Albus rested his forehead on the table, between the tub of flapjacks and bottles of butterbeer, his shoulders shaking in despairing laughter. 'Mum, it's your fault, springing that on me... Can't believe I just stared at him... Why didn't you warn me he was their coach?'

'I thought it would be a nice surprise!' said Ginny. 'I thought you'd always wanted to meet Gonçalo Flores!'

'He did,' said Scorpius, 'but I bet he always imagined he'd be very suave and witty, not just... "H...ello...", didn't you, Al?'

'I hate you all, I hate Quidditch, I hate Gonçalo Flores-'

'No, you don't.'

'No, I don't,' admitted Albus, still hilariously red in the face. 'He was so nice about it... just makes it worse...'

'Al,' said James above the family's laughter. He was grinning evilly. 'Is he on your list, Al?'

'Oh my God, shut up-'

'He is!' said James gleefully, as amused 'ooh's' filled the carriage and Scorpius nodded enthusiastically, looking positively elated. 'He is on your list!'

'You know, I was worried for about half a second when I saw him,' said Scorpius. 'But fair's fair, you gave it your best shot, Al, I'm happy for him to stay on the list.'

'What list?' asked Harry, frowning. 'I don't get it.'

'Oh, sweetheart, you're so innocent,' said Ginny sympathetically, leaning back to squeeze Harry's knee. 'You're probably on loads of lists.'

'What lists?' he asked, apparently entirely flummoxed. 'What for?'

'No one tell him,' said Teddy quickly. 'No one explain.'

'Is it a list of people to kill? If someone's on your list you want to kill them?'

'Oh my God, Dad, get more mind healing,' said Lily, which made Ted snort with laughter.

'Al definitely doesn't want to kill Gonçalo Flores...' said James, with a grin that looked eerily like Uncle George.

'Stop it; I don't want to discuss this with my parents-' hissed Al.

'Who else is on your list?' asked Ginny. She looked at Scorpius. 'Who else is on it?'

'Well...'

‘You know who’s on mine?’ said Rowan, who seemed drunker than Ted had ever seen him, ‘Cerys Twycross. That actress from that play we saw last year.’

Lily snorted. ‘In your dreams, love.’

‘Well, yes, precisely,’ said Rowan, which earned him a shriek of laughter from Ginny.

‘You know what,’ said Scorpius, with a brief smirk at Lily. ‘I could arrange that for you. I know a guy who knows her.’

‘Shut up!’ said Lily, sitting up so fast in her seat that the pack of crisps in her lap went flying. ‘You don’t, you’re winding me up, you’re as bad as James sometimes.’

‘Tell me more,’ said Rowan, leaning forward.

‘Yeah, good luck, Ro…’

'Hazel,' said Harry, leaning across the aisle.

'No,' she said at once, shaking her head frantically. The others laughed.

'What does it mean?' he asked. 'You'll tell me.'

'Don't tell him, Haze!'

'I - ask your son-' she babbled.

'Tell me, I'm your boss-'

'Not any more...'

'I'm good friends with your boss, come on-'

'Hazel, don-'

'It's a list of people you're allowed to sleep with,' she blurted out, and then her cheeks flushed pink too.

'Ahh,' said Harry, leaning back. He turned to Ginny with a grin that Teddy did not like at all. 'Like our agreement about Madeleine Marlborough?'

'I beg your pardon?' spluttered James, as Al and Lily both howled in revulsion and the others burst into renewed laughter.

'The Australian singer.'

'Yes, I know who she is, I wish I didn't.'

'Horrible,' Teddy said. 'She's my age. You're both horrible. Who - no I don't want to know.'

'It's not serious,' Harry assured them.

'Excuse me, speak for yourself,' said Ginny.

'Stop!' pleaded Albus, burying his face in his hands. 'The pair of you... I am about to leap off this train.'

'This is terrible,' James agreed. 'This is... deeply traumatising.'

'It's all right for you,' said Ted. 'You'll forget it in about five minutes.'

'Well, that's five minutes too long.'

'You all need to toughen up,' said Harry with a shrug. 'Scorpius, Rowan and Hazel don't mind.' Indeed, they were all spluttering with laughter, Hazel and Rowan exchanging shocked but amused glances.

'They're not related to you!'

'And anyway, sadly I can't imagine we'll ever meet her, our concert days are over and I don’t think we run in the same circles.'

'I think this whole experience demonstrates that just because someone is on your list, doesn't mean that you'll actually enjoy meeting them,' said Albus flatly.

'Oh, Ally, you poor thing, no wonder you were so star-struck,' said Ginny. 'You should have told me he was on your list-'

'GOD-!'

'Back in the day, when-'

'Yes - we know - you met Dad and you couldn't speak in front of him, but you were a little girl, I'm a fully grown man-'

'So's Gonçalo Flores,' said Scorpius, with an exaggerated wink.

Albus screamed into the tub of brownie bites.

The shrieks of laughter and jeers continued as the train snaked through the darkness, swaying slightly as it turned corners. Teddy liked travelling this way; they had known that several of them would be too drunk to apparate after the match, and the Knight Bus and Portkey points would likely be too full of journalists and people staring to be worth it. But Teddy liked the slowness of muggle transport, he liked the conversations that arose from lack of anything else to do, the way that they were cramped in together. He blew across the top of his butterbeer bottle to make the funny hooting noise before remembering his young daughters were not there with him, but at home with Vic, but Lily laughed and seemed to appreciate it anyway.

'If I get an emptier one,' she said, 'and someone else gets another - we should try and make the theme tune to the Bowmans.'

'Ooh, yes, let me help,' said Ginny, seizing a bottle. 'Hazel, you take this one - if we get good enough, we can save some money on the wedding band.'

'Did we book a band?' James blurted out suddenly, and he seized his notebook and began rifling through the pages. 'Did we-?'

'Yes,' said Hazel soothingly. 'It's all arranged.'

'Which one, I don't remember-'

'It's all right,' said Harry patiently, for James was starting to look a little frantic. 'No one expects you to remember everything involved in planning a wedding.'

'OK, I've found it - I wrote here that I booked them - but I don't remember doing it-'

Teddy exchanged a dark glance with Ginny, who picked up a tub of caramelized peanuts and shook them at James in offering. ‘That’s what you write things down for, isn’t it? Grab a handful of these before they’re all gone, I can’t stop picking at them.’

He must have known he was being distracted, for he gave her an irritable sort of look, but he did take a handful and returned to looking through his notebook in a much calmer sort of way.

‘Is your list in there?’ Ted asked, nodding at the full pages. ‘So you don’t forget?’

James’s brown eyes flicked up at him a narrowed slightly. ‘No,’ he said firmly.

‘You said that pretty quickly,’ said Al.

‘Almost too quickly.’

‘I don’t have a list,’ said James. ‘I’m not a pervert like the rest of you.’

‘Everyone’s got a list, Jim,’ said Scorpius. ‘Even if they don’t realise.’

‘Your father and I aren’t perverts!’ exclaimed Ginny.

‘You are, and I won’t hear any more about it-’

‘Hazel -’ began Harry, ‘obviously you both have lists, don’t you? I’m your boss-’

‘I am absolutely not talking to you about it,’ said Hazel.

There was a great, rhythmic ‘ooh’ from the amused family, and James grinned broadly at her, but Harry was also grinning, unfazed and unoffended. ‘So there is a list, then?’

There was another round of whooping, howling laughter, Rowan clapping his hands in delight. ‘He’s got you there!’

Hazel was laughing, her head in her hands, but James, still amused, was leaping to her defence. ‘Don’t twist her words - thank God you’re not an auror now, that wouldn’t hold up in court, would it? Don’t-’

‘He’s so defensive - I bet it’s because their lists are filthy!’ insisted Al.

‘Absolutely not, there’s no list!’

The train began to rattle and sway even more, slipping between towering concrete covered in graffiti. The tannoy chimed and the Geordie accent from before announced that they would soon be arriving into Kings Cross.

‘Excellent,’ said Harry happily, although Teddy felt oddly glum that their journey had come to an end.

They staggered off the train together into the almost empty station, still bedecked in green, still laughing and shouting loudly at one another, their voices echoing off the grubby white tiles. Harry, though Lily had not permitted him to drink much at all, threw open his arms and looked up at the great glass ceiling as he walked. ‘Isn’t it good to be back here, kids?’ he called loudly. Then he span and pointed at Teddy. ‘A few more years and you’ll be here every September again too!’

Ted grinned at him, though the prospect of Dora and Celeste starting school mildly terrified him. He kept walking, and as he reached Harry, his godfather slung his arm around his shoulders. ‘Watch out,’ he told Ted, ‘it goes by in a flash.’

‘Already is.’

‘Bring the girls next time, it was lovely having everyone together. They’d love it - you know it’s no problem getting tickets.’

‘I told you - it’s well past their bed time.’

‘Ah, who cares - the odd late night never hurt anyone.’

‘Easy to say when you don’t have to deal with them the next day!’ said Ted, laughing.

The ticket gates were wide open; the family walked through without reaching into their pockets for the little orange cards. ‘Right,’ Ginny was saying briskly, ‘who’s coming to Ron and Hermione’s with us? Al and Scorpius - are you still going with Ted to Grimmauld Place? Or - no, Lily, was that you two?’

But Lily was ignoring her, pulling urgently on Rowan’s hand and gesturing frantically at the others. ‘Hurry - the night tube isn’t running tonight!’

‘Ah, we’ll get a cab-’

‘Thank you,’ said Harry’s voice, much quieter now. Ted stopped watching the rest of the family chaotically argue over getting the tube or taxis, and looked at Harry. He was watching his son and Hazel; James was pointing at the barrier between platform’s nine and ten, recounting some story. ‘For joking about it all with him, for keeping it light.’

‘Of course,’ said Ted. ‘Wasn’t that what we all agreed?’

‘Yes, but I know it isn’t easy, but you always find the right words.’

‘Sort of my job,’ mumbled Ted awkwardly. ‘He seems to be doing so much better though, so it is getting easier, isn’t it?’

‘It is. It’ll be a good wedding.’

‘TED!’ Lily bellowed. ‘Come ON! We’re going back to yours!’

‘Chill out!’ he shouted back to her, and then looked once more at Harry with great exasperation. ‘What’s she like?’

Harry smiled, though it seemed slightly strained. ‘I mean it. Thank you.’

‘You don’t need to thank me for looking after my brother.’

Harry hugged him, one hand gripping at the silky Harpies flag draped round Ted’s shoulders, the other at the back of his head in his emerald green hair. ‘Good luck with writing the speech,’ he said. ‘Send my love to Vic and the girls.’

‘Will do. See you Sunday.’

They broke apart. ‘Jim! Hazel!’ Harry called across the wide expanse of the station. ‘Let’s go, if we’re too late back Hermione’ll tell us off.’

Beneath the great glass ceiling of Kings Cross, the family hugged, and made their hasty, happy farewells.

Walburga: Fortunately, the Black women age gracefully

Sirius: Well you've always been a rebel

Challenge accepted

Why every single emotion and outburst Harry James Potter had during Order Of The Phoenix was justified: A 400 page essay by me