#Both Scotland and England might have had a small problem with that

[scotianostra]

On April 14th 1578 James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell , Earl of Orkney and third husband of Mary Queen of Scots died, aged 44, tied to a post in a dungeon at, Denmark.

As I posted on Friday Bothwell fled Scotland after the surrender at Carberry Hill, Queen Mary’s last act of love for him was guaranteeing he could leave the area unharmed.

Bothwell took ship from Aberdeen to Shetland, he may have stopped off in Orkney, the only thing we know is he was denied refuge there and travelled on to Shetland.

He was pursued by Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange and William Murray of Tullibardine who it seems were not that far behind him. They sailed into Bressay Sound near Lerwick. Four of Bothwell’s ships in the Sound set sail north to Unst where Hepburn and his cousin, the pirate, Olaf Sinclair were negotiating with German captains to hire more ships. Kirkcaldy’s flagship The Lion, chased one of Bothwell’s ships, and both ships were damaged on a submerged rock.

Bothwell sent his treasure ship to Scalloway and fought a three-hour-long sea battle off the Port of Unst where the mast of one of his ships was shot away. During the chase a storm erupted and Bothwell’s superior seamanship to come to his rescue. After transferring his men to his two remaining ships, he sailed south-east before the wind, making the 250-mile crossing in record time Although Kirkcaldy followed for sixty miles, he was out-sailed and, by his own admission, was ‘no good seaman’.

He might have thought he was off the hook again, but no, Frederick II was not sympathetic to his cause, he was at war, and was torn between his blood ties to Mary Queen of Scots and the need to show loyalty to his Protestant allies. Fortunately for him, the problem solved itself when Mary, held prisoner in England, dissolved her marriage to Bothwell, making him merely a problem to be got rid of from Frederik’s perspective, so he ordered his arrest to be used as a bargaining chip in the forlorn hope that he would be traded in return for the return of the Northern Isle!

After being brought before the Bergen magistrates, in September he was carried to Copenhagen on one of Frederick’s ships for ‘honourable confinement’ at Dragshorn Castle, the Scandinavian equivalent of the Tower Of London. I found an extract from My Heart is My Own, a biography on Mary Queen of Scots that reads

“On 14th April 1578, Bothwell died at Dragsholm. As was customary for state prisoners, his body was carried to the promontory that juts into the fjord a side of things. mile or so from the castle and buried at the parish church of Fårevejle. (…) “

There are differing versions on how he lived out his last days, one says he was actually not held in ‘honourable confinement’, but in a small dungeon chained to a post, the cell so small he was unable to stand, the second is more in the line of the ‘honourable confinement’ that he spent the last years drinking to excess with others held at the castle and gradually became more and more insane.

John Maxwell, visited Dragshorn Castle, and reported that Hepburn had latterly become overgrown with hair and filth. I take it from this he was still alive at the time!

The story doesn’t quite end there, Bothwell’s coffin was opened for the first time in 1868 and a very well-preserved body was found, which subsequently rapidly decayed and, for a period of time, until 1973, was open to public viewing under a glass lid. Then, in response to a request from the descendants of the Hepburn family, the newly-crowned Margrethe II had Bothwell buried in a zinc-lined coffin within a sarcophagus of oak, and here he remains.

Every now and then there is a story in the press about his descendents making an attempt for his body to be repatriated, I have no idea why the Danes would not allow this and for the moment he remains there. Of course with a story like this the castle is said to be haunted by the "good” Earl, where is he said to ride through the courtyard with a full horse and carriage.

The pictures are, the supposed head of Bothwell “ Study of Mummified Head” by Danish artist Otto Bache. The even more gruesome “body of James Hepburn” although the church where his supposed remains lie was known to have exhibited several bodies over the years as his, therefore, it is impossible to know if this is actually him.

There have been moves by his descendants to have his body repatriated through the years Speaking in 2010 Sir Alastair Buchan-Hepburn, Bothwell's direct descendant sought to raise funds to lobby the Scottish and Danish governments, saying "I want the Scottish culture minister to get in touch with his Danish counterpart to ask him 'would you please consider to return the body of James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell?'"

James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwells’ remains are now kept in the crypt at the church at Faravejle, near Dragsholm Castle, as seen in the last pic.

[ultimatetornshipper]

To bee or not to bee - a Jasonette fic

@moonlitceleste I almost let this die, I honestly really wanted it dead but alas it was clearly meant to bee 

(WARNING: contains puns, angst, crack and fluff. You have been warned)

If you don’t want to read my sarcastic/funny/fangirl commentary, skip the brackets

I have another bee movie au, i didn't plan it ("I don't claim to be proud. But my head won't be hung in shame. I didn't plan it. But the light turned red, and I ran it. And I'm still standing. It's not what I wanted, but now that it's right here. I understand it. A story written by my own hand" as quoted from Waitress), it just happened and i just couldn't resist. I'm not sorry

So what if instead of dying Joker turned Jason into a bee. Because Harley convinced him and told him that people were talking shit about him because he's named the Joker and they don't think he's funny. It surprisingly works. (Obviously Harley was the one who made the plan and did the magic I mean really what do u expect of Joker?)

Ok so now Jason’s a bee right? And he’s like 15 because .~:°*plot*°:~.

They look for him and Jason’s like flying around like, “Guys! Guys I’m right here!” Poor kid. (I mean I would make it funny but like angst)

Obviously they don’t understand him because he’s a fucking bee and Joker cackles madly and Harley laughs too but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes and it's kinda that laugh u do when ur supes overwhelmed and sound maniacal but like soft (I’m a simp for Harley being portrayed as the complex and beautiful character she id leave me be)

Jason is very sad. And also quite pissed

Not knowing what else to do he follows Batman home, he listens to them trying to find him, watches Dick freak out and Alfred wipe a tear the rest of the family doesn’t see.

Jason tries to approach Alfred, hoping he somehow recognizes what happened

He doesn’t, Alfred closes him in a glass and paper and takes him outside.

He sneaks back into the manor and sleeps in one of the flowers (it's a red tulip because aesthetic) next to his bed. He cries himself to sleep. (Can bees cry? Is this possible? Is this like a thing??? I don't need sleep i need answers)

The thing is even tho he's now a bee, he still has the durability of a human, so even stepping on him won’t crush him and he still has a human lifespan

Because Harley isn’t a monster and what Puddin didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. (Simping for Harley Quinn strike 2)

After a while at the manor and following them he decides he can’t stand it anymore. Alfred has thrown him out three times and Dick freaks out each time he sees him as he’s a tad allergic (read: he would die if stung)

Which is how Jason found out that getting hit with a newspaper wouldn’t kill him.

He leaves.

He’s a bee and it’s not like he knows about a way to reverse it.

But there was someone who might.

He goes to Arkham.

Luckily, Harley was still there. (YAY we get to see mah gurl)

He flies into her cell and she just watches him, then she seems to click. She gives him a small smile, “Hi birdie,” (she puns, honestly would make for a better clown of Gotham and I saw an idea for that once where she steals Joker’s title once and I’ve been yearning for it ever since)

She holds out a finger and he lands on it, she laughs but tears come to her eyes,” Hey at least you’re not dead. That was his original plan you know? To kill you with a crowbar. I convinced him this would be a cruller fate. I guess maybe it is, but at least this way... Ugh how the hell did I get here,” (Harley angst, honestly it’s all just self service at this point)

He simply stared at her as she cried, and he felt his heart clench. From here she looked so sad... not crazy, just broken.

She took a deep breath and looked at him seriously, “Look kid, there’s a way to get you back to normal, you just need to find someone, they’re called the Guardian of the Miraculous. They can help, I don’t know who or where they are, just follow your instincts. And come say hi when you get back, yeah? I could do with the... healthier company. And remember, I bee-lieve in you,” (Gasp what a shock, you mean to tell me Miraculous magic is gonna be involved in this Maribat au. Well I never what a shock. Also puns. Oh and she’s so nice to him. We love Harley in this house)

He sat there and studied her for a while more, there was more to her than it seemed. Than what he’d assumed.

But for now, he had his own problems to deal with.

She gave him a small wave as he left. (Adorable)

He left and started considering his options, as a bee, it would probably be safest to stay inside, away from birds and things that would view him as a snack.

Staying in Arkham seemed like his best option, as bad an option as it was.

Most of the prisoners wouldn’t have a second thought about trying to crush him.

A strong scent of flowers and plants suddenly came to his attention.

Of course! Poison Ivy. (Round 2 of me simping for beautiful, complex, badass women. Too bad Catwoman ain’t here.)

He followed the smell to her cell and saw her staring out of her small window. He was still taking a chance, but she loved plants and flowers and bees were important to those, weren’t they?

He flew to the window bars and sat on one. The moment she spotted him she smiled widely, in a soft way he hadn’t seen on her before. (Ahhhhh my darling plant redhead. I love writing the Sirens as soft badasses. Also has anyone noticed how rare brunettes are in superhero worlds? Like both in Marvel and DC but like irl brown is like a pretty damn common)

She held out her finger, “Hey there, little guy. A little far from home, aren’t we?”

She had no idea.

He landed on her fingertip and watched in awe as a flower and a few leaves formed on her hand. She let the flower grow itself around one of her window bars and held her finger next to one of the petals.

“There you go, it’s all I can manage with my power dampers. I haven’t had company in a while,” she said softly as he crawled into the flower. He made himself comfortable.

She laughed to herself and he saw her shaking her head, “Talking to a bee, well, I guess stranger things have happened,” (yeah ur crush is dating a green haired murderous psychopath and you get beat up by a billionaire in a batsuit on like a biweekly basis)

The flower was soft and warm and felt safer than he expected it to. He found that he could move between the petals but decided to curl up in the middle. (It's a pink rose this time because fuck yeah flowers)

He slept better than he had in days.

The next morning he took his leave, stopping only at the manor to say a mental goodbye.

Then he headed off.

Jason flew a lot the first few months, our boy was smart at least, travelling with a cruise ship on its way to Europe.

It was Spring in the Northern Hemisphere so he had until Autumn until it was in his best interest to head south to avoid the snow. He decided to head towards Africa when summer started coming to an end. (I have no reasoning for this, just that I want to)

His first spot would be the United Kingdom. Then he'd go through the rest of Europe following his instincts.

At least it was Spring.

Jason diligently searched through England, Scotland and Ireland but found nothing.

By the time he was done he realized it was time to start heading South. He’d decided to take another cruise to South-Africa, where it would be summer, he searched through the country until April. He would admit that he didn’t feel drawn to anything in any of their 9 provinces so his search wasn’t as diligent as in England. He didn’t feel anymore drawn to the neighbouring countries like Namibia or Botswana either.

(Once again no reasoning for why I picked these countries, I mean the French Hugonotes went there when they were fleeing from the French Catholics who wanted them dead so I guess I could make up some bullshit about Mari having an ancestor in common with someone there or maybe it was just the ship he could easiest get access I don’t know, you make something up)

Which was why he decided to go back to Europe as soon as April hit.

He hitched another ride on a cruise headed for France.

It’s been a year since he got turned into a damn bee.

He was sixteen now and while he’d seen some amazing things all through South-Africa (a place that proves that humans really do have a weirdly obvious way of naming things I mean the Amazon river and Chad Lake are just more examples really) as well as the United Kingdom, all he really wanted was to go back home, to be human again.

When he gets there he diligently makes his way through France, eventually arriving in Paris.

He lands on the tip top of the Eiffel Tower. As in the point of the antenna because why not.

During his year he realized that birds and other animals tended to avoid him, sensing his strangeness so that was at least one positive.

He stared out over the city. Well, the one good thing about this was definitely the views he’s been allowed to see.

That was until a massive explosion hit.

“What the fuck?” he said out loud, searching for the source. No one understood him, human or bee, but talking to himself reminded him of his humanity.

He found the source of the explosion but just as he started flying to its general direction, a blinding white light shone followed by a horde of ladybugs that were fixing everything that was wrong. (Imagine how scary this would lowkey be irl tho? Just a shit ton of Ladybugs descending on Paris my dude)

He decided that he needed a night’s sleep before he could even begin an attempt at deciphering what had just happened. He flew lower, finding a nice little balcony right above a bakery. And it had flowers. (I’ll give u five seconds to guess who this balcony belongs to)

He flew down, exploring.

He turned around when he heard a loud thump from behind him. What appeared to be a super heroine in red spandex with black spots had landed on the balcony.

She detransformed and started to talking to a floating bug- fairy thing. Strange. Though it wasn’t like he could judge, as an ex superhero sidekick who was thought to be dead but was actually a bee.

She disappeared down her trapdoor and he made himself comfortable in one of her flowers.

He slept soundly until somewhere during a night another thump woke him. He looked out of his sleeping spot to see a cat superhero stand on her balcony. He leaned down and knocked on her small trapdoor.

Ah, a teammate of hers, they were probably meeting about something, he thought as he heard her open up.

It didn’t take him long to realize that even though they were teammates, the cat, Chat Noir he later learned, was not aware of this fact.

Oh this was rich.

He couldn’t bee-lieve his eyes. (ok so Jason used self-referential puns but can you really blame him? It’s really just me and my pun problem so don’t blame the kid)

He was going on and on about his feelings for Ladybug, the girl’s hero form, that were clashing with his feelings for another girl he fenced with, while she listened, clearly fed up with it.

He also claimed that he thought that maybe they were one and the same. Which, to Jason, was hilarious as he was literally saying this to the actual Ladybug’s face.

Marinette- he learned from the Cat’s ongoing blabbering, he was a real blab-bee mouth, - was clearly tired, nodding half asleep, probably having heard it all before.

When he finally left Jason went to sleep again, incredibly amused and even more thankful that he was fluent in French. ( u think this is plot convenience? Just u wait mah dude iz about to get worse)

The next morning he decided to follow her to school. Which was how he learned of her huge crush on a boy named Adrien Agreste.

After learning the boy could fence thanks to Marinette’s obsession interest in him, he got suspicious.

Could it really bee? (not a typo)

After seeing the boy transform a month or two later for patrol he laughed like he hadn’t for over a year. It very much was. He'd spent the time staying on Marinette's balcony and decided to stay another week before moving on and continuing his search, after all, he couldn't stop now that he finally felt like he was getting close.

The next day she got home crying, claiming that Adrien had started dating someone else.

Kagami, she called the girl. Probably the fencer if he had to place a bet.

“I’m sorry, Marinette,” Tikki told the girl.

“That boy's an idiot,” he said, speaking his mind, another thing he’d gotten use to being allowed to do without consequence.

Marinette nearly jumped out of her skin, she looked around and he realized that she could hear him. He hadn’t really spoken too much before, at least not when she was around. He was usually content with watching her do whatever she was doing that day.

“Tikki, did you hear that?” she asked, Tikki nodded, her eyes landing on him.

“Oh,” the kwami said softly, flying over to him, “Oh, you poor thing, who did this to you?” (Tikki is the first ever mom friend and u can fight me on this)

He stared up at her, flying so that they were eye level.

Marinette gaped at them, heartbreak seemingly forgotten, “Tik- Tikki, are- who are you talking- are you talking to a – Tikki is that a bee?!” she finally spluttered out.

“No,” Tikki said, studying him, he felt his heart twist in hope and his stomach roll in surprise. Did she know?

“I mean yes, but no. He’s a boy whose been turned into a bee,” Tikki explained, turning back to Marinette.

“Oh,” Marinette said softly, turning to him. She held her hand out and after some hesitation he landed on her finger. She looked at him then back to Tikki.

How did they know? Would he really be that lucky? Was this real?

“Uhm, how?” she said, staring at him in disbelief. He tried shrugging but realized he couldn’t anymore- beecause of his- well if you haven’t caught on to the fact that he’s a bee by now you should really start from the beginning of this story.

“I don’t know, but Joker and Harley Quinn were involved,” he said.

Marinette stared at him in disbelief, blinking a few times. She sat in shock a few moments longer. (Our darling is an awkward lil bean, and while in media awkward is portrayed as cute, irl it isn’t, it’s just well… awkward. And we’re writing a serious and realistic fic about this sidekick of guy who wears a batsuit/billionaire's ward getting turned into a bee and falling in love with a magical girl fighting a butterfly man- none of this unrealistic nonsense)

Tikki flew over and sat on Marinette’s shoulder while her holder processed the information, the kwami stared at him sweetly, “What’s your name?”

He swallowed, he hadn’t said his name in ages, it stirred up something (emotion, it’s called emotion, Jason, you know? The thing Batman can’t process??) in him, “Jason Todd,”

Marinette seemed to finally snap out of her daze, “That sounds American. Are you American? Wait if Joker and Harley are involved then you’re probably from Gotham. Are you? Wait I’ve seen the name Jason Todd somewhere. Weren’t you some rich guy’s ward? It was all over the news last year, Alya wouldn’t stop talking about it for a month, she had a million theories. He was – you were announced dead two months after Robin was taken captive by Joker, everyone thought he was – you were killed. Joker made outrageous claims as they arrested him... saying that they’d never find Robin... that he’d all but disappeared in thin air... that he wouldn’t be the only one wearing stripes... I remember because he put a really weird emphasis on the words be and stripes and...,” her eyes widened and she gasped as she looked at him in what could only be described as pure shock. (Yes this happens, people can talk for this long and since I personally know headcannon that Marinette is ADHD this long ass paragraph is just another Tuesday bud)

He sat there, surprised that she figured it all out so quickly. (yeah bub it’s called plot convenience and it’s because of me, the writer, I don’t wanna focus on secret ID shenanigans, I got other plans for yall, also Mari is smart, don’t underestimate her)

“You’re Robin,” she breathed, “they turned you into a bee. Wait- How the hell did they turn you into a bee?!”

He chuckled, “Bee-lieve me I’ve been asking myself that question for more than a year,”

She bit her lip, seemingly contemplating his words and ignoring his pun, “Tikki do you know anything that could help? Do you think Miraculous magic-,”

He felt his heart stop, he flew up to her face, flying at eye level, “Wait, did you just say Miraculous? Harley said if I could find the Guardian of the miraculous, they could help me, do you know where they are? I’ve been looking for so long,” (‘°;~*.plot convenience.*~;°’)

Marinette blinked at him and Tikki's face dawned with realization.

“I’m the guardian of the miraculous,” Marinette said softly, “Tikki, that means I can help him, right?”

Tikki nodded and he had to dial down the hope in his heart because the look on her face told him there was a Kim Kardashian sized butt on the way.

“We can help him, but we’re gonna have to wait. (don’t look at me like that, do u want them to have time to bond or not?) You’re not trained enough to pull it off yet. If you were to do it now, all three of us would be out of commission for far too long, especially with Hawkmoth on the prowl,” Tikki said.

They must’ve been able to sense his sadness because they were staring at him with an incredible amount of pity. The amount was quite unsettling actually and he suddenly felt a primal like urge to pun. (An extract from my book: ���My unhealthy coping mechanisms and how to use them,” specifically Chapter 8: “Humor hides the pain”)

Suddenly Tikki’s face lit up, the whiplash of her expression change throwing any notion of punning out the window.

“Well, there’s one thing we could do,” she said, excitedly, zipping buzzing around “If he wears a miraculous, he'll return back to human form while transformed,”

Marinette perked up at the idea, but confusion soon overtook her features, “But Tikki, most of the miraculous are bigger than he is,”

Tikki waved her away,” It’s fine it’ll work,”

“Ok,” Marinette said after a bit of thought. She stood and he followed while she started climbing down her skylight,” I’m thinking you can try each of them out for different patrols and then we’ll see which one matches you best. This could be fun, having some fun sized company while figuring out how to defeat Hawkmoth,”

He laughed, flying near her ear, “Fun sized, huh? I’ll have you know I’m considered tall in human form, unlike some of us,”

She laughed and rolled her still tear stained eyes, and so, the beginning of a bee-autiful friendship bloomed.

Marinette walked to her closet and Jason took in her room. It was very pink, but in a well-balanced way - it wasn’t completely overbearing. His eye caught on a few pictures of Adrien Agreste on her wall but figured now wouldn’t be a great time to bring it up. (Look he’s already more emotionally aware, #foreshadowing of character development)

She removed a big box from her closet. She opened it and it was filled with what appeared to be a bunch of scrap materials. At the bottom she removed a bigger bundle of black and red fabric and he flew closer.

She put it in her lap and Jason had to do a double take when he realized that her hands were glowing and what the actual fuck- it was a box now -fuck fuck fuck- why was it a box? How? What- Jason was pretty sure he did not sign up for this.

She put the box down in front of her and to his relief she opened her mouth to speak as she lifted the lid, so he’d understand everyth- and its jewellery.

The box contained jewellery. Animal themed jewellery by the looks of things.

He then realized that these were probably the other miraculous.

She looked over each artefact before handing him the yellow and black hairclip.

Out of all of them, she picked the bee miraculous.

“Hilarious,” he replied dryly, giving her a look, he realized too late she wouldn’t be able to register- on account of, well you know… (if u don’t know by now, you don’t get to find out anymore)

She gave him a grin and replied, “I certainly think it is,”

Her teasing expression turned into one of worry, “I mean we could switch it out if it makes you uncomfortable-,” (being a sassy people pleaser with no filters really do be like this tho)

He laughed, “Don’t worry, I’m only teasing. What do I do?”

Marinette opened her mouth to answer before obviously realizing that she didn’t have an answer. She turned to Tikki and the kwami had a fond smile on her face before turning to Jason. (Just Tikki casually mentor- moming Mari because Fu is useless)

“Just step on the miraculous, it’ll sense that you’re human,” the creature replied.

When he stepped onto the bee miraculous, its kwami appeared.

Pollen stared at him for a few seconds before she realized what was happening.

After an explanation about her power set and what exactly he could do in suit, he transformed.

He felt his human body appearing. He was taller and more built than he remembered being. His flying clearly had physical consequences then, not that he was complaining.

His suit included a pair of bee wings. His hair was longer than he remembered it being too.

He had a black leather jacket and combat boots. With it was a pair of practical black leggings and a yellow t-shirt with three thick black stripes. (The three stripes represent each one of his families, the Todds, the Waynes and The Dupain-Chengs, because I can) He also had a pair of black gloves. His boots had yellow laces. On his face was a black and yellow striped domino mask. The top sat on his hip. The bee miraculous sat on the middle of his chest in the form of a broach.

He all but sprinted to the mirror. He stared at his face, his blue eyes and his nose that never healed quite right after breaking it that one time. His black hair was messy and stuck up every which way, his cheekbones were as high as always, and he had a little bit of stubble and it was so familiar and so new all at once.

He touched his face, barely registering the tears flowing down his cheeks and laughed in relief. He was human again. This was real! He could- he was closer to normal than he ever thought he’d get to be.

He turned to Marinette who was staring up at him in shock. He picked her up and spun her around, laughing in joy. And after a moment she joined in. He put her down and put his hands on her shoulders, smiling widely, “Thank you. Thank you so much,”

She smiled up at him, a slightly sad look on her face, “I’m sorry, it’s not permanent,”

“Don’t be sorry. For the first time I have hope. It will be permanent eventually, and till then, I have you with me, right?” he squeezed her shoulder, still high on the feeling of hope and warmth and familiarity.

When he was overcome with the sudden urge to pull her into a hug, he didn’t resist.

He held her close, resting his chin on her head, “Damn, I missed this. Hugging, I mean. I haven’t... it’s been so long,” (not that he got all that many hugs from Bruce “emotionally constipated” Wayne)

She wrapped her arms around him, “I can imagine,”

They stood there a while before the time for patrol came along. She transformed and they made their way to the Eiffel tower, where they met Chat.

The cat themed hero rose his brow questioningly, “I thought we didn’t recruit new heroes unless it was an emergency?”

Ladybug smiled nonchalantly, “It’s Guardian business, he’s gonna be a permanent fixture in our team for at least a few months so we might as well get used to working as a team,”

Chat Noir eyed him wearily and he stepped forward, sticking his hand out, “Hi, I’m Blackback, nice to meet you,”

Chat Noir shook his hand and gave Ladybug a sceptical look, “An American? Really?”

“Please Chat, he's not American, it’s just the glamour hiding his actual accent,” she replied simply, shooting Jason a worried look.

He couldn’t give away his identity, but he was also technically a bee, he didn’t really have an identity to give away. So, her behaviour was strange. Unless she wanted to give him an identity somehow?

He couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of patrol.

When they got home Marinette revealed that she wanted to give him the fox miraculous. If they asked Trixx she would be able to design the costume in a way that allowed him to look like a normal civilian, without the mask.

Trixx's glamour was also stronger than the rest so his true identity as Jason Todd would be protected.

And she could help him fake an accent.

Since Marinette was a year younger than him he could just pick up where he left off school wise.

She convinced her parents that he was an exchange student in desperate need of a place to stay because the person he would’ve stayed with backed out last minute.

They agreed easily and Jason decided to not question it.

It was his third family. His second if you only counted non abusive ones. First if you wanted one with a healthy family dynamic.

They got him a fake birth certificate and name. He went with the alias Thomas Grayson. He thought it was kind of funny, and it paid homage to both Bruce and Dick. It gave him something from home to hold on to. (Jason isn’t really salty about not being avenged in this au, he didn’t die and Talia and the pit madness wasn’t there to egg on his anger. But maybe if I ever get back to this au we could do a thing with it… guess we’ll have to wait and see ;-) no promises tho)

He built himself another home with Marinette and her family. And before he knew it, he was happy again. He felt secure.

Through the weeks, he ingrained himself into Marinette's life. In a blink of an eye, they were best friends, and he couldn’t imagine life without her.

He loved living with her family as she trained to be strong enough to turn him back to normal.

He grew close to Marinette’s friends and was her shoulder to cry on about Adrien. He and Adrien got along pretty well, and he and Marc and Rose traded Literature jokes. Max would join in when it involved Shakespeare.

Then Lila happened. (She’s a staple in Maribat fiction. U can’t have Maribat without Lila. Or well u can but that’s usually a very specific au)

Her lies started out simple enough. Then she started manipulating everyone and he, Marinette, Chloe and Adrien were one scheme away from being ostracized. They sat in the back row.

They ignored her sneers and let her lie to her heart’s content. Then one day she said something that made both Marinette and Jason freeze.

“You know, I was childhood friends with Jason Todd (I know she usually gets the names wrong but like her knowing the name just makes this next bit better) You know, Bruce Wayne’s ward who died a while ago? It was just so sad. He grew up in a nice family but his parents both died in a car accident and Brucie took pity on him. He even let us keep in contact afterwards, since our parents were such good friends. We all miss them dearly of course. We were neighbours the year we lived in Gotham, you know? We'd play every day-,” she started fake crying, “Oh it just gets too much sometimes,”

But to Jason’s shock Alya didn’t move to console Lila, in fact, she was staring at the brunette in shock.

He turned his gaze to Marinette to see the girl wearing the biggest, coldest, most satisfied smirk. She rested her chin on her hands and grinned at Lila in a way that made shivers go down his spine.

He turned back, this ought to be good.

And it was.

Alya absolutely lost it.

She ripped Lila a new one and frankly? Jason was impressed. (Alya has a temper and she’s a fangirl, and we all know how we get when someone gets something wrong about one of our hyperfixations, even if it’s an old one so like yall can imagine how bad Lila had fucked up)

When an akuma flew in towards Lila, Alya grabbed it, staring the girl down with a fury he didn’t know she could possess, “Don’t you dare! Do you think I’m blind? I’ve seen how easily you get akumatized and this time I’m not letting it happen!”

Of course, Alya then got akumatized but hey it beat another version of Lila.

Everyone made up but they weren’t quite as close as before. Their group tended to consist mostly out of him, Marinette, Chloe, Adrien, Kagami and Luka.

Other than that incident and akuma attacks, life was pretty good.

In fact, it was great.

He and Marinette would spend nights on her balcony, laughing and slow dancing. They star gazed and went on patrols. He helped her when she got nightmares and she returned the favour. They went on long walks and spent the holidays together. They crammed for tests and he played model for her designs. They worked in the bakery and hung out with their friends both in and out of suit. They’d joke about his technical bee-ness and he and Chat drove her mad with puns. In retaliation she’d introduce him as her bee friend to people or only give him honey and bee themed things. (ok this sentence sounds weird but I mean like when she brings them sweets from the bakery to snack on while working and stuff.)

And one laugh, memory and fight at a time, he started to fall. (I just want good things for Jason, and really can you blame me?)

Through the months, he kept up to date on the news about Bruce Wayne and Marinette held his hand each time a new kid joined his brood. She reminded him that no child could be replaced and reassured him that of course Bruce would want him back when they figured everything out.

And if he didn’t, she’d kick his ass into space, and he’d stay with her family in Paris- a family she made sure he knew he was a part of.

He helped Sabine in the kitchen and was the only one who came closest to beating Marinette’s Ultimate Mega Strike 3 record. Tom taught him to shave and bake. He was integrated into their family and they treated him as part of the family.

But even if they were giving him everything they were, he missed Bruce. And Dick. And Alfred. And Barbara. And Gotham. He missed them all so much. He missed home.

So, 14 months later, when Marinette told him they had a meeting with the Justice League about the Hawkmoth situation, Jason felt his heart skip a beat.

“What?” he asked softly, his eyes brimming with tears (Marinette taught him how to emotion, you see. So Jason is emotionally stable-ish enough to cry without feeling embarrassed about it), “I get to see him again?”

Marinette nodded and hugged him from behind, “I’m planning on telling him what happened. Is there anything you can tell him to verify who you are?”

Memories from a million years ago entered his mind, “Yes,”

She took his hand and took a step back, “And I think I can fix you before we go, I’m strong enough. But I’d still like your help in the final battle, I mean I know you’re going home but...,”

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and smiled, “Of course, Pixie. I’ll always be there for you when you need me,”

He pressed a kiss against her forehead, a movement so familiar it was practically a part of him. He pulled her close and cried into her hair.

“What if he doesn’t believe me?” he asked softly, after a while, resting his chin on top of her head.

“He will,” she replied, tightening her grip around his waist.

They both knew she had no guarantee of that. That she had no way of knowing for sure. Neither of them did.  And it scared him more than he wanted to admit.

The next day they do the magic turning back thing. It freaks him out quite a bit but not as much as her revealing the miraculous freaked him out the first time, you get kinda used to the magic shenaniganary. They’re both passed out for an hour afterwards and when they wake up, he holds her, crying, because he was finally, finally back to normal and this was real and permanent, and it was over.

She cried with him and held him, and they then went out and he wore a shirt she made for him, and they got ice cream the next day. They celebrated some more and went to the park with the squad and they had a picnic.

It was better than he ever could've imagined.

While the sun was setting, they stood back on her balcony, where they first spoke all those months ago, slow dancing. He pulled away and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at her as the orange light of the sunset shone on them. (So aesthetic)

“Thank you, Marinette, for everything,” he says as he rubs his thumb across her cheek. His hand holding her face. She puts her hand over his and closes her eyes, savouring the moment.

She opened her eyes again and smiled, “I’d do it again and more, if it meant I’d get to be with you,”

He started leaning down, “If I lost you, I’d fly all over the world just to find you again,”

She raised to her tip toes, faces millimetres from one another, blue bells meeting ice, “So it was all worth it in the end?”

He moves closer, eyes searching hers. “Definitely,” he breathes.

She closes the distance, and he picks her up and spins her around. They break apart and their laughter fills the air.

(now that’s enough fluff, allow me to drown you in angst)

The next day they stood on the Eiffel tower. She took his hand, “Let’s recap. I go in, we have our Hawkmoth meeting, then I ask if I can speak to Batman and Nightwing alone. Then I tell them I found you, then I give them – are you sure it’s necessary for me to give them your blood, hair and a cheek swab? Isn’t that overkill?” (Batman is serious about his no kill rule, but he’s also serious about his there’s no such thing as overkill rule)

He shook his head and she sighed, “Okay. Then I give him means to contact me and I come back. Now remember they might take a while to process and they won’t necessarily call immediately-,”

“What if they never call?” he asked, gripping her hand tightly.

She ran her finger softly through his hair, “Then you have us to help you get through it,”

He nodded, she kissed his cheek and stepped through the portal with Queen Bee, Chat Noir and Viperion. He and Ryuuko stayed behind as backup, he wielded the Fox miraculous these days, but kept the name Blackback, always wearing a black leather jacket no matter the transformation.

He and Ryuko discussed fighting styles, she was kindly trying to distract him, and if it had been anything else he needed distracting from, it would’ve worked.

So passed the slowest forty-five minutes of his life. Chat Noir and Queen Bee exit a portal and so the wait for Marinette and Luka began.

She and Bruce were talking now. Bruce would know he was alive. This was make or break for him. Luka was nearby to act as back up worst-case scenario.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, followed by someone taking and rubbing circles on his back. He looked down to see Ryuuko on his one side and saw Chat Noir on his other.

“We’ve got you,” Chloe said standing in front of him, hand on his unoccupied shoulder.

He swallowed and nodded. She squeezed his upper arm and met his gaze, “Breathe, you’re safe, honey,”

So, 30 more minutes pass. They sit down and somewhere along the line Chat goes and grabs a dozen croissants from the bakery.

In another situation he might’ve laughed. He’d baked this morning’s batch and now he got to eat some of it for free, of course, technically he could get others for free too but-

The portal opened behind them and Ladybug and Viperion stepped out. He noted that she didn’t have the bag of his DNA with her anymore.

She smiled softly at him, “Now we wait,”

And wait they did.

They waited two weeks.

And then the burner phone that's number they'd given Bruce rang.

Jason froze, Marinette jumped up and ran to get it.

He couldn't move as she walked over and put the phone on speaker, she grabbed his hand and he held onto her for dear life.

"We can both hear you now, Nightwing," she said.

There was a beat of silence on the other side of the line, "Can he- If you're- can I speak to him? In- um- private?"

Marinette looked at him, and he nodded. She took the phone off speaker and handed it to him.

He held it up to his ear and squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on the circles Marinette were drawing on his hand with her thumb.

"He- hey Dick," he said. He heard his brother's breathing hitch, followed by a few seconds of silence.

"When did Batman find you?"

"25th May 2017,"

"Who's your favourite author?"

"Mary Shelley tied with Jane Austin,” he replied.

Dick stayed silent for too long and before he could stop himself the words fell from his mouth, desperation clinging to each syllable,” My favourite- my favourite playwright is Shakespeare, and my favourite school subject is English. If I could pick any day job it would be being a writer. My favourite colour is blue. Alfred has a secret fear of dolphins. You have had a ridiculously huge crush on Barbara for years and she had no idea, and I found a picture you drew under your old room's bedside table of you two getting married. I folded the picture up and hid it in a small box of memories I kept in the farthest corner of my closet under clothes I never wore. I have a round scar on the lower left side of my back where Willis Todd burned me with a cigarette when I was 5 that you don’t know I know you know about. My first Christmas at the manor you found me in the rose garden cutting a few off to take to my mother's grave and I was terrified that you would yell at me but instead you drove me to the graveyard and that was the day I decided to give you a real chance. I despise carrots but I eat them when Alfred makes them because I don't want to be a burden. And I-," he choked on a sob- when had he started crying?

He took a shuddering breath, and swallowed some of his tears, trying to make sure the words got out right, "I've missed you guys for every single second that I've been gone,"

His stomach tied itself up in a million knots as the silence stretched on. He could hear Dick moving the phone.

"Can I speak to Ladybug again please?" A female voice he didn't recognize said.

He handed the phone to Marinette and pressed his hand over his mouth to try to contain the sobs. He felt like a knife was twisting his stomach. He couldn't even hear what Marinette was saying. (I’m going through something irl and as a result u guys get to read angst by the bucketloads and I regret nothing)

Dick didn't want to talk to him. He should've just answered the question, he shouldn't have given all the extra information. Now they were never going to believe that it's really him and he would never see them again. Maybe they knew it was him and they just didn't want him-

"Jason, breathe with me," he heard Marinette's voice. His eyes latched onto hers like a lifeline, he became aware of her hands holding his.

She took his face in her hands and rested her forehead against his, in a motion so familiar that it came as easy as breathing. Well as easy as it usually was to breathe, right now excluded.

After he calmed down, she explained to him what they discussed. They would go to Gotham and meet and discuss things from there.

They wanted to meet him, but they still didn’t completely believe that it was him. He knew this for a fact because they had organized for M’gann to be there to confirm what he was saying. (Yassss M'gann my darling girl, I adore out lil Martian)

Marinette had suggested that they meet in the Batcave in an hour. Everyone had agreed. He assumed she had a plan as to why she wanted to wait. And he trusted her, so he waited for her to explain.

“I want to take the team, as backup. If you’re not comfortable with it, I want to at least take Luka. I would suggest just letting one of us wield is miraculous, but his Second Chance Timer limit is an hour so it would be most beneficial,” she said, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t holding his.

He nodded, sitting up straighter, but not releasing his grip on her hand, “We can bring the team, it’s smart to have backup. Besides if things go haywire, we have Luka to stop us.”

“Then let’s go get our team, love,”

(oh, I should probably mention that only he and LB knows everyone’s Identities. Or well rather no one knows like officially. Like everyone lowkey knows everyone's and a few of them have officially revealed themselves to each other, but not everyone is officially revealed to everyone and Mari and Jason are the only ones who aren’t officially revealed to anyone else, it’s kinda like the vibes of knowing your best friend is queer but not saying anything because they haven’t officially come out yet but like you know because they ain’t nearly as subtle as they think. Like that aesthetic.)

Anyway, 50 minutes later, they’re all gathered on the Eiffel Tower. Jason saw Marinette give Luka a nod to reset his timer. Suddenly he was enveloped in a light with a scratch that wasn’t there a few seconds before on his cheek, his expression quite annoyed.

Marinette immediately furrowed her brows, “How many times?”

Viperion shook his head, “Don’t worry, only one so far, but they try to restrain us. We’re gonna have to try plan b this time,” Everyone nodded, they waited two minutes before the agreed upon time and Mari opened a portal, but instead of appearing out in the opened, they hid in the shadowy parts of the cave.

Jason used his illusion to hide them from any observant eyes and they spread out a bit. He and Mari stayed together, Cloe flew to get a higher perspective and hide Viperion on one of the cave’s many ledges while Chat just moved a few feet away to have a slightly different hiding spot. Kagami dropped into her wind form and was flying above them to eavesdrop, she’d go to Luka if she heard anything of importance so he could go restart again.

They’d be one step ahead of the Bats no matter what they pulled, after all, they had all the time in the world.

They watched them all get into position as time neared. Jason didn’t know all the kids but recognized them from the news.

Dick, Bruce and M’gann stood near the bat computer with Barbara – who was in a wheelchair but that was a realization to deal with later- and Alfred.

The minute they were supposed to appear Jason cast another illusion to make it appear as though they had arrived. As expected, weapons and restraints immediately swarmed on them, each kid going for a different miraculous member. Too bad the images turned into orange dust as soon as they touched them.

The tiny one in the Robin uniform was red in the face and immediately started throwing a tantrum, “Father! They’ve tricked us-,”

Before he could get another word out, Chloe mass-venomed the horde of kids that we’re sent to attack them. He counted Black bat, Red Robin, Batgirl, Signal and Robin. They were all frozen in the middle of the room and before the others near the computer could move, Kagami trapped them in a (rather large) ring of fire. They had enough space to move around comfortably but if they tried approaching the edge the flames would grow larger.

Batman growled and his eyes searched through the cave, but he wouldn’t see them, no matter how hard he searched.

Jason stared at them. Dick was also searching the cave, but he seemed to look more hopeful than angry. Alfred seemed his usual calm self and Barbara was glancing around the cave more subtly. He didn’t bother looking at the rest of the batkids because M’gann was staring right at him, staying right where she was despite her ability to fly.

“Hi, Jason,” she softly spoke into his mind, he felt emotion overwhelm him, she’d known him before everything, and she knew it was him and it was a lot.

He knew she wasn’t probing around his brain for information like he was sure Bruce had asked her to, she didn’t have to, she knew it was him.

“Can you please tell me why we’re surrounded by fire?” she asked.

“We have a time traveller,” he replied.

“Ah, not a fan of Bruce’s restrain and question method, then? Can’t say I blame you, though I do think you’ve proven your point,”

“You really think it’s a good idea to release all of them?” he asked sceptically.

“… Good point. Maybe leave the brood in the middle in whatever frozen state they’re in and just let us in the fire out. They really just think it’s too good to be true… Jason, I won’t let them hurt you,”

“Okay,” he agreed softly. He turned to Marinette and gave her a slight nod. She returned with one of her own.

They walked over to Kagami’s ring of fire and he held their illusion until they were right in front of it. He held on to it for a bit to make sure everyone else would be able to stay in position. Chloe would keep the cavalry venomized and Chat and Viperion would stick to the shadows, unless necessary.

Jason dropped the illusion and watched four heads snap to him. M'gann simply gave him a soft smile and a nod of encouragement.

Kagami moved herself to stand next to Marinette and turned back into her human form, glaring at them with a silent warning.

Their attention was elsewhere, though. For a long time they just stood there and stared at one another in silence. They studied every part of one another they could see.

His eyes caught on Barbara’s wheelchair and he felt ready to destroy whatever put her there. She met his eyes and he held her gaze. She must’ve seen something there because she gave a small smile as she allowed a few tears to escape her eyes.

“Miss Martian?” Batman broke the silence like a cheap dinner plate, shattering it in a matter of seconds.

“It’s him,” M’gann answered without a hint of hesitation.

It was Alfred that moved first. He took a few hesitant steps towards him and before Jason knew it the man was in front of him. Alfred reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, desperately studying him for a moment before pulling him into a hug only Alfred could give.

It took Jason a moment to respond but when he did he returned it wholeheartedly.

After a few minutes they pulled apart and it took him a moment to realize that they’d both started crying. When he looked up Dick was only a few feet away. The moment Alfred stepped away Dick pulled him close.

“I thought you were dead, kid. I thought I’d never see you again, I thought I lost even more family. You were too young, too innocent. Fuck Jason,” Dick whispered, tightening his grip, “I’m so glad you’re alive,”

Jason held on to his brother and that night they cried about terrible endings and broken beginnings. They cried about lost time and found family.

It wasn’t the end yet, Hawkmoth was still terrorizing Paris and he had no idea what Bruce thought yet. There were all his other kids, his brothers and sisters. There were his teammates and the incredible story of how he’d been turned into a bee of all things.

They had a lot of catching up to do.

But just for a moment, a strand of a singular moment, he had his brother in his arms again and he was back home. His first real home.

Things weren’t perfect, as things rarely are but it didn’t matter. Because part of the beauty of life is how it builds and breaks us in a cycle of love and loss.

And that night they laughed with a lightness and joy none of them had fully been able to hold onto in years.

 I hope you guys enjoyed!

This is lowkey totally gonna be the au I go to when I don’t know what to write lol, maybe write a bit of what happens afterwards or a part of everything during the year he lived with Mari them or just y’know shenanigans

[uthseikoashx-inflamedme]

Summer of 1899 fanfictions: with Philosophy, ancient Greek and Latin, foreign languages and a bit of Literature

(note: by “Summer of 1899 fanfictions”, I refer to the summer of Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald’s meeting as teenagers)

(note: I am not a native speaker, so I apologise for the mistakes, inaccuracies, truly bad use of tenses and wrong phrases. I hope it won’t be too unpleasant. Let me know if something is really not understandable!)

What about philosphy, Latin, etc, but in 1899 fanfictions? (dark academia vibes, I know)

There are already quite a lot of fanfics about it but not enough - because it's so great, let me detail why it is (and expose my headcanons)

(the [1] and [2] are notes, check the end of the post to read them)

(tiny disclaimer: i am not at all an advanced scholar on any of the following topics, just studying that kind of subjects and loving to draw parallels with hp. i hope i won’t say too many wrong things, etc.)

Philosophy :

Moral philosophy

The theories and questions throughout the history of moral philosophy (as far as I know) fit so well with the concerns of our revolutionary boys.

Is there any moral duty? Knowing wizards and witches could solve an amount of muggles' problems, is this immoral for them to stay in the shadows? What about the means of the revolution - is this ok to kill for the Greater Good, to initiate injuries, doom and destruction to build a better world, which cost is acceptable? What about consequentialism, utilitarianism, moral of virtue, deontological philosophy, idk? What's good? What's fair?

More touchy question: the maj-people are able to perform marvellous things, so are they consequently more important than maj-people? Because of their capacities, should they be praised - considered as superior beings - as gods? But if yes, should they treat muggles differently than they would treat wizards? If wizards shouldn’t be considered as superior beings, are they equal to muggles anyway?

And what about the Hallows - is this moral to possess them, considering they mirror Gyges’ ring? Should Albus and Gellet keep them for themselves, use them for the Greater Good (yes they want to, it’s clearly exposed in DH)? Is the Quest important enough to justify sacrifices?

Also, what about Aristotle’s virtue system - being moderate and all, use our reason to be in the middle? Because I’m sure as hell Albus and even more Gellert would reject this idea: isn’t it a form of passivism? (no, but through their pov and situation, they might think that)

(by the way they both read passages of Bentham's and Mill's and Kant's and Plato's and Aristotle's books nobody can convince me otherwise)

(I never read Nietzsche’s extracts and haven’t even merely a define idea of his theories to be honest, except for a few uncertain glimpses of his philosophy - he disagrees with religious morality and is quite vehement about it, and praises an idea of a free human being, released from this moral of the weaks. And as far as I know, I’m pretty sure Gellert would agree with him.)

Political philosophy

I do have a headcanon: Albus and Gellert both read the Republic of Plato (initially because it’s well-known and they didn’t want to be ignorant about it and they surprised themselves being enthralled by Socrates reflexions) ; and quite a lot of their discussions about a perfect society instituted by themselves (and about what’s fair and what’s good) were underpinned by the book.

Is this ok to rule the world? Which system is the best - tyranny, democracy, oligarchy? Are the wizards just like the philosophers and, thus, are righteously meant to be the aristocrats at the top of the government? And are all the wizards as legitimate as Albus and Gellert to rule the world (no)? What’s the acceptable extent of power they should have on civilians? What’s the necessary authority they must be allowed to have on civilians? What about the freedom of the press, of speech (those themes are explored in the Republic and well-), of maj-people and non-maj-people?

Philosophy of desire, joy, pleasure, beauty, etc

Have you ever heard of Plato? (sorry, again, yes.) Well in several Socrates’ dialogs, themes of love and desire are developed (I particularly think about the Symposium) and Albus and Gellert could be convinced by it: the praise of relationships between men, of intellect, of beauty… but also by the myth of Aristophanes (people are halves and search their soulmate (more or less)). Besides, I’ll be quite curious about what Albus and Gellert may say about Alcibiades’ eulogy of Socrates and what they may think of their dynamics.

(long story short, Alcibiades is young and handsome and desires the ugly Socrates, is fascinated by his intellect and considers him as the most interessant man he knows, and can’t help but feeling inferior facing him and being deeply humiliated because Socrates rejects him (on top of that, Alcibiades is drunk and jealous - the parallels to draw between them and our revolutionary boys are bloody interesting but back to the point))

Also, I totally see Albus and Gellert as hedonists during their youth - justifying their immoral and unwise chase of pleasure and complaisance by an artificial sentiment of moderation, temperance, so not true hedonists, like they are not epicurean at all - and this is again something quite compelling, I must admit.

Ancient Greek and Latin :

Latin and ancient Greek at Hogwarts

Throughout the 19th century, the civilizations of antiquity increasingly fascinated the intellectuals - a phantasm around the topic grew and influenced artists and erudite persons, and was furthermore a mark of the cultural capital and level of education of somebody.

Although we haven’t any clue about the fact that Hogwarts changed the disciplines provided through the centuries, we know it is possible : Dumbledore himself almost dismissed divination studies and depending the demands of the students, 7th years can study alchemy (most likely thanks a teaching offered by Dumbledore himself).

And I do have the headcanon that Hogwarts was in the past not that far from studies dispensed in english colleges - or at least, proposed classes of British (magic) Literature, maybe Law (like an elitist subject but necessary to enter in the Ministry and consequently pure-blood kids are always following that course) and, of course, ancient Greek and Latin classes.

And it was necessary, because Latin is the language of spells and most of the magical essays written back in antiquity were in ancient Greek - furthermore, the more complex, ancient and ruthless spells and rituals were based on ancient Greek and not on Latin, more used in everyday, ordinary, common magic (it is again an hc).

(by the way, Arabic and Hebrew could be as well considered as ancient languages used in magic (again an headcanon, but it would underline how magic is complex and has multiple forms and is not just European-centred), but I have the slight feeling that the ideologies and culture of European countries combined with xenophobia and racism have excluded the study of those languages even though they are also vital in the history of magic you know)

Yes it’s based on nothing, but it would be so great and ask so many things about the Wizarding World back in the late 19th and early 20th century - especially about social and political struggle between the population - pure-blood families vs muggle born students, etc [1]. (And it would satisfy my dark academia aesthetic. But quite irrelevant here.)

What about Albus and Gellert then?

Durmstrang could also dispense Latin of Ancient Greek class, in my opinion, but I think (again, imo), it is a bit unlikely. But it does not change the fact that Gellert had always been attracted to Dark magic; so he could have learned the basis by himself in order to decipher ancient Dark ceremonies, etc.

That’s why I think both of them had learnt ancient languages. Maybe Albus took an interest in Celtic dialects (Merlin’s language?), and Gellert was familiar with Vicking Runes. It obviously helped them regarding a lot of their magical and academic performances. Indeed, the boys were able to understand old papers about the Hollows, but also ancient rituals, etc. And thus, had a wide access to a more dangerous, unstable, raw and primeral practice of magic: it was not like the average spells in Latin, but an intricate way to unleash their potential [2].

Besides, only few people - erudites - were as interested as the boys were in these old ways to use magic, and needless to say that neither of those persons were as powerful as Albus and Gellert were. Furthermore, the boys were able to keep a balance between the complexity of the enchantments and the instincts they both have regarding the expression of their magic. They accordingly thought of being more powerful than everybody else.

Foreign languages :

The languages in the schools

It is clear that Hogwarts is exclusively Anglophone. The school is quite small: 40 students per year, so 280 students in all, coming from Great Britain - England, Ireland, Scotland, Yales, so the isles. We could also think that the wizardkind living in the CommonWealth during the colonial age also studied in Hogwarts. (again a hc, but Henry Potter and his son Fleamont were both born in India, fight me)

Durmstrang, on the other hand, could host quite more nationalities. I imagine the school having three main languages: German, French and English. But in fact, English and French are more “officials”, used by administration and in some classes (French was quite important at the time, right? then it was English?). So the students most likely speak between them in German (Germany had been formed in 1871 and I think the Austrian-Ungarian Empire was also Germanophone?), Russian, Hungarian, Lithuanian… well, all the languages spoken in Easten Europe.

(and just to mention it, I believe that Beauxbâtons is a huge school, bigger than Hogwarts and Durmstrang, because we need logic at some point - anyway)

What about Albus and Gellert then, again?

Gellert was probably speaking German, English (obviously, he wrote letters in English, spoke in English with Albus and Aberforth…), maybe French, and maybe another language depending on his mother country. I headcanon him coming from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, but he might as well come from Denmark (the country of Mikkelsen?) or a Balkan State (there were wars here at the end of the 19th century, it could be an interesting theme), etc.

However, I doubt that Albus knew Danish or Hungarian, but he definitely spoke French rather well (he exchanged letters with Nicolas Flamel) and perhaps the basis of something else (Italian? German?).

I do not mention magical foreign languages they could have been familiar with - we know Albus is fluent in Goblegedook and Mermish in 1994, but I doubt he already was in 1899.

(Also, Albus’ mother came from America, so she might be originally from the Native American community and thus know an another language and let Albus know as well, but the fact that she is Christian (most likely, regarding what is her epitaph) let me doubtful; but I’m not enough informed about the Native American history to build meta, headcanon and theories, so I won’t explore this idea more.)

All in all, they are quite familiar with a lot of languages, and they certainly had a few conversations in what was not English (a mix of Latin, Ancient Greek, German and French, perhaps?) to infuriate Aberforth and not let him know about what they were talking about. (headcanon, again)

Literature :

We do not have a lot of clues about fiction - novels, theater or poetry - belonging to the wizarding universe - except Beedle’s Tales, of course. But we can imagine it exists.

Nevertheless, I am more interested in what Albus and Gellert might have read in the muggle literature. Besides, I think it is funny to consider that some writers or playwrights are known by muggles but are in reality wizards and witches - especially Braham Stoker, Mary Shelley… maybe Poe and Shakespeare as well.

So, I imagine that Albus and Gellert would have heard of Goethe, Heine, Novalis for German literature; maybe Hugo, Baudelaire, Flaubert for French literature… most likely Dante (definitely Dante). Though I honestly do not think they were fond of novels and literature, they could have been interested by it sometimes, when it echoed to something in them - Shakespeare, but also the story of Verlaine and Rimbaud, or Oscar Wilde’s story and unique novel.

There is also the theme of Oscar Wilde, homosexual writer, and his trial at the end of the 19th century, which are recurrent topics in 1899 fanfictions - a quite interesting one, imo. Have you ever read the Preface of the Picture of Dorian Gray? Definitely Albus and Gellert vibes.

All in all, I don’t think they may have been interested in literature for literature itself, but rather for the political aspect of it. (except for Shelley, Shakespeare and Dante which are a witch and two wizards, and are interested by the references to magic in the works themselves, again hc)

To conclude :

Even though 1899 fanfictions are great - and I thank you, 1899 fanfictions writers, you are amazing - I quite love the idea of all of this aesthetic that could developed. It is somehow prompt ideas.

(also I an studying humanities so it might be why I see those themes in 1899 fanfics so well, yes)

Thanks for reading! :)

Notes :

[1] : I wrote about the conservative Wizarding World and pure-blood families here:  Why are the Weasleys poor? (eng&fr) (theories about pure-blood families, inheritance, etc) /  How can everyone find their true-love and still be in love after years in HP? (”magic-soulmates” theory and conservative society)

[2] : I wrote about Dark magic and rituals in 1899 here: What if Antonio (Gellert Grindelwald’s chupacabra) had been created in 1899? / What about a dangerous, complicated and a bit gore alchemical experience tried by Albus and Gellert secretly?

And I posted quite a lot of things about GGAD, check the Table of contents if you are interested! :)

[tyrannuspitch]

been reading abt this one genetic study and it is rlly interesting but also bc using modern genetics to infer stuff abt history is something i'm Aware you have to be Cautious of it does kind of result in me having Knowledge that i don't feel entirely comfortable thinking of as Knowledge. which is a v weird state of mind. esp when some of the original phrasing was already really cautiously vague.

(cut to ramble abt boring things i am in no way qualified to teach)

like okay time to ramble: i found it bc as part of a long slowburn identity crisis i got rlly frustrated with what little i know of history & not having a clue where to place myself in it - like, england has had so many different waves of migration and changes of regime, and also aristocracy-focused history isn't always good at even distinguishing between those, and if we don't even know which of those groups we're descended from... do we know anything??? (eg: fucking druids wld be talking abt The Old Ways and i'd be sitting here like. okay even if you weren't glorified wiccans, are they "the Old Ways"? are they??? is that our history or someone else's entirely? like, literally, i don't have any particular interest in doing this, but if i theoretically WERE to try and return to the religion of my prechristian ancestors, should i reconstruct druidry or heathenry or smthn else entirely?)

SO i basically wanted to ask how much, if at all, are the modern english descended from the various groups who have lived here. Who The Fuck Actually Are We

and i did basically get a cautious answer! (after finding better scicomm than the fucking guardian, which didn't even take enough care to clearly separate "english and cornish" from "british". fuck the guardian.) the actual conclusions we can pretty safely draw re: this question are:

1. the modern english have a v high level of similarity with other peoples of the uk (the study said "british isles" but roi was not counted), much of which appears to be v ancient dna, which means the genetic evidence directly contradicts the old theory that the anglo-saxons completely displaced/wiped out the britons of england. which is nice. love when my ancestors do not commit genocide on my other ancestors

2. the genetic "clusters" in england and cornwall showed a significant minority of dna (less as you travel north) theorised to be anglo-saxon - "between 10% and 40%". which, like i was saying, is both Information and Non Information. "congratulations participants, you're helping our understanding of history evolve bc you're def partly descended from the ancient britons but you also appear to have some anglo-saxon ancestry!" "oh cool. how much?" "oh you know... some". i know it doesn't matter in the real world but sjfkflshlk damn historic population geneticists u live like this? (they weren't even saying "25% +/- 15%". didn't even give us an average. just like. somewhere in this range lol)

(okay actually i am in Explaining Mode so here goes. afaict part of the problem is they're not even sure which common ancestry to be counting. only clusters in england/cornwall have any northern german common ancestry, but everyone in the uk has danish common ancestry - BUT the danish dna is significantly higher than average in groups w n.german dna. so the problem is: what's ancient, what's anglo-saxon, could any of it be viking? we just don't know.)

(they might have been able to tell by dating it but idk if they tried. and also some of their other dating was coming out Wonky - eg iirc the n.german dna is mostly dated to abt 300 years after anglo-saxon migration ended. so what's going on? did the two communities just take a v long time to integrate, or is something afoot?)

(also, of course - england is pretty genetically homogenous but there is still Some variety by region in this genetic component so making a sweeping statement abt "the english" is hard.)

3. there is a Mystery ComponentTM that makes up a larger segment than the alleged anglo-saxon dna, is found in england, scotland and northern ireland BUT not wales (so it's not just Basic British Ingredients), and matches northern france? i think they're guessing prehistoric migration for that. idk if they dated it. Hmmmm. ~Mystery DNA~

4. methodological info if you're concerned: they used participants from rural areas whose grandparents had all been born in the 50mile radius from them, so region-specific info should be p trustworthy, and the sample size was over 2000. they also found their "clusters" algorithmically and then plotted them back onto the map, so there shouldn't be confirmation bias there.)

(if i *were* to complain, looking at their map... scotland and wales have some gaps in them. some significant gaps.)

5. smthn we might genuinely be concerned abt in the analysis of these results - are we taking the results from places we know to have a historical migration as more meaningful than those we don't? looking at the results shows me every single cluster has a small but significant portion of common ancestry with modern belgium, maybe 1/12. (i'm looking at blurry pie charts, that's my best guess lol.) no analysis i've read has mentioned it.

on the other hand - idk anything abt the history of belgium but i wld not be at all surprised if their genetics were basically somewhere between germany and france, and we've already discussed both those places.

plus, possibly more relevantly - they DID scan for similarities with various other countries in europe and didn't find them. eg, no signficant/detectable common ancestry with the finnish. so if it's showing up at all, let alone as 10% or more, it's more than just random noise.

so it's knowledge but it's not knowledge but it's /more/ knowledge than not knowledge? yeah. i'm having a great time

6. assorted fun(?) facts for those who made it this far:

-the most unique place genetically they found was orkney (note: there were no participants from shetland), who showed ~25% norwegian ancestry, followed by wales, who as we remember have no Mystery DNA.

-the differences between cornwall and devon were minor, but they were definitely there and they followed modern county line p much perfectly!

-there were two different clusters in northern ireland and the west of scotland, but they DIDN'T break down into ireland vs scotland. it looked more like it might be a highland/lowland gael/gall thing. i don't know if they checked if the n.irish respondents were catholic or protestant but uhh probably better not to all things considered

-no matter how minutely you break down genetic differences, there is a large group covering much of england that is basically homogenous. you can tell genetically which island in orkney someone's from, but you can't tell the difference between people from north yorkshire and people from kent.

okay this has been a poorly explained ramble if you'd like to read the damn thing yourself it's this: https://peopleofthebritishisles.web.ox.ac.uk/population-genetics

nb that is their website for laypeople, i've looked at a few different interpetations of this but i haven't looked at the actual paper (yet? dk if i can be bothered going deeper. we'll see)

[lunasilvermorny]

The Summer of Muggles

It’s finally here - and it was all my idea!

Kidding...

First of all - I’m so glad to see that anyone is that invested in anything related to my headcanon ^^ So thanks anon for giving me the motivation to finally make that post!

That being said...Here’s the thing.

When I made the "Summer of Muggles", it was just something I made for myself, to figure things out, so it involved zero research. And as someone who's never personally been to the UK, I probably got a lot of things wrong and Americanized the hell out of everything. Anyway, for me to post it, I need to do a proper research and I'm just not invested enough in it to dedicate the time and energy that will make it happen.

That means that the full thing will just stay as something I wrote for myself.

However...!

I can summarize it for you. (and by summarize, I mean - make a very long and detailed post about it.)

(I realized that the drawing I made about the Summer of Muggles is almost a year old, so I’ve decided to redraw it... It’s really encouraging to see how much I’ve improved since last year.)

0. Introduction:

For Luna's 14th birthday (it's in December, so she was still in her 4th year), her mother bought her a car that Luna named Oliver. Luna's muggle grandma has taught her how to drive (the first time she let her sit behind the wheel was when she was only 8 y.o.!), and she really loves muggle technology in general, so it was the perfect gift for her.

When Luna came back for the summer vacation between her 4th and 5th year, she's decided to go on a road trip across the UK with Oliver. The car had a magical protection that prevented muggle-cops from approaching it, so Luna was able to drive around without a license. She also looked older than she was (mostly because of her height), so she didn't draw any attention to herself whenever she got in and out of the car.

She drove around, especially next to coastlines, parked next to beaches and slept in the car. During her trip she met many muggles, but a selected few actually traveled with her for a portion of it.

You can divide her trip into 4 major sections:

The first week (the adjustment period)

The end of July

The first three days of August

The rest of August

Okay, let’s dive in!

----

1. The first week (around mid-July)

She spent most of the time getting used to sleep in her car and go to public places for basic needs like food, bathroom, laundry etc.

The most memorable event during this week was when she met a group of people that were on their way to a rock-concert when their car broke down. So she gave them a ride and in return they've sneaked her in.

----

2. The end of July

That's when she met Pete and Lynn - fraternal twins that just finished high school and wanted to have a small taste of freedom before going to uni. She met them while she stumbled across a forest party for their graduation.

Most people there were too wasted to notice her, but they saw her almost immediately and started a conversation with her. So they drank, danced and talked for hours. They were also the only muggles that figured out she's a witch. (Well, almost... you’ll see why in the next section.) Lynn has noticed her wand and they told her that their little sister is also a witch that just finished her first year at Hogwarts. After the party was interrupted by the cops, Lynn and Pete asked her if they can join her for the trip, and without any second though she agreed.

They mostly went to parties and got drunk in different places for the rest of the month, and had a lot of fun together.

--

3. The first three days of August

After arriving at a small town and sitting in the local pub, Luna’s identity as a witch was discovered and she had to use Obliviate on the muggles in the pub to keep it a secret. Because they were in the middle or nowhere essentially, a wizard from the Ministry of Magic arrived shortly after to see if a minor used magic there. Luna, Lynn and Pete hid in the car, and once the wizard got in the pub, drove away in a hurry.

Knowing that she needs a strong alibi in case they found out it was her that used magic, Luna left Lynn and Pete with Oliver next to a small forest outside of the town and flew in her owl form to her parents’ house, but when she saw that the wizard got there before her and was already talking to her father, she's decided to fly to the Weasleys instead. She got there in the middle of the night and woke up Bill to ask for his help.

In the early morning the wizard from the Ministry arrived at the Weasleys’ house and was greeted by Luna and Bill, although Mrs. Weasley joined them shortly after he got there. When she saw her son was telling the wizard that Luna has been staying there for more than a week and never left their house, she supported their story, even before she was sure why they're lying about it.

The wizard said that he found a letter addressed to her in the pub (oh right, I forgot to mention that while in the pub, Charlie Brown showed up with a letter from Rowan, and with the whole fuss surrounding her being a witch, she hasn’t noticed when she dropped it.) but Luna kept insisting she was never there.

The wizard left eventually and Luna found out later on that her father made the problem “disappear” and that's why she got away with it.

She stayed there for a couple of hours and gave Mrs. Weasley a not-really-convincing explanation for what happened, but Mrs. Weasley chose to trust her eldest son and his reasons for helping her.

Luna flew back to the road outside the small town where she's left Lynn and Pete with her car, but when she got to the exact spot, they weren’t there anymore. She's spent the rest of the morning searching for them in both her human and owl forms and when she couldn't, she went to a small pub on the side of the road to get some rest. The pub was empty aside for the bartender - Michael, a 20-something y.o. bloke that ran his parents' business when they got too old to do it themselves.

They talked and bonded, and eventually he offered her to sleep in his flat on the second floor, because she looked too exhausted to keep looking for them. But she barely got half an hour of sleep before she's decided to keep searching, and Michael offered to help her. She knew she'd be better off searching in her owl form, but he looked determined to help her, so they've searched together for a few hours. Around noon Luna thanked him for his help but said she preferred to keep searching alone, so she had the chance to cover more ground in her owl form.

Toward the evening she started to lose hope and took a quick nap on a bench in a random bus stop, before she was interrupted by an old lady and her son. She almost lost her wand, but the old lady gave it to her just before she left again.

She kept searching for a few more hours and just before she lost all hope, she went once more to the place where she had left them in the first place and to her surprise, found Lynn sitting next to a tree a few meters from the car.

Lynn told Luna that Pete and her had a huge fight and he's decided to go to Wales alone (because that's where they were heading) and Lynn went to a nearby town to sleep, but got stuck with the car because the gas ran out, and by the time she got back to the same point, Luna already gave up on the idea that they might still be there.

When Luna suggested they should just keep going, Lynn told her she's too tried and they both went back to Michael's pub to get some rest. But instead of sleeping they've spent the entire night drinking and talking with him and when Lynn finally fell asleep around dawn, Michael asked Luna to join them on their trip, since Pete’s spot has opened.

--

4. The rest of August

The three had great chemistry and spent most of the time like before- partying and drinking, only that with Michael there, they also went camping more. Lynn and Michael almost became a thing, which made being around them awkward, then it didn't work out, which made being around them even more awkward, but after a few days it went back to normal.

They went to the northernmost point in Scotland before they turned back to England, but kept driving past London and went to the southernmost point in England. There they met Connor, a rich young bloke that celebrated his financial freedom with a huge party on the beach.

During the night he made a very negative impression on Luna and Michael, but after he sobered up in the morning he offered them to come visit him in Brighton, where he'll make it up to him. Michael was against it, but both Luna and Lynn were intrigued and they've decided it will be the last place they visit before they head back home.

They partied with Connor for a few days and Lynn's decided to stay with Connor, while Luna and Michael headed toward London.

Luna dropped him at the train station and planned to go home, but when she stood outside of her house, already prepared to open the door and get in, she's decided that she wanted to get a proper goodbye from Pete as well and flew to his aunt's house in Wales.

Pete was surprised by the strange owl that knocked on the window, and even more surprised when it turned into Luna. He hugged her and apologized for leaving without a saying anything, and just said that he and Lynn had a huge fight and he couldn't stay there with her anymore. He refused to get into the details but showed concern for his sister’s safety and reassured Luna that they tend to have huge fights like this a lot and they'll make up "sometime soon."

--

After that Luna really went back home - and that's the end of the Summer of Muggles.

If you think that was long, the original post was ~30 pages long in MS Word, so... I actually summarized it. (Who know I was capable of it? Not me.)

[silver-lily-louise]

Planes, Trains, and Portalmobiles

‘Y’know, there’s a lot more standing around and waiting than I thought there’d be.' Magnus shrugs. ‘Why do you think I haven’t bothered with planes before now? Compared to a portal, they’re horribly inefficient.’

Post-Canon. On their way back to Alicante from a trip to Scotland, Magnus and Alec decide to take a few Mundane modes of transport for once. There are... mixed results.

Read it on AO3, or below!

~oOo~

‘Y’know, there’s a lot more standing around and waiting than I thought there’d be,’ Alec comments, readjusting the straps on his rucksack for the seventh or eighth time. Magnus shrugs. ‘Why do you think I haven’t bothered with planes before now?’ he points out, managing to add a surprisingly high dose of disapproval to his quiet words. ‘Compared to a portal, they’re horribly inefficient.’

The line moves up, and Magnus turns to him more fully, frowning a little. ‘You still have the passports, right?’ ‘Yes, Magnus,’ he says, fondly exasperated. They’ve been in this line for less than twenty minutes, and he’s given that same answer three times already. He leans closer, dropping his voice low enough that it’s only for his husband’s ears. ‘Not like you couldn’t conjure another couple if I had lost them, anyway.’ Magnus gives him a half-hearted glare. ‘True, but I might make a mistake if rushed,’ he insists. ‘What, like, put your real birthday or something?’ Alec says, his lips twitching up into a small grin. ‘I already think you’re pushing your luck claiming to be thirty-seven, by the way.’ Magnus smirks. ‘Hm. Afraid of being seen with a partner so much older than you?’ he teases, reaching out to straighten Alec’s collar. ‘Whatever will the good people of Edinburgh Airport think?’ Alec just stares at him, barely suppressing a laugh. ‘Everyone we know is fully aware that I married someone who’s started counting in centuries,’ he says, his tone ringing with exaggerated patience. ‘But sure, ten years would make me self-conscious.’

Whatever reply is undoubtedly forming on Magnus’ tongue is lost as they reach the front of the line, Alec producing their tickets and passports with an easy smile. Ordinarily, he’d let Magnus take the lead in situations like this, especially with things that require a little deception. But he hasn’t missed the tension in how Magnus is holding himself, nor the way his eyes dart to each unexpected sound. Alec doesn’t want to give him anything else to be nervous about. Or, for that matter, for his anxiety to be noticed by any airport staff and arouse suspicion.

Thankfully, it’s not too much longer until they’re actually on the plane. ‘Aisle or window?’ he asks, stowing his rucksack overhead. Magnus had insisted that they fly first class, which means that their seat is a duo, rather than the usual trio. Alec’s grateful for that now – they’ve got enough to think about without having to be mindful of a random Mundane sitting right next to them. ‘Aisle,’ Magnus says decisively. Alec had expected that, knowing that being hemmed in gives Magnus less space to wield his magic if he needs to. ‘Okay,’ he says, taking his window seat and settling back into the comfortable padding with a quiet sigh. Magnus snorts. ‘How are you so calm?’ he asks, taking his own seat. ‘It’s not like you’ve been on a plane before, either.’ Alec shrugs. ‘Thousands of Mundanes use them every day,’ he says. ‘And statistically, they’re incredibly safe. I was probably in way more danger walking around New York, especially while I was glamoured and invisible to traffic.’ ‘You have a point,’ Magnus admits.

Alec doesn’t miss how his husband still doesn’t relax, though. ‘It’s gonna be fine,’ he says quietly, reaching across to squeeze Magnus’ hand. ‘You know that, right?’ ‘For the most part,’ Magnus says, wearily. He gives a small, frustrated smile. ‘I’ve just… grown used to being in control of my own transport,’ he says. He gestures vaguely around them. ‘I’m not in control of this. I wouldn’t know how to be, without jeopardising the whole operation. And I know that it’s ridiculous to be anxious, but I also don’t know how my magic reacts at high altitudes, without proper connection to the earth – if we get into trouble, I don’t know if I can keep us safe, or – ‘

‘Well, that’s what the parachute is for,’ Alec says, cutting off Magnus’ increasingly-agitated tirade. Magnus looks at him, stunned. ‘…Alexander,’ he says carefully, ‘you are aware that planes don’t come with parachutes as standard, right?’ ‘Of course I am,’ Alec says, rolling his eyes, though carefully keeping his soft, reassuring smile in place. ‘That’s why I brought my own. Why else did you think I needed a carry-on?’ Magnus’ eyes briefly do their best impression of dinner plates. ‘You - Where the hell did you even get a parachute?’ ‘The Gard armory’s pretty well-stocked,’ Alec says, shrugging. ‘Even with some of the more obscure stuff. And there’s no metal in the mechanism, either, so the airport scanners would have just thought it was a bunch of fabric. A blanket or something.’ He smiles, a little pleased that he hasn’t lost the ability to surprise Magnus just yet. ‘So, if things go wrong when we’re up there, hold on to me and we’ll get out,’ he says simply.

Magnus just stares at him for a few moments longer, shaking his head silently as a voice over the intercom welcomes them aboard. ‘Nephilim,’ he says eventually, sounding practically awed in his disbelief. But when he settles back in his chair with a quiet, breathy laugh, he doesn’t look quite so nervous.

And when the seatbelt signs turn off a short while later, and a quick shimmer over his fingertips apparently confirms that his magic is under control, he relaxes completely, returning Alec’s smile with an honest one of his own.

***

The flight takes about ninety minutes, and by the time they’ve disembarked, collected their luggage (which is mostly for show, because travelers without luggage might draw Mundane attention) and are standing on the right platform at Heathrow’s train station, it’s mid-afternoon. The train pulls up from the right-hand-side, and they board. They’re promptly asked to show their tickets; but once that’s done and the conductor moves on, they’re practically alone, the rest of their carriage almost empty. (When they booked the tickets, Magnus said something about super-off-peak, which Alec still doesn’t see the point of. Surely the train runs the same no matter the time of day?)

Magnus leans against Alec’s shoulder, letting his eyes drift closed. ‘Perhaps it’s the adrenaline comedown, but I’m suddenly exhausted,’ he says, stifling a yawn. ‘Remind me why we had to get up at such an ungodly hour?’ ‘I asked you that this morning, and you said it was all part of the experience,’ Alec reminds him, letting his voice turn a little husky as he quotes his husband. Magnus huffs in displeasure. ‘I do not sound like that, Alexander,’ he protests. ‘Yeah, you do.’ ‘Hm. Do not,’ he argues, closing his eyes.

Alec chuckles. ‘Are you seriously going to sleep through this part?’ he asks. ‘What happened to experiencing Mundane transport?’ ‘I’ve been on trains before,’ Magnus points out, lazily waving a hand and throwing up the barest shimmer of a ward, just around their seats. ‘You can appreciate it enough for the both of us,’ he suggests. Alec snorts quietly - but Magnus really must have been tired, because he’s already asleep.

Alec looks out of the window, surprised to find that they’re already surrounded by greenery, despite having left London a relatively short time ago. Apparently, England’s not quite as rural as Alicante, but it’s a damn sight less urban than New York. His gaze flicks up to the scrolling banner above the doors, the one that declares which stops are coming up next. Their stop, Guildford (which, for some weird British reason, is apparently pronounced ‘Gill-furred’, instead of by saying the words which actually make it up) is pretty far along the list.

Magnus’ breathing is slow and rhythmic, now, and Alec feels tiredness tugging at his own awareness, like it’s trying to pull a comforter over his thoughts. But they can’t both fall asleep in public, no matter what the alluring quiet and warmth of the train carriage is saying. He ought to activate a stamina rune. Unfortunately, his stele’s in the pocket that Magnus is currently lying on top of; and he doesn’t want to wake his husband up, knowing that he didn’t sleep well last night.

I’ll grab it in a few minutes, he reasons. He’ll let Magnus sleep a while longer, and then make his attempt, just in case he wakes him irreversibly. He can make it a few more minutes.

He jumps to attention as Magnus’ phone goes off, reaching for a seraph blade that isn’t there – before gaining a little awareness and settling back down, glancing around to check that he hasn’t inadvertently made a scene. Thankfully, the only person close enough to have noticed his reaction is his husband, who extinguishes the dim sparks at his fingertips, raising a seemingly-amused eyebrow at Alec’s jumpiness before answering the offending cell phone. ‘Hello?’ ‘Magnus, w… ‘l are you?’ Alec catches through the speaker. ‘You sh… Gilf… ‘ly’n hour ago.’ ‘Ah,’ Magnus says, looking over at the scrolling banner – which now says The next station is Portsmouth Harbour, and Alec’s stomach drops as he realises what must have happened. ‘It seems we’ve taken a little detour. We’ll get off at the next station and portal straight to you as planned.’ He pauses, Ragnor’s reply lost in his grumpy tone. ‘Yes, all right. See you soon.’

Magnus hangs up, turning to Alec and giving him a sheepish smile. ‘It seems that we’ve missed our stop.’ ‘Looks that way,’ Alec mumbles. ‘Well, no matter.’ He snaps his fingers, apparently unfazed. ‘There. Two tickets for Portsmouth Harbor. Problem solved.’ ‘Great,’ Alec says, attempting a smile of his own. He sits back in his chair, looking down at where he’s unconsciously started fiddling with his wedding ring.

Magnus is too well-versed in his brush-off tactics to let him get away with that, though, and Alec soon finds his face gently pivoted towards his husband with a careful hand. ‘Alexander, is everything okay?’ he asks, his brow furrowed in soft concern.

‘Yeah,’ Alec says. ‘I mean it,’ he insists, when Magnus tilts his head as if to say come on, now. ‘Everything’s fine. It’s just…’ He sighs, one corner of his mouth twitching up into a rueful smile. ‘It might not have been. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I’m sorry.’ ‘It’s okay,’ Magnus says, his frown deepening a little in confusion. ‘You fell asleep first. Which means it was my watch,’ Alec points out.

At that, Magnus rolls his eyes, heaving a long-suffering sigh, though a gentle smile tugs at his lips. ‘It wasn’t your watch, darling,’ he says. ‘We’re not on some… quest through dangerous territory. You fell asleep on a train. It happens.’ ‘We’re still out on our own in public – ‘ ‘Which makes it a little embarrassing, especially since we missed our stop, but not dangerous,’ Magnus says firmly. ‘You saw me put up a ward before I fell asleep. I doubt your subconscious would have let you sacrifice your alertness, otherwise.’ ‘Magnus-‘

But he’s silenced by his husband holding up a finger to his lips, just shy of touching. ‘It’s good to let your guard down sometimes, Alexander,’ Magnus says softly. ‘It’s good to feel safe.’ He flashes a small, teasing smile. ‘Especially when you’re with me.’

Alec’s stomach twists again, but this time, it’s a warm, fluttery sensation, and he relents. ‘Okay,’ he murmurs – and he hums a little in contentment as he’s rewarded with a kiss.

They get off the train, their magically-adjusted tickets not giving them any problems at the gate, and they quickly discover that Portsmouth Harbour is a fairly literal name for this station – it’s practically on the water. ‘Those seagulls are huge,’ Alec says, as they wander through the streets to a quieter area, trying to find a safe place to glamor and portal without visibly disappearing. ‘Disproportionate,’ Magnus agrees. ‘A tiny country and a tiny stretch of water, and they’ve practically got albatrosses? I can’t say it makes a lot of sense to me.’

It’s not long before they’re ducking into an alleyway, and Magnus twirls one hand, calling a portal. His other hand reaches out to Alec’s, and he orders, ‘Hold on,’ like he always does when he knows their portal destination is new to his husband.

They step out onto a rolling expanse of green – large enough that the clouds above them cast the soft outlines of shadows, slinking across the grass like ships going by. Ragnor is there waiting, standing before them with a raised eyebrow and a small smile. ‘Took you long enough,’ he comments. ‘Oh, shut up,’ Magnus says lightly, stepping forward and embracing the other warlock briefly. They hadn’t seemed like those sort of friends, at first – both from what Alec himself had seen of them, and from what Clary and Jace had told him. He’d mentioned that casually to Magnus, once; and Magnus had thought for a second, before quietly explaining that he’s just found himself doing that more often – reaching for a hug, or accepting one – since Ragnor’s apparent ‘death’.

Which… yeah. Alec can definitely understand that.

He’s pulled back to the present moment as Ragnor extends an arm towards his impressive house, at the top of the hill and not too far from where they’re standing. ‘Shall we?’

Ragnor’s home proves to be pretty much exactly what Alec expected. With the eclectic furniture, old-world charm, and shelves of copious books and artifacts, it’s similar in a lot of ways to Catarina’s home, and to Magnus’ loft before it was Alec’s, too. Or, actually, if he’s being honest, for the first few months after. It was only in the process of moving their lives to Alicante that Magnus had insisted Alec assist with ‘a long-overdue redecoration.’ Magnus, he’d protested, we don’t have to, I like your place the way it is- But that’s exactly it, Alexander, Magnus had interrupted him. It’s our place. And if it’s going to feel like our marital home instead of my bachelor pad- (Alec had smirked at the phrasing, and had received a withering glare) - then it needs your input, too. Now: couches facing northwards, or east?

And maybe Alec had gone along with it just to appease his husband, at the time. But these days, he can’t deny that there’s a certain comfort in coming back to a home he’s had a hand in shaping.

Across the room, now, Magnus is looking at a painting hung in the stairwell, out of Alec’s eyeline, and shaking his head. ‘When will you get rid of this thing?’ he asks, with no small amount of distaste in his expression. ‘It reeks of a narcissism that doesn’t become you.’ ‘I will get rid of it when – or, more likely, if – it stops being useful,’ Ragnor says, holding a cup of what smells like very good coffee out to Alec, and returning his smile of thanks before pointing at a seat, silently inviting him to make himself comfortable. ‘Especially since you insisted I get rid of my wall of fire,’ he continues, glancing back at Magnus. ‘Because it was a ridiculous drain on your resources, and beyond superfluous once Valentine ceased to be a threat,’ Magnus scoffs, summoning his own drink before collapsing into the seat next to Alec’s like he owns the place. ‘If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with this place looking as tacky as Lorenzo’s,’ he adds, pointing accusingly at their host with his free hand.

Ragnor glares at him. ‘You ought to take that back whilst you still can, Magnus,’ he warns. Magnus raises his eyebrows, his mouth shrugging irreverently. ‘Or?’

But Ragnor doesn’t answer him directly. ‘Tell me, Alexander,’ he says, a wicked shine seeming to spark in his eyes. ‘Did your husband ever regale you with the story of the weekend he spent in Tuscany with Signor Simoni? How he ended up –‘ ‘All right,’ Magnus says loudly, huffing out a disgruntled breath. ‘All right, comment withdrawn.’ He glowers, though the effect is somewhat lost when he’s peering above his cup of tea. ‘Blackmailer. I try to look out for your good taste in your dotage, and this is how you thank me?’

Alec chuckles, not too bothered by the loss of a promised story. They’ve hosted Ragnor enough times by now that he has a general idea of how this evening’s going to go, and so he’s fairly certain he’ll get to hear it anyway.

One excellent roast beef dinner and several glasses of honeyed wine later, he’s proved exactly right.

***

The night they spend at Ragnor’s passes quickly. The three of them while away most of it talking, and when they eventually turn in, Ragnor’s guest room is inviting and comfortable, from the wooden floors that are warmer than they ought to be to the cool cotton sheets that are almost as soft as Magnus’ preferred silk. The magic that hums around them, guarding the house, is different, of course – it’s a little less heady, quieter and more distant, yet more persistent than the wards around their own home. But just when Alec is beginning to wonder if it’s too different for him to be able to fall asleep, Magnus rolls over and semi-consciously wraps an arm around his waist, his breathing evening out against Alec’s neck moments later.

A more familiar hum seems to resonate within Alec at the possessive gesture, and he smiles, closing his eyes. He sleeps the whole night through, peaceful and undisturbed.

The house comes to a sleepy start after the late night, and they partake in an indulgent ‘Full English’ brunch before deciding to make the most of the sunshine, going for a walk around a few of the meadows and small stretches of forest bordering Ragnor’s own land. Alec walks a little in front, taking in the fresh air and occasionally thinking of practical uses for what’s growing around them. The small flowers underfoot, he’s pretty sure, are birdsfoot trefoil, and he knows that Catarina sometimes combines the darker petals of that with powdered adder scales, to make an infusion for patients with particularly stubborn fevers. The treeline nearby is fairly yew-heavy, and Alec’s thoughts drift once again to the fanciful idea of taking up bowyery someday. After so long refining how to use a bow, he guesses it’s pretty natural that he’d catch some sort of interest in how they’re made. He’s heard that old mundane bows were often made of yew wood, so perhaps that’d be a good material to work with; providing he avoided prolonged, long-term exposure, the kind that used to poison traditional woodworkers.

When he isn’t busy daydreaming about craftsmanship that he definitely doesn’t have the time for right now, he listens to what Magnus and Ragnor are discussing as they walk along. Right now, for instance, they’re debating the usefulness of platinum cauldrons – Ragnor claims that they’re a trinket and a fad, whilst Magnus is preaching the merit of their unique and subtle inert energies during the potion-brewing process. Sometimes, when they get like this – bickering over magical theory, neither willing to give an inch – Alec wonders how on earth they ever managed to live together. Maybe he ought to ask Catarina about it sometime.

They eventually turn back towards the house, Magnus linking arms with Alec as they walk. ‘I hope we weren’t boring you,’ he says, more indifferently than Alec suspects he feels. ‘I do worry about leaving you out, sometimes.’ Alec leans a little closer to his husband in reassurance, nudging Magnus’ ribs affectionately with his elbow. ‘Are you kidding?’ he says. ‘You know I find all that magic stuff interesting. Especially when you’re the one talking about it.’ He grins. ‘Though, I gotta say, I think Ragnor has a point about moose antlers being more potent than reindeer.’

Magnus looks at him in sheer offence, apparently speechless in the face of such betrayal. Ragnor chuckles, clapping Alec on the shoulder. ‘I knew I liked you for a reason, Shadowhunter.’

 ***

In the evening, they take their leave, thanking Ragnor for his hospitality before stepping through their portal. It takes Alec a moment to notice, because the world looks different at night, but they end up in the exact same alleyway they portaled to Ragnor’s from. ‘See?’ Magnus says, as they step out into the streetlight and the last remnants of dusk. Across the water, orange lights flicker from where the coastline curves round, like stars at the horizon. ‘Our train mishap was helpful, as it turns out,’ Magnus continues, linking his arm with the one Alec isn’t currently using to drag their suitcase behind them, the wheels rumbling quietly over the sidewalk. ‘This is far closer to the ferry port than I would have been able to portal us before. We won’t even have to call a cab.’

He’s right; it’s a very manageable walk to the ferry port. The city is quiet at this time – though a New Yorker’s perspective on that is always a little skewed, Alec will admit – but they do pass a couple of dog walkers, among others. And when they run into a third group of young people, laughing raucously and moving in herds, Alec raises an eyebrow. Magnus shrugs. ‘College town,’ he says by way of explanation, gesturing to a building nearby – one that bears the same purple livery as several others they’ve passed tonight. ‘And eighteen’s the drinking age here, so they’re not limited to the secrecy of frat parties.’

They reach the ferry port soon after that, and board quickly. Magnus finds a quiet corner to surreptitiously banish the suitcase, and then they head out to the stern of the top deck. The boat begins to move towards Caen, the water rushing loudly below them, and Magnus’ arm is warm around Alec’s waist as they watch the city lights grow distant across the sea.

He wakes to a heavy weight on his chest, smiling fondly even before he opens his eyes. At home, Magnus might be justified in calling him an octopus; but when they’re sleeping away from the loft, his husband gains a certain charming clinginess of his own.

Alec turns his head to the left, gazing out of the porthole. Neither of them had wanted to be underwater – or in a windowless room that might make them feel as if they were – so they’d paid the extra for a glimpse of the outside world, and at this moment, Alec thinks it might be among the best decisions they've ever made. He breathes slow and steady, a sense of calm washing over him, and watches as the dark orange clouds twisting across the violet sky gradually shift into a brighter hue.

Magnus shifts, his breath tickling Alec’s chest a little as he yawns. ‘Good morning,’ Alec says softly. Magnus rolls off of him, stretching and sighing heavily before curling back in, planting a light, smiling kiss to Alec’s shoulder. ‘Morning.’ Alec turns his head back towards his right, deciding that watching Magnus watch the sunrise makes for a better view than watching it himself. His husband is beautiful in any light, but something about the blue and gold of dawn makes him look soft and ethereal - like a really good dream, but one that Alec’s somehow gotten lucky enough to hold and taste and keep.

‘Hey,’ he says after a few long, quiet moments, drawing Magnus’ eyes back to him. He flicks his own gaze briefly over his shoulder. ‘Nothing against air travel or trains, but I think that this one might be my favorite,’ he says with a small smile. Magnus chuckles, the laughter creasing kindness around his cat eyes as he reaches up, tenderly brushing Alec’s hair away from his face. ‘Mine too,’ he agrees.

 ~oOo~

[angelthefirst1]

Ride with Norman Reedus, and clues for Beth’s return beyond The Walking Dead.

I want to show you how the symbolism in the walking dead is being used outside the show as well.

 In this post I will focus on Ride with Norman Reedus, in particular the episode with Melissa McBride (Season 3 episode) and a few other clues from The Talking Dead.

 I have been saying for years that Carol and Beth are heavily intertwined. They are Mother Daughter versions of each other. They are the same, but on different timelines, and going down different paths.

What if Beth had ended up being romantically involved with Noah after making it out of Grady alive while Carol ‘died’ in Grady?

That is the story they have shown us through Carol and Ezekiel, the different path way chosen.

 I want to show you what I see…

I see Grady as a form of hell, and when both Carol and Beth Entered they were trapped, Daryl went into hell to rescue them, but could only get one back at a time.

Due to Carol and Beth being the same but choosing different pathways.

From the Grady hallway onward where Carol came out alive and Beth ‘didn’t’, they have been showing the Carol side of the coin (story or pathway) flipped up.

Meaning we would see her story go ahead, while Beth’s side of the story was flipped facing down (on hold) and we would not see her story until the coin flips back the other way and her chosen path plays out (which I believe will be with Daryl)

In this episode of Ride with Norman Reedus, both Melissa and Norman show Beth’s pathway both past and future.

Now Melissa does have Scottish ancestry and in this episode they travel to Scotland to look into and track her family roots.  

While this is real for Melissa and her quest to find information about her family history, they have very cleverly used this episode to show what Beth and Daryl have already experienced and will experience.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so let’s look at some of the visual similarities between this episode and Beth and Daryl in The Walking Dead.

First they have a reunion of sorts in Scotland in a sweet little tea house

(This small reunion is also pointing to Daryl and Beth’s reunion to come, and Carol and Daryl’s past reunion in 501)

Whilst sitting across from each other eating in this sweet little tea house setting, is Carol’s/Melissa’s version of this scene below:

They discuss the first scene they ever shot together, and how Norman was being antagonistic towards Melissa and kept putting more blood on the axe she was killing walker Ed with.

Norman talks about how in grade school when you like someone you poke them or annoy them and Melissa says after that moment, she thought to herself “I’m gonna like this guy”    

“What an Arsehole”

Norman agrees and says “What a Jerk”

This scene is pointing to the fight Daryl and Beth had in ‘Still’, where Daryl was being antagonistic toward Beth and Beth called him and Jackass and a Jerk.

‘After that’ (like Melissa said) at the funeral home as they eat together they ‘like’ each other

Melissa then goes on to talk about her Scottish heritage, saying she “has roots here” in Scotland.

Melissa is tracking her family roots in this episode but this is also Beth’s future story of tracking her family.

Melissa even tells us she is tracking her family, which we all know plays into Beth learning to track from Daryl and the concept that she will have to use that skill on her own again.

This theme is be repeated by Judith in 1015 when she tells Daryl she wants to learn to be like him and protect her family, just like Beth did. 

One HUGH clue is what Melissa says next…

“I have roots here… I have this genetic memory that’s somehow being passed down through the generations… You get this little piece of memory. When you get a hit (of memory) it’s like OH this is so exciting! It’s like uncovering a mystery”

Beth is going to have memory problems and every now and then something will trigger a memory that will uncover more of who she was and her past, and those ‘uncovered mystery memories’ will eventually help her ‘TRACK’ or find her family

I cannot tell you, just how many shows and movies are portraying this theme right now, of a blond girl having memory loss and uncovering little pieces of memory along the way.

This is seen in Captain Marvel and Homeland just to name a few.

In the latest season of Homeland when the main Blond character with memory problems is talking to another character about not having all her memories the line ‘The Walking Dead’ is even used.

This topic might be a very interesting post for another time as it’s quite extensive.

But just remember this theme of memory loss and let me know if you see it in any other shows you might watch, I’d love to look into them.

Norman and Melissa go to many locations in this episode; here are a few that defiantly stand out. The different scenes individually don’t seem that interesting but when you put it all together wow, it’s unmistakably Beth and Daryl’s story. 

The Dog trot and dog theme (we all know this is important)

 Norman and Melissa go to a dog training school (more on this soon)

The new clothes...

Norman and Melissa go to a tartan shop to find her family’s signature tartan

 The fight in ‘Still’ and the Booze hunt...

  Melissa and Norman go to a bar where Melissa discovers the last name of the person who owned the bar was McBride, her one of her great grandfathers who died in that very bar.

Remembering the dead...

 Melissa and Norman go to a cemetery where they find her great grandfathers grave, they even take a rubbing of it.

Which is a repeat of the scene where Beth and Daryl stop and remember Hershel through the beloved father gravestone.

Melissa is very thankful for Normans kindness in giving her this moment.

Later on in this episode there is also hand holding

Trying to get dog to come in...

Norman and Melissa meet with a dog trainer and Norman is taught how to be assertive enough to get the dog to go with him keep.

(I also think the scene with Melissa and Norman below will be repeated with Beth, Daryl and Dog at some stage, in that dog will happily jump all over Beth with Daryl watching on)

Making Music together...

 Norman and Melissa go and play the bagpipes together, Norman is not sure if he is ‘making music right’ he ends up scaring Melissa out of the room with his attempts to play.

Now making music has a double meaning so just to spell it out for you all, this is what it also means...

‘A couple who meet and enjoy each others company are said to make sweet music together. They have a harmonious relationship. There is also a sexual connotation about what the couple does together and the noises they make being ‘sweet music’

When Melissa runs out the room after Norman attempts at making music, it is a complete call back to this moment...

Daryl has just let Beth know has feelings for her and quickly leaves the room in a panic, so flustered that he opens the door without checking. 

Feasting together...

At the very end of the episode Norman and Melissa have a big feast, where Norman is very happy!

The Crossover...

Another peculiar thing happens during this episode and this is what i call the crossover

Basically Beth and Carol are equal opposites and will crossover at some point, just like the first time in Grady they will switch and yes i do think Carol will die.

First lets look at these scenes below from Ride.

At one point in the episode Norman and Melissa are looking for directions to find the statue of William Wallace (this is significant)

Norman spots this lady walking towards them and says “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me”  really wanting her attention and hoping she will stop and give them directions.

Melissa and this blond mystery woman are going in opposite directions, and crossover. The blond woman has long locks and a braid in her hair, she represents Beth and Carols stories and their crossing paths. (and yes i do think this was a planned and deliberate scene) 

Negan = Daryl

Alpha = Carol

Blond faceless woman = Beth

The boundary line = a representation of the crossover

The very next stop after this for Norman and Melissa is the William Wallace statue which is for Carol where her story could end.

William Wallace defeated an English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

He was appointed Guardian of Scotland and served until his defeat at the Battle of Falkirk.

In 1305, Wallace was captured in Robroyston, near Glasgow, and handed over to King Edward I of England, who had him hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason and crimes against English civilians.

Unfortunately i think a version of the Hung Drawn and Quartered aspect of William Wallace’s death is going to be given to Carol and will be a twist on Father Gabrielle's comic book death, where he falls from the Water Tower and gets disemboweled by Beta.

Some other clues i found, are from The Talking Dead episode after Coda with Emily.

I know some if these things have been discussed in the past but i want to bring attention back to them now in light of what is happening currently on the show.

So on The Talking Dead we saw some odd things said, some of them i believe are clues as to when Beth will return.

First odd thing:

Then

Its all planned...

Carol wanted Alpha Dead, Just like Beth wanted Dawn dead.

Eugene is a Beth proxy here, they both know what it feels like to want something so bad you ‘almost’ get people killed, still have nothing to show for it.

Once Carol does kill Alpha she still isn't satisfied, her subconscious tells her she wants one more thing. 

Beth wanted Dawn dead and almost got herself killed in doing so.

In the hallway of Grady Beth wanted two things...

1. Noah to get out with her.

2. Take down Dawn

Carol has taken down Alpha the other thing she wants...

Its not to be alone, she wants to save Ezekiel, and just like Beth i think she will pay the ultimate price to save him.

In The Talking Dead, Emily is talking about fond moments outside the show and is triggered to cry when she says the name Melissa, which i always thought was odd (until now because i see its been planned)

Like sure... she is friends with Melissa but at the time i would have guessed she would talk about Lauren or Norman and cry thinking about them, not so much Melissa.

she cry's at the name Melissa because Carols character will die around the time Beth comes back.

The reference to a large football field and it pouring rain, made me again think of this location and the crossover it represents

When the crossover happens it will be Beth and Daryl alive and Carol dead.

When Negan (who also represents Beta) takes Daryl to the spike in the field where he left Alphas head, its pouring down with rain.

Negan Kills Alpha...

And Beta could end up killing Carol (in a William Wallace manner), which will be a repeat of Dawn (Supposedly) killing Beth and Daryl killing Dawn.

This will possibly be in the final episode of season 10 and if they delay the final to around the time of July 4-5th well that wouldn't surprise me, but we will see with that one.

I have posted these pictures in the past, where Tara looks at her watch and it reads 10:28

Carol then looks at a flower drawn on the bridge they are sitting on, i originally thought maybe it points to half way thorough season 10, Carol would die... but obviously that didn't happen

 I now think this may point to Carol’s death in 1016.

10

and

2x8=16

10:16

I have a few follow on things about THE TOWER (1015) which i will be doing a post on soon.

The name is a callback to Grady and also the episode ‘Claimed’, both of which have huge connections to Beth and her soon return.

So look out for that!

[bee-kathony]

The Oath | Ch. 1 - “Discoveries”

Reeling from a bad breakup, Claire finds comfort with a stranger, Jamie Fraser — owner of Fraser & Co. the newest Whisky company in Edinburgh. They share their pain, loss and dreams, after all… it was just supposed to be one night together.

a/n: Hello there! This is a brand new fic I’ve been working on and am so excited to finally share this with everyone! I hope you enjoy and can’t wait for the rest of this story to unfold xx

January 20th, 2019

Claire was running late (as usual), and had just texted Frank to let him know she was on her way home from work. Being promoted to Chief Resident at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, while amazing and the highlight of her career thus far, also came with its obvious stress. She had been late more times than she had been early since her new role and while Frank was a forgiving man, Claire knew he could only take so much of her tardiness.

But it’s not like Frank had been perfectly punctual in their entire four year relationship. A history professor at Edinburgh University, Frank Randall had his fair share of late nights grading papers and tutoring students.

A quiet ding came from Claire’s pocket and she pulled it out to check the message.

Frank: No rush

“No rush he says,” Claire muttered under her breath as she wrapped her scarf loosely around her neck. “We’ll see if you’re in the same mood when I get home, shall we?”

Claire had an awful habit of talking to herself and had received her fair share of odd looks on the street and on public transportation. She held her own however, being born and raised in England by strong and loving parents, Claire wasn’t afraid to be herself — strange habits and all.

Edinburgh had become a second home to her after she finished university at Oxford. That’s where she had met Frank who was a teaching assistant in one of her classes. They began dating, taking things slow at first but soon Claire found herself packing her bags and following him to Scotland — a country she had never even been to before.

Call it love, call it a foolish thing to do, but Claire adored Frank and had no regrets about uprooting her life.

Twenty minutes later, Claire unlocked the door to her home, relishing in the warmth as she stomped her snow clad feet on the welcome mat.

“Frank, I’m home!” She called out, but heard no response.

Unbuttoning her brown tweed coat, Claire slid her arms out of it and laid it across the chair in the entryway. How odd. Frank was usually home at this time of day and always called out to her when she entered.

Brushing it off as nothing but good thick walls, Claire strolled into the kitchen to see what Frank was making for dinner. Even odder. There was nothing on the stove — no pots or pans, and no glasses of wine waiting on the counter to welcome her home after a long day.

This wasn’t like Frank to not cook dinner, especially on Fridays, their home date nights. Checking her phone for any missed messages, she saw no new notifications and so she laid her phone out on the counter and resolved to search the house.

“Frank?” She called out his name as she climbed the stairs to their bedroom. If she was being honest with herself, his lack of presence around the house shouldn’t be too out of character… especially recently.

They had been having problems, as most couples do at some point in their relationship. Claire wasn’t too much of a fool in love to admit that Frank had his flaws — as did she. At times, she found herself flinching when he raised his voice above normal volume because the phone company had billed them wrong again. Or when he smashed his fists down on the table angrily whenever Claire had told him about applying for the Chief position at work.

He was always supportive of her dreams, but not when they got in the way of their time as a couple. This was all very understandable — who wouldn’t be upset that their significant other would ultimately be spending less time with them? But Frank had held it over her head… her commitment to her job. Even if he didn’t voice his every thought out loud to her, Claire had felt the iciness in his touch the past couple of months and the greedy way he came to her in the night, spreading her legs and entering her without warning.

She often wondered what her parents would think of Frank if they were still alive. Henry and Julia Beauchamp died in a terrible car accident when she was only fourteen and since then she had been under her Uncle Lamb’s guardianship. Her uncle had been her rock when she lost both her parents, and had encouraged her to follow her dream to become a doctor and save lives — making up for the sheer fact that she wasn’t able to save her parents lives.

The light was on at the end of the hall in their bedroom, and for some reason Claire felt that she needed to be quiet as she padded down the hardwood floor.

“Frank?” She tapped her knuckles softly on the door before pushing it open. “Are you in here, love?”

“In the bathroom, Claire! Just a moment,” came Frank’s muffled voice from behind another closed door to her right.

Looking around the room, Claire noticed that their bedroom was slightly disheveled and wondered what Frank had been doing. He always kept the house in tip top shape, not a chair out of place which frankly annoyed Claire to no end. A home was supposed to be lived in, not simply a shell to hold furniture and things.

Her feet were sore from a long day of speed walking through the hospital hallways and Claire stepped out of her tennis shoes — boring and bland, the kind that were stereotypical for doctors. The sound of running water came from the bathroom and Claire sighed to herself, impatient for Frank to come out.

As she took another look around her room, Claire noticed something sparkle out of the corner of her eye on the nightstand. With her heart racing, Claire glanced at the bathroom door before going over to inspect the sparkly object.

It was an earring. And not one of hers.

In a matter of a few short seconds, Claire’s world turned on its axis. She looked down at the small diamond in her hand and felt hot tears well in her eyes. Her throat was tight and her breath caught in between her ribs like someone had punched her.

She should have known. Frank had been somewhat aloof the past few weeks, his attitude completely shifted from how he used to act. What used to be heated arguments over dinner about her attending another work conference over the weekend, turned into a nod of the head and a “See you on Monday,” farewell.

But he clearly still felt comfortable using her body for pleasure whenever he needed it. Just last night, Frank had kissed the back of her neck sending a chill down her spine. Needing to feel some kind of human comfort from the stress of her hectic week, Claire had rolled over to face him and joined together with him.

Her belly was coiled tight now and she slid her fingers down over her neck, breasts and stomach, fingers trembling at the thought of those same fingers she knew well on another woman.

The bathroom door opened with an ear splitting creak and Claire froze, her back turned away from him.

“Sorry about that darling, I was just in the shower — had a hard day at work,” Frank said and came up behind her, his hands sliding up her back and over her shoulders.

“Don’t touch me,” she whispered and she wondered if he had even heard her. An answering squeeze to the tight knots in her shoulders told her that he hadn’t.

“I said don’t touch me, Frank,” Claire said it a little louder and finally turned around to face him. The sight of his face — the hard lines that decorated his cheeks, the chiseled jaw and brown eyes made her sick now, almost violently so.

“Claire, what’s gotten into you?” He looked at her with almost a scowl, as if it was her that had done something wrong.

Afraid that her words would fail her, she lifted up her fist to Frank and slowly, one finger at a time opened her hand to reveal the diamond earring of his lover.

“Fuck,” he said under bated breath. So it was true.

Claire dropped the traitorous piece of jewelry onto the floor between their feet and stormed for the door. She was jerked back by Frank’s grip on her arm and she whirled around, slapping him with a force so strong her hand stung.

“Jesus, Claire!”

“A hard day at work?!” Claire felt the strength return to her voice as she spoke, and smirked as he rubbed his red cheek. “The only thing that was hard about your day was your cock, Frank.”

“Claire,” he sighed and his hands rested on his hips which were only clad in a towel. “Can we please be civil about this? You must have known, surely—“

“Civil? For fucks sake, Frank!” Claire scoffed and spun on her heel, heading towards the closet to retrieve an overnight bag. Thankfully her best friend, Geillis lived just a few streets over. There was no way Claire could fathom spending another night under this roof.

The fact that Frank wasn’t putting up a fight gave her mixed emotions. On one hand, it made it easy to hate him, but on the other… it only crushed her, making her feel pathetic — like she wasn’t someone worth fighting for.

“Just tell me,” she said seriously as she came back into the room, bag hastily packed. “Do I know her?”

She saw the twitch of his eye and thought she might be sick right there on the carpet.

“You’ve met her a few times,” he confirmed and sat down on the bed. “Her name is Sandy and she works with—“

“Oh spare me the details, please!”

“I’m sorry, Claire. This isn’t exactly how I wanted this to happen.”

Claire looked at him, a feeling of grief for their relationship washing over her, and only felt hatred for this man.

“It isn’t?” She laughed, an almost evil witch sounding laugh. “So you were planning on still sleeping with me while you had your affair? Were you ever planning on telling me?”

“There were conversations,” he mumbled, “Between Sandy and I about ending it.”

“Ending your affair?”

“No,” he said defensively and looked up at her. “About ending our relationship.”

Claire closed her eyes, counted to three, took a deep breath and walked out of the room. There was no use in further discussion with Frank because it wouldn’t be a discussion, only an excuse to make her look like a bigger fool than she already felt.

When she reached the front door, she heard footsteps on the stairs behind her and paused, her hand on the doorknob.

“Claire?”

“Yes?” She said this to the door. Claire wouldn’t spend another minute looking at his face. A face she had loved and spent lazy mornings running her fingertips over. A face that had once looked at her with so much love it was as if she was his whole world.

“You will come back to collect the rest of your things, right?”

“Fuck you, Frank Randall.” She opened the door quickly and slammed it shut behind her, clutching her overnight bag tightly.

As she walked down the street, every step taking her closer to Geillis, she began to look for her phone to tell her friend she was coming over.

“Damn it,” she cursed, her hands franticly searching her jean pockets for her phone. Claire began to shiver in the cold January air and realized that in her haste to get out, she had left her coat on the front chair… along with her phone on the kitchen counter.

There was no way she could return to that house, even if it was to retrieve her phone. Her dignity would not be squashed another time tonight. Instead, Claire wiped away the few frustrated tears that leaked from her eyes and kept walking, only hoping that Geillis was home.

When her trembling hand rang the doorbell and the red headed woman opened the door, Claire’s bottom lip shook and she collapsed into her open arms.

++++++

“There, that’ll fix ye right up,” the ginger scot said as she handed Claire a full glass of whisky. They had stood on Geillis’ doorstep for five minutes before Claire managed to pull herself together enough to make it to the couch.

“Now,” Geillis took a seat beside her, pulling the fuzzy blanket over her feet. “Will ye tell me what the hell happened tonight?

Taking a long sip for bravery, Claire swallowed deeply letting the liquid burn down her throat. Her right hand fidgeted with a loose thread on the couch and she kept her eyes forward on the roaring fire as she spoke, giving Geillis a play by play of her eventful evening.

“That fucking bastard!” Geillis all but stood up, her face beaming red to match her hair. She set aside her own glass of whisky and gathered Claire into her arms. “I’m sae sorry, lass.”

“I just feel so stupid,” Claire wiped at her nose. “When I think back, I knew there was something off but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I just didn’t want to let myself think he would still be sleeping with me while he had an affair.”

“He’s a damn fool, Claire. I never liked him and ye ken it well. The moment ye introduced us, I felt my wame turn and I got weird vibes,” Geillis rose from the couch and refilled both their glasses.

Claire welcomed the whisky as it warmed her body. It was like a balm to her wounded soul and made her mind fuzzy. She wanted to curl up in a ball under the covers and imagine that this entire night hadn’t happened.

“Ye ken yer welcome to stay here as long as ye need.”

“Thank you,” Claire smiled sadly and then remembered. “I will need a massive favor from you.”

“Of course, I’ll do anythin’ for ye,” Geillis smiled and gave her leg a gentle pat.

“I don’t think I can face going back into that house. Would you be able to collect my things for me tomorrow? I also left my phone on the kitchen counter,” she sighed.

Geillis nodded and pulled out her own phone. “I’ll make a list of everything so I dinna forget.”

“You really are the best friend a girl could ever ask for,” Claire smiled and then felt a new wave of tears come about, but this time they were happy tears of gratitude.

“Och, dinna cry, Claire — ye’ll only make me start,” Geillis pulled her in to another embrace, stroking her unruly mop of curls between her fingers.

“Sorry,” she sniffed again.

“Ye’ve nothin’ to be sorry about, lass. Now… tomorrow I’ll go and get all yer wee things, but I’m afraid tomorrow evenin’ I canna be wi’ ye, that is unless ye wanted to come wi’ me to Broch Mordha.”

“Broch Mordha? What’s up there?” Claire sat up slightly, trying to recall the geography of Scotland.

“Och, tis a small town, but a few friends of mine ken of a local distillery that is launching their new whisky and I promised to go wi’ them to the grand opening.”

“Oh,” Claire thought about her work schedule and realized thankfully that she had the next three days off. “I don’t mind tagging along, that is if it’s alright.”

“Are ye sure?” Geillis asked. “I would prefer if ye did come just so I can keep an eye on ye to make sure ye dinna off yerself.”

“Geillis!” Claire laughed, a welcome sound and hit her friend on the arm. “I’m not there… yet.”

Geillis winked at her and pulled her into another hug, “That’s my lass. Let’s get ye into a nice hot bubble bath and then off to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll deal wi’ whatever comes yer way.”

They both rose from the couch and Claire followed Geillis to the bathroom. For the first time that day, Claire looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize herself. Her riotous brown curls were a frizzy mess around her slim face which was looking haggard. Bags under her red eyes from the crying and puffy cheeks to add — she didn’t feel too hot.

Once the bath was ready, she shed her layers and climbed in slowly, letting her body adjust to the changing temperature. Claire laid her head back against the bath, eyes fixated above her on a black speck on the white ceiling.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” she muttered and submerged herself under the water, letting the weight of the world wash away.

Chapter 2 “Strange Whisky Man” 

[gingerbreadbooks2020]

Bookblr post #22

It’s March 31st and I finished Faeries, Elves & Goblins by Rosalind Kerven! Well, I actually finished off today (April 1st) but that was just the notes, so shhh!

[Images above:

Top left: title page for The Good People’s Shawl, from the Isle of Man. The left page is an illustration of a young woman in a blue dress and white bonnet sitting at an old spinning wheel.

Top right: A double page illustration, a silhouette of three faeries stirring a cauldron. Behind them is a strawberry bush.

Middle left: title page for A Brewery Of Eggshells, from England. The left page is an illustration. Set in a living room, to the left is a young man stood over a fire. In the foreground of the image is a younger boy laying in a cot.

Middle middle: title page for Thomas the Rhymer, from Scotland. The left page is an illustration of a Faery Queen in a long flowing dress, the ends of which are being held by two faeries in flight. It’s nighttime, and they’re under a tree with small white blossoms.

Middle right: title page for The Magic Ointment, a tale from England. The left page is an illustration of three people stood in a garden with a stone path. In the back of the image is a man and a lady. In the midground is a man in slightly ragged clothes, with a greyish skin tone, and elvish looking ears.

Bottom left:title page for Flying with the Faeries. The left page is an illustration of a landscape. In the distance is a village, and in front of that, closer to the foreground is an orchard. In the foreground is a tree with a large root, open to explore. Inside is a young boy with two women, one of whom has their back to the reader.

Bottom right: title page for the notes section of the book. Under the title ‘Notes’ is a small passage (see later in the post for the passage). The left page is an illustration. The background is an orange sky with some white clouds. The focus of the image is a silhouette of three faeries hanging on to three thin branches which are vertical, hanging down the page. These images are all my own.]

First I read The Good People’s Shawl, from the Isle of Man. In this one I was a bit confused as to who to feel sorry for, I suppose. And that’s not a bad thing, the story’s well written. I think it’s just the purpose of the story, or part of how it’s written anyway. In the story, a woman, tired of spinning wool, hires a maid and leaves for the day, giving the girl an impossible amount of work to do. The girl, knowing she can’t do it all, goes out to the garden to ask help from the faeries. The phynodderee appears, and promises her that, if she says a phrase and leaves for the day it will all be done. When she returns, a group of faeries rush out, and she finds all the wool has been spun, and a shawl has been hung on the curtain rail. The woman returns, angry that the wool had been spun ‘wrong’, and tells the girl she knows that faeries did the work. The woman tries on the shawl but it’s cursed to become coarse and dark. The girl is fired, but when she wears the shawl is softens and gains an earthy colour, obviously blessed for her. I was unsure who to ‘trust’ for a moment as the girl, who has been given work to do, simply doesn’t want to do it. She doesn’t even try to get through it. However, the woman is at fault for leaving her an impossible task, and is then cruel to the girl at the end of the story, so obviously my heart went out to the poor girl.

After that I read A Brewery of Eggshells, from England. A widow has two young boys. The older grows to be stron and fit, and leaves for the army. The younger, however, refuses to even crawl, even at fourteen years of age. He doesn’t speak, it is thought he has some illness, and becomes uglier than he was as a babe. When the older comes back from serving in the war, he proclaims that he knows what the problem is. He empties out an egg, leaving the shell, and fills it with hops and ale, before handing it in a pot over the fire to ‘cook’. Immediately, the younger boy cries out, ‘Ha ha ha!; through twice seven years I’ve lived with you; and seven hundred years before; a soldier brewing beer in an eggshell; is the daftest thing I ever saw!’ The soldier kicked the changeling out of the house, and the widow’s younger son appeared before her, the real one. I’ve heard of changeling stories before, and generally understood the gist, but this was the first I’ve ever actually read.

Next was Thomas the Rhymer, from Scotland. Thomas is one day playing the harp when a beautiful women, the Faery Queen, appears before him, and promises to fulfill any wish he has if he plays another song. His wish is for a kiss. As soon as his lips touch hers, she takes him to Faeryland and makes him her servant. At the end of his duties, as a gift for his excellent work, she gifts him with an enchanted apple, which will make him only speak the truth and allow his heart to know the future. She says if he uses the gift well, she shall allow him back to Faeryland. Thomas forgets the enchantment when he wakes up at the fiel he was found in, eating the apple eagerly. As he can only speak the truth, people think he’s gone mad, and he never finds employment. He finds solace in speaking poems, eventually forseeing the death of the king. The people are amazed at this, calling him a prophet. After this, he’s not seen again, supposedly back in faeryland.

Following this was The Magic Ointment, from England. There are nasty rumours surrounding Betty and Tom, but Old Joan refuses to believe them and stays friendly with the couple. She visits them one day but peers through the keyhole to see Betty putting an ointment on Tom’s eyes. Old Joan is invited in as Tom heads out, but as Betty goes into the pantry to get something, Old Joan sneaks some of the ointment onto her right eye. She begins to see that small cottage for the beauty that it is, with hundreds of spriggans flying about. She finishes the visit acting normally as she can, but when she goes to the market she sees Tom thieving from some stalls. She confronts him, but he blows away the magic from her eye, as well as all vision within it. She cries out for someone to catch him, that he’s a thief, but the people around her call her crazy.

The final story in this book was Flying With The Faeries, from England. A boy, lost in the woods, is led by a bear to a small cottage. Two short and old ladies - faeries - welcome him in, giving him food and a bed to sleep in. At midnight, they wake, placing on white caps and shouting ‘Here’s off’, before flying off into the night. The boy quickly follows, and they find themselves in the wine cellar of a rich man. They drink his wine and become very drunk, but the boy falls asleep in the cellar. He’s confronted by the house staff he next morning, and, after going through trial, is sentenced to hang. At the execution, one of the old faery women approaches, asking him to wear a special white cap. The executioner thinks nothing of this, but as soon as the cap is on the boy’s head, they both cry ‘Here’s off’ and fly off. The faeries are annoyed at the boy for what he did, and he swears he’ll never do it again. Charmed by this, they forgive him and lead him home safely.

All of the stories in this book were so amazing. Of course, I know very little about faeries, elves and goblins, so this book was perfect for me, especially given that it’s about the British Isles!

I read through the notes section, which gives details about each story, where it’s from, how it varies in different places and also how many similar stories have happened to different people. Or perhaps how the stories begins or ends differently. In some places the stories leave out major plot points for minor details as it’s so well known in certain areas, such as the Tam Lin story in Scotland.

It was also nice to know that many stories do in fact come from the area that I live in (Herefordshire - please don’t stalk me!!) as there was a major writer on my area. Not Shakespeare level or anything, but this person noted down many tales from my area so that’s why they’re well-documented! It’s nice as well that I can learn about the faeries in my area and learn how to interact/avoid them if necessary, as I hope to research more into witchcraft and magick and practise the craft! This blog will remain a book blog though, so no worries dear followers. Unless you are a witch - please don’t unfollow!

Regardless, that’s the end of the book! It was so so nice to read! It was easy to just pick up and read a story or two if I have a few spare minutes, as opposed to having to read a chapter but have a running commentary of the plot so far going in my head. I find leaving a book too long means I forget the story so far, so it was nice that I could leave it for a week or so and still be able to enjoy reading it and fully relax with a couple stories - lighthearted or not.

I would definitely recommend this book, whether or not you’re a believer in faeries, whether or not you’re from the British Isles. It’s nice to get to know the country with these little stories which are about small villages in rural areas, as opposed to getting to know Britain through things like the Battle of 1066 or when parliament was formed or whatever.

If I were ever to have children, I reckon I would hold onto this for them. They’re little stories, many quite funny, but they’re not your normal princess story or faery story, so they’d make for a much more interesting bedtime.

- Gingerbread ♤

P.S I think I’ll be reading Macbeth next! But I might change my mind... so much to read!! Aargh!

P.P.S I’m going to keep saying this because it bears repeating: Stay safe!!! Wash your hands! Only go out if absolutely necessary and please limit the number of members from your household that do go out! The amount of cases in the UK is going up, as it is everywhere, so please please please stay inside and flatten the curve! The virus does not care who it infects, and has been proven to be deadly to even young and healthy people. Do not put yourself or anyone else at risk, please! Love to you all in these trying times x

[scotianostra]

On April 14th 1578 James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell , Earl of Orkney and third husband of Mary Queen of Scots died, aged 44, tied to a post in a dungeon at, Denmark.

As I posted on Monday Bothwell fled Scotland after the surrender at Carberry Hill, Queen Mary’s last act of love for him was guaranteeing he could leave the area unharmed.

Bothwell took ship from Aberdeen to Shetland, he may have stopped off in Orkney, the only thing we know is he was denied refuge there and travelled on to Shetland.

He was pursued by Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange and  William Murray of Tullibardine who it seems were not that far behind him. They sailed into Bressay Sound near Lerwick.  Four of Bothwell’s ships in the Sound set sail north to Unst where Hepburn and his cousin, the pirate, Olaf Sinclair were negotiating with German captains to hire more ships. Kirkcaldy’s flagship The Lion, chased one of Bothwell’s ships, and both ships were damaged on a submerged rock.

Bothwell sent his treasure ship to Scalloway  and fought a three-hour-long sea battle off the Port of Unst  where the mast of one of his ships was shot away. During the chase a storm erupted and Bothwell’s superior seamanship to come to his rescue. After transferring his men to his two remaining ships, he sailed south-east before the wind, making the 250-mile crossing in record time Although Kirkcaldy followed for sixty miles, he was out-sailed and, by his own admission, was ‘no good seaman’.

He might have thought he was off the hook again, but no, Frederick II was not sympathetic to his cause,  he was at war, and was torn between his blood ties to Mary Queen of Scots and the need to show loyalty to his Protestant allies. Fortunately for him, the problem solved itself when Mary, held prisoner in England, dissolved her marriage to Bothwell, making him merely a problem to be got rid of from Frederik’s perspective, so he ordered his arrest to be used as a bargaining chip in the forlorn hope that he would be traded in return for the return of the Northern Isle!  

After being brought before the Bergen magistrates, in September he was carried to Copenhagen on one of Frederick’s ships for ‘honourable confinement’ at Dragshorn Castle, the Scandinavian equivalent of the Tower Of London. I found an extract from My Heart is My Own, a biography on Mary Queen of Scots that reads

“On 14th April 1578, Bothwell died at Dragsholm. As was customary for state prisoners, his body was carried to the promontory that juts into the fjord a side of things.  mile or so from the castle and buried at the parish church of Fårevejle. (…) “

There are differing versions on how he lived out his last days, one says he was actually not held in  ‘honourable confinement’, but in a small dungeon chained to a post, the cell so small he was unable to stand, the second is more in the line of the  ‘honourable confinement’ that he spent the last years drinking to excess with others held at the castle and gradually became more and more insane.

John Maxwell, visited Dragshorn Castle, and reported that  Hepburn had latterly become overgrown with hair and filth.  I take it from this he was still alive at the time!

The story doesn’t quite end there, Bothwell’s coffin was opened for the first time in 1868 and a very well-preserved body was found, which subsequently rapidly decayed and, for a period of time, until 1973, was open to public viewing under a glass lid. Then, in response to a request from the descendants of the Hepburn family, the newly-crowned Margrethe II had Bothwell buried in a zinc-lined coffin within a sarcophagus of oak, and here he remains.

Every now and then there is a story in the press about his descendents making an attempt for his body to be repatriated, I have no idea why the Danes would not allow this and for the moment he remains there. Of course with a story like this the castle is said to be haunted by the "good” Earl, where is he said to ride through the courtyard with a full horse and carriage.

The pictures are, the supposed head of Bothwell “ Study of Mummified Head” by Danish artist Otto Bache. The even more gruesome “body of James Hepburn” although  the church where his supposed remains lie was known to have  exhibited several bodies over the years as his, therefore, it is impossible to know if this is actually him.  

There have been moves by his descendants to have his body repatriated through the years   Speaking in 2010  Sir Alastair Buchan-Hepburn, Bothwell's direct descendant sought to raise funds to  lobby the Scottish and Danish governments, saying  "I want the Scottish culture minister to get in touch with his Danish counterpart to ask him 'would you please consider to return the body of James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell?'"

James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwells’ remains are now kept in the crypt at the church at Faravejle, near  Dragsholm Castle, as seen in the last pic.

[obaewankenope]

Summary:

“How was your summer?” Harry asks Ron and Hermione when they all settle down in compartment, trunks and pets all politely stowed away. Hermione has a pet cat—a Kneazle apparently—that seems very displeased with its carrier and she is happy to discuss it at length.

“It was brilliant! I asked my parents to get me a pet for at Hogwarts and—after explaining the magical benefits of a familiar—they agreed.” Hermione proudly smiles at them both. “Crookshanks is very young but very affectionate. He’s also an excellent mouser according to mum.”

Read below or on AO3

Arriving at Platform nine-and-three-quarters, Harry makes a beeline for his friends, excited at the prospect of spending another year with them twenty-four-seven[1]. Only Aziraphale has brought him to the station today as Crowley had to go on ahead to Hogwarts and sort out a minor magical creature problem—some sort of wild animal in the forest that Hagrid can’t get near for some reason—but the lack of Crowley at the station doesn’t deter Harry. He knows he’ll see his uncle at the Welcoming Feast if not before at the station—uncle Aziraphale is heading to Hogwarts via the Hogwarts Express.

Apparently he wants to experience a steam engine again. Harry doesn’t really get the appeal of that since he can fly but—well—uncle Aziraphale is weird. Harry loves him for it.

“How was your summer?” Harry asks Ron and Hermione when they all settle down in compartment, trunks and pets all politely stowed away. Hermione has a pet cat—a Kneazle apparently—that seems very displeased with its carrier and she is happy to discuss it at length.

“It was brilliant! I asked my parents to get me a pet for at Hogwarts and—after explaining the magical benefits of a familiar—they agreed.” Hermione proudly smiles at them both. “Crookshanks is very young but very affectionate. He’s also an excellent mouser according to mum.”

Harry frowns. “How’d she figure that out?” he asks, curiously.

“We had a rat infestation in the gardens at the start of the summer,” Hermione answers. “After a week of Crookshanks there’s no more infestation.”

Harry is surprised and wonders if perhaps there’s no other ‘infestations’ of animals around Hermione’s home too; though he doesn’t voice that. “Cool.”

Ron is somewhat sullen as he has no pet compared to his friends but perks up soon enough when the sweet trolley trundles along and they buy enough sugar to give a diabetic a panic attack. The trio discuss what they might experience in the coming year—from Harry and Ron hoping to get on the Quidditch team to Hermione and Harry discussing what sort of homework they’re likely to get from their professors—until a loud and sudden jolting bang disrupts them.

And the entire train.

The Hogwarts Express is stranded on a bridge just past the border between England and Scotland a little after four-thirty in the afternoon. Hogwarts is informed of this stranding at three-minutes-to-five in the afternoon. Crowley finds out about the train at quarter-past-five, six whole minutes after Aziraphale resolves the problem with a haughty snap of his fingers and a very unimpressed commentary for the culprit responsible.

As such, the Hogwarts Express is a whopping eight minutes later than usual and this apparently leaves the Welcoming Feast in shambles. Evidently no one thought to spell the boats that cross the Black Lake to respond when prompted and not at a specific time. All of the students then are forced to travel to Hogwarts together—though first years are left till last to at least give some measure of time for the other years to rush into the Great Hall and seat themselves[2].

The first years are all sorted neatly and with very little fuss. Dumbledore—in his typical fashion—tells the entirety of the school that they have a new Defence Professor and apparently doesn’t think there is a single bit of a problem with this new appointment. Considering that the headmaster seems to rather enjoy twinkling his eyes at Gilderoy Lockhart however—well—perhaps he simply sees him as a pretty face[3].

None of the other staff members—notably McGonagall, Snape, Crowley and Aziraphale—are impressed with the winner of Witch Weekly’s whatever-it-is-smile but they all clap when required. Crowley gives the new professor one clap and a half-smirk half-scowl look that he has worn when feeling particularly disgusted by someone—the last person he directed that look at had been Hastur last time he’d been in hell actually, two weeks ago.

Everyone is sent to bed with full stomachs and promises of classes beginning bright and early—which most students manage a groan at even though they’re stuffed to the gills with food—leaving the staff to retire and do their own thing. Crowley and Aziraphale—being both immortal and not in need of much, if any, sleep—retire together and start Planning[4].

Morning is a dull and tedious affair but the first classes of the year go off without a hitch—that is, until they reach Lockhart and his… interesting teaching methods.

Crowley is called to help wrangle a room full of Cornish Pixie’s and doesn’t bother telling Harry and co off for sticking a lot of them in Lockhart’s chambers—he sends them on their way with a smirk: “off you pop, mind you don’t tell everyone where you put them,” he says and Harry grins at him before escaping the classroom. Lockhart tries to give them detention for his chambers being a bit… roasted but Crowley casually mentions at lunch that he is the cause of the charring as it “seemed like a good idea at the time” and the matter is dropped.

The beginning of the term is nice and simple and not at all stressful excluding Lockhart being stupid and idiotic and Crowley’s increasing contempt for the idiot but then Quidditch try-outs happen and Harry is, as always, smack-bang in the middle of drama.

Oliver Wood is ecstatic to have Harry as seeker for the team. He’s so ecstatic he actually kisses one of the Weasley twins—no one quite knows which one since both are equally shocked—and does a jig on the spot[5]. On the way back to the school, Harry, Ron, and Hermione come across Draco Malfoy and his two ‘friends’—if one can call the bodyguard-style boys whom Malfoy rarely talks to friends—and end up in a small tussle after rude and frankly offensive words are slung.

Crowley comes across the ruckus—along with Aziraphale—and is just not quick enough to separate them all before Lockhart—in typical idiot-fashion—blunders in and causes more problems.

It really is understandable that Crowley loses his temper and teleports the useless excuse for a wizard to somewhere in the Amazonian rainforest to be terrified by the larger cousins of Crowley’s houseplants. It really, really is.

“What—how did you do that?” Hermione exclaims wide-eyed as she stares at Crowley who is trying very hard not to hiss at everything in existence. No one notice the grass in the courtyard starting to tremble.

“Because I wanted to!” Crowley snaps, watching Aziraphale kneeling next to Ron and murmuring soft words to the boy. “Of all the stupid bloody things! That—he—I’ve known demons with more sense than him!”

“Now darling, do be fair,” Aziraphale says, glancing over his shoulder at Crowley. “Some of those demons were angels once, they had to have some intelligence.”

“Not enough not to go and be stupid and Fall, angel,” Crowley responds and Aziraphale can’t argue with that. “Yes, that includes me shut up.”

Aziraphale wisely shuts up.

Ron is gifted—as a result of Lockhart’s truly horrific magical ability—with coughing up slugs every few seconds until Aziraphale thinks of the right way to word the miracle and clears up the bout of gastropod mollusc indigestion.

“Pessstsss,” Crowley hisses at the slugs that are on the ground even after Aziraphale miracles Ron slug-free. The demon snaps his fingers extra hard and the slugs pop out of existence with a kind of quiet little echoey-scream more suited to a horror movie than the Hogwarts courtyard.

“Now, now, Crowley,” Aziraphale lectures, “they’re only doing what they were made to do.”

Crowley doesn’t respond to that—though any other time he probably would, with expletives—because his attention is drawn to the three Slytherins trying to not-so-subtly sneak away from punishment. “Detention,” Crowley drawls, looking at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle with a not-so-nice smile. “Hagrid needs help with the dung heap for classes next week. He’ll be ecstatic for the help[6].”

“Wh-what about Potter!” Draco half-whines half-wails and it’s truly extraordinary the pitch the boy reaches. “And Weasley! And Granger! They attacked us!”

Crowley—in typical Crowley fashion—tilts his head a little and raises an eyebrow. It’s an interesting sight considering his sunglasses obscuring his eyes—sunglasses he hardly takes off outside of class unless he’s with Harry or Aziraphale—and lends itself to intimidation quite effectively. “They defended their friend from a bully—nothing wrong with that in my book.”

“Bu- wha- that’s not fair!”

“You called me a Mudblood, Malfoy!” Hermione shouts at the Slytherin boy who gives her an angry, ugly look. “You’re lucky I didn’t knock your teeth out!”

Crowley smirks. That would have been a sight to see, really.

Now, objectively speaking, children who get into physical fights are punished equally because—as they always say—two wrongs don’t make a right. Crowley thinks that is absolute rubbish. If someone is being a dick to someone and insulting them then the person being insulted is well within their rights to shut up the dickish person with a solid punch to the jaw or solar plexus. Of course, Crowley prefers words first but he’s decked a couple of demons before in the past and he’s perfectly happy and willing to deck a few more. If and when required, of course[7].

At Hogwarts, had it been any other teacher besides Crowley who’d caught them fighting, there’s no doubt both parties would have detention. Because that makes sense, right? It doesn’t matter who’s in the wrong if they’re fighting—except that it does.

Especially when the fighting is caused by stupid idiocy of a child who has no understanding of anything except his horrifically narrow worldview and likely could stand to benefit from a few smacks upside the head by people with some common sense.

Besides—Ron has been belching up slugs and he’s the one who was about to hex Malfoy so, in Crowley’s eyes, Ron’s already received his punishment. Now it’s Malfoy’s turn.

The Slytherin boy obviously dislikes Crowley’s logic but doesn’t argue much further beyond a “my father will hear about this” as though that’s going to intimidate Crowley into changing his mind. The day Crowley fears a pompous, stuck-up, entitled prick of a parent is the day Crowley starts simpering at Beelzebub’s knee.

So basically never.

Dinner is a simple, enjoyable affair without Lockhart at the staff table and Crowley takes great pleasure in being able to relax and lean against Aziraphale in his chair and not give a flying fuck what Dumbledore or any of the other staff think about it. If Crowley wants to sit next to his angel—or half sprawl across him as it is—then he’ll fucking well do exactly that.

Propriety be damned.

Of course, then Dumbledore ruins it all by dragging the staff to his office after and ‘politely’ demanding to know where the hell Lockhart is and what they’re going to do with Defence classes until he returns. This prompts Aziraphale to give Crowley That Look he does—the one that ended up with Crowley making bloody Hamlet popular—and the demon just groans.

“Hagrid can cover until Lockhart—uh—probably—returns,” he says, only a little bit reluctant. “I’ll take over Defence.”

“Preposterous!” Snape snarls, robes swirling in a swirly manner as he stalks across the room and stands directly opposite Crowley. “I am more than qualified to teach Defence, headmaster! Not this—” he gives Crowley a particularly nasty look that makes Aziraphale bristle “—child snatcher.”

Most would be forgiven for assuming Crowley to be the one who takes offence at people insulting him. It’s an easy assumption to make since he is, indeed, intimidating and quite vain. But they’d be wrong. Crowley can take name calling and insults and threats to his person and not give a damn—it’s very much par the course of being a demon—but insult someone he cares about—like Harry or Aziraphale—and Crowley takes every aspect of his personality, his past, everything he is and has been and May Yet Be and he turns it on the person being stupid enough as to insult what he loves.

Severus Snape assumes Crowley will hex him, curse him, shout at him, or even—perhaps—take a swing at him.

Severus Snape is wrong.

Big shock there.

“How dare you!”

You see, the mistake Severus Snape makes—that everyone makes—is thinking Crowley will defend himself. He won’t. Not unless he has to. But the thing is—he doesn’t necessarily need to. Not when he has an angel standing next to him bristling with anger and indignation and no small amount of wrath to do it for him.

Aziraphale stalks forward, placing himself between Snape and Crowley, his eyes blazing and they’re much brighter than usual because he is angry and they Know It Now. He raises a hand and pokes Snape in the chest. “Harry was being abused by his relatives and Crowley rescued him! You dare accuse him—him of all people—of snatching children! You have—you have no idea the lengths he has gone—what he’s been through—just so a few children can live when they were—when it was—when they weren’t supposed to according to the Almighty! How dare you!”

Crowley reaches out and touches Aziraphale’s arm, trying to calm the angel because he can feel how angry Aziraphale is. It’s too angry for this enclosed space with humans with magic that can possibly sense What They Are if they show too much. Aziraphale needs to reel it in.

“Angel, angel,” he says, pulling a little on Aziraphale’s arm and the angel turns to look at him. Crowley shakes his head ever so slightly and Aziraphale—understanding the demon and respecting him—backs down.

It’s clear in the way Aziraphale gives Snape a look that is only a second away from a Smiting that he really wants to keep going, but reason and common sense regain traction in Aziraphale’s mind and the angel steps back to stand flush against Crowley’s side. It’s obviously for his own reassurance as much as it is to send a Clear Message to Snape and the others that Aziraphale will not stand for someone threatening Crowley.

Perhaps that is why, then, Dumbledore doesn’t push the issue. The headmaster accepts Crowley’s solution but stresses that it is only until Lockhart returns or they need to find another replacement as Hagrid is still not fully qualified[8].

Some idiot—probably Lockhart before he was sent to only Crowley knows where—suggests a duelling club at some point and a gang of seventh years take it to the headmaster who—after some consideration—decides that it’s a splendid idea so long as there is suitable oversight. This results in Crowley—as the temporary Defence Against the Dark Arts professor—being roped in to oversee the entire fiasco. He opens it up to the rest of the school after a fifth year tries to sneak in to practice with the seventh years and only comes to regret this decision when Harry, Ron, and Hermione show up.

More specifically, he comes to regret it when they get it into their heads that he—as the defence professor—surely must be a skilled duellist and therefore can probably wipe the floor with Aziraphale—only a simple librarian—as well as the rest of the staff.

Harry, the absolutely unrepentant little brat, is grinning when he says, “you can probably beat the headmaster too.”

Now, considering Crowley is a demon, he obviously can best any human in near enough any avenue but, since the entirety of the school doesn’t believe he’s a demon, there’s an assumption that he’s just rather good at magic and probably is a dark wizard with less-than-dark-morals.

The irony of that belief is fucking hilarious, really.

Unfortunately for Crowley, Aziraphale shows up at the duelling club to watch it all and offer help with sourcing research for improving duelling skill. This means that the angel overhears—it’s not really ‘overhear’ since Harry and his friends seem to purposefully pitch their voices to carry—the remarks about Crowley obviously being a better dueller than Aziraphale.

And this is the point where Crowley wishes he’d never thought to visit Surrey that day—it’s only for a moment, but he wishes it nonetheless and has a jarring moment where the wish takes and he’s in an entirely different place, with strangers, and feels so painfully alone, before he banishes the wish and reality reasserts itself.

“It’s boring if you watch us adults do all the fighting!” Crowley exclaims, making sure his voice carries. “Oh sure! We have practice and we have skills but the best weapon you’ll ever have in a fight is imagination! What’s imaginative about watching us fight—” he gestures at himself and Aziraphale who has come to stand beside him “—when you could watch each other fight and use your imaginations to shape the magic instead of just copying us?”

“What do you mean?” One of the Ravenclaw fifth years asks, frowning. “We have to know spells before we can duel effectively,” she argues and—well—she’s right, you do need to know Stuff before you can Do Anything but sometimes… sometimes that Stuff is a barrier to what you can Try First.

“Yeah but you didn’t know spells when you were babies and you still did magic,” Crowley points out. “You learn stuff—words and numbers and maths and about places and spells—and that just—it limits your imagination—tells you what is and isn’t—all that sorta thing!” He looks at Aziraphale who is giving him his best Oh You’re On Your Own With This look and Crowley rolls his eyes. “Instinct and imagination are the best things you have—even when you probably think they aren’t—because one keeps you alive and the other makes you feel alive!”

“So—I don’t know—don’t think about spells and words and what charms suit whatever! Imagine you can make magic do anything for you—the language is meaningless; it’s human and limited! Magic isn’t limited! Magic is—it’s—well it’s—” Crowley stumbles, trying to think of a word, a way to explain what magic is.

Aziraphale comes to his rescue. “Ineffable.”

None of the Ravenclaw students really seem to get what Crowley means—well, some do, but most of them are as confused as the rest of the students from the other houses—and Crowley wants to sigh. He should have known trying to explain magic—just another form of Divine and Infernal power—to humans wouldn’t go well. They just can’t comprehend it.

Still. He tried.

“Pair up, try and disarm, tie up, trap each other. No maiming, no killing, nothing dark, and no torture—of any kind,” Crowley sighs, giving up.

The students all scramble to pair off and—unfortunately—Hermione and Ron pair up before Harry can snag either of them. Someone shoves into him and he ends up tumbling into Malfoy who gives him a dirty, haughty look before it switches to a horrified expression when Crowley declares: “you’re all paired up. Get duelling.”

Neither Harry or Malfoy have any real chance of grabbing different partners—especially since everyone around them is paired up and already throwing spells around like they have the magical equivalent of semi-automatic weapons and not single shooter wands—but this doesn’t stop them from at least trying. It fails—naturally—since they’re both second years and the students around them are fifth year and up and don’t want to be saddled with babies when duelling.

This leaves them both reluctantly accepting they are stuck with each other until they have a real chance of swapping with someone else. Unfortunately, this ends as most of their interactions usually do: badly.

“Serpensortia!”

A large black mamba erupts from Malfoy’s wand, propelled by whatever force the spell creates in the air directly toward Harry. It lands a few feet from him and hisses angrily at the landing.

Snakes, as a general rule, do not enjoy being dropped, thrown, dragged, or any variation of these. It is perfectly reasonable then for the snake to be Most Peeved and wanting to lash out at anything near enough for it to sink its fangs into.

The nearest thing just so happens to be Harry James Potter who also just so happens to be a parselmouth.

“Are you okay?”

The snake hisses confused because here’s a human talking to it after it’s been dropped into this place from where it was very nice and comfy in the forest curled up in a patch of sunlight. “I am not! I have been attacked in my sleep!”

“Attack- oh, Malfoy summoned you from somewhere?” Harry looks surprised for a moment before he decides to focus on the fact that the black mamba is still Very Annoyed. “It wasn’t an attack, it was a spell. He used it to summon you in a duel. Probably thought I’d panic and run away from you.”

“Why aren’t you?” The snake asks, curious and calming down more and more as it listens to Harry speak to it.

The entire hall has fallen rather silent around them but Harry is focused on the snake because he doesn’t want it to hurt anyone. He does wonder if uncle Crowley is going to arrive soon. It would be nice, he thinks, for the snake to have someone else to reassure it.

“I like snakes,” Harry says, shrugging. “My uncle is one.”

“What kind of snake is he?” The black mamba slithers towards him now, curiosity outweighing its anger because—well—it’s curious. “He should be a strong, large snake. I might like him if he is.”

Harry smiles. “Any kind of snake he wants to be.”

Obviously that statement nonplusses the black mamba but before it can hiss out anything else, Aziraphale and Crowley are there, students moving further away from their professors who stare at Harry kneeling near to the black mamba.

The very venomous snake that is now rearing back in alarm.

“It is not possible!” The snake exclaims, and its blinking in the way snakes do but if it were human the expression on its face would be very close to fearful respect and awe. “You are—it is—creator!”

Aziraphale smiles. “And another one recognises you, dear,” he says to Crowley who rolls his eyes.

“Shut up angel,” Crowley says before he steps forward and focuses on the snake. “Yes yes, it’s me, I know, bit of a shock. Come here—I’ll get you back to where you belong after a check-up. Silly boy using a snake-summoning spell like that.” He kneels down and holds a hand out for the black mamba to slither toward and around. “He could have hurt you.”

“I am strong!” The black mamba says, curling up his arm and slithering across his shoulders. “He did not hurt me, just startled me. I was sleeping!”

“Well that was rude of him,” Crowley says glancing at Malfoy who looks shockingly pale—well, more pale—and flinches when the demon looks at him. “You woke her from her sleep—can’t blame her for feeling bitey for that. Horrible thing to do.”

This—apparently—is some sort of Signal for the entire hall to lose its collective mind as students either scramble for the door or badger Harry and Crowley with questions and accusations. Aziraphale silences the lot of them with a snap of his fingers that has the hall of students staring at him dumbfounded.

“You’re scaring her with your shouting,” Aziraphale says, reaching out to pet the black mamba on the head. She allows his touch, leaning into it and Crowley doesn’t give Aziraphale a slightly jealous look for the attention he’s bestowing on the snake—but it’s a near thing. Okay so he does. He does and Aziraphale just smiles at him in return.

Dumbledore is informed later on at dinner of the events of the duelling club when Crowley shows up to dinner with the black mamba still on his shoulders. His explanation for why she’s still around is a simple, “she wanted to sight see” and none of the staff are willing to question that any further[9]. The whole school is abuzz for days with rumours of Harry, Crowley, and Aziraphale being a trio of dark wizards—even though Aziraphale is literally a being of light and purity and charming awkwardness—because they’re parselmouths. These rumours all conveniently leave out the source of the summoned snake and the technicality that Aziraphale doesn’t speak parseltongue, he can simply be universally understood by all animals and can understand them in turn.

Of course, these are teenagers with teenage imaginations and they run absolutely wild with it all. Considering the attack on Mister Filch’s cat that occurred only a month or so prior, it’s not entirely surprising that Crowley is dealing with petrified students—not literally—in his classes until the Fear aspect wears off when he loses his temper, transforms into an abnormally large python and sulks at his desk for an entire class. Apparently something about Crowley becoming a snake to avoid the fears of his students strikes them as inherently illogical and totally in-character for the professor they’d come to know in Care of Magical Creatures.

This action helps settle down the fears and rumours of the students toward Crowley and, jointly, Harry and Aziraphale. It is a relief considering the Christmas holidays are just around the corner and he has no desire to deal with a glum angel or depressed son while they’re in London.

Thus it is that Christmas begins with Harry rushing for the train, Monty the snake wrapped around his arm and Dog-the-mongrel—who has deigned it necessary to not live in the forest any longer at the moment and thus is willing to be With Her Human—loping along beside him in a stride that could be maintained for hours.

“I’ll see you guys over Christmas right?” he asks, the moment he’s comfortably seated—Dog-the-mongrel curled up at his feet and Monty asleep in his lap—on the train. “Uncle ‘Zira told me that you guys are totally welcome at the bookshop.”

“And Professor Crowley?” Ron asks, wary and a little bit afraid still. He has accepted that Harry can talk to snakes and Doesn’t Think It’s A Big Deal but the ginger is still wrapping his head around their temporary defence professor being a parselmouth as well.

Harry shrugs. “Uncle Crowley wants to take me to the reptile house at London Zoo,” he says, “I don’t think he’d mind if either of you came along. He wants to see how they’re taking care of the snakes, he says.”

“You don’t believe him?” Hermione asks, frowning.

“No, I do,” Harry says, “but I think he might want to—I don’t know—I think he wants to just see them. Maybe they’re his friends?”

The idea that Crowley is friends with snakes on display at a zoo is—apparently—not as mind-bogglingly shocking as him declaring himself to be a demon and never being believed by anyone he tells except Harry.

Harry’s Christmas is relatively normal for the most part. He enjoys his gifts from his friends and his adoptive parents—Crowley and Aziraphale both give him gifts that are very expensive and cost more than it did to build Hogwarts but they’re immortal and money is no consequence to them. Hermione gets him an eagle feather quill that looks fantastic but won’t get used as much as it might have considering one of the gifts he received from Crowley was a single black feather quill that looked like it belonged to a giant swan but was, in fact, from Crowley’s own wings. It was a treasured possession and one Harry would always favour above and beyond any other quill he’d ever receive.

Ron’s gives him a book on the Chuddley Cannons that is an obnoxious shade of orange. Harry is pleased with it regardless of the colour scheme and settles down to read it while waiting for the Christmas dinner he can hear Aziraphale and Crowley bickering over as they make it. Hagrid’s tin of treacle fudge is expertly dished into a baking tray by Crowley and shoved in the oven after dinner is ready so it can be somewhat edible by the time they’ve finished eating.

Overall, Harry’s Christmas is as pleasant as ever and he is forever grateful that Crowley took him away from Number Four. It’s why he gives Crowley and Aziraphale gifts of his own that are—to some—rather tacky but have a lot of meaning behind them. This year, Harry gives them both a copy of the first picture he ever took of the three of them when he was ten and Aziraphale gave him a camera. The image moves like a magical photo because Harry had done what no one in the duelling club had thought to; he’d imagined it to be moving and pushed magic at the photograph until it did exactly that.

Aziraphale is prone to tears when he’s happy, sad, or any sort of emotion besides angry, so Harry isn’t surprised to be swept into a hug by the angel and see tears in Aziraphale’s eyes. He is surprised to see Crowley wiping a tear away from his eye just moments before he gives Harry his own hug—one that is just a bit too tight to be a casual embrace. Harry doesn’t entirely understand what he’s done to elicit such emotions from the two but he understands that they love him. They love him enough to have fought off Voldemort last year. They love him enough to argue with Dumbledore all the time. They love him enough that they chose to raise him and don’t regret making that choice.

And all of that—that all means the world to a boy like Harry James Potter. He has a family and it’s a little bit odd but it’s still good—and bad—and he is forever grateful for it.

He doesn’t realise that Aziraphale and Crowley are grateful for the same thing.

But he will. In time. He will.

[1] He acts as though he hasn’t seen them the entire summer when he has—no less than two dozen times in total, including the week-long visit to the bookshop by Ron and Hermione, and also Harry’s own week at the Burrow. This is standard behaviour of children however, and thus doesn’t really require any commentary beyond a “thought you ought to know” feeling by the author.

[2] Everyone’s luggage is left on the train except the basic necessities like medication at the polite but firm orders from Aziraphale. He snaps his fingers moments after the students have all left the platform at Hogsmeade and the luggage is promptly delivered to their correct locations with the exception of a few select objects that Crowley will take great pleasure in making inert before returning them to their original owners.

[3] Heaven- and hell-know that’s all Gilderoy Lockhart really is. And even then, it’s not a particularly pretty kind of face. More smarmy and irritating and obviously plucking of the eyebrows to the point of problems. But each to their own Crowley and Aziraphale both figure—well, who are they to judge?

[4] It is worth noting that neither of these two absolute morons know what they’re actually planning for and, rather, this is more an excuse for them to spend time together. Of course, since they’re both in love with each other to a sickening degree, the fact that they still pretend otherwise at times—and, indeed, seem to embrace the ruse—really says a lot about them both, doesn’t it?

[5] Not—to clarify-an Irish jig. No. That would be stereotypical and not at all okay. No, Oliver Wood does the equivalent of jumping up and down very quickly and with barely any actual height attained because he’s so full of energy and joy and cannot adequately channel it. This is—incidentally—why he kisses one of the twins; they’re the nearest to him and simply a victim to his manic happiness. Not that said twin complained after the shock wore off.

[6] In truth, Hagrid will not thank him in the slightest for sending three annoying, whining Slytherins to come do manual labour but the groundskeeper-assistant-professor does take a certain amount of glee in witnessing Draco Malfoy falling into said dung heap no less than three times in one night.

[7] The irony of this is not lost on the author who has finally decided that this entire series is set in the 90s as a sort of middle way for the Harry Potter novels technically set in the 80s and Good Omens set in the same period, but then there is the TV version of Good Omens which the author loves and is set in the bloody 2000s+… honestly, the author is past the point of caring here, but since they shot themselves in the foot with mentioning the 3 Ninjas movie (well done, you utter fool), it is decided that the year of Our Lord is 1992 at this point in the story. The irony then—now the context is explained—is that Crowley is very well going to fight some demons about twenty years from this point and be very tired of himself and circumstances as a result. Also, this author staunchly argues these two idiots are A Thing from day one and they just have periods of Denying It For Political Reasons. Like idiots in love tend to do.

[8] Crowley gives the headmaster the middle finger at that remark. Aziraphale doesn’t even bother to pretend to be shocked by the action, too busy still being angry and wrathful.

[9] The black mamba had eventually returns to whence she came after meeting Harry’s own snake and deciding he had adequate protection as the chosen child of their creator. It leaves Harry a little bit confused as to why he needs protection but his snake—thusly named Monty for Reasons that Harry refuses to explain to any pureblood wizard including Ron—but Crowley distracts him with the story of How He Made Snakes For God and Harry quickly forgets what the black mamba was talking about.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: A Mug of Love

Summary: Belle and Rumpel enjoy a romantic moment together whilst on their travels with a young Gideon.

Written for @fluffapalooza 2019 and the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: Poetry, Rowboat, Handmade gifts, Rain, Cuddle

Rated: G

Note: Brimham Rocks is a National Trust site in Yorkshire and one of my favourite places in England. The place Belle and Rumpel are staying in is based on a place I stayed in (and loved) when I was a kid.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/brimham-rocks

=====

A Mug of Love

“It’s a shame there’s no boats, really.”

Rumpel looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow on hearing this seemingly random sentence from Belle, and she smiled at him over the rim of her mug of tea.

They were sitting on the deck of the little wooden holiday chalet that they were renting in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, one each end of the swing-seat, their legs entwined. Every so often, Rumpel would untangle one of his feet from under the blanket and give the seat a gentle rock. It was a mild summer evening, and they were enjoying the last of the light.

Belle looked over at the small lake that the chalets backed onto. It was little more than a glorified pond really, but it was good to swim in and they’d had great fun splashing around in the shallows with Gideon earlier. Seeing Rumpel in his swimming trunks with a giggling Gideon in his arms had reminded Belle just how much she loved him. Not that she needed a reminder, but sometimes the feeling just hit her suddenly and overwhelmed her, like it had done this afternoon, with the sun shining in just the right way to make the water glisten like diamonds.

“Is there any reason for you lamenting the lack of boats?” Rumpel asked.

Belle nodded. “I was gazing out over the lake, and thinking about us here with our books, and I thought how romantic it would be to go out on the lake in a rowboat and read poetry to each other. Especially now, in the sunset, with the light on the water just so and the stars about to come out.”

“My love is like a red, red rose,” Rumpel quoted. Belle closed her eyes, listening to the rest of the verse. She always enjoyed listening to Rumpel read aloud, but there was something in his voice that especially leant itself to poetry, and Burns was one of her favourites. Rumpel had promised her that they would get to Scotland during their travels so that she could see his birthplace.

“We probably wouldn’t be able to read much poetry in the dark,” Rumpel pointed out after a long, companionable silence. “I don’t think that even the moon and stars are really enough illumination. Although, I do know your tenacity when it comes to reading in all lights. The amount of times I came into your library back in the Dark Castle to find you poring over a candle that had nearly burned out, trying to get to the end of a chapter.”

“Well, you know how it is. When you get really into a story, you don’t really notice the fading light. All you care about is what’s happening to the characters and how they’re going to cope with the adventure that’s been thrust upon them.”

“You always did like the adventures the best,” Rumpel mused.

“I think I can find adventure in everything,” Belle said. “I’d long since resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to have any adventures of my own, so I made every story I read into an adventure. Shut away in my father’s castle as I was, everything that was different was something exciting. Even the tales of romance and true love, since I was betrothed to Gaston and wasn’t ever going to experience that for myself.” She smiled at Rumpel. “Little was I to know that adventures in love and marriage were about to come my way anyway.”

“Saying that our relationship has been an adventure is certainly one way of looking at it.”

“We had our ups and downs at the beginning, but I think that we were both to blame for that. We’d been separated for so long that we were just so glad to see each other again and be able to be together in the ways we’d been denied before, that we scooted all the problems under the rug until they became too large for us to handle. But all that’s in the past. We’re together now, and we have Gideon, and I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t be happier.”

Rumpel nodded, a soft smile on his face. It was the smile that was reserved just for her, and it always held in its depths an expression of wonder; even after all these years of happiness, he still couldn’t believe that she was by his side and would stay there forever.

Presently he looked out over the lake again, and up to the last dregs of light that were being hidden behind darkening clouds.

“I think that our luck with the weather is about to run out.”

“Well, it is England.” Belle listened to the first pattering drops of rain coming down onto the awning above them. There was no need for them to move inside just yet, even though there was now no light to read by and no sign of any stars. “It wouldn’t be an English summer without the odd spot of rain. Hopefully it will be sunny tomorrow and we can go to the rocks.”

Gideon had been incredibly excited about visiting Brimham Rocks and seeing and climbing all the natural formations in the shapes of various animals, but if the rain persisted then there were plenty of other indoor activities around that could entertain him. This morning they had been to a craft fair in an old castle, and whilst Belle had wandered around and Rumpel had spent almost an hour talking to a pair of elderly ladies demonstrating hand spinning who reminded him of his aunts, Gideon had sat in the kids’ make-and-take room painstakingly painting mugs for his parents.

Belle looked down at hers, and smiled at Gideon’s childish daubings. No matter how messy they might be – or how messy Gideon might have been after he’d finished – handmade gifts were always the best. He’d put a lot of thought into the mugs. Belle’s was covered with blue books, and Rumpel’s with swirling patterns of gold string. He’d also painted one for himself with green dinosaurs. True, they looked more like splodges than dinosaurs, but the entire family had a good enough imagination to pretend that they were dinosaurs, and belle had no doubt that Gideon’s artistic ability would increase as long as it was nurtured.

She shifted on the swing-seat, curling her legs up underneath her and shuffling over until she could nestle in against Rumpel’s side, pulling the blanket up over her. She rested her head against his shoulder, and he put his book down - not that he’d been reading it for the last few minutes - and wrapped both his arms around her, cuddling her close. His chin came down to burrow in her piled up curls, and Belle sighed with happiness.

“I wish that we could stay like this forever,” she said. “Here in this moment, where everything’s perfect and there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. If I could keep this moment in a bottle, and bring it out every time something goes wrong, every time we’re angry or stressed and wondering why we began this journey in the first place, then all I would have to do would be to look at this moment and I would know.”

Rumpel kissed her hair. “We’ll make it last as long as we can.”

The rain had brought a chill to the air, but Belle still felt no desire to leave the deck. She was warm and snug under her blanket and she had Rumpel to keep her warm as well.

After a few moments of listening to the rain pattering on the lake, she realised that there was another pattering coming from the chalet behind them, and twisted to look over the back of the swing-seat. Gideon was padding across the room towards the deck in his pyjamas, his teddy trailing along the floor behind him, dangling by one foot.

“Hey Gid. Can’t sleep?”

He shook his head and came out onto the deck, Rumpel lifted him up onto the swing-seat and tucked him in under the blankets between them.

“I had a dream,” Gideon began. “Then I woke up and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

“Was it a bad dream?” Belle asked.

“No. It was a funny dream. Papa and I were playing in the lake and we found a mermaid. She looked like Auntie Regina.”

Belle and Rumpel looked at each other over Gideon’s tousled head, both trying to hold back laughter at the thought of Regina as a mermaid.

“What happened after you’d found the mermaid?”

“Not much. She gave us some tea but it was made out of seaweed so it didn’t taste nice.” He looked at the mug in Belle’s hands. “Is that seaweed tea?”

“No, this is normal tea. I’m using your mug see?”

Gideon nodded his approval and gave a huge yawn, leaning against Belle. He was already beginning to nod off again, and Belle stroked his hair. Despite what she had said before, this was the moment she would bottle forever. Here with Rumpel and Gideon, both of her boys safe and well, and everyone peaceful and content. In this moment, she had found the true meaning of happiness, and she never wanted to let it go.

[think32blog]

Thoughts on the border by Phil Mac Giolla Bháin

I was introduced to the realities of the Border when the “cattle boat” which had sailed from the Broomielaw in Glasgow to North Wall in Dublin was taken off line.

Then the ten year old me learned about places like Stranraer and Larne.

In order to get to Dublin to take the train to my father’s town of Westport we had to cross the Border.

The last time I recall that militarised demarcation line entering my consciousness was in the summer of 1994.

We crossed the Border from Fermanagh into Leitrim and a very large member of An Garda Síochána looked at my green passport.

When he saw my name as Gaeilge it prompted a question in the first language of the state:

"Cá bhfuil sibh ag dul?” he asked me.

“Táimid ag dul go Contae Mhaigh Eo.”

We were indeed going to my father’s county in the Wesht for a family holiday.

Such a linguistic interaction on the other side of the line would have been dangerously out of place, especially with the locally recruited security forces.

As we drove towards the West we all felt a relief to be in our own place and not in the Six Counties.

While we were in Mayo Ireland beat Italy at soccer in New York and a British death squad did their stuff at Loughinisland.

Two years later we had settled back home in Ireland.

For herself and me, both with an Irish born parent and Irish grandparents on the other side of the house this little island was always home.

We’ve reared our brood here in this the quintessential Border county of Donegal.

Much has changed here since the days of Brits and checkpoints.

These days I think nothing of driving to Derry for NUJ meetings or to pillage the local shopping centres as post-Brexit Sterling tumbles against the Euro.

Over that twenty one years the Partition line has slowly dissolved and the European Union has played a positive role in minimising that geo-political disfigurement on this island.

However, now we could be faced with some of it coming back again.

In February 2016 before the Brexit vote I wrote a piece for the Scottish politics Blog Bella Caledonia.

It might warrant another read now.

A lot of my fears expressed in that piece appear worryingly prescient.

The Irish story over the centuries has been about events in Europe and Britain having unforeseen yet profoundly long lasting consequences here in Ireland, e.g. the Reformation, counter-reformation, French revolution and the First World War.

They all had a uniquely Irish impact on people here.

Now the UK has decided to do walking away from the European Union.

My green passport is no more, it was a beautiful document with a gold inlaid Harp.

Although my merlot coloured travel document today isn’t nearly as aesthetically pleasing I view the EU livery is an emblem of peaceful cooperation for a continent disfigured by centuries of war.

The Peace Process on this island probably couldn’t have occurred without the Maastricht Treaty.

In creating a more harmonised union across the continent of Europe the stage was set for two member states of the EU, assisted by the Clinton Administration, to explore a dénouement to the war situation on this island.

Back then I was privy to the thinking of some senior Republicans as they entered the talks that would produce the Good Friday Agreement.

They were calculating, prescient men.

Some of them had spent a large chunk of their youth in British prisons.

This had given them with the ability to sketch out a long game, but at no point did I hear anyone gaming out Britain leaving the European Union!

However, we are nearly at that juncture.

I have, in recent weeks, spoken to some old comrades from that time.

We shared a joke about how events can blindside all of us.

Some things, though, do not change.

The modern Irish revolutionary tradition, which emerged in the 19th century was based on the following rationale:

England will only attend to Ireland when the Irish become a problem for them.

When the people of Ireland were docile then they could literally starve to death and it didn’t really register with the Westminster tribe.

Now the Bullingdon boys are startled that the Micks could actually create a roadblock to Brexit on the Lifford to Stabane road.

The Backstop…

We now have the situation where even a Taoiseach who last year wore a local variant of the Poppy in Dáil Éireann cannot agree with the Grand Old Dame Britannia on what to do with her Irish frontier.

The son of an Indian immigrant and educated at an exclusive  private school that has a  Church of Ireland ethos, Varadkar isn’t exactly a Provo from central casting.

Indeed he might be the most pro-British Taoiseach in the history of the State.

When such a person can cause Border problems for the ruling elite on the Thames then we are truly in uncharted waters.

I think the fact that Leo Varadkar’s Chief Whip during that phase of the negotiations was Donegal TD Joe McHugh might be one of those small details that can ultimately have significant implications.

I’ve known Joe since he was an unfancied candidate for the County Council here.

His political career has spanned the Good Friday Agreement and he has been involved in several EU funded cross Border initiatives.

During the Phase One part of the Withdrawal Agreement talks there appeared to be a binary choice between a hard border or Northern Ireland remaining within the Single Market and the Customs Union.

Quite simply there would need to be a trade border either at Lifford or Larne.

Of course, the former subverts the Belfast Agreement and the latter compromises the integrity of the United Kingdom.

However, because the British government was dependent on the DUP to support her minority administration Theresa May said that a trade barrier between the Six Counties and Britain was a non-starter.

Therefore, the British negotiating team introduced the Backstop.

Consequently, the whole of the UK would need to effectively remain within the economic structures of the EU in order to satisfy Arlene that the “Precious Union” would not be compromised at Larne.

That little Ireland can cause a hold up in the Brexit talks should put to bed the “too wee” arguments in Scotland.

This current Border impasse demonstrates that a small EU state like the Republic of Ireland has a voice at Brussels and that it is one that is being heard.

If Brexit is a fascinating parlour game for the chattering classes here on the debatable land in the North West of Ireland it is prosaically real.

The European Union played a key role in bringing the Northern conflict to a close.

Brexit has the capacity to subvert the slow progress we have made in the last two decades.

The recent murder in Creggan of my colleague and friend Lyra McKee shows what is at stake.

None of this registers with the Westminster tribe as they play out a rivalry that has existed since the day that matron favoured one of them over the other at Eton.

That place remains the never failing source of all our political evils.

The people of this island deserve better.

Phil Mac Giolla Bháin is an author, blogger, journalist, novelist and playwright.

He is based in County Donegal, Ireland.

He is an active member of the National Union of Journalists and the chairman of the Irish Writers Union.

An established print journalist for many years Phil has also built up a considerable online readership through his blog www.philmacgiollabhain.ie .

His journalism over the past decade has focussed on highlighting the incidence of anti-Irish racism in Scotland.

He was a staff reporter on An Phoblacht for many years.

His debut novel “The Squad” was published by Books Noir in 2018.

[thefloatingstone]

Hello, i'm sorry for bothering but could you please elaborate on that post where you talked about being nostalgic for Scandinavia? It had me a bit curious, like, why here of all places? To me it's probably a very mundane place since i live in here, so i have a hard time imagining it being interesting to anyone else. (Got to admit it's a bit flattering though, especially when my country is mentioned.)

Many reasons I think. Now as I said, I’ve never actually been there so my knowledge is probably extremely superficial and I apologise for that. But really like...

1: The kind of nature you guys have.

I live in South Africa, and although it is very varied in what its wilderness looks like, going from Lion King looking savannah to bright green mountains to windswept white beaches to tropical banana growing regions... the one thing it does NOT have is forests. At all. The biggest tree I’ve ever seen growing here is like 3 storeys tall at most. I was visiting Northern California last year and got to see Redwoods for the very first time and actually got to see what a forest environment looks like, and I was obscenely jealous that people could really LIVE in places like that. I also studied in Vancouver for 2 years and in the summer we would often go hiking in a local nature reserve. My country is just too dry to support plants of that size.

It’s more than just the trees themselves though. It’s the other wildlife among it as well. Just the general plants I’ve seen in photos and films. It looks so lush and alive.

But it’s also the landscape itself.

We just.... don’t have things like this.

2: The history and folklore.

My knowledge here is extremely lacking, I admit, but Scananavia as a whole, as in ALL the countries that are considered ��Scandanavian” by the very virtue that its people have been living there for a very long time, just has a history and folklore and a mythos. And this may sound like some weird fairy tale thing which might be unfair but like... please understand. South Africa was established by the Dutch as a trading port and its Afrikaans population is largely made up of either Dutch settlers or French refugees who had the French taught out of them in schools in favour of Dutch (long story). South Africa as a country does not have a “folklore” or a “history” as any single Scandinavian country would. We have a history dating back many hundreds of years, but that’s exactly what it is, a history of a few hundred years. Mainly of fleeing refugees or Dutch settlers or British Colonialism. And although I have the deepest sympathy for my ancestors fleeing French religious oppression as well as more recent grandfathers and grandmothers suffering famine and concentration camps, the history is all tied up in what my ancestors could bring here from their home countries, or what they had to struggle against to survive once they got here. And there’s not much beyond that.

As for Folklore... we don’t have any of our own. We have what out ancestors brought from Europe, but its become eroded by time it feels like, becoming the generic Aesops fables and Grimm’s fairy tales with nothing of its own to set it apart.

We have native African folklore, But... how can I explain... as a descendant of Europeans, African folklore does not feel like it “belongs” to you, you know? It’s not “your” folklore. And there’s an acute feeling of “your” folklore and history lying “somewhere else”. Granted for me personally it would be France, the Netherlands and Scotland, mostly, rather than anything Scandinavian, but with no folklore at all, you feel almost like you could look at all folklore and traditions and gravitate to those that speak to you personally. In my case I simply like what I’ve been able to find regarding Scandinavian folklore and such. It’s difficult to find more of it out here, but what scarps I’ve been able to find have fascinated me, and I want to learn more of it.

3: The temperament of the people

As I said, my understanding is very superficial and perhaps if I were to one day visit I’d find it the complete opposite, but from what I’ve seen, the Scandinavian people just seem to be more in-line with how I’d enjoy a social structure operate. People it seems leave each other alone. What I mean is regular on-the-street people will not push themselves into your personal space just because you dared to step outside your home. And as a result, people actually do stuff outside their homes. The outside environment is just as much a place you can spend time as inside you own home. Without the threat of violence, or being approach by strangers and harassed, or having strangers in your space and demanding your attention. I dunno. Like I said I may be completely off with this one simply because I haven’t experienced it, but I just get the impression people are not so likely to feel that because you’ve left your house you are obligated to interact with every person you meet.

But also, much like the Netherlands, there’s a weird familiarity there for me as well. I need to actually start learning it, but I’ve been told many of the languages, especially Danish, is very close to my own home language. On top of this, there are small traditional things I’ve seen in documentaries and interviews and such which I can just recognise as being familiar to me. And again... this is difficult to explain but it’s also the feeling that that culture is not only IN countries like Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway etc, but that that culture is FROM those countries. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a large over-hanging sense here, and its been here for almost as long as I can remember, that my culture doesn’t ‘belong’ in my own country. It’s something imported long ago and has become its own thing, so it HAS no other place of its own, but it’s not FROM here, either. It’s a culture from somewhere else, and as time marches forward, it seems South Africa as a country does not want it around any more either. South Africa wants to be African, and who can blame it for that? But I don’t know where that leaves me.

At the same time though, my culture is also in many ways something I don’t relate to either. it’s too traditional in many ways, in a bad way. extremely religious. Extremely locked in what it believes Gender roles should be. Extremely forged in racism. Extremely ‘farmers of a harsh environment’.

This is kinda getting away from me, but again its difficult to explain. I guess it’s a feeling of ‘if the only place you belong doesn’t want you, you might as well focus on any place you feel drawn to emotionally’ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

4: Completely superficial ‘it just looks nice’ reasons.

All the traditional outfits and festivals are always attractive to me.

The food is really attractive to me.

The houses are attractive to me.

The cities are attractive to me

The rural towns are attractive looking to me

etc etc

5: the thing everybody will mention like healthcare, education etc etc etc.

and 6:

Almost all Afrikaans South Africans look at other countries to escape to if we could. Most go to Australia, but I have not found it was somewhere I felt at home at when I visited it. There was just something about it that made it feel uncomfortable to me. Some people look at England, and although England is great, I dunno... I like England fine. Maybe it’s just not as ~*exotic*~ in my mind or something stupid like that. As I said, my experience is rather limited. So maybe the very reason I’ve never been to any of the Scandinavian countries is exactly why they’re more attractive or something :/. Some Afrikaans people go to the Netherlands. Honestly I’d be more than happy to live there too.

The problem is... you can’t really get away from South Africa either. Not unless you have a lot of money or already have family somewhere else or your family hasn’t lived here that long which means you can get an ancestral passport. Or you have some sort of trade job that could make you useful (plumbing, engineer, mechanic, etc etc) None of these things apply to me. I barely make any money, my family’s been here for hundreds of years, our only other family live in Australia, and I’m an animator and my moms a poet, both of which are artist’s jobs, and other countries have their own artists. They have no interest in others.

So I guess it boils down to “if its anywhere but here; why not imagine living somewhere pretty, safe, and stable?”

Anyway... I’m sorry if none of that makes sense.

I’m aware its just a fantasy and doesn’t actually reflect reality at all in any way. but that’s the best answer I can give.

Maybe on some level tho, I just wanna run away from myself in a way too >__> not realising no matter where you live, you’re still there with you.

[the-busy-ghost]

History Edits: Eleanor of Scotland, Archduchess of Further Austria/Tyrol

Born c.1433, Eleanor Stewart was one of the seven surviving children of King James I of Scotland and his wife Joan Beaufort. Very little is known about Eleanor’s early life in Scotland, but her parents’ relationship was apparently an affectionate one and their children initially seem to have been raised in a close family environment. This all changed however when her father was murdered at Perth in 1437, when Eleanor was probably not yet four years old. Her six year old brother was crowned James II of Scotland, and during the factional squabbles of his minority, her mother Queen Joan fought for control of her son. Amidst all this political intrigue, little is known about the experiences of James II’s five unmarried sisters, though the second, Isabella, was married to the duke of Brittany in 1442; the fifth, Mary, married the son of the lord of Veere in 1444; while in 1445 the youngest of the sisters, Annabella, was sent to Savoy in preparation for her marriage to the Count of Geneva. 

Eleanor’s career properly begins in April 1445, when a letter was sent to Scotland from Isabel of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy, with the support of Louis, the dauphin of France, and his wife Margaret Stewart, Eleanor’s oldest sister, suggesting that Eleanor be sent to the continent for in preparation for marriage. Eleanor, along with her older sister Joanna (who had not been named in the letter), travelled to France later that year, but they arrived they to find the French court in mourning for the dauphine, their sister Margaret, whom they had not seen in nine years and who had died only a few days before. Nonetheless, the French king Charles VII still undertook to support the two Scottish princesses, and Eleanor and Joanna spent the next few years at the French court, under the eye of their sister’s old lady-in-waiting Jeanne de Tuce, and passing the time in games of piquet and writing poetry.  Several possible matches were suggested for Eleanor during this time, initially to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, while the possibility of a marriage to the widowed dauphin Louis may also have been raised. In the end however, Eleanor married Frederick III’s nephew Sigismund, duke of Further Austria, and the proxy ceremony took place at Chinon in September 1448 with the French king and queen in attendance. Eleanor then began the journey to her new home, finally arriving several months later in the Tyrol, high in the Alps, where she met her husband Sigismund for the first time, and their marriage was solemnised at Merano on 12th February 1449.

While little is known of the early years of Eleanor’s marriage to Sigismund, however the couple seem to have worked well together, though they were never to have any children (the common claim that Eleanor had a son named Wolfgang has been debunked in recent decades). She was clearly trusted enough by her husband to be appointed regent on several occasions when he had to leave Tyrol between 1455 and 1458. This period was particularly tense, and during her regency Eleanor had to weather the fall-out from issues such as her husband’s conflict with the reforming Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, and some of the correspondence of the rebellious abbess Verena von Stuben addressed to Eleanor survives relating to this notable affair. Other domestic problems such as the split between Sigismund and his former retainer Bernard Gradner caused more tension, however for the most part she discharged her role as regent ably, including raising and funding an army to defend the ducal interests, and personally taking control of various lands belonging to her husband to lessen the impact of any interdict that might be placed on Sigismund in his conflict with Nicholas of Cusa. She further acted as regent in the foothills during the late 1460s, though after this she retreated from political life and spent more time supporting religious endeavours in the Tyrol. Much more could be said about Eleanor’s regency, but due to lack of space it is safe to note that she was a capable and clever ruler, playing the role of both consort and regent with great skill. 

She also seems to have been able to communicate in various languages and a considerable amount of her correspondence survives, not just relating to the internal affairs of the Tyrol, but also with various important European figures, as well as several Scots both at home and on the continent, not least her brother James II and her sister Isabella, Duchess of Brittany. One of her retainers Jorg von Ehingen visited Scotland in 1458 and his diary left us with our only contemporary image of King James II. The strategic position of her husband’s lands also meant that the couple hosted many important guests who passed through the Tyrol on their way north or south, including Christian I of Denmark, Rene Duke of Lorraine, and even, in 1472, Sophia Palaiologina, the Byzantine princess who was then travelling on her way north to marry Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow. Eleanor’s half-brother James Stewart, Earl of Buchan may also have passed in the vicinity of Innsbruck on his way to Rome in 1465, as did many lesser Scottish visitors who were no less well-received by their countrywoman, far from home as she was. However sometimes the crowd of guests seems to have fatigued Eleanor, and she frequently left busy Innsbruck to stay at quieter locations, such as Sigmundsburg, a now ruined castle on an island in Fernsteinsee, which was built for her as a ‘tribute’ by her husband around 1463. She must have been pleased with the hunting opportunities it presented as this was a past-time she particularly enjoyed. She also frequently visited Baden to ‘take the waters’ in the springs there. 

However Eleanor is probably best-known for her cultural interests and came from a very literary background. Her father, James I, was probably the author of the Kingis Quair, which gives a poetic account of his captivity in England and his first sight of Eleanor’s mother Joan, while Eleanor’s eldest sister Margaret was famous for her obsession with poetry, allegedly writing as many as twelve ballads a day and frequently staying up all night to write. The French court was also a hub of poetic activity, and Eleanor’s interest in literature may have been fostered during her time there, while the nobility of Germany and Austria were no less culturally active, and Eleanor would have come into contact with other notable female literary patrons, such as Mechtild of the Palatinate. Her husband Sigismund also seems to have shared her interest in literature. Eleanor herself is most famous for the translation into German of the romance Ponthus and Sydonia, and this version was widely popular in the German-speaking world for some time afterwards, though it is unclear whether Eleanor translated all of the work herself or if she oversaw the process. Furthermore she was also known as a literary patron in her own time, and the Swabian humanist Heinrich Steinhowel dedicated “Von den Erlauchten Frauen”, his translation of Boccacio’s ‘De Claris Mulieribus’ (i.e. ‘Concerning Famous Women’), to Eleanor in 1473. 

Eleanor Stewart died at Innsbruck on 20th November 1480 and is buried in Stams Abbey, along with her husband and several other Hapsburgs, and in the seventeenth century large effigies of Eleanor and the others were erected which still survive. She also left her mark, no matter how small, on many other buildings and places in the region, as well as the political and cultural life of the Tyrol, and her impact is of some interest on a wider European level, and not least for the country of her birth. 

Sources because the ‘read more’ section isn’t showing up on a lot of reblogs.

*The costumes in the edit above are inaccurate I am aware, and I’ve probably missed a tonne of things out in this description of Eleanor’s career, or made a few mistakes but I’m working on learning more (unfortunately many of the sources are either unavailable or in a language I’m not very fluent in) and I’ve talked for too long anyway. Either way had to spread the love for this little-known Scottish princess who absolutely deserves more attention. If you can find the Scottish royal arms in Merano that’s usually worth at least some comment, but when they’re associated with a politically active princess and literary patron, even more so.

Some good resources for Eleanor- the primary biography is “Die Beiden Frauen des Erzherzogs Sigmund von Österreich”, by Margaret Köfler and Silvia Caramelle, which covers both Eleanor and Sigmund’s second wife Katherine of Saxony. However there are some accounts in English- a good one is Stewart’s article ‘The Austrian Connection’ in ‘Brycht Lanternis: Essays on the Language and Literature of Medieval Scotland’ (eds. Spiller and McClure), and a much shorter article about both Eleanor and her two eldest sisters Margaret and Isabella in ‘Women in Scotland, 1100-1750′ (eds. Ewan and Meikle), and Fiona Downie’s analysis of queens Joan Beaufort and Mary of Guelders in ‘She is But a Woman: Queenship in Scotland, 1424-1463′, also considers the role of the Scottish princesses, including Eleanor. There are many other articles and primary sources both in English and German (and French) but these should serve as an introduction.

[opinionsbykimberly]

The Impact of the Potato and Tomato on European Demographics and Culture

Introduction:

When you think of European cuisine what comes to mind?

If you’re thinking of the United Kingdom, dishes like bangers and mash, mashed potatoes, and Shepard’s pie might come to the forefront of your memory.

If you head across the channel to France, dishes like gratin dauphinois and ratatouille are rather famous.

In Spain, you have dishes like pa amb tomaquet, gazpacho, and pisto.

Then of course there is Italy where you have pasta with a Marinara or Bolognese sauce, and of course the world-famous pizza.

If one where to travel into the eastern European, you’d see a cuisine which includes cabbage rolls (often coated with tomato sauce), perogies, and olivier salad.

While these items might only be a small selection of European cuisine, it is likely that you’ve at least heard of some of these dishes, if not all of them. However, these dishes also tell a very different story. It would seem that the tomato and potato hold a very important role within European cuisine. This is especially fascinating considering that both of these foods are indigenous to the American continents, meaning that they did not come to Europe’s attention until 1492. In fact, it wasn’t until the late 17th/early 18th century that these foods, along with other new world crops such as corn, chilis, bell peppers, cacao, sunflowers, and sweet potatoes, were widely consumed.

This means that prior to 1700, European cuisine was radically different than what we are used to today with many dishes, we classify as traditionally European, either not existing or existing in a radically altered form.

The goal of this blog is to examine how the potato and tomato entered into Europe and how it spread throughout the continent to hold dominance within its culture and cuisine.

To do this, this blog will be divided into four sections. The first, will examine how the potato entered into Europe and how it spread after initial contact. The second, will examine how the tomato entered and spread through Europe. The third, will examine the impact of the potato upon European diet and society. And the fourth, will do the same for the tomato.

How the Potato Reached Europe:

As mentioned, the potato is indigenous to the Americas, more specifically South America being grown in a region that is currently split between modern day Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. It had been grown here for quite sometime with archeology evidence pointing towards controlled cultivation since between the 8th and 5th millennia BCE.

Europeans first came in contact with the potatoes in 1532 when Spaniard Francisco Pizarro landed in Peru, learning of it from local Amerindians. Within three decades, the vegetable had spread throughout Spain’s American holdings, and by 1573 we have the first evidence of the potato in Europe, when a hospital in Seville, Spain bought some for their garden. From Spain it then migrated to the Spanish controlled regions of Italy by 1586, England by 1596, and Germany by 1601.

It’s important to mention here that the early adoption of the potato was not as a food staple but rather as an object of curiosity for botanists and the earliest use of the potato was for decoration rather than cuisine.

There were three key factors which led to a general unease towards the potato as a food item.

First, was that the potato was miscategorized as a species related to the nightshade family which was notoriously poisonous. This misconception was made due to the dominate school of botanist thought in the period, which was deeply rooted in the old (Roman and Greek) ways of thinking. This meant that there was a lot of issues when trying to reconcile new-world plant species into the old systems of thinking, with many being wrongfully compared to old-world species.

Second, the appearance of the potato created an unfortunate association between the plant and the skin of lepers.

Lastly, the newness and foreignness of the species create a general suspicion and apprehension towards the plant. One trait which was met with a great degree of suspicion was the fact that potatoes didn’t require seeds to been grown, a first for European agriculture.

This suspicion was eventually overcome towards the end of the 17th century, but even into the 18th century there was a great deal of controversy and criticism leveled at the potato.

In Denis Diderot’s Encyclopedias (1751-65), he describes the potato as something that… “cannot be regarded as an enjoyable food, but it provides abundant, reasonably healthy food for men wo want noting but sustenance.”

While this does display a dislike for the taste, it also shows that the misconception of it being poisonous had been overcome by this point.

Another critic of the potato was England, where it was denounced as an agent of Roman Catholicism, with the slogan “No Potatoes, No Popery!” being used in 1765.

However, even with its critics, the adoption of the potato as a food item could not be stopped. As early as the late 17th century, there is evidence of widespread cultivation and eating of potatoes in Ireland, Spanish Netherlands, and the Alsace region of France.

By the early 18th century it had been adopted within England and Scotland, and by the mid-18th century had arrived in Scandinavia.

By 1744, we have the first widespread adoption of the potato in Germany, when Frederick the Great of Prussia ordered his peasantry to eat it in order to alleviate a famine at the time.

In France, the adoption of the potato was spearheaded by a single gentleman by the name of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier. Parmentier was a veteran of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and during the conflict was captured by the Prussians, who fed him little beside potatoes. After the war he dedicated his life to the vegetable, doing everything in his power to promote it. Some of his most high-profile publicity stunts included:

1) An all potato banquet for an international gathering of high society;

2) Persuading the king and queen of France to wear potato blossoms on their outfits; and

3) Planting 40 acres of potatoes on the edge of Paris in order to encourage the poor to steal them and plant them for themselves.

By 1775, France was in the perfect position to adopt the potato, as this was the year where the price controls on grain were lifted, leading to the rapid increase of bread prices, leaving room for the potato to really shine as an alternative staple in French diets.

From Europe, the potato was then spread across the rest of the old world via colonial trade networks and mariners. It arrived in China by the 17th century via the Dutch, it was introduced to India by the 17th century by the Portuguese and British, and had reached Ethiopia by 1858 via the Germans.

By the end of the 18th century, the potato was a well-established staple of European diets with anywhere between 10-30% of the population solely consisting on them within the Netherlands, Belgium, Prussia, and Poland, and 40% of the population in Ireland.

How the Tomato Reached Europe:

Much like the potato, the tomato originated in Peru and Ecuador, before spreading outwards across the Inca, Aztec, and Mayan empires. Prior to the Columbian exchange it had become a very important part of the Aztec diet and was grown extensively throughout Mexico.

It is in Mexico where Europeans first come in contact with the fruit. This was once again led by the Spanish when Hernan Cortes captured the city of Tenochtitlan in 1521, noting the importance of the tomato within the local Nahua diet and culture.

The tomato was eagerly adopted by the local Spanish settlers, and by 1571 it was well documented that the tomato, along with chilis, were being used extensively by the Spanish population in Mesoamerica.

The first tomatoes to enter the old world did so in the mid-sixteenth century, when they entered through the port of Seville in Spain. From here the Spanish then moved it across the globe via their colonial system, moving them first to the Caribbean, then their European holdings (Southern Italy and Flanders), and eventually into the Philippines and Asia.

However, much like the potato, the early adoption of the tomato in Europe saw it used primarily as a botanist curiosity and not as a source of food. This is once again because of the botanist mindset of the period. In 1544, Italian Scholar Pietro Andrea Mattiolo compared the fruit to aubergine, a toxic member of the nightshade family. This perception was reinforced by the works of Italian, Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1572, and English surgeon and herbalist, John Gerard in 1597.

Along with this, the tomato was burdened by 5 key characteristics which made it difficult to adopt into European diets. These were, its foreignness in appearance and taste, strange consistency and texture, acidic taste when green, soft texture when ripe, and its tendency to disintegrate during the lengthy cooking times of Renaissance cuisine.

On top of this, there was also the problems of 16th century medical literature, which viewed vegetables as bad for someone’s health.

One quote comes from 16th century Castilian Doctor, Nunez de Oria.

“However, let us not quote examples from distant lands, but look instead at our own country, where we see from experience that those who eat salads and vegetables have all the colours of the rainbow in their complexions and faces. I do not say this to stop people having salads, but so that they do so in moderation, and make them from hot and cold vegetables, so that they temper each other.”

While this was a general warning against the danger of vegetables there was also direct criticism leveled at the tomato.

For example, Flemish physician, Rembert Dodoens made this warning in 1583, “Some eat the fruits prepared and cooked with pepper, salt and oil. However, they provide little bodily sustenance, and this is itself noxious and pernicious.”

However, even against the overwhelming warnings of the 16th century medical community, there is evidence of the consumption and cultivation of the tomato during this time. The first evidence of it being consumed dates back to 1608 in Spain when the Hospital de la Sangre, in Seville, ordered some for their kitchen.

By the early 18th century, the tomato had overcome its stigma and was being widely consumed and cultivated across the Mediterranean. This claim can be supported by the account book for the college of Corpus Christi in Valencia which started the cultivation and consumption of tomatoes in 1746 and by physiocrat, Jose Antonio Valcarcel who reported the widespread cultivation within the region by 1765.

By the end of the 18th century, the tomato was being widely grown and eaten throughout the Mediterranean, while it maintained its status as a botanist curiosity in Central and Northern European.

The Potato’s Impact Upon Europe:

In 1853, Andreas Friederich erected a statue of Sir Francis Drake in the town of Offenburg, Germany. In one hand Drake wields a sword, in the other he grips a potato plant. At the base of the statue is a motto which reads, “disseminator of the potato in Europe, in the year of Our Lord 1586. Millions of people, who cultivate the earth, bless his immortal memory.”

Now, it’s important to note that Sir Francis Drake had absolutely nothing to do with the movement of potatoes into Europe. However, his statue does show us how important the potato was to the continent.

The potato effectively doubled the food supply of Europe, producing more calories, vitamins, and nutrients per acre than any other staple crop. It also contained vitamins which could not be easily found in any foods indigenous to Europe, such as vitamin C.

A family of 6-8 individuals could subsist off the potato yields of a single acre and the diary of a single cow for their annual needs. In comparison, that same family would require 2.8 acres of barley, 3.2 acres of oats, or 3.4 acres of wheat just to make up the same caloric intake, and that’s not even factoring in the crops needed to make up the missing vitamins these other staples failed to provide.

The potato could also be used as an animal feed, which helped increase the population of cattle, pigs, and chickens across Europe, contributing to increased meat production and far greater quantities of fertilizer.

Between the year 1000-1700, the population of the world grew from 300-600 million people while the urban population stayed stable, making up about 2% of this figure. Between 1700-1900, the population then exploded from 600-1600 million, while the urban population grew from 2-8%. Of these second figures (1700-1900), 25-26% of the population growth, and 27-34% of the urban growth can be directly contributed to the widespread adoption of the potato. Just think about that for a moment, the adoption of a single crop was responsible for a quarter of the Industrial Revolution’s population growth and a third of its urbanization.

London, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Moscow, these cities would be a shadow of their current shelves if it were not for the potato.

And while the potato did revolutionize food across the entire old world, Europe proved to have the ideal soil and climate for the species, blowing away the rest of the world in potential yields.

Prior to the introduction of the potato, the traditional food systems of Europe could not reliably feed it. Between 1500-1800 there were 40 famines in France, and between 1523-1623 there were 17 national famines in England. Yet, the potato offered a solution. To quote Belgian historian Christian Vandenbroeke, “for the first time in the history of western Europe, a definitive solution had been found to the food problem.”

That is…until 1845.

To begin to understand what happened in 1845, we must first understand two things, P. infestans and guano.

P. infestans, also known as potato blight, is a fungus native to Peru which prays upon the potato and tomato. Prior to 1845, it had remained in Peru where a natural genetic resistance had mostly limited the impact of the fungus upon crops.

Guano is bird shit. To put it more kindly, it’s the dried remains of bird urine. While an absolutely revolting substance, guano has the very important characteristic of having incredibly high nitrogen content, one of the macronutrients vital to the growth of all plants, potatoes included. So, prior to the advent of artificial fertilizer, guano was imported into Europe to help fertilize crops, something that was becoming increasingly important as the heavy cultivation of potatoes absolutely devastated the nitrogen content of European soils.

Now where did Guano come from? Well a wide variety of places, however the chief producer was Peru.

So, we have both the killer of the potato and the fertilizer needed for potatoes within close proximity to one another, and every day more and more ships were making the voyage to ferry guano to Europe.

In 1845, P. infestans came along for the ride.

It landed in Antwerp in the summer, before hopscotching to Paris by August, and doing a tour of the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and England in the coming weeks.

Finally, it reached Ireland.

As mentioned, the Irish diet was heavily dependant upon the potato with 40% of the population subsisting on nothing but potatoes for every meal.

Within 2 months, 0.5-0.75 million acres of Ireland’s 2.1 million acres of potatoes were gone. In 1846, this figure worsened, as it did in 1847, 1848, 1849, 1850, 1851, and 1852. For 7 straight years the situation worsened and the impact upon Ireland was devastating. Due to the famine, the British government’s unwillingness to combat the famine, and the enclosure of lands used to cultivate alterative crops by the English aristocracy (who shipped their products to England) 1 million Irish people died with another 2 million fleeing the country.

To put this into perspective, it took until the 1960s for Ireland to recover half of its pre-famine population, and modern Ireland is the only country to have a smaller population today than it did 150 years ago.

The horrors of P. infestan and later Leptinotarsa decemlineata (the Colorado potato beetle) birthed the modern petrochemical industry, as scientists and industrialists raced to find a way to profit from the protection of the potato. In the 1880s, it was discovered that a combination of copper sulfate and lime would kill P. infestans, while a combo of arsenic and copper would do the same for L. decemlineata.

However, the battle against parasites is still with us to this very day. For example, in 2009, nearly the entire potato crop of the American East Coast was destroyed by parasites.

The Tomato’s Impact Upon European Cuisine:

While the tomato’s impact on European demographics is nowhere near as great, the introduction of this fruit radically altered European cuisine.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than within Italy.

For example, prior to the 19th century most Italian staple dishes did not exist. Pasta and pizza were very different, being topped with a combination of olive oil, anchovies, and cheese. It wasn’t until 1889 that the dish we call pizza really came into existence, when Raffaele Esposito invented the Margherita pizza in honour of the queen of Savoy. To put that into context, the country of Canada is older than pizza.

You can actually see the impacts of Spanish colonialization upon Italian cuisine, with the southern half of the country having a rich history with the fruit. This is due to Naples being a part of the Spanish crown from between 1504-1714, meaning that it had better access to Spanish colonial goods, and by 1548, the first tomatoes entered Italy.

The first tomato sauce originated in Italy in 1692 and was described as being done in a “Spanish style”, showing the Spanish influence of this period.

Meanwhile, in Northern Italy there was a wariness towards the fruit, which stems from many of the reasons stated earlier in this paper. However, along with this, the tomato also had a reputation for poisoning the aristocracy and wealthy echelons of society. This happened due to the use of pewter plates by the wealthy elite, which had a very high lead content. The acidity of the tomato would erode the pewter and mix lead into the food, giving the people unfortunate enough to eat off these plates a bad case of lead poisoning.

In Spain, the tomato was being consumed by the colonial populace all the way back to the 16th century, when Spanish cuisine was blended together with the local Amerindian foods. This mostly took the form of blending chilis and tomatoes together to create a sauce, which was described as having the ability to “enhance the flavour of almost all dishes and foods” by naturalist Francisco Hernadez.

Beyond Spain’s colonial holdings, the adoption of the tomato was a bit slower in uptake. Yet even in Europe the tomato was being eaten as early as 1583, when it was combined with pepper, salt, and oil. More complex dishes came out of this and by the 18th century the tomato was being consumed rather commonly throughout much of Spain.

By the 18th and 19th centuries the tomato had exerted it dominance on southern European cuisine, being cultivated and consumed throughout the entire Mediterranean. The tomato’s impact upon local foods can not be understated as this fruit managed to completely alter a major aspect of the region’s cultural image (food) within a relatively short period of time.

Conclusion:

In Marialuz Lopez-Terrada’s paper, The History of the Arrival of the Tomato in Europe, he discusses how the introduction of American plants radically altered European cooking and eating habits, medical products, drugs, poisons, gardens, wood types, pigments, solvents, and greatly expanded the catalogue of other useful materials. In other words, Europeans were able to extract a great deal of benefit from the Americas, often to the detriment of local Amerindians. Nowhere is that more pronounced than with the adoption of the potato and tomato.

The potato originated in the Andes of South America, before arriving in Europe by 1573 when the Spanish introduced it to the continent. Throughout the next few centuries the plant spread throughout Europe, though largely in a gardening and ornamental role. The adoption of it as a food was hindered by its exoticness, lumpiness, and misconception that it was poisonous. However, throughout the 17th and 18th century, widespread culinary adoption began to blossom and by the end of the 18th century somewhere between 10-30% of the population was living off a diet of just potatoes within Germany, Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

The tomato also originated within the Andes, before migrating to the Mesoamerican region of the Americas via pre-European trade networks. Like the potato, it was introduced to Europe via the Spanish and was largely kept as an ornamental plant, and had to battle its own stigmas related to its unhealthiness, poisonous, and ill-fitted nature for European diets.

The potato revolutionized the European food supply. For the first time ever, Europeans had a staple crop which provided the entire macro and micro nutrient needs of the population, including a desperately needed and easily accessible source of vitamin C. At the same time, the potato allowed for farmers to produce three times as many calories per acre compared to more traditional staples such as barley, oats, and rye. These two characteristics allowed the potato to effectively end famine within Europe for a nearly a hundred years, and was responsible for 25-26% of population growth and 27-34% of urban growth between 1700-1900. However, the potato eventually ran into pests and disease which shattered its stability, and in an effort to protect it, the modern petrochemical and fertilizer industries were invented.

Meanwhile, the tomato completely changed southern European cuisine. Pasta and tomato sauce, pizza, salsa. None of these would exist to a European palate if it were not for the Columbian exchange and the introduction of the tomato into Spain and Italy. While the impact on demographics from this are nowhere near as pronounced, the impact of the tomato was massive upon the region’s culture and cuisine.

In closing, the potato and tomato might be common nowadays, to our diets, but its important to examine where these foods came from and how they spread to hold such an important role within our society. Three hundred years ago, Ireland didn’t have potatoes, Italy didn’t have tomatoes, Switzerland didn’t have chocolate, and Spain didn’t have chilis.

Bibliography:

Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (NA). Tomato. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/plant/tomato

Lopez-Terrada, M. (NA). The History of the Tomato in Europe: An Initial Overview. Traditom. Retrieved from: http://traditom.eu/fileadmin/traditom/downloads/TRADITOM_History_of_the_arrival_of_the_tomato_in_Europe.pdf

Mann, C.C. (2011). How the Potato Changed the World. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-potato-changed-the-world-108470605/

Monaco, E. (2016 Jan 9). How the Tomato Transformed the European Diet. Epicure & Culture. Retrieved from: https://epicureandculture.com/tomato-transformed-european-diet/

Nellino’s Sauce Co. (N.A.) Pomodoro! The History of the Tomato in Italy... and its Way to My Kitchen. Retrieved from: http://nellinos.com/the-history-of-the-tomato-in-italy.html

Nunn, N. & Qian, N. (2010). The Potato’s Contribution to Population and Urbanization: Evidence From An Historical Experiment. Harvard. Retrieved from: https://web.archive.org/web/20110705043431/http:/www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/nunn/files/Potato_QJE.pdf

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