But For A Stone (A Matou Shinji Series AU)

[shanagan]

[X] Tell me more about your time at Hogwarts

[Skull Leader]

[X] About ghosts...

I kinda what to explore the Binn idea of replacing him and want to ask about that but the hypothetically choice is not subtle enough if Binns suddenly disappears later.

Hmm if people rather ask about Secret passages I am totally fine with that one as well.

change to [X] Secret Passages

[skulkidcachi90]

[ ] About those secret passages

[Desann]

[ ] About those secret passages...

[alfheimwanderer]

[x] About those secret passages...

---

Chapter 27. Musings on the Road

Things were silent for a time in the passenger compartment of the limousine, after having discussed such weighty topics. Shinji, at least, didn't have much to say, looking out the window as the scenery sped by, a mottled landscape of whites and browns and greens.

‘I thought the West would be more colorful, but it isn’t…it’s just like rural Japan.’

Well, the houses looked different, but that was a minor thing, really, failing to distract him from his turbulent thoughts.

Between the talk of snogging and dogging and what have you, his mind was in no fit state to concentrate on serious matters, as it kept jumping from visions of murder to lechery and back, despite his best efforts to focus on something else. Anything else.

Which was why it was a welcome thing when Phelan, of all people, broke the silence.

"So, Miss Tonks, who’s this Dark Lord fellow?" Phelan asked, his attention fixed on the Auror trainee, who for her part, had just discovered the mini-fridge in the limousine and had proceeded to pour herself a drink. "And why do people call him You-Know-Who?"

"Mm, I'm curious too," Amber chimed in. "That seems like it could lead to some big misunderstandings."

Indeed, such a misunderstanding had occurred only minutes ago, when the Hogwarts alumna had panicked, thinking that the "You-Know-Who" they had been talking about was some long-fallen villain returned to life.

"...I thought everyone knew about him," Tonks replied, after emptying her glass in a single go with. "Huh. It's not firewhiskey, but it’s not bad," she mused aloud, frowning as she noticed Matou Shinji looking over at her, his featured pinched and disapproving. "What?"

'...drinking all the time. Just like that man,' the Japanese boy thought with disgust, before he schooled his features back to some semblance of normalcy.

"It's nothing," the boy said, looking away, his body relaxing – only to tense in a different way as Amber squeezed his hand. "Really."

His words convinced exactly no one, though Amber knew him well enough not to push, and Phelan didn’t really care, as his attention was elsewhere.

"About You-Know-Who then?" the earl’s son asked intently, leaning forward.

“Fine. If you’re that interested, I suppose I can tell you what I know,” the Auror trainee conceded, after yet another slug of hard liquor. "You have a right to know. And as muggleborn, you wouldn’t have heard about any of this, I suppose," Tonks realized, shaking her head. "It’s not something I think about much, since I’m not around people your age much.” She looked down into the cup filled with amber liquid. “That, and none of you exactly act like muggleborn, since you seem more…confident than most.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m not muggleborn?” Shinji snarked, though the Hogwarts alumna shook her head.

“No, that’s not it. You’re the least confident one here, which is odd,” Tonks remarked, with Shinji grimacing at how easily he was seen through.

"It's probably because my brother and I are more gently born," Amber replied. "We're both of the Noel family, one of Britain's noble houses."

"...I didn’t realize even muggles had traditions like that," Tonks grumbled. “I thought it was just my family.”

"Oh? Are you of the nobility too?"

The Auror trainee looked away, as she didn’t really want to deal with this topic. She said nothing for about half a minute, sipping from the heady brew in her glass, as if it would give her courage – or at least remove some of her reluctance.

"I am...part of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," the metamorphmagus said eventually, with her hair growing turning blonde and her skin pale, such that she looked almost like an older – female – version of Draco Malfoy. “Or at least, what’s left of it, these days.”

"The House of Black?” Amber echoed. “I thought Minister Fudge said that there were no noble houses left since Lord Black left for America...? Was that a lie?"

“It…not exactly,” Tonks temporalized. “The House of Black exists in that there are still daughters of the House, but our wealth, our power – that is all gone.”

“Oh?” Phelan leaned closer. “How did that happen? The war perhaps?”

He knew that war was a very expensive thing, after all, especially if it ran for any significant length of time.

“Something like that,” the Auror trainee remarked with a sigh. “My...uncle, Lord Black, the Last Black – they call him now – fought against You-Know-Who, at Dumbledore’s side, as did his best friends. But one of his comrades – one of his oldest friends, was a traitor to the cause and was secretly working with…the Dark Lord. His treachery led to the deaths of Lord Black’s closest friends.”

“Oh.” Phelan didn’t know what to say to something like that.

“It also led to the death of You-Know-Who,” Tonks related tiredly. “Which Pettigrew brought up during his trial. Even with the Ministry’s best efforts – even with Dumbledore’s aid, the Dark Lord was winning, until he died facing the Potters.” Her face was pale, and Shinji thought he noted signs of something dark just beneath the surface. “The night they died was the night that Wizarding Britain was spared the conqueror’s wand. What did the death of one family matter next to something like that?”

“…isn’t that the correct conclusion though?” Shinji asked, surprised by the bitterness in the Auror trainee’s voice. “Objectively, putting one person in danger to let a hundred or a thousand, live, is the right thing to do.”

Wasn’t that what heroes – Aurors – did, after all? Using themselves as a shield, a thin red line, between the populace and the threats that lurked in the shadows?

Tonks eyed the Japanese boy for something like a minute, as if finding him rather strange.

“…that’s what the Wizengamot thought,” she said finally. “Especially since the Order of the Phoenix, who fought the Dark Lord, had already taken the law into its own hands by fighting You-Know-Who. And since Pettigrew was the Potters’ Secret-Keeper, and their most trusted friend, the Wizengamot ruled that what was thought a betrayal must have been another reckless stratagem the Order had devised. One which worked, where nothing else had.”

She smiled, but the expression was a grim one.

“Victory, you see, washes away any number of sins,” she murmured. “And so, not only did Pettigrew not go to prison, he was awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class, for engineering the stratagem that brought down the Dark Lord. The Potters, who died defeating the Dark Lord, were also accorded that honor.”

“…Lord Black couldn’t accept that, could he?” Amber noted quietly.

“He couldn’t, no,” Tonks affirmed. “He said, quite publicly, that a Britain which honored traitors like Pettigrew was a Britain he wanted no part of. So he sold off the family house and holdings, emptied the accounts, and left for the New World.” She shook her head. “The Black family more or less ceased to exist as a power after that, with the Malfoys buying everything they once owned. Which just means that Aunt Narcissa effectively controls what once belonged to Uncle Sirius now, just as she would have even if Uncle hadn’t sold everything off.”

"Ah. But why?”

"Because Mum had been disowned, and my uncle forgot he could do something about that in his hatred for Britain," Tonks noted, with Amber wincing sympathetically. "So as the only Black left in Britain, Aunt Narcissa became the acting head of the family.”

“Ah.”

“It hasn’t been all bad, I suppose,” the Auror trainee noted. “She let Mum back into the Black family after Dad died, and even passed the title of family head to her, since Mum has no competing interests, unlike Aunt Narcissa. Still… that’s largely a formality, since we don’t actually own anything of note these days.”

"That sounds...complicated," Phelan grunted. It reminded him of some of those noble arrangements he didn't really care for.

"Does that mean you might be the heiress of House Black?" Amber asked, with the Auror trainee's lips pressing together at the girl’s query.

"Who knows?" she replied, almost diffidently. "But I’ve gone my whole life just being Tonks, and I’m not about to ask people to call me Lady Black or some rot.”

"Then Miss Tonks it will always be," the Earl's son said gallantly, bowing slightly.

The earl’s daughter wasn’t especially pleased with that answer, but she didn’t press the issue, as she thought people should have a right to choose their fates, not have destiny thrust upon them.

Not that the world worked that way.

One could rarely choose the hand one was dealt, only how one played one’s cards.

“I believe you were going to tell us about You-Know-Who?” she said instead, noting that the older woman had – on several occasions now – tried to distract them from asking more about the dark wizard. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

"I do, but seeing as all of you want to know, I’ll tell you what I can,” Tonks relented, glancing at the walls of the car, as if trying to gauge how quickly they were moving. “Odd. From the window, it looks like the world is flying by, but I don’t feel the wind on my face.”

“Miss Tonks…”

The woman bit her lip.

“Fine,” she said flatly. “Was there something in particular you wanted to know?"

"Well, how about something easy: who was he?" Shinji asked, deciding to get the obvious out of the way. "Who was the Dark Lord that people speak of only as You-Know-Who, over a decade after he died?"

It seemed his request was not as simple as he’d imagined though, as the Auror trainee did not reply immediately.

"What I know is that he called himself Lord V-voldemort, and that those who fought on his side were mostly purebloods," the older woman answered as Shinji was beginning to grow impatient.

"That sounds almost french," Amber mused. "Flight of Death or something, maybe. Was he a foreigner, perhaps?"

But the Hogwarts alumna shook her head.

“I don’t think so,” the Auror trainee said, her face morphing into something like what Amber might look like in a few years’ time. "A foreigner wouldn’t have gained the loyalty of the purebloods so easily. He didn’t speak like one either, but I didn't bother with foreign tongues or the like.”

“Ah.”

“Wherever he came from though, he was powerful though,” Tonks admitted. “They say Dumbledore is the only one he ever feared." The woman shook her head. “But this is just wot I heard. He was before my time.”

Her answer raised more questions than it laid to rest, however.

“...Dumbledore?" the Japanese boy echoed, looking rather confused. "But why would a Dark Lord fear a Headmaster?"

While it was true that the heads of some schools in Japan were strict disciplinarians, whose iron-fisted rule over their institutions struck fear into the hearts of their students, he didn’t think a Dark Lord whose name struck fear into an entire country would have anything to fear from a mere teacher. After all, the boy found it unlikely, at best, that the head of a school would just happen to have incredible prowess in the martial and magical arts.

‘Well, unless we’re talking about the Director of Atlas or the head of the Clock Tower, but those are two of the Association’s Great Branches.’

Hogwarts, on the other hand, was a school for children and teenagers – and certainly no place for a master of various arts to keep up one’s skills.

‘Unless maybe the Headmaster used to be famous when he was young or something?’

Shinji thought that was rather unlikely, as—

"Y-you mean, you don't know?!" Tonks all but squawked. "How can you—"

"You'll have to excuse Matou," Amber interjected. "He doesn't find Binns' lectures particularly compelling."

The Auror trainee looked as if she ha bitten into a particularly sour lemon at that response.

"...I'm not one to judge, I s'ppose," she grumbled. "Still, to think you don't know that Dumbledore ended the Global Wizarding War..."

‘The Global Wizarding War? The headmaster did?’

Something like that strained the limits of credulity nearly beyond recognition.

‘It doesn’t make any sense. If he’d done something like that, why wouldn’t he be Minister of Magic or something? Besides, if this was something like a world war, I’m sure I would have heard about it before now.’

Or perhaps he had – maybe the events had been mixed up with those of World War II or something, since he knew that the Third Reich had been quite curious about the possibility of enhancing their warfighting abilities by dabbling in the occult.

There had been Nazis in the Third Grail War – or so he’d heard once. Apparently, some Yggdmillennia fellow had attempted to steal its power for their own use, with his grandfather defeating the man and his minions handily.

"...ended the war, you say?" Shinji echoed, finding it difficult to picture someone as unsophisticated and eccentric as the headmaster in some position of responsibility that would let him do something like that. “Did he broker a peace treaty or something? Convince people to come to the negotiating table through a sternly worded letter?"

Neither of these would make him feared though, so…

"He fought a duel," Tonks corrected, perhaps a bit more peevishly than she meant to. "One of the longest and most brilliant duels in the history of the world, against the dark wizard Grindelwald, whose reign of terror had brought Wizarding Europe to its knees.”

“…really?” Shinji asked, more than a bit skeptical.

“Yes, really,” the Auror trainee insisted. “You don’t believe me?”

“You’re telling me that someone like the headmaster fought a duel against a criminal capable of bringing low entire countries,” Shinji stated bluntly. “That he won. And that after winning he…became a schoolteacher?”

“He was already a Professor at Hogwarts before that,” Tonks corrected mildly. “I think he taught transfiguration?”

“…that’s even more unbelievable,” the Japanese boy grunted. “I don’t suppose anyone actually saw the duel in its entirety, did they?”

“Well, no…,” Tonks admitted. “There were witnesses, but none of them saw the whole thing from beginning to end. Those two…were apparently on a whole other level compared to most wizards.”

“Did anyone see how the duel ended?”

“A few,” the young woman revealed. “They don’t know the exact method by which Dumbledore did it, since they were casting silently, but he managed to disarm Grindelwald and strike him down. He left with the body of the dark wizard, presumably to dispose of it somewhere no one could find.” Tonks shrugged. “Personally, I think he just thought even a criminal deserved a proper burial, instead of having his body desecrated, as many would have wished.”

“…or maybe Dumbledore didn’t kill Grindelwald,” Shinji mused aloud. "Maybe he left the man alive because they were friends or something.”

“W-why would you even think something like that?" the Auror trainee asked, her expression one of utter horror as she stared at the Japanese boy as if he was some kind of...alien.

Which in a legal sense, he supposed was, but...it wasn't like he had two heads or something. Well...he supposed that maybe he did if one counted his berserk state as another entity, but...

"Because no one else ever confirmed what happened?” Shinji answered. Wasn't it just common sense that one should never take someone’s word as enough, especially where matters like life and death were concerned? “No one saw what he did with the body or confirmed Grindelwald’s death. No one saw the entire duel from beginning to end.” The boy shook his head. “How do you know the person who fought really was Dumbledore anyway, not someone wearing his skin or pretending to be him? Maybe a…metamorphmagus, someone like you? Or someone using a potion?”

“I…” Tonks was speechless before the boy’s tirade, and rather disbelieving at how far he would try to go to reject what she told him – something that everyone in Britain knew to be true. It…she shook her head and sighed, letting out a particularly long exhalation. “Think what you will. It's of no concern to me, really," she half-growled.

"So…what did Voldemort want?" Phelan asked, almost lightly, trying to banish the awkward atmosphere that lingered in the wake of Matou’s acerbic skepticism about a true hero.

"...what every dark wizard in history has ever wanted," the Auror trainee replied simply. "Power."

"But if he was strong enough that the only one he feared was a hero who ended a world war, then why would he need to seek more than that?” the earl’s son questioned, trying to understand the motives of this Dark Lord, only to flinch as Tonks turned her gaze on him.

"Dark wizards never have enough power. That's just how they are," she said flatly, words that greatly unnerved the boy. "Like dementors, they are always hungry. Never satisfied, no matter how much they gain, or how far they come." Then she smiled, an expression that was altogether false. "Now, I rather think it might be a good thing to ask about something else, don’t you?”

"W-well, how about your days at Hogwarts?" Amber inquired with a cheer that rang just as hollow. "Surely you must have adventures you could share? Or perhaps you were a prefect."

"Heh. I was never a prefect," Tonks corrected. "My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities."

"Like what?" Phelan asked.

Tonks' lips curved up ever so slightly, though this time, it was genuine.

"Like the ability to behave myself."

Shinji found this quite odd, given that she had decided to go into law enforcement. If she couldn’t be trusted to follow the law, or to enforce rules at Hogwarts, why had she been hired to enforce the Ministry’s?

"Well, since you were obviously up to no good,” Shinji inquired mildly. "Did you happen to discover anything interesting during your time as a student? Secret passages or things like that?"

"A few," Tonks admitted. "I might even tell you about them if you make it worth my while." She eyed the first years speculatively. "Not that knowing the ones inside the castle will do you much good if Filch finds you. He knows ‘em all too, see?" Then she blinked, as if remembering something. "…no, that’s right, Filch is dead, isn't he? Can’t believe he of all people got an Order of Merlin…"

"Yes," Shinji answered, though he couldn't quite meet Tonks' eyes. "I...I couldn't save him," the boy said, his lips pressing together tightly. This was, strictly speaking, quite true.

“If your Defense Professor couldn’t save him, then you shouldn’t be blaming yourself,” Tonks replied, her words a bit brusque. “Unless you think you’re at the same level as Quirrell.”

“I…no, but—”

“Well, since that’s settled, who's the new caretaker?" the Auror trainee asked, her voice quite casual – too casual – by Shinji's estimation.

"...I don't know," the Japanese boy admitted. "I haven't been paying attention."

"I think that Hagrid fellow is filling in for now," Amber supplied helpfully. "The one who is supposed to start classes as a third-year student next year."

There had been something in the paper about how new evidence in the Chamber of Secrets had exonerated the half-giant from any involvement in the death of Myrtle Warren, meaning that he could continue his long-interrupted education at Hogwarts, starting as a 3rd year. Of course, the investigation had also implicated him in the trafficking of exotic animals such as acromantulae, a finding which had disqualified him from receiving any reparations from the Ministry, or from receiving the usual financial aid offered to most students, so to cover the cost of his tuition, he would continue to be working for the school.

"Ah, Hagrid, huh?" Tonks echoed. "Good fellow, that. Or so I hear."

"How can someone who breaks the law be a good person?" Phelan asked, though he notably did not look at Tonks while he asked this.

"Sometimes, people have their reasons. Sometimes people make mistakes. And sometimes, people actually don’t know better," the Auror trainee replied. "Not that I'll admit to saying that, mind. I'm an officer of the law, after all."

"Or perhaps it just depends on the law?" Amber mused aloud. "Some are well and good. Some are well-meaning and ineffectual. Some are just better off ignored."

"I can’t encourage people to ignore the law,” Tonks said flatly. “Would cost me my job. But yes, sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Sometimes, people do the wrong thing for the right reasons.” She shook her head. “And sometimes, what you do isn’t as important as the context in which you do it," Tonks noted. "It's like...people call Dumbledore a hero for killing Grindelwald, but if he'd killed the man before his rise to power, he'd have just been a murderer."

"So, a crime is only a crime--"

"When people agree it’s a crime," the Auror trainee noted. "If enough people, especially those in power, agree something isn't a crime, then it isn't. That's how society works."

"And what if the people are wrong? What if say, the Dark Lord had won and taken over the Ministry, with the people's blessing?" Amber questioned. "Would this Voldemort then be in the right? Would it then be evil for Dumbledore to keep opposing him?"

"...huh. I hadn't thought about that," Tonks admitted, shaking her head. "Binns never asked this sort of thing, you know."

"Class would be more interesting if he did," the copper-haired girl noted. "Instead he just drones on and on. Not a very good way to make us care about the past. As Matou here can attest."

"Huh? What was that about Binns?" Shinji asked, not quite following the conversation on ethics and morality. He’d never bothered studying such things himself, as magi didn’t really find such things useful…

"You see my point?" Amber was saying.

"...yes, I believe I do," the Auror trainee remarked with some amusement. "But unless Binns leaves of his own accord or Dumbledore fires him, that's how things will be, since no one will apply to replace him if there's no opening. Even if we all wanted Binns binned."

Phelan made a face, while a sound suspiciously like "Ugh" escaping Shinji's lips.

'Maybe I should look into necromancy a bit more,' the Japanese boy thought to himself. 'It might be a good way to get rid of Binns.'

If he remembered correctly, there were rituals that would allow him to sacrifice human souls for power, and it wasn't as if he'd be hurting something that was actually alive.

In fact, he'd be doing Binns – and everyone else – a favor, right? Since it would help them advance their education, what evil he did would be justified in the name of the Greater Good.

"And what if he oh…moves on one day?" Shinji asked. “Goes to the other side.”

"Eh, that doesn't happen to ghosts," Tonks replied. "Once they choose to become ghosts, they're forever bound to this plane of existence."

"Huh. And there's no magic that can change that?"

That…wasn’t how ghosts worked, as far as Shinji knew. Unless these ghosts weren’t souls in their entirety, just impressions of them.

"Not that I know of," the woman answered. "Spells to seal them into an item, if they're being a right nuisance, sure, but making them move on?" the Auror trainee shrugged. "Maybe the Unspeakables know. They do all sorts of strange things down in the Department of Mysteries."

"The Department of Mysteries?" Amber echoed, recalling something. "You didn't give us a tour of that place when we were at the Ministry."

"And I'm not going to talk about it. Like I said, I value my job. And my freedom."

"Your freedom, huh?”

“Talking about what they do there, or learning about it without authorization, could lead to being thrown into Azkaban,” Tonks informed the copper-haired girl..

"Ah."

'Mysteries, huh?' Shinji mused. 'Perhaps that's where the truly interesting bits of witchcraft are researched. Everything else so far is so...tame.'

Wave a wand, produce some physical effect – that was about all he’d seen.

Nothing that dealt with concepts. Nothing that affected the spirit…except for curses.

‘Well, I’m still a first year. Maybe that has something to do with why I’m not seeing more interesting things.’

Even so, the fact remained that what he had access to wasn't enough.

He wanted – no, needed – more.

"Enough boring talk," Phelan interjected. "Tell us more about your adventures."

"Well, there was the time that someone, who will remain anonymous, laced the castle's pumpkin juice supply with love potions," the young woman said matter-of-factly. "Everyone did quite a bit of snogging that night. Filch just about went spare."

"Love potion?" Amber echoed. “Isn’t that a bit…”

"Oh, not the stuff that makes people feel things for other people. Just the stuff which erases all their inhibitions. Let’s them act on all the desires and frustration they normally hide from the world." She smiled, ever so slightly. "Funny, how so many avowed enemies - especially Slytherins and Gryffindors - found their way into broom closets together, after a bit of dueling."

"What? Why?"

"Well, when you think about someone all the time, wondering where they are, what they're doing, how they’ll feel when you finally best them, the lines between love and hate tend to blur. Especially when people grow obsessed or fixated. Wanting to impress a potential partner isn’t that different from wanting acknowledgement from a rival as some people think," Tonks said with something much like a smirk. "Things like love and hate aren’t opposites, really. If you didn't care about someone at all, you wouldn't hate them with all your heart, and dedicate every fibre of your being to proving yourself to them, or showing them up. You just wouldn't think of them at all."

For some reason, Shinji felt a chill go down his spine as he listened to her words about obsession and rivalry, but for the life of him, he couldn't quite think of why.

Before he could think of why, however, Phelan cut in, his words a welcome distraction…

“Say, about those secret passages…” the earl’s son said, glancing at Tonks. “You said you wouldn’t mind telling us about them?”

“I said I might, if you made it worth my while,” the Auror trainee amended. “And you haven’t gotten to that point yet, Mister Noel.”

“Then what do I need to do?”

“Why, Mister Noel, didn’t anyone tell you that it’s a man’s job to figure that out?” Tonks teased, her expression coy, as her features shifted once more, letting her take on the appearance of a tall, willowy blonde with brilliant green eyes – almost like what Selina might look like in some years’ time. “I’ll let you know if I’m…satisfied.”

“R-right.”

For some reason, the earl’s son turned quite red indeed.

---

As it turns out, Tonks has never heard of this Shakespeare fellow whose birthplace the group is going to visit, which makes some of the other tourists quite curious about her, since there aren't many other reasons one would visit Stratford-upon-Avon. Still, that alone doesn't shake the premonition of disaster that Shinji feels, with something dark looming just about the corner.

'Its like I'm being watched...'

That...was probably just paranoia. Maybe because he hadn't slept enough. Or because of the odd topics they had talked about in the car.

What does Shinji do?

[ ] Say nothing and stick with the group, as Phelan or Amber try to explain Shakespeare
[ ] Make an excuse to head off alone and investigate
[ ] Bring up his concerns to someone and ask for advice
[ ] Bring up his concerns and ask Tonks to investigate
[ ] (write-in)

[shanagan]

[x] Bring up his concerns to someone and ask for advice

[skulkidcachi90]

[ ] Bring up his concerns and ask Tonks to investigate

[Haunter]

[X] Bring up his concerns and ask Tonks to investigate

either this or we just not do anything

like when we investigated Chloe Ainsworth in the main series and got ourselves death no. 1

[Desann]

[x] Say nothing and stick with the group, as Phelan or Amber try to explain Shakespeare

[Skull Leader]

[x] Bring up his concerns to someone and ask for advice

Not sure why everyone is jumping on the lets tell Tonks here.

Seriously, Shinji does not have a positive relationship with her to tell this bad feeling to her and have her act on it. He has no proof to show, he been in a horrible mood the entire ride. I think she would blow him off here. Cause she does know him better. You are better off telling Amber his feeling and have her go to Tonks for help than Shinji doing it himself.

Investigation on Choe only backfired cause we were too cleaver for our own good and was polyjuice as a stranger that was lying to Ilya, to a girl that has an hair trigger. This investigation is even better since no one can really cast magic here, even Tonks would have a hard time justifying it since she is a trainee only. Unless self-defense is truly necessary.

Also let's say you do manage to convince her to go off and investigate. You just took the one person that might be able to cast spells and got them to go off by themselves. Great Idea! Split the party.

[alfheimwanderer]

[x] Bring up his concerns to someone and ask for advice

---

"...I don't know if I'm just imagining things, but I think someone's been following us for a while," the boy mentioned to Amber. "Ever since we went to get tickets for the Beowulf showing tonight. Or at least, I feel like I'm being watched."

He'd tried to look around a bit himself, but when he did, there wasn't anyone to be seen.

'Maybe I'm just bad with crowds?'

There were a great many people here, after all - more than he had expected from a village like this, though in retrospect, perhaps he should have expected more people to be interested in a place with such history.

'...I used to find history interesting before I came to Hogwarts, too. Its just, with Binns as a teacher...' Nothing was interesting. Not goblin rebellions. Not giant wars. Not the nonsense about the Statute of Secrecy. Everything was just delivered in a bone dry recitation that put him to sleep without fail, regardless of how often Natsumi chided him. 'If only I could absorb all his knowledge without having to sit through his lectures...'

He thought there might be a ritual for that, but it was likely a bit on the complex side. And then there was the matter of getting the ghost into a position to be drained of all its knowledge...

"Following us?" Phelan asked curiously, interrupting his train of thought. "How exciting!"

Exciting wasn't the word Shinji would have used, but he supposed he had to make allowances for people of...odd beliefs and tastes.

"Exciting?" Shinji echoed. "How is being followed exciting?"

"You never know," the earl's son joked. "What if you have a secret admirer, with those dark, exotic looks of yours?"

"...if you're about to say my hair looks like seaweed, I am going to hit you."

"What? Why would I say that?" Phelan asked. "I mean, what does seaweed even look like?"

Shinji sighed and shook his head as Amber giggled, amused at the verbal byplay between the two.

"That aside, why would someone be following you anyway?" Tonks asked aloud.

Only, when the reply came, it was from a most unexpected source.

"It's because he's surrounded by wrackspurts," a voice said dreamily from behind them, with Shinji turning with a start to see a young blonde girl with wide, eternally surprised eyes the color of stormclouds, wearing plums for earrings and a necklace of corks.

"Wrack..spurts?" Shinji echoed. Was that...some kind of magical creature?

The girl nodded, a hum escaping her pale lips.

"They're invisible. They float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy," she confirmed, her words almost musical to his ears.

"Ah." That...would explain why he had been having trouble concentrating in the last few days. Though...did they really make someone's thoughts grow fuzzy or were they just attracted to people whose thoughts were already fuzzy? "And how do I...get rid of them?"

"Thinking positive thoughts" was the not entirely satisfactory reply.

'A feedback loop then? They come to people who are feeling distracted and irritable, and worsen their mood?'

It sounded plausible at least.

"I see. I'm Matou Shinji, by the way," he said, remembering his manners.

"You're the one of the two who bought lifetime subscriptions to the Quibbler as gifts," the young blonde noted idly. "Luna Lovegood, by the by."

"Ah. Charmed," Shinji replied with a bow and a flourish.

"I am Amber Noel, eldest daughter of the sixth Earl of Gainsborough," the copper-haired girl by the Japanese boy's side spoke up. "And this..." she added, gesturing at her wayward brother.

"I am Phelan," the earl's son interrupted. "And I am quite capable of introducing myself, sister."

"I wouldn't know. You do seem eager to prove otherwise many a time."

"You bought a lifetime subscription as well," the blonde girl noted, her stormy grey gaze seeming to look right through him.

"Um. That's right...but how did you know that?" Phelan asked, looking at the new girl owlishly.

"Oh, my father is the editor for the Quibbler. He was very excited. No one has ever bought a lifetime subscription before."

"Ah. You...you're most welcome," Phelan replied, his voice growing soft as he did. "Are you alone, mi'lady?"

"I'm here with dad. We're on our way to the butterfly farm."

"And where is he?"

"The loo."

"...I see," Amber observed, blinking. "Do you...go to Hogwarts by any chance?"

"Not until next year. Do you?"

"Yes. We're first years," Amber replied.

"I'm not," Tonks interjected, speaking up for the first time in a while. "Miss Lovegood, it's dangerous to follow strangers around. Who knows who they might be?"

"I do, since you all just told me," Luna replied distantly, a response that rather annoyed the Auror trainee.

"I didn't," Tonks sniffed.

"You didn't need to. But everyone knows who you are, Miss Dora Tonks," the young Lovegood girl answered. "Or was it Miss Nymphadora?"

"...Tonks. Just Tonks."

The small, dirty blonde nodded.

"As you say, Miss Just Tonks."

"Tonks or Miss Tonks, if you have to. None of this nymphadora business."

But the girl just tilted her head.

"Why would you not want to be called the gift of the muses?"

"Because boys have a dirty mind," Tonks growled, with Shinji and Phelan both instinctively taking a step back.

"Oh. But how can a mind be dirty?"

"...you'll understand when you're older, Miss Lovegood," the Auror trainee replied. The Hogwarts alumna clearly wanted to say something else, but decided to bite her tongue.

A fortunate thing too, as a most eccentric-looking man came out of a building to join them. He was slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white hair the texture of candyfloss, and was dressed in a suit of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow.

"Ah, Luna, there you are," the new arrival commented. "I see you found friends."

"They bought lifetime subscriptions to the Quibbler, too," the girl added.

"What? Oh, oh I see! Phelan Noel and Makar Shinra. And I do see Miss Black as well."

"...Matou Shinji, actually," the Japanese boy corrected.

"And as I said before, the name is Tonks."

"Ah, well, marvelous. Just marvelous," the man said rubbing his hands together. "It's been so long since my daughter introduced me to her friends. I must treat you all to lunch!"

He glanced around.

"...if you know a good place, that is."

What does Shinji do?

[ ] Accept the invitation
[ ] Agree to lunch, but suggest each pay their own way
[ ] Decline and correct the man - he only just met this Luna, even if she does seem familiar
[ ] Surely the Auror can treat (after all the confusing things she said in the car and all the alcohol she drank)
[ ] (write-in)

[skulkidcachi90]

Fuck my life.

FUCK NO FUCK NO FUCK NO.

[x] Decline and correct the man - he only just met this Luna.

Did anyone know how to delete my account?.
This is really not healthy for me.

[shanagan]

[X] Accept the invitation

[Skull Leader]

[X] Accept the invitation

I see no reason why Shinji should not accept here. He offered, its only polite to accept.

I have to admit when it turned out to be Luna, I laugh and then though, "Oh Skulkidcahi90 is not gonna like this!" At least this time around Shinji is not stuck on a girl that Luna reminds him of. Miyuki is not nearly as similar as oddball Luna to outcast Sokaris. I think we are somewhat safe in interacting with Luna, at this point in time. Just don't keep throw huge amount of time and love towards her. I think we can manage that....maybe.

[Desann]

[x] Accept the invitation

[Haunter]

[x] Accept the invitation

friend Luna is good

just hope it doesn't exceed more than that eventually

[alfheimwanderer]

[X] Accept the invitation

---

Chapter 28. Clouded Feelings

As it turns out, Tonks has never heard of this Shakespeare fellow whose birthplace the group is going to visit, which makes some of the other tourists quite curious about her, since there aren't many other reasons one would visit Stratford-upon-Avon. Still, that alone doesn't shake the premonition of disaster that Shinji feels, with something dark looming just about the corner.

'Its like I'm being watched...'

That...was probably just paranoia. Maybe because he hadn't slept enough. Or because of the odd topics they had talked about in the car.

It was tempting to say nothing, but…he thought he should probably at least ask for advice. Even if it would probably turn out to be nothing in the end.
Taking a deep breath, the boy steeled his courage…

"...I don't know if I'm just imagining things, but I think someone's been following us for a while," the boy mentioned to Amber. "Ever since we went to get tickets for the Beowulf showing tonight. Or at least, I feel like I'm being watched."

He'd tried to look around a bit himself, but when he did, there wasn't anyone to be seen.

'Maybe I'm just bad with crowds?'

There were a great many people here, after all - more than he had expected from a village like this, though in retrospect, perhaps he should have expected more people to be interested in a place with such history.

'...I used to find history interesting before I came to Hogwarts, too. It’s just, with Binns as a teacher...' Nothing was interesting. Not goblin rebellions. Not giant wars. Not the nonsense about the Statute of Secrecy. Everything was just delivered in a bone-dry recitation that put him to sleep without fail, regardless of how often Natsumi chided him. 'If only I could absorb all his knowledge without having to sit through his lectures...'

He thought there might be a ritual for that, but it was likely a bit on the complex side. And then there was the matter of getting the ghost into a position to be drained of all its knowledge...

"Following us?" Phelan asked curiously, interrupting his train of thought. "How exciting!"

Exciting wasn't the word Shinji would have used, but he supposed he had to make allowances for people of...odd beliefs and tastes.

"Exciting?" Shinji echoed. "How is being followed exciting?"

"You never know," the earl's son joked. "What if you have a secret admirer, with those dark, exotic looks of yours?"

"...if you're about to say my hair looks like seaweed, I am going to hit you."

"What? Why would I say that?" Phelan asked, taken aback by the Japanese boy’s rather…direct words. "I mean, what does seaweed even look like?"

Shinji sighed and shook his head as Amber giggled, amused at the verbal byplay between the two.

"That aside, why would someone be following you anyway?" Tonks asked aloud.

Only, when the reply came, it was from a most unexpected source.

"It's because he's surrounded by wrackspurts," a voice said dreamily from behind them, with Shinji turning with a start to see a young blonde girl with wide, eternally surprised eyes the color of stormclouds, wearing plums for earrings and a necklace of corks.

"Wrack..spurts?" Shinji echoed. Were those...some kind of magical creature?

The girl nodded, a hum escaping her pale lips.

"They're invisible. They float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy," she confirmed, her words almost musical to his ears.

"Ah." That...would explain why he had been having trouble concentrating in the last few days. Though...did they really make someone's thoughts grow fuzzy or were they just attracted to people whose thoughts were already fuzzy? "And how do I...get rid of them?"

"Thinking positive thoughts" was the not entirely satisfactory reply.

'A feedback loop then? They come to people who are feeling distracted and irritable, and worsen their mood?'

It sounded plausible at least.

"I see. I'm Matou Shinji, by the way," he said, with a bow and a flourish, remembering his manners.

"You're the one of the two who bought lifetime subscriptions to the Quibbler as gifts," the young blonde noted idly. "Luna Lovegood, by the by."

"Ah. Charmed," Shinji replied, smiling slightly.

"I am Amber Noel, eldest daughter of the sixth Earl of Gainsborough," the copper-haired girl by the Japanese boy's side spoke up. "And this is—" she added, gesturing at her wayward brother.

"I am Phelan," the earl's son interrupted. "And I am quite capable of introducing myself, sister."

"I wouldn't know,” Amber countered. “You have seemed eager to prove otherwise many a time."

"You bought a lifetime subscription as well," the blonde girl noted, her stormy grey gaze seeming to look right through the earl’s son. “For a Miss Granger.”

"Um, yes,” Phelan frowned. “T-that's right...but how did you know that?" he asked, looking at the new girl owlishly.

"Oh, my father is the editor for the Quibbler. He was very excited. No one has ever bought a lifetime subscription before."

"Ah, no one, you say? Then, you...you're most welcome," Phelan replied, his voice growing soft as he did. "Are you alone today, mi'lady? Do you come here often?"

Amber just shook her head at Phelan’s use of that particular line, even if she knew he didn’t mean anything bad by it.

"Oh, I’m visiting for the day with dad,” came the dreamy response. “We're on our way to the butterfly farm."

"And…where is he?" Shinji asked, not seeing a paternal figure anywhere in sight.

"The loo."

‘…well, when you have to go, you have to go, I suppose…’

"...I see," Amber observed, blinking. "Do you...go to Hogwarts by any chance? I don’t think I recognize you…"

She didn’t look older than their age, after all.

"I start next year,” was Luna Lovegood’s answer. “Do you?"

"Yes. We're first years," Amber replied.

"Well, I'm not," Tonks interjected, speaking up for the first time in a while, and honestly a bit unnerved by how the young girl had just walked up to them. "Miss Lovegood, it's dangerous to follow strangers around, you know. Who knows who they might be?"

"I do, since you all just told me," Luna replied distantly, a response that rather annoyed the Auror trainee.

"I didn't," Tonks sniffed.

"You didn't need to,” the girl murmured, her grey eyes glancing at the young Hogwarts alumna. “Everyone knows who you are, Miss Dora," the young Lovegood girl answered. "Or was it Miss Nymphadora?"

"...Tonks. It’s just Tonks,” the Auror trainee growled.

The young blonde nodded.

"As you say, Miss Just Tonks."

“…Miss Tonks, if you have to,” the metamorphmagus replied tersely. “None of this Dora or Just business, and certainly not Nymphadora."

But the girl just tilted her head.

"Why would you not want to be called the gift of the muses?"

"Because boys have a dirty mind," Tonks mumbled, with Shinji and Phelan both instinctively taking a step back.

"Oh,” Luna commented, her eyes wide. “But how can a mind be dirty?"

"...you'll understand when you're older, Miss Lovegood," the Auror trainee replied, giving the standard reply to troublesome youths who asked too many questions. The Hogwarts alumna clearly wanted to say something else, but decided to bite her tongue.

A fortunate thing too, as a most eccentric-looking man came out of a building to join them. He was slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white hair the texture of candyfloss, and was dressed in a suit of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow.

"Ah, Luna, there you are," the new arrival commented. "I see you found friends."

"Yes. Two of them bought lifetime subscriptions to the Quibbler, too," the girl added, with the man looking astonished as he literally did a doubletake.

"What? Oh, oh I see!” he said animatedly. “Then you two are Phelan Noel and Mako…err…Makar Shinra. And I do see Miss Black as well?"

"...it’s Matou Shinji, actually," the Japanese boy corrected, though given that that they’d never met, he was satisfied that this newcomer at least had gotten the first syllables of his first and last name right.

"And as I said before, the name is Tonks," the Auror trainee said with some impatience.

"Ah, details, details.” The man glossed over their rebukes, as if they didn’t bother him at all. Perhaps that was something one needed to be an effective member of the press? “Still, this is marvelous. Just marvelous," the man said rubbing his hands together. "It's been so long since my daughter introduced me to her friends.”

“Err…”

“You are her friends, yes?” the editor of the Quibbler asked. “Oh, where are my manners? I’m Xenophilius Lovegood, and I must treat you all to lunch!"

He glanced around.

"...if you know a good place, that is."

The twins – and Shinji – looked at one another. The man before them was so earnest that it hurt, and he seemed so hopeful that they were all Luna’s friends that it would be very awkward to beg off.

A wordless moment passed, before Phelan stepped forward, offering the man and his lovely daughter a dashing smile.

"Well, if you're offering, I see no reason not to accept," Phelan spoke up. “It’s not every day that I get to accompany such a charming young lady and her father for a meal, after all.” Then he turned to his sister. "Sister, I don't suppose you would know a place? You were the one who suggested coming out here today, after all."

"Perhaps one or two," Amber admitted, as the trip hadn't been completely spontaneous. She had found that a bit of research and other preparation often helped to ensure success in her endeavours, no matter how seemingly spontaneous they were. "Of those, for a group like this, I think Moons would be best."

"Moons?" Luna echoed, her eyes lighting up a hint at the name. "I didn’t see such a sign, though it’s a lovely name.”

"Well, I can see why you’d think so,” the copper-haired girl quipped, shaking her head. "It’s actually called Edward Moon, after a famous traveling chef who was famous among governors and ambassadors of the Empire."

"The...Empire?" Tonks asked, looking somewhat puzzled. "What Empire?"

"The British Empire, of course, upon which the sun never sets," Amber replied, raising a slim eyebrow as she noted that Tonks didn't seem to recognize her terms. What did witches and wizards learn in history, she wondered, that they didn’t even recognize the name of what was once the greatest empire in the world? "Admittedly, the saying was first coined for the Spanish Empire, but our Empire surpassed theirs several hundred years ago." She harrumphed mildly. "In any case, Edward Moon was well known for creating a culinary ‘England’ wherever he was posted, with his banquets becoming legend in certain circles."

"...I thought Britain was so bent on conquering most of the world because it wanted better food?" Shinji remarked, offering his – admittedly limited – view on the matter. “So why are we going to a place which serves English food?”

"Because what we accept as part of English fare now is a bit broader than it once was, thanks to those conquests and interactions," Amber commented, shaking her head. "We eat spaghetti carbonara or curry as often as a traditional roast, we have tea and sandwiches where hundreds of years ago the concept of a sandwich did not exist, and more! We borrow from other traditions to enrich ours. Edward Moon was famed for doing much the same, unlike the chefs of Hogwarts, whose fare is too traditional for my tastes.”

“I don’t think pumpkin juice is traditional, sister,” Phelan pointed out.

“And so it isn’t, as pumpkins are hardly traditional in our cuisine, having come from the Americas!" the earl’s daughter exclaimed. “Which makes it all the more curious why it is served at school.”

Perhaps pumpkins had been adopted as a part of wizarding cuisine because they were hardy crops which could grow on every continent except Antarctica?

'Not that I've ever heard of a practitioner of witchcraft who farms...' Shinji thought to himself. 'Speaking of which, where do they get their food?’ Walking around Hogwarts, he'd seen a small vegetable patch and a few chickens, but he didn't imagine that paltry amount to be sufficient for the entire student body, unless... 'Are they just duplicating everything with Gemino?'

Come to think of it, this would explain the rather repetitious menu, as well as the nigh endless quantities of food that were served at each meal.

‘Maybe even the pumpkin juice, if few others wanted pumpkins except for practitioners of witchcraft, perhaps they just made a virtue of necessity, liking it because it was what they had.’

"Pumpkins are from America? I...did not know that," Tonks replied, taken aback by the notion that one of her favorite drinks as a student had a...foreign origin.

"I hate to admit it, but my sister is usually right about these things," Phelan admitted, turning to the girl in question. "So...this Moons is good then, sister of mine?"

"So our brother says, at least, and whatever else I think about him, I trust his taste in fine restaurants," Amber noted. "As Viscount Campden, he's dined at enough of them, after all."

"...well, that's fair," the earl's son allowed. "Henry does have good taste, even if he’s a few years older than us. So, Moons then?"

There were no objections, so to Edward Moon they went, with an odd look suddenly coming over Xenophilius' face, as if he'd forgotten something.

---

...that something turned out to be enough muggle money to pay for such a large group, once they were seated and looking at the menu, as the editor of the Quibbler remembered belatedly that he'd only expected to be spending the day with his daughter and had budgeted accordingly.

"That's fine," Amber said quietly, looking at the eccentric older man compassionately. "I made sure to bring more than enough, just in case of any surprises."

"You're a thoughtful one, hm?" Xenophilius noted, shaking his head. "But I offered to treat, so it would be most inconsiderate of me to make one of my guests treat me instead..." Beyond being inconsiderate, it would make him something of a failure as a man in society. "Could I offer you all subscriptions to the Quibbler for your trouble?"

"There's no need to go that far," Amber replied with a slight smile, thinking the man's earnestness, while awkward, was at least well-meaning. It was clear he cared deeply about his daughter, after all, and there were plenty of men who couldn't claim even that much. "Such mistakes can happen to anyone."

Even so, to let a young girl pay for everyone's meals...

A small pouch landed on the table in front of Amber with a heavy clank, with Xenophilius silently nodding for the girl to take it and open it.

Inside...was a considerable number of galleons, gleaming gold.

"This is..."

"About fifty galleons," the man explained. "I think that should be enough."

"It's too much!" Over three times what this meal would cost, given the special lunch price of £13.50 for all involved. "I couldn't possibly..." Shaking her head, Amber counted out eleven of the golden coins for herself and pocketed them, while passing the rest back to the rather surprised man.

"...you're an honest sort, aren't you?" Xenophilius observed, his expression thoughtful. "Though not sparing of an old man's feelings, I'll note."

"Feelings are one thing, and often at odds with honor," Amber replied calmly.

The editor of the Quibbler was silent for a moment, before nodding.

"My late wife would have agreed with that," the man acknowledged with a sigh. "Shall we all order then?"

And so they did, with Shinji ordering a first course of smoked salmon, and a second of asparagus, pea and mushroom tagliatelle, figuring that a bit of fish and pasta wouldn't be too bad. He was pleasantly surprised when the salmon arrived, fragrant with the scent of oak, covered with pickled capers and dill dressed rocket (arugula) leaves, and garnished with lemon, with fluffy brown bread on the side. The tagliatelle, which arrived afterwards, was just as delicious, with the porous, rough texture of the pasta making an excellent combination with the smoothness of basil cream sauce it was mixed with. The asparagus, peas, and wild mushrooms - all local ingredients - were excellent as well, with the boy almost moaning as he savored the rich, earthy flavors of the dish.

Phelan, being a simpler sort of fellow who preferred country food as opposed to anything too exotic, ordered oven-baked field mushrooms and something called sirloin of bacon. Yet even he was surprised by the taste and presentation of his dishes. The earthy flavor of the roasted field mushrooms, blended excellently with the fragrant bacon and parmesan glaze that had been applied to them. The sirloin of bacon - a cut of beef wrapped in bacon for flavor, was tender and juicy, with the brandy and green peppercorn sauce drizzled over it complementing it perfectly, and going quite well with the creamy mashed potato and seasonal vegetables it was served alongside.
Amber, being of somewhat more refined tastes, ordered a cauliflower cheese tart, consisting pieces of cauliflower lightly boiled and covered with a cheddar cheese and egg sauce flavoured with English mustard and nutmeg, mixed with lightly sautéed onions and bacon bits, and baked until golden in a light shortcrust pastry. The resultant tart, creamy and rich with flavour, with a warm, flaky crust, was accompanied by a crisply dressed salad, alongside minted new potatoes, the textures and tastes of which offset it perfectly. And in lieu of another primary course, she'd ordered a dessert, a deliciously decadent blackcurrant and vanilla creme brulee that needed no words.

Tonks, curious about this menu filled with things she'd never seen before, ordered something called Thai-spiced fishcakes, which required an explanation of both what Thailand was, as well as what fishcakes were - with the latter part of the discussion prompting a bit of debate, as Japanese fishcakes were not at all like British fishcakes.

Shinji, for one, took exception to Amber's description of the fishcake as being like a croquette, while Amber was startled to find that kamaboko came in cylinders and was what others would call imitation crab (or when sliced up and put into ramen, naruto, after the whirlpool like design that resulted from the rolling). Phelan had always thought of a fishcake as consisting of leftover fish ground up and mixed with mashed potatoes, before being baked or fried. And well, none of them were aware of fishcakes were prepared in Thai cuisine, where fish was mashed up and mixed with yardlong beans, fresh coriander, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves, and red curry paste, before being deep fried and served with a sweet chilli dipping sauce.

As it turned out, what Tonks received was some mix of British and Thai traditions, with a mixture of minced salmon and cod with potato flour, lime, curry and coriander dipped in breadcrumbs and deep fried, with these cakes served alongside a seasonal dressed salad, a sweet chilli dipping sauce, and chips - or as American might call them - fries.

"So, it's just a fancy version of fish and chips then?" Phelan exclaimed, on seeing it. "Huh.”

“A simple way of putting it, but not completely incorrect,” Amber allowed.

“You’re also so pedantic about these things sister,” the earl’s son groaned. “Though if you know so much, why haven't we seen fish and chips at Hogwarts?"

"...because fish and chips as a dish first appeared in the 1860s, and the Statute was signed almost two hundred years before that?" Amber asked dryly.

"...oh. I suppose that explains it," the boy admitted, blinking. "Come to think of it, we don’t really have much fish at Hogwarts, even if there’s a lake there. Though we do manage just about every other sort of meat."

‘Huh. He’s right – but where do they get the beef, pork, or lamb?’ Shinji wondered to himself. They didn’t have those at Hogwarts after all.

Thankfully, Tonks' dessert, a pie made from a combination of caramel and bananas on a base of crumbled biscuits and butter, finished with freshly whipped cream and vanilla ice cream, inspired rather less in the way of debate.

Xenophilius' choices were also rather modest, with his choice of two salads seeming rather at odds with his flamboyant appearance.

The first of these was a simple affair, with leafy greens mixed with grilled Welsh goat's cheese, marinated beetroot, and herb croutons, topped with a balsamic drizzle, while the second was something called a chicken Caesar salad, featuring of strips of succulent chicken breast chargrilled to perfection, served over cos lettuce leaves with herb croutons and mixed with a classic Caesar dressing,served alongside a helping of golden gourmet chips.

“This is plenty unusual," the man said, when asked about his rather tame choice in foodstuffs. “I’ve never seen such salads before at the…more traditional places I often eat at. Cheeses, and sauces, and these…crunchy bread things. It’s all rather exotic, wouldn’t you say?”

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been such a surprise, but it was, at least to youths who did not know of the history of Caesar salad.

Contrary to what some rumors said, it was not a dish that the Caesars of Rome would have eaten, as it had only been invented in 1924 by Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who operated restaurants in Mexico and the United States during the Prohibition Era. This more recent Caesar had come up with it as a "special" when a Fourth of July rush had depleted the kitchen's supplies, with this act of culinary improvisation taking America by storm, with high class steakhouses rushing to adopt it as a menu item, and Caesar dressings becoming quite popular on market shelves.

There was less of an excuse for the other, but then, leafy greens were not often consumed at Hogwarts, and cheese (whether cow or goat) was hardly to be found on the menu at all.

Thus, for Xenophilius, what seemed a tame order where muggles and those accustomed to their fare might be concerned, was actually an exotic culinary adventure, full of tastes and textures he’d never experienced in his life.

As such, the man ate with gusto and enthusiasm.

His daughter didn’t seem quite as inclined towards his variety of culinary adventurism, choosing instead the more traditional cauliflower cheese tart, much like Amber. Her choice for desert, a caramelized lemon tart, was also not quite as exotic for wizarding tastes, though it was still delicious, with the shortbread pastry crust and baked lemon custard filling proving the perfect blend of crunchy, sweet, and tangy to offset the heavy creaminess of the cauliflower cheese.

“Mother made something like this once,” she commented, with Xenophilius freezing, seeming stricken for a moment, before his expression returned to something more enthusiastic.

“So, she did,” the man said softly. “Aren’t you glad to enjoy something like it with friends? She’d be happy to know you made some, you know.”

“Mm.”

“I hope you’ll treat my Luna right when she goes to Hogwarts? Look out for her?” Xenophilius implored, looking at Amber and Phelan, who were obviously the leaders of this little excursion.

“I’ll be alright, Dad. Really.”

“Of course, we will,” Phelan declared. “That’s what Gryffindors—”

“—and Hufflepuffs—”

“—do, after all.”

“And you really shouldn’t forget Selina, who is in Slytherin, either,” Amber spoke up, undercutting her brother’s bold declaration. “Or Sokaris in Ravenclaw.”

“Selina…Selina Moore?” Luna questioned, seeming to recognize the name. “The one that you bought a lifetime subscription for?”

“Yeah…she’s an…adventurer,” Phelan said, more gently than most would credit him being capable of. “Someone curious about the world and all its hidden truths. Speaking of which, Matou, you remember the question Lady Selina asked us at the gathering?”

Shinji was silent for a moment as he thought back to the event organized by Quirrell.

“You mean about the attributes? Strength, Charisma, and all that?"

“Yes. What you value most and what you value least. I think they’d be good questions to ask of those with us at the table, don’t you?” Phelan exclaimed, with the Japanese boy feeling the premonition of an oncoming headache.

“She had some other questions too,” Amber noted mildly. “Something about whether one liked to take taking risks for the possibility of better rewards, or whether one preferred caution and a guaranteed, if smaller, reward.”

“Is this some kind of divination?” Tonks asked, slightly intrigued.

Shinji and Amber looked at one another, exchanging volumes with a glance.

“Well, she seemed to be able to determine I could sing, among other things – I merely said I prioritized Charisma and Dexterity, and she called me a bard!” Amber note, with Tonks seeming rather surprised.

“She called me a warlock, though I don’t know why,” Shinji commented wryly, though privately he wondered if she had special eyes that could see people’s potential or something, like those of the owner of the bookstore in Mahoutokoro, or somehow could detect his affinity for curses and darker powers.

“A warlock…” Tonks repeated, glancing at the Japanese boy with some skepticism.

Her confusion was only natural, as Matou Shinji was but a first year at Hogwarts, and the title of Warlock was only granted in antiquity to someone learned in duelling and martial magics – though in its modern usage, it was also bestowed upon someone who had performed some great feat of bravery.

“Was this before or after the Chamber of Secrets incident...?” the Auror trainee asked sharply. If it was after, then that meant little. If it was before…

“Uh, before. Why?”

Then perhaps the one who had done the divination was a true Seer, the like of which was quite rare in the modern world.

“Just a bit of curiosity,” Tonks deflected. “What were the questions she asked, out of curiosity?”

“Of strength, intelligence, dexterity, wisdom, constitution, and charisma, which two do you value the most, and which do you value least?” Amber replied, recalling the question as best as she could.

“Interesting attributes,” the Auror trainee mused aloud, giving some thought as to how to answer. “I suppose I like dexterity and intelligence most. You don’t have to be strong to get what you want, as long as you are quick and resourceful.” She glanced over at the young blonde looking at her intently. “And you, Miss Lovegood?”

“Wisdom and Constitution,” Luna murmured, a trace of melancholy flickering over her otherwise serene expression. “I don’t think charisma in and of itself means much. Or intelligence without wisdom.”

“Well said,” Xenophilius said approvingly. “That’s why my picks would be wisdom and intelligence. I could do without strength, as long as I can think. And the rest of you?”

“Strength and Charisma,” Phelan replied confidently. “Everything else is negotiable, but without the ability to persuade people to do what you want, and the strength to accomplish your goals, it’s all meaningless.” He chuckled. “That’s why I don’t think highly of intelligence on its own.”

“And I favor Wisdom and Charisma,” Shinji concluded, shooting Phelan a bit of a smirk. “After all, what use is strength without the wisdom to know when not to use it?”

“Hey! I resemble that remark!”

“I know.”

---

After lunch, Luna has a question. Which house does the group think she's most suited for. How does Shinji answer?

[ ] Slytherin
[ ] Gryffindor
[ ] Hufflepuff
[ ] Ravenclaw

Since two of the people at the table did buy lifetime subscriptions, Xenophilius also asks some questions about what they like about the Quibbler, and if there are articles they would like to see in it that they're not currently running. Shinji deals with the first bit as best as he can, but how should he answer the second?

[ ] More about magical creatures the Ministry won't talk about
[ ] More about politics and the machinations of those in power
[ ] More about stories of the arcane, like the Tragedy of Nicholas Flamel
[ ] More about the hidden histories of the world
[ ] (write-in)

[Skull Leader]

[X] Hufflepuff

Ask a question like that and get a bias answer. But seriously, does she want the house that she fits best but be mostly lonely, or the house that accepts people of all types for who they are.

[X] More about the hidden histories of the world

The wizard world could stand to dig more into this subject. I am sure there are tales of wonder hidden away in magical history. Politics was tempting but I have to admit that picking that might draw heat on their paper. The man is too good to risk him angering the wrong people with almost no support on his side.

[alfheimwanderer]

But seriously, does she want the house that she fits best but be mostly lonely, or the house that accepts people of all types for who they are.

Its not the house in and of itself she's looking for, per se, but the reasoning behind the choice, as it gives her a bit of insight into you.

[Desann]

[x] Hufflepuff

[x] More about the hidden histories of the world