Hi, all.
Chapter 9 (and a couple of other) notes.
First, I’ve deliberately “retconned” the “Fat Friar” and “what is a Ghost” questions away from JKR Canon. In my humble and sadly moniless opinion, JKR’s “Ghost definition” is weak sauce or worse. And, her “Fat Friar” origin story is frankly stupid. While a Catholic Friar would almost certainly heal syphilis suffers (JKR said “pox, not smallpox, and “pox” was an alternative name for syphilis,) or any other disease they could heal, they would not pull a rabbit, or anything else out of a Communion Chalice. It just isn’t done. While I’m sure the Church itself had put “witches” and “warlocks” to death, that was done far more often by secular mobs and Protestants as compared to a group of Friars living in a Monastery. And, while if put to death a magical Catholic Friar or Nun could cast the “JKR Weak Sauce Spell,” they would be far less likely than a magical lay person. By their very vocation, they have little to no fear of death. Their faith tells them where they’re going and what it’s like. And it’s the fear of death, not the fear of suffering while they die that powers the JKR Weak Sauce Spell. So, her version of the Fat Friar (originally a word play on “fat fryer” from the cafeteria kitchen) just doesn’t work. My “fanon” has Ghosts as the actual souls of the haunting departed, Sir Nicholas’s agnostic understanding of his own situation not withstanding. In the case of the Fat Friar, he failed to move On not from fear, but from repentance for not Witnessing the Gospel to his fellow Wizards and Witches, since after graduating Hogwarts and awakening his Faith, he never returned to the Wizarding World until after he died. You’re free to disagree. But remember that this is the same JKR who retconned a major character she created as a white English girl Black after nineteen years of that character existing white in canon just because she liked the very skilled and very likeable Black actress who portrayed the adult version of that character in the premier of her play in London. JKR had already created multiple non-white major characters including Angelina Johnson Weasley, and George and Angelina’s kids Fred and Roxanne. Had JKR wanted a non-white lead character before 2016, she’d have had that character, or reams of “editor’s notes” from both Bloomsbury and Scholastic telling her why she couldn’t. More “weak sauce” from JKR. I enjoy playing in her sand-box and I sincerely hope she continues to grow it and prosper while doing so. I’ll also point out politely where I believe she could have done better.
Second, while I’m making no promises, this is probably the last chapter where I use any major amounts of “non-English portrayed directly” instead of saying what language the character(s) are speaking and writing it as English in italics. Up to now, the blocks of non-English made more sense creatively portrayed exactly as if you were a fly on the wall listening in, to demonstrate that the character(s) were actually speaking the non-English language they were speaking. You can “Google Translate” to find the English translation even easier than I “Google Translated” to write it. But, from here on, I should have little to no need for this, so you will (at least mostly) receive the more reader-friendly italic English pretending to be Latin, Czech, French, and so on you’ve become used to elsewhere.
Professor Snape is only slightly outside of his lane visiting John and Pet Dvorak. But however contentious his relationship was with Pet Dvorak when they were children, he does know her. On that basis, he could potentially and reasonably be expected to set up a conference about his academic concerns about the stepson of someone he’d known for many years. So it isn’t like “invited himself” to a Parent-Teacher conference without any reason at all.
On John’s request, Snape presents a slightly different viewpoint of the exploits of Jacob in the Cursed Vaults, along with supplying information John hasn’t been told yet. Duncan Ashe will be important. So will Myrtle Warren, and the relationship the two teen Ghosts have with each other.
David is mature for his age, and honest to a fault. So, he says and means exactly what he said, especially since he’d not only had the time to think about the likelihood of Snape visiting, but did in fact expect Snape to visit.
I’ve portrayed Harry and Dudley both as being on the very high end of language skills for their ages. But, some kids do learn to talk faster than others, especially if they are talked to and read to routinely and frequently without babbling b.s. “Baby Talk.” I also explained it in the story, along with what happened next.
Yes, you can have a multi-lingual toddler. And if you do, you can also have them have a multi-lingual meltdown if they’re angry, hurting, scared, or are for whatever other reason throwing a temper-tantrum.
I had originally planned to have Harry and his family actually visit Louisiana on their own when Harry was older. But, I decided that since I’d already had a Shaman available, that I’d just have him take the trash out, and leave Louisiana Tourism for a different story, other than perhaps a quick “concert visit” for the band that Harry may or may not go on. I also decided that for this story, that Harry won’t lose his Parseltongue, where I (will) have him lose it (eventually) in Third Time’s a Soul Bond. Here, it’s easier to have Harry keep the snake talk, and easier to explain his keeping it, too. Especially since Parseltongue isn’t nearly so scarce among the “good guys” in this story.
Dumbledore’s explanation is an answer to the fanfiction question “How could a ‘Good’ Dumbledore not do anything about Harry’s scar? Why didn’t he tell Harry? and so on.”
I decided to put some more “light near-smut” in after the concert. Could I have written “moar?” Of course. Can I write “moar?” Perhaps. if “reader demand” here suggests a demand for it, I can certainly write “moar” here, in the form of removing the ellipsis and replacing it with the 3-5 thousand words of creamy kinky almost-teen paramour smut. My other two long stories here certainly don’t leave much to the imagination.
In the one other place this story appears, I won’t get more explicit. Based on what I’ve actually written so far, I could reduce the story rating at the other place to make the story more easily visible to more readers. However, I’m not being as quick to update “over there” period, since their reader counters are broken, and they’re taking their sweet-assed time in fixing them. Since they are in absolutely no hurry at all to tell me how many people over there are actually reading this story, I’m only in a slightly higher hurry to update or fix typographical errors over there. I will do it eventually, since I do have some readers over there. I have a better idea, or at least a better guess, of how many readers I have here. Thank you to all of you who have read and recommended my story up to this point.
Cheers!