Awww, you'd like Gertrude to be single and still all shades of mourning? Poor Malcolm! He adores her, you know! :-) ;-) He also amuses her & brings her some vitality. Glad you enjoyed their banter! :-)

I know I know ... and you know why, of course ... his arrogance and swagger embarrass me because .... yes ... exactly ... reminds me of a younger version of ... someone foolish ... not saying whoooooo ...  *whistles innocently*

And of course we can't have Gertie in all shades of black forever! She needs her lime green suits - just like in this chapter - she redresses in three shades of ... GREEN! Gertrude Spring! Seee! That's where I got the lime green from! *grins*

That and I would want her to find joyous love ... I love Gertie too much not to. Even if it has to be Malcolm. *grins*

There's a place in life for people who are a bit brash. Aside from their entertainment value! haha! But don't be down on those characteristics of yourself. You've noted yourself that you've learned to tone down a bit and not just say whatever pops into your head! :-)Yep, Malcolm got her to wear green, green, and green, and look all nice and cheerful. I was pretty sure you were remembering her post-Malcolm greenness when you mentioned the lime green suit. hee!

I will share something simple I have learned. Humility is a virtue and pride is a liability. *nods* And I has lots more liabilities than virtues, me thinks.

Holy COW! Bloo knows English!

Dragons Dragons Dragons!

It was a stunner to get any review from Bloo that didn't consist of "Cheers for posting." It became so tiresome to keep opening TPP review alerts, go to the review page, and discover yet another of the exact same three words. I didn't want to turn off alerts altogether because I was still getting a lot of real reviews for fics that were still WIPs at the time.I'm glad you enjoyed the dragon riding and the "whoops, you're Stunned!" at the end. :-)Thanks!

She's Ravenclaw. And Lydia is Slytherin. Siofre's first husband - Merwyn's father - was Gryffindor, and her second husband Herbert was Hufflepuff.

I thought she was Ravenclaw. Still no idea who Lydia is ... I know her daughter is Maisy, or Maise or something like that.

Forgive me, I get all the McGonagalls and their affiliates, across yours, mine and Squibby's universes confused.

Lydia's her sister-in-law, remember? Murdoch Tyree's wife. She's a major CSG character. (I thought you were reading that at one point, but I must have misremembered.)

No I was reading it (you are correct), but in the last six months I've lost about 40 IQ points and have forgotten nearly everything I used to know ... so I am behind on RaM-verse extensions. Bad me ...

Yep, Albus and I wrote that way early in the story. I'm not much of a poet, but I thought it felt and sounded like a poem that Albus would write.

*snip*

“No, simply . . . odd, disorienting, I suppose,” Albus replied, though Minerva thought that he did look tired and drawn. “It was so long ago, it is almost like remembering a dream. Collum was actually almost five years younger than I, in Aberforth’s year, but he was in my House, and I was also good friends with Perseus. Perseus and Crispinian were cousins of some sort, and Crispy was great friends with Collum, who was only a couple years younger than he. Anyway, for some reason – I don’t remember why, now – we were all here for a few days that summer after my NEWTs. I had just married, and I remember that Dervilia persuaded me that we should accept the invitation because I would be beginning my apprenticeship soon and would have much less time for my friends. I hadn’t been inclined to, wanting to spend the time with her, and feeling that they were all still children while I was a married man – at all of eighteen! But we actually had a good time. I remember that the girls – Siofre and Gwyn – visited once for the day and gave Dervilia some relief from our masculine company.” Now Minerva was beginning to feel peculiar. Gwynllian and Siofre, the “girls,” were her grandmothers. Perseus was Gwynllian’s brother, and Crispinian was her other grandfather. For a dizzying moment, Minerva felt as though she had stepped back in time, to a point when her Great-uncle Perseus was just a boy, friends with Crispinian, not knowing that Crispinian would marry his sister, Gwyn, nor that Collum would marry Siofre and die in an accident when his son, Merwyn, was just a baby. And Albus and Dervilia . . . that their happiness would be very short-lived.

*snip*

Woah ... yeah that would make me uncomfortable as well ... that is ... well that is just ... well ... my head would be swimming if I were Minerva.

Yes, it is dizzying for Minerva, and it gives her an appreciation for some of the points her mother made, and for how and why Albus would not be completely comfortable yet.

*snip*

Minerva laughed. “Fly without a broom? No, haven’t mastered that, wouldn’t try. It’s not possible.”It was Albus’s turn to laugh. “Not impossible, merely very rare in this part of the world. And the Ministry would like to keep it that way. Hard to regulate that sort of thing. Most witches and wizards couldn’t accomplish it, anyway.”Minerva stopped and looked back at him. “You are joking, aren’t you?” “Not at all. I rarely do it, myself, although when I was with Master Nyima, I became quite adept. I would sometimes fly with Mother Dragon. I think that is one reason she took a liking for me, actually.”Minerva looked at him a moment, digesting this information, then she shook her head and continued the climb. Well, she hadn’t believed it was possible to become as completely invisible as Albus could, either. In fact, at the time, she had actually thought that she had always believed becoming invisible was as impossible as flight without a Charmed object. Apparently, it was, though not the way that she had believed. She should never underestimate Albus Dumbledore.

*snip*

*grins* I like this.

See ... we HP fans know that Dumbledore is brilliant and amazingly powerful ... but just to say it, well its a bit of a let-down, and harder to take as fact. But showing it ... especially in a sideways manner such as this ... an off-handed type of author's compliment, well that seems to me, to be perfection. I can truly appreciate his amazing talents here ... especially considering that Minerva (who is particularly powerful and talented) is amazed.

I'm glad you liked that. :-)I remember knowing that I would slip that in way back when I wrote the chapter where Dumbledore invisibly observes Minerva doing her tutoring session, and I always envisioned it happening at her family home -- I'd originally been going to have him actually fly, but without a good reason, it would have felt too stilted, especially since his Animagus form flies, so that would be more natural.

He doesn't always employ his internal censor, and he doesn't always have the best way of putting things, but his heart's usually in the right place. And when he wants to, when he puts his mind to it, he can be tactful. But that takes work for him!

Sounds like someone I know ... *groans* Another reminder for me.  I guess some of us are just ungifted with the 'gracious' gene.

He doesn't always employ his internal censor, and he doesn't always have the best way of putting things, but his heart's usually in the right place. And when he wants to, when he puts his mind to it, he can be tactful. But that takes work for him!

Sounds like someone I know ... *groans* Another reminder for me.  I guess some of us are just ungifted with the 'gracious' gene.

Oooohhhhh noooooes! *MMADfan enlists Quin to help find and steal back Wilspy and Gertrude*

*Quin turns on the charm , turning

's celibate knees to jelly so she can't chase after MMADfan as she steal back Wilspy and Gertrude*

*floats like a jellyfish (uber slow) across the water while she sees Quin, Gertrude and Wilspy sail off on the boat. Is quite sure Wilspy and Gertrude are crying and waving in mourning as Quin steals them both from the enchanted island*

Heheheh!!

Its an island enchanted to have no mosquitos, sand flies, fire ants or thorny trees/bushes but lots of beautiful fish, both shell and fin, and a huge variety of fruit trees and veggies year round, and maintains a perfect temperature and humidity level ... *sighs*

I wanna go there!

Me too!

I know. Minerva was not at her best there, was she? Poor Quin!

Yes, the magic that allows those Charmed parchments is the magic that was tapped into to create the Marauders' map. It's part of the magic that was being tested and fixed that summer when Minerva helped with the wards, changing back and forth into her Tabby self to see whether the wards detected her identity when she turned into her Animagus form -- the wards had been so damaged that they no longer detected someone who was in Animagus form.Many years later, this became important for seeing Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black on the map. Also, by the time that he enlisted Minerva's help, Dumbledore had already fixed the ward that detected the true identity of someone who was disguised using Polyjuice -- meaning that during GoF, Potter saw that B. Crouch was searching Snape's office. Of course, he thought that it was B. Crouch senior, not the crazy son who had supposedly died in Azkaban. The fake Moody (Barty Crouch) took the map from Harry so that Harry wouldn't notice that Moody never left his office (where he was stuck in the trunk), and that where Moody apparently was, Crouch actually was.

She is one sharp Slytherin, and she loves answering a question at a different level than it was being asked. :-)

She's concerned that Malcolm might bring up a sensitive subject in an inappropriate way, for one, but mostly, she's worried that Malcolm might just be in it for the fun and that Gertrude is vulnerable if he just up and leaves. Gertrude hasn't formed any other attachment since the trauma of having her husband killed in such a gruesome manner, as far as Minerva knows, so Minerva's worred that Gertrude is opening herself up in a rare manner and that her brother might just be too cavalier with her feelings. (I'd have to reread the section, but that's what I remember o fher motivation.)I'm sure Minerva wishes she had better timing! lol!

As I continued to read, Minerva's concern was apparent, as usual, in my typical Gryffie fashion - we leap before we look ... or rather, we shoot our mouths off before we have all the facts. *sighs*

Yes, he is definitely defensive here! Seems he is becoming more than a little attached to a certain Slytherin!

*MMADfan puts on her running shoes and jogs after

*

I think that sometimes, it's really clear that there's one House that a witch or wizard belongs in, and other times, there are others that would suit, too. I think Albus could have fit in with Ravenclaw -- he certainly pursued knowledge, both Light and Dark -- but there were bits of his personality that drove him that were Gryffindor that shaped his intellect and his use of it. (I can't have written that part of the monologue and really substituted "Hufflepuff" -- though I think that with a few tweaks to the text, Slytherin could have been included as an option -- he is a wily wizard, after all!)I'm glad you like it. It's one of the reasons that I think this section, these chapters, work better as a first-person recounting than as I had originally written it -- in the third person as a kind of flashback. We get to see Albus's personality then and now, and his own take on his character as a teen and young man, and how it developed.

Yes, Sluggy's sense of grandiosity is quite at its peak here. And it's not yet been burst by the emergence of the Slytherin "Death Eater sect" led by one of his former star pupils. So he's amiably pompous, tries a bit too hard to chum-up to Quin, and yet there is a part of him that genuinely likes other people (in my view) and simply wants them to like him in return. I really enjoyed envisioning the Slytherin dorms and some of the more decent Slytherins in "The Sorting of Susie Sefton." It was fun to look at them from a different POV than we had in the books, and yet try to make it all still recognizably Slytherin.It would be neat to experience Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. And I wonder if Hufflepuff would be all honey with no stings attached ...

Oh and, I also love lore with the Sorting Hat - for some reason I find that 'character' of Rowling's to be fascinating.

I like to imagine that each teacher in the history of Hogwarts, especially Heads of Houses and Headmasters/mistresses, leave some of themselves, some of their magic, in the wards, helping to strengthen the school long after they're gone. That would be a heritage.The Sorting Hat is fascinating, and I think it is intriguing to contemplate whether it's sentient or not, and what its existence says about sentience, at least in the HP/Hogwarts universe.

Yeah, I think Gertrude is quite human here. But it's interesting how when Malcolm comes into her life, she begins to take an interest in her clothes again! Or at least, they reflect a cheerier self. :-)

Me too!

*snip*

 Minerva looked up at him and was struck by how very attractive he was. In that moment, she would have agreed that the sound of monkeys banging ashcans was nice. Fortunately, this was the station’s “music for the dinner hour,” and really was pleasant.

*snip*

*bursts out laughing, barking in fact*

Minerva is in a very agreeable mood!