Chapter 11: Iterative Family Tree
Much of the meal went uneventfully, even after the amusing event of the food rising up out of the serving platters, making the tables groan even louder. Hailey had to ignore large numbers of stares, but nobody was brave enough to try talking to her.
Except Hermione.
“Buncha scaredy-cats,” Hermione accused, when she noticed as well. “You’d think you were Darth Vader or something.”
Hailey chuckled softly. “We’ll see if they’re still willing to hold back tomorrow,” she observed, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be. If she got some decent sleep, at least; they’d likely be just like all the adults in Diagon Alley, crowding her as they tried to shake her hand.
Which reminded her.
“I have kinda made myself out to be a hard case, haven’t I? Taking the Weasley Twins to task for accusing me of being Harry before you ever got there, then having a dozen and a half Aurors cart someone out of my compartment as soon as the train reached its destination…”
Hermione oohed. “Yeah, that’ll do it. Nobody wants to be the next one carted off by aurors.”
“Even though he really was attacking,” Hailey observed. “He was building up for a stunning spell when Morning crushed him.”
“When she crushed him, tied him up, stunned him, and applied an anti-Animagus spell that Director Bones had never even heard of, all before I could do so much as draw my wand.”
She shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Or maybe,” Ron muttered, having sat on Hailey’s other side when he’d been sorted into Gryffindor- after several seconds under the Hat. “Maybe, they think you’re actually Harry Potter just pretending. It’s true, innit?”
Hailey slowly lowered her knife and fork to her plate.
“He’s done it now,” Hermione sighed, turning back to her food.
All the way up at the staff table, Professor McGonagall looked up sharply, dropped her cutlery right where they were, and sprang out of her seat as if she’d been electrocuted.
Then Hailey turned, drew her hand back, and slapped Ron across the face. “How many times do I have to tell you,” she bellowed at him, “that I. AM. NOT. HARRY. POTTER!”
Then McGonagall arrived. “Weasley!” she barked, scowling down at the boy lying on the floor; he’d fallen off the bench in shock when Hailey had slapped him.
Hermione raised an eyebrow as she picked up her glass.
“You do not provoke the Head of a Grand Royal and Most Ancient House!” McGonagall continued.
Hermione spat out her pumpkin juice and turned to look at Hailey. “Y-You’re the Head of House!?” she asked incredulously.
Hailey nodded silently. Did that title really carry that much influence…? She was the one that had slapped him, not the other way around, so when she’d sensed McGonagall on approach, she’d expected to be the one that was told off, not him.
“Now, apologize,” McGonagall commanded Ron.
His twin brothers, seated just on the other side of the table, watched with wooden expressions, looking like they’d completely expected that turn of events.
“Sorry about our brother,” one of them muttered towards Hailey, while Ron was still trying to argue that she’d slapped him. “He just… doesn’t understand nobility.”
“And isn’t quite the finest wand in the shop,” the other twin joined in.
Hailey nodded in acknowledgement. “If only I’d been brought up to understand the nobility,” she informed them. “If I had been, I might actually understand the gravity of whatever he’s just done.”
The two boys covered their mouths to try to suppress their snickers.
“Imagine walking up to Queen Veronica of England and calling her ‘Jimmy’ to her face, even after being asked not to,” Hermione muttered.
Hailey blinked. “That bad?”
She shrugged. “Members of Grand Royal and Most Ancient Houses aren’t quite as powerful as Queen Veronica, as a rule- but the Head of House is another matter entirely. Seriously, it’s a crime to piss you off. At least it’s not one that has to be taken to the DMLE, even if it does have to be reported.”
“Which means Mom’s going to find out tomorrow, one way or another,” one of the Twins muttered.
“Keep an eye out for Howlers,” the other cautioned.
“A crime…?” Hailey asked Hermione. “So the punishment-?”
“Is to take whatever punishment the offended Head sees fit, even including death, and to be made to apologize for the offense, unless the said Head forgives them.”
She nodded slowly, then glanced at the Twins. “That’s what happened on the train too, isn’t it?”
They nodded in tandem.
“That… was forgiveness, right?” one of them asked.
She quirked a grin. “Yeah. It wasn’t your fault. Nor was it the first transgression by that particular mastermind.”
“I’m pretty sure Hogwarts policy- as in most public places- is to spot such infractions as soon as possible, and head them off or minimize them,” Hermione continued. “An irate Head of a Grand Royal and Most Ancient House can be a deadly person to be around, even for people that weren’t involved in offending them.”
“Ahh,” Hailey muttered, looking back down at Ron as McGonagall issued him detention.
Some fifteen minutes later, after a begrudging apology from Ron under threat of a whole month’s detention with Argus Filch, the caretaker, the Welcoming Feast finally drew to a close and Dumbledore gave a number of start-of-term notices. They started with reminders of forbidden items and an announcement of the Quidditch trial date, then moved on to a notice- and reminder- that they weren’t allowed to leave the school grounds. Apparently, the forest on the grounds was not a part of the school grounds, and was in fact titled the ‘Forbidden Forest’. His last notice was pertaining to a forbidden corridor, along with a mention of very painful death, before he tried to get everyone to sing the School Song… with each picking their favorite tune.
Hailey, Hermione, and most of the Equestrians simply covered their ears and waited, so the cacophony sounded sad and dim in the chamber. That went doubly so when most of the Equestrians joined in with the two Weasley Twins at the end, after everyone else had finished; their chosen tune was a slow funeral march, making them the last to finish by several stanzas, and making it the ‘saddest’ performance. The rest of the Equestrians provided acapella accompaniment.
And finally, Dumbledore sighed. “Ahh, music,” he mused. “A magic beyond all we do here. And now, bed time! Off you trot!”
Another voice immediately vied for Hailey’s attention. “Princess-Mistress Hailey?”
She turned. “Hmm?”
The asker… wasn’t human. Short, with big ears, and… This had to be the ‘House Elf’ the Sorting Hat had promised.
“Blinky is being ready to take the Princess-Mistress to her Lord’s Quarters,” the elf informed her.
Ron scoffed, still seated next to her. “Gotta be the Lord’s Quarters, of course,” he grumbled. “Damn teacher’s pet.”
Across the table, both twins paused to slap their hands to their faces.
Hailey, noticing this, turned to Ron. “Is your House of higher standing than Grand Royal and Most Ancient?” she asked him.
“... No?” he offered.
“Do you know what a teacher’s pet is?”
“Um… No?”
Several people in the immediate area facepalmed as well.
“Then shut your mouth,” she commanded him, and rose to her feet as she turned to Hermione. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she offered, then turned and followed the elf from the room.
Hermione rose to her feet, then slapped Ron in Hailey’s place, though not nearly as hard as Hailey had. “You know better than that,” she snapped.
“What is going on?”
She jumped. She’d completely forgotten Professor McGonagall’s apparent near-omniscience when it came to troublemaking. “Uh- He called Hailey a ‘teacher’s pet’,” she informed the Professor.
McGonagall’s gaze tracked around everyone else present, evidently judging the accuracy by the witnesses’ reactions. “And her reaction?”
“She confirmed that the Greater and Venerable House of Weasley is not, in fact, senior to hers, and that he actually has no idea what a teacher’s pet is, then told him to shut his mouth.”
She could actually hear the Twins nodding their agreement.
“Interesting that she got much angrier much faster when he called her Harry than when he insulted her to her face,” George observed.
Hermione glanced back. “... Yeah,” she observed. “From what I heard, she hexed you two, snapped at me, shouted at Malfoy, and slapped Ron.”
McGonagall slowly put a hand to her face. “No wonder she snapped so quickly,” she muttered. “What about… before the Twins?”
She shrugged. “No idea. Presumably a lot, if she went all the way to a hex- and she did have a good few hours with Ron and Morning before I arrived.”
Ron ended up with an extra day of detention with the caretaker, Argus Filch, who fought a constant war against the student body- and would no doubt force Ron to do manual cleaning.
The Lord’s Quarters were, in a word, ostentatious. Blinky introduced Hailey to Slinky, the rather sullen-looking House Elf that had been assigned to Harry, once they stepped inside- through a door next to a portrait of a fat lady in a pink silk dress.
The Lord’s Quarters… was basically a mansion. She even had two entrances in her foyer; one to the outside corridor, and one to the Gryffindor common room. Then she had a common room of her own, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a library, a ballroom, a study, five single-occupancy bedrooms with beds easily large enough for two adults, and five five-bed dormitories, not counting all the other rooms she didn’t recognize or didn’t explore. Not only that, but there were three single-occupancy bathrooms and a pool room with a hot tub as well off the main common room, then each dormitory had two bathrooms and each bedroom had one, all with fancy tubs and showers.
In the Master Bedroom, a wide, three-story chamber with shuttered skylights, stained glass windows, no less than six balconies and a separate dressing room that was bigger than her house, she found her trunk.
Her trunk was one of the finest models that Dyllan, the shop owner, had for sale- apparently, nobody could afford it. It was only twenty thousand galleons, though…? In any case, it looked tiny, pale, and shabby compared to the room it was sitting in.
“Ostentatious,” she observed simply, and paused for a second. “Um, have those dormitories ever been used?”
Blinky shook her head. “Princess-Mistress Hailey is being the eighth person to ever get Lord’s Quarters at Hogwarts,” she informed her. “Not one is ever having more than three persons in their Quarters. The Bodyguard’s Quarters are across the hallway from the Lord’s Quarters.”
“... Ahh,” she muttered. “Might as well get a few in there, then.” She looked down at the elf. “I’ve already been attacked once on the train already, so how would I go about getting bodyguards?”
Blinky was ready for her. She pulled a scroll out of her little uniform and presented it. “Blinky is being able to submit these forms,” she informed her. “Princess-Mistress’ house is senior enough that nearly every specific request is being obligatory. Nonspecific requests is being fulfilled by the Auror Office.”
“... Huh,” Hailey muttered, unrolling the scroll to examine the form. “I wonder if Tonks will come…?” She stepped up to her trunk. “Quill, ink,” she commanded- and the named items sprang out of it into her waiting hand.
“Is Princess-Mistress wanting guards for Princess-Mistress’ brother?” Blinky asked, as Hailey knelt to use the top of her trunk as a writing desk.
She looked up. “Hmm? My… brother?”
“Princess-Mistress’ brother Harry Potter Sir,” she clarified.
She blinked. “So Harry is my brother, huh?”
She nodded her head.
“That works.” She paused. “And wouldn’t it be Prince Harry if he’s also of House Potter?”
“It is being so, but strong magics is blocking Blinky from addressing Harry Potter Sir so.”
She scowled. “Cast by, let me guess, Albus Dumbledore.”
She shrugged. “Blinky is not knowing.”
“Huh. Well, let’s go for minimum guard detail for me and my… brother.” She giggled. “Which means I’m my own sister, doesn’t it?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
She looked up. “Oh, hi Dad. How’d tea with Fluttershy go?”
Discord, who was sitting sideways on one of the tall posts of her bed, sighed. “As well as it always does,” he observed. “How about you? How’d the Welcoming Feast go?”
She shrugged. “About as well as it could. Got called Harry again.” She wrinkled her nose. “Can’t he see I’m not a boy?”
He shrugged as well. “I don’t think he can see that, but it should be rather obvious that you’re female. Did he do something to hurt you?”
She paused for a second. “He attacked my hand with his face.”
“Oh dear, how’s your hand?”
“It stung a little, but I don’t think he managed to hurt it.”
“And his face?”
She shrugged. “A lot redder on one side than the other. Then he landed on the floor and I shouted at him. Or maybe he attacked my voice with his ears, I’m not sure. Then Professor McGonagall arrived to tell him off for bothering me.”
“And she wasn’t worried about the attack?”
She laughed. “Apparently, because I’m the Head of a Grand Royal and Most Ancient House, if he pisses me off, I’m allowed to do whatever I want to him, and he has to take it and apologize, by law. He ended up with two weeks or so of detention, if I remember right, before he finally apologized.”
He laughed too. “I don’t generally condone violence, but some people just deserve it, don’t they?”
She nodded. “Yeah. When Blinky appeared to guide me here, he called me a ‘Teacher’s Pet’... I asked him if his House was senior to mine, then told him to shut his mouth and left.”
“You didn’t slap him for that?”
“No, Hermione did. But aside from all that, how do you mean, I’m my own sister in a manner of speaking?”
“Ahh, that. I mean that magically speaking, you, Hailey, are not Harry’s sibling at all, but his daughter.”
She blinked. “So… I am my own daughter. And father, presumably.” She sighed. “That’s going to make things complicated.”
“Especially with how Harry dies every time he sneezes while thinking about girls, and comes back to life when you sleep, yet you, Hailey, never die, you simply go dormant.”
She blinked. “Meaning… Hailey is the Head of House Potter, even when I’m Harry.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
She rubbed her chin. “So… if I’m my own father, and you’re my dad… that’s two dads- are there any others? I assume James Potter isn’t my dad, but rather my grandfather… alongside myself, as I am the father of myself, who happens to be my father, which makes me my own grandfather.”
“I like the way you think,” Discord grinned. “And no, James is only Harry’s dad. Good riddance, I say. That leaves you with only two dads- me, and Harry. However, for moms… Let’s see. There’s Lily- she bound her soul to Harry as his guardian angel, and is now yours… then there’s Princesses Celestia and Luna of Equestria, Princess Cadence of the Crystal Empire, Queen Chrysalis of the Changelings…”
“And myself, of course,” Hailey observed.
“And yourself?”
She nodded. “As I have a daughter, I must be that daughter’s parent. As I am female, I must be that daughter’s mother- and as that daughter happens to be myself, that makes me my own mother. And as I am the mother of myself, who happens to be my mother, that makes me my own grandmother too. And granddaughter, by the same logic- but not grandson, I don’t think. Harry isn’t his own parent, after all, only Hailey is.”
“And since you’re adopting Harry as your brother…”
“That makes me my own aunt,” she observed, “as my father’s sister. And Harry my uncle too, as my mother’s brother.” She snickered. “And it makes me Harry’s mother too, as he’s the brother to my daughter. Which makes me my own son, and therefore grandson as well.”
“Which fills out the entire family tree with just one soul,” Discord nodded. “Complicated indeed.”
“Wait, we haven’t filled ‘niece’ and ‘nephew’ yet. Though I suppose those come with aunt and uncle, perhaps. As the daughter of Harry’s sister, I am his niece. And as his sister is her own mother, and by extension his mother too, he is the son of his sister, making him his own nephew, and therefore me by extension.” She nodded. “Which fills out the entire family tree: I am my own mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, niece, and nephew, all to as many degrees of separation as I like!”
“Well congratulations!” he cheered.
“Meanwhile, Dad, it makes you not just a father, but a grandfather and great-grandfather as well.”
He blinked. “Oh, I suppose it does, doesn’t it? I’m going to have to tell Fluttershy tomorrow. Only told her today that I’m a father, and I’m already a granddad…” He dropped off of the bed to hug her. “Oh, my dear girl, already giving me grandchildren…”
Their laughter rang out in the chamber.
Stats
Page generated in 0.014 seconds
Total duration
995 users online
399,850 hits today, 1,872,792 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
And what comes next? I dont want to know what comes next, I want to know it Now.
This is Now, Now sir.
Never show me this ever again.
So when is Now?
Soooooooooooon.:Pudding:
Binky and Slinky?
Oh dear, the Pinkiie is very Elfish with them.
Is Screwball Discord's daughter too? Then Hailey has two sisters.
All that chaos I'm sure makes Discord happy. and I'm sure the Black tapestry is potentially mess assuming that tie is still there. Talk about giving a genealogist a headache or two
That Lord's Quarter's is basically an entire house dorm in size.
(Well, 5 sets of 5, instead of 7. Probably would need one more bathroom. Still ...)
Excessive perhaps?
11724844
Excessive? It's rather average, actually, possibly even minimal...
Compared to the palaces that the British Royalty live in, at least. Have you seen how ridiculous those things are?
That was a very fun-confusing family tree. Also methinks we might wish to see about removing these spells Dumbledore cast. I wonder if his spells are the reason why the Weasley twins (those never meant to be direct friends with Harry) accept that Hailey is not Harry after being told once, while Ron still finds it harder to correct himself, since he was meant to be Harry's best friend right from the start
11724855
Sure. A palace is crazy. But this is supposed to be a dorm room. Royal dorm room, sure, but just a super upgraded room for the lord and retainer, right?
11727863
In theory, yes. But for some reason, they went over the top with the magical expansion and crammed a small palace into a small tower room...
I'm sorry, but Hailey is acting like Draco in Canon. Getting made at people for not properly treating her the way she feels she should be treated, and throwing spells at strangers at the slightest excuse, as if they should know how important she was!
Plus, if she's such a super-noble that merely insulting her is a crime punishable by death, as was her father, how did the Death Eaters survive? Hos did SNAPE survive? Was he immediately executed the first time he threw a spell at James?
In addition, all her father had to do was demand that anyone with the tattoo on their arm be immediately executed, and as a super-noble no one can disobey, it would be done! The very first time Voldemort faced him in a fight, then Voldemort would be an enemy of the state and the Ministry would have ruthlessly hunted him down, no one would have dared to help him!
11840507
I never thought of it that way... but yeah, there's a good reason the story died, isn't there?