Albus Potter, Classmates and Elves

Ch 24 Dinner with the Potters

Significant additions by Deb, plus a moderately important change in the story, with more helpful comments and corrections by Diane. Thank you.

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Jane woke up to see Cleopatra silently playing the organ, and Rose just getting out of the bathroom, using her wand to dry and comb her hair. Rose's hair was brown with red highlights, very thick and bushy, down to her shoulders. Jane looked at Cleo, who had two very thick plaits of hair bouncing on her back as she practiced the organ. Jane felt her thin, straight, mousey brown hair. She was Plain Jane, nothing special about her.

"Put your dirty clothes in the hamper at the end of the bed," Rose suggested when she noticed that Jane was awake. "The Elves will wash them."

Jane did, thinking how her mother did laundry. Her mother had a tub with water that was magically hot. She waved her wand at the dirty clothes, and one at a time they flew through the water, came out clean, would dry as they folded themselves into neat piles. When her mother died she and her father had to use a laundromat to wash clothes.

"Use the shower next," Rose told Jane. Jane was amazed by the en-suite bathroom, but it was confusing so Rose pointed out its features and how to use them. There was a large tub and a separate shower in one room, with some sort of place where you could stand and it would magically dry you. There was another room for the loo, both rooms off a room with a double sink with the wall above the sink all mirrored. It was all marble, but somehow with magic it was comfortable on your bare feet. The towels were always, according to Rose, newly washed and dry.

When Jane was finished Cleo went into the shower. Rose was dressed when she came out of the shower, but Cleo only wore a bra and knickers when she came out. Cleo used her wand, dried her unbound (and very messy) hair, and the plaits reformed. Cleo slid on a dress, put on thin slippers, and bounced towards the door.

"Is she always so ...?" Jane asked, trying to come up with a way to ask Rose about Cleo's exuberance.

"Pretty much," Rose replied with a smirk. "Pretty much and sometimes too much. She can be rather bouncy.

"We are in the same dorm room at Hogwarts, and attend the same classes, but Scorpius and I don't usually study with her and Albus, and she is almost never my partner in classes."

"Scorpius?" Jane asked. "Is he your partner?"

Rose's face turned red, and she hoped Scorpius couldn't hear them, as the girls left the bedroom. "Well, he and I are the best students in the class. We are both really smart, but we both also work really hard."

Cleo looked back, saw Rose and Jane talking, and went bouncing on ahead to some unheard tune, her hands at times playing an imaginary instrument.

"Is Albus smart?" Jane asked, wondering about what kind of students they all were.

"Oh, Albus and Cleo are in a different league altogether. Albus started Hogwarts knowing almost all the seventh-year spells, and he has just become better. He invented or helped with some of the mapping spells that his father is credited with developing, did that before he even left for Hogwarts and was allowed to use a wand.

"Cleopatra may be the most powerful Magi in the world, but she does magic differently than most Magi, and she has a hard time controlling it. At class we are taught a spell, then Albus goes off with Cleo to show her the spell, and by the end of the class she can almost always do it, but silently and usually differently than anyone else."

"So Your mother is Vice-Minister of Magic in Great Britain, your father is a partner in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, and your uncle is Harry Potter?" Jane confirmed. "What are you going to do?"