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stele3In honor of my girlfriend discovering that Toby Stephens is the son of Dame Maggie Smith, I want James Flint, prefect of Ravenclaw. He started going by Flint because he didn’t want people to know that his mum teaches at the school; McGonagall would be more offended if it didn’t help her avoid accusations of favoritism.
As prefect, Flint is the worst. The absolute worst. No one gets away with anything. That is, until a curly-haired 11-year-old named Sol–”John!” the lad interrupts brightly, “John Silver!”–starts his first year and, in one afternoon, manages to reroute one of the moving staircases out a window, convince Peeves to be his best friend forever, and start a small fire in the Potions dungeon.
Flint would recommend him for expulsion were it not for the way the lad goes uncharacteristically silent whenever anyone mentions going home for the holidays, or the fact that Flint caught Domnhall O’Malley casting a silence spell on the Ravenclaw dormitory just before curfew. “‘E just keeps us up if we don’t,” Domnhall protests grumpily. “What wit’ the screamin’ at night and all.”
Which is how James Flint finds himself standing on Platform 9 and ¾, holding a limp John Silver in his arms. The boy had managed to hold back his tears until they were half the way to London; then his nerve had broken and he’d begged to go back to Hogwarts, sobbed and clutched and pleaded himself insensible and exhausted. Now his swollen eyes and still-wet nose are pressed against James’ neck, as if he can hide there from the world to which they’ve returned.
Flint waits until all the other families have reunited and moved off, braced against the possibility that someone might actually step forward to try and take John from him—try being the operative word, because by Merlin’s beard, he’ll land himself in Azkhaban if they want to have a go.
Eventually, Mum appears. They’ve agreed, with the formality to which their important family discussions are accustomed, to limit their familiarity in front of the students or their families. She takes the floo system separate from the train and collects him after everyone else has already departed.
Now she walks up and gives the sleeping boy in Flint’s arms a pointed, if not entirely surprised, look.
“John’s coming home with us,” James announces with all the calm certainty of a sixteen-year-old boy willing to bluff his way through this if he musts.
Mum’s mouth twitches slightly, but she betrays no other reaction. Stepping aside she says, “Well, come along, then.”
Gryffindor:
Madi - 1st year
Vane - 4th year
Hufflepuff:
Billy - 3rd year
Anne - 3rd year
Idelle - 4th year
Ravenclaw:
Silver - 1st year
Flint - 5th year (Prefect)
Slytherin:
Jack - 3rd year
Max - 4th year
Eleanor - 4th year
Core classes and instructors:
Astronomy: Professor DeGroot (also Ravenclaw Head of House)
Charms: Professor Gates (also Hufflepuff Head of House)
Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: Professor Hornigold
Herbology: Professor Mapleton (also Slytherin Head of House)
History of Magic: Professor Teach (also Gryffindor Head of House)
Potions: Professor Scott
Transfiguration: Professor McGonagall
Electives:
Arithmancy: Professor Richard Guthrie
Care of Magical Creatures: Professor Naft ("Fruit, fruit! Tit, tit!")
Divination: Professor Miranda Barlow (In this universe she and Thomas are a few years older than Flint and thus their relationship has been ~strictly platonic~, to Flint’s eternal frustration. Mostly they have a lot of conversations about books over tea, after which Flint retreats to the Ravenclaw common room and sits there consumed by lust. 90% of Ravenclaw house is terrified of him and the other 10% have bets on when he snaps and strangles the curly-haired little 1st year who keeps making trouble.)
The caretaker of the grounds, aka Filch, is of course Randall. He even has a cat.
Thomas is a pureblood wizard (he and Miranda were fourth year when Flint started) from a long line of wizards. He wants to do away with the International Statute of Secrecy and erase the lines between Muggles and the wizarding community. (”Think of all that we can learn from each other! There are wizards at Hogwarts who’ve never taken physics, and Muggle scientists who don’t yet know that we’ve visited Mars!”) As such he’s been sent off to serve as one of the few human wardens of Azkhaban, far far away from Miranda and Flint and the Ministry where they hope he grows out of his radical ideas.
Flint is currently a Prefect of Ravenclaw, with his eye on being Head Boy and one day having the kind of career that can support Thomas’ ideas.He started going by James Flint because a) he didn’t want people to be able to accuse him of getting ahead because of nepotism; b) McGonagall never married, and this would have been in the early 70′s, so even among wizards that might have made some trouble for her if Dumbledore hadn’t covered; c) Flint doesn’t want anything to do with his father’s name. None of them have ever discussed it or ever will, but Professor Edward Teach always casts an appraising eye at Flint whenever he sits down for History class, a gaze which Flint returns with absolute stoicism.
But Flint also has an entirely different secret: he’s a seer. Or he would be, if Miranda would give him special lessons…but she can see the future much better than he can and whatever she sees there frightens her.
Little John quietly spends the entire summer at the McGonagall household. I like to imagine that it’s some reasonably-well-appointed house in the London suburbs. This would be in what–the 1960′s? McGonagall was in her 60′s when Harry started school in 1992; to be the age that she’d have a 16-year-old son she’d have to be in her late 30′s or early 40′s. So this story would be taking place in the late 60′s or early 70′s.
Usually Flint spends his time at home reading books or listening to Muggle music–everyone’s mad about these Beatles–but John throws a rather large wrench in that plan from the start. Whatever circumstance Flint has plucked him from, he clearly lacked for adult supervision, even just to keep him from misusing his magic. Near the end of their first week of holiday, the neighbor boy–a wretched lout named Henry Dufrense–begins to spout crickets from the mouth.
“He was mean,” John says sullenly when confronted.
Flint sighs, not bringing up that they need to keep a low profile. So far no one has reported John missing or questioned where the lad disappeared to after leaving Hogwarts; if the Ministry or the Headmaster find out that a professor has secreted him away to her home, without the permission of whoever might dare to call themselves John’s parents or guardians–John never speaks of anyone who might fill this role–then it could be very bad for Mum.
Worse for John, of course. But that goes without saying.
And holy SHIT I just looked at this timeline and……this would be right around the first time that Voldemort first began to rise to power. FORGET EVERYTHING, let’s talk about furtive conversations happening downstairs; Mum coming and going at odd hours; a growing sense of unease that permeates the house and the magical community in general. James knows enough to worry, but he still tries to paste over the worst of it for little John. There’s only so much that he can hide, though, until the day that Professor Hornigold and two other men apparate into their front room while mum is out.
Hornigold means to take them hostage as leverage against McGonagall–and thus discover the secret resistance order, the foundation of which James has heard being discussed through the floorboards–but he doesn’t expect either of them to put up such a ferocious fight. By the end of it, Hornigold is a smoking ruin on the living room rug…but not before he fires off one last shot, a bright red spell aimed squarely at Flint’s chest.
It only misses because John leaps on him, taking the hit in his leg. The limb immediately begins to wither, twisting horribly while his screams deafen Flint’s ears.
-o-
The second they get back from St. Mungo’s, Flint goes directly to the kitchen and takes the bottle of whiskey that he’s not supposed to know about down from the topmost cabinet. Mum doesn’t stop him from pouring a few fingers into a glass.
Flint takes a slug and makes a face. Mum doesn’t laugh.
“What’s happening, Mum?” he asks. His voice is clogged and scratchy. He’d yelled a lot at St. Mungo’s, first begging for help then demanding that they help better, in some kind of way, any way, that didn’t involve taking Johnny’s left leg off at the knee.
Mum had rushed in to find Flint propped over Johnny, one arm curled over his head and the other holding up Newt Scamander’s latest. Flint’s voice had already been nearly gone, and Johnny was still magicked asleep, but still Flint had gone on reading, until Mum had touched his foot and ordered him to let the poor boy rest, they’d be back first thing in the morning.
Now she sits down at the kitchen table. The expression on her face puts Flint in mind of the night they’d lost Da, the way her eyes had hollowed out even as her voice stayed steady.
“I wanted to keep you out of this,” she confesses. “I thought I could keep you both safe, but apparently that time has passed.”
“No shit,” Flint says, and weathers her disapproving frown. “He jumped in the way, Mum. It was going to hit me, but Johnny–he–”
His voice breaks and Mum comes around the table, putting her arms around him and letting him sob into her sweater.
As prefect, Flint is the worst. The absolute worst. No one gets away with anything. That is, until a curly-haired 11-year-old named Sol–”John!” the lad interrupts brightly, “John Silver!”–starts his first year and, in one afternoon, manages to reroute one of the moving staircases out a window, convince Peeves to be his best friend forever, and start a small fire in the Potions dungeon.
Flint would recommend him for expulsion were it not for the way the lad goes uncharacteristically silent whenever anyone mentions going home for the holidays, or the fact that Flint caught Domnhall O’Malley casting a silence spell on the Ravenclaw dormitory just before curfew. “‘E just keeps us up if we don’t,” Domnhall protests grumpily. “What wit’ the screamin’ at night and all.”
Which is how James Flint finds himself standing on Platform 9 and ¾, holding a limp John Silver in his arms. The boy had managed to hold back his tears until they were half the way to London; then his nerve had broken and he’d begged to go back to Hogwarts, sobbed and clutched and pleaded himself insensible and exhausted. Now his swollen eyes and still-wet nose are pressed against James’ neck, as if he can hide there from the world to which they’ve returned.
Flint waits until all the other families have reunited and moved off, braced against the possibility that someone might actually step forward to try and take John from him—try being the operative word, because by Merlin’s beard, he’ll land himself in Azkhaban if they want to have a go.
Eventually, Mum appears. They’ve agreed, with the formality to which their important family discussions are accustomed, to limit their familiarity in front of the students or their families. She takes the floo system separate from the train and collects him after everyone else has already departed.
Now she walks up and gives the sleeping boy in Flint’s arms a pointed, if not entirely surprised, look.
“John’s coming home with us,” James announces with all the calm certainty of a sixteen-year-old boy willing to bluff his way through this if he musts.
Mum’s mouth twitches slightly, but she betrays no other reaction. Stepping aside she says, “Well, come along, then.”
Gryffindor:
Madi - 1st year
Vane - 4th year
Hufflepuff:
Billy - 3rd year
Anne - 3rd year
Idelle - 4th year
Ravenclaw:
Silver - 1st year
Flint - 5th year (Prefect)
Slytherin:
Jack - 3rd year
Max - 4th year
Eleanor - 4th year
Core classes and instructors:
Astronomy: Professor DeGroot (also Ravenclaw Head of House)
Charms: Professor Gates (also Hufflepuff Head of House)
Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: Professor Hornigold
Herbology: Professor Mapleton (also Slytherin Head of House)
History of Magic: Professor Teach (also Gryffindor Head of House)
Potions: Professor Scott
Transfiguration: Professor McGonagall
Electives:
Arithmancy: Professor Richard Guthrie
Care of Magical Creatures: Professor Naft ("Fruit, fruit! Tit, tit!")
Divination: Professor Miranda Barlow (In this universe she and Thomas are a few years older than Flint and thus their relationship has been ~strictly platonic~, to Flint’s eternal frustration. Mostly they have a lot of conversations about books over tea, after which Flint retreats to the Ravenclaw common room and sits there consumed by lust. 90% of Ravenclaw house is terrified of him and the other 10% have bets on when he snaps and strangles the curly-haired little 1st year who keeps making trouble.)
The caretaker of the grounds, aka Filch, is of course Randall. He even has a cat.
Thomas is a pureblood wizard (he and Miranda were fourth year when Flint started) from a long line of wizards. He wants to do away with the International Statute of Secrecy and erase the lines between Muggles and the wizarding community. (”Think of all that we can learn from each other! There are wizards at Hogwarts who’ve never taken physics, and Muggle scientists who don’t yet know that we’ve visited Mars!”) As such he’s been sent off to serve as one of the few human wardens of Azkhaban, far far away from Miranda and Flint and the Ministry where they hope he grows out of his radical ideas.
Flint is currently a Prefect of Ravenclaw, with his eye on being Head Boy and one day having the kind of career that can support Thomas’ ideas.He started going by James Flint because a) he didn’t want people to be able to accuse him of getting ahead because of nepotism; b) McGonagall never married, and this would have been in the early 70′s, so even among wizards that might have made some trouble for her if Dumbledore hadn’t covered; c) Flint doesn’t want anything to do with his father’s name. None of them have ever discussed it or ever will, but Professor Edward Teach always casts an appraising eye at Flint whenever he sits down for History class, a gaze which Flint returns with absolute stoicism.
But Flint also has an entirely different secret: he’s a seer. Or he would be, if Miranda would give him special lessons…but she can see the future much better than he can and whatever she sees there frightens her.
Little John quietly spends the entire summer at the McGonagall household. I like to imagine that it’s some reasonably-well-appointed house in the London suburbs. This would be in what–the 1960′s? McGonagall was in her 60′s when Harry started school in 1992; to be the age that she’d have a 16-year-old son she’d have to be in her late 30′s or early 40′s. So this story would be taking place in the late 60′s or early 70′s.
Usually Flint spends his time at home reading books or listening to Muggle music–everyone’s mad about these Beatles–but John throws a rather large wrench in that plan from the start. Whatever circumstance Flint has plucked him from, he clearly lacked for adult supervision, even just to keep him from misusing his magic. Near the end of their first week of holiday, the neighbor boy–a wretched lout named Henry Dufrense–begins to spout crickets from the mouth.
“He was mean,” John says sullenly when confronted.
Flint sighs, not bringing up that they need to keep a low profile. So far no one has reported John missing or questioned where the lad disappeared to after leaving Hogwarts; if the Ministry or the Headmaster find out that a professor has secreted him away to her home, without the permission of whoever might dare to call themselves John’s parents or guardians–John never speaks of anyone who might fill this role–then it could be very bad for Mum.
Worse for John, of course. But that goes without saying.
And holy SHIT I just looked at this timeline and……this would be right around the first time that Voldemort first began to rise to power. FORGET EVERYTHING, let’s talk about furtive conversations happening downstairs; Mum coming and going at odd hours; a growing sense of unease that permeates the house and the magical community in general. James knows enough to worry, but he still tries to paste over the worst of it for little John. There’s only so much that he can hide, though, until the day that Professor Hornigold and two other men apparate into their front room while mum is out.
Hornigold means to take them hostage as leverage against McGonagall–and thus discover the secret resistance order, the foundation of which James has heard being discussed through the floorboards–but he doesn’t expect either of them to put up such a ferocious fight. By the end of it, Hornigold is a smoking ruin on the living room rug…but not before he fires off one last shot, a bright red spell aimed squarely at Flint’s chest.
It only misses because John leaps on him, taking the hit in his leg. The limb immediately begins to wither, twisting horribly while his screams deafen Flint’s ears.
-o-
The second they get back from St. Mungo’s, Flint goes directly to the kitchen and takes the bottle of whiskey that he’s not supposed to know about down from the topmost cabinet. Mum doesn’t stop him from pouring a few fingers into a glass.
Flint takes a slug and makes a face. Mum doesn’t laugh.
“What’s happening, Mum?” he asks. His voice is clogged and scratchy. He’d yelled a lot at St. Mungo’s, first begging for help then demanding that they help better, in some kind of way, any way, that didn’t involve taking Johnny’s left leg off at the knee.
Mum had rushed in to find Flint propped over Johnny, one arm curled over his head and the other holding up Newt Scamander’s latest. Flint’s voice had already been nearly gone, and Johnny was still magicked asleep, but still Flint had gone on reading, until Mum had touched his foot and ordered him to let the poor boy rest, they’d be back first thing in the morning.
Now she sits down at the kitchen table. The expression on her face puts Flint in mind of the night they’d lost Da, the way her eyes had hollowed out even as her voice stayed steady.
“I wanted to keep you out of this,” she confesses. “I thought I could keep you both safe, but apparently that time has passed.”
“No shit,” Flint says, and weathers her disapproving frown. “He jumped in the way, Mum. It was going to hit me, but Johnny–he–”
His voice breaks and Mum comes around the table, putting her arms around him and letting him sob into her sweater.
