Wands and Warframes

Breaking Fast

Cursing to herself, Harry disables the civilian locks on his amp and void jumps most of the way back to the Gryffindor quarters. The locks are back in place by the time she enters the common room, fortunately the first one to arrive. Heading up to his quarters, he explores the bathing facilities, which is where Neville finds him, trying to work out how the showers work.

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Hermione comes down the stairs expecting to be the first one up, instead she pauses on the last step as she spots Harry and the shy boy, Neville! From yesterday sitting at a table with Harry's tutoring painting. Neville is scratching the head of the strangest cat she's ever seen, with its emerald green fur and golden highlights. As the painting starts to berate Harry for not paying attention she's sure that if it had a ruler it would have just rapped his knuckles. Turning around she heads upstairs and grabs her dictionary as well as the book she was going to read with him before heading back.

Nervously, she makes her way over to the table. "Hey."

Harry and Neville look up at her, so she puts on her confident face and says quickly, "Would you like to try reading that book with me. I'm sorry we didn't get to start it before."

Harry looks confused for a moment, and she realises that she spoke too fast. His eyes light up when he sees the books she's holding and he places the painting face down on the desk.

"I would like, thank you."

Neville starts to get up, and she blurts, "You can stay if you want, I'm helping Harry learn English by reading with him."

While she's reading with them, and looking through the dictionary, it dawns on her that Harry's hand is different to the way it was yesterday. When there's a moment that Neville takes over, she leans back and takes a good look at him. His hair's longer and now has purple streaks running through it, and his face is less masculine.

"Harry? Did you do something with your hair?" She gestures with her hands to indicate the subject of her question.

"Yes, needed change. Like?"

"Yes, it's nice. Just not expected."

It was then that the other students who stayed in that dorm started coming down, starting with the older students who were doing NEWTs this year and put paid to any learning English as Harry was peppered with questions and conversation requests. Harry then gains a limpet in the way of a red headed boy who won't actually slow down enough for him to understand him. He's not actually sure what his name is supposed to be, as it could be Ron, Lon, Won, Wes, Lee, Wheeze, or a couple of other versions of the name. Even when they were led to the great hall for breakfast he couldn't escape, or ask Hermione or Neville what the various items of food were. Let alone how to use the tools they were using to eat. He was almost resigned to relying on his nanites to provide sustenance, which would mean returning to the Railjack earlier than normal later, when Minerva came along with timetables.

"I have your schedule here. Is everything alright?"

"Not really, I have no idea what anything is, and the red headed child beside me is monopolising my social space. I don't have the language needed to get him to stop, and I have no idea what he's talking about. I've moved twice and each time he follows me."

"Go ahead and move, I'll make sure he stays put this time."

Gratefully he stands up and moves over to sit opposite Hermione, who is nose deep in a book.

"Mr Weasley, where do you think you're going?"

The boy looks up at Minerva in surprise, "I'm gonna sit with 'arry."

"No you are not, sit back down. Harry does not wish to sit with you."

"He could have just said something."

"He tried, but he's English isn't good enough to make you understand."

"Corse it is, everyone speaks English."

"Mr Potter doesn't, now sit down and finish your breakfast."

Hermione looks up as Harry sits down opposite her, when she hears Professor McGonagall berating Ron she hesitantly says, "Are you OK?"

Harry looks up, "No, I know not what this is."

"I have my dictionary here, would you like me to show you?"

There's a pause before Harry nods, "Yes please."

"This is porridge, it is made from oats boiled in milk."

The boy next to them says, "Me Ma says that I should eat me porridge as it's good for my bones. I can't stand it though."

"Oats?" Harry asks.

Hermione glares at the boy daring him to say something, "Seeds from a grass like plant called Oat."

"Milk?"

"The liquid produced by mothers to feed their young. This comes from an animal called a cow."

"Ok."

"This is bacon, these are sausages, and this is black pudding. They all come from an animal called a pig. Personally, I do not like black pudding." She indicates her own plate that has the remains of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, and sausages.

Nodding, Harry reaches out to take some when Hermione says, "No. Like this."

She then uses the fork on the plate and spears a couple of sausages before picking up her own knife and fork and demonstrating how to use them to eat. This is very different from the way the Orokin used to eat, where they had bowls and plates of food, and you used your fingers to eat straight from the bowl or plate. Of course, Natah didn't really bother with the eating thing, especially to start with. He clumsily starts to eat the way he was shown, to the sound of laughter from the table with green trim.

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Just before the end of breakfast, two owls appear above the table and land in front of Harry. Recognising Tau, he materialises his data slate and reads the message. Seeing that his mother was able to implement his blueprint, he activates the materialise function and gets a second message baton along with a Captura camera.

"Thank you Tau, I don't have a return message."

Tau bobs his head before snatching a couple of rashers of bacon and disappearing. Removing the package from the other owl he sees it's a letter from Ironclaw wrapped around a tiny book.