Welcome to TB, an all levels Harry Potter roleplay with no word count. Our purpose is to go through the books with one exception: the addition of original characters and what changes that makes.
We accept all beings and creatures in the Harry Potter verse including ghosts, veela, muggles and even centaur.
We have many active events ongoing for both students and adults and many characters and locations around the world.
Come join us and discover how your character can grow and evolve in the world of Harry Potter.
Post by HARRY POTTER on Aug 16, 2023 20:35:59 GMT -5
It was a fine day so Harry decided to go for a walk around the neighbourhood. They were surrounded by muggles, though their actual property had a nice tree line that shaded most things from view. Harry decided he didn't mind Scotland or Glasgow so much, though he did miss his house in Ireland. It had been very out of the way in a small village, while Glasgow was a fairly large city. It had its pros and cons, though. It was nice to be around more people, even if they were muggles. Harry didn't detest all muggles because of the Dursleys but he also probably wasn't going to befriend a bunch of them. His life was just too different from theirs and there would always be a very large secret between them. However, he wasn't opposed to the civil nod or hello to his neighbours.
Eventually on his walk, he actually came across a wizard. At least they seemed to be. They weren't exactly dressed like a muggle. Not a muggle keeping up with the current trends anyway. They seemed to be waiting for something. The Knight Bus? If they were lost, that would make sense. Harry decided to approach them anyway.
He was wearing a dress shirt with a brown waistcoat and matching slacks. It wasn't exactly the most hip fashion, but felt a little more timeless and fit in both worlds, Harry thought. He liked the style and muggles didn't seem to look at him too strangely. Maybe if he was still a boy and wearing that sort of outfit, but he was getting on in age now, into his 40s, which would be middle aged for muggles.
"Are you lost?" he asked the person once he reached them. If they didn't think he was a wizard from his outfit, they probably could easily recognize him from being Harry Potter.
No matter the amount of Muggle Studies he had consumed in his Hogwarts years, Muggle communities would never cease to be an outlandish place of being for Angus. Yet here he was, standing at the corner of a street after a pleasant visit with a Muggle-born friend of his from Hogwarts. Unlike most wizards and witches, Angus's friend took residence in a Muggle neighborhood with his family.
Being a pureblood, the former Ravenclaw rarely got a chance to shoot the breeze with those of no magical capabilities. It was a surprise how adjusted his friend's family had become to the casual use of magic and wand waving. But, seeing as how this was a Muggle neighborhood, riding a broomstick naturally wasn't the wisest form of transportation to utilize; plus, Angus hadn't taken care to learn how to Apparate during his years at school.
Thus, the Knight Bus was his means of travel to and from this magic-less place.
Standing alone in his best suit, he surveyed the streets for any form of life as he reached into his sleeve to fish for his wand.
Just when he was about to take it out to raise and thus summon the Knight Bus, he jumped at a sudden voice asking if he was lost. He hastily jammed his wand back into his sleeve and turned to face the owner of the voice.
He relaxed when he saw that it was merely a fellow co-worker from the WGOS. “Harry...No, just trying to get home without any Muggle attention. How are you?”
Post by HARRY POTTER on Oct 10, 2023 20:31:35 GMT -5
"Sorry I didn't recognize you there. Baird, is it?" He did look familiar now. He worked at WGOS, Harry thought. But there were a lot of people who were there. At least, he didn't think that Baird, if that was his name, was an Auror. Harry at least knew everyone in his department.
So it looked like the man was looking for the Knight Bus after all. "I'm good, just taking a stroll. It's nice to go for a walk here and then. Clears my head." Since Harry said that, it was probably obvious that he lived nearby because why would he Floo all the way to Glasgow just to take a stroll? So he didn't bother mentioning it. "Where's home for you?" Harry asked, making light conversation. He barely knew the guy's name. He definitely didn't know what city he lived in. But it obviously was in Scotland. They were a separate country now, after all, and tensions were still far too high for the WGOS to be employing people who lived in Britain. Harry had to relocate his family for this job too, which was why he was in Glasgow now instead of Ireland.
Harry Potter had been a known name since before his vanquishing of the Dark Lord, so there was scarcely a person around the WGOS not aware of him. Angus supposed it something of honor that he (somewhat) recognized him. For the sake of maintaining professionalism, Angus had never approached the Boy Who Lived (if he could still be called that as his age) to ask him any piercing questions regarding his once having faced a basilisk.
Angus had been further intrigued by Harry after having read of this lurid encounter in the updated edition of Hogwarts: A History. But Angus had been certain that that had been one of the many memories Harry was not keen to revisit, thus he remained respectful of his co-worker's past and privacy. “Ah, that's good to hear,” Angus said with a warm smile. “I was just visiting an old classmate and his family – he's Muggle-born. My home is in Godric's Hollow. How's everything in the Department for Magical Law Enforcement?”
Post by HARRY POTTER on Oct 11, 2023 23:21:34 GMT -5
"Ah," Harry replied at the mention of Godric's Hollow. He had only been there once and it hadn't been very pleasant. Well, there was another time, when he was a baby, but he of course didn't remember any of that, other than the brief memory of a flash of green light. But that was so long ago now. He didn't think on his earliest and one of the most tragic memories he had anymore.
"That's nice." Harry wasn't sure if Angus meant a friend or something more, but it didn't matter too much. They weren't close enough for him to have any reason to pry about it. But it didn't sound like Angus was muggleborn. Harry wasn't sure if he was half or pure, but that didn't seem to matter too much either. Many half-bloods had many generations of wizards in their family line. One splash of muggle or muggle-born maybe a century or more ago would still make them half-bloods, even if no one in their family even knew or remembered anything about muggle life. So in terms of experience with muggles, many half-bloods didn't have it either, which meant it didn't really matter if Angus was half or pure in this instance. He could have easily not known anything about muggles. But it was nice that he was making an effort.
"Do you visit often?" Harry asked.
Then Angus asked about work, which was pretty natural for the conversation to go as that was the main thing they had in common. "As well as to be expected. You're in the Beings and Beasts Office, right? Is that going well? I know there were a lot of proposals of different sorts of laws near the beginning, a couple of years ago. Have things settled down a bit?" With a new government came all the people wanting to propose their own laws and make changes from what they knew: the Ministry. Of course, a lot of these were good changes, but it also gave everyone the opportunity to speak up, which meant that some people did propose things that weren't very good. And a lot of that happened in the beings and beasts office, that was for sure. People had some very intense views when it came to the rights and freedoms of beings and beasts, and also what even classified as a being or a beast. Harry didn't know so much about that, though. He only knew what his department had to do once the laws and rules were settled. He didn't get much behind the scenes information about how those things came about, or the arguments about them as they went through the process. But Angus probably would, even if he wasn't one of the deciding voices. He would have been privy to hearing about what was going on, most likely.
“Not too often, I'm afraid,” Angus conceded with a dispirited tone. “I've been here only thrice; both he and I are quite busy and have very little time to hang out like we used to.”
And that was putting it mildly. In between his work at the WGOS and caring for Bastion while at home, there was very little leisure time offered in Angus's schedule. He knew that was what he would've been signing up for when his employment within his department was still but a passion-driven dream.
Angus was slightly embarrassed at Harry's knowledge of some of what had been transpiring in his department; he was barely up to date on any of the happenings entailing the involvement of Harry's department. “For the most part! We're really cracking down on that decree tightening down on penalization for the abuse of House Elves. A few of the wealthy wizarding families suspected of such have been scheduled for hearings. Tragic how barbaric some families still are towards the poor things, right? Such sweet, humble creatures...”
Angus shook his head with leveled disdain. “Why, I could never even dream of a reason to raise a wand or finger to my basilisk –”
Angus caught himself when he realized that he had prattled on too freely. There was no risk of Azkaban in his future for owning a basilisk, as the Ministry had been well aware of his existence since Angus was a child. But knowing what Harry had been through with the Chamber of Secrets and several of his friends having been petrified, Angus felt that mentioning another one of the creatures so casually was stepping on his toes.
Post by HARRY POTTER on Oct 13, 2023 23:25:45 GMT -5
"That's just the reality of post-Hogwarts life, I'm afraid," Harry said, patting Angus on the shoulder briefly. It unfortunately was true. Harry would always be close with Ron and Hermione and Eliza and a few others, but it would never be the same as it was when they were at Hogwarts together. They all had different experiences now, their own families and careers... Life just wasn't the same when you were an adult and it wasn't just replacing your homework with a job.
"Yes, indeed." Harry chuckled briefly. He knew. He knew since he was 14 when Hermione was constantly preaching about that stuff to himself and Ron. Of course, it had been rather annoying back then, but Harry agreed that they needed to be treated better. When he found out how the Malfoys treated Dobby... Well, he was very glad that he freed him. He wasn't around now but at least he enjoyed a few years of freedom and really helped the Hogwarts House Elves want freedom too. Although there were always ones who would prefer the servitude.
"Unfortunately I think a lot of those are old wizarding families in England, which we don't have jurisdiction. But we do what we can, don't we?" Harry tried to be a bit more positive with it. Unfortunately - or fortunately - a lot of the more forward thinking wizards flocked to Scotland during or after the war, so it was rather easy to have a lot of people believe that House Elves should be treated fairly.
"Have you been to the House Elf Cafe yet? I forget what it's actually called, but it's run by them." It was in Hogsmeade and Harry hadn't gone yet, but he definitely heard of it. He heard about it before Hermione told him but she absolutely also told him about it.
"Ah, well--" Harry wasn't quite sure what to say to that until Angus started apologizing. "No need. While I don't think they are inherently good persay, Hagrid would definitely say that any wild beast could be tamed if you knew how." Harry hadn't spoken to Hagrid for a while. He was off in his retired life, travelling from sanctuary to sanctuary and doing whatever he was doing. He never really had a lot of travel or life experience outside of Scotland and England while being at Hogwarts, especially since he had gotten expelled so young. But Harry was glad he was getting that chance now.
"I'm sure your... He has a name, right? Well, I'm sure you have a bond with him and could never see a reason. I don't think there ever really is, unless its defensive." Of course, that wasn't the same thing as people who did such things to unleash their anger or frustrations or what not. It was just disgusting and such a low thing to do.
“They run and own their own cafe?!” Angus said with incredulous wonder. “Amazing!”
To think that the members of a race historically bred for servitude now progressed to a place in society where they could manage their own business and wages! How queer it was that Angus had been so engulfed in work surrounding the rights of these beings that he had never caught wind of their step into financial independence.
Angus felt that now was an appropriate time to walk on eggshells, given where the conversation was slowly drifting. He knew that the odds of Harry ever meeting Bastion were slim to none, yet he felt compelled to assure the older gentleman of Bastion's being tamed into a docile demeanor; he wanted Harry to sleep well knowing that his co-worker was not another Tom Riddle in the making.
“His name is Bastion,” he said in a tone similar to a teacher explaining something to a first-year Hogwarts students. “I've tamed and trained him to keep his eyes closed whenever he senses humans within his vicinity. Thanks to my being a Parselmouth, his nature has been restructured not to view them as prey.”
Post by HARRY POTTER on Oct 16, 2023 20:58:22 GMT -5
"Oh, I'd assume you knew about it. It's in Hogsmeade I think. You should take your friend some time." Harry wasn't sure if the person Angus was visiting was his friend or "friend", but either way, it was a nice place for anyone, whether romantic or otherwise. Well he assumed so anyway.
Unfortunately they weren't able to own the business, but at least the House-Elves could work there and make their own decisions. It was technically owned by a couple who were both witches, but they let the House-Elves do everything else. They just technically owned it for legal reasons.
"Well I'm glad you can use that skill for good. Maybe one day people won't always assume it's for evil." Harry didn't have the power to talk to snakes anymore, but he didn't exactly miss it. That was the part of him that had been part-Voldemort and thankfully that part of him was long gone. He didn't mind actually talking to snakes, except for the fact that he didn't even realize he was doing it most of the time. It was more how everyone always reacted to him being able to do it while he was in school. Especially in his second year, they treated him like he was the devil himself.
"It sounds like you have a good bond with him. That's good. 'Cause talking to them doesn't necessarily mean they'll listen. But you know that." Who was Harry to explain being a Parseltongue to this young man? Harry only had the ability for nearly 18 years of his life and the knowledge that he had it for about 6 years. But this man had it all his life and probably knew about it longer too. At least he hadn't been a Slytherin or with evil plans in mind. At least, not to Harry's knowledge, and he didn't seem like it. Maybe one day there would be more Parseltongues that followed suit and the stigma would go away, but that probably would take a long time. Wizards were notoriously old fashioned and close-minded about a lot of things.
At Harry's suggestion, Angus mentally made a note to, at the very least, visit the House Elf Cafe by himself if he couldn't meet up with his friend to join him.
But that aside, Angus was internally relieved to receive such an open-minded response from Harry regarding his extremely rare and feared ability. Several of Angus's so-called family members had distanced themselves from him while he was a child after the disclosure of his being able to talk to snakes; such had also been the case with many of his classmates.
This cruel ostracism had caused him to despise the ability prior to his meeting and rescuing Bastion. “Yes...I've been seen by many as the next Dark Lord when my ability was made known,” Angus said with a weak smile and dejected tone. “Not to dig up any unpleasant memories for you, but I believe you experienced the same in your second year? I know what that's like, to be given the evil-eye for something out of your control...
“I acknowledge that Bastion is a dangerous creature by potential, but I would never utilize him as a force to harm innocents. It is my desire that some day he may be used as a formidable tool in the defense against Dark wizards.”
What better way to make the fear of a creature like Bastion socially inverse than to demonstrate what an asset one could be in the protection of wizardkind?
“A basilisk's skin is impervious to most spells and hexes, which would make one an impressive shield for protection in battle,” he said knowledgeably. “Plus, having complete control over Bastion's lethal gaze would be the perfect counterattack to large groups of onslaughts brought on from Dark Wizards.”
Post by HARRY POTTER on Oct 22, 2023 17:20:20 GMT -5
"People fear what they can't understand. Which is a rather sorry excuse for them." Harry shook his head. "I'm sure that Salazar Slytherin wasn't the only Parselmouth, but if he was evil and knew it, therefore everyone who knows it is also evil. It's a really terrible conclusion. Just as bad as people who say that purebloods are better at magic." None of that was true. But it didn't help that Parseltongues weren't very common. If they had been, maybe it would be easier for people to see that it wasn't an evil ability.
"Well be careful, lest Bastion not be able to recognize friend from foe." Weaponizing such a creature wasn't a good idea at all. Harry thought Angus was actually going to say that he was going to use him to educate people that creatures - and people - could be good if given the chance.
"Ah, protection... Yes, that would be good. But I'm sure you wouldn't want to put your pet in harm's way." Was pet the right word? Oh, well. It was out now.
Harry pondered the last part, not having much to say about it. How could Bastion know who he was looking at until he opened his eyes though? And then it would be too late. Harry wouldn't recommend it at all. It was great that the creature was docile, or something like it. But the thought of putting it in battle with others was a very irresponsible thing. Unfortunately Harry's Law Enforcement side was coming out when he was on his day off. He might have to keep an eye on them.
Angus mentally realized that he needed to collect himself. His fervent suggestions regarding Bastion he soon realized were more of his inner thoughts being rambled out loud to an unwitting ear.
“Oh, dear,” he said awkwardly. “Sorry...Didn't mean to talk your ear off. I can be a tad, eh, passionate towards any scenario leaning towards Bastion having a positive role in society.”
At most, Harry seemed to at least plaster on a polite smile and tone, and exhibit no aversion to continuing their talk about basilisks. “Well, I rescued Bastion from a breeder when I was but a child, so you're quite correct!” Angus informed him. “You may find it hard to believe, but Bastion is more my friend than a creature at my command.”
Not many children would have the credit of having tamed a newborn basilisk on their resume in adulthood – then again, not many children had been able to hear and communicate with the creatures. “I'm curious, Harry. When did you first realize you were able to speak with snakes? I discovered I had the gift when I was but six during a family vacation in Dahshur; I had heard a cobra looking for its owner after a sandstorm.”
Post by HARRY POTTER on Nov 19, 2023 18:39:40 GMT -5
"It's okay," Harry chuckled. "It's good to be passionate about things." He didn't feel very passionate about things, not like when he was younger. Unless it was about his wife and kids.
"No, I don't find that hard to believe. I can understand he knows and trusts you, maybe even loves you. But if he was exposed to say, a battle, it would be hard to have him know the difference between friend and foe with everyone else in attendance. At least I think so." Harry didn't want to get too opinionated on the subject. Clearly this man was passionate about his snake and Harry didn't exactly want to offend him.
"Well I can't anymore, but I actually didn't realize I could. I heard a snake talk at the zoo once and I just thought it was a special snake. I didn't realize it was only me who could hear it. It wasn't until my second year when I tried to tell a snake not to hurt someone that everyone told me I was speaking Parseltongue! I didn't even realize it! But I guess that's the nature with these sorts of things." 'These sorts of things' being a Horcrux. He was infected with Voldemort his whole childhood and he never even realized it. Voldemort was just laying in wait. The thought disgusted Harry to be honest and he hated to think of it. But when he looked back on the Parseltongue situation, it was a little funny how he spoke a different language without even realizing it.
((Sorry this is so late. If you want to do a new thread let me know? Not sure what setting or what not, though. Maybe... Harry could invite Angus over for supper with his family some time? Since they're kinda bonding.))
