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impishtubist · 1 year

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adventures in teaching

“Sirius Ambrose Black!”

Sirius chokes and drops his cigarette, which he quickly crushes beneath the heel of his boot.

“Oh, hey, Moons,” he says casually, waving a hand to wandlessly clear the cigarette smoke from the air and his clothing. Remus glares at him.

“You quit.”

“Yeah, I know, I just.” Sirius rubs the back of his neck. “Harry’s teacher wants to talk to us! Harry’s never been in trouble at school before. What could he possibly have done that requires both of us to be here?”

“Well, we won’t know if we don’t go in, will we?”

“S’pose not,” Sirius says sullenly. “Wait, Ambrose?”

“Your middle name is shit. I gave you a new one.”

“Think you can do better than Ambrose, Moony.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lord Black,” Remus says as Sirius pulls open the door for him. “How about Cosmo?”

“No.”

“Hamish?”

“No.”

“Zephyr?”

“Let’s just get on with this, shall we?”

---

“Thank you for meeting me,” Miss Coburn says, gesturing for Sirius and Remus to have a seat in two of the child-sized chairs in front of her.

“We’re happy to,” Sirius says. “To be honest, though, we’re a little surprised to hear that Harry’s done something that requires his teacher having to speak to us.”

“Harry’s not in trouble,” Miss Coburn assures them. “He’s a smart young man, and generally well-behaved in class.”

“Generally?” Remus asks.

“Yes, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Harry has a tendency to, well, disrespect authority when it doesn’t suit his purposes,” Miss Coburn says. “It doesn’t happen often, but it has happened enough that I wanted it brought to your attention.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for instance, he didn’t approve of today’s snack, so he organized the whole class to go on a snack strike until they were fed something he liked better.”

Sirius smothers a laugh behind his hand. Next to him, he can feel Remus’s shoulders shake with repressed laughter.

“I’m…sorry to hear that,” he manages. “Er, did it work?”

Miss Coburn gives him an unimpressed look. “I hardly think that is the point, Lord Black.”

“No, I suppose not.” Sirius will have to ask Harry about this later tonight. “What else has he done?”

“He has organized the class in similar fashion over the past few weeks. If he doesn’t approve of the game we’re about to play or the book we’re supposed to read together, he organizes all the children against me. I wonder if you might have a word with him about this behavior?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Sirius says quickly. They need to get out of here, fast, before he bursts into uncontrollable laughter. “We’ll--we’ll definitely speak to him about this. And, er, it won’t happen again.”

Once outside, they both dissolve into laughter, leaning against the school’s brick wall and wheezing.

“He gets it from you, you know,” Sirius manages finally.

“Me?”

“Yes, you, Mr. Hot Shot Werewolf Activist who has been taking Harry to rallies and protests since he was five months old.”

“What about you, Lord Black, who takes Harry to Wizengamot sessions and to your shouting matches with the Minister?”

“Right, so this one is on both of us, then.”

“Probably.” Remus nudges his shoulder. “You really do have to quit, you know.”

“Quit what?”

“Smoking. At least for the next, oh, seven months.”

Sirius’s head snaps up. “You’re--?”

“Yeah.” Remus bites his bottom lip, which doesn’t do much to keep his grin at bay. “We just found out last week.”

“Moony!” Sirius grabs him around the waist and spins him in a circle. “A whole week! And you didn’t tell me?”

“We wanted to be sure, and--and I don’t know how I’m going to break the news to Harry.”

Sirius sets him back on his feet. “Hey. We’ll figure that out, okay? You and me, together. Besides, Harry will be thrilled to have a sibling.”

---

Remus is stretched out on the couch with his feet in Sirius’s lap when an owl swoops into the room. Sirius is busy rubbing Remus’s swollen feet, so Remus takes the letter from the owl and opens it.

“Bad news?” Sirius asks when Remus groans and throws an arm over his eyes.

“Harry’s teacher wants to talk to us again,” he says, holding up the letter for Sirius to read.

Sirius skims the letter, his lips thinning. Harry’s practically an angel at home. He doesn’t understand how the boy manages to cause so much trouble at school, especially at only six years old! He expects this behavior when Harry is a teenager at Hogwarts, not right now.

“I’ll go,” he says, but Remus swings his legs off Sirius’s lap and works himself into a sitting position.

“I’m coming, too.”

“Are you sure?” Sirius offers him a hand up. Remus winces, resting one hand on his belly and the other on his lower back.

“Positive. Just, ah, give me a second to catch my breath.”

Sirius drives them to the school in his car, since magical methods of transportation are currently off-limits to Remus. Remus has his cane tonight, and he also accepts Sirius’s arm for extra support. His hips have always bothered him, and the added weight of the little one isn’t helping.

Inside the classroom, Sirius transforms one of the child-sized chairs into a comfortable armchair for Remus, who lowers himself into it gratefully. Miss Coburn gives him a warm smile.

“I’m sorry to call you both in like this,” she says. “But thank you for coming. Mr. Lupin, how are you feeling?”

“Let’s just say I’m counting down the days,” Remus says, rubbing his side with a wince.

“Harry is, too. He tells me he’ll have a little brother in May?”

Remus perks up a bit. “He talks about the baby?”

“He does. He’s very excited.”

“Well, that’s a relief. He doesn’t talk much about the baby at home. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking.”

“But you didn’t call us here to talk about that,” Sirius says, and Miss Coburn shakes her head.

“No, I’m afraid not. We had show-and-tell today.”

Sirius’s stomach sinks. “Yes, and Harry brought his toy motorbike to show the class.”

“He didn’t,” Miss Coburn says, and she pulls a box out from under her desk, setting it in front of them. “Harry brought a Boggart.”

“He what?” Sirius exclaims while Remus groans and buries his face in his hands. “He didn’t release it, did he?”

“He opened the box, yes,” Miss Coburn says. “Thankfully, as I was closest to it, it turned into a seal, which all of the children found positively delightful. I cast the Patronus charm and got it back into its box, and then we had a discussion about fear. It turned out well, all things considered, but I’m concerned that one of my students was able to bring a Boggart to school.”

Sirius turns to Remus. “Yes, Da, tell me how Harry got his hands on a Boggart?”

Remus lifts his head from his hands, looking sheepish. “I caught it in the attic last week. I was keeping it in that box on my desk until I had a chance to take it to South America and release it on the reserve down there. Er…sorry.”

“So we’re going to keep Da’s office locked from now on,” Sirius says, rolling his eyes. “And I need to thoroughly inspect Harry’s backpack every time I bring him to school, apparently.”

---

Harry has Miss Coburn again the next year, to Harry’s delight and Sirius and Remus’s relief. At least Miss Coburn understands their eccentric child, and has taken everything Harry’s done in class so far in stride. Sirius can’t imagine having a conversation like the Boggart one with any other teacher.

He’s in his office at the Ministry when his secretary pokes their head into the room and informs him that he has a Floo call from Miss Coburn. All she tells him is that she needs to see him as soon as possible, so Sirius grabs his cloak and rushes off to the school.

“Is Harry alright?” he asks as he runs into the classroom.

“Yes, Lord Black, of course,” Miss Coburn says, gesturing for him to have a seat. “His grandmother picked him up earlier. But we had an incident that I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Of course you did,” Sirius sighs. “What’s the little menace done now?”

The classroom door opens then, and Remus hurries in with a wailing Teddy in his arms.

“Sorry,” Remus says as he drops into the seat next to Sirius’s, “sorry, I normally wouldn’t bring him, but we only have the babysitter until three, and my husband is in Bulgaria this week, and Mum’s busy with Harry--”

“Wait,” Miss Coburn says. Her eyes flick between Sirius and Remus. “Husband?”

“Yes,” Remus says absently, bouncing Teddy in a fruitless effort to soothe him. “He’s the director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and there’s been an incident in Bulgaria that’s--well, I really can’t say, but he can’t get away and the baby’s teething and--”

“Here,” Sirius says, holding out his hands. “Let me take him for a bit.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Remus sighs, transferring Teddy to Sirius.

“I’m--sorry, forgive me, but the two of you aren’t married?”

“To each other? No,” Sirius says. He cradles Teddy to his chest, patting his back as the baby continues to fuss. “Remus has been married to Kingsley for, oh, two years now?”

“Three,” Remus says, smiling tiredly. “We got married right after Harry’s third birthday.”

“Remus and I have never been together, Miss Coburn,” Sirius says. “Romantically or otherwise. But we’re best friends, have been since we were eleven, and we were both named Harry’s godfathers. We’re raising him together. We’re both his dads. Rem, have you got a teething ring with you?”

“Oh--yes, here.”

Soon, Teddy is happily gnawing on the teething ring and drooling all over Sirius’s shirt, and they turn their attention back to Miss Coburn.

“Has Harry displayed any accidental magic lately?” she asks.

“Er, he has done for about a year now,” Sirius says. “Why?”

“I’m not so sure that it’s accidental,” Miss Coburn says, her lips twitching. “He didn’t want to do maths after snack time, so he kept making my chalk disappear every time I tried to write on the board. Then, during our quiet reading time, he kept turning his classmates’ hair different colors.”

“Just like Jamie,” Sirius says fondly. “Can’t sit still for a moment, that one.”

“He gets it from you, too,” Remus points out. “I’m sorry, Miss Coburn. We’ll talk to him.”

---

Harry is happily coloring at the kitchen table while Hope putters around the kitchen, cooking dinner. The tip of his tongue pokes out between his teeth and he swings his legs, humming to himself.

“Hi Dad, hi Da!” he greets cheerfully when Sirius and Remus enter. “Is Miss Coburn mad at me?”

“No, babe.” Sirius drops a kiss on his head and pulls out the chair next to him. Remus sits on his other side. “But you really need to stop turning the kids’ hair different colors, alright?”

“And you need to let Miss Coburn teach you maths and reading, even if you don’t like them very much,” Remus says, running his fingers through Harry’s hair. “She’s got to prepare you all for Hogwarts, remember?”

“You don’t want to be the only wizard at Hogwarts who can’t read or do maths, do you?” Sirius says, tickling Harry’s side, and the little boy shrieks with laughter.

“Fine,” Harry sighs, pretending to pout, but it doesn’t stick. It never does.

“You’ll be good?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“And you’ll let your teacher do her job?”

“Yes, Da.”

“Thanks, baby.”

“Can I take Teddy outside, please?”

“Thank you for saying please,” Remus tells him, “but you can play with him inside. He’s napping right now, so how about after dinner?”

“But Ron says there are Grindylows in the pond, and I wanna see ‘em!”

Sirius rubs his forehead. “Harry James, you cannot use your baby brother as Grindylow bait!”

“I won’t let ‘em hurt Teddy!” Harry says, sounding aghast. “I just wanna see ‘em! I can kick them, and then they won’t get Teddy. I can run really fast, too. Wanna see?”

Sirius laughs, pressing a kiss to the top of Harry’s head. “How about this? You and I can go flying after dinner, and Remus and Teddy will come out and watch us. You can show Teddy all the new things you’ve been learning in your flying classes.”

“Okay!” Harry turns back to his drawing. “And when Uncle Kingsley comes home, I’ll show him, too.”

“He’d love that,” Remus says.

Sirius meets Remus’s eyes over Harry’s head, and sees reflected in them the immense love he has for their little cobbled-together family. It might be unusual, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

#i did this inbetween furiously trying to meet original writing deadlines today #spoiler alert i did not meet those deadlines #oop #imp is writing #sirius black #remus lupin #harry potter #platonic wolfstar #wolfstar raising harry #i don't have a ship name for kingsley x remus #wolfking maybe #pregnancy mention #trans remus lupin #also everyone lives together at number twelve because i say so #harry has three dads and a little brother #and grandmum hope

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hollowwhisperings · 10 months

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"Speaker For The Dead": Bran Stark as a Reference to Ender Wiggin.

I read the first two Ender books when FAR too young to handle their themes of, y'know, the intimacy of xenocide when you're a child soldier. Scary stuff for a kid of age with the protagonist.

So colour me Unsurprised upon relearning that the language the aliens of SFTD's aliens to speak with humans... is named "Stark".

Because of course GRRM would find joy in a conveniently horrifying-by-implication Pun.

The Premise of "Speaker For The Dead" (the sequel to "Ender's Game", a Differently Horrifying inspiration for some of my childhood nightmares) is this: human colonists and the local alien species had been more-or-less at peace until a human is Suddenly & Inexplicably Murdered by the aliens who considered him a Friend.

Due to [the Plot of Ender's Game], Humans are wary of Jumping To Conclusions as to this seemingly Senseless Violence and Ender Wiggin (of Ender's Game) stops at the planet to Speak at some Funerals. To properly Speak for the Deceased, Ender investigates the Murders and because of [the plot of Ender's Game] feels certain that there has been a Fatal Translation Error.

Spoilers for SFTD & comparisons to Bran's POV Arc under cut.

He's Right.

The Piqueninos (the aliens) are still learning to communicate with the humans they're sharing a planet with, using a language named "Stark". The deceased men were both held in great esteem by the Piqueninos, one of the primary reasons why [A Xenologist Expert] was sought after: why kill someone who was their Friend?

It turns out that Ritualistically Vivisecting respected males of their society is how the Piqueninons Evolve: they had spent the entire book calling Trees their "Fathers" and they had meant that literally.

The gratuitously violent murders of their human friends were efforts by the Piqueninos to honour these men by making them Fathers, using the same method of Deification on the human men as they would to their own kind.

Cue the Horrific Revelation that, no, Humans Do Not Transistion From Life Phases via being Ritualistically Killed to Become Trees: the Piqueninos efforts to "honour" their Human Friends actually Killed Them. Permanently.

Now let's reevaluate what Bran Stark's been up with the Singers in ASOIAF.

Brynden Rivers has been sending Dreams to kids with Greenseer Potential and directing them North.

Jojen & Bran, inspired by such Dreams, go Beyond The Wall to seek out this "Three-Eyed Crow" who will teach Bran how to "fly".

Bran & Company end up in a magically warded Cave populated by the mythic "Children of the Forest" (Singers) and someone they call "The Last Greenseer", a man who has a weirwood tree growing through him & introduces himself as a Man Formerly Known as Brynden.

contextual clues identify him as "Brynden Rivers": one of three Great Bastards of Aegon IV had with Lady Melissa Blackwood*, Hand & Spymaster to Kings Aerys I & Maekar I, a Disappeared Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

the Singers confirm the religious beliefs shared with the First Men as being Literal: the trees are gods and the gods are trees. Incidentally, Jojen brings up how Revered Greenseers are by those who worship the Old Gods.

Jojen has Greensight and Bran, as someone who can both Skinchange AND Greendream, qualifies for "Greenseer" status. Except... the Singers Very Consistently call Brynden "the Last Greenseer" even with Bran Stark right there contradicting that There Can Be Only One (the Singers also mention greenseers as existing in Plural, historically, & that those of their Own Species have "died out/[faded?]").

Brynden "The Last Greenseer" takes Bran as his [apprentice]. Part of this Training is going into the Weirwood Tree [Hivemind], a network that transcends Time & Space (because Roots, i guess?) and allows Bran to see all sorts of varyingly traumatising Visions.

Bran's lessons require his sitting on a Weirwood Throne beside Brynden who is, incidentally, a body horror Weirwood Tree-Human hybrid now.

BTW, Bran's "training diet" features an Ominously Described "Paste" fed to him by the Singers. It's made from Weirwood Seeds, apparently.

(hey isn't everyone stuck in this spooky underground cave because leaving it means getting eaten by zombies? whete are they getting these Weirwood Seeds from- oh. Hi there, Brynden the Tree-Man Abomination)

wait, if Bran's a Greenseet now then how come the Singers still call Brynden the "Last" Greenseer? is this, perhaps, an instance of, say... interspecies life phase transitions being Poorly Translated to humans due to Trees Being Gods and Trees Transcending Time & Death?

has Jojen, perhaps, Made An Assumption about "when" that Title of "Greenseer" is gained? He had said that Greenseers were Deified as Weirwood Trees, implying they were entombed upon death...

...but what if Dying is part of the deification process?

(well, for a given value of "dying"... *looks at Brynden The Tree-Abomination Rivers*)

...the Cave Singers are totally going to ritualistically vivisect Bran and make him their new Tree God, aren't they.

(and, from the looks of Brynden, some decades into HIS initiation... this process will Not Be Quick nor "Pretty")

Brynden is probably complicit in the Singers' Scheme to Make Bran A Tree, if only due to Brynden being the "Weirwood" Bran's Paste Training Diet is made from.

Brynden might also want Out from the whole "Unnaturally Alive & Conscious This Whole Time" thing because WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE ALIVE AS YOU ARE TURNED INTO A TREE.

let us Not Recall the descriptions of: Brynden's current appearance, the many non-peaceful expressions carved as Faces for Heart Trees, the states of humans "honoured" by the Piqueninos in SFTD, any descriptions of what Becoming A Tree involves...

...and any investigation into what, exactly, a Weirwood's "seeds" may be. I stop at "Horus in Set's Salad" and THAT WAS ENOUGH.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG, when Not Being A Tree Hivemind, Brynden & thus Bran seem to fulfil a role not dissimilar to that of "Speakers For The Dead": they examine historic events as Outside parties. Brynden instructs Bran on evaluating his Visions objectively, without reverance nor judgement. At least, I think he did. Again: preservation of own sanity > exact visuak descriptions of events in ASOIAF.

Interestingly, being an effective Speaker for the Dead requires much of the same skillset as a Competent Kingmaker (or, at least, a King UnMaker).

To Conclude, the Similarities*** between Bran's interactions with the Cave Singers and those of Human Friends & Piqueninos in "Speaker For The Dead" are Multiple &, knowing GRRM, probably Deliberate. Let's just hope Meera and Jojen have gone AWOL because Meera is Plotting Arson, not because they're of Interest to the Cave Singers' reproductive purposes too. Both series do enjoy subjecting female characters to Grim Maternity &/or Horrific Relationship Revelations.

Arson is my Ideal Plotline for Meera, Grand Elk Larceny as a distant second. All those "Last Hero" parallels Bran Stark has going on should be Recognised (by Meera) and AVOIDED (by Meera) WITH FIRE. I'm lowkey convinced Brynden would actually prefer being burned alive to "indefinitely trapped in rotting human flesh as he slowly becomes a Tree (potentially for the purposes of interspecies repropogation)".

Footnotes

*Lady Melissa Blackwoof was likely an aunt or sister of Lady Melantha Blackwood of Winterfell, Bran's great-great grandmother: there is almost certainly at least one other Blackwood in Bran's family tree, likely as one of his 4 unnamed great-grandmothers through Grandpa Hoster Tully & Grandma Minisa Whent.

It's also possible that all the Movement at the end of Brynden's reign as Hand (the Lords going to KL for the Great Council that made Betha** Blackwood Queen of Westeros & Grand Escort from KL to The Wall to send off Maester Aemon & Ser Brynden) was how Lord Beron Stark's Heir, Edwyle, ended up married to a Riverlander like Melantha Blackwood.

**Queen Betha & Lady Melantha were almost certaingly "cousins" of some sort to Brynden through his mother, Melissa Blackwood. The exact degree of relation is unknown but It's There.

The degrees of relation from "Lady Melissa, Paramour of Aegon IV" to "Lady Melantha of Winterfell" connect Brynden (through his Blackwood mother) to EVERY living Stark, courtesy of their one unanimously agreed shared Grandpa (Lord Rickard Stark, of "murdered by Aerys II & Part 3 of 4 Extremely Valid Reasons for Ned's Rebellion").

Lady Catelyn's being a Riverlander, specifically a Tully & a Whent of Harrenhal, make it likely that Brynden's related to HER too.

Jon, of course, has Black Betha as all 4 of his paternal great-great grandmothers AND Lady Melantha as one of his maternal ones (the others being Marna Locke, Arya Flint, & Lorra Royce): Jon's somehow being "5/8ths Blackwood" is how I got distracted by the blood ties of Brynden & Bran in the first place!

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf theories #brynden rivers #the last greenseer #bran stark theories #cw body horror #cw cannibalism #speaker for the dead #greenseers #arsonist meera #piqueninos #ender wiggin #house blackwood #i kept getting distracted by how contemporary to brynden all these blackwood grandmums are #i would like 1 family tree for catelyn please #i forget whether house blackwood is legit plot relevant or just fans getting progressively more excited by river witches #it all comes back to the riverlands #jojen is fine actually #weirwood paste

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