August 11, 2015 - Rowena’s Chamber (FR-13)
August 11, 2015 - Rowena’s Chamber (FR-13)
Alt Title: Day 11 - Rowena’s Chamber
Author: mmooch
Chapter Summary: Buffy grants the house elves their greatest w-i-s-h.
Crossover: Harry Potter
Rating: FR-13.
Word count: 1035
Challenge: for the livejournal 2015 August Fic-a-Day Challenge.
Timeline: Storywise - May 1981, before the castle renovation
Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. HP characters belong to JK Rowling. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.
Buffy’s office
Buffy looked up when she heard the nervous stuttering of Scooby, one of the trainee house elves. There were two elves standing behind him, urging him forward. It felt very funny - in a haha way - to her, so she had to keep her smile to a minimum in order to keep from scaring the elves.
“Mistress Buffy,” Scooby finally managed to get out, “…we house elves were wondering if you wants the comes and goes room packed, too?”
“Have the elves already finished packing the rest of the unused parts of the castle?” she asked, not thinking about how the question would sound to the elves.
The distraught looks on their faces clued her in very quickly, however, and she added before any of them could claim to be bad elves or punish themselves, “Not that that matters. We have another month before school lets out, so we aren’t in a rush. I thought you were telling me in your own way that you ran out of things to pack. Do you think it will take very long to pack up the room?”
“Oh yes, Mistress Buffy, that is why we asks now,” Twain said from his spot behind Scooby.
“And why did you have Scooby ask me?” Buffy asked.
Twain bowed his head in shame for his deceit. “Wes be thinking that if Scooby ask you, you be saying yes because you have a special like for him.”
Ignoring the eww-thought that popped into her head at the ‘special like’ comment, Buffy focused more on her amusement of them trying to manipulate her into giving them more work. “So it’s important to you to get to pack this room?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
All three of the elves look like somebody offered them the Holy Grail. Their eyes grew even wider and they seemed almost reverent as Scotty - the last elf in the room - whispered, “It is the dream of all Hogwarts elves to be getting to clean the comes and goes room! It is the greatest challenge for us!”
“Alright, let’s go take a look at your Mt. Everest,” Buffy said, getting up to walk to Rowena’s chamber.
~~~~~~
Rowena’s Chamber
After thinking about the office, Buffy led the elves into the room and asked as she looked around, “Why is this so special to you? It doesn’t look all that challenging to me.”
“This is only one version of the comes and goes room, Mistress Buffy,” Twain explained. “There be hundreds or thousands of versions. The greatest of all is the Lost room,” he added with a awed sigh.
“Hundreds or thousands, huh? Sounds like it might be hard to get through them all…unless there’s a way to combine them somehow. Let me look at the manual Rowena left. You can start packing up this room while you wait for me; just leave the desk and the pedestal, please,” she requested.
Buffy fought the urge - but not entirely successfully - to laugh when the elves practically skipped away to begin their work. She grabbed Rowena’s manual from the desk and opened it up. She skimmed through the book until she got to the section on the room’s functions.
Once she read the instructions, she took a dicta-quill and some parchment from the desk drawer and said, “Please list all the different forms Rowena’s Chamber has become.”
The dicta-quill started writing, using the magic of the room to give it the words to write. When it reached the bottom of the parchment, it hovered in place until Buffy put down a new sheet. This happened many more times, despite the small print and the numerous columns.
Not wanting to count all the lines, she asked, “How many different forms of Rowena’s Chamber have there been?” She looked down and saw the answer: 638. “That’s a lot to go through,” she murmured.
“How many outside items are in all the different forms of Rowena’s Chamber?” 2,492,417. “Other than the manual, inside items couldn’t exist if you attempted to remove them from the room, so they didn’t count.
“Whew, that certainly would be a challenge,” Buffy agreed.
“So Mistress Buffy will let the elves clean the room?” Scooby asked with such hope in his voice that she couldn’t have said no, even if she wanted to.
“It should be fine, but let me see if I can speed it up by combining the different forms into one room. And I’d like to see if we could return some of these lost items to their owners…going back maybe 10-20 years or so?” she said/asked.
She grabbed a new piece of parchment and said, “Write a list of lost items in Rowena’s Chamber from the current school year.” The list wasn’t too bad…maybe two or three dozen items. She did the same thing for each year back to 1960.
Scotty spoke up again, “Mistress Buffy needs reminding that wizards and witches live longer, so maybe she should do more years?”
She agreed and asked for a list going back to 1860, separated by year. While the quill was scratching away, she kept reading. After a few minutes, Buffy requested, “Create a side room for the items in all the forms of Rowena’s Chamber from the current school year.”
“We can only do ten side rooms at a time, unless they are really small. The magic required could affect the school’s wards if I draw too much power for this, I can’t do that,” Buffy explained to the elves. “Please pack up the items in that room and I’ll have one of the staff inform the students that we’ll have a lost and found pick up later on today. First, the staff will ensure that there’s nothing dangerous or illegal in there.”
“Will the other elves be allowed to clean with us?” Twain asked. It wouldn’t be fair if they didn’t allow others to join in their rapture.
“Sure, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their regular duties. I think we’ll have to move one of the Wizarding moving boxes in here to pack everything. Well, you guys have fun cleaning. Just let me know when I need to ask the room for something else.”
A/N: I just thought elves would find that their dream task.
Alt Title: Day 11 - Rowena’s Chamber
Author: mmooch
Chapter Summary: Buffy grants the house elves their greatest w-i-s-h.
Crossover: Harry Potter
Rating: FR-13.
Word count: 1035
Challenge: for the livejournal 2015 August Fic-a-Day Challenge.
Timeline: Storywise - May 1981, before the castle renovation
Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. HP characters belong to JK Rowling. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.
Buffy’s office
Buffy looked up when she heard the nervous stuttering of Scooby, one of the trainee house elves. There were two elves standing behind him, urging him forward. It felt very funny - in a haha way - to her, so she had to keep her smile to a minimum in order to keep from scaring the elves.
“Mistress Buffy,” Scooby finally managed to get out, “…we house elves were wondering if you wants the comes and goes room packed, too?”
“Have the elves already finished packing the rest of the unused parts of the castle?” she asked, not thinking about how the question would sound to the elves.
The distraught looks on their faces clued her in very quickly, however, and she added before any of them could claim to be bad elves or punish themselves, “Not that that matters. We have another month before school lets out, so we aren’t in a rush. I thought you were telling me in your own way that you ran out of things to pack. Do you think it will take very long to pack up the room?”
“Oh yes, Mistress Buffy, that is why we asks now,” Twain said from his spot behind Scooby.
“And why did you have Scooby ask me?” Buffy asked.
Twain bowed his head in shame for his deceit. “Wes be thinking that if Scooby ask you, you be saying yes because you have a special like for him.”
Ignoring the eww-thought that popped into her head at the ‘special like’ comment, Buffy focused more on her amusement of them trying to manipulate her into giving them more work. “So it’s important to you to get to pack this room?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
All three of the elves look like somebody offered them the Holy Grail. Their eyes grew even wider and they seemed almost reverent as Scotty - the last elf in the room - whispered, “It is the dream of all Hogwarts elves to be getting to clean the comes and goes room! It is the greatest challenge for us!”
“Alright, let’s go take a look at your Mt. Everest,” Buffy said, getting up to walk to Rowena’s chamber.
~~~~~~
Rowena’s Chamber
After thinking about the office, Buffy led the elves into the room and asked as she looked around, “Why is this so special to you? It doesn’t look all that challenging to me.”
“This is only one version of the comes and goes room, Mistress Buffy,” Twain explained. “There be hundreds or thousands of versions. The greatest of all is the Lost room,” he added with a awed sigh.
“Hundreds or thousands, huh? Sounds like it might be hard to get through them all…unless there’s a way to combine them somehow. Let me look at the manual Rowena left. You can start packing up this room while you wait for me; just leave the desk and the pedestal, please,” she requested.
Buffy fought the urge - but not entirely successfully - to laugh when the elves practically skipped away to begin their work. She grabbed Rowena’s manual from the desk and opened it up. She skimmed through the book until she got to the section on the room’s functions.
Once she read the instructions, she took a dicta-quill and some parchment from the desk drawer and said, “Please list all the different forms Rowena’s Chamber has become.”
The dicta-quill started writing, using the magic of the room to give it the words to write. When it reached the bottom of the parchment, it hovered in place until Buffy put down a new sheet. This happened many more times, despite the small print and the numerous columns.
Not wanting to count all the lines, she asked, “How many different forms of Rowena’s Chamber have there been?” She looked down and saw the answer: 638. “That’s a lot to go through,” she murmured.
“How many outside items are in all the different forms of Rowena’s Chamber?” 2,492,417. “Other than the manual, inside items couldn’t exist if you attempted to remove them from the room, so they didn’t count.
“Whew, that certainly would be a challenge,” Buffy agreed.
“So Mistress Buffy will let the elves clean the room?” Scooby asked with such hope in his voice that she couldn’t have said no, even if she wanted to.
“It should be fine, but let me see if I can speed it up by combining the different forms into one room. And I’d like to see if we could return some of these lost items to their owners…going back maybe 10-20 years or so?” she said/asked.
She grabbed a new piece of parchment and said, “Write a list of lost items in Rowena’s Chamber from the current school year.” The list wasn’t too bad…maybe two or three dozen items. She did the same thing for each year back to 1960.
Scotty spoke up again, “Mistress Buffy needs reminding that wizards and witches live longer, so maybe she should do more years?”
She agreed and asked for a list going back to 1860, separated by year. While the quill was scratching away, she kept reading. After a few minutes, Buffy requested, “Create a side room for the items in all the forms of Rowena’s Chamber from the current school year.”
“We can only do ten side rooms at a time, unless they are really small. The magic required could affect the school’s wards if I draw too much power for this, I can’t do that,” Buffy explained to the elves. “Please pack up the items in that room and I’ll have one of the staff inform the students that we’ll have a lost and found pick up later on today. First, the staff will ensure that there’s nothing dangerous or illegal in there.”
“Will the other elves be allowed to clean with us?” Twain asked. It wouldn’t be fair if they didn’t allow others to join in their rapture.
“Sure, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their regular duties. I think we’ll have to move one of the Wizarding moving boxes in here to pack everything. Well, you guys have fun cleaning. Just let me know when I need to ask the room for something else.”
A/N: I just thought elves would find that their dream task.