4 Chapter 4 - Breakfast, conspiracies and a project

When he woke up, Ash's first order of business after his morning rituals was to write a letter. A friend he met in person after several years apart during his travels last year asked him for an update after his first day of classes.

"Aaaand done. Hey Monsy!" Ash said to nobody in particular and immediately after a small creature with enormous eyes and bat-like ears appeared next to him with a small *pop*.

"Master Sunnyshine asked for Monsy?" The house elf asked, already excited at the prospect of being able to help out Ash.

"Yes, Monsy, thank you for coming so quickly." The elf by now was positively vibrating on the spot after being complimented. "I'd like you to take this letter to the owlery and send it to Beauxbaton in France. So it would be great if you could look for an owl that you trust, but one that is also well rested. It's a long journey, after all."

"Will do Master Sunnyshine," the elf took the letter from Ash and looked up at him in case he needed something else. With a wry smile, he asked the elf, "Say Monsy, without a firm order, you and the other Hogwarts elves will never call me Ash, right?"

The elf cocked his head to the side, "But aren't you Master Sunnyshine?" Ash shook his head. "Never mind, Monsy. Thank you for taking the letter up, that will be all. I trust you will find the best owl for the job."

"No worries Master, Monsy will do her best! Monsy will not betray Master's trust!" And with that needlessly fanatical promise, the house elf popped out of the room.

"Haaa, four years later, and they still take the twin's prank seriously. Guess I'm stuck with the nickname Sunnyshine..."

Ash prepared his coat, checked his reflection to look if he was presentable - something his always proper pureblood great grandmother hammered into him - and noticed his sun-shaped earring hanging on a short chain from his left ear lobe shimmered faintly.

"Huh, guess it's a sunny day too," Ash remarked with a soft smile.

At breakfast, he was one of the earliest in the great hall. Only Remus Lupin and Severus Snape already sat at the staff table.

Since that was not a company that would invite conversation, Ash enjoyed his breakfast in silence. That is until a second year Ravenclaw moved up to the staff table.

"Good morning, Most venerable Professor Starkey," she said to him with a quill and weirdly blue parchment in hand doing a formal curtsy.

Ash looked up and put on a serious face.

"Good morning, Lady Lovegood. May I presume you had a pleasant nights rest?" "Quite, thank you for inquiring. Though I should note that it is not proper to inquire about a young ladies bedroom happenings."

"Hmm, quite right. I sincerely apologize for my uncouth behavior, Lady Lovegood. How could I repay this lovely lady for my faux pas?"

Luna turned up her nose and haughtily stated, "Well, I can see that your earring is glowing, which makes it the perfect weather to collect dirigible plums without the interruption of pesky nargles."

"Astute observation, Lady Lovegood, may I presume you will accompany me to said harvesting activity?"

"Yes, quite. I will grace you with my presence."

Ash suddenly broke out into a bright grin, and Luna began to giggle. "Sorry, little cousin, I didn't really have the time yet to go look for you. Are you here for something else, too, Luna? I will not tell you what we'll discuss in class later today."

"No, no, I wanted to ask for an interview regarding the you-know-what-I-am-talking-about-conspiracy. Daddy told me every professor from that house must know about it. You're the most credible source possible."

"Is it because the other professors refused to answer you, Luna?" Ash asked with an amused grin.

"Yes, how did you know? They all pretended they didn't know, and you mysteriously know what they said? Now I know why daddy wanted me to investigate." Luna nodded to herself, turned around, and scribbled something on the blue parchment while talking towards the Ravenclaw table.

Ash was amused and followed Luna with his eyes until she sat down. He turned towards his food again but heard a voice from the side.

"Say Ash, what was all that about?" Ash looked towards Remus, who had an eyebrow up, clearly intrigued by what just happened.

"Oh, my uncle Xenophilius allowed little Luna to write articles for the Quibbler. It's a little, uhhh, out of the way, as you may know. They report about several conspiracies, most of them pure fiction. But, many of them have some very real possibilities of being true, at least partially. For example, last year, they reported about the Fudge-no-fudge conspiracy, where our dear minister of magic doesn't like fudge flavored ice cream and tried to ban it from the shops in Diagon Alley."

"Wait, what? How can that be true?" Remus Lupin asked in absolute wonder.

"Oh, believe me, it came to a shock to us all. I still suspect Uncle Xeno scried that nugget of information with a crystal ball somehow. He claims a fire fairy whispered it to him when he was in the bathtub. A particularly enthusiastic ice cream lover read the article and had the matter investigated. Turns out Minister Fudge actually had a draft for a ban against fudge flavored ice cream on the table, among several other things. Fudge claims it was just a joke, and so the story only ended up as a four liner on page 12 in the prophet."

"Fascinating," offered Remus.

"Yeah, like I said, those conspiracies might not all be completely untrue. Though my uncle is quite the peculiar man, and some of his wilder fantasies leave him without much credibility." Ash sighed at the thought of one of his last remaining relatives alive.

He loved his uncle Xenophilius Lovegood, but he'd really like if his words were taken a little more seriously, something his uncle actively worked against.

Ash truly believed his uncle had something to offer to the wizarding community with his ideas and investigations. All the informative articles about peculiar and rare magical creatures made that painfully evident.

Remus' voice broke him out of his thoughts again. "So what is the conspiracy Miss Lovegood tries to investigate?"

"Oh, my uncle believes he has uncovered the great Hufflepuff world domination conspiracy. Did you know both Amelia Bones, head of the DMLE, and Minister Fudge are alumni of Hufflepuff? A reader sent my uncle only those two names and the emblem of house Hufflepuff, and from there, it all went."

Before he could continue, Remus interrupted him with a loud laugh. "Unbelievable, how did that even happen? Miss Bones I could see as a secret leader behind the scene but Minister Fudge?"

"Yea well, those were my words when my uncle brought it up. But did you know our ambassador for Magical Britain to the ICW Mister Scalewright was a Hufflepuff too? The department head for the department overseeing magical creatures, Mister Diggory who 'seals away all information about snorkacks, wrackspurts, nargles and many other esoteric magical creatures, so we all stay ignorant', and Misses Burke, the owner of Burke's & Daughters Shop For Magical Make-Up And Womanly Needs and all five of her daughters are Hufflepuffs, too."

Remus went into thought. "Okay, I can see how the first two together with Ms Bones could somehow create a world domination conspiracy, but how does Misses Burke play into this?"

"Glad you're just brushing past Mister Diggory's involvement. That's the real headache to explain. Misses Burke and her daugthers are suspected by my uncle to mind-control all women in Magical Britain with their make-up supplies." Ash explained with a wry smile.

Remus turned thoughtful again. "That... is weirdly unsettling if it were true. Hey, someone as bright as you would have been recruited to the cause. You would tell me if that conspiracy is true, right?"

Ash had overheard a rumor from Minerva and the headmaster yesterday and learned Remus was somewhat of a prankster, a real troublemaker during his school years, so he decided to be a little playful. And so, all Ash did was smile mysteriously and not answer Remus.

"Hey, hey, it's not true, right?" Remus kept asking. Apparently, the conspiracy not even explained in full already unsettled him. Ash was sure the Quibbler earned another subscriber today.

Other professors were present during the talk about the Hufflepuff conspiracy, but Pomona only joined a little later because she tended to the greenhouses. As head of the house Hufflepuff, Remus was sure Pomona would know about this conspiracy, but she cleverly played along with Ash and stayed quiet with a crafty smile on her face.

After breakfast was done, Ash moved towards his classroom for the only lesson he would have to teach today. A double lesson for second year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs.

Once ushered in by his trusty patronus, the second years quickly found their seats, and the lesson began.

Ash once again talked about the safety gear, his expectations and homework standards, his goal in teaching them, and then gave them all room for questions.

After the class was over and everybody left, satisfied because of finally having a great potions lesson, Ash was left alone with Luna.

"We have an hour before lunch. You stayed, so I'm guessing you want to spend that hour with me?" Luna nodded with a dreamy smile. "Yea, I'd love that, Professor Ash."

"It's just the two of us, about to go on an adventure in the snow to find plums. Call me Ash like alwa- Wait wait wait, now that I think about it, are you sure we'll find mature plums in the middle of January?" Ash eyed his his younger cousin suspiciously.

"Hmm, don't know," Luna answered with a shrug.

"Huh, I guess we'll go on an adventure and do research at the same time. Let's hope the hour before lunch is enough to find out, Luna."

Ash went to his office and grabbed his coat, two gigantic scarfs - one for Luna, one for him - that earned him a giggle from his companion and finished the preparations by casting warming charms on both of them.

Outside, they quickly found that dirigble plum trees do not have ripe fruit at this time of year - unless, of course, nargles hid them, before they came near the trees suggested Luna.

They spent some quality time, Luna talked about some new friends she made, some things she learned while he was away, and Ash genuinely enjoyed spending time with Luna, who seemed to have opened up not just to him and her father, but some other true friends, too.

The incident from last year cost him his spot as the head boy before his NEWTs finished and earned him the ire of a few powerful fathers. The consequences could have ended with Luna not bullied but instead isolated from everybody else once Ash left the school, after all. It was a constant point of worry for the young professor.

Once the hour was over, Luna and Ash made it back to the castle for lunch. They arrived a little late because of a short snowball fight that Luna insisted was started by wrackspurts.

Seeing as he did not have any classes for the rest of the day, Ash started a project that he decided he would implement at Hogwarts after his visit to Magical Japan.

From his office, he grabbed a magical trunk that he prepared beforehand, filled to the brim with wood and other materials needed to finish that project.

He moved outside again and went towards the lake. There, he walked on the side of the lake closest to the castle, in search for the perfect spot for his vision, until he found a cliff that had a cave you could easily reach from the shore.

The cave was only about as high as Hagrid, as wide as eight Hagrids lying down and about as deep as two Hagrids lying down. The cave opening was about a stone throw away from the lake, in Ash's opinion a perfectly reasonable distance for what he was about to do.

Putting down the trunk, he began to take out the material as well as a magical painting he brought back with him from Japan for inspiration.

Slowly, a house took shape between the cliff and the lake. The house was clearly inspired by the painting Ash took out. Next to the big house was a smaller house that looked much less elegant than the big one.

Inside the bigger house was a big open room, with a sitting area that still lacked furniture. The room had two separate exits at the cliff-facing side that first led to a chaging room and then towards the cave. The cave itself was divided by a screen now, each half accessible through one of the two exits.

The smaller house had a changing room too, but the only exit at the back led to the cliff wall. For what he wanted to do, he would need to make a cave through his own means.

"Hmm, the houses are almost done. I'd still like Minerva and Filius to look over them. To make sure I didn't screw it up. The furniture is due to arrive on the weekend, where I'll be able to pick it up in the village." Ash mentally checked if he did everything he needed to do and was satisfied. "That only leaves the enchantments on the spring itself. Well, and magically creating a spring, too. I should probably ask Monsy and the other elves if they want to chip in."

It was almost time for dinner now, Ash noted with a quick Tempus, so he packed up everything and brought the trunk back to his office. When he was a good distance away from his creation, Ash turned around for a last look for the day.

"A hot spring at Hogwarts, I can't wait!"