I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good: new home

[alt_terry]

I have a new home. And it's a really good place, so you don't have to worry about me. In fact, it's the very best place I've ever been, and I'm truly happy here.

The thing is, I suppose I can't say much about it. Well, you can understand that, I hope. We have all promised to keep the secrets we discuss under our Lock. Now I have to protect new secrets. But I want to be able to tell you about my new life without giving away those secrets.

So, just to be sure, I'll be showing my entries I write to you to some of the people here first. I mean, I write them out on plain parchment and show it to them, and if they say it's okay, then I write them in my journal to you all, with the I Solemnly Swear lock password at the top. To make sure I don't let on to you about stuff they have to keep secret, for their protection. They said it'll probably be just at first, until I get the hang of what the boundaries are. And I really want to get the boundaries right, because this is a wonderful place, and so I don't ever want to do anything to endanger it.

To begin with, I can't tell you exactly where I am. But I can tell you that I'm somewhere in the Protectorate, and I'm living by the sea. There's a beach where I can swim every day if I like, and there is a boat, and I've been out on it already. A sailboat. I nearly got smacked in the head with the boom the first time I went--that's the pole that the sail is attached to, that swings back and forth when you tack (that means, when you change direction). Sailing's fun.

There's plenty of good food. Seafood, of course (I've helped with the fishing, and with gathering mussels), but other good stuff, too: I don't have to take Sally-Anne's mutton pills anymore because I don't have to worry about anaemia. I never have to go to bed hungry.

I'm getting more and more confident with my animagus transformation. I can switch back and forth as quick as anything with no trouble at all. I actually spent a lot of time the first day or two AS a dog. It was easie It kept me from My nerves were sort of shot when I came here, and being a dog kind of helped to steady me. I wanted to practise it, and it's just so interesting. It's actually a good way to learn about a new place, because dogs pick up so much information from what they smell, both about places and about people. The smells were reassuring. And it's just dead fun.

Everyone calls my dog form 'the Professor.' Tell the twins that, won't you? It'll make them laugh.

Dudley's here with me, and he's loving it, too. We have stuff to do to keep us busy. Stuff that we like to do. Everyone has been really kind.

So anyway: the people I'm with have read this over and they say this is okay for me to say.

Comments

[alt_ron]

I told the twins, and you're right: they laughed.

So. Does food taste different when you're a dog? Have you eaten anything that you never would have done as a person?

[alt_terry]

Food tastes different, yeah, because smell is such an important part of tasting, and dogs can smell lots better than humans can. So it's a more intense experience. Smells are exciting in a way that they aren't for humans. Uh, I guess the best way to describe it is that smells cause the sort of emotion in dogs that music does in humans. Or at least humans who are really knowledgeable music-lovers.

There's one thing I did as a dog that I'd never do as a human. I, uh, rolled in a pile of dead fish. I know, I know, the human in me goes gross. But to a dog, that dead fish smelled wonderful.

But when I transformed back, I was just gagging at the smell. Dudley laughed so hard he almost choked.

[alt_luna]

It sounds wonderful.

So you know how to swim?

[alt_terry]

Not very well. Yet. But I'm getting better! Dudley had never seen the sea before, though. He was absolutely gobsmacked by the sight.

I have seen the sea before. I had summer work a couple years ago (or was it three? Can't remember) gutting fish all day. We used to go wash the fish guts off in the surf afterwards.