Prologue
Thousands of miles away from Hogwarts, Privet Drive, and England, sits a Wizard Laboratory in Arizona. After years and years of research, the completion of a special formula is now within sight.
The day started out like any other, as the wizard who owned the top secret laboratory, Michael Wells, woke up and got ready for work. Commuting was no problem, he just simply convinced his wife and daughter to move into the building. Previously living in New York, the doctor wasn't used to the hot climate, so he chose to have his family reside on the fourth floor, where the air conditioning blew strongest through the ventilators. He picked the largest office for his family to live in, which the equivalent of the size of a normal apartment . At 5:00 A.M, Dr. Wells left his 'apartment' at the end of the hall, and headed into the elevator to the basement, where he was opening up the lab for another day's work. Exiting the elevator, he soon reached the two metal doors leading to the lab, which the doctor unlocked with reciting the master password that only he knew.
"Mors Avitus!" Immediately, the doors opened with a loud pressurized hissing noise, and the doctor walked in. He greeted all of his eight foot tall vultures behind thick Plexiglas, which was the length of the back wall. On the end of the left side of the glass, were three concrete stairs and a door, which led to a small room where food could be distributed to these giants.
Dr. Wells said to them, "Very soon my formula will be complete, and you will no longer be a danger to Wizards and Muggles. I have slaved over years of research and experiments to find a successful formula, so that you will stop terrorizing and eating the people of Arizona so that our magical world will not be discovered. Do you know how huge of a threat you all are? Muggles aren't used to seeing eight foot birds fly into their cities. Soon, I will stop you."
And with that, Dr. Wells turned away, and made ready the lab for his scientist employees, when they came to work in an hour.
By 6:10 that morning, the lab was buzzing as usual, with all the scientists busily working at their stations on their individual experiments.
They lived in the building too, just only on the third floor. To get in the lab every morning, they would recite the password "Reperire Veritas" However, this password only worked after the master password had been said by Dr. Wells, for security reasons. At his station, Dr. Wells worked intensely over his bubbling beaker that held a strange yellow substance. He measured and mixed all sorts of different colored powders into the beaker, causing the contents to foam at the top worse than before.
"Almost there.just one more pinch of." "BOOM!" A huge explosion sounded throughout the building as smoke emitted itself from the glowing beaker. In response, all of the scientists scrambled towards the doctor and his experiment.
"Ladies and gentlemen, today might be the very day that I am in the shadow of victory. In just a few moments, I will know. You now see before you, a bright yellow substance which is currently glowing, but is progressively dying off. When the glow recedes, hopefully the substance will turn neon green, and once again reclaim the glow. When, and if this does happen, I have reached my objective. Again, I am very sorry that I wasn't able to include you all in my research. The Ministry specifically put me in charge of this confidential mission, and I thank you all for being so understanding. I know that this is the first time that I had to exclude you from my work." he apologized.
"No need to apologize sir. You know that we are all behind you, every step of the way, and wish for your utmost success on this assignment," a scientist said supportively. All the others agreed and clapped.
"Thank you all so much. It means a lot to me, and now, let's see if hopefully, my efforts are successful."
Everyone watched in silence and waited for the liquid to change colors. Clearly, the moment was tense, as the scientists leaned in and stared nervously at the beaker. Some of them, in a sweat, started biting their nails.
It was hardly noticeable at first, but starting from the bottom of the beaker, the substance slowly turned an unmistakable shade of luminous green. In response, cheers immediately erupted from everyone in the room. They all shook Dr. Well's hand and congratulated him.
"Thank you everyone, I appreciate your support! It is a glorious day indeed. No more will we need to fear the exposure of our world to the eyes of unknowing Muggles. It was nine years ago, that I was first handed the assignment of creating a formula that will control the minds of these eight foot Arizonian Poison Beak Vultures, to stop them from migrating from the desert to Muggle cities and eating the people. Today, my hard work has paid off, and soon we will return the vultures back to the desert after applying the formula to them. This calls for a celebration, my comrades! Everyone may take the day off, but please do come back around 5:00 this evening and we will have a feast. So go now, and have a wonderful day off!" he stated joyously, as the scientists cheered and proceeded to exit the lab.
Meanwhile, back in the doctor's apartment, the blast from earlier that shook the building awoke his daughter with a start, causing her to shoot up from the bed and enter her mother's room. "Mom, are you awake? Did you hear that noise before?" she asked startled. "You heard it too? I thought I was just dreaming. It sounded like some sort small explosion. Melissa, do you think it's your fathers doing?" her mom replied, while sitting up in her bed. "Humph.probably, who else would make such a racket? I guess I'll go downstairs and find out." Melissa sighed, as she headed to leave. Her mom called after her, "Don't you think you might want to change first? You're still in your pajamas, and considering there are all those scientists down there." "Oh, yeah. sorry mom, I'm still a bit groggy. It's only 6:15 after all," she chuckled.
Melissa went back into her room and quickly threw on jean shorts, a shirt, combed her hair, and exited the apartment in a hurry, to satisfy her curiosity and anger of what it was that woke her so early.
As she walked down the hallway, she paused at another apartment, where a man resided that her father took in off the streets two years ago. She wondered if he had heard the loud bang, and thought about knocking on his door to ask. However, Melissa changed her mind. She was a bit wary of the man, and had a good reason. She hardly ever saw him, because he would always stay in his apartment and never come out. When he did, he never talked to her. In fact, in the two years that he was with them, Melissa had never even received a hello, and thought this quite odd. She asked her father about the man's strange behavior, and Melissa's father told her that he recently recovering from extremely tough times in his life, so he preferred the solitude.
Curiosity getting the better of her, Melissa decided to peer in through the peep hole in the middle of the door to see if she could see him. However, before she got the chance, the door swung open, and Melissa found herself staring face to face with the man whose name she couldn't remember.
"May I help you?" he asked rather coldly.
"Uh.yeah, actually, I was just wondering if you heard that loud noise before," Melissa replied nervously.
"No, I didn't. I had my Wizvision (the wizard form of television) up very loud because I couldn't hear my show over the sizzling of the frying pan, while it cooked my breakfast. Why, was it anything to be alarmed about?"
"Oh no, not at all, it was just a bit startling, that's all."
"Okay then, now if you'll excuse me, I think my breakfast is ready. Good day."
"Good bye," Melissa replied as he closed the door.
A bit offended by his undemonstrative demeanor, she walked to the elevator, and stepped in, pressing the button to get down to the lab. She stared at the little doohickey in the elevator and watched the floors go lower. She didn't quite know the name of the thing now that she thought of it. What did that matter? She needed something to take her mind off of being in an elevator. She didn't really like tight spaces.
"It beats taking the stairs. At least I don't have to be surrounded by windows that show me how high up I am from outside," she said to herself. She didn't like heights either. She didn't know why. She also found it quite strange that when she was high in the air in the family's flying car, she didn't feel queasy or anything.
"Ding", the elevator had reached the lab floor. "Thank God," she thought, as the doors opened and she stepped out.
Melissa squinted immediately. The shiny white walls and floors mixed with the lights on the ceiling were a bit bright for someone who just woke up. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it resembled a hospital wing of some sort. Melissa kept walking and made two lefts, then a right, half tripping over a janitors broom, and finally came upon the main door to the lab, where she figured her father would be. She recited the third password to get into the laboratory, which was strictly just used by the family.
"Formosus solaris."
Melissa walked inside, and to her surprise there was no one in the lab, not even her father. She looked around, and called out to her dad, but received no answer. Shrugging, her attention was directed elsewhere by a loud bubbling sound that was coming from one of the tables. Melissa decided to go over and investigate, and saw a glowing green liquid in a beaker. Curious, she started to look at it.
"SCREECH!"
She jumped back, startled, and met the gaze of a rather vicious looking vulture from behind the glass.
"Ugh, I hate it when they do that, stupid birds. Hmm, is that vulture number 93751 again? Gosh, I hardly ever come down here, and when I do, that particular bird always seems angry and tries to break through the glass to get me. I guess for some reason it doesn't like me very much," she said to herself while meeting the vultures gaze defiantly.
"Melissa, What are you doing down here? I was just about to come and get you and your mother."
Taken off guard, she swung around, only to see that the voice belonged to her father.
"Oh, hello Dad, well I'm down here now, because of that small explosion from before, and now I see that there's no one here. Is it something to be worried about?"
"Ha! No, not at all! That's what I wanted to show you. Look here," he gestured, to the same glowing formula she was observing before.
Then, it finally clicked in Melissa's head, "Dad, is this the. "
"It's exactly that," he answered her.
"The formula for the vultures?"
"Of course."
Immediately a huge smile spread across Melissa's face, and she hugged him.
"Dad, this is wonderful! The Ministry is going to be so relieved that you've solved the problem! You might even become head Wizarding Scientist, now that Dr. Henderson is retiring," she exclaimed ecstatically.
"I hope so. I've been a candidate for the job for years now, and now that the doctor is retiring, he just might give me that position as head scientist. Still though, I'm not the only candidate. It's that money hungry, Dr. Jameison as well. I was a bit worried that he would get the job over me, because he's done some excellent work in the past, but now the recent event of me discovering a very important formula will more than likely nail me the job," he declared happily, as he proceeded to put the formula in a vault and lock it.
Well, let's go upstairs and tell your mother. There's going to be a feast later, and I want you both to be a part of it. I'm sure she'll be overjoyed at my newly found accomplishment.
"Okay, let's go," Melissa said as they walked to the door, "Formosus solaris."
"You know, you should have just let me say the master password so that I could lock the door."
"Oh yeah, sorry Dad."
"Mors Avitus," her dad recited, locking the lab.
Just then, out of no where, a very powerful thought was pushed into her head.
"Dad, what if someone steals the formula?"
"Steals it? Why my dear, what would make you think such a thing?"
"I'm sorry, dad, I honestly don't know where that came from. I guess I'm just really excited, and I don't want anything to be ruined for you."
"Chuckling, her father said, "I understand your concern, but trust me everything is secure. First off, you can't get into the lab when no one is there, without reciting the master password like I just did. Plus, the formula, as you saw, is stored in the vault, which there is a separate password to. Not a single soul knows that password except for you and me. You got lucky today, missy. If you weren't down here when I said the password you wouldn't have known it," he teased.
"CRASH!"
Melissa and her dad looked at each other nervously, and ran to see what caused the sound. They turned down one of the many corners on the laboratory floor and noticed a large plant in a china vase on a table had fallen over, along with the life size mirror next to it, causing it to shatter.
"How the heck did all of this fall?" he questioned.
"Dad, do you think someone was listening?"
"No, how could they? We were the only ones down here," Melissa's father said dismissing it.
Just then, a head poked out from the pile of soil.
"Oh good gracious, it's only Max. He must have gotten out of his cage again," she sighed, relieved.
"Melissa, what do I keep telling you? You must keep that Jarvey of yours in its cage. The scientists don't like him and they keep thinking Max is going to insult them, making all of them distracted from their work.
"Come on dad, you know we had Max trained by a professional wizard to be polite. He hardly ever insults anyone anymore," Melissa defended Max, while picking him up.
"Me nicest Jarvey ever!" Max squeaked.
"Nice yes, but that doesn't mean you won't wander from your cage. What happened Max?"
"Me sleep on floor."
"Well that doesn't explain how everything fell."
"Me don't know. Me turn over. Tail in great pain. Stuff fall."
"You know, our Puffskein and Muggle dog behave better than you. Ugh, let's just go upstairs," the doctor said frustrated, while scratching his head. Max never said anything that made sense.
When they returned to the apartment, Dr. Wells told his wife everything, and she was ecstatic, causing them to talk about it the rest of the afternoon.
Eventually, 5:00 came, and the whole family went down to the recreation room, just left of the laboratory, to have the celebration. All personnel attended the gathering. However, there was one person missing.
"Daddy, where's that guy that lives on the same floor as us? I don't see him here," Melissa observed.
"Oh, you mean Jack Benson?"
"Yes, that's his name. I remember now," Melissa said, "Well, where is he?"
"Jack isn't feeling very well, so he's not coming."
"Since when?" she asked surprised.
"Since this morning. He called the apartment saying he's fallen ill."
"Oh, well, okay then." she replied, a bit unsure, "It doesn't fit. He seemed absolutely fine when I saw him." Melissa thought.
Just then, Dr. Wells stood up and proceeded to speak.
"My dear ladies and gentlemen of science, today indeed is a glorious day, and one that calls for immediate celebration. I would like to propose a toast to this company and the wonderful employees, and that we will continue to have more successful days like this in the future. Again, even though I couldn't include you in this research, I am extremely flattered and happy that I have such loyal people working for me, who I can share this special day with. To the company!"
Everyone's glasses touched with a clink.
Just then, a rather short scientist with a squeaky voice stood up. It took a while for Melissa to remember who he was because he was just recently hired.
"I would like to say something," said the man, "If I may of course."
"Of course you may, Walter. Be my guest," Dr. Wells said cheerfully.
"Oh yes, Dr. Walter Lauer. I remember now," Melissa thought.
"Thank you, Michael," said Dr. Lauer, "I never thought the day would come when I would get to be a part of a splendid event such as this. I am very excited on the completion of the formula and I know it will serve an excellent purpose. Thanks to you Dr. Wells, great things can and will be done."
Walter held his glass up to Michael and smiled, and then sat back down.
"Thank you Walter! I appreciate your kindness."
"You're very welcome. Oh, and don't forget to hand your report in. It's very important." Dr. Lauer added.
"Oh yes, that's right. I forgot all about it."
Melissa, who was always keen on sensing things, seemed to be the only one in the room who found Walter's toast a bit strange. The tone of his voice sounded a little too sure of himself. Especially the way he thanked her father. It almost seemed as if he was thanking him for making the formula for him, and why was he so interested in that report?
"Melissa? Would you be so kind as to write the report to the Ministry about this event now? Debbie, my secretary is on maternity leave, which I also forgot about. Meliss? Melissa, are you listening to me?"
"Huh? Oh sorry, dad. Yes, I'll file the report right now," his daughter answered, interrupted from her thoughts.
"Use the Muggle computer dear," he stated.
"The Muggle computer, why?" she asked curiously.
"Well, I would like you to be able to do some things for yourself, and not just solely rely on Magic. Plus, it's good to know about Muggle objects.
Sighing, his daughter replied, "Yes dad, I'll start it straight away."
Her father gave her the information she needed to type, and Melissa summoned the computer to the back room. As she did this, she found that Dr. Lauer was watching her. Quite uncomfortable, she went into the back room and started to type the report.
Monthly Research Report
Science Department
Ministry of Magic
Dr. Michael Wells
Date: 8/15/04 Time: 5:30 P.M. Research Topic: Solution to Arizonian Poison Beak Vulture (APBV) attackings and or killings of Muggles and Magic Folk. Research: APBV transfigure themselves into anything, which results in the victim being defenseless and unknowing against them. To conceal themselves in the air, the weather drastically changes. The Poison Beak Vultures breathe out a highly dangerous toxin that renders the victim first dizzy, then unconscious for up to five hours if the APBV has enough time to administer it correctly. The purpose of this is how the Vultures capture their prey to eat. They sweat immensely after exerting the toxin because they wind up inhaling some of it. The toxin travels through the blood stream and is released through the skin. The normal APBV has poor eye sight, but can track its prey by scent or vibrations of movement. A single APBV will only attack its prey when it is alone, unless of course there are more APBVs in the area, then they will attack more people. They also possess immense strength and destructive tendencies. Lastly, when a wizard is in a Muggle area and there are vultures around, they will create an imbalance of Muggle and Wizard forces, sending Muggle objects and apparatuses haywire. It also sharpens a Wizard's intuition. The reason is still unknown, and mind spells to control behavior only work temporarily. Experiments: Attempt to make mind controlling formula to stop the APBV attackings. Solution (if any): Formula D2k75. Once administered, subject's thoughts, feelings, and actions are under total control.
"There," thought Melissa, "Done."
"Very thorough work, my dear," said a voice.
Startled, Melissa immediately swung around in her chair, and saw it was Dr. Lauer, standing behind her. She also noticed he was carrying his brown leather briefcase with a black handle. Whenever Melissa saw him, he always had it, and would never put it down.
"What are you doing in here?" she asked defensively.
"Sorry, dear girl. I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to see how your fathers report was coming," Dr. Lauer apologized.
"Oh. Well, it's coming out just fine, thank you," Melissa replied sharply. "Glad to hear it," he smirked.
"By the way, how long have you been behind me?"
"Long enough to say that you are an excellent and thorough writer." Feeling a bit uncomfortable, she replied, "Well, thanks."
"Anytime," Dr. Lauer smiled, while exiting the room.
Feeling wary, Melissa printed out the report, and when she finished, she gave it to her father.
"Excellent report! Thank you, dear," commented her father, "I'll have this forwarded to the Ministry tonight. In fact, right now. Titan! Come here!"
Titan, her father's muscular gray owl, flew in and stood bold and tall, ready for his master's document.
"Take this to Jonathan Chambers, Minister of Magic for the United States."
As quick as he flew in, the proud owl flew out carrying the report.
"Now that that's been taken care of, continue celebrating my friends. Eat, drink, and be merry."
* * *
Time passed, and 11:00 drew near, ending the party. Everyone returned to their apartments to retire for the night. Entering her bed, Melissa bid goodnight to Max, her Jarvey, Lula, her Puffskein, Winter, her owl, and finally her Muggle dog, Rolf. Then she fell asleep.
All night she had horrible dreams, dreams, which consisted of that man, Dr. Lauer. He frightened her more than Jack Benson did. She dreamt that Dr. Lauer was a murderer and had killed twelve people, and then in her dream he looked straight at her, and killed her mother and father. She also had dreams of the vultures sweeping over some large castle like building screeching in madness and taking away innocent people. She started talking in her sleep. "No! Stop it. You killed them, no!" she screamed.
Her parents, obviously hearing Melissa's shouts, had run in the room to see what was wrong.
"Liss, wake up what's the matter?" her dad asked while shaking her.
Immediately, she woke up and was in a cold sweat. Seeing that she was only dreaming, and that her father and mother weren't dead, she hugged them tightly.
"It's just a dream. You'll be okay," her mom said comfortingly.
Melissa took a deep breath and tried to relax. When she was calm, her father wanted to get her mind off her dream, so he said to her, "Can you do me a favor dear?"
"Yes?"
"Can you go downstairs and unlock the lab and get it all ready for me? It's 5:00 in the morning, and it's about the time I'd be getting up."
"Sure dad, no problem."
Melissa got dressed and went downstairs.
When she got off the elevator she made her usual two lefts then a right to get to the lab.
"Mors Avitus!" she said aloud.
The doors opened and she when inside and with turning on the lights, she expected everything to be normal. Then she noticed something was wrong, a big something. The vultures were not behind the glass! They were gone, leaving only their feathers strewn about the room, and tons of broken glass from where they were held. Thinking back to her fathers report, Melissa remembered that the vultures could transfigure themselves into anything, so they could all be hiding in the room, and possibly stalk her as prey. Wasting no time, she ran back upstairs to notify her father of what happened.
In the elevator, she frantically pressed the button to bring her back upstairs.
"Come on, hurry up you stupid thing!" The ride up seemed to take forever as she paced back and forth in the tiny space.
"Ding," the elevator had reached the fourth floor.
"Dad! Dad! Dad!" she screamed in horror, not even reaching the apartment yet.
Her dad heard the noise in the hallway and opened the door immediately.
"What's wrong Melissa? Good gracious, what's the matter?"
"Oh Daddy, it's horrible! The vultures! They're gone!"
"Gone!? What on Earth do you mean gone!"
"Stolen, daddy! Somebody stole them!"
Hearing the commotion Jack stepped out of his apartment. "Did you just say someone stole the vultures?" he asked, shocked.
"Yes, they're gone without a trace! Except for the glass, the glass, it's everywhere!"
Dr. Wells and Jack looked at each other half frightened. "Well let's get down there. We're wasting time just standing here." Jack said. Then with a flash, the three of them raced downstairs. The elevator ride was ridden in silence and the atmosphere was filled with worry and horror. When the elevator let them off, they raced into the laboratory. Jack and her father saw all of what she said was true. Checking to make sure the vultures didn't transfigure themselves into anything, the doctor panned around the laboratory with some device resembling a Geiger counter. Receiving no readings, he concluded they were truly gone, and could think of nothing else to say but, "Jack, call the police. Now! Melissa, don't touch anything. We'll be right back!"
Jack and her father ran up the stairs. Scared out of her wits, Melissa's eyes traced the room over and over, looking for any clue. Then she saw something. Examining it further she noticed that it was a briefcase. In fact, she recognized it to be the same one owned by Walter Lauer, which he had with him earlier! Melissa was positive this was his, because no other scientist possessed this particular briefcase. She then figured there must initials on it. She never really took notice of them before. No one did, so she turned it over.
"The initials would definitely prove this was Dr. Lauer's," Melissa thought.
However, the initials she saw were not at all W.L.
"What? I don't understand. This is most definitely his. He always carries it. Come to think of it he would never let anyone touch it, and never showed the initial side. Who is this man really?" Melissa puzzled.
The initials on the briefcase were P.P.
Thousands of miles away from Hogwarts, Privet Drive, and England, sits a Wizard Laboratory in Arizona. After years and years of research, the completion of a special formula is now within sight.
The day started out like any other, as the wizard who owned the top secret laboratory, Michael Wells, woke up and got ready for work. Commuting was no problem, he just simply convinced his wife and daughter to move into the building. Previously living in New York, the doctor wasn't used to the hot climate, so he chose to have his family reside on the fourth floor, where the air conditioning blew strongest through the ventilators. He picked the largest office for his family to live in, which the equivalent of the size of a normal apartment . At 5:00 A.M, Dr. Wells left his 'apartment' at the end of the hall, and headed into the elevator to the basement, where he was opening up the lab for another day's work. Exiting the elevator, he soon reached the two metal doors leading to the lab, which the doctor unlocked with reciting the master password that only he knew.
"Mors Avitus!" Immediately, the doors opened with a loud pressurized hissing noise, and the doctor walked in. He greeted all of his eight foot tall vultures behind thick Plexiglas, which was the length of the back wall. On the end of the left side of the glass, were three concrete stairs and a door, which led to a small room where food could be distributed to these giants.
Dr. Wells said to them, "Very soon my formula will be complete, and you will no longer be a danger to Wizards and Muggles. I have slaved over years of research and experiments to find a successful formula, so that you will stop terrorizing and eating the people of Arizona so that our magical world will not be discovered. Do you know how huge of a threat you all are? Muggles aren't used to seeing eight foot birds fly into their cities. Soon, I will stop you."
And with that, Dr. Wells turned away, and made ready the lab for his scientist employees, when they came to work in an hour.
By 6:10 that morning, the lab was buzzing as usual, with all the scientists busily working at their stations on their individual experiments.
They lived in the building too, just only on the third floor. To get in the lab every morning, they would recite the password "Reperire Veritas" However, this password only worked after the master password had been said by Dr. Wells, for security reasons. At his station, Dr. Wells worked intensely over his bubbling beaker that held a strange yellow substance. He measured and mixed all sorts of different colored powders into the beaker, causing the contents to foam at the top worse than before.
"Almost there.just one more pinch of." "BOOM!" A huge explosion sounded throughout the building as smoke emitted itself from the glowing beaker. In response, all of the scientists scrambled towards the doctor and his experiment.
"Ladies and gentlemen, today might be the very day that I am in the shadow of victory. In just a few moments, I will know. You now see before you, a bright yellow substance which is currently glowing, but is progressively dying off. When the glow recedes, hopefully the substance will turn neon green, and once again reclaim the glow. When, and if this does happen, I have reached my objective. Again, I am very sorry that I wasn't able to include you all in my research. The Ministry specifically put me in charge of this confidential mission, and I thank you all for being so understanding. I know that this is the first time that I had to exclude you from my work." he apologized.
"No need to apologize sir. You know that we are all behind you, every step of the way, and wish for your utmost success on this assignment," a scientist said supportively. All the others agreed and clapped.
"Thank you all so much. It means a lot to me, and now, let's see if hopefully, my efforts are successful."
Everyone watched in silence and waited for the liquid to change colors. Clearly, the moment was tense, as the scientists leaned in and stared nervously at the beaker. Some of them, in a sweat, started biting their nails.
It was hardly noticeable at first, but starting from the bottom of the beaker, the substance slowly turned an unmistakable shade of luminous green. In response, cheers immediately erupted from everyone in the room. They all shook Dr. Well's hand and congratulated him.
"Thank you everyone, I appreciate your support! It is a glorious day indeed. No more will we need to fear the exposure of our world to the eyes of unknowing Muggles. It was nine years ago, that I was first handed the assignment of creating a formula that will control the minds of these eight foot Arizonian Poison Beak Vultures, to stop them from migrating from the desert to Muggle cities and eating the people. Today, my hard work has paid off, and soon we will return the vultures back to the desert after applying the formula to them. This calls for a celebration, my comrades! Everyone may take the day off, but please do come back around 5:00 this evening and we will have a feast. So go now, and have a wonderful day off!" he stated joyously, as the scientists cheered and proceeded to exit the lab.
Meanwhile, back in the doctor's apartment, the blast from earlier that shook the building awoke his daughter with a start, causing her to shoot up from the bed and enter her mother's room. "Mom, are you awake? Did you hear that noise before?" she asked startled. "You heard it too? I thought I was just dreaming. It sounded like some sort small explosion. Melissa, do you think it's your fathers doing?" her mom replied, while sitting up in her bed. "Humph.probably, who else would make such a racket? I guess I'll go downstairs and find out." Melissa sighed, as she headed to leave. Her mom called after her, "Don't you think you might want to change first? You're still in your pajamas, and considering there are all those scientists down there." "Oh, yeah. sorry mom, I'm still a bit groggy. It's only 6:15 after all," she chuckled.
Melissa went back into her room and quickly threw on jean shorts, a shirt, combed her hair, and exited the apartment in a hurry, to satisfy her curiosity and anger of what it was that woke her so early.
As she walked down the hallway, she paused at another apartment, where a man resided that her father took in off the streets two years ago. She wondered if he had heard the loud bang, and thought about knocking on his door to ask. However, Melissa changed her mind. She was a bit wary of the man, and had a good reason. She hardly ever saw him, because he would always stay in his apartment and never come out. When he did, he never talked to her. In fact, in the two years that he was with them, Melissa had never even received a hello, and thought this quite odd. She asked her father about the man's strange behavior, and Melissa's father told her that he recently recovering from extremely tough times in his life, so he preferred the solitude.
Curiosity getting the better of her, Melissa decided to peer in through the peep hole in the middle of the door to see if she could see him. However, before she got the chance, the door swung open, and Melissa found herself staring face to face with the man whose name she couldn't remember.
"May I help you?" he asked rather coldly.
"Uh.yeah, actually, I was just wondering if you heard that loud noise before," Melissa replied nervously.
"No, I didn't. I had my Wizvision (the wizard form of television) up very loud because I couldn't hear my show over the sizzling of the frying pan, while it cooked my breakfast. Why, was it anything to be alarmed about?"
"Oh no, not at all, it was just a bit startling, that's all."
"Okay then, now if you'll excuse me, I think my breakfast is ready. Good day."
"Good bye," Melissa replied as he closed the door.
A bit offended by his undemonstrative demeanor, she walked to the elevator, and stepped in, pressing the button to get down to the lab. She stared at the little doohickey in the elevator and watched the floors go lower. She didn't quite know the name of the thing now that she thought of it. What did that matter? She needed something to take her mind off of being in an elevator. She didn't really like tight spaces.
"It beats taking the stairs. At least I don't have to be surrounded by windows that show me how high up I am from outside," she said to herself. She didn't like heights either. She didn't know why. She also found it quite strange that when she was high in the air in the family's flying car, she didn't feel queasy or anything.
"Ding", the elevator had reached the lab floor. "Thank God," she thought, as the doors opened and she stepped out.
Melissa squinted immediately. The shiny white walls and floors mixed with the lights on the ceiling were a bit bright for someone who just woke up. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it resembled a hospital wing of some sort. Melissa kept walking and made two lefts, then a right, half tripping over a janitors broom, and finally came upon the main door to the lab, where she figured her father would be. She recited the third password to get into the laboratory, which was strictly just used by the family.
"Formosus solaris."
Melissa walked inside, and to her surprise there was no one in the lab, not even her father. She looked around, and called out to her dad, but received no answer. Shrugging, her attention was directed elsewhere by a loud bubbling sound that was coming from one of the tables. Melissa decided to go over and investigate, and saw a glowing green liquid in a beaker. Curious, she started to look at it.
"SCREECH!"
She jumped back, startled, and met the gaze of a rather vicious looking vulture from behind the glass.
"Ugh, I hate it when they do that, stupid birds. Hmm, is that vulture number 93751 again? Gosh, I hardly ever come down here, and when I do, that particular bird always seems angry and tries to break through the glass to get me. I guess for some reason it doesn't like me very much," she said to herself while meeting the vultures gaze defiantly.
"Melissa, What are you doing down here? I was just about to come and get you and your mother."
Taken off guard, she swung around, only to see that the voice belonged to her father.
"Oh, hello Dad, well I'm down here now, because of that small explosion from before, and now I see that there's no one here. Is it something to be worried about?"
"Ha! No, not at all! That's what I wanted to show you. Look here," he gestured, to the same glowing formula she was observing before.
Then, it finally clicked in Melissa's head, "Dad, is this the. "
"It's exactly that," he answered her.
"The formula for the vultures?"
"Of course."
Immediately a huge smile spread across Melissa's face, and she hugged him.
"Dad, this is wonderful! The Ministry is going to be so relieved that you've solved the problem! You might even become head Wizarding Scientist, now that Dr. Henderson is retiring," she exclaimed ecstatically.
"I hope so. I've been a candidate for the job for years now, and now that the doctor is retiring, he just might give me that position as head scientist. Still though, I'm not the only candidate. It's that money hungry, Dr. Jameison as well. I was a bit worried that he would get the job over me, because he's done some excellent work in the past, but now the recent event of me discovering a very important formula will more than likely nail me the job," he declared happily, as he proceeded to put the formula in a vault and lock it.
Well, let's go upstairs and tell your mother. There's going to be a feast later, and I want you both to be a part of it. I'm sure she'll be overjoyed at my newly found accomplishment.
"Okay, let's go," Melissa said as they walked to the door, "Formosus solaris."
"You know, you should have just let me say the master password so that I could lock the door."
"Oh yeah, sorry Dad."
"Mors Avitus," her dad recited, locking the lab.
Just then, out of no where, a very powerful thought was pushed into her head.
"Dad, what if someone steals the formula?"
"Steals it? Why my dear, what would make you think such a thing?"
"I'm sorry, dad, I honestly don't know where that came from. I guess I'm just really excited, and I don't want anything to be ruined for you."
"Chuckling, her father said, "I understand your concern, but trust me everything is secure. First off, you can't get into the lab when no one is there, without reciting the master password like I just did. Plus, the formula, as you saw, is stored in the vault, which there is a separate password to. Not a single soul knows that password except for you and me. You got lucky today, missy. If you weren't down here when I said the password you wouldn't have known it," he teased.
"CRASH!"
Melissa and her dad looked at each other nervously, and ran to see what caused the sound. They turned down one of the many corners on the laboratory floor and noticed a large plant in a china vase on a table had fallen over, along with the life size mirror next to it, causing it to shatter.
"How the heck did all of this fall?" he questioned.
"Dad, do you think someone was listening?"
"No, how could they? We were the only ones down here," Melissa's father said dismissing it.
Just then, a head poked out from the pile of soil.
"Oh good gracious, it's only Max. He must have gotten out of his cage again," she sighed, relieved.
"Melissa, what do I keep telling you? You must keep that Jarvey of yours in its cage. The scientists don't like him and they keep thinking Max is going to insult them, making all of them distracted from their work.
"Come on dad, you know we had Max trained by a professional wizard to be polite. He hardly ever insults anyone anymore," Melissa defended Max, while picking him up.
"Me nicest Jarvey ever!" Max squeaked.
"Nice yes, but that doesn't mean you won't wander from your cage. What happened Max?"
"Me sleep on floor."
"Well that doesn't explain how everything fell."
"Me don't know. Me turn over. Tail in great pain. Stuff fall."
"You know, our Puffskein and Muggle dog behave better than you. Ugh, let's just go upstairs," the doctor said frustrated, while scratching his head. Max never said anything that made sense.
When they returned to the apartment, Dr. Wells told his wife everything, and she was ecstatic, causing them to talk about it the rest of the afternoon.
Eventually, 5:00 came, and the whole family went down to the recreation room, just left of the laboratory, to have the celebration. All personnel attended the gathering. However, there was one person missing.
"Daddy, where's that guy that lives on the same floor as us? I don't see him here," Melissa observed.
"Oh, you mean Jack Benson?"
"Yes, that's his name. I remember now," Melissa said, "Well, where is he?"
"Jack isn't feeling very well, so he's not coming."
"Since when?" she asked surprised.
"Since this morning. He called the apartment saying he's fallen ill."
"Oh, well, okay then." she replied, a bit unsure, "It doesn't fit. He seemed absolutely fine when I saw him." Melissa thought.
Just then, Dr. Wells stood up and proceeded to speak.
"My dear ladies and gentlemen of science, today indeed is a glorious day, and one that calls for immediate celebration. I would like to propose a toast to this company and the wonderful employees, and that we will continue to have more successful days like this in the future. Again, even though I couldn't include you in this research, I am extremely flattered and happy that I have such loyal people working for me, who I can share this special day with. To the company!"
Everyone's glasses touched with a clink.
Just then, a rather short scientist with a squeaky voice stood up. It took a while for Melissa to remember who he was because he was just recently hired.
"I would like to say something," said the man, "If I may of course."
"Of course you may, Walter. Be my guest," Dr. Wells said cheerfully.
"Oh yes, Dr. Walter Lauer. I remember now," Melissa thought.
"Thank you, Michael," said Dr. Lauer, "I never thought the day would come when I would get to be a part of a splendid event such as this. I am very excited on the completion of the formula and I know it will serve an excellent purpose. Thanks to you Dr. Wells, great things can and will be done."
Walter held his glass up to Michael and smiled, and then sat back down.
"Thank you Walter! I appreciate your kindness."
"You're very welcome. Oh, and don't forget to hand your report in. It's very important." Dr. Lauer added.
"Oh yes, that's right. I forgot all about it."
Melissa, who was always keen on sensing things, seemed to be the only one in the room who found Walter's toast a bit strange. The tone of his voice sounded a little too sure of himself. Especially the way he thanked her father. It almost seemed as if he was thanking him for making the formula for him, and why was he so interested in that report?
"Melissa? Would you be so kind as to write the report to the Ministry about this event now? Debbie, my secretary is on maternity leave, which I also forgot about. Meliss? Melissa, are you listening to me?"
"Huh? Oh sorry, dad. Yes, I'll file the report right now," his daughter answered, interrupted from her thoughts.
"Use the Muggle computer dear," he stated.
"The Muggle computer, why?" she asked curiously.
"Well, I would like you to be able to do some things for yourself, and not just solely rely on Magic. Plus, it's good to know about Muggle objects.
Sighing, his daughter replied, "Yes dad, I'll start it straight away."
Her father gave her the information she needed to type, and Melissa summoned the computer to the back room. As she did this, she found that Dr. Lauer was watching her. Quite uncomfortable, she went into the back room and started to type the report.
Monthly Research Report
Science Department
Ministry of Magic
Dr. Michael Wells
Date: 8/15/04 Time: 5:30 P.M. Research Topic: Solution to Arizonian Poison Beak Vulture (APBV) attackings and or killings of Muggles and Magic Folk. Research: APBV transfigure themselves into anything, which results in the victim being defenseless and unknowing against them. To conceal themselves in the air, the weather drastically changes. The Poison Beak Vultures breathe out a highly dangerous toxin that renders the victim first dizzy, then unconscious for up to five hours if the APBV has enough time to administer it correctly. The purpose of this is how the Vultures capture their prey to eat. They sweat immensely after exerting the toxin because they wind up inhaling some of it. The toxin travels through the blood stream and is released through the skin. The normal APBV has poor eye sight, but can track its prey by scent or vibrations of movement. A single APBV will only attack its prey when it is alone, unless of course there are more APBVs in the area, then they will attack more people. They also possess immense strength and destructive tendencies. Lastly, when a wizard is in a Muggle area and there are vultures around, they will create an imbalance of Muggle and Wizard forces, sending Muggle objects and apparatuses haywire. It also sharpens a Wizard's intuition. The reason is still unknown, and mind spells to control behavior only work temporarily. Experiments: Attempt to make mind controlling formula to stop the APBV attackings. Solution (if any): Formula D2k75. Once administered, subject's thoughts, feelings, and actions are under total control.
"There," thought Melissa, "Done."
"Very thorough work, my dear," said a voice.
Startled, Melissa immediately swung around in her chair, and saw it was Dr. Lauer, standing behind her. She also noticed he was carrying his brown leather briefcase with a black handle. Whenever Melissa saw him, he always had it, and would never put it down.
"What are you doing in here?" she asked defensively.
"Sorry, dear girl. I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to see how your fathers report was coming," Dr. Lauer apologized.
"Oh. Well, it's coming out just fine, thank you," Melissa replied sharply. "Glad to hear it," he smirked.
"By the way, how long have you been behind me?"
"Long enough to say that you are an excellent and thorough writer." Feeling a bit uncomfortable, she replied, "Well, thanks."
"Anytime," Dr. Lauer smiled, while exiting the room.
Feeling wary, Melissa printed out the report, and when she finished, she gave it to her father.
"Excellent report! Thank you, dear," commented her father, "I'll have this forwarded to the Ministry tonight. In fact, right now. Titan! Come here!"
Titan, her father's muscular gray owl, flew in and stood bold and tall, ready for his master's document.
"Take this to Jonathan Chambers, Minister of Magic for the United States."
As quick as he flew in, the proud owl flew out carrying the report.
"Now that that's been taken care of, continue celebrating my friends. Eat, drink, and be merry."
* * *
Time passed, and 11:00 drew near, ending the party. Everyone returned to their apartments to retire for the night. Entering her bed, Melissa bid goodnight to Max, her Jarvey, Lula, her Puffskein, Winter, her owl, and finally her Muggle dog, Rolf. Then she fell asleep.
All night she had horrible dreams, dreams, which consisted of that man, Dr. Lauer. He frightened her more than Jack Benson did. She dreamt that Dr. Lauer was a murderer and had killed twelve people, and then in her dream he looked straight at her, and killed her mother and father. She also had dreams of the vultures sweeping over some large castle like building screeching in madness and taking away innocent people. She started talking in her sleep. "No! Stop it. You killed them, no!" she screamed.
Her parents, obviously hearing Melissa's shouts, had run in the room to see what was wrong.
"Liss, wake up what's the matter?" her dad asked while shaking her.
Immediately, she woke up and was in a cold sweat. Seeing that she was only dreaming, and that her father and mother weren't dead, she hugged them tightly.
"It's just a dream. You'll be okay," her mom said comfortingly.
Melissa took a deep breath and tried to relax. When she was calm, her father wanted to get her mind off her dream, so he said to her, "Can you do me a favor dear?"
"Yes?"
"Can you go downstairs and unlock the lab and get it all ready for me? It's 5:00 in the morning, and it's about the time I'd be getting up."
"Sure dad, no problem."
Melissa got dressed and went downstairs.
When she got off the elevator she made her usual two lefts then a right to get to the lab.
"Mors Avitus!" she said aloud.
The doors opened and she when inside and with turning on the lights, she expected everything to be normal. Then she noticed something was wrong, a big something. The vultures were not behind the glass! They were gone, leaving only their feathers strewn about the room, and tons of broken glass from where they were held. Thinking back to her fathers report, Melissa remembered that the vultures could transfigure themselves into anything, so they could all be hiding in the room, and possibly stalk her as prey. Wasting no time, she ran back upstairs to notify her father of what happened.
In the elevator, she frantically pressed the button to bring her back upstairs.
"Come on, hurry up you stupid thing!" The ride up seemed to take forever as she paced back and forth in the tiny space.
"Ding," the elevator had reached the fourth floor.
"Dad! Dad! Dad!" she screamed in horror, not even reaching the apartment yet.
Her dad heard the noise in the hallway and opened the door immediately.
"What's wrong Melissa? Good gracious, what's the matter?"
"Oh Daddy, it's horrible! The vultures! They're gone!"
"Gone!? What on Earth do you mean gone!"
"Stolen, daddy! Somebody stole them!"
Hearing the commotion Jack stepped out of his apartment. "Did you just say someone stole the vultures?" he asked, shocked.
"Yes, they're gone without a trace! Except for the glass, the glass, it's everywhere!"
Dr. Wells and Jack looked at each other half frightened. "Well let's get down there. We're wasting time just standing here." Jack said. Then with a flash, the three of them raced downstairs. The elevator ride was ridden in silence and the atmosphere was filled with worry and horror. When the elevator let them off, they raced into the laboratory. Jack and her father saw all of what she said was true. Checking to make sure the vultures didn't transfigure themselves into anything, the doctor panned around the laboratory with some device resembling a Geiger counter. Receiving no readings, he concluded they were truly gone, and could think of nothing else to say but, "Jack, call the police. Now! Melissa, don't touch anything. We'll be right back!"
Jack and her father ran up the stairs. Scared out of her wits, Melissa's eyes traced the room over and over, looking for any clue. Then she saw something. Examining it further she noticed that it was a briefcase. In fact, she recognized it to be the same one owned by Walter Lauer, which he had with him earlier! Melissa was positive this was his, because no other scientist possessed this particular briefcase. She then figured there must initials on it. She never really took notice of them before. No one did, so she turned it over.
"The initials would definitely prove this was Dr. Lauer's," Melissa thought.
However, the initials she saw were not at all W.L.
"What? I don't understand. This is most definitely his. He always carries it. Come to think of it he would never let anyone touch it, and never showed the initial side. Who is this man really?" Melissa puzzled.
The initials on the briefcase were P.P.