Harry Potter and the Legacy of Bubblegum
The classroom of "Construction and Mechanics" had been called many names in the past.
Characterful
Unique
Repulsive
Class 7-B were more partial to the third. A suitably disgusting batch of moss covered the antique staircase that rose up to meet the higher platform and equally disrepaired door. A variety of tattered books on physics, chemistry, biology and arcana peppered the endless shelves that encircled the cramped classroom. Neville Longbottom, a young boy who bore a striking affinity for a root vegetable turned to his semi-friend and unwilling protector Harry Potter, "The Boy Who Lived."
"Where d'ya think 'e is 'Arry?" Neville asked in his own unique way.
"How should I know? What possible way would I sense where the professor is?" Said Harry tapping his quill with annoyance. Neville seemed in his normal state anyway, distressed and with no knowledge of what was currently occurring.
"Yeah… But he was different weren't he?"
"He ate an entire chicken, eight bowls of soup, three 'Meat Feast' pizzas, numerous goblets of wine, katsu, four pork pies and a Happy Meal. Yes, I'd conclude he was different." Snapped the boy who had killed Lord Voldemort singlehandedly
"Really, did you count?" Neville muttered in a futile attempt to rise to the verbal challenge.
"Yes Neville. I did. All eighteen items." Harry retorted in exasperation.
This was when Susan Bones was almost almost decapitated by a flying door. The class flew for cover as rotting wood shrapnel ricocheted around the classroom littering the dusty tomes with a green and grey fluff. Then the steps. Large steps echoed through the hall and into 7-B's classroom. Grim strides of certain purpose. A man who truly meant business.
"Shit." Their teacher sighed while poking his head round the door-frame, "Shit, shit, shit, shit."
"Sir!" Hermione Granger squeaked in the most infuriating tone known to man. "You can't swear within a Hogwarts classroom!" Their teacher rubbed his eyes and shifted into full view at the top of the higher platform. A youngish man of thirty. He wore an academics robe, black with a gold trim and wiry glasses with unequally thick lenses. His brown hair mushrooming under a shoddy wizard's hat. The class did not respond to their new teacher.
"Well. I'm not good with new people, talking, or talking to new people." He began, disregarding the looks of confusion from the assembled students. "However what you could say is that I'm good at magic. Possibly the best. Now bef-... What is it Ron?"
"You better then Dumbledore?"
"Are we talking straight duel, unregulated duel, or war?" The professor responded to the scowling ginger who had so rudely interrupted him.
"Unregulated, street style." Ron spluttered sending chunks of Chocolate Globbernaught down the back of Padma Patil's robe.
"Depends if I could be bothered or not. Now, as I was saying."
"Before we start, I want you to set aside your thoughts on the stories. I want you to forget Wingardium Leviosa, Stupefy, Lumos. Those are brands. Spells marketed to you by companies. What I teach you know will be both the foundation of your work at school and the rock of your entire adult life. I will teach you how to create barriers and I'll teach you how to break them. I won't tell you how to cast Lumos, I'll tell you how to build Lumo- What is it Malfoy?"
The spindly form of Draco Malfoy stood to attention at his desk.
"My father will hear of this!" He proclaimed at the top of his lungs.
"What possible reason would make me care about your father?" Asked the exasperated educator.
"My father is Lucius Malfoy!" He yelled again. "And you are an incompetent boob! A fool! A jester! I will not be taught by the likes of you! I am heir to the noble house of Malfoy!" An awkward silence spread across the classroom for the second time.
"Sit down before you make yourself look like even more of an idiot." His teacher sighed.
"Where was I? Ah, I'll tell you how to build Lumos using only your wand and your mind. Magic of this kind cooks your toast, controls your broomsticks and weaves the wards of Hogwarts. Now I fear I'm wittering so I'll bring this to a short close. Some of you have a low capacity for Mana, that's a given. Completely natural. So did I, look at me now. You already have the wand, you already have the mind. Use it. So now that's done. Who's for a bit of Q&A?"
Quiet, yet again. The class sat and stared at him in another awkward silence. This continued for a good fifteen seconds until the less than intelligent Ron Weasley stuck up his scrawny freckled arm for a second time.
"Why don't you like Stupefy?" He squeaked across the room. His teacher tugged at the side of his hat and brushed some dust of his robe.
"That's easy. You see, Stupefy is medieval, genuinely. It's the result of a far inferior subset of magic to what we use now. Take for example the 'Stance' system that was used in India at about the same time as the emergence of Stupefy. Stances produce a spiritual fighter guided by the user, if the spiritual fighter takes damage then so does the wizard. Why would the universe do this? What's the point? The universe doesn't work on arbitrary rules like that. The reason that it existed is because it's a subset of the system we use now, or a system even higher. Somewhere, some wizard casted a spell that caused random individuals in India to produce these 'Stances'. Stupefy was the same, someone found out if you make a stick with some special wood and the biological material of a magical beast it fulfills the conditions for you to be able to vibrate the air in a certain way and produce paranormal effects. We use this outdated system today for dueling, it's flashy, it's fun. I can accept that. But there's a reason I've only met around three Stance users in my life. It's because we discovered this new, far more versatile system that can do everything that one could and more. People still practice these of course, since there's always benefits when conditionals are involved."
Hermione Granger shot up her hand now, Her sleeve slipping down to the elbow due to bad fitting.
"What's a conditional sir, I mean I heard about them in a book and didn't have time to check them in the li-"
"Fascinating Granger." He darted in before he could finish her cut and paste dialogue.
"What we use now is quite close, but not necessarily, true magic. At the moment we suspect it operates the same, however the key difference is that we have conditionals. Conditionals are one of the most prominent things that don't make sense within our current system. If you add a conditional onto your spell, something that limits it, it'll somehow become more powerful. Of course now only the ministry can grant you the usage of one, but i'm sure you've heard of brave heroes in the renaissance sacrificing their life in a conditional to power up a final attack. There are more practical applications however, for example: You want to paralyze your enemy but you simply don't have the magical energy to cast it in a bolt. That's why you put in the conditional "if an enemy steps on my shadow it activates a paralyzing effect." It'd be far, far more complex than that, but that's what a conditional is anyway. This is why using an obviously inferior system of magic like a Stance can pose a realistic threat. You won't study that though, unless you plan on going to India and learning it yourself. Got to stick to the curriculum or upstairs'll turn me to sushi."
Susan Bones coughed and lifted her arm as she trembled with fear.
"W-w-why did you destroy the door like that?" She whispered. The color drained from the professors face.
"Well… I sort of, thought it'd be dramatic y'know?" He admitted rubbing the back of his head. "All awesome when the door explodes, I stride out looking cool while you're sitting there in awe. But I seemed to have got my spells mixed up. Sorry Susan, won't happen again. Probably."
"When are we going to do real magic. When are we going to learn how to make things explode like you did before?" Harry Potter, greatest of wizards heckled. The older man looked him in the face, tilted his head mockingly and pushed up his glasses.
"Oh sorry, we can't all practice the arcane majesty you can, some people have to learn how to cast magic. You'll be learning about that when I'm ready, in other words after you know about sigils, magical intelligences, circuits, marble locks, physics and all that jazz." The class traded bemused looks. The professor sighed.
"Sigils are markings created by magic flowing through wand onto a surface, like paper. Usually they take the guise of a two dimensional drawing with a dot in the middle and circles going outwards like a tree trunk. Each circle represents the order the function it represents is carried out. This is measured from the inside out. Magical intelligences are stored inside your wands. They're a quality of life thing since you had to define everything in your sigils pre-18th century. They interact with a magical subconscious that remembers things like the effects of the sigils you create for eternity. You don't have to constantly make 'em, only once. The quality-of-life effects also extend to estimates. If you say 'I want my shield to not block anything unless it's above the speed of a bullet.' And you've read how fast a bullet is it'll apply that, then if not it'll guess. Get too vague and it won't activate thought."
"What was next? Ah, circuits are how magic travels within the 'magic universe' and how it moves into our universe. You see, magic can only exist in our universe in a form that already exists. Energy. Kinetic, magnetic, electrical, there's no such thing as 'magic energy.' A stupefy isn't made of magic, it's created out of light, and a slight amount of heat energy that activates a biological effect upon impact that influences the target's brain. Within the universe of magic, circuits connect to a reservoir that is then connected to a replenishing pool of mana that varies by individual. I heard an interesting theory about why humans can produce so much mana and plants or animals can't, but that's not for now. These naturally occurring circuits are how you can use your mana and a meeting point between that universe between the energy of this universe and that universe. Oh, and a circuit can't exist without looping into another universe. You don't need to worry about them since I don't teach that kind of thing. Marble locks are sometimes called spell locks and are how you stop another wizard from getting into an artificial circuit you create like a sigil or the ones you use to bridge the gap between the magical universe and the physical. You as a wizard can create your own, artificial circuits. By creating a sphere with two holes in it attached to the lines of your sigil you can circumvent it, you stick one hole facing into an artificial circuit and one outwards, by making the marble activate to a certain frequency it'll let your mana flow into the circuit you created. By increasing the amount of marbles you decrease the chance of someone else finding the right frequency. This stretches into billions for an adult wizard as the size of them is minuscule, like atoms compared to Everest. Finally, to influence the real world you need knowledge of the real world. The library posses a mountain of scientific books, both muggle and wizard. Use them."
"Dear lord I've hit a tangent again, bear with me a nano second." In the blink of an eye an almighty gust of wind erupted sending the robes of students flapping for the back door. A small stack of papers had been placed on the desks of each young wizard. "Tests. Show me what you know, non-graded so go crazy."
"Sir, I have one question." Asked a familiar blonde idiot. The beady green eyes of Draco Malfoy addressed the underpaid tutor. "What even is your name?"
"Well, it's more of a title. It always seems to crop up everywhere and I guess it's the closest I have."
"Spit it out!" The eleven year old said with indignation.
"Bubblegum Hermit."
Silence.
Nothing.
Pure silence.
Five minutes. Five minutes was how long it took to get those little shits to stop laughing.
Minerva McGonagall sat in the esteemed offices of Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Mugwump of something-or-other and esteemed holder of titles. The circular office was plastered with the faces of numerous old men and women, all of whom deceased, all of them previous Heads of Hogwarts. With every table littered with spindly silver instruments of dubious purpose. All in all the same as every other corridor of Hogwarts.
The fireplace burst into green flames as the thin robed form of Albus Dumbledore strode into the room. He nodded to the deputy head and drew up a chair to the ornate table, fumbling with the beard tucked into his belt as he greeted Minerva.
"School year going well?"
"Delightfully, I've already had a student brawl with another on whether physics is magic. You?"
"Oh… Eventful." He said distantly. "Well, we're not here for idle chit chat. I trust you already know?"
"Harry Potter." She remarked with pursed lips. "What has he done? Oh I knew it was a mistake bringing him here Albus, he should've gone to that new Swedish academy."
"Oh no, apart from his allergy to Neville Longbottom he's doing swimmingly. I'm talking about the new CaM teacher, Hermit. I want to know, what's your opinion on him? Mine is, biased. To say the least."
"Well. The portraits have complained endlessly about his choice in music since half the castle can hear it, he's eccentric to say the least and his mouth is positively foul. But while air headed, I think he knows what he's doing. Why do you ask Albus? You're usually more trusting of your staff. Did you hire him on a whim?" This dynamic had been honed over years of afternoon meetings. At eight PM to nine PM the deputy head and Headmaster would meet and discuss the days events. Usually negative ones.
"Oh no, I've heard about him for years. What you have to understand about Hermit is that in his case, first impressions are completely useless. Then scrap second, third and fourth impressions because you're never going to get to the end of that rabbit hole. I'm happy that for now he's chosen to be non-confrontational. For that reason I must stay far, far away from him. We've had our differences in the past that stretch to today."
"Albus, I can only guess to what you're alluding to, but whoever he is I'm certain you wouldn't hire him unless he was completely safe." McGonagall spoke with cold preciseness.
"He's more of a 'whatever' really." Dumbledore said nonchalantly.
"Pardon?" She questioned.
"I… Nothing, it was nothing. Please continue." He deflected. McGonagall shifted her papers and gave him a worried glance as she moved to the top of the agenda and Dumbledore fiddled with an ink stained quill. The clock ticking between the two masters of Hogwarts in the amber light of the fireplace.
The personal room of Professor Bubblegum flickered in the amber light of a dozen outdated lamps. Two figures, student and teacher sat at a desk piled high with crime books and moulding mugs of days-old tea. One in a frayed wizard's cap that even the Sorting Hat would scoff at and the other a ginger boy with equally battered attire.
"Marvin Creek versus Grindelwald, unregulated, full power, they both want to kill each other, but they'll still do stuff like torture the other before they kill 'em." Ron called across the classroom, his hand in a pack of 'Barnaby's Banana Bumblebees'.
"Is Grindelwald allowed outside assistance? He was the leader of the Third Reich." The professor said as he observed the spine of a textbook. Ron nodded and plunged his hand into the sweets of unclear origin.
"Oh? Grindelwald then. Easy." Hermit stated. "I don't think it's been disclosed yet, but I read a document about his powers. Because he knew his weaknesses he could account for 'em. His entire library of spells revolved around it. He only ever used two spells, one of them was a magical intelligence that used his own magic to run millions of possible spell frequencies simultaneously, most people I know can only do a couple, but with the aid of this thing he could break his opponents magic in seconds. Then he had his own magic branch of the SS, killers, pariah assassins. If he ever had to fight against another wizard he'd reach into a pouch of marbles and throw two on the floor. Two mages, one a master in defense and one in offense would help him while he tried to break through the enemy's spell lock protection. When that was finished he'd throw the rest on the floor calling in an entire team of his SS, taking the enemy hostage. Marvin Creek may have never been beaten with his defensive spells, but that's for nil against old Grindy, he's either got to sacrifice that protection to put more work into his spell lock and get pelted against by twin mages." Ron, although deeply engrossed in his food nodded his head in agreement.
"Yeah, but how did Dumbles beat 'im then?" Weasley asked.
"Dumbledore's speciality is teleportation without a portkey, apparition, there's not many who can do it. Grindelwald's spell hacking was most effective against shields, because those are constantly being cast meaning a longer time to test combinations. For near-instant spells, like a bolt or Dumbledore's teleportation, he couldn't cast the spell before the effect had activated and the opportunity passed. What he used was a field that automatically detected when a spell was about to be cast, then tried to unlock it each time. Dumbledore had another wizard construct another magical intelligence that changed the frequency of his spell lock every time, making the chance that Grindelwald would be able to hack into his spell lock minuscule. Dumbledore managed to slip a high explosive into Grindelwald's pouch and when he opened it, he blew his own hand off. The schematics for Grindey's spell unlocking were taken in by the ministry and he was hanged for his crimes." The teacher continued to move through the pile of books as he spoke, checking the quality of each for missing pages. Deciding whether if they were bound for the bookshelf or bin.
"Yeah, me brother Bill used to do that kind of thing for the ministry. Reclaiming dangerous spells, found a dragon summoning one once. Had to mess with the 'eads of an entire Tanzanian village after. Then his metabolism slowed down and had to get a desk job." Ron said with indifference while admiring two Chili-Shape-Changers stuck together at the head. Professor Bubblegum pushed up his glasses and looked at him with confusion.
"Pardon?"
"We Weasley's have a legendary metabolism. You can eat anything you want and you won't get chubby, come twenty one and suddenly if you eat a bloody apricot you're obese."
Throwing out a torn copy of From Russia With Love Hermit realized the time.
"Oh, we're almost done. What did I put you in detention for anyway?"
"I was eating in class sir." Ron said piling his food into his hand me down bag.
"Don't I usually let you eat as long as you give me some when I ask?"
"McGonagall came in, you panicked and threw a book at me while shouting 'Eating Detention'." After packing up his possession Ron moved for the dungeon door. Hermit tapped the table twice with his quill and called out into the darkness.
"Mr Potter, please enter."
Harry Potter folded his arms and sulked.
"This is bullshit." He proclaimed.
"No, this is a detention, good try though." Hermit smiled.
"I just wanted to learn real spells. How else am I going defeat Lord Voldemort?" Harry spoke with childish conviction. Hermit took a couple seconds to catch his breath after choking on his gum.
"What? Did you just say you want to defeat Lord Voldemort? Because I swear that's what I heard."
"Yeah, what, you think I won't be able to do it again?" Harry pouted.
"Kid, if you wanted to defeat him you'd need to be about sixty years older and you'd still need to sacrifice everything. No. No way." Hermit adjusted the position of his robes and looked to Harry in interest.
"I'll take whatever it takes to defeat Voldemort, train me, I don't know how you moved like that in the first lesson, but if you show me i'll finally be able to defeat him!" He cried. Hermit rubbed his face and lost his usual smirk. His usual wide-eyed ness died down as he slumped back in his chair.
"Harry. I'm sure you're going to do great things, you're the hero, it's an inevitability. I could list the reasons you wouldn't want to be like me till the death of the universe. I was born with a low magic capacity and the repercussions of the things I did to circumvent that are still with me today. You don't have to do what I did, your reserves of Mana are massive and your efficiency will improve with time. Do you get me?" At the end of his irritated speech Professor Bubblegum resettled in his seat and let out a deep sigh.
"Sir, I understand what you mean." Harry said matching his tone. "I'm not an idiot. But this stretches far, far further than me. It's not that I want to beat him, even though I do. It's that I need to. I know he's out there, somewhere. If I'm that foolish why won't you help? You could help me fight him, we'd do it together. This isn't a pride thing, if you don't think you're powerful enough then you can teach me all I need to know." He stared at the professor with large, green eyes behind his glasses. What Hermit saw was a boy with a short temper and immense potential. A boy who was a danger to himself.
"No. I won't teach you how to fight Voldemort, because I'm in no position to oppose him. I won-"
"What, every wizard should oppose him! He's evil!" Harry shouted, the noise echoing through Hogwart's halls.
"Things aren't as simple as that!" Hermit retorted. "Just because someone is called a 'Dark Lord' doesn't make them evil. What makes them evil is the treatment of innocents. If I join a fight and find out that i'm on the wrong side it'll be too late. The world doesn't operate on a sliding scale and Dumbledore has just as much blood on his hands as Voldemort. I refused him twice and I'll refuse him for a third." Hermit hurriedly gathered Harry's paper and thrust them into his hands.
"If you wish to continue this conversation then i'm afraid you'll have to leave. I don't care that you didn't do your biology homework. Detention is officially over." Harry accepted his papers and stared at him, a lock of hair shifting and revealing the scar of legend.
"Anyone who won't fight Voldemort might as well be with him. See you next lesson." Turning on his heels he paced out the door. The teacher exhaled and laid his head on the desk. Touching his hand to his wand he raised it into the air above him, turned on some music and fell asleep to the merry tune.
Professor
Professor
Professor Bubblegum
His eyes opened directly into the fungus of an upturned coffee mug, Hermit Bubblegum grunted to the disembodied voice.
"Who is it? What time is it?"
"Hermione Granger." Claimed the high-pitched visitor. "It's eight pm, you fell asleep, you might want to turn down your music as well, the portraits were complaining about you listening to Under the Sea on loop."
"Fuck 'em, if they don't like The Little Mermaid they can ask a Slytherin to erase their ears or 'summit." He drowsily mumbled.
"Please don't make me call out your name again, it makes me feel silly." Apparently-Hermione complained. Hermit pushed himself up, the sixty seventh page of Greenmantle stuck to his face.
"I've told you a hundred times, it's just a title that stuck a while back." The funnily-named professor grumbled.
"I can't imagine where it came from." The girl said in her usual upper-class accent.
"No. You couldn't." Hermit agreed.
"Sir, I don't want to question your judgement." Hermione said, beginning to pry. "But I feel that my reason for being here isn't fair, I was only asking questions." Her teacher drew himself up from his slouch and pushed his glasses back up his nose.
"Everyone was starting to think you were a nerd, so I gave you some time to ask me questions without looking bad." He claimed while rotating his left arm.
"Oh." She shrugged. "Thank you, but I really don't need that. I don't care about what people think about me."
"Nah, I think that's a lie. Anyway, look at this like an extra revision session. If you have any questions write them down in lesson and come here at eight at night. I have other students to teach in lesson and it preserves your social life."
"I don't think there's much to preserve." Granger smiled meekly.
"Anyway, draw up a chair." Hermit said, fully awake. "What did you want to ask?"
"Well…" Hermione hesitated pulling out her books. "My parents, they're muggles and what I thought when I saw all of… this was everything we could do in the muggle world. I read that interaction with a magical artifact gave you magic, so why can't my parents be wizards as well?
"That's a good one actually, thought of it myself when I was first introduced to all this." Professor Bubblegum replied with enthusiasm. "Us wizards, since you're a wizard now, aren't special. Muggles are. What you got is only half the story, you see, when you put the Sorting Hat on your head you weren't just choosing what house you were in, which is completely random by the way. What you were doing was allowing it to open the natural dormant circuits that exist between the physical and arcane universe. Muggles have these as well, the difference is that muggles are loaded with defenses, in all essences they are impregnable to magic that's non-physical. Try to take over a muggle's mind and you'll find nothing, fields can't detect them, the only way to deal with a muggle is to create something physical, like a bullet and fire it at them. We don't know why this is, but it's probably involved with the fact that the system me use now is still a subset of a larger system. Does that answer your question?"
"Perfect." Hermione said as she nodded furiously. Professor Bubblegum grinned at the appreciation of his work.
"Y'know, you're a heck of a lot easier to deal with than the others." He expressed nonchalantly.
"Well I read a heck of a lot more than the others." Hermione beamed.
"For all I know you could be a Death Eater in disguise, but you have to know that these days being a good person is in shorter supply than ever." Hermit said in an overly serious tone.
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." Hermione laughed. "Now, can we get back to work or will me talk about philosophy for the rest of this detention?" Hermit brushed dust of his cap to hide his embarrassment.
"Of course. Back to work." The two wizards worked into the wee hours of the night, through sunrise and right into the start of breakfast feast until Hermione had to go to lessons.
Hagrid's cabin is the common meeting point of delinquents, monsters and students seeking herbal refreshment. Today Hagrid's cabin houses one of its first professors. Hermit Bubblegum.
"So ye' sayin' he'd treat ye' like Voldemort if ya' 'dint help 'im fight?" Hagrid boomed as loud as an Amazonian Caller Toad.
"Pretty much." Chuckled his smoking partner Bubblegum.
"That's me 'Arry!" The half-giant bellowed. "Always pickin' a fight. Sorry 'e's harsh on ya'. E's a good lad."
"I don't doubt your judgement." His superior said while taking another puff from a comically over sized pipe that stretched to the floor.
"Hey Hagrid." He said after a couple minutes of silence, "I heard the black-market umbrella-wand you definitely don't have has the core of a Troll's you-know-what hair." Hagrid took another long breath from his slightly less comical pipe (in proportion to his size).
"Well if I did 'av a black market wand, you'd be wrong. It'd be a giants you-know-what hair." Hagrid's revelation sent Hermit into a coughing fit. Hagrid ran with it.
"Jus' tryin' ta' connect with me heritage I guess." His final comment sent the two into a fit of giggling for even longer.
"Hagrid." The professor said, holding up his hand for silence. "You have got to tell me where you found this Hungarian Herb."
"Well… Professor."
"Please call me Hermit."
"Aye, Hermit, trouble is, lookin' like I do you get an all manner of dodgy sorts tyrin' 'ta sell ya' stuff. No offense 'ta ya', but you're not goin' ta' get many sellers lookin' like that. Some shady bloke comes up ta' me and sells me some Hungarian Herb at a decent rate and I accept. Only problem is I have to drink from a flask in case they mistake me for a bear!" He shouted slapping his gut. This sent Hermit into another fit of hysterics and coughing.
"Hagrid you cannot say that. Besides, if I decided to go out looking like I really do i'd get the ministry grabbing me by the neck and throwing me into the Dangerous Magical Creatures department." He said speaking out of the corner of his mouth, the other clamped firmly on his pipe.
"Ah, ye' can't be that bad. You're one of ta' first teachers 'ere who doesn't 'ave a broomstick up their arse. Only time I ever get some fun is when 'ol Severus gets drunk."
"The one who looks like a licorice bootlace?" Bubblegum chuckled.
"Aye, aye, aye. Normally he looks like someone tried to stick a Fermented Fizzbomber in his you-know-what. Get him pissed and he'll try an' get into McGonagall." Hagrid focused hard for the next couple seconds and attempted to blow out a circle using the smoke. He failed and ended up having to pause to catch his breath.
"Hagrid!" Hermit said in a voice that was far too loud to be socially acceptable. "Let's break out the drinks! To the first week of Hogwarts life!" Hagrid put his pipe to one side and obliged, pulling out two tankards of mulled mead.
"Ta' the most fun teacher to come ta' Hogwarts in a hundred bloody years. Cheers!"
-End
HPLOB Will continue weekly