Chapter 1: The Affliction
"You cannot be serious," Severus stated flatly.
"Unfortunately, I am," Albus replied solemnly.
"You're certain there is no way to cancel the spell?" asked Minerva stiffly.
Albus sighed. "I am afraid it will end only as the spell wears off over time, but with a charm this powerful, there is no way we can know how long that will be."
"Will this affect the Muggles?" queried Arthur.
"As the spell attaches itself to magical signatures, I believe Muggles will suffer no direct symptoms, much as they are not sensitive to many other forms of magic. However, if there are wizards and witches residing among the Muggle populace…" He trailed off, leaving the imagined horrors unspoken.
"And… this will affect all of wizardry? Even those within Hogwarts?" questioned Minerva.
"I can think of no reason why any witch or wizard would be immune. Hogwarts possesses no wards to protect against such a spell… Indeed, I am sure the Founders never imagined a risk such as this. The spell will likely affect all witches and wizards within its range, which I estimate to include at least the whole of Great Britain."
"And, ah, I don't suppose there's any runnin' away from it, is there?" asked Mundungus.
"No," Albus answered seriously. "The spell has already been cast upon its targets. No amount of distance traveled will have any effect at this point. It is only a matter of time now before the symptoms set in."
The gathered members of the Order of the Phoenix sat mutely around the long table, lost in dire thoughts. The thick silence weighed heavily around them, seeming too sacred to be broken.
Then there was a chuckle—at first, so quiet, it might have been a sniff. Then there was more chuckling, growing audible enough that the heads around the table turned to its source. It was an almost hysterical giggling now, which escalated still to a barking laugh, then near-manic laughter.
"Really!" Minerva exclaimed. "This is hardly a laughing matter."
"I dunno," said Tonks. "I think it's kind of funny."
Mad-Eye Moody grunted. "You need to appreciate how dangerous a spell like this can be. Do you have any idea how many wizards have died from afflictions like these?"
"Sirius, really, settle down," urged Remus. "It isn't that funny."
Sirius only continued to laugh uncontrollably, pounding the table and occasionally wiping tears from his eyes. "Can you—can you imagine—" he began, but these were the only words he could articulate before succumbing to more maddening laughter.
Many faces around the table continued to feature the most serious of expressions. Albus Dumbledore sat calmly at the head, looking for all the world like the bearer of most tragic news, yet there was a certain twinkle in his eye that belied his act.
Kingsley Shacklebolt cleared his throat. "Are there any…measures… we can put in place to maintain order? The Ministry is not prepared to deal with… an issue of this variety…"
"And Hogwarts, too," added Minerva. "How are we to run a school with—with—"
Sirius' barking laughter cut her thought short.
"Forget the school!" exclaimed Mad-Eye. "How are we to fight the war?!"
For a second, the controlled solemnity returned to the Order; then, Remus spoke up. "Albus… Do you really mean every wizard will be afflicted?"
Albus' eyes twinkled more madly. Sirius again began laughing hysterically just as Severus was caught in what was surely an ill-timed coughing fit. Catching on, the other members exchanged various looks of horror, amusement, and pure glee, while Remus doubled over in silent laughter.
Meanwhile, at the Ministry of Magic, Cornelius Fudge had just suffered what was possibly the worst day of his career.
The Monday morning had started off normally enough—the Ministry's corridors had been a bit stuffy, but that was nothing Magical Maintenance couldn't take care of, and a couple dozen paper memos had gotten stuck in the lift so that it'd been jammed half the morning—but these were manageable trifles.
There was also, of course, the more serious issue of Dumbledore spouting nonsense of You-Know-Who's return, but he had every confidence that Dolores was handling the situation.
The only real peculiarity of the morning had been a moment during which Cornelius was laboriously studying notes for a press conference in his office on the highest floor when the enchanted windows displaying a view of sunny clear skies flickered for the briefest of moments. He'd paused only a few seconds to consider whether the Magical Maintenance crew had gone on strike again when he heard a drawn out and high pitch whistling noise followed by a slight tingling sensation that he knew to be a magical disturbance in the wards. This was most unusual indeed—even worrisome—and he'd set out straight away to determine the cause of the matter.
Other Ministry personnel curiously poked their heads out of their offices as he walked down several flights of stairs, and he made a point of walking purposely, though really he had no idea where he was headed, nor did he know from whom to demand answers. He simply trudged down the floors, noting by the curious gazes that the people he passed had no better idea of what had happened than he.
It wasn't until he approached the Atrium that he came across a very anxious-looking Alfred Kone. Here, it seemed, was the source of the problem. Cornelius felt a lead weight settle in his gut, for Alfred Kone was an Unspeakable, and nothing good ever came from the Department of Mysteries. Nothing good at all.
"Minister," Kone spoke first, wringing his hands and looking around nervously as if he were expecting the surrounding employees to sprout multiple extra appendages. This was not a comforting sign in the least. "We uh… We have a bit of a problem."
"I should say so!" Cornelius yelled. "You've caused a ripple in the wards! What in Merlin's name has gone wrong now?"
"Well, it's rather hard to explain," he stated, pushing up his horn-rimmed glasses in the scholarly fashion of someone who was about to give a lesson. "We've been experimenting on—well, of course I can't really say, but it involved the calibration of precise harmonics to harness the innate magical energy of chanting charms, and we'd only just perfected the resonance frequencies—"
"Oh, get on with it! What's gone wrong?"
Kone adjusted his high-collar, stalling. "Ah—it was a bit of a mishap, really. The integrated kinetics team was meant to be working in a room far opposite ours, and the Core was meant to be in the isolation chamber, but they'd both been moved, and—ah—it so happened that the projects rather interfered with each other, and the Core seems to have…amplified the effect."
Cornelius stared blankly at the man. His words may as well have been in Gobbledegook.
"But what has it done?" he asked again.
"Well, that's the thing," Kone explained, smiling meekly. "We have no idea."
No idea was about right. Cornelius wasn't able to get a straight answer out of anyone from the department, even with four of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's top Aurors by his side to stand by intimidatingly with their square faces scowling and their arms crossed. All he learned was that it could mean something very very bad, but no one would tell him what that something was.
He was at his wit's end, and it only got worse when the press got wind of the situation. Rita Skeeter was on him in a flash, and the nosiness of the Ministry employees would not be satisfied by empty platitudes and explanations of a "small, isolated incident."
Finally, he was forced to swallow his pride—a huge undertaking that was not at all to be taken lightly—and he did the one thing he'd been actively avoiding since the beginning of the last summer.
He asked Albus Dumbledore for help.
The man had responded solicitously enough: 'Of course, Cornelius, anything I can do to be of assistance'; but of course the Minister for Magic knew Albus Dumbledore better than that, and sure enough, when the illustrious wizard strode gracefully out of the Floo into the Ministry's Atrium, it was with a knowing twinkle and a smile that was meant to be conveyed as friendly, but was almost imperceptibly smug.
"What seems to be the problem, Cornelius?" he asked lightly.
And so he'd told him about the magical disturbance and the trouble with the Department of Mysteries, and led him to Kone and the other Unspeakables, with whom Dumbledore spoke with for an inordinate amount of time, again in language Cornelius did not understand, so that he stood by uselessly while the man he'd been fighting for months took charge of the situation as if he had been the real Minister for Magic all along.
"I see," Dumbledore said, nodding sagely after he'd been given a lengthy explanation on the synthesis of remote fluctuations or some such nonsense. "That could have a most interesting effect. Have you calculated the value of the spell's potential emanation?"
At this question, Kone's face flushed, and he again tugged desperately at his collar. "Yes—yes, it's ah, it's 1516 quirkons per stick."
Dumbledore's half-moon spectacles slid down his nose. "Oh dear."
Cornelius' patience was at its end. "Really! Now just what does that mean Dumbledore?"
"It means the spell will take effect over a very large area," he explained gravely.
"Spell?" Cornelius sputtered. "What—what sort of spell?" he asked, though he didn't really want to know.
"A newly created spell, Cornelius—one that has no doubt mutated from the combined effect of a Cantis and Tarantellegra."
Cornelius stared blankly back. "But—but what harm could come from charms as useless as that?"
Dumbledore had the sly look of someone who had just deduced the inevitability of a catastrophe, and who was enjoying the thought far too much. "It may not mean any real harm at all, Cornelius—only that we may all be walking with, shall we say, a bit more spring in our step." His pale blue eyes were twinkling, and he wasn't even trying to hide his amused grin.
"Dumbledore—you can't mean—" Cornelius faltered, his mind filling with all manner of horrors. "Not—not dancing!"
"And singing, Cornelius," Dumbledore added. "You mustn't forget the singing."
"Singing!" he sputtered again. "Dumbledore, this—this is madness!"
"Actually, Cornelius," Dumbledore asserted calmly, "I believe I would call it a musical."
A/N: Mwahaha. Alright, not sure what possessed me to do this (actually, I do-it's called music), but here it is in all its ridiculousness: A Most Magical Musical. It's a fun, light-hearted idea, so I am not taking it overly seriously, I'm just going to have fun with this. I wrote the first part with the Order a while ago and just finished the part with Fudge, so if there are errors, typos, blemishes, etc., forgive me, but this is a rather impulsive fic. Also, sorry if the switch in narration was confusing, I just really needed to show the scenes in that order.
The plan here is to feature a good number of characters and groups who will all get their moment in the spotlight, while at the same time I'll try to have an actual plot running through and connecting the madness.
For song choices: I am going to be picking a number of songs from musicals, including but certainly not limited to A High School Musical and some classic Disney movies, but I'll also be choosing a number of popular non-musical songs as well. Obviously I am wanting songs to actually fit the characters, which is why I need a rather wide selection.
I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up—maybe today. Maybe next week. It depends upon the time I have and the inspiration of my Muse; after all, 'The Inner Eye does not see upon command!'
If you have any particular requests, I'd be glad to hear them out. Please read & review!
AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN! :)