Stardate 44820.1

Captain's Log, Supplemental

Sector 001. Earth. A massive and unending release of tachyonic particles is making it impossible to warp. Impulse engines are inoperable. Shields are down and the deflecting array has taken heavy damage from the particle flow.

The source seems to be somewhere in London, with secondary sources in Scotland, Germany and Brazil. Our transporters work for about 5 minutes per orbit, when the whole earth is in between us and that tachyonic source. We have sent three away teams down, and they have learned about some advanced technology on this earth that is masking itself from most of the people on planet. We were only able to detect their existence due to our sensors and tricorders. After several visits to their headquarters and shopping districts, we have determined that they are a group of people who believe they are wizards with access to spells, set apart and made better than the rest of the humans who don't have those things.

They do have access to what appears to be magic, although the explanation must be in the tachyonic emissions that are pouring out of each of these so called wizards. It is still a mystery how they seem to be able to do such things, but it must be based on a source of advanced technology. The ancient and advantage technology appears to know who can access the technology and who cannot harness that tachyonic energy.

After loading everything into a computer model and retrieving the away teams, I have sent Commander Troi and Commander Data into their local school to pose as applicants for teaching positions. Commander Troi should be able to pose as their 'Divination' professor because of being half-betazoid. Data, I picked more reluctantly, I knew he would be able to read every book in their bookstore while shopping. He would be able to adapt and do the best he could until they could find the smaller power source there.

As for the main source in London, there were thousands of people surrounding it. The Ministry for Magic operated right at the center of that huge tachyonic source, but it didn't seem to make them any more powerful than the Headmaster at Hogwarts. It appeared to be a matter of training and skill, not a matter of how much tachyonic energy was flowing though you, so the school made sense.

London would be a bigger problem, but if we could understand the true nature of the technology underlying the source at Hogwarts, we would be in a much better shape to tackle that problem.

We haven't been able to track the location of the away team since Data and Troi beamed down. They are in the UK now, too close the source of the tachyons to use their sensors from in orbit.

Diagon Alley

Deanna entered Ollivander's with Data, both of them now garbed in their black professor's robes.

Ollivander was already out from behind his counter as they walked it.

"Quite odd it is that our two newest faculty members are without wands. Can you tell me what materials were used in your previous wands, Professors?"

Data had compiled all the data they gathered about this "magic" society, and they did have some information on wands.

"Mine was Yew with a gold core. Professor Data, I don't even remember what yours was?"

"The cheapest one my parents could afford, Professor Troi. Oak with a smoothstone core," Data said.

Ollivander scoffed at their old wands. "I can find something better for both of you, believe you me!"

He started going through boxes of wands placing them off to the side in stacks and stacks.

"What would you recommend, Mr. Ollivander. We would like to be punctual in our shopping."

Ollivander responded, "the wand chooses the wizard, Professor. Try this one."

Ollivander gave Data the wand and he waved it. It didn't do anything.

"Hmm. Perhaps another."

From sensing Ollivander's emotions, Deanna realized the wandmaker expected magic to happen when Data waved the wand.

"Perhaps try your special reading spell," Deanna whispered.

"This one?" Ollivander asked.

Data took one of the class books out of his bag, and tapped the wand against the book while saying, "Corpus Comprende!".

He let go of the wand, catching it with his left hand as his right hand flipped through the book extra quickly. It all happened in a few seconds.

"Impressive! You do come from far far away with such strange spells. 65 galleons, sturdy material, made with ash and a core of thestral blood."

Data had the Computer make some galleons, sickles and knuts before they came down here.

"I'll pay for my colleague's wand as well, Mr. Ollivander."

It would make a major scene and problem make the headmaster mad if Deanna pretended to use Legilimency, so instead she waited through two wands and then she made another pretend spell.

"Receivo!" she said with her wand. "Foreignness is the foremost thing on your mind, Mr. Ollivander."

"Well really, you are an odd set of Wizards to be teaching our young students, but there's no time left to find alternatives. I hope you can get accustomed to our ways. Study all of our spells so that you can teach them, Professor. Data."

"I can list all 239 spells listed in the seven grades of spellbooks, if you would like, Mr. Ollivander."

"That's not neccesary. 155 galleons, good sir."

Data paid and they left the wandmakers. Deanna sighed in relief. She stuffed her new 'wand' into her robes. It seemed to have no effect.

"Let's get behind this building," Data said, and they slunk into the shadows out of sight of the occasional shopper.

Data pulled out the tricorder that he had kept concealed. For some reason the tricorders worked at close range where the ship's sensors got interfered with by the tachyons. He scanned his wand with the tricorder.

"The core of this wand is at absolute zero suspended in an energy field that's preventing it from any heat transfer with the rest of the wand. I can't tell anything else about the core. We'll have to see if we can scan a wand when someone activates it with these 'spells'."

"Let's get back to the inn," Deanna said.

They traveled back to Hogsmeade and Three Broomsticks, and retired to their room.

Deanna sat down on the bed, and Data stood in the corner.

"We have to find the source soon. Professors of Magic will be asked to perform magic," Data said.

"Be the best teacher by the book that Hogwarts has ever had. And keep your students in order. The headmaster will have to keep you on for a little while then. And he's not letting me go until he figures out how I got through his, uh, occlumency," Deanna said.

"Professor Snape is more suspicious than headmaster. I will have to be careful," he said.

"Plan out your curriculum tonight. You'll get it perfected. This is the 20th century you're in now, no one's seen anything like you Data."

Data nodded, "Sleep well Troi."

Data finished reading through all of the books they had bought at the bookstore. The school books left a lot of questions unanswered in his positronic brain.

It was a risk, but he had to chance it. Deanna was sleeping soundly when he left the inn. It was late and Data didn't know if the floo network would work to get him into Hogwarts. Instead he ran from Hogsmeade to the Hogwarts grounds.

He was met by the groundskeeper Hagrid, and his dog Fang. Both were humongous, and Hagrid was perhaps the only people on Hogwarts grounds that might be stronger that him.

"What are you doing out here, Professor? You're not supposed to just walk in unannounced. You triggered countless alarms that Professor Dumbledore has set up for the grounds."

"My apologies, I was hoping to spend some time in the library. I need to study some more in order to be ready for the start of classes, Mr. Hagrid," Data said.

"I'm taking you to the headmaster to see what he wants to do with yas," Hagrid answered.

Hagrid lead him into the school and up to the headmaster's office.

"It would perhaps be appropriate if you use the floo network. You haven't been entered into the wards as a professor yet. It would be best if you keep your adventuring to a minimum. Consider this a probation period," Dumbledore said.

"I will refrain," Data said.

"If you get lost looking for the library, ask the paintings for help," Dumbledore said.

"I should be able to find my way," he said.

Data could not find his way. He had never had this problem before, but after tracing out a path, and even trying a logical maze traversal algorithm, he was out of luck. After thirty minutes, he could prove that this castle was not logical, not consistent with euclidean space, the areas were shifting as he moved. It was entirely scrambled.

He was at the entrance to the Ravenclaw dorms, and he decided to ask a 'painting' for help.

"New to Hogwarts are we? Don't go up or do, but continue to move in the same direction as long as you can, and ask for help as soon as you need it."

Data needed a lot of help, two more paintings helped him before he found the library.

He went to the Defense Against the Dark arts first. The Enterprise didn't have access to Hogwart's books. They had studied the contents of the Diagon Alley book store before their away mission, but that couldn't compare to this library at all.

He could read faster than any human, but even he took all night to get through half of the Defense Against the Dark Arts section. Data wanted to read the other sections too, but he needed to get more context to understand what he had read so far. It was all fresh, mostly unconnected knowledge newly integrated into his positronic brain. He could regurgitate but not yet integrate and develop upon what he had learned.

Professor Dumbledore found that Professor Data wasn't very aware, and so a simple concealment charm was sufficient for him to watch the new professor from within the library. Data was silently, wandlessly casting some new comprehension spell, as well as speeding his turning of each book's pages. Books that would take a lifetime to fully understand, and other books that any DADA Professor should already have mastered. Data took the same time to read each of them. Dumbledore left for two hours only to find Data a bit farther down the row when he returned, still working at the same pace he had worked before, showing no signs of fatigue.

Troi could silently breach his mind, and now her compatriot had all this within him. He could call the Ministry and have these two arrested. They were suspicious enough as it was. But there was something indirect to their pursuit, not fitting with Voldemort's style, not fitting with the style of any villany that he could think of.

They were odd, that was surely true. He would ask the other professors to keep their eyes peeled for any unusual things this semester, without pointing to these two in particular.

Dumbledore left the library, and then returned visibly.

"Come, let's pay a visit with your fellow professor. I'd like to see you spent some time with the rest of the staff before term starts."