Disclaimer:Oh, I'd totally forgotten this when I posted this chapter first. A second into the preview and I knew something was missing. Now, you still believe I own the characters in here, do you?

Chapter 4

Stealing Books and Strange Bearings

Artemis didn't notice any change in the other classes that day. It was obvious that she (who else, but McGonagall, of course) was planning on informing the other teachers as well, or her attempt was sublimely, unmitigatedly, trivially futile. So at least soon enough.

Of course, the young master did as he was told, returning the books borrowed from the library in the evening. He didn't want to waste them by keeping them in the library where they'd lie buried beneath the tenderness of time till someone who was not sufficiently foolish would come and ask for them. It wasn't exactly returning, for he was going to take the books back again as the library closed; he'd thought that when they were giving the books without asking questions, it wasn't a problem to simply borrow them. Now that they were posing hurdles, he'd have to do it his natural way – steal them for the night and keep it back in the morning before the library was opened. Of course, he'd barely get four hours to study late in the night and early in the morning included. Now he'd have to wake up a little early too, but that probably wouldn't be much of a problem.

Manifestly of course, all this was considering that 'not foolish enough' person did not actually take the book(s) in the first place.

To a genius, it would be obvious how Artemis Fowl was going to steal the book(s). And he would be right.

To someone who's bright too, it would be obvious how Artemis was going to steal the book(s). But he'd be wrong.

An average person wouldn't have cared however Artemis was going to steal the book(s), he'd just read whatever way I'm gonna present them.

Don't even care beyond that, someone below average probably wouldn't be there in fanfiction at all and; reading this fanfic, even more unlikely.

The most common way most bright people would probably suggest is using a Disillusionment Charm to hide himself and steal the book(s) from the library, something like Harry does in the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone (different people prefer one of these titles to the other, so I put in both. Personally, however, as I've mentioned earlier, I prefer Sorcerer's stone 'cuz of alliteration). Or some might say a simple summoning charm should be enough, but probably most won't, for it'd be obvious that summoning charms, even when done carefully and delicately, didn't prevent the object from colliding with this and that and somehow trying to reach the caster, thereby creating a lot of noise and hence high probability for getting caught.

The Disillusionment Charm method would be tiresome for Artemis for he'd have to stalk to the library and he certainly wouldn't do it unless he had no choice. Didn't he now?

He was a wizard after all; and probably the cleverest. He'd rather create a new spell to summon the book without the problems of the normal Summoning Charm. And this is what most genii/geniuses (both are correct) would have thought Artemis would've done. And so they would've been correct.

Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to the point now.

So Artemis Fowl invented a spell that would smoothen the effects of collisions, by placing around the object many buffers which could be dislodged at ease by the spellcaster – and of course, the object should be invisible during its period of flight. Actually not merely smoothen, the effect would be such that not one decibel of sound would be heard (that's difficult, but let's go on anyway), and that's an add-on to the fact that it can't be seen at any rate.

And only because he was too lazy to go up to the library. Now there's one guy you can't just stop appreciating.

It was amazing how most things followed an extraordinary pattern. Around a hundred and fifty years ago, there came Albus Dumbledore to Hogwarts, and he became one of the greatest wizards known. Some seventy five years later, one Tom Riddle happened at Hogwarts and he too remained (more likely remains, thought Artemis) one of the greatest of all time. And now, another seventy five years later, here was Artemis Fowl the Second, probably better than the two of them combined (not as of now, but at least in the near future). This seventy five year pattern was intriguing, even to Artemis. Approximately for every five generations, two Master wizards were born. The logic in nature's ways didn't strike Artemis. It probably never would. After all, he barely had an intelligence quotient of something around three hundred; what was he before He, whose intelligence was such that there wasn't a scale made yet to measure it?

Artemis couldn't understand infinity. Not at all. He simply believed it could not exist. How could an endless thing be given a name? For if you are giving it a name, you are giving it an end. If you say that numbers go on till infinity, you mean that after that 'infinity' something can't exist. That way, infinity is being given a definition. But it is actually something that is undefined. The very idea of infinity was a stupid notion.

(Anybody who hates math as hell must skip the coming para; else you'll start hating my writing as well. Readers beware, you have been warmly warned well; it is your sole responsibility if you lose your mind because of reading this para)

They said that infinity existed but only in the mind of God, so even if it existed, no mortal or immortal who didn't have the mind of God could rationalize its existence. Which is exactly what people were trying to do. And some fool out there had said that some infinities were greater than others, which he called transfinities. And that there was one Absolute Infinite, he said, which he equated with God. Like between one and two there are infinite rational numbers. But between one and three also there will be infinite rational numbers, but this set will consist of all the infinite rational numbers between one and two and those between two and three, so this infinity will be greater than that between one and two. But this was a totally insensible notion, because by saying that it contained more he was fixing a limit to the first infinity – contradicting the fact that infinities are not finite. So there will basically be no difference between the total number of terms between one and two or one and three; which defied intuition and common sense, contemporaneously; so simply, infinity could not exist. And though some of the theorems in modern mathematics based on it were accurate enough, it was totally unnecessary to use something which cannot logically exist; what was the use of imagining things that could not possibly exist? Imagination and creativity were very important, but they should be feasible at some finitely known point of time in at least an advanced civilization. But since these things scarcely dealt with finity, they were totally ridiculous. The point was, modern civilization was making a grave mistake; it was trying to gather all knowledge by speculation and observation. Infinity obviously exists, but no man could understand it! The only reason being that the senses are limited, our intelligence, creativity – everything is limited. Instead of speculating on things, one should accept authorized knowledge. Speculative knowledge can only lead one to so much doom – the petroleum based sources of energy had to led greater destruction of nature and hence mankind than to profit. All the so-called vehicular comforts have only made life all the more difficult to manage. Man is drowning in his own mistakes. Neverthelesss, the words of the ancients are still waiting for him to climb on to them to help him cross the ocean of material nescience. And yet he does not wake up to this.

Enough of infies I guess, so let's go on.

Artemis the Hunter hunted Hogwarts' heavily guarded books in a matter of seconds.

ooooooo

And this continued on; everyday (night, actually) he would take the books, and keep them back before the morning in the library. Of course no one detected or suspected him. Who would suspect a mere twelve-year old 'genius' of stealing things?

ooooooo

That night, McGonagall did not rest easy. There'd been something about the smile in the boy's face which had said that he already had a plan ready to exploit a weakness in her words that she'd not foreseen. She tried and tried, her brain nearly fried, till she virtually cried to think of a way the boy could have the books; no success. He just couldn't have taken them or kept them. Of course, she'd totally missed out the fact that genii are genii only because they think of things others mostly usually totally miss out on.

Albus had said that he'd talked with the boy, so he'd know some stuff about the boy and also he'd have informants from all over the school portraits; he wasn't just the type to sit quietly and peacefully, without knowing the things happening up and about and around him; though he appeared serene most of the time, because his mind was generally beyond normal thoughts. Actually this was the main reason that he was said to be absent-minded, because people thought this was one of the flaws of the flawed genius.

So Dumbledore must know something about the boy, and she wanted to know what he thought about him. Snape's ideas would be worth it too, though she hadn't yet totally managed to accept Severus as a good person who'd been working for the good side after all, owing to years of hatred between them – being the Heads of House of the two Houses in Hogwarts with such a great enmity only adding to the dislike. Snape would feel proud that his House had produced such a great student, but anybody would agree that one wouldn't wish the next Voldemort to come from his own House. Not even Snape. Definitely not.

That is, assuming that the Dark Lord was gone. He was, wasn't he? Dumbledore, Snape, Lupin, Tonks, Fred and so many countless others had given their lives in the Second War to ultimately defeat He Who Must Not Be Named. Harry and his two friends knew something about Him, and they held that he couldn't return now, he was gone forever. Dumbledore knew it too, supposedly he only told Harry about it. Now she never knew anything when the Dark Lord was defeated by Harry when he was only a year old, nor did she know now. She could never say. But she trusted Dumbledore, trusted Harry, and that was the last thing she could do. But it was not to say that she always had a tingling fear within on what would happen to the world if Vvv… Vvv…Voldemort (hell, she still had trouble saying his name) did return. With no Dumbledore to stop him, it would be free rein for him on earth.

That was one reason why she didn't generally think about it – it was maddening. She kept reassuring herself that it was a totally silly notion; the Dark Lord returning and the world falling at his feet. Evil had never won against Good, so it just couldn't happen. Lord Voldemort wasn't returning.

Here, reader, it is important for you to note that all her ideas had been more or less wrong. She thought the Dark Lord couldn't return, which was wrong. And that if he did return, everyone would be powerless to stop him. Again, terribly wrong. Of course the prophecy was misinterpreted, Harry Potter was not the boy born to vanquish the Dark Lord once and for all – merely twice and both were not permanent vanquishings.

And thus begins the tale of the return of the Dark Lord and the second Artemis Fowl struggling to manage a world of crime outside and magic inside…magic before which the other magic (fairy magic) was but a cipher…a mere shade of the true power.

ooooooo

A/N: Yep, I would agree, quite a small chapter and I dunno whether you felt it as an interesting or boring chapter, I sure did have some fun writing it . The next update, well, to say frankly, can range from December 29th to January, say 25th (my b'day!) as far as I can guess now. That is, of course, ignoring the quantum probabilities of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which would state that there was a finite probability of my posting the next chapter as early as a yoctosecond after the post of this chapter or as long as beyond infinite lifetimes of the universe (our universe of course) itself.

You're not bored, I hope?

Even if so, please do review. Your reviews matter much to me.

I cannot but thank all of you people who're reading this. Reviewers have my special thanks. I see so many of you adding my story to your favorites list or to the alert subscription, but why don't you people (specified to non-reviewers only) review ? I'd be really grateful to all of you if you at least drop in a word or two on how the chapter was.

I'd of course prefer a sentence or two, but a word or two is the least you can do. Please. Pretty please.

And I thank all of you who've stuck with me from the beginning, and those of you who haven't read the first part yet, please do that first! Special thanks to librarywitch, Nyita7, Sean Mulligan, Moi, The Shang Kudarung, Kishhu Neko, Ranyo Malight, Kermita, thales85, soupcan, Moonlite Knight, Renegade Pot Smoker, Vyrsena, Dashippy and Global Conquest-er.

Some of you might've started wondering what the 'Five Ways' might refer to. I may give a clue on it in the next chapter…keep wondering..!