The Houses Competition

Ravenclaw

Charms

Drabble

[Location] The Department of Mysteries

976 Words

Tim's eyebrows furrowed underneath the Unspeakable glamour as he read. Voldemort being back was old news. The Unspeakables readi the signs months ago, not that anyone listened. To be honest, even the megalomaniac having a spy in their midst was only somewhat unsettling. It was nearly inevitable that bad eggs would show up in their department at some point, and leaks were easy to spot. No, the really concerning thing about the break-in was that students had breached the Department of Mysteries unaided! Obviously, updating security was at the top of the list. Sighing, Tim got to work writing up an action plan for when his boss inevitably called. Oh, well. He could always continue his Research in Expanded Memories (REM) after lunch.

The thing about working on REM is that it's exceptionally difficult to know which aspects of daily life were formed by reality and which were a side effect of his research making him experience the 'footprints' of past events. It wasn't divination, per se, but until he could get a handle on the REM experience, it wasn't uncommon for Tim to experience things that simply were not in the present world.

As such, it was perhaps natural that the first time he saw a wisp of blonde hair at work he just ignored it. By the nature of their glamours, such identifying features didn't naturally exist in the Department of Mysteries and had to be side effects of his research. Right?

A week later, he'd spied the blonde hair thrice and could've sworn he heard humming on his way to lunch. Never had the REM footprints remained so consistent, and he couldn't help but wonder if the visions really were from REM. Too bad the others never seemed to see anything. No matter what indistinct colleague he asked, the answer was always the same. How could anyone break in?

A newspaper clipping from a few months ago painted a too clear picture of how that could happen, revised wards or no.

Every day, Tim went to work. He walked the same indistinguishable halls, talked to the same glamoured colleagues, and worked on the same research projects in the Brain Room. Each day seemed like the rest, and Tim knew that the monotony of his existence was a sign that he'd need to transfer projects soon. It wouldn't do for him to forget how to live as the footprints of another place and time coloured his peripheral perceptions. Increasingly unusual creatures had begun to make their presence known, the details of their forms never remaining the same. If he could just discover how to control them, the expanded awareness of REM could revolutionise their world. But the clock was ticking until he'd be pulled from the project, and one imagining proved to be more disruptive than all the others.

The blonde who explored the Department of Mysteries' halls.

This being alone remained consistent, and because of it, the need to identify and stop the threat was nearly as all-consuming as unleashing the secrets of REM itself.

So, he began to try to follow the being.

In his time off, Tim researched Death Eaters who had not been sent to Azkaban and hired a tail on Lucius Malfoy, the only one whose hair seemed a match for that which he only saw out of the corner of his eye.

Nothing he did resolved the mystery, and his coworkers had begun to murmur.

He tried to focus on his work, the brains around him sympathetic to his worries even as they added their own visions to complicate matters.

An animal trumpeted, and giggles like chiming bells reached his ears.

Tim stood, ready to follow, but at the last moment, he changed his trajectory. If following head-on wouldn't work, perhaps ignoring his senses altogether would bring him better luck.

Walking as swiftly as he could without drawing attention to himself, Tim went through the labyrinth that was his work. The hall forked. Another laugh seemed to emanate from the left. Tim went right. His ears popped as though he were a child playing Quidditch. The laughter which had been getting softer suddenly seemed tantalizingly close.

Everything in him said that the laughter came from the door leading to the department's experimental greenhouse. Instead, he twisted the handle to the potion's lab.

It was empty.

Of Unspeakables, that is. On the counter sat a blonde teen he faintly recognized from the news article.

"Hello, I'm Luna Lovegood from the Quibbler. Tell me, is this the lab where you create poisons for those who disagree with Minister Fudge?"

Tim shook his head once, twice. For all that he'd thought the blonde mightn't be a product of REM, her presence made little sense to one who had helped update the wards himself. Alas, all his REM experiences happened out of the corner of his eye, and this girl with radish earrings and wild blonde hair was front and center.

Suddenly, a large purple elephant-like creature stood beside her, and as Tim looked more closely, a number of small, flying creatures seemed to be sitting in her hair.

The girl spoke again.

"I'm sorry, do you work in a separate division? I'm quite sure the Dervishing Donigs would be very happy to erase your memory."

Tim's eyes widened as two pixie-like beings flew towards him.

"Oh, you see them too? How nice! It's not often that I meet others who can see my friends! Leave him be, dear Donigs." She patted beside her. "Tell me, have you been seeing the creatures long?"

What followed was quite possibly the most disarming and informative conversation in Tim's life as he learned about REM from the point of view of someone whose brain didn't need any augmenting at all.

A few hours later, one of his colleagues came searching for him, and Luna vanished.