The Secret Meetings
Dumbledore took the hat from Gen's head, "bewildering," he set the hat on the desk, walking to the other side of it, and sitting, "most bewildering." He dipped a quill into an inkwell on the desk, and quickly scrawled something on a piece of paper. He finished, and snapped his fingers. In an instant, out of nowhere came what Gen thought looked rather like a large rodent that Gen realized to be a house elf as soon as it spoke.
"Yes sir?"
"Take this note to Professor Flitwick," Dumbledore said handing the note to the house elf, "tell him it should be read immediately," the house elf was gone in the blink of an eye, "you" he looked to Gen, "follow me." He led her out of McGonagall's office, and then down a strange winding network of corridors into what looked like dungeons. After a moment they came to a heavy wooden door, and Dumbledore knocked. There was a grunted "come in" from inside, and Dumbledore pulled the great, wooden door open.
Beyond the door was a huge dungeon, about the size of a four-car garage. Within the room there were no desks as Gen had expected. There was nothing save a stone basin, and a wooden cupboard in the room. Standing beside the wooden cupboard was a rather short man who Gen knew to be Flitwick. He was holding a wrought iron candlestick, and candle. On the other side of the room, hunched over the basin was a black-haired man with a hooked nose, who Gen knew to be Snape. Gen and Dumbledore entered the room, and the words "student-teacher conference" ran across Gen's mind. Snape straightened, looking at Gen with vague interest. Flitwick walked closer to the center of the room where the two stood, and watched Gen excitedly as if at any moment she might do some fantastic trick. She, recognizing his stare, made a quick jerky, spastic maneuver. Flitwick jumped, Snape stared, and Dumbledore ignored it. Gen was used to mixed reactions, as she found it amusing to do random things just to get those mixed reactions.
"The machine please," Dumbledore said calmly. Gen hesitated, not wanting to show them her machine, and wondering how they knew about it. She changed her mind when she got a stern, and somewhat frightening look from Dumbledore. Walking to the center of the room she took the car from pocket, and set it in the center of the room. She artfully, as to not let the others see, took the pouch of purple sand from her pocket, and sprinkled a tiny pinch onto the car. She took three steps back as the car began to grow. Dumbledore was unmoved by the sight, but Flitwick and Snape watched in awe, as her machine became full size. It wasn't as if they had never seen a growing spell, it was just that they hadn't thought Gen was a witch. Gen still didn't think she was a witch, but it was fun to make other people think she was. When the car was full size Gen opened the door, and reached to take her things off the seat, as they had been left there by accident.
"So," Snape looked at it interested, but almost irritated, "how does it work?"
"Well," Gen chewed the insides of her cheeks, deciding that if they were going to act like they knew what the machine did, and like it was perfectly normal to have a machine of the sort she would act the same, "it's quite simple really. It's based off of the results of a series of tests I conducted over the last few months. Basically, its schematics are rather easy to explain with pictures, rather than words," Suddenly out of nowhere there appeared a great blackboard along one wall, "but… I'd rather skip over the schematics, and explain it in layman's terms," the black board disappeared, "basically the machine uses hover capabilities, and a manual steering system, that uses a rudimentary rudder. See, I stole, er, found three hover engines. It was a lucky chance that I found them, with out I would have had to run the machine on a much more complicated system. I think the military was testing them for something or other…" no one questioned her, "anyhow, I made two stationary on the bottom of the car, to make it go up, and one pivots at the will of the driver to make it go forward, or side to side. It has no reverse. I would need another hover engine to do that. Anyway, The heart of the machine is here," Gen walked to the front of the car, and unlatched the double-doored engine compartment, "its relatively small, and doesn't really contain all of the mechanics, but inside here is the machine that created enough energy to run the hover engines. I use my own revolutionized system of steam pistons, that is much more efficient than the original. It conserves electricity, and doesn't pollute the environment, as its heated by a hot plate, deep in the underbelly of the machine. The only thing I have to fill it up with is water, which it takes quite a lot. There are three water storage gallons under the seat of the car that are connected directly to the heating area. When I run out of water I know because there's this hideous screeching sound that makes you want to scream out in pain. Otherwise the whole thing is practically sound proof, so it doesn't attract too much attention. That's basically it." Gen nodded her head, as she went through a mental checklist, making sure that was the whole of it.
"Do you mean to tell me," Snape said indignantly, "that dimension travel is that simple? That you simply have to have a few hover engines, and you can easily travel between worlds? Impossible, if it was that easy, we would have discovered it long before now."
"Well," Gen was red in the face, angry and sad at his mocking her, "that's how the physical part of it works. If you're going to be rude about it I wont explain it so obligingly." Snape opened his mouth to retort, but Dumbledore put out his hand, signaling for Snape to be still. Snape bit his tongue.
"Miss Bangle," Dumbledore said calmly, "it is very important to us to know how you did this. We've known about the existence of multiple dimensions for some time, but we have never managed to travel between them. We feel that should we be able to gain this knowledge, we might be able to protect it, so that Voldemort," Flitwick quivered at the name, "might not get his hands on it before we do. You've brought this great gift to us at a terrible time where it might be used wrongly. It might be found and used by the dark lord, who is as we speak rising in power!" At that very moment McGonagall walked in, flanked by a short woman with matted hair, Sprout, and a very pale, young man in a turban, Quirrell. Gen was about to laugh at the irony, but bit her lip, afraid that she would have to explain herself.
"Perhaps then," Gen said, choosing her words carefully, she had a feeling the three already knew exactly what had been said in the conversation, "I shouldn't tell anyone. Perhaps if I never spoke it aloud there would never be a danger of Voldemort finding it." Every teacher in the room, save Dumbledore and Snape shuttered as she spoke his name, but said nothing. Quirrell looked rather put out about Gen's answer.
Dumbledore looked at her questioningly, but seeing the particular look she had in her eye he decided she knew what she was doing, "very well. We won't ask again for your knowledge. This dungeon will be your workroom for the rest of the year. At the end of the term we will be expecting you to be finished with your experiments, and ready to leave. Until then you will play the role of 'first year Ravenclaw, Genevere Bangle, daughter of Miranda, and Luther Bangle,'" (Gen's parents' names were Laura and Bob), "This will be known to be a wealthy, powerful family living in Wales. Professor Flitwick you can take it from here."
With that the other teachers left Gen and Flitwick in the dungeon. Flitwick began quickly explaining all of her sleeping accommodations, and how the next year of her life would be managed. She would spend her day times in classes, taking notes on the differences between worlds, and, should she choose, study magic to learn if she was capable of doing it. She would spend the afternoons, and weekends experimenting, and, should she choose, doing her homework. She would be well fed, and well protected from "you know who." Gen didn't want to point out that one of the people protecting her would be Voldemort, in a way. She didn't want to explain that, and throw the whole book off. When Flitwick was finished explaining the whole pattern for her life to come he pulled a key from his robe, and unlocked the cabinet in the corner of the dungeon. Inside were shelves and shelves of a great number of things, mostly potion components, but also strange, magical looking tools. Each thing in the cabinet had a label on it, so that she wouldn't get confused. He showed her how to use the running water in the stone basin, and exactly how to used a great lever that magically appeared in the corner of the room, to raise, and lower the car from and to the ground. When that was all cleared up he started casting enchantments on her that would bind her to the school so that no one could kidnap her, enchantments that would give her a British accent, and enchantments that would help her find her classes easily, and always be on time.
After they were finished in the dungeon they left it, and walked along the corridors, heading steadily upwards. He told her that she would have free reign of the school, including after hours, and the restricted section of the library. That she would be aloud into all the common rooms, to better study the world around her, and she would be aloud to ask him, or any of the other teachers for anything she needed. The entrance to the Ravenclaw common room was a silver coat of arms. It stood tall and bright, but when you said just the right word he'd step aside, and the paneling of wall behind him would disappear. Behind him was a great pentagonal room with enormous lounge chairs in assorted blue colors all about the room. The walls were lined with yellow and blue tapestries of the Ravenclaw coat of arms, and on two of the five walls were great fireplaces that had burnt jolly and bright hours before, but were at the time smoldering ash, in the cut stone. The other three walls had a door on them. One led to the girls' dormitories, one led to the boys' dormitories, and the third led back past the suit of armor. From there Flitwick left her to head up to her dormitory where her things were already set up neatly.
~ * ~
Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Sprout, and Quirrell all stood about in Dumbledore's office. After leaving Flitwick with Gen they had gone straight there, and had been for a long time. They were discussing the sorcerer's stone. Earlier that week the enchantments had at last been placed on the dungeon where the stone was hidden, and no teacher knew the exact plans of the others. There seemed to be some argument about the enchantments holding up or not. After a few moments the office was in an uproar of professors yelling at each other about whether or not it would work.
"It will hold!" Dumbledore said at last over the turmoil, striking the teachers with fear, and bringing them to silence, "we have no reason to fear that the stone is in any danger. You are all simply going on the speculation that Voldemort might happen to pop up. But why should he? This is merely a precautionary measure. You all seem to forget that Hogwarts is the safest place in the whole world. Now is not the time for fear." The room went silent. Several cast their eyes on the ground, saying nothing. It was at that precise, and awkward moment that Flitwick walked in. He didn't notice the painfully uncomfortable silence, and quickly began speaking.
"I'm so excited about all this!" Flitwick was bursting with happiness, "Not only do with have Mr. Harry Potter studying with us this year, but we have the first ever student from another dimension. I can hardly believe our luck!"
Snape had never thought about it before, but that was a lucky chance. But who was it a lucky chance for. If Voldemort was to return now would be the time. He would want his revenge on Harry Potter before he became to knowledgeable of magic, he would want the Elixir of Life to bring him back to power, and he would want the key to dimension travel. Everything seemed to be falling right into the Dark Lord's lap. How could this all be? It seemed like everything had worked out perfect for this one purpose, but how could Voldemort possibly control the happenings in another realm. Was it all some lucky coincident? Snape dismissed the thought for the time, but decided to keep it always in the back of his mind to chew, waiting for an answer.
Little more was said in the secret meeting. After a time Dumbledore dismissed the professors, and one by one they left. Dumbledore sat alone in his office. He pulled the top left drawer open, and retrieved a blown-glass ball. It was large, but fit nicely within his fingertips. He set the ball on his desk. It was perfectly round, but somehow did not role about. Inside the glass was nothingness, but as Dumbledore looked into it images filled it, and he saw the inside of a Ravenclaw dormitory. Dumbledore watched over as Gen sat with her knees against her chest, a notebook resting on them. She wrote scratchily on the pages of the notebook with a quill and green ink…
~ * ~
Gen slowly but surely finished her accounts of everything that had happened to her after she left the train. It had been a long day. She was sure it had been 24 hours since she left her world. In all that time she hadn't slept, and she didn't expect to get any sleep at all that night either. She couldn't sleep, even if she wanted to. Mentally she was so tired, but for some reason her body just kept going. It was as if time meant nothing to her. It was very strange indeed. As Gen finished up her journal entry she gently blew on the wet ink on her paper, and then closed the notebook. She set the composition book on her nightstand, next to an old-fashioned alarm clock, that she knew she wouldn't be using. She had set it to wake her at seven the next morning, but she didn't think that she would be asleep by then. The clock told her that it was already midnight.
Gen got up from her bed, and walked to the nearest window. There were three windowpanes, and a window seat that curved outwards in small turret type thing. Gen sat on the window seat, and opened one of the windowpanes, looking out into the night. She missed Morg. Sometimes, during the summer he would come over to her house, and they would have a sleep over. Gen's parents weren't too protective of her, and allowed her to do whatever she wanted. Even if Morg and Gen were having sex at these sleepovers they wouldn't have cared. This was, however, not the case.
Gen missed that all of a sudden. She missed Morg. She didn't really miss anyone else. Her sister was a perfectionist, her brother was snotty, her parents didn't care about her, but Morg was a different story, he actually cared about her. He was the only one. Believe me, Gen wasn't being selfish, and spoiled when she acted like no one loved her, she wasn't doing it for attention, it was the honest truth. No one did care about her. Gen didn't cry about it though. She never did. She cried a lot, but never for that exact reason. A lot of it was probably connected with, and caused, subconsciously by it. But she always had some other explanation. Her tears were wasted, as there was never anyone to make it all better, even Morg couldn't do that. Gen cried silently as she looked out into the night sky, and before long the sun was peaking over the horizon…
Hooray for the sixth chapter! Please, Please, PLEASE tell me what you think! Much love, the next will be coming soon, and I promise lots of fun to come with your favorite Tree House Gang!
(If you don't know what a tree house gang is it's a group of three people, two guys, and one girl. It's used mostly for comic relief. The one I'm referring to is Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Other examples of a tree house gang is Leia, Luke, and Han from Star Wars, or Dave, Corey, and Julie **shutters** (sorry inside joke), um… **thinks** what's another tree house gang… um… can't think, I'll get back to you.)