There was a celebration back in the Gryffindor common room. Everyone wanted to congratulate the team on their victory over Slytherin, especially Ginny, not only for catching the Snitch, but for the way she'd taken Malfoy and Montague out of the game.
Harry broke up the festivities before they went too far, reminding everyone that the team had spent an hour in the nearly freezing rain, and they were all in need of a nice hot bath to get themselves warmed up again. Ginny was still soaking when Dawn came to get her at a quarter to five.
"So, how does this work?" asked Ron. He was standing behind Willow, looking over her shoulder at her computer.
"Buffy can read everything I type on my keyboard here," said Willow. "And we'll be able to read everything she types on her keyboard." She looked at the time displayed at the top of her screen. "Almost five, she should be joining us any time now."
A new message appeared on the screen:
Buffy has logged in.
Willow started to type:
Willow: Hey Buffy!
A new message appeared a few seconds later.
Buffy: Hey Will! Everyone there? Willow: Yep! Dawn, Kennedy, Ginny, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Lupin. Buffy: Giles is here. So tell me about this dream again.
Willow had been expecting that, and she had asked for Ginny, Kennedy and Harry to provide her with written accounts of their dreams. She already had them typed up, and sent each one to Buffy.
Buffy: Ginny's and Kennedy's accounts match up with half a dozen others I've received now, from girls across Europe, Africa and Asia.It seems every Slayer who was asleep at the time got it. Willow: What about Harry's? Buffy: He's the only one giving it from Voldemort's POV, and is the only one who saw the tattoo. Descriptions of the man's clothes from the others all sound like the getups the KoB wore thogh. Willow: What do we do now? Buffy: I still think I should come there. Willow: Dawn says "I don't need a babysitter!"
Nothing new appeared on the screen for several seconds.
Buffy: I know. But the Key might. Willow: I think we can trust Dumbledore to take care of it. Buffy: Voldemort has gotten agents into Hogwarts in the past. Willow: Harry says "And they've had to go to extraordinary lengths to get anything out of Hogwarts." Willow: I'm working on a way to signal you, and get you here quickly if anything does happen. If it works you'll be able to be on the scene just as quickly as you would if you were actually living in the castle. Buffy: Even during your darkest mojo period you weren't up to teleportation. Willow: No, but Hermione says we can get Dumbledore to make you something called a Portkey that will teleport you here. Buffy: He can do that? Willow: So I'm told. Buffy: Okay. Giles says the other thing we should be looking at is the KoB. Find out more about them, what they know. Willow: Dawn wants to check out the library here. See if it has anything about the Knights, or the Key. Buffy: Good idea. Let's put the Watchers on it too. Time for them to start earning their pay.
They spent the next half hour discussing what they were going to do, until it was time for them to go to dinner.
Buffy also wanted to have a more direct way of talking with Dawn after Willow left Hogwarts, so with a little guidance from Willow, Dawn and Hermione stepped up work on their project to get Dawn's computer working. They were sitting at a table in the library, with Dawn reading Principles of Quantum Mechanics while Hermione read Magic vs. Quantum Mechanics.
"Listen to this," said Hermione. She started to read from the book:
The Muggle theory of Quantum Mechanics can be more accurately described as 'incomplete' rather than 'incorrect.' Just as Newtonian mechanics is adequate for describing the interactions of bodies of intermediate mass, moving at speeds much less than the speed of light, Quantum Mechanics is adequate for describing the interactions of particles of very low mass, over very short distances. Just as Newtonian mechanics breaks down when dealing with objects of very large or small mass, or very high velocities, Quantum Mechanics breaks down when dealing with the influence of Magic. Indeed it may be said that all Magic relies on the overturning of Quantum Mechanics.
Dawn put down her book. "Okay…and since the electronics in computers these days all rely on quantum level effects all happening the way QM says they will, with all the magic around here, nothing works right. But how does that help us? It just tells us that magic makes the computer stop working…and we knew that already."
"It tells us why magic makes the computer stops working," said Hermione. "And there's more. It isn't just computers that rely on quantum level events." She pushed the book across to Dawn, and pointed to another paragraph. "See here: the chemistry of life relies on it too, but living creatures have a magic in them that overrides the effects of magic on QM, and that's why we can live in a magical environment. There's a theory that says that Muggles are Muggles because they've got too much of that particular sort of magic."
"So…to get the computer to work we have to reproduce the magic that living organisms have that protects them from the effects of magic." Dawn thought a bit. "But if life forms are protected from magic, how can magic work on them?"
"The protection isn't perfect," said Hermione. "Actually directing a spell at a living thing concentrates the magic enough to override the protection. The protection only keeps the spill over effects from making things go wonky."
"Wonky?" asked Dawn.
"I've been hanging out with you too much," said Hermione.
Ginny's training sessions with Kennedy were continuing. Kennedy started to introduce her to the basics of fighting with weapons, starting out with the quarterstaff.
After working with the staffs for a couple of days, Kennedy produced a couple of replicas of the Scythe. They were weighted exactly like the real thing, but the 'blades' on them were blunt rubber, as were the 'stakes' at the ends.
Ginny took one of them in her hands, and frowned. "It feels different…dead." She tried to give it a spin, like she had with the real Scythe, the one time she'd held it. She nearly lost control of it, and had to catch it before it went sailing out of her hands.
"They are dead," said Kennedy. "They don't have the Scythe's magic to help you control them. Practicing with these develops your abilities without the magical augmentation. It makes you twice as good when you have the real thing in your hands. Now, let's get started. En garde!"
Dawn and Hermione were ready three days later. They had rehearsed the spell a dozen times, using some cheap digital watches that Dawn had gotten for the purpose. Several Gryffindor students were wearing them now. They were quite amused by the Muggle timepieces. Professor McGonagall had been less amused when five watches had all beeped on the hour during her last Transfiguration class, and had transformed the offending timepieces into beetles. The students who had lost their new toys were mostly just glad that it hadn't happened in Potions. It was anyone's guess what Professor Snape would have done if his class had been interrupted by the electronic beeping. The students with surviving watches quickly got Dawn to show them how to turn the beepers off.
Dawn stood beside Hermione, looking at the computer on her desk. "So are we ready?"
"I think we're ready," said Hermione.
"Okay," said Dawn. "Here goes…" She waved her wand over her computer, saying the words for the spell, and touched it to the Apple logo on the top of the lid. A faint blue glow spread out from the logo, and then slowly faded, seeming to sink into the computer. "So far so good." She looked at Willow, who was sitting on Dawn's bed watching them. "Did it work?"
"Felt right," said Willow. "One way to be sure."
"Try it out," said Hermione.
Dawn lifted the lid of her computer, and pressed the power button. Nothing happened. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Hmm?" Willow closed her eyes for a moment. "It still feels right…" She suddenly snorted a brief laugh. "Oh, of course!" She got up off the bed and stepped toward the computer. "I think I can take care of this one time for you." She rested her hand on the keyboard for a moment. "Okay, try it now."
Dawn pressed the button, and was rewarded by the startup chime. "Okay, what did you do…and what happened to you not actually doing any of the work, and just pointing us in the right direction?"
"I charged the battery," said Willow. "One time deal. You're going to have to figure out how to recharge it on your own. It's not hard. I figured that one out a couple of years ago."
Dawn logged on to her computer, and quickly configured the network settings to work with the dongle Willow had given her. She opened Mail, and checked for messages. She found she had a two month backlog from several mailing lists she had subscribed to, and a little bit of spam that had gotten past the filters on the mail server that Willow ran for them all. There were a few old personal emails from acquaintances who hadn't gotten (or had forgotten) the message that she would be offline for the year. "This is great! I'm back in touch with the world!"
