Disclaimer: Bugger off, unless you plan on giving a good critique on all the reasons why this is not my work, and how I managed either to or not to make a good story out of an increasingly used cliché (Decide for yourself which one). I mean it.
A/N: Anywho, I walked into this used bookstore in Juneau a week ago (This was written mid-July, in case you care) and saw a series by the name of Discworld on sale for 20$. Being the somewhat quick reader I am, I decided to buy the entire set (It was 20 dollars for twenty-plus books! Come on!). Upon finding myself in stitches every night for a week, I found myself writing more and more like the satirical writer of these books, Terry Pratchett. That shall explain the style change, which is hopefully for the better and shall not be in other stories.
And to avoid confusion, I have added an Introduction to the very beginning, which explains why this was a double-update on the Author Alert.
More notes on the bottom.
Chapter Eighteen: Tangents Collide
Time passes slowly in Hogwarts, whether because of the extreme boredom of (most) students or the dense magical aura is not known.
It was time itself Artemis decided to devote his thoughts to next.
It is a truly unusual thing, time. Artemis had rarely thought of it other then a nuisance before, something that he wished he could direct and divert with more ease. There was not a soul in the universe that did not wish she, he or it had more of time, or, better yet, the ability to rewind and replay time.
It was the possibility of this that made Artemis pay attention to Binn's otherwise boring history class.
He had quickly discovered, over the course of the last week, that this class was the only one he could actually gain anything from. However much Transfiguration or Herbology could be taught from a book, it took someone real to teach such an abstract thing as History and not be trapped in the worn path of a particular bias.
History was one of those things that any idiot could read up in a book and say they know plenty about it, and even get a decent degree in. Most people thought of it as such, just something that stayed the same. However, that was History in its simplest form, only menial lower-case history, where it remained untainted by misinformation and, of course, the relentless passage of interpretation.
Before—ah, before, when everything was simple!—Artemis had let the Graves and Binns of the universe toddle around in the dust-shrouded libraries while he studied more current affairs, such as physics and chemistry. It had served him perfectly well when he was only skimming the surface of the present, taking advantage of the moment in order to fulfill the instinctive desire for gold.
Perhaps in the Muggle world History—with a capital H—was utterly useless. Some people dress it up, take away the H and slap a catchy phrase on it, or try to pull tiresome and repetitious morals when you weren't looking. History teachers tend to ignore the whys and go straight to whats simply because their heads—as students are so fond of saying—are too clogged with all that dust.
Binns was different. He knew History, knew all sides of it. He knew the biases and the I'd-rather-not-knows like the back of his translucent hands, and said the version that would produce the best future.
You see, Artemis quickly developed an admiration for History with a capital H. It was genius, unexpected, and a possible tool. History, history in the hands of those intelligent enough to read its intricate flows and lies, was something Artemis would be proud to wield, even if it involved getting his nails a bit dirty with all that damn dust.
It only took a few looks around the classroom, a few innocent questions to see he was the only one at Hogwarts that really understood what was going on. He doubted most of the other teachers even understood the slow manipulation of the past.
Reasoning led him to believe even Binns was somewhat unaware of the slow change of the past. It would be simple thoughts that would gradually change the events and villains of the battles, erasing and adding at will, such as This battle is too, ah, mature for their young minds. or Does it really matter that the Battle of Nethertide was too close to really call, or must it be said it was the only literal tie in the Goblin Wars?.
Time and two lectures showed that people wanted to forget the past, wanted to lose the taint of their ancestors. Eradication of history into warped History was quickened, the secrets of the past covered as the last remnants of that age died off, whether in a Berlin fire or a Salem one. Time was being choked as it was manipulated, led blindly in front of an unknowing humanity to some strange end.
Yet someone, somewhere, somehow was that manipulator.
But who? Such a thing would take millions of undercover agents, casting minute Confundus Charms to muddle the historians' otherwise immaculate memory and tireless resolution to be accurate. Entire books would have to be changed over time, words slowly adjusted to turn the thoughts of a species. Fact and fiction alike was spun on a web more complex even then an Orb Spider's web, the end unclear to Artemis. To even notice the steady corruption of time, let alone change it, you would either have to be very, very smart, or very, very old. Maybe both.
Even then, there was a myriad of near-immortals in existence. Even humans without the aid of Unicorn's Blood or The Elixir could live hundreds, even thousands of years if they lived write and drank the occasional longevity potion. Near-human species, like centaurs and mermyds, had human or even extra-human intelligence and still managed to live for long periods of time. Even something as simple as House-Elves could be the cause; capable of telepathy, long lives and extreme dedication to whatever task set before them.
His thoughts eventually spun to the Fairies of Haven, and found a firm rest there.
They had a secretive and long-lived Council to guide them.
They had near-infinite resources.
They had a large, extremely gullible population.
They had a bone-deep hatred for Mud-Men.
It all fit.
Artemis was getting more pleased by the second. He might not be so bored at Hogwarts, after all.
Artemis was wrong when he thought himself alone in these thoughts. Wrong for the right reasons, since the object of this mistake made sure that she could not be pinpointed by her knowledge.
How was it that it was always, always a librarian?
Librarians are one of those overlooked beings in the universe, tirelessly erasing pen streaks in borrowed books and playing their part in the never-ending organization of the library. They are always apart from the rest of the world, like historians, and also like their somewhat more social counterparts they make small decisions that, when nudged way or another, can lead to the change of History and history alike.
The main difference between them is that librarians don't just eventually notice the odd pull of time that tries to erase History into history and go I need more coffee. They do something about it.
It is small things, like the steady alteration of facts over time by the teachers and writers of the world, except in the opposite direction. Instead of blurring the passage of time they sharpen it, wiping away the rust of romanticism and leave it shining in the form of a newly-lectured mind.
But Madame Pince, despite her somewhat anonymous status in the staff of Hogwarts, wanted to do something big.
She was one of those staff so dedicated, so mule-headed in her job that, if presented with the opportunity to work there forever, would become a ghost like Binns and just continue teaching.
But she still preferred being alive, thank you very much, and drank a cup of lemongrass-sage tea every morning at five o'clock sharp to keep her youth. Being transparent meant that students would be able to look right through you and still give the appearance of paying attention to a lecture. The horror.
Despite somewhat supercilious thoughts in regard to her work, Madame Pince still wanted to get out and do something about the chaos spreading from History to her precious books, even if it involved becoming transparent.
Madame Pince was not stupid. To be a librarian you had to be smart, in both the intelligent and sharp-tongued definitions. She had figured a hundred or so years ago that someone, somewhere was coordinating the slow destruction of the past.
But who? It would be someone old, someone, somethingwith intelligence. She had been born an age too late to have any reliable sources at her fingertips in regard to who was bending history in this peculiar fashion. From the fourteenth century on everything was relatively accurate, if biased, but the steady turn had happened before that. The anomaly was from before this.
Madame Pince suddenly knew what it was, and remembered the last time she had encountered foreign magic messing in Hogwarts business.
She knew exactly where to go to. Or rather, whom.
McGonagall leaned back in her chair, studying her desk with intense annoyance. Any onlookers would have pitied the apple sitting on top of a pile of forgotten Standard Book of Spells books, since it bore the brunt of her unseeing glare. One green leaf, miraculously still attached to the stem, turned a shade browner.
Not that she noticed. She was watching the haze above it.
"You can stop showing off any time now," she said eventually, seemingly addressing the somewhat wrinkled apple.
The haze disappeared, replaced by the cross-legged form of Holly. Her small elfin frame fit easily on the expansive desk, even finding a bit of cushioning on a pile of half-graded papers. "But I'm running hot," she complained, placing a purposeful pout on her vaguely cherubic lips. "And when you're running hot, it feels right to be using magic."
McGonagall looked tempted to respond, but stopped herself. It wasn't very often she stopped a sharp tongue for the sake of friendship. "And how is the other doing?" She spat out other as if it were saying idiot or nitwit—she liked working alone every bit as much as Holly.
Holly's face sobered instantly, lips suddenly a grim smile. "That's what I'm here about."
The Professor rubbed her forehead tiredly, turning her gaze from the apple half-hidden behind Holly. It seemed to sigh in relief. "I can't do anything. Dumbledore warned me not to get muddled in these things. Thirty years ago it was fine, but now there's politics."
Holly nodded. She understood perfectly. Politics was an awful thing to deal with, as she well knew. Couldn't do a damn thing without paperwork and an interview or two, and an investigation on anything she messed up on. She was born a century too late for the glory days of policing.
McGonagall continued, reverting her gaze to Holly's hazel eyes, "But that's not what you're here about, is it? If he were injured you would have healed him, and if he were captured I would know through Dumbledore when one of your LEPrecon squads starts the next Ironwood Wa—" She stopped suddenly, her face paling a shade.
Holly confirmed the dawning realization with a nod. "One of your students is involved now," she stated, drawing her green-suited knees up to her chin. "Someone in Griffindumb, I believe."
"Gryffindor," McGonagall corrected automatically, but her lips were already forming the next words. "Granger or Potter?"
Holly shrugged her slender shoulders, eyes narrowed in concentration of her own. "The girl. Ermelien, or something like that."
McGonagall shut her eyes, and then opened them again, sighing. "It is just as well. Hermione is bright, and she already figured out that another type of magic was muddling with ours. It would only be a matter of time before she figured out the rest."
"Will she tell other students as well?" Holly's held a touch of fear in it—not for the students; she couldn't care less about them—but for McGonagall. If she lost her job, things would not be good for the Wizard-Fairy relationship.
The Professor thought about it for a moment. "No," she said eventually, bringing one aged hand up to search for the quill pen Holly had knocked over when she dropped on the desk. "She has friends, loyal friends, but she will keep this to herself. She likes knowing things others don't."
Holly nodded again. That was one of the things that made people smart in the first place. If they hungered for secrets, knowledge came second-hand on that path, an added bonus, of sorts. "You used to be like that," she said softly, touching the rotten apple.
McGonagall's eyes met Holly's again. They held surprise, hazel reflected in hazel. In the silence blue sparks crackled on the surface of the apple, the same shade of the sparks that once ran through McGonagall's blood on a cold night fifty years ago.
Her next words were brisk, however, and vaguely satirical, shattering the pensive moment. "I still am. Why else would I allow myself to fall for this sort of insanity?"
Holly smiled sisterly—or rather, what she imagined would be a sisterly smile. She never actually had any siblings to be sisterly with. The closest thing was Grub, since she figured the way she tirelessly listened to his complaints was something close to sisterhood. "Same here, 'cept that I prefer a good Neutrino to a mystery."
McGonagall nodded. Of course.
Holly, with another slight smile, jumped off the desk towards the window. A brisk tug with her arm opened it, lending a breeze to the room that swept several papers off the desk onto the hardwood floor. Within a few moments she was gone, either smashed on the grass of the Quidditch practice pitch or climbing nimbly down the brickwork and snarling stone gargoyles.
Sighing inwardly, McGonagall picked herself up from her throne-like chair and stalked out from behind the desk. Holly could have just gone through the new ventilation system, like the way she had come, but no. She had to go for the dramatic way that would expend the most magic.
We are not so unlike, McGonagall mused, shutting the stained-glass portrayal of Tara with a slight smile. Just one of us hides our flair for the dramatic better.
She turned and bent over to pick up the first of the fallen papers. Lavender Brown. C, for her misspelling of McGonagall into some Scottish monstrosity. Second year student and still couldn't get it right.
She bent again, listening to the slight creak of her bones. She was getting old, and only a hundred. How did Dumbledore manage? He was at least twice as old as she was—
Artemis Fowl. F?
McGonagall peered closer at the F. It seemed to actually be a smeared A (She deducted a point because of a light slur on the teaching methods at Hogwarts), but it only stood as such after close scrutiny. And the only thing that could have smeared it—
Ah. If he ever found out how it became a bedraggled F, Fowl would be sure to get quite a shock.
Juliet. Two days later. Hungry.
Well, not literal, chomp-chomp yummy! hungry. Hungry for figuring out herself.
She knew she was going through being a teenager, except it was all… wrong. Like her mind decided suddenly that it didn't like being a child who liked pink and kittens and giggled over the latest chick-flick and that it wanted to be an adult, all suave lines and classical literature. Like she didn't know who she was.
She shut her eyes, feeling a sting as her glittering green eye-shadow leaked into her cornea. Dammit all, she was a Butler! Next in a long line to serve and protect, to dive in front of those point-blank bullets and ease those midnight cravings for caviar on toasted garlic-butter baguettes.
Juliet wrestled with this image for a moment, trying to imagine herself with the theatric Noooo as the next baby Arty—who on Earth would want another one of those?—was threatened by a maniacal asylum-ee out for revenge.
She let a slow smile cheap across her face for the first time in a while. "Close enough," she whispered. Slowly she raised one arm up to touch the pink wallpaper, felt a seam, and ripped it downwards.
Much better.
The notes!
Well, over the glorious summer of week-long expeditions on virgin peaks and glittering ice fields, there has to be a way to get up to the proper elevation before hitting the tree-line. This way tends to be exemplified in long, tedious hikes through repetitious cedar, spruce and/or pine forests with the occasional hemlock or tamarack. During those switchbacks my thoughts tend to wander, and catch some of those ideas pinging around the universe. Thus, I have several dozen stories all planned out in me head.
About a dozen of these are for Artemis Fowl.
Obviously, I shall need beta-readers. Specialized betas. Please, please look at the story summaries below and volunteer if you can for them. E-mail me. Please. I am not fluent in Icelandic, nor an expert on hydrophysics. And I need those kinds of people.
Artemis Fowl and the Survivor! Situation
As the title implies, except, unlike the few other Survivor stories I have read, the canon characters actually came into this for a very, very legitimate reason and it actually has a plot. Every character stays true. Takes place after tEC; about a year.
The beta for this doesn't need anything special, although I would like it if they had knowledge on SE-Alaskan botany. Yes, it's in Alaska, and in the panhandle of it, all in places where I have actually been. All peaks, valleys, lakes, glaciers, etc., featured are places I have actually climbed and explored sometime in the past few years.
Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis SearchAfter tEC. Artemis regains his memory (duh), but, entangled in his most recent obsession, stumbles upon Atlantis. Mayhem ensues as Root is forced to deal with the bureaucracy, Artemis with his obligations, Foaly with his pride-driven search for Artemis in the Atlantean slums and Holly with swear-toad subculture.
The beta is going to have to be fairly knowledgeable in music and music theory and, if possible, the construction of musical instruments. A fellow linguist wouldn't be bad either. And someone who's read Plato's stuff on Atlantis and other basic writings as well just to double-check me.
Of Magic and Mayhem, Part Two: DescentFormerly Holly and Silver
Yes, it is the sequel. I'm not going to give away much of the plot, but, ah, bad things happen. Emotional, physical and historical things. Not too funny, although it had a morbid humor throughout.
For this I'd like someone that's really, really good with expressing mood. I've ripped this to pieces and I'm not satisfied. Help. Please.
Artemis Fowl and the Heart of WinterEver heard of Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut? Well, for those that have and actually understood the ideas behind Ice-9, they know there were several problems with how it would work (Like where would all the energy from the freezing process go, dammit!?). Basically, a tem of Icelandic glaciologists don't think the current global warming is a climatic trend and do something about it. Something that has to do with the Ice-4 (#?) buried beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. A lot more complicated then that, obviously, but that's the base.
Beta readers…. Beware. I would need someone good at this. Plot's done and the science behind what I have planned has been approved by my father, who has PhD's in hydrogeology, physics, and a few other spiffy things. Whoever is stupid enough to volunteer has to know their physics. I have the glaciology down, since that is fortunate enough to be on the Science Olympiad this year and I read a few textbooks on the subject. If anyone knows whatever language Iceland-ers speak I'd like them to step up so I can annoy them about the translations.
Over AnalyzationThis is just a short story collection which has stories varying from Artemis after his dad's disappearance to Foaly on the mind-wipes to which LEP agent got caught to start all that crock o' gold nonsense. Just a good, general reader would be nice for these to correct typos and canonical stuff would be nice, plus they would get a sneak peak at everything with no strenuous activities. Win-win, right?
I know, I know. You're probably all wondering when I'll be posting all these outlandish stories. Well, to be honest… as soon as I have a good, steady beta-reader. A chapter a week, like this, will be average once I get far enough ahead.
Whew…
If you don't feel like rereading OMAM now that you've finished finally, feel free to email me. I'm setting up a document with all the tidbits that are more relevant to the re-done plot that can be emailed out to those that ask.
That's all I'm going to write in regards to OMAM now, other then that I've posted the first two chapters of revisions. More shall be posted as the week advances.
Namárië,
Nallasariel the Weeper