DISCLAIMER: This story is based on materials owned by the great J.K. Rowling. I do not make any money with it or anything...Only the Sylvia Shaw character is mine.
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Padfoot1979: Something you would never have thought of?!! Whoa! I'm proud to have surprised you. Hang on, that's the chapter have been aiming for, the reason for this story. I hope it'll come out as good as what's playing in my mind!
NiteQueen: (huge smile) Hey! Glad you could get trough to chapter 7 after that *%/!&?" glitch. Wow! Windcall :1, Psychology teacher: 0. Better chance next time Teacher!!!
sirius the homicidal maniac: I'm glad you like the fact that Sirius is finally free, he really deserves it after all he's been trough. Thanks again for the enthusiasm. When I take a look at the number of reviews others on the site have...well, its reviews like yours that makes me go on and prevent me from trashing all my story files in disgust. *hug back*
Stormcloud Empath: I do! It is my favorite form of entertainment!!!
Thank you for your support, all of you guys.
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Chapter 8- 3D Magic
Dumbledore walked slowly around the black panther standing in the middle of the sitting room, examining carefully the big 3d form of her unfinished product. Sylvia was reeling under the shock, her mind unable to grasp a coherent thought. She gasped when the old wizard's hand went trough the panther's head as if there was absolutely nothing there. "Maybe it's just an illusion." With that reasonable thought, her mind started working again, and behind it, anger came trough her bemusement. She walked to her computer, "He better not have broken anything or muddled the files. If so, wizard or not, headmaster or not, he'll get a piece of my mind." But the computer was not even slowed by the weird event. Her file with the panther was just the same. It was both on her screen and standing in the sitting room. She opened windows after windows to check everything. Suddenly she looked up at Black's exclamation and discovered that the internet browser she had just opened was exposed on the panther's right side. "Oh my God! Its like a second huge immaterial screen. Everything that appears on the computer screen is duplicated on the...how to call it...mega screen?! And the 3d images are exactly that, totally three dimensional. Its...crazy! And amazing!"
"Well. I was not sure it would work. I have been working on that ever since I heard of that computer business. Is that what do you do for a living, Mrs. Shaw?" asked Dumbledore, breaking the silence. "Uh, yea. I'm...I'm a 3D artist. It means that I can make digital objects, creatures or characters that are three dimensional."
Black cut in, "Can you make it move?" Sylvia closed the browser and the panther's file, and opened her old Teddy family file which was the only one of her recent work that really moved. She hit the spacebar and the cute little baby teddy bear ran awkwardly on his little legs in the middle of her sitting area and jumped in his mother's arms. Incredible! Everything was life size! She froze the image and went to take a closer look.
With pixels that big and able to see everything up close, Sylvia start finding problems and imperfect parts almost immediately. "Well, it was made in low polygons, especially done small and fast for the web, not for a big screen." She touched the image of the father bear with her hand and encountered no resistance. Then, she moved forward and put her head inside it. There! She could see the bone structure, the envelopes, everything...and of course she could see right through the skin since you put texture on the outside, nobody is suppose to take a peek of the inside anyway. She saw Dumbledore approach as he put his head inside to take a good look. Then he went completely in and called, "Sirius, what do you see of me, outside?" "Only part of your hat, sir." Sylvia took her head back to see for herself. "So, if I understand this correctly, one inside the image can see everything around trough the skin, but someone outside would only see the image as if solid. Is that right Mrs. Shaw?" Dumbledore's voice came to her perfectly clear from the big papa bear, not even distorted or muffled. "Yea, well it was never really intended for this sort of thing, but yea, basically you can see everything while no one can see you, only the image your standing in."
The headmaster came out, "What about spells, do you think they would go trough it?" Sylvia laugh, "That's not my area of expertise, but I guess its only logical to think that it would...unless your standing in the way." She added wryly. He nodded, "Indeed. Well, there's nothing like trying out a theory." He pointed his wand in the direction of the mama bear with her baby in her arms, his gesture making Black jump out of harms way hurriedly, and said, "Accio pen!" And her pen, which was on the kitchen table behind the three images, went sizzling through the air, disappeared for a second in the mama bear head, then came out from an eye socket and flew directly to the old man outstretched hand. Sylvia jumped about two feet in the air, even forewarned, she was not sure she could ever get used to the offhand ways these people performed the impossible.
Black summarized the experience with an eager look on his face and intensity in his eyes, "So. We can hex others without being seen and slip away from the image if they try to curse it back. We can send any wizard, hidden in an innocuous form to spy on or catch Death eaters and they'll never know what hit them. We can finally turn the table on them and play the same hit and run game they are so fond of... I volunteer for any mission!" Sylvia cleared her throat, "Hum, I think your jumping ahead a little fast here. The images can move only through directions I have implanted beforehand. There is no way it can be move... live. It takes weeks to get a movement right. The muscles and the bones have to move in synch and distort the skin at just the right places, the rest of the body have to follow flawlessly..." She made a gesture with her hand, "You know, there's dozens of details to check out. You can't just slip into an image like you do a car and go wherever you want with it. Besides, the image is link to the computer, we don't know if it still works separated by a hundred, or even a just few dozens feet from each other." She stopped, thinking how to give them an example. "Okay, lets pretend that it works, so I give you an image of...say, a bear. I make it very simple, just a walk cycle in a loop so that it does nothing but walk in a straight line. What if you want to change direction? You would have to be in contact with me and tell me so that I can stop it, turn the bear in a block on the computer and then start the cycle again. Same if you want to stop. Then, there is the fact that a bear standing in the bushes, doing nothing is pretty remarkable, there would be a need for complex actions like eating or scratching or...whatever bear do. Even then, if they have dogs or any animals that can sniff, they would still be able to pick your human scent, whatever image your in, you can't fool that."
"Yes, we can. Severus, our Potion professor, can bottle any scent." Dumbledore scratched his long nose pensively, "As for the bear standing in the bushes...you might not need complex actions if you just transform from an image of a bear to an image of a three, or a bush or even a rock. We can put simple shield charms to prevent insects or small animal to step through the image, giving it away. As long as nobody sees the actual change..." Sylvia nodded, suddenly elated "Yes! That would work." The headmaster continued, "I saw in your image, the bones and muscles. I wonder, I wonder... if there might not be a way to link that to the human nervous system, making the image controllable...as you said, live, by the person inside. Making them ONE." Sylvia felt stunned, " You...you can do THAT?!!!" she exclaimed, her eyes round. "Maybe, maybe." was the noncommittal answer. "A perfect camouflage. The intelligence service and the military would kill a thousand times for something like that." Then, Black's voice cut through her amazement, " Wouldn't it mean that a curse that hits the image would affect the wizard inside as well? I thought the idea was to get at them while staying hidden and impervious to what they send our way." Dumbledore blinked, then smiled ruefully, "Your right, of course. I'm afraid the possibilities has just overwhelm my good sense. Thank you Sirius." Sylvia, also brought back to earth by Black's wry voice added, "It would also mean cutting the image from the computer and still keeping it...real. No small feat. I'm not sure it's even possible."
They felt silent, each looking for solutions that would make it work. Black was the first to make an attempt, "What if we put the computer controlling the image inside with the wizard. He would be able to make the direction changes himself." Sylvia snorted in answer, "It took me weeks just to learn the software and then months to become efficient in creating stuff. And I was already pretty knowledgeable about computers. For people who are not used to technology its about as possible as... me learning to do magic." He sighted, "All right, then we need someone in control outside...to who we can talk rapidly and silently." She shrugged, "Looks like it." Black shot a sidelong glance at Dumbledore and continued "As for that, uh, communication problem, I may have a solution. There's a spell my friends and I used back in school when we went in animagus form. Since animals don't talk and we needed to communicate, we...hum... fished that little piece of magic that links minds together. We couldn't read each others mind of course, otherwise we would have uncovered Peter weakness immediately. We had to send thoughts to each others. It was like talking out loud, only inside your head." Black seemed strangely uncomfortable under the headmaster's gaze who in turn looked like he was trying to suppress his mirth. His eyes dancing behind his spectacles he said, "I would be absolutely delighted to know exactly where, and how, you have found that particular charm. I don't remember it being part of the students curriculum, or even been part of the general knowledge for that matter." Black mumbled something about explaining it later. For a moment there he looked to Sylvia amused eyes exactly like a rebellious school boy. She remembered him saying he was in school with a gang of pranksters. "Oh dear, they must have been quite an unmanageable group." "Nevertheless," Dumbledore continued, "in this case it would probably work quite well."
"What about the magic-technology incompatibility?" Sylvia interjected, "If something magical like that happens to the controller or to the image, would it disrupt the computer in any way?" Dumbledore shook his head, "The calling charm I did earlier did nothing of the sort. The extrapolating original spell I did was intended for the image alone, I did not tamper, nor would I dream of doing so, with the machine itself. As for the mind link on the controller, it takes a much higher amount of magical energies than that to start interfering with technology. I believe it would be quite feasible."
"All right, now what if the image can't get away from the computer more than a few feet? In a big enough one, the controller might be able to huddle inside with the wizard, but that might make it a little awkward, not to mention not the best of idea for the computer."
"There is but one way to answer that. Try it." And the headmaster gestured to her laptop. "Oh! Right."
In a few minutes, Sylvia had closed the teddy bears file, opened a new blank one and created from the library of models the most basic of humanoid form; dubbed a dummy, it was nothing but a skeleton of a two legged figure, it was usually used for test like this one. A few minutes more she had created the basic walk cycle. Then on an impulse, she attached a camera to the head at eye level. That was what you did if you wanted the character point of view of the scene. The camera could be made invisible and she wanted to see if it would record what it sees even in the real world. Ready, she typed the keyboard shortcut to get the camera view and to her surprise her fireplace appeared on her screen. Experimentally, she rotate the dummy head from side to side, the camera view followed suit, showing her interior.
Looking over her right shoulder, Dumbledore asked, "Is that what it sees?" "Yes, I've attached a camera to its head. I just thought of it, seems you don't even have to send a wizard with it to do the spying. We can probably find a way to record it too. Okay, lets see how far it can go." She punched the spacebar and looked at the dummy starting to walk on the computer screen in its grey virtual environment, while its extrapolated counterpart was doing the same in her living room, heading straight for the wall. It went through it without missing a step and on her laptop the window giving the camera view showed the forest outside after a brief moment of darkness. Fascinated, the three of them huddled behind the screen to watch the steady progression of the virtual creation. Sylvia rotated the head here and there, the camera showing them successively the clear darkening sky, the black covered earth with the weird dummy's feet walking rhythmically and the trees on each side. Glimpsing a portion of the lake, Black wondered, "Do you think it could go under water?" In answer, Sylvia stopped the dummy, rotate it in one piece towards the lake and let it go again. It walked straight trough trees and bushes to a steep small cliff... then past it, continuing to walk on thin air as if there was still solid ground underneath its feet. In shock, Sylvia stopped the dummy, seemingly floating over the lake and glowing slightly in the darkness.
"Ooookay! It doesn't react to the environment." Taking a deep breath, she went on, "Of course, it really exist only in the computer where there is no change in the scenery. The extrapolation does not make any difference to that." She pointed at a window on the screen where the dummy was stopped in mid step, his feet firmly on the horizontal plane that acted as a representation of a 'floor'. She then took the computer mouse to move the dummy down under the plane until the camera showed her the lake's floor. There she released the dummy again to resume its walking. It went calmly, showing them dark forms passing in front of the camera. "Hum, we need some light." she muttered, choosing a spotlight on the toolbar and attaching it to the top of the camera. A big bright light suddenly flooded the waters. Sylvia attacked the controls to diminish the luminosity and dim the blinding light to a more bearable intensity. There. They could now see quite clearly the multicolor fish dancing in front of the camera.
Darkness and silence was settling in inside the cabin, the only illumination provided by the laptop silver screen. The situation felt so totally strange and unreal to Sylvia, sitting in the twilight, here in her little cabin, with two wizard, steering a virtual spy through a lake as if it was completely normal. Two days ago she didn't even believed in magic. And here she was...life is really full of surprises, and excitement.
"Any idea how far it is?" murmured Black behind her, his breath on her neck. She shivered a bit at the feeling, he was so close to her. "No, there is no way to know. The software was never designed for that kind of stunt." She murmured back, turning her face towards him. She almost bumped her nose on his chin and looked up. On the way, she caught the sight of his full lips just a few centimeters from hers and suddenly, butterflies start having a rave in her stomach. "Oh no! What is this man doing to me? This whole business is decidedly very bad for my self control." Wrenching her eyes for Black's tempting features, she went back to the computer screen just as Dumbledore announced, " Look, I think it has reached the shore."
He was right, the lake's floor was slowly climbing. Sylvia grab the dummy on her screen and moved it up on the 'floor' again. She also killed the light so that nobody on the shore would come to see what was going on. Only then did she took a look at the camera view of where the dummy was. "What is that?" She wondered aloud as she studied the window where a huge black form was standing with illuminations here and there. "It looks like light coming out of windows. But its much to big to be a house and there's no hotel that important around the lake." The old man smile with no little pride, "Its Hogwarts, our school of witchcraft and wizardry." His eyes went small in the silver screen light, "Now we know how far it is. From the road, going around the lake, its a good 20 miles, but in a direct line, trough the lake, I would guess something like twelve or thirteen miles. Well, you better stop that thing before it goes on the grounds and scares everyone." "Eh? Oh yea!" She stopped the dummy, still staring at the image of this huge castle on her screen. "I don't understand. There's nothing that big around here. Where is it exactly?" Black chuckled, "You know it as those ruins you have been talking about, wanting to take a look at it but never actually getting around to go there. That's because there's some anti-muggles protection around it. Muggles can't see nothing but ruins, and if they, for some reasons, get close, they suddenly decide to go somewhere else, or remember something they need to do elsewhere. That virtual thing, not being a muggle, well, not being anything really, didn't activated those protections. While you do."
She frowned, a little bit alarmed, "I am under a spell?" She felt him shook his head over her shoulder, some of his long hair whipping her cheek. "Not really. You were, for short periods of time, under the influence of spells put on Hogwarts. As soon as the compulsion works and your desire to go there disappears, the influence also stops. Don't worry, there's no harm in it." "So, I won't ever be able to go see it. Is all magical places close to muggles?" It was Dumbledore's time to smile, "No, not to a muggle accompanying a wizard. As long as you're with wizards or witches, you can visit most of our secret places." He straitened and pushed his spectacles back on his long nose, "Now, I think we better call it a night. We now know a spy could get pretty far undetected in an image and that we can arrange for a good, reliable and discreet way of communication. The best is to let it all sink, then come back to it our minds clear." Sylvia nodded and clicked on the button on her screen that would make any creation get back to its point of origin. The dummy reappeared in the sitting room. She saved the file in case they needed it again and closed the computer. The only illumination now was the half moon, shining through the window, putting strange shadows on everything, making the scene totally unreal and out of this world. It only added to the tension she felt in the air and that feeling she had of playing a role in a bad spy movie.
Dumbledore went on, his voice low, moonlight dancing on his spectacles. "We need some images fit for spying of course, but also beast that could induce some fear. Our goal is not solely to get information, we also need to answer in kind to the psychological battle Voldemort is waging. He is actually trying to get allies to augment his numbers. We are doing all we can to prevent that and turn those possible alliances to our own benefit. Unfortunately, that might fail. In that case, I want to make him fear that we have find powerful allies of our own from other sources, unknown to him. If we could be able to create some creatures, a number of them, that we could arrange for one of his spy to 'discover', it might be enough for him to become both more shy of attacking us and more rash in his despair to win. The best would be to force him to attack in force before he is ready, and before he hurts us to much with his raids. If we wait until he is in full power mode, it will be to late to save our world. Fourteen years ago, we were lucky. This time, he wont repeat the same mistake." He looked at Sylvia in the eye, "Mrs. Shaw, I am aware this is not your fight and that you have problems of your own. But I am going to ask for your help. I won't lie to you, it could be dangerous for you to join us, but if you are willing to work for me I will pay you handsomely for your services. Will you help us?"
Dumbstruck, Sylvia gasped, "Don't ...don't you have anyone else at all that can do the same? Someone with more experience in your ways and less personal problems? Not that I don't want to help," she said hastily, "it's just that, with all the muggles you have in your community, there must be somebody...I mean, you barely know me. How can you trust me so fast with something that important! After all I'm still married to a guy who helps out your enemy! How can you be sure I won't turn my coat? Why choose me?"
Still looking at her closely, Dumbledore nodded, "Yes, there are some who might be able to do it, maybe not as well, but they probably could. Only, they don't really feel the imminence of the danger or understand what Voldemort's return really means. Most of them have a young family and would be unenthusiastic about putting themselves in danger of any kind, not that I blame them there. Moreover, you already know about this and you know how to live dangerously. If things turn for the worse, you can disappear pretty quickly, you are ready for that. You can defend yourself and live on the run, they can't. You have proven you can work under pressure and you understand what we are fighting. You've seen the Death eaters at work, both in the forest and in your own husband. We can also keep it a secret, nobody in either the wizarding community or the muggle world, knows about you, where you live or what you do. Voldemort, for all the spies he throws in our path won't ever see it coming, And that is as much, if not more, important than your talent is. I, for one, believe and trust you. That is why we need you. You, and no one else."
He stopped talking, letting her digest it all and make her decision. That was not easy. "In other words, they need me because I'm convenient, because if I die or disappear, no one would get hurt by it, because I have screwed up so much that I'm used to it and don't have anything to lose anymore and because I'm alone and a stranger that nobody can link back to them. Great! Just what I needed, another emotional roller coaster that can get me killed. I guess I should be used to it by now." She sighted. She might as well do it, better to die in a blaze of glory that no one will ever know about, live a great adventure than to die slowly, always scared, forever hiding and utterly alone. At least, she would be helping others, doing something positive. And who knows, she might even get out of it alive. Or better yet, die heroically, cutting her husband from his illegal income, save the world and get totally out of Tim's reach forever.
"All right," she wondered, briefly, when exactly in her running she had became suicidal again, she thought she had left that behind her in that clinic. "I'll do it at one condition. I will need some of the money before the big showdown. If I have to run, I'll need cash to help with the 'far away' part of it. And I have to tell something to my boss, so that he doesn't send me more jobs I won't have time to work on." Dumbledore nodded his acceptance and said gently, "Thank you Mrs. Shaw." She gave him a lopsided smile, "If I have to work for you Headmaster, you might as well call me Sylvia." The old wizard beamed at her and repeated, "Thank you Sylvia, for everything. I will come back tomorrow with pictures of some rare magical beast that you could use as models." He turned to Black standing in a dark corner, near the window. "Don't forget to owl Harry, Sirius. And don't tell him anything about what we are doing here, the less people knows, the better. Oh! Maybe you should stop at Ollivander's tomorrow to get a new wand, I rather think you're entitled to one now. I will wait for your report on that intelligence, and ...congratulation again for your pardon." Then he disappeared with a 'pop', just like that, making her jump. Dazed, Sylvia kept looking at the spot where Dumbledore had been minutes before, trying to put some order to her thoughts, wondering if she had took the right decision.
Black's rasp voice suddenly came to her in the darkness, almost a murmur. "Welcome to the unofficial wizard intelligence service...Sylvia. You better get used to it, there are much weirder and nastier things out there." Then his dark form turned to the window and opened it to let a owl get in.
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Sylvia woke the next morning to the strange sound of...wings?? What was going on? Her head felt full of fluff, the incredible events of the previous evening had made it difficult for her to find sleep. Annoyingly, the fact that Black was sleeping on the couch just outside her room made it even more difficult and she was definitely feeling the lack of sleep. Taking a peek out her window, looking for birds that could account for that flurry sound, she discovered that it was raining and that the whole forest was drowned in a ghostly kind of fog. Seeing no birds and still hearing the unnerving sound, she got up slowly, grab her nightgown, put her dressing gown over it and opened her door...only to discover a scene out of a dream. Black was sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by owls and papers of all kind and sizes, frantically writing with a quill on a parchment.
"What's up? What are those birds all doing here?" she asked sleepily. Black looked up from his writing, smiling almost shyly. "Sorry to have awaking you. Seems like the news of my freedom on the papers have pleased and horrified more people than I thought. I'm receiving hundreds of owl from all over the country, some congratulating me, others insulting me thoroughly. I have already got four howler that I had let explode outside." Sylvia decided she didn't want to know what a howler was. "What about your godson and his friends?" she leaned on the doorframe, unwilling to try and enter her kitchen turned aviary. "I have already answered them and some other friends as well. Don't worry," he added, seeing the dubious look she wore while scanning her surrounding, "I write back to the positive mail only and I never had that many friends. Your cabin will be back to normal in no time." That seemed pretty optimistic to her but she was too sleepy to argue the case. "Any old girlfriend who wants to rekindle the fire?" Now why has she asked that? She turned back to her room to hide her blushing cheeks, fishing clothes out of her closet. When she reappeared on the doorstep, Black just gave her a blank but penetrating gaze. "No, not yet anyway." Smiling thinly she said, "Well, I'm off for a shower, good writing." And she fled down the corridor to the bathroom.
When she came back to the kitchen, feeling much better and pretty hungry, only a few owls remained, perch on the back of the chairs. Black seemed pretty grumpy so she made herself breakfast without a word, putting a plate of food in front of him, which he grab and started to eat while continuing to write furiously. Looking at him attaching the letter to the owl leg she wondered if the birds were the wizards usual form of communication. What if the bird get lost in a storm or is killed in a accident or by another predator? That looked even less reliable then the post. "Talking of communication, I have my own bit of mail to write to Max." She sat down at the table, reaching for her laptop, opening her e-mail account. They sat like that for a while, in silence, both eating and writing with the sound of the heavy rain accompanying the scratching of the quill, the dry punch of the computer keys and the oddly comforting sounds of the birds quiet hooting.
Once her mail had been written, breakfast consumed and the last owl departed, Black turned to her, "You were wondering yesterday if you would ever be able to see one of our magical place. Well, I need to go to London to get a new wand, would you like to come with me and see a wizarding shopping mart? Truth is, it will be easier if I'm not alone on my first official appearance. Dumbledore have sent me some Floo powder, so you can come with me. What do you say?"
Sylvia had no idea what to say. Why invite her when he had just got in touch with a number of long time friends? And why put in danger her new secret link to the wazarding world? Black was waiting for her answer, looking nervous. "London? It'll take us two days to get..." Black interrupted her. "Not with Floo powder, it will only take moments. And we won't go to any muggle place." She nibbled on her lower lip in uncertainty. To go out. Without fear of discovery. With a handsome man. That was way past merely tempting. "Don't read anything into this, it is not a date." she scolded herself before taking a deep breath and taking the plunge. "I will still need to get a little bit in costume to protect what Dumbledore is doing here but apart from that...yes. I would be very happy to go with you and see how you weird people shop."
Black smile almost stop her heart as she saw for the first time the man he most have been years before, totally relaxed and charming, without a trace of shadow in his eyes.
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A/N: I hope that was not too weird or technical. I've been thinking of how 3d could be made to work with magic ever since I took my course. I await your review with dread and hope. W.