Phoenix Triumphant, Chapter 3

The rogue author updates again! Sorry for the wait, you guys, and I hope you enjoy!

The Department of Mysteries was far, far larger than even the minister of magic knew. Their budget was classified, of course, and the thousands of galleons they were given were put to many different uses, including excavating the ground below the Ministry and converting it to their own rooms. Indeed, their department, being (due to a legal technicality) affiliated with but not part of the Ministry, they had not been inspected or audited in close to six hundred years. Well, in theory the Ministry was inspecting them, but it was only cursory- they only looked in the rooms that had been originally part of the Department, as the rest were quite off limits.

Which was a good thing, as it turned out. The new rooms contained experiments that the Ministry would probably not have approved of or sanctioned, had they known. Of course, as of right now, it was not necessary to have the Ministry's approval; a law concerning that had been put in to place quite a long time ago, as the Department had argued that the Ministry knew nothing of what they were working on and could not be trusted to let them do what was necessary for the entirety of the Wizarding World, and that many of the officials were biased, and would not want them working on some of the things they did, no matter how necessary it was to understand them.

Here, in the staffroom, experts in every field of magical study convened, many of them light years ahead of anything that regular witches and wizards could conceive of. A spell-crafter chatted with a expert in soul magic by the coffee maker, and a Romanian who had dedicated his life to the study of magical viruses, specifically the ones that caused vampirism, lycanthropy, and wendigo syndrome was showing a stack of notes to the resident radical Healer. Nowhere else in all the world were wizarding intellectuals able to talk to one another so freely, without censure. Of course, all that had a cost. Some of their experiments were unpleasant in the extreme- Director Miriam Malfoy (H2507-p) had unfortunately even worked on some of them with her colleagues, but they were necessary. Magical genetics, soul magic, blood magic, and dark magic were only a few of the things that they studied here, and all of them were important. If one had a strong stomach, there was no better or freer place in all the world to study magic, and other things, in all their forms.

Down here, magical animals thought long extinct were bred, or even cloned back. Here there were records of all the magical phenomena that had ever been witnessed, and here, too, was where many of the cures for magical diseases that were now commonplace had been developed. But here, too, many atrocities had been committed in the name of science, and Miriam had finally decided it was time to call a staff meeting, her first since she had taken the position of Head of the Unspeakables.

And so she walked up to the podium at the front of the room and rang the great summoning bell, once, twice, and again.

It took only a few minutes for the rest of the Unspeakables to come pouring into the staffroom, gathering around her podium. In approximately fifteen, they were all there, in identical Unspeakable robes but without their hoods, as there was no need to hide their faces from the rest of their colleagues.

"Welcome, and thank you for arriving so quickly!" Best to start out simple. Miriam honestly didn't know what to say, but she knew she would figure out as she went along; Malfoys were quite good at rhetoric, having had private tutors in the subject since infancy.

The others all looked at her a little perplexed, as staff meetings in this department were really quite rare, even with a new head's ascendancy. She ignored the looks. "I have called this department meeting both as something of a progress check and to outline a few new goals and rules I would like to put in place, now that I am head. First, may I have reports of the progress in each of your teams?"

The other Unspeakbles murmered among themselves; this sort of thing had never been done before. A progress report? How quaint. Wasn't that something that didn't apply here? She could hear all the murmers, and sighed internally. No doubt this would be a long meeting. But it was time to show her authority, and it was actually long past time to instigate progress reports, especially as they were in every department but this by now.

"Toadvine," she began (no sense in using code names here, since they were all vowed to silence anyway) "What has been accomplished in your team?"

"Well," said the warding expert cautiously, "How far do you want us to go back?"

"Start with this year," Miriam told her.

"We've been working on blood wards, discovering how they work and how efficient they are as opposed to the other basic warding types, and we've also been collaborating with Tiresias trying to translate an old Greco-Roman warding text and trying out the wards in a spare ritual room. There's one based on salt that's quite fascinating and another that seems very similar to an old Babylonian sexual ritual, except that it is in Latin and a number of the minor details are necessarily different. Would you like me to elaborate?"

"Not at the moment, no. If you could have someone write all of your discoveries from the past year up in a coherent manner and send them to me, that would be great."

"O...kay," said Jenna Toadvine cautiously. "We'll have to to you by noon tomorrow. Is this going to be a regular occurrence?'

Miriam could see all the other Unspeakables' heads rise at this. "Yes. From this moment on I would like monthly and yearly progress reports, which are to be permanently archived."

"May I ask what brought this to mind?" another Unspeakable, Jade something, spoke up.

Miriam hesitated. "Yes. For all our breakthroughs, we are actually remarkably behind the times, and I would like to change that."

The others started muttering among themselves at this, and Miriam could hear snatches of their conversation: "...behind the times?" "Upstart. How dare she just..." "What does she think she's..."

Mirium abruptly raised her hand for silence. "All the other departments have already instigated this, and I also believe that reports would be most helpful for our own records, even if no one outside our department sees them."

"We already have records," retorted Jade, narrowing his eyes. "They are in the archives if you cared to look at them." His tone implied that she ought to have done her research.

"I should not have to go digging through the archives when I want to know how my department is doing, Patil," she said, thankfully remembering his last name. Using his first would of course have been overly familiar. "Just because the information is there doesn't necessarily mean it's accessible or in chronological order. What I need is a progress report, a summary of what you have accomplished in a given month or year."

Jade Patil reluctantly nodded, apparently seeing what she was getting at, as did most of the others.

"Right, that's settled." she said. "Winkworth, I suppose your team has been doing well?"

"We've synthesized the virus that causes vampirism, and are now working on an experimental vaccine," Trevor Winkworth replied. "With your permission we would like to collaborate with St. Mungo's."

"Permission granted, and I would like the details later."

Trevor nodded.

"Whitehorn?"

"We're working on trying to see if we can unlock squibs' magic," he told her. "Magic is genetic, of course, and we think that once we can check for in utero magic, we could do something, like modify the baby to have an active rather than a recessive gene. That said, it would be better if witches and wizards would stop inbreeding, which would just solve all of our problems in one go."

Being pureblood, Miriam knew exactly what he was talking about, as her little brother had been a squib. Thank Merlin the French branch of the family didn't kill their squibs! "I see. Anything else?"

"Well, we've been genetically modifying some magical animals; I'll give you the details later. We've also found that it's approximately sixty-four times as likely for a muggleborn to actually be distantly related to a wizarding family than to be a genuine anomaly, so we are working on a ritual that can remove or transfer magic."

Miriam winced. There could be no good uses for that, unless perhaps it could be used to transfer magic to someone who had lost it through severe magical exhaustion or a magical accident. "I want the details of that magic removal ritual to be code Ω," she told them, and several pairs of eyes widened around the staffroom. Code Ω meant that a spell, ritual or potion was top secret even among the Unspeakables: the files that mentioned it would all be classified and the entire thing would be put under a Fidelius modified for information with the Head as Secret Keeper, while the Head herself would have to vow never to reveal it to anyone unless the circumstances forced her to, and never reveal it to someone who himself had vowed to keep it a secret and never use it for evil. "I also want you to start working on a ritual that can reverse the other, or that can give a magicless person magic."

"Yes Ma'am," Whitehorn replied, seeming to grasp the problems that could arise.

"Very well. Giltner?'

The Potions specialist raised her head. "We've been collaborating with Tiresias and Indira's team working on a potion to allow an ordinary wizard to speak parseltongue, modified from a translation potion, and we've also been modifying a tumor removal potion to be a male abortion potion for those whose partners got them pregnant without their consent. We have s few more lesser projects that are mostly just brainstorming at the moment."

"Excellent job. Greely?"

"We're working on making matching rings that allow the wearers to communicate mind-to-mind, and we're collaborating with Giltner's team on a liquid form of the imperious, but there has been no progress so far and the test subject had to be sent to St. Mungo's," the mind magic specialist told her. Miriam's eyes narrowed.

"Speaking of test subjects, was he or she willing?"

The way Greely avoided her eyes made her think that that was not the case.

"I will be speaking to you about that later. Anything else?"

"We've been collaborating with Whitehorn's team trying to map the genome of natural empaths, zopaths, and telepaths," he offered.

"Right. I'll want more details later." Damn, this was going to take a long time. "Webber?"

"I'll send you the list of spells we came up with and their arithmantic calculations later; there are too many to talk about now. I would like to ask about patenting some of the safer ones, though..."

"Run them by me in detail later and I'll give you permissions based on what they do."

Webber did not look satisfied, but he probably figured that was going to be the best he was going to get, which it was. Miriam was not just going to blindly give him blanket approval on publishing new and unknown spells, however useful they might be to the public.

"Cabell, how about your team?"

Richard Cabell sighed. "Charms as a science doesn't have much new ground to cover. Most of us are just helping out the spell-crafting team brush up on their charms theory."

"That's not true," broke in one of the members of Cabell's team. "There's the house elf thing."

"House elf thing?" Miriam enquired, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh. Oh yes." To her surprise and amusement, Cabell actually blushed. "We're studying the difference between regular household charms and house elf magic. It's fascinating, really. Plus I never really knew how interesting house elves were before."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You know they don't seem like much at first, but they're actually interesting to talk to. Their culture is fascinating, and they can do things with their magic that wouldn't even occur to most of us. It's really an entire unexplored sector of research."

She smiled. "Well, just carry on then. Just be humane. No vivisection or anything like that."

Cabell, thankfully, looked horrified at the very thought, and promised to be humane at once. Which was more than some team leaders would do, she knew.

"Mordrake?"

The pureblood stepped forward. "The magiarcheology team has been doing well," he said formally. "We would like to request funds for an expedition to El Dorado, however. We also have some findings from the Tibetan dig to owl you."

"Funding granted, and have the findings in my mailbox no later than Tuesday."

Leon Mordrake nodded. "Very well."

Miriam heard the reports of the magianthropology team, the dark magic team, the wand study team (metal wands seemed promising and some interesting wands with triple or obscure cores, unusual woods such as whomping willow and unusual lengths seemed promising), the magizoology and herbology teams, the astronomy and temporal teams, and even the magical nutrition team before finally they hit a rather large snag.

"Sallow? How's the transfiguration team?"

Martie Sallow huffed a long sigh. "Not good. We were studying the effects of human transfiguration on an expectant mother, but we had to drop everything when the subject died. And then there's the thing about Potter."

Miriam straightened. Sallow couldn't have said what Miriam thought she'd just said. "Pardon?"

"I said, we had to put a stop to our research on human transfiguration due to the death of the subject. And then there's Potter's refusal to-"

"I heard you perfectly well the first time," Miriam broke in. "Let me get this straight. You killed an expecting witch."

"Muggle, actually, but-"

"Even worse. I'm assuming that since she was a muggle she didn't concern to any of this?"

"Well, no, but-"

It was at this moment that Miriam saw red. Gryffindor red. "Right. That stops now," she hissed, actually beginning to shake.

"Malfoy-"

"That's boss or Head to you," Miriam said. "And as of today all human or humanoid experimentation stops. In twenty-four hours, I will inspect every team's project room, and I will also be using veritaserum."

"Ma'am-"

"If at any time experimentation on wizards, muggles, squibs, or sentient magical creatures becomes necessary, you will have to get permission from me or any future Head," Miriam went on relentlessly. "And I am adding a clause in the Unspeakable Vows about experimental ethics. Now what was all this about Potter? I assume Harry Potter?"

Sallow drew herself up defiantly, evidently preparing for a speech that would no doubt incite a long and unpleasant discussion. "You've read the papers, haven't you?"

Miriam had not, as she had no interest in what the media was saying and was usually bogged down with paperwork anyway. "No. Why?" She'd known, of course, that a number of wizards in her department had wanted to have a look at Potter in a general sense, but she'd thought that that fervor had died down a while back.

"You know that Jennings had a mishap in the Love Room?"

"Yes. Get to the point, will you?" Miriam was in no mood for Sallow's nonsense.

"The reason that Jennings was in the Love Room was because of Harry Potter."

One silver-blonde eyebrow shot up. "What?"

"We recovered Jennings' notes from the Love Room, and from what we could gather from them and from what Jennings could remember from his encounter with Potter, the boy is off all charts at this point," Sallow went on doggedly. "He's a phoenix animagus."

That elicited multiple gasps all across the room, even from Miriam's own throat.

"He can flame teleport just like a phoenix, he can heal instinctively, he had wild magic that's unimaginably powerful, and added to that, the idiot boy performed the Rite of Flamma Aeterna on his Potions Professor Severus Snape, which not only healed all his wounds and removed his Dark Mark, but also bonded the two with a Sacred Triple Bond."

More gasps greeted this announcement.

"Mr. Snape apparently has the same powers Potter has, including the potential to become a phoenix animagus, although he has not experimented with his as much as Potter had. He actually deaged Professor Dumbledore to age forty, however, and healed an unbreakable curse. I have both of their private medical files here, and...how can you not want to summon them down here for some tests, boss? This is unprecedented!"

"I would, but only with their consent, as it would be their bodies that we would be studying," Miriam retorted. "I suspect that Jennings was not so considerate as to ask?"

Sallow wouldn't meet her eyes. "Potter literally banished Jennings from Hogwarts to the Love Room! Don't you think that such power is dangerous? He needs to be studied so that we can stop him if he goes out of control!"

Miriam's lips twitched. "Did Jennings do something that deserved being banished to the Love Room from Hogwarts?"

"He just asked Potter and Snape to come with him."

Knowing Jennings, he probably hadn't exactly asked, per say.

"You know that isn't true!" broke in one of Sallow's teammates at that moment. "Snape was too injured to get out of bed, first of all, and both of them refused to come. Jennings tried to force the issue."

Sallow looked rather sour at that. Miriam, however, was livid. "Serve Jennings right then! Do I actually have to add a rule that says 'Don't bother bedridden wizards for things that can wait'?"

"We have to get a look at them though," broke in another Unspeakable whose name (as Miriam thought) was Sabrina. "Not only is all of that entirely new, something which could potentially be the root of a new branch of magical theory, but that kind of power level...we need to figure out how to dampen it if necessary, for if either of them go dark."

"A phoenix can't go dark; it would self-destruct," one of the magizoologists broke in. "So no worries on that front, although I do agree that if we can, we should try to let them run some tests and scans..."

Miriam nodded. "I can get behind that. I would love to bring them down here, as long as it is voluntary on their part."

It was then that Amita, an African witch who rarely spoke, raised her head. "Phœnixes can't go dark," she began in her musical voice. "But phoenix animagi can. We still have to keep on our guard."

"What do you mean?" Miriam asked. "I thought this was the first instance of a phoenix animagus?"

"No, it isn't," the historian of the Unspeakables responded solemnly. "The first and only instance of a phoenix animagus before this was Ra Imhotep II, Imhotep the Mad."