Chapter Fifty-Five
Unintended Consequences
Jennifer had used the Portkey Pad next to Lunette Vallid's office, so she wasn't aware that none of the regular elevators were working in the building. She went straight in, so she didn't even notice that the lights were out in the hallway. But what she did notice was that the front secretary seemed quite frantic. All of the doors were open between the different secretary offices, and one of the paralegals was going between them with a box of charmed seashells, handing them out to each secretary.
"Oh, thank you! I feel so helpless without a phone!" said the front secretary told him gratefully.
"Belle, is Lunette in? I need to speak to her," Jennifer said.
"Oh! Um... well, we're in a bit of a crisis at the moment..."
"Yes, and so am I," Jennifer snapped testily. Getting the hint immediately, Belle put her ear to the shell.
"Miss Graham, can you hear me? Oh, great! Yeah, I hear the ocean too, isn't it weird? Oh... uh... Jennifer's here and she said she needs to see Judge Vallid," Belle explained.
"At once," Jennifer said firmly.
"At once," Belle repeated. "Okay, go on in."
"Thank you," Jennifer said.
She passed by a few more panicked secretaries, who seemed to be in a scramble to get everything from paper to reference books. The last one was frantically putting stamps on letters to be sent out in the Owl Mail. Finally, Jennifer made it to Lunette's office. She was standing by her desk while a man in an orange polo shirt with the silhouette of a pumpkin on it was sitting in her desk chair and trying desperately to repair her device.
"What to do you need, Jennifer?" Lunette asked distractedly, watching him work on it.
"Privacy for a start," Jennifer snapped. Lunette blinked at her tone, but when she saw how dark Jennifer's expression was behind her spectacles, Lunette couldn't help but wonder.
"Could you leave us alone for a moment, please? Feel free to take that with you," she told the man. He nodded and picked up the singed computer, taking it out of the room. Lunette shut the doors and fastened them, gazing at her friend thoughtfully.
"Jennifer? What have you done?" Lunette asked, a little wary of the answer.
"Never mind what I've done!" Jennifer shouted so furiously that Lunette was very glad that the room was soundproofed. "Someone got a hold of some Polyjuice Potions of me and have been using my image on the Dark Wizard Web to do unspeakable things! I want you to find out who did this, preferably before Severus finds out about it!" Jennifer snapped.
"Take your glasses off, Jennifer," Lunette ordered, and Jennifer put them away. "Now show me what happened." Jennifer gazed at her friend, her fiery expression unabating the entire time they began reading each other. Lunette grew more and more concerned until the point that she saw Jennifer's response to the situation. Lunette groaned and put her hand on her head. "Jennifer! Do you have any idea what you've just done?"
"I already showed you what I did! I Erased all images and articles about me on those damned devices," Jennifer snapped.
"Oh, you did a lot more than that," Lunette said with exasperation. "Jennifer, it's called a "net" and a "web" for a reason. All devices interconnect with each other and communicate with each other. That Erase spell is designed not only to get rid of the copy of something you cast the spell on, but every other copy that exists, regardless of where it is. That Erasure was so big and so sudden that you managed to cause a meltdown of the entire Wizardnet system," she explained. "And since many of our computers are actually hybrids with access to both magic and non-magic information, it caused a catastrophic failure of the non-magical portion of the internet as well!"
Jennifer stared at her.
"What?" Jennifer said, bewildered.
"You really don't have any idea just how many Muggle computers are hooked up to the internet, do you?" Lunette asked.
"A lot?" Jennifer guessed meekly.
Lunette sighed and took her arm, leading her to the Doorlift. A moment later, she was walking Jennifer out of the building so that Jennifer could have a look at all of the cars stuck on the street. All of the advertisement boards were strangely blank, and taxi drivers and ride share drivers were standing next to their vehicles, not knowing where to go. The sidewalks were filled with excited people complaining about the electricity outage, talking about how they couldn't get their phones to work, and even asking each other if anyone had any cash, since credit card and ATM machines were down. Lunette gave Jennifer a moment to take it all in.
"Oops," Jennifer said at last.
"This is some 'oops'!" Lunette said curtly, then turned Jennifer around and nudged her back inside. "In all my years, I have never met anyone who makes a bigger mess to clean up after than you! Now, go back up to my office! I need to contact Aurelius."
As far as Anna and Alex was concerned, it couldn't have come at a worse time. They had spent most of the weekend plugging in data from the Ministry into one of BELA's hybrid computers and had rolled it in to Draco's office to give him a demonstration of its capabilities.
"So," Alex began, turning it on. "We've spent some time putting some public records and some basic laws and bylaws into the device -"
"How much time?" Draco interrupted critically.
"Oh... um... well, everyone was off duty," Alex explained quickly.
"Alex, as Minister of Mysteries, you are always on duty. And Anna Black has no time. She barely keeps up on the weekends considering her extensive duties at the castle this year," Draco pointed out.
"Well, we had other volunteers helping too... but the whole point is that if we put all our information in a database, we'll all have a lot more time in the long run," Alex explained. "We can look anything up we need with a few clicks... even when it's in a big old law volume. You don't need a staff of paralegals or counselors looking things up, you just have to put what you want in a search bar. It'll save the Justice and LE departments a lot of time and money."
"I notice that Thomas isn't in here," Draco said evenly. When they didn't answer right away, Draco looked over at Percy Weasley, who was watching with his arms folded.
"He told them that it was too much of a security risk and slammed the door in their face," Percy offered.
"Yes, but that's only because he doesn't understand how it works!" Alex protested. "We can safeguard all of that. Sure, we'll have to hire someone to keep on it to prevent occasional breaches, but it can be done. And you'll save so much space since you won't need books or scrolls or parchment or paper or anything..."
"I hope you don't expect our Owls to carry those bulky devices around," Percy said.
"Alex, why don't you just give them a demonstration?" Anna suggested, seeing that Alex was only succeeding at digging herself into a hole.
"Right, good idea!" Alex said, sitting down at the pumpkin Tome and began hitting some keys. "Okay, we're logged in! Now let's look something up!"
"Fine. Look yourself up," Draco suggested.
"No, we can't look me up, I'm not in public records. Mysteries protocol, you know?" Alex reminded him.
"How convenient," Draco said dryly.
"Go ahead and look me up," Anna suggested.
"Right!" Alex said enthusiastically, and began plugging in the information.
But just as Anna's file came up, the computer the screen began to twist around and the Tome began to smoke. Alex jumped up in surprise, getting out of the way as the Tome's screen went dark. A moment later, even more smoke poured out of the bottom, and they heard a few loud popping sounds as different internal parts failed, leaving nothing but a blackened frame and enough smoke that Percy had to cast an breeze charm to clear it. Suddenly Alex yelped and Anna panicked as their pockets began to smoke. The two of them tossed their phones onto the floor as they also began to heat up and blacken as well, leaving a pair of nasty burn marks on the carpet.
"Well, that was nothing short of a waste of time," Draco said, glancing at Alex and Anna, who were still helplessly staring at their phones. "Now, let me make this perfectly clear. Effective immediately, no Wizardnet devices of any kind are allowed in the Ministry of Magic, except for the Muggle computer needed for BELA. And that includes Tomes, mobiles, and whatever the hell else those damned things are called. They won't be allowed in this building as long as I am Minister, and considering the early vote projections, I am not going anywhere anytime soon. Percy, write me up a declaration to that fact, with a note that if anyone wants to overrule it, they'll need to use the standard three-fourths majority of the Wizards Council... which will assuredly be enough to keep those damned things out of our society's cogs for a long, long time. This silly mock Muggle contraption experiment is over... and Percy, make sure to write that declaration on proper parchment with a proper quill like normal wizards do!"
"Yes, Minister," Percy replied and went to his desk to pull out a sheet.
Draco shoveled an enormous bundle of scrolls and ledgers into his Unremarkable Briefcase so he could get ready to go home for the day, while Anna and Alex to tried to cool down the remains of their devices so that they could collect them.
Just then, Hope Willowby burst through the doors, panting after her mad dash across the corridors of the Ministry.
"Auror Hope, don't you ever knock?" Draco snapped at her.
"It's an emergency!" Hope explained quickly. "A whole bunch of wizard houses are on fire, including the Oracle's main office in Cardiff and the Longbottom Mansion! The shells are all going nuts with reports of Wizardnet devices smoking and melting and hybrids sparking, and if that wasn't enough, all the electric power has gone out in Britain along with everything else!"
"Wait, that sounds like too much of a coincidence having our computers explode and outages in London at the same time. Does that mean someone on our side is responsible for this?" Anna asked with alarm. Draco and Percy were already running out the door.
"Keep calm, Anna, it's February," Alex reassured her as they followed the out. "Six Nations Rugby is going on and England was playing Scotland this afternoon," she said, checking her watch. "So if anyone asks what happened to the Muggle's electric, just blame it on a TV pickup, caused by everyone making tea at the same time."
"Oh, they won't buy that!" Anna exclaimed.
"Why not? They've always bought it before," Alex replied as they hurried back to their offices.
Jennifer sat comfortably in a plush chair in Lunette's office with a cup of chamomile tea, her expression somber as she watched Lunette pace the room worriedly. A few minutes later, Aurelius stepped in the room.
"Sorry it took me so long," Aurelius said, giving his mother only a cursory glance before focusing on Lunette. "The entire planet has gone nuts all of the sudden, and I had to check in at Kingler's. The wizard security is holding, but all of their machines and power is offline at the moment, just the emergency battery lights are on. I hooked them up with a warming stove so they can hold up there until those Muggles get their power online."
"I don't suppose they've heard anything about what's going on?" Lunette asked.
"Yes, Sally had an emergency radio in the office, so they've been using that," Aurelius said. "They're reporting that the power is down because of a computer failure and they'll need to take them offline or something but they're working on it. From the sounds of it on the radio, every device that communicated with the internet in some fashion is down worldwide."
"Did you say worldwide?" Jennifer gawked.
"Fortunately, it sounded like there are some emergency and military systems which are completely internal and aren't hooked up to the internet in case of a national disaster like this. The city is working on restoring basic services, but it might take a bit. It's a chaotic mess out there right now. Any idea what caused all of this?" Aurelius asked.
Lunette simply glanced at Jennifer, who would have hid if she thought it would have done any good. Aurelius groaned loudly.
"I plead the fifth," Jennifer said glumly.
"Yes, seal that secret, Aurelius, since obviously we can't let this get out. But there's another matter I need you to know about concerning another case of ours that's affected by all of this," Lunette said, leading him into a side office. "Have another cup of tea, Jennifer."
"Wait until Severus hears about this. I am never, ever, ever going to live this one down," Jennifer said, kneading her head.
"No, you most certainly won't," Lunette agreed before closing the door. But it wasn't very long before the door opened again and Aurelius came out with a dark, determined expression on his face, storming towards the door.
"Aurelius?" Jennifer called out with concern after seeing his expression.
"It'll be all right, Mum, don't worry," Aurelius said simply, and strode towards the Portkey Station.
"Come on, Jennifer. Let's head to the Book Club to wait this out," Lunette suggested. Jennifer somberly got up and allowed herself to be led out.
It didn't take long for Aurelius to track Harry down at the Oracle... or at least, what little was left of it. It also didn't take long after Aurelius whispered in Harry's ear that the two of them Apparated in front of the old Malfoy mansion.
Amadeus Longbottom was sitting on a bench on the front lawn with soot on his face and clothes, a blanket over his shoulders, and sipping an aeration potion. Closer to the mansion, St. Mungo's Fire and Emergency team were carefully searching the property to make certain there weren't any hot spots left. A pair of dragon growls let Amadeus know that he was not alone, but before he could even hope to make an escape, the captain of the emergency team had walked up to him.
"You're in luck, Mr. Longbottom," the Fire-Emergency Wizard informed him. "We got here soon enough that the majority of damage was kept only to one room, with minor damage to surrounding rooms. The room where that explosion happened is a total loss, I'm afraid."
"Let me guess. It was in a room filled with Wizardnet devices," Aurelius said darkly as he and Harry walked up. Amadeus' expression changed, wondering what they were doing there.
"If you think I had anything to do with what's happening out there, you've come to the wrong place. I didn't have anything to do with anything this time," Amadeus said firmly.
"Was there any sort of camera or streaming devices found in the wreckage, Mr. Ire?" Harry asked.
"No, Auror Potter, but there were a few Wizardnet computers because we found melted frames in the burn area. Is this a criminal investigation of some sort?" the fire captain asked.
"It had better not be! If it is, I want my counselor present... and for him to go away," Amadeus added for good measure, pointing at Aurelius.
"No, it's all right, Mr. Ire, we already know that Amadeus isn't responsible for the fires or the explosions," Harry assured him.
"I'll go let my team know we can head out, then. But you, Mr. Longbottom, should go get checked over at St. Mungo's," the captain told him.
"We'll make sure he gets there," Aurelius said. The captain nodded, walking away. "But first we want to know something, Amadeus... like how those Polyjuice Potions of my mother ended up getting distributed and how they ended up going to an illegal streaming site on the Dark Wizard Web." Amadeus stared at him in surprise, blushing bright red.
"I don't know how they got hold of them! I had nothing to do with that!" Amadeus snapped.
"No, but I have no doubt you downloaded those videos, especially if that explosion is any indication," Aurelius growled.
"And so did thousands of other wizards on that streaming site, whether they did and didn't recognize who that witch was pretending to be. Why aren't you investigating all of them too? I don't deny that I knew about it, but I don't see that I had any obligation to report it any more than anyone else. I never even tipped that account or contributed to it in anyway other than watching the free streams, which I'm sure can be easily proven if you can get access to whoever is behind this and dig into their streaming accounts. But go ahead and start chasing every wizard who's gotten off thanks to those videos! It'll keep you so busy that you won't have time to go after any real criminals," Amadeus taunted him.
Harry knew he wasn't going to be able to stop Aurelius from stepping up and hitting Amadeus in the jaw, the punch landing hard enough to flip the bench. Perhaps he could say he just wasn't fast enough to stop it, Harry mused, reluctantly stepping in and gently pulling Aurelius back.
"Stop. Wait. You really shouldn't do that," Harry said with no energy in his words whatsoever, ignoring the fact that Amadeus had pulled out his wand and scrambled to his feet to defend himself. "I need you to back off of him, Aurelius, it's against regulations or some such rot. Just pretend I said what I'm supposed to say," Harry added for good measure.
"I could press charges for that!" Amadeus howled.
"Go ahead, I dare you! I can't wait to tell the court why I did it, and you count on me insisting that my father is in the room to hear it!" Aurelius snapped fiercely. Amadeus stared at him with open fear in his eyes. "Now, get the hell out of my sight before I finish the job myself!"
"Fine, but this is far from over," Amadeus snapped.
"You can count on that," Aurelius said venomously back. Amadeus walked back over towards his house to inspect the damage.
"I take it that he didn't have anything to do with it, other than not telling us about it," Harry said evenly.
"No," Aurelius said, still seething at what he had read off of him. "Amadeus has been speculating that perhaps Nelson made a really large batch of suspended Polyjuice potions of her and sold a portion to the black market, but he never found any potions himself by searching with her name. They'd probably have been easier for Nelson to sell if nobody knew the source, since some might be scared to purchase anything with the name Snape or Craw on it, There's no telling whether or not the slime who bought them even knew who it was they were exploiting," Aurelius said, still fuming.
"No, but there is definitely a pattern here," Harry said, getting Aurelius' attention. "The Oracle's main office was completely totaled by the time you caught up to me, and there have only been a handful of reports of entire rooms catching on fire or exploding like this one. Most people simply experienced their Wizardnet devices and mobile phones smoking and then becoming unusable. I bet the severity of the damage is directly dependent on whether or not they had downloaded anything about your mother onto their devices. The Oracle blew up because of how much old photos and news articles they were circulating on their Wizardnet media site, and I bet all of those who had rooms catch on fire either have either downloaded files from the Oracle or the Dark Wizard Web," Harry said. "Let's question other wizards whose houses caught on fire to see if my hunch is right. If so, we may be able to pinpoint where that streaming studio was by finding another building that went up like the Oracle did at about the same time."
"Fine, but while we're gathering evidence, let's fill Lunette in about your hunch so she can go ahead and start looking. The sooner we shut those people down and confiscate the rest of those potions, the better."
"Agreed," Harry said, and the two of them walked out to the front gate and Disapperated.
Back at Whitebridge, Asher Smith's room was a total loss. After the sprinklers kicked in, Frank's rooms weren't much better. Asher, Frank, and Ray then hurried over to the Wizardnet Lab, and while it hadn't caught on fire like their rooms had, the amount of smoke coming out of the Wizardnet devices and the hybrid computer had caused the sprinklers to go off. Even so, it was quite evident that the devices had already been completely destroyed before the treated water added insult to injury.
"It would appear that I might be out of a job," Frank said, breaking the silence that had fallen when the three wizards surveyed the damage.
"Remind me never to get on her bad side," Asher said somberly.
"I don't think she really meant to do this, you know. I think she was just trying to get those videos off the Wizardnet. There's no way she could have known this would happen," Ray said.
"Of course she couldn't have," Frank agreed, but then sighed. "You know, a lot of these devices were working when it happened, and if they were broadcasting... I'm not sure this was contained to just the school."
"If she managed to Erase all of the images on the net like she said she did, you can be certain it wasn't contained to here," Ray agreed. "And if the state of that hybrid computer is any indication, it may have affected some Muggle systems too." The three of them grew quiet again for a moment, wandering around the room and looking at the damage.
"Well," Frank said at last, looking up seriously at them. "I don't know what the two of you want to do, but I'm certainly not going to tell anyone what happened."
"Nope, they're not going to get a statement from me either," Ray agreed.
"I wouldn't do that to her either," Asher said solemnly. "I really don't blame her for being upset about it."
"Well, if there aren't any rooms left available in the dorms, you guys can bunk up with me for now," Ray offered. They both thanked him softly, trying not to think of all the items they were going to have to replace.
"I suppose I'll have to get all of my classes to build more Wizardnet devices from those kits," Frank said, using his wand to increase the size of the trash bin so that he could start cleaning up. "Of course, if I'm right, there won't be anything to connect to, except with each other, I suppose."
"Do you really think it's that widespread?" Ray asked with a frown.
"I do. But we can put a kit together real quick to check," Frank suggested. He pulled a box off the shelf and put it on his desk, and he and Ray got to work on it.
"To think of all the time we've spent on the Wizardnet and it's all gone, just like that," Asher said with a sigh. "And considering Jennifer had a dossier, I bet that site is gone too. All of the work I put in over the last two years is gone. At least I put all of my Wizcoins in cold storage."
"Like that even matters now," Ray said, rolling his eyes in exasperation.
"Don't worry, Asher. I know that it's probably all gone," Frank began. He turned on the device, completely unsurprised when it wasn't getting a response from the Wiggle search engine. "But these kits are easy to make, and I'm sure there are tons of factory set pumpkins and Silverbooks that weren't affected, even if all of the mainframes were fried. We can build it again... starting from scratch, just as we did when these devices were first invented. We can make it better than it was before. We can learn from past mistakes and avoid the pitfalls. Think of it like... getting a fresh start. Maybe I'll invent my own operating system this time, instead of relying on everyone else's," Frank suggested.
"What, so you can try to make it Erase-proof?" Ray conjectured dryly.
"I have no intention of even trying, really." Frank admitted. "Maybe if our society was a little bit more wary that something like this can happen, perhaps they'll be more cautious about how much of their life they store in these damned devices. Technology should be used to free up time for more important things, not to rob us of it. Perhaps people will remember to go out into the gardens to smell the flowers instead of holing themselves up in a dusty room with a device in front of them all day."
"I didn't know you were that much of an optimist, Frank," Ray said critically. "It's a pipe dream, you know. Society may start out agreeing with what you're saying, but only until the Wizardnet is working properly again. The moment everything is up and running, they'll all fall into the same old habits and we'll be surround by pale, red-eyed computer nerds that are either too stout from sitting or too thin from muscle loss, and everything will return just the way it was."
"I'm afraid that Ray is probably right, although I rather wish you were right instead, Frank," Asher admitted, propping his head up. "I'd like to think that everyone could learn something from this."
"Says the wizard who'll probably be wasting no time trying to get all those dossiers back up on the Wizardnet as quickly as possible," Ray retorted.
"No, I don't think I shall," Asher admitted. "Just the thought of trying to duplicate all of that tires me out. And to be perfectly honest, I don't even remember them all. In fact, the only dossier out of the hundreds that I've done that I can recall at all is Jennifer's. I don't think I even remember what most of their names are without looking at my personal database, which went up with the rest of my room," Asher admitted. He lifted up his head and gazed at Frank. "You know, though, I'm very concerned about the local hospital now that the potions database is gone. A lot of our doctors have gotten really dependent on it over the years when writing out prescriptions, and I don't think they've printed a physical Potion Pharmacology magazine or volume in this country in ten years."
"They still print them in Europe," Ray pointed out.
"True, but it'll all need to be converted to our units of measure and terminology," Asher said, getting up. "Perhaps I had better get on it. I'm going to need to send Owl Mail out to some of my colleagues and see how many of them are thinking the same thing." The other two wished him good luck as he grabbed his coat and went outside.
"You know, Ray, with those devices down, there are a lot of students that won't be able to turn in assignments this week who had them stored on the Wizardnet," Frank said. "I wonder how many classes were letting students turn homework in that way?"
"Most of them, more than likely, or they had half of them on paper and half on the Wizardnet," Ray replied. "I guess we're all back to pen and paper now."
Frank sat up suddenly.
"Wait, that's not good. That means most of the schools out there are going to need writing supplies. Without access to Charmbasket, and with S&S being the only wizard office supplies store in the city..."
"There's going to be a run on supplies," Ray concluded. "Well, don't just sit there! Let's get moving before anyone else realizes the same thing!"
"The only question is, how in the hell are we going to pay for it? Do you have cash?" Frank asked.
"I got a hundred for emergencies," Ray replied. "You?"
"I used a phone wallet," Frank said reluctantly. They both cringed.
"Come on. It won't go far, but at least it's something," Ray said, turning just as there was a soft growl and Wind Elk appeared in the doorway, gazing at them with concern.
"Frank? Raymond? Are the two of you alright?" Wind asked. "I heard Asher's room and your room were destroyed, Frank... and so is this lab, apparently," he added, frowning at the damage.
"Yes, but that's not important right now. We need to get to S&S for writing supplies for the students before there's a run on them," Frank said.
"Good idea. You can put them on the school's account," Wind told them.
"How? All of the computers are down," Ray informed Wind.
"That's alright, Raymond. They still keep their accounts on paper ledgers there, if you'll recall," Wind assured him.
"I... hadn't been in there in years," Ray admitted sheepishly.
"Never mind that, let's go before they get swarmed," Frank insisted.
"Can you tell me where Jennifer and Asher are first?" Wind asked.
"Jennifer went to see her lawyer, and Asher went to see if he could put together an emergency Potion Pharmocology guide for the hospital to make up for the net being down," Frank explained quickly.
"I see. Good luck, I'll go let Brenda know that you're both all right and let her know about your mission."
"Tell her not to worry. One way or another, we're going to do what we can to make sure the school can get through this," Frank said, and the two of them hurried out.
Feeling a lot more confident about the situation than he had a moment ago, Wind stepped back out with a thin smile, realizing for the first time just how much those three had matured that year. There could be little doubt as to why. But why had Jennifer left to see her lawyer? It was not like her to leave the school in a time of distress. Perhaps she had left the school before the disaster started? At least, he mused, he hoped that was the answer.