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"SHOWTIME!"

Chapter Six

The Excelsior

Outside Hogwarts, near warship Excelsior, fourth day of classes.

Harry stared before him, at the figure that was lost in the bright light as only a subtle darkness but was getting gradually more clear as it walked towards him, and the sunny smile on that face broke through Harry's sadness at last. Thoughts ran through Harry's head while he looked at the cheerful, smiling form of his former teacher, the well-known lycanthrope Professor Lupin (Remus to friends), and all of them centered on the year he'd been here, that third year when he'd met both Lupin and Sirius for the first time, as well as saved the life of that worthless wretch Peter Pettigrew (who had repaid the favor by using Harry to jumpstart Voldemort's resurrection potion). Harry flashed back to all those magical years, and it was with the first honest smile since Sirius' death that he greeted Sirius. He had smiled before now, smiled in happiness, but even then, though many cold years fell off him, the coldness was still in his heart; but now there was nothing but sunshine and happiness in it for Lupin.

" Lupin!" Harry cried again, and ran forward, tackling Lupin in a hug. Lupin laughed and hugged Harry back as well. Harry smiled and laughed back into the great leather overcoat Lupin was wearing.

" Well, Harry! It's good to see you too!" Lupin cried, laughing. Harry simply hugged him and smiled, thinking that he had needed this. He needed to see one of Sirius' friends. He had been unable to talk, to really talk, to someone who knew Sirius as he did, and though Ron was a good friend, not all the kindness in the world would make up for shared experience. And now only two members of that great pact of friends at Hogwarts remained- and one of them, Peter Pettigrew, had fallen out of that pact some time ago. Lupin was really the only one left of the old foursome of friends. And Harry had needed to see him.

Tonight, he thought, I'm going to find him and talk to him. Just talk. About Sirius and about old times.

Finally letting go, Harry stepped back and looked his friend over. He was both surprised and ruefully unsurprised at what he found.

Lupin looked almost the same as he had when Harry had last saw him- in fact, the one before him and the one in his memory were almost exact twins in every way, right down to the shoes- but for the great longcoat he wore, and one other thing.

Lupin had no eyebrows. Harry blinked as he looked at this, and then Lupin laughed.

" Don't worry, Harry!" Lupin said, rubbing at the spot where his eyebrows had been. " They'll grow back. Eventually," he added, almost as an afterthought.

" What happened to you?" Harry said. " Did you burn your eyebrows off or something?"

" What has happened to Lupin," a grave voice said from the ship, " is a mere side effect of a potion I made for him. It was designed to keep his lycanthrope state in a more or less permanent state of slumber. The potion was perfect, but Lupin is apparently slightly allergic to ForeverKiss fluid, and his eyebrows fell off in an almost perfect manner not five days ago, when he first drank the potion."

Harry snapped his head up, and there, stern and commanding as ever, Snape stood, body blocking the entryway into the ship and appearing black and grim in the backwash of light from the ship. " It was an unfortunate but not altogether unexpected side-effect," Snape continued. " An experiment with some of his hair proved that some of it would show adverse side effects. I had expected it to entirely bald him, but that was not the case." Snape's tone had not changed when he said this, but Harry thought he detected the hint of a laugh from him. Snape was an extremely dry man, and so even his jokes were wrapped up in a desert-like aura of completely dead air. Assuming, of course, that Snape had been joking; with him, no one could ever tell.

" Snape?" Harry said. As the rest of the group followed him, considerably more subdued now that a teacher was watching (even if, of course, they were free people now, they all still felt like students), Harry walked up the steps to greet him. " What are you doing here?"

" How did you get here so fast?" Cho said. " You were teaching classes only a little while ago..."

Snape's smile, thin and tight, appeared on his face. " It is a little device that I'm sure a certain Miss Hermione Granger is familiar with..." He pulled a small hourglass out of a pocket of his robes, showing it to them. " The Time-Turner is an invaluable device when properly used... no, Mr. Harry Potter?"

Harry felt a bead of sweat form on his head as he remembered yet another event from his action-packed third year: the time he, Ron, and Hermione had used Hermione's Time-Turner to free Buckbeak and save Sirius. Snape, in a burst of deductive reasoning, had figured out that they were behind it, but could never prove it. Maybe now Snape had finally found a way to trap Harry...

" Don't worry, Mr. Potter," Snape said, tucking the Time-Turner back into a pocket of his robes. " I know about you and your... doings, that resulted in Sirius' escape. I do not know quite how you managed to do it, but I do know enough to say that I am- slightly - impressed by your work." His thin smile, so much like a purse of distaste to begin with, disappeared. " Now, I'm sure all of you will want to see inside the ship, hm?"

Nodding, the group followed him. Ron, eyes wide as he considered the scary fact that Snape might know what they had done in their third year, looked at Hermione and mouthed "He knows!" Hermione nodded sagely and relegated the fact to a corner in her mind. It might prove useful someday.

The rest of the group, not knowing what was going on, might have asked about it, but at that moment, they stepped inside the Excelsior, and all other thought was driven from their minds.

-

Inside the airship Excelsior, same time.

Seamus had taken up a place in the back of the group, and because of this he was one of the last on board. However, one look around convinced him that being up front, where you had to move quicker to keep up with Snape, was not where he wanted to be. His walk slowed to a crawl, as Snape led them through the ship, explaining various things along the way. Seamus ignored him. Right now, all he cared about was the great ironworks about him.

The first step onto the ship was a blind one, a leap of faith into the shining interior of the hull. But once inside, one's eyes quickly adjusted to the brightness, and one could see...

The entryway opened onto a small metal platform. All around the platform, both above and below, goblins worked, crawling through mazes of metal and pipes and hissing steamworks as they fixed, checked, repaired, and tended to the ship's every need. The walls seemed to be living things, full of scurrying goblins clinging to ladders with only their toes as they checked the various works and machinations of the great being. Ladders went up and down and straight and flat on the walls as goblins climbed them, moved aside on them, grumbled on them, sometimes even ate on them (one goblin, Seamus noted with wonder, was eating a small cheese Danish and drinking coffee, all while upside down, holding the coffee so that it's open end was pointing towards his toes). The sounds of goblins talking, goblins laughing, and something that sounded distinctly like cursing filled the caverns, as the ship moved and pulsed in every direction. Seamus had fallen far behind everyone, but he didn't notice in his wonder at all that was happening about him (and there was the fact that, too, Seamus had never been all that interested in what the "group" was currently doing, regardless of whether that group was an entire class or the eight others sent on a special mission by Dumbledore plus their two chaffeurs). He stopped completely and looked around, dropping his hands in amazement, spear diagonaling down as its end bobbed and tipped.

" What is this place?" he whispered to himself, accidentally thinking out loud.

" The guts of the steamworks that run this ship," a voice said behind him. Seamus whirled about, and there, on a ladder going towards what Seamus assumed was the "left", a goblin hung, completely perpendicular to Seamus, looking at him with its scarred and steam-burned face.

" Steamworks?" Seamus said dumbly. The goblin nodded sagely.

" Aye," he said, turning his head upwards and downwards, looking at each thing as if to see what special wisdom it possessed, and it struck Seamus that he was talking to an incredibly old goblin here. This goblin may well have been alive during the last Goblin/Wizard wars, over three hundred years ago.

" Steamworks," the goblin said, still looking around. " The ship is built like this: the engines are run on thunder. Cogworks makes the thunder. Steamworks makes the cogworks move. And at the bottom of it all," and here the Goblin nodded, towards what Seamus thought of as "left", " there is the water that makes the steamworks move. From water to thunder, and from there the fire that propels this ship. That is the power of this ship." The old goblin looked wistfully at where he'd said the "water" was, but Seamus was caught up in his own thoughts of machinery and dreams that the wonderfully evocative word "cogworks" had evoked in his mind: images of great, turning pendulums and eternal, endless cogs, all working to a steam-driven beat.

" Wow," Seamus said. The old goblin looked at him and smiled.

" Yes," he said, beginning to climb backwards, looking back at the ladder as he passed Seamus in the opposite direction, " wow. Now and forever."

As the old goblin left, Seamus turned to look around, and realized that he was alone. This caused him no undue worry of its own, but he did worry he might miss out on something Snape might say about the ship. Leaning his spear back on his shoulder, he took off at a dead run.

-

Head of the ship Excelsior, some minutes later.

Snape turned to the group behind him and said, " Behind this door is the control room. It is here that the pilot, copilots, and navigators stay, along with the gunmen who control the ship's weaponry. Here," and Snape turned to the door, just in time to miss Seamus as he rounded a bend in the tunnel and took up position in the back of the group, beside Parvati (who was merely staring around dreamily) and Cho (whose eyes were looking noticeably better; the redness around them was finally drying up), " is the way in which you open the doors upon this ship. Merely stand before them, put your hand out, and tap once with the back of your fist." Snape demonstrated, turning his hand and rapping once on the door, which slowly slid open as he stood before it. " This works on almost every door, with the exception of the engine room, where only a few goblins are allowed in. They believe that Wizards will foul up the works merely by being there. I hope that is not the case, should any of you," and he turned again and looked at all of them, Potter and Hermione most especially, " take it into your heads to go there and try your luck at engineering." Once again the thin line of a smile appeared, then disappeared. " Come. I shall show you the control room."

Snape stepped inside and began walking off to the side, following the wall as he entered the room. Traveling single file, the rest of the group proceeded as well, Seamus bringing up the rear, with Lupin just in front of him. Seamus vaguely heard Lupin whisper that Snape always did love giving tours and lectures, and heard Parvati giggle, but he was too busy looking into the room (and feeling smug that he'd avoided getting caught by Snape for tardiness) to notice or care. He was far too absorbed by the room.

In complete contrast to the maze of steam carrying pipes and ladders that had made up the bulk of the ship they had just went through, the head room was a small, confined place, neat and orderly, everyone at their stations and not a hair out of place. At the front of the room (to the left of the children as they stood on the far left side of the wall) a great glass window was shown, and Seamus figured that it must be a spell; the outside was opaque, as they had seen before. The view was that of Hogwarts, the walls of the building in front of them, and in little inserts on the sides were shown back, right, and left views, along with a bottom view (showing nothing but grass) and a top view (showing nothing but sky). The insets were helpfully labeled and made viewing much easier for everyone involved. Behind this great glass wall, two Wizards sat, each in small cubicles spaced far apart from each other, and from the way they touched and manipulated various projections on the flat desks before them, Seamus guessed that they were responsible for the views he was seeing. Each time a Wizard moved something on his desk, a part of the screen before them moved, one insert flashing into the next and vice versa. The Wizards were clearly bored with their work, which must be routine or at the least child's play for them by now. It would be a different matter when they were in flight, Seamus guessed.

Seated behind them were several consoles with Goblins at them, and here the workplaces resembled Muggle workspaces, though with no clutter and considerably more wiring. The Goblins were checking and typing into the screens as lines of some strange and archaic symbols and numbers (1's and 0's being most common, though a few strange designs that looked like both a 1 and a 0, put together, flashed up as well) appeared on them, running upwards at a slow, easy pace. Sometimes the designs would stop and a Goblin would key an extra-long series of integers or numbers (or something; Seamus couldn't tell what from where he was) and then the procession would continue. One of the Goblins was smoking and using the ashes as a means of creating an elaborate tatoo on his arm. From the many ash-stains on his fingers, it was clear he had done this for some time.

At the head of the room, more Wizards and Goblins sat together, and finally, here, on a raised platform, stood two people: a female Goblin with a constantly intense, scurrilous look on her face, and a male Wizard, composed and calm as he stood by his companion at what Seamus thought of as the captain's seat. Seamus disliked him instantly; he had never liked people in authority, but something told him that the Wizard here was not someone he would ever like, leader or not. Parvati, next to him, thought he emanated a great and sincere calm that spread to her and moved her bubbly cheerfulness to calm exuberance. He had much the same effect on the rest of the group. He approached them and smiled.

" Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, spreading his hands and bowing to them (mocking to Seamus, pleasing to Harry), " I am Magic Lieutanant Armand Ganner. And this," he said, bowing with a sweep to the Goblin beside him, " is Captain Jenn'el Dumore, who actually runs this ship." He said this with a self-deprecating smile that Malfoy recognized as the true and honest smile of a subordinate, smirking at a moment when he can pick at his boss a little without getting in trouble. Malfoy had seen the same smile often enough on the faces of his own servants... usually a few minutes before he booted them out of his presence permanently.

" Thank you for your introduction, Lieutanant," Jenn'el commented dryly, then said to the rest of them, " Hello, and welcome aboard the Excelsior. This will be your new home now, until we complete the mission given to us by Headmaster Dumbledore of Hogwarts."

" The Admiral is a great man, and we hope to continue working under him as long as he sees fit," Lt. Armand said.

" The Admiral?" Hermione said, but the rest of her questions were cut off by a wave of Jenn'el's hand.

" What Armand calls the Headmaster," she said. " It's an affinity the rest of the crew does not share." Turning to face the front of the ship and craning her neck skyward, as if already itching to leave the ground and explore the skies, the Captain said, " Are there any questions before we take you to your rooms?"

" Yes," Seamus said, raising his hand so Jenn'el could see who it was. Seeing her notice him, he said, " How do you fly this aircraft?"

Jenn'el chuckled at something, then said, " 'Aircraft' is an extremely archaic term among we Goblins, and we no longer use it. 'Airship' is the preferred term nowadays." She pointed down toward the Wizards at the front of the ship without looking down at them and said, " Those Wizards up there are Navigators. They control the spells that allow for sight outside the ship. Navigators are also responsible for the spells that will allow you to have "windows" in your rooms." Moving her finger down without dipping her head in the slightest, she continued, " Those Goblins are Scanners. Scanners keep up with the programs that run this ship. The Excelsior has more Scanners than normal, because of the complex coding used. Our coding is based on a random, full-proof design that keeps others from hacking into our ships," and here Hermione was forcibly reminded of a book she'd read once, detailing Wizard battle tactics against Goblins, and one of the most popular was a very subtle spell that Goblins called a "code-breaker" for some reason, which caused the numbers in Goblin programming code to randomly shift between 1 and 0, " but it also requires a group of highly trained Goblins to continually scroll the code, making sure that the random changes do not effect any vital parts of code. It also allows them to actually change the entire function of certain parts of the ship... for example, when one set of integers, or "bit", is present in the code, the armor of the ship is opaque, but by inserting a different bit, the armor of the ship will change colors, as it's pre-programmed to do. It's rather interesting, actually." Moving her finger down one more time, the Captain said, " Last but not least, this is the main command center, called the Bay. Here are the weapon controllers, pilot and co-pilot, radar workers, and of course, me and Lt. Armand here." Turning to the group, she lowered her face and smiled, and in an instant Hermione came to a conclusion: She was proud of her ship. Extremely so. Not proud in the obnoxious, "I've got a better ship than you!" type way; but proud of her ship in a much deeper, more noble sense of the word. Malfoy noticed it too, and tucked it away for future reference. Though no one would have guessed it, just by looking at him and the general way he acted, Malfoy was almost as observant as Hermione, maybe even more so when it came to certain subjects (after all, it's impossible to pick on somebody when you can't tell what their vulnerable spot is). Malfoy was used to registering even the slightest change in facial expression, having grown up among the upper class, where the slightest twinge of an eyebrow could register extreme levels of hatred and distaste coursing through a nobleman's veins. He may well have been more observant than Hermione, when it came to certain things... after all, though she noticed almost everything around her, Hermione had never been an extrovert, and the feelings of others were sometimes an afterthought for her.

Jenn'el turned to Snape and said, " Would you show them their rooms? I hate to rush them out, but we're taking off, so-"

Snape opened his mouth to reply, but Lupin suddenly said, " Hey, wait. Let's let them watch the takeoff from in here. I'm sure they'll be no trouble."

" If you'll let me see how this ship works," Seamus said gravely, " I won't say a thing."

Jenn'el shrugged. " Alright. It may be better than having them in the steamworks and cogworks of this ship... not so many chances to hurt anything on this ship. The steamworks and cogworks- especially the cogworks- become very dangerous places when the ship is taking off. More than one goblin has been killed when they slip and fall into the gears- or get baked alive by the steam." Turning to her men, she shouted, " Alright then! You know the drill! Begin preparations for takeoff! Code lines 5-5-5-0-9-1 Hundred! All Navigators, please announce we are leaving!"

At this, two of the Goblins in the middle position began typing furiously, deleting, rearranging, and changing lines of code to prepare the ship for takeoff. A great sound, as of many gears beginning to whine, rose throughout the ship. The very earth and sky itself seemed to rumble. Power, sheer unbridled power, began to groan throughout the ship, and the metal floor of the command room rumbled.

" Ah!" Parvati said, stumbling over. Ron caught her as the ship began to shake more violently. " Whoa! It's like being on one of Hagrid's boats after he's been busy drinking for a few days!"

Cho, Harry, and several others fought to keep their footing, and Jenn'el was privately amused by their antics. Ernie, with the heavy experience of a fat man at moving his own weight around, shifted his bulk lower, and so kept his footing stable. Neville managed the trick to, after a bit of trying, and used the heavy end of his hammer to keep him on the floor. Malfoy fell over and nearly knocked himself out on the floor, but Neville caught him and pulled him up.

" Might want to keep your footing a bit more stable, Malfoy," Neville said, his eyes fluttering as sudden sickness overtook him.

" I"m fine," Malfoy said, quickly jerking his robe back and working to maintain a standing position on the ship. He soon fell over as well.

Seamus alone managed to keep his footing, and he kept it almost perfectly- as if he had been born to do this. Seamus closed his eyes, ignorant of his falling comrades all around him, and lifted his face up, feeling the incredible power of the ship beginning to operate at full power. It trembled in his body, throbbed in his heart, rushed through his veins. He felt his soul leap as he felt, actually felt, the moment of takeoff, like some great bird lifting wing and flying.

He thought he could fall in love with this ship. Hell, he thought that he had fallen in love with this ship.

A hiss of steam was heard somewhere, and suddenly the ship began to rise- not slowly, not quickly, but somewhere in between.

" We're flying," Parvati said, wonder in her voice.

" It's nothing you couldn't do with a broomstick," Malfoy said sneeringly.

" Can your broomstick hold as many people as this ship?" Harry said, and Malfoy shut up. As the ship rose, all eyes turned to the Navigator's console.

" Hold on a minute," Jenn'el said. " Scanners, Navigators, program 3-9-9-8, C-D-F."

The Navigators sat for a moment as the Scanners input a few furious lines of code, then moved their hands in an arcane way. Soon, the room shifted, the frontal plate becoming opaque...

And the floor began to open up beneath them. Parvati actually screamed a bit before realizing that it was just an illusion. But it seemed so real...

The world of England was dropping away below them. As they rose, Hogwarts soon became visible, and more and more of the school appeared in their line of sight as they rose up and up and up into the far away blue sky. As the ship rose to a staggering height, it could be seen that nearly every eye in Hogwarts was on them. The only eye that could not be seen, Dumbledore's, was well hidden in shadow.

And as the ship began to turn, to head to its next destination, the floor eventually faded out, to be replaced by the metal flooring that had been there all along. The interior mirror turned clear again, and the Navigators began their work again, Scanners typing in code to change that which had already been shifted back to its original program. As the children got up and looked around themselves, Jenn'el turned back to face them.

" Mr. Snape, would you show our guests their rooms?"

Snape nodded and turned to face the awestruck children. " Follow me," he said, his eyes untouched by beauty.

Still stunned by the experience, which had been somewhat less exhilirating than broomstick flight and yet somehow greater at the same time, the children followed him.

The door whispered as it shut.

- R & R please!