Ch. 3 — Mirror, Mirror
Harry hadn't thought they would actually write essays — but they did. Each and every one of them took time from their real school work — even the fifth and seventh years preparing for their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s — to write him an essay! Why? What was the point? And when did they find the time?
Cho wrote about Floo powder and its history — he didn't know it had come from experiments to send letters. Luna wrote about the explosive power of the erumpent. Fred and George wrote a twin essay about a powder they'd invented for fireworks. Hermione's was a tightly-packed set of theories about worm-holes and faster-than-light travel, and how they might translate into magic. Lee wrote about theories of warp-drives and warp-travel — Harry hadn't known a muggle had suggested that it might actually be feasible. Something about field equations and general relativity, whatever those were.
Everyone wrote something concerning some aspect of the spaceship's power system, flight system, or whatever they thought they could contribute to the matter. The younger members of the D.A. actually hunted him down to hand in their assignments instead of waiting for the next meeting.
"Professor," Harry said to McGonagall while handing in his latest assignment on Wednesday before lunch. "I never knew how much work these were. You have all my sympathies and respect."
"Pardon me, Mr. Potter?" she asked, bewildered.
Flitwick was similarly confused.
Harry couldn't deny that it all was interesting — truthfully, he had given the matter of powering the spaceship some idle thought himself. Just, not this much thought. Plus, a lot of the essays went completely over his head. Lee's essay, for example — which was longer than Hermione's by some strange act of fate — somehow managed to condense a chunk of general relativity into it. Hermione's digest of worm-holes, portkeys, and whatnot . . . well, it might as well have been written in French — all he could recognize were the letters that made up the words. He obviously was not anywhere near smart enough to be assigning tasks like this to his students.
"So," he said to Hermione at dinner, after reading all twenty-seven essays — and he was amazed to have found the time to read them all, himself — "Explain general relativity to me in twenty words or less."
"Er," she answered, looking at him wide-eyed. "Um . . . well, it's Einstein's theory of the universe and gravity — it's about space being curved."
Harry gave her a look. "Oh. Well, that certainly clears things up. Thank you very much."
She looked chagrined, and then glanced around. She yanked a placemat from under a bowl of roasted potatoes. "Hold this," she said, and then she dropped a plum on it. She followed that with an explanation of space-time as a "fabric" that all objects distorted, or rather bent, to some degree.
Her lecture drew the attention of everyone around them. Considering that they were mostly surrounded by D.A. members — the members in each House had taken to sitting together, and beside the other Houses' members' spots at their tables to make it easier to discuss things — the interest was sharp. Harry tried to wrap his head around the idea that the solar system sat on some sort of celestial tablemat, with sun and planets causing various dips marking their locations. Meanwhile, more and more D.A. members came closer to listen to Hermione's explanation. And then Hermione's and Lee's discussion concerning it, because, apparently, they were the only two people in the D.A. who understood the concept.
Harry sighed and glanced at Lee. "And a warp drive?"
"Well, it's like this," Lee said. "This is a ship." He pointed at the plum. "A warp core works by sort of pinching the space in front of it, sort of like this," he poked down on the fabric next the plum, making a dip in the table cloth. "Simultaneously, it swells the space behind it, sort of like this," he poked a finger up from underneath the fabric on the other side of the plum. The plum fell into the dip of the first finger. "As the ship moves forward, the engines move the dip and pull the rise forward." He moved the downward pointing finger and the upward pointing finger in unison and the plum moved across the placemat. "And that's, sort of, a warp drive in a nut shell. It would negate the limitations of time dilation and such, and allow faster-than-light travel. Theoretically anyway."
"Huh," Harry said, looking at the fabric and the plum. "And how . . . do you do this?"
"Nobody knows," Lee said solemnly, and shrugged. "Well, there are theories and calculations, but, of course, no one knows for sure how to make it happen, except that it would take a stupidly huge amount of power. Like really, really stupendous."
Harry nodded slowly and titled his head. "I don't think this will help us fix the ship, though," he said and arched his eyebrows. "And I don't think we need to move faster than the speed of light. Not right now, at least."
"Ah, heh. Yeah." Lee said sheepishly. He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. "I guess I got side-tracked a bit,"
"Ahem," a sickly-sweet voice said behind Harry. "What is this then, children?" it continued snidely.
He just barely managed to keep him from cringing as Umbridge leaned in. He clenched his fingers angrily on the tablemat to keep from striking out at her.
Harry forced a smile as he looked at her. The others abruptly found their dinners extraordinarily interesting. And no one dared look at three.
She smiled when she saw his suppressed hatred.
"It's a muggle theory about how the universe works," he said through gritted teeth. "Called general relativity. Perhaps you've heard about it?"
She gave the tablemat a dismissive sneer that she probably thought was an indulgent smile. "Oh. Well, Mr. Potter, the Muggles are too backward to know anything about the universe. You should ignore their foolish notions. Two points from Gryffindor for inappropriate use of school property. Put the placemat back where it belongs and concentrate on your dinner, dear," she said, and smirked at his obvious rage.
Lee snatched the plum from it and took a bite.
Harry took a deep breath and slowly let it out. The woman simply enraged him. If he thought he could get away with it, he would have cast crucio on her. But that would only cause more trouble for everyone else.
He carefully put the placemat back on the table under the plate of roasted potatoes. He sat rigidly, and they waited in tense, uncomfortable silence until Umbridge finally nodded, satisfied she had put them in their place, and walked away.
They shared dark looks.
"Ugh," Ginny finally said.
"Hear, hear," Fred murmured while watching through narrowed eyes as the Toad walked back to her seat at the Head Table.
Hermione looked thoughtfully after the professor. "That's interesting," she eventually said, and smiled. "She doesn't seem to care for muggle concepts — that could be useful."
"How?" Ron asked. He glared at Umbridge while shovelling another forkful of beef into his mouth.
"I don't know," Hermione said as she shrugged. "But we could probably talk about all sorts of spaceship stuff out in open, here, and she wouldn't understand a word of it." She smirked. "We could even call it advanced spell-casting or runes."
To forestall any other interruptions, they decided to move their discussions to a less public place — primarily the Room of Requirement, and the ship. There wasn't a need to court disaster by being careless. She might not understand, but another half-blood student might innocently start asking the wrong questions to the wrong people.
That evening, Harry helped those D.A. members with troubles with the actual D.A.D.A. spells. Hermione and Lee, however, held a debate over the ship's power systems. They threw theories and concepts at each other while the older students listened like it was a talk show on the telly.
That seemed to be the pattern now. He would help students learn their actual lessons and become proficient. Then, once the majority had them under control, they'd drift off to talk about the ship and explore it further. Sometimes they'd combine both, casting the spells for practice while exploring.
"You know," Anthony Goldstein offered into the debate, "my mum has a spell, it's been in the family for ages, that she uses to charge batteries and stuff."
They looked at him.
He shrugged. "We've got a lot of muggle gadgets around. Half-blood household, remember?"
"She can charge a battery with a spell?" Hermione said, fascinated.
"Yeah," Anthony Goldstein shrugged. "It's a sort of a lightning spell, she says, because you know, electricity is just controlled lightning. Dunno if it would work with the spaceship, but it's worth a try, I guess."
"Hey, I've got a question," Zacharias Smith said suddenly, and actually held his hand up. "Has anyone, I don't know . . . done the obvious . . . cast any diagnostic charms on the power core? Maybe try to get some idea on what actually powers the thing? Hmmm?"
That prompted a lot of discussion. Harry was surprised when Hermione asked him, "Do you mind if we did some diagnostic spells on the Core, Harry?"
They had taken to calling the two smaller rooms with crystal pillars as Power Rooms, and the one big as the Engine Room. Its pillar was the Power Core. That one was truly enormous — easily as big around as a car, with lots more stations, catwalks, and other things surrounding it. And taller. Much, much taller. Like Astronomy Tower taller.
Harry shrugged. Why everyone thought they needed his go ahead before they did stuff left him puzzled. They had even insisted he take the "Captain's Quarters" as they called it. It didn't make sense. After all, the spaceship was really more Lee's thing than his.
"Sure, do what you think is best," he said and nodded. "I trust you."
He thought it weird that Hermione blushed when he said that, but she hurried out of the room they were using, headed for the Power Core.
The remaining D.A. members, after only a few minutes, wanted to see what the others were doing and put forth a lot more effort to get the spells down pat.
Thus, they arrived after the first diagnostic charms had been cast. They watched as tentative repair charms were cast, just in case something was broken. With the power off, the reparo and like charms would fix electrical stuff as if it were simply intricate metal and stone — just make sure to remove any batteries, first, they had all discovered!
Everyone ignored Fred's pointed throat-clearing and muttering that nothing they did really mattered. This was just the Room of Requirement, he and his brother insisted.
"Well," Hermione said, "The systems are powered by electricity, and not magic." She sighed gloomily. "Just . . . a ridiculous amount of electricity." She stared at the massive dark crystal pillar in the centre of the room. "If I'm reading this right, it takes about as much electricity to power this ship as it takes to power . . . most of Earth."
"So," Harry said, "no batteries? Which means recharging spells won't work, right?"
Lee sighed. "Nope. None we can find in here."
"The question is, what does power it? What produces that much electricity?" Hermione said.
"Nuclear fusion, maybe?" Lee suggested.
She hummed to herself. "If it is, that's not exactly something we can do anything with, is it? I kind of doubt that's it anyway — no traces of radiation. Check this point, here, though. I'm getting some strange results here . . . a fuel residue, perhaps? What do you think?"
Harry listened as they delved deeper and deeper into what might be traces of the ship's fuel.
"I don't get it," Colin said, suddenly, interrupting them. "There has to be power somewhere in this thing or it'd be a solid chunk of ice by now."
Dennis nodded. "Yeah. It's cold and dark in here, but it's not the negative four hundred and fifty-four degrees of space. What's keeping it warm?"
Lee and Hermione stared at them, slack-jawed. Then they turned and began to cast new detection spells. Colin and Dennis began to explain to the pure-bloods that space was so cold air itself would freeze. And anyone who had ever flown a broom knew that the higher you went, the colder it got. Thus, if the ship was truly without power, its air should have frozen into crystals by now.
Harry shook his head and quietly slipped away. What they were talking about went way over his head, anyway. He had every confidence that if there was a solution, Hermione would find it.
"You know," Fred commented as they left the power room. "I think those two forget a key point in this whole thing."
"Mainly, the fact that it's not real," finished George.
Harry glanced around and snorted lightly. "Remember the Duck Test," he said dryly. "If looks like a duck . . .."
"Sounds like a duck," Fred continued, and made a face of displeasure.
"And walks like a duck," added George as he frowned and scowled.
"It's probably a duck," they all three concluded. The twins did not look happy.
"Besides," Harry said, "it's not hurting anybody and anything that distracts Hermione from stressing over classes and the coming O.W.L.s is a good thing in my books."
"That's a very good point," Fred agreed, nodding.
"And it's a very pleasant distraction from the Pink Toad," Harry added, scowling darkly.
"What if it is real," George said, "and what if we did manage get power to it? What then?"
"I don't know," Harry shrugged. "Figure out how to move it, I guess. Luna thinks she could navigate just by the stars we see out the windows." He paused. "Check out that asteroid, maybe."
"Humph." Fred folded his arms. "And then what?"
Harry shrugged. "No. Idea." He looked at them. "Check out the solar system, I guess. Has anyone found any spacesuits? Or airlocks?"
They gave him quizzical looks. "Spacesuits? Airlocks?"
The concept of completely separating a person from their surrounding environment without magic was a revelation to the twins. They hurried off muttering something about Hogwarts' lake and naked mermaids.
Harry shook his head. The lake mermaids were not anything like the ones in the paintings in Hogwarts, he knew. But the twins would never believe him — they would think he was pranking them. He decided to check the other groups of people that had wandered away from the discussion in the Engine Room.
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Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson, Anthony Goldstein, Zacharias Smith, Padma Patil, and Terry Boot had taken on the chore of translating the runes on the spaceship's walls. They'd pinned parchments under the runes they'd translated. Most were basic directions — room so and so on level such and such, things like that. But then there were a few rooms where the walls were full of text, and pedestal tables. And without a dictionary to explain the terms, those runes were just so much gibberish. Although they seemed to be telling something to whomever manned the pedestals.
"If you don't know what oxidane is, and have no way to find out, like from a dictionary or manual or someone to ask, you're stuck, right?" Hermione said to him. "Knowing that this device measures or controls how much of it there was or where it went doesn't help you. Not unless you could see a sample of the material."
"Oxidane," She then explained that, "is a chemical name for water."
He had goggled at her, and shook his head. "Better you than me," he had said.
The pedestals were control consoles, they decided — naturally, no one had any idea how to work them. They all had grid patterns on them, with runes here and there marking this or that position on the grid. The rounded triangular stones they all had were another common feature. The stones appeared stuck to the pedestals by magnets or something. Clearly, the way to interact with the controls was by moving the stones.
"I'm think these are some sort of environmental controls," Terry Boot said to Harry, pointing at two side-by-side tables. "Life support, as they would say on Star Trek. It's almost as complicated as the ones in the Power and Engine Rooms, and has a lot of these controlling stones." He pointed at the line of stones neatly arranged at across the slanted consoles. "I think the wall," he glanced up pointedly at the blank wall directly in front to the console, "displays the ship and what's going on where." He shrugged.
"It's probably used for damage control if there's an accident, like a fire in one of the laboratories or something. Controlling air pressure, air mixtures, temperature, that sort of thing. Otherwise, it'd be a lot simpler." Then he shrugged, "But without power, it can't do anything."
"Okay," Harry said agreeably, as he glanced between the table and the wall. "Out of curiosity, has anyone figured out if the ship has any purpose?"
"Er, what?" Angelina asked.
Harry shrugged. "Did the Room make a ship for the sake of having a ship? Or does it have an actual purpose? A passenger ship? An exploration ship? A warship? Something else?"
The translation team exchanged looks. "Good question," Anthony said, folding his arms and looking thoughtful. "Not a passenger ship, that's for sure. The bunk rooms kinda imply a troop ship of some kind 'cause I can't see any passengers paying for such sparse conditions."
"But we haven't seen anything like weapons," put in Padma.
"Nor an armoury," Lee added.
"Not that we'd be likely to recognize it or them," Zacharias said dryly. "And there are a few rooms we can't get into."
"Certainly nothing we've seen is arranged with racks to hold lots of things for quick and easy access," Anthony said calmly.
"Could it be a colony ship?" said Terry Boot.
They all slowly nodded. That would explain the sparse conditions in the bunk rooms. People scraping together the minimum for a chance at a new life.
"Everything here sort of does relate to function or purpose, though. This room does that, this cavity is for this purpose, that sort of thing."
"And there are a lot of laboratories, we've figured out that much," Padma said.
"Or at least we think they're laboratories," Lee said. "The runes sort of indicate the study of biology, elements, geology, and things like that. So, maybe an exploration ship?"
"Maybe they were conquerors," Zacharias suggested darkly. "They were looking for a planet to take over and terraform to their needs." He had a sardonic expression "Could have been they were aiming for Earth."
"Maybe they succeeded and we're their descendants," Padma said. "They didn't need the ship anymore, so they parked it."
"That's . . . an interesting thought," Harry mused. "Well, let me know if you figure anything new out."
"Will do," Angelina said, and nodded.
"And let me know if you find out if the ship has a name, okay?" He turned and left them to the puzzling.
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Almost half the people from the D.A. had even less to contribute than he did, though. Many just loitered around and idly explored, or enjoyed the view. A row of telescopes was on the bridge now, most from the Room of Hidden things, Harry suspected — having to retrieve their personal telescopes from the ship every Astronomy night would have been a real hassle.
In any case, the telescopes were in frequent use, as was the bridge in general. With the fabulous view of the Milky Way just outside the window, it had turned into a sort of general lounge area where a lot of them did their homework. Someone had brought in wooden flats, or conjured them, to lay over the flat pedestals so they could be comfortable writing desks without worrying about accidentally hitting a control that just happened to be able to do something in the ship's powered-down state.
"Hiya, Harry," Ginny said, as Harry joined them. He had his divination essay to finish before tomorrow and he might as well do it in a good company. Not to mention the headache- and stress-free environment on the ship.
He'd made sure to make noise in the Common Room before slipping out undetected. Everyone would remember him being there instead of him being mysteriously missing.
"So," she continued, "Fred and George tell me that Lee thinks this spaceship could travel from star to star." She looked at him, eyes sparkling in the dim light.
"That's the general idea behind sci-fi spaceships," Harry said agreeably, as he set his quill and inkpot on the board and pulled out his parchment.
"If we get it working, do you think we could do it, too?" she said timidly.
Harry shrugged and took a moment to think. "Don't see why not." He smirked. "We'd have to wait for summer hols, though, at least. Otherwise, people might notice that twenty-eight students suddenly disappeared from Hogwarts."
She frowned at him.
He shrugged, again. "I don't think we should plan on that anytime soon, though. First, we need get the power online . . .. And we have no idea if we can even pilot the ship, much less make it move. I think we should try and figure out the ship's systems first. If we get the power working, and if we can pilot it, then we should test it in our own solar system, before we do anything quite so . . . ambitious."
She nodded reluctantly, as did the others around them.
Lavender leaned back thoughtfully and gazed out into the stars outside the window.
"Harry?" she said contemplatively. "This isn't just a room in the Room of Requirement, is it? I mean . . . it can't be, can it? This is nothing like the rest of Hogwarts, and nothing like any other rooms the Room of Requirement created for us." She paused to think a moment. "And this is definitely not even a room, it's a whole complex system of floors and rooms and halls and corridors!" Her voice trailed off and she turned to look at him.
"I think it's bigger than the rest of Hogwarts," Parvati agreed. "Doesn't it have, like, twenty floors? Like, haven't we counted something like two hundred rooms? And it seems to be about a mile long!"
Harry smiled and shrugged.
"Well, remember how big the Room of Hidden Things is? We could all get lost in it. What if the Room is just fooling us with elevators and stairs that only go up one or two floors, but we think are much more? What if the walls between the rooms move as we do? And the corridors appear long only because the Room is moving a fake floor under our feet while the walls only appear to move?"
The others looked startled at that view of the problem.
"The only true test," Harry said, musing as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Is if we take something out of the ship that we didn't bring in." He arched his eyebrows. "After all, anything the Room creates disappears if you take it out of the Room. Unless it's something the Room borrowed from Hogwarts." He looked around the Bridge. "And, unfortunately, everything we've seen in the ship looks like it's pretty immoveable."
"But we have these," Ginny said triumphantly, picking up a spare triangular control stone from a nearby console.
Harry shrugged. "That could be a stone from Hogwarts' courtyard or the lake," he said reasonably. "Fetched and shaped by the Room. It's not as if it does anything that would show us anything different from that. There's nothing in the castle that would show it as anything but a simple a rock."
She looked crestfallen at his response.
"We'd need something that we knew had been made by the Room," he mused, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "and if we could take it out of the ship without it just disappearing, or stop working, then we'd know for sure it was real."
Everyone sort of nodded and they went back to their essay assignments.
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"We figured out why the ship isn't frozen," Hermione said as she slid in beside him at the dinner table.
"Hmm," Harry said as he chewed on his chicken. He looked at her questioningly.
"Apparently, the hull is lined with solar receptors," she said quietly. "And they get just enough to keep the ship from freezing."
He nodded. That made sense.
"And those two Power Rooms? They're apparently power storage rooms. Batteries, unlike any we're ever seen. They're why the elevators work, there's just enough there," she said as she filled her plate and dug an arithmancy book out of her rucksack.
Harry nodded. "And recharging them?"
She made a face. "Anthony's family spell works, it's just that you would exhaust yourself in only a few minutes, and the ship would barely notice. So, not really helpful."
Ron looked up from his plate. "So, enchant the batteries to convert magic to electricity and let magic do the work. The spell'll never get tired," he said. And went back to stuffing overly large pieces of meat into his mouth.
Harry and Hermione stared at him slack-jawed.
Hermione didn't quite jump up and run out of the Great Hall, but that was a matter of definition. After all, she did remember to throw her rucksack over her shoulder and grab a full plate of food before heading out at a very fast walk, eating and mumbling to herself.
Harry and Ron exchanged looks and went back to their dinners.
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How Hermione and Lee got a three-ton boulder into each Power Room without anyone, not even the D.A., noticing, Harry decided he didn't want to know. One thing was immediately apparent, though. The ship was warmer at the next 'official' session.
Which said sessions, for some reason, were now occurring every two or three days.
Harry suspected that the D.A. members just wanted an excuse to escape the hostile environment that pervaded Hogwarts. The Slytherins were simply beastly, and with both Snape and Toad egging them on, practically the only places where there was any peace and quiet were the library and the ship. And the library wasn't all that safe, either, as Alicia found out when the Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley, hit her from behind with a jinx while she was distracted by an assignment. There were even fourteen witnesses, from different Houses that saw him do it. Snape said she must have done it to herself.
The Hospital Wing was always occupied with the aftermath of Slytherins hexing one student or another — Snape or the Toad always claimed the spell-damage was self-inflicted or an accident — so it was safe, but not quiet. Non-favoured students only travelled in packs. Which made the D.A. House groups headed for the ship rather ordinary.
Harry was careful to keep himself noticed when none of the D.A. were close. He restricted his time aboard the ship to sleeping and meetings only, or almost only. He had a large target on his back and if he disappeared too often, awkward questions would be asked.
As a result, he spent more time in the Hospital Wing than he had in the entirety of the previous four years. But the Slytherins learned that he never went to the hospital alone. And the detentions meant the Pink Toad wasn't searching for other "miscreants."
He also had more detentions than anyone else.
Several of the smarter D.A. members noticed and went out of their way to surreptitiously acknowledge and support him.
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No one could quite figure out how Hermione and Lee managed to get the ship running again. It had something to do with stretching out the fuel residue they'd found using engorgio and geminio charms, or some variants of those. However they managed it, the ship now had a large enough reservoir of fuel for the Power Core to register and use it.
"As long as we don't use it up faster than we can geminio it, we're good," Hermione had explained to him.
Thus it was, a couple of D.A. sessions later, every room, corridor, and hall abruptly lit up. The ship came alive with a hum and flicker of the lights that it hadn't seen for hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of centuries.
Every pedestal and console lit as they were powered up and brought online.
It was absolutely thrilling to see — and a bit scary. The ship worked! They would have to be extra careful not to damage something, or themselves, by accident.
"Well," Harry said as everyone gathered on the bridge. Lee, Hermione, and the other team members who had been deciphering the ship's secrets were all but vibrating with their eagerness. They wanted to get at all the consoles and find out just what they could do with them. The others looked around in amazement, now that they could see clearly things that had previous been in shadows.
"So," he continued, "We have power." He grinned. "Has anyone tried out any consoles yet?" He looked at the consoles, all of which had pieces of parchment with English legends on them — not everyone was as proficient in reading runes as the translation teams.
"Just a bit in the power room," Hermione said.
"We wanted to see if we could figure out how much power we had," Lee added.
"Which isn't much, actually," Hermione said dourly. "Zero-point-two-percent of full capacity." She pouted. "That's as far as we dared extend and duplicate the residue we found."
"Didn't want to risk ruining its stability," Lee explained.
"The enchanted stones we added to the Power Rooms help, though," Hermione said. "those should reduce the amount of fuel we use for day-to-day stuff. Plus, the duplication charm is keeping us at a steady level."
"What's zero-point-two-percent good for?" Zacharias asked, critically.
"Not much, really, but we at least have lights and a semi-functional ship." Hermione shrugged. "If nothing else, now that the consoles work, we can access the ship's systems."
"Can we move?" Ginny asked eagerly. Several others mirrored her excitement.
"Hmm, maybe?" she slowly said. "But, if we can it won't be very far. We'd need to find the thrusters controls and whatnot, and see how the ship actually moves around in the first place — and how much power those functions use."
Harry nodded thoughtfully. "Alright. Since we don't know how much power we have, let's be careful with it. First, we should figure out the power controls and how to limit the power we're using. Lee, Hermione, you think you can do that?"
"Aye, aye, captain," Lee said and saluted sloppily.
Harry rolled his eyes as several of the D.A. members snickered.
"Angel?" Harry — Harry had picked up calling her by the nickname the twins used. "How about you and your team seeing if the ship has a library — that would be a tremendous help if it did. Otherwise, just try to figure out the ship's purpose and key functions — you know, like we talked about, its actual purpose and what it can do."
"Aye, aye, Captain," she said, smirking and copying Lee's salute. "It might take some time but we'll see what we can do," she cautioned.
He shook his head as this time there was laughter.
"Cho, Luna, why don't you figure out the piloting system, if there is any. Since you have our position down, you're our best bet at getting this thing to move where we want it to."
"Uh. Yeah. Sure," Cho said awkwardly. "I can't promise we'll succeed anytime soon, though." She looked at him.
Harry felt his face get warm. "That's good enough for me," he said. He swallowed thickly and quickly moved on. "Work with Angel's team." He looked over the group. "The rest of you, please . . . don't touch anything," Harry said pleadingly. "At least not until we figure out which button is the self-destruct. Let's not blow ourselves up, okay?" He paused to think a moment. "And now might be a good time to see if our spells do anything to electrical gadgets." He gave a wry look around the room and saw several people fingering their wands.
"And we should probably do that somewhere were there aren't so many consoles," he quickly added. "The practice room?" he suggested.
They split up and headed in different directions, all of them giddy to explore the ship now that they could see everything clearly. The whole place looked different, now, and a lot of the details they'd missed before were obvious. Harry was definitely looking forward to doing some exploring of his own.
He was relieved to see the ones who had pulled their wands out went off as a group — headed for the elevator and the practice room. The rest would scatter across the ship. He doubted anyone would get any sleep tonight. No one would do anything but sleep in tomorrow's History of Magic class, anyway, he knew, so no problems there.
He hoped no one's grades were going to be adversely affected at mid-terms.
"Would you look at you," Ron said sardonically.
Harry sighed. Ron was jealous — again.
"Captain Harry Potter, of . . .," he stopped and looked surprised. "Uh, of what? Do we have a name for the ship yet?" he said curiously.
Harry tried to look nonchalant. "I suppose the ship already has a name, we just haven't been able to find it, yet. Any suggestions?" he ended hopefully.
"You know, whenever ships change hands, the new owners usually rechristen them," Colin said, walking over to them, his camera dangling from his hand. "I don't see why we couldn't name the ship ourselves."
"Well, it's not like there's anyone to object," Ron said and looked at Harry. "Well? What are we going to call it, Captain?" He paused a second, then added, "I vote for the Wizarding Ship Ragmar Dorkins . . . he's the Chudley Cannons manager, you know."
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