The Polyjuice Problem

Five minutes later, Roy and Harry were alone in the secret room.

"What did you want to tell me?" asked Harry.

Rather than answering, Roy, with a flick of his wand, removed the back wall of the secret room, behind which a second room now appeared, full of hopeless mess, as it seemed: Cauldrons, vials, burners, flasks, jars with and without contents stood around without any recognisable order. Moreover, the individual parts of a flying broom were lying in a corner.

"My lab," Roy said proudly. "Apart from me, only Orpheus knows it so far. I needed someone to help me with my Polyjuice experiments."

"How far have you got?", Harry demanded.

"Well, basically I'm through," Roy replied, noticing Harry's doubtful look at the supposed state of chaos with some amusement. "The problem was to extend the effect of the Polyjuice without having to refuel constantly. So, firstly, I had to find a way of administering the juice that would release it gradually, and secondly, I had to reduce its volume to such an extent that you could take a ration with a single sip that would last for at least a whole day. First I thought of a concentrate, but all great potion masters warn that a concentrate may have different and possibly more dangerous properties than the original potion."

"You solved the problem though, you say?"

"Yep," said Roy with a grin. "I examined the relation between the amount of Polyjuice ingested and the duration of its effect. And this relation is not linear, but degressive."

"Which means in plain language for non-scientists?"

Roy grinned again. "Three hundert minims, that's about a tablespoon, is enough for one hour. But if you double the dose, it doesn't double the duration of the effect, it just extends it by a few minutes."

"Doesn't sound good," Harry interjected, disappointed.

"But if you halve it, then the duration is not halved either, but again reduced by only a few minutes; if you halve it again, then again only a few minutes are lost, and so on. Long story short: Just two minims of Polyjuice is enough for about twelve minutes of effect. So if you take doses of two minims each, so that their effects overlap in time, to be safe, for example every ten minutes, you need twelve minims for an hour or 288 minims a day."

"I still don't get the point," Harry objected. "With this, I need less Polyjuice, but I have to take it much more often. That's exactly what we wanted to avoid."

"The solution," Roy lectured, "was found in the good old Hogwarts library, in a magical pharmacy manual. There are capsules that gradually release their contents in small doses, and you can fill them with whatever you like. I bought a small sample in Diagon Alley at Mannington & Burgess, a pharmacy supply shop."

Roy picked up a tiny capsule that consisted of even tinier individual globules. It looked a bit like a small raspberry, just colourless.

"You expand the capsule to open the individual globules, you sink the expanded capsule into your potion, so the bubbles fill up, then you shrink the capsule again to two minims per individual globule. Since the globules are still open, the excess potion is squeezed out when you reduce them, then you have to wait about fifteen minutes until all openings have closed again – and your capsule is ready for use. After ingestion, every ten minutes a single globule will burst and release the a small drop of Polyjuice for the next ten minutes. By the way, the capsule remains in the stomach, so it does not move into the bowel and is therefore not prematurely excreted. They told me there are also capsules with up to 150 individual globules, so they last for a little more than a day."

Now Harry was grinning, too. "Brilliant."

"However, the big ones are not cheap – 10 Galleons each. So if you want to be equipped for two months, you've to spend 600 Galleons."

"No problem," Harry waved him off.

"And it's a bit conspicuous if a single person, Harry Potter at that, whom virtually everyone knows, is buying so much of it. Maybe you should rather do it in the guise of someone else ..."

"Roy, I'm not a beginner, leave such things to me," Harry interrupted him. "There is another problem: I need something from Hermione's body, usually a hair, to make the Polyjuice Potion ready for use."

"Didn't we already settle that?" asked Roy, frowning. "You walk into Hermione's office under your Invisibility Cloak, stun her, take a hair from her, make her disappear under the cloak, sink the hair into the potion, wait a moment, take a sip of Polyjuice in the normal way, and then you have an hour to prepare your capsules ..."

"For which I have to take a small cauldron of Polyjuice to the Ministry – where to put it while I go upstairs and maybe stand in the lift with other people who mustn't hear it splashing?", Harry interrupted him. "Then when I get to Hermione's office, it takes me two to three minutes to finish the potion with her hair, another two minutes to take Hermione's appearance, and at any moment someone may come in or wonder why their knock is answered by a voice other than Hermione's. Then it will take at least a quarter of an hour for the capsules to be prepared while a cauldron full of Polyjuice is bubbling in the Minister's office. If Cesar happens to see that, he'll knock me out faster than I can say 'Protego'."

"A certain risk can't be avoided," Roy admitted, "but you could ..."

"There is one simple rule when planning such operations," Harry cut him off again, "and that is: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong! In this form, there are so many factors of uncertainty in the plan that it is almost inevitable that any one of them will make me fail. No, I must have taken Hermione's appearance and prepared my capsules before I head to the Ministry!"

"Well, but where will you get Hermione's hair?" asked Roy. "You won't get close enough to her, and even if you did, I'm sure your fellow Aurors wouldn't watch you cut off a lock of her hair. Or do you want to disguise yourself as her hairdresser?"

Harry laughed. "If I did Hermione's hair, she wouldn't be able to turn up anywhere for weeks."

"Well," chaffed Roy, "this would be one way to get her out of office."

Both of them laughed.

"No, seriously," said Harry, "there is one opportunity this year when I will definitely get close enough to her, and that will be without Aurors around her, namely at Christmas. Even under a curse, she won't dare to refuse the invitation of our common mother-in-law!"

"That's why you were so sure the other day that it would be January?" asked Roy.

Harry nodded. "Therefore, and ... well, I have to mentally prepare myself. I don't think I could do it at the moment."

"Why not?" asked Roy, astonished.

"You know," Harry said, "it's so easy to say: Stunning her, kidnapping her, penetrating her mind and so on. Actually doing all that is something completely different!"

"Yes, but you're an Auror, you can do it, you're trained for it."

"As an Auror, I deal with people who don't mean anything to me," Harry replied. "That's where I have the necessary professional distance – I can, in a certain way, ignore the fact that they are human beings – I know it sounds brutal. I even have to ignore it, especially if I am penetrating thoughts and feelings and thereby rob the person concerned of her dignity. I must keep that away from myself, otherwise I cannot do it, and therefore I must not consider them human beings, but only carriers of facts to be investigated. But I don't have that distance with Hermione. She's my oldest and best friend, but what I have to do with her is like ..." He swallowed. "It's hard to bring yourself to that, you know?"

"But you think you can do it by January?"

"I have to and I will do it. I will keep holding on to the thought that there is no other way to save her."

Both were silent.

"One more question," Roy finally said. "If you are arrested, we must be able to continue, if only to get you out, but also to go on working against the Ministry. In that case, we too might need permanent Polyjuice Potion. Could you also supply us with such capsules, just as a precaution? I know it's terribly expensive and basically impertinent, but ..."

"You'll get it," Harry cut him in.

Suddenly the door opened. Harry and Roy whipped out their wands, but it was only Albus who rushed in, the other Incorruptibles behind him.

"Dad, we've got the solution!" he shouted proudly.

"What solution?" asked Harry, puzzled.

"Where we are keeping the memories!"

"Oh, and where?"

"In the serpent!"

"You're talking in riddles, my son," Harry replied, not looking particularly wise.

"The enchanted snake protecting the Slytherin common room," Albus blurted out. "She's willing to store our memories!"

"Wait a minute," Roy interrupted. "The snake is willing ...? Do you speak Parseltongue?"

"Yes, I do!" confirmed Albus.

"How exactly is that supposed to work?" asked Harry with interest.

"The serpent recognises anyone who lays a hand on her. She says that if you offer her some memories at the same time, she sucks them in and knows whose they are. As often as one of us lays a hand on her, she gives him back his memories, over and over again!"

"I see ..." Harry looked up at the ceiling, lost in thought. "As long as you still have the memories, there is no harm in getting them back anyway. But if they've been wiped, you'll automatically get them back without asking for them because you can't avoid entering the Slytherin rooms."

Albus nodded excitedly. Harry smiled. "I guess I'm surrounded solely by geniuses here! I would never have thought of something like that in my life!"

"You think, too, it works?" asked Ares hopefully.

"Sure it does, if the snake is playing along," says Harry.

"By the way, why is the secret room so big?" Albus peered curiously at Roy's lab. "And what's that junk back there?"

"I beg your pardon, Mister Potter!" exclaimed Roy jokingly, imitating McGonagall's voice. "This lab is the scene of groundbreaking discoveries and inventions!"

"Flying brooms do exist, though," Albus said, pointing to the broom parts lying around.

Roy shook his head. "The kind I'm constructing here doesn't exist yet!"

"What kind is that?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

Albus tried to insist, but now Harry intervened: "Now that we know how to protect the memories, each one of us independently makes a list of all the memories, all the conversations and events that should be marked for wiping and handed over to the snake. The day after tomorrow we will collect the memories and mark them. I will then stay at Hogwarts very late. When everyone is asleep, we'll give the snake our memories."