In a daze Petunia heads back upstairs to Harry's bedroom. She keeps blinking as the top and bottom of her vision keep going slightly fuzzy. Somewhat mechanically she lets L know that Simeon has had to go before agreeing to go to Diagon Alley with the Grangers on Saturday while they purchase supplies for Hogwarts. There's something about being given the muggleborn orientation at the same time, even though the Grangers have already been through that. No, what dominates her thoughts throughout that conversation is that she has magic, real magic of her own and she's going to be the best damn spellcaster the world has ever seen. A yellow picture of a spellbook appears at the bottom right of her vision. Unseen to her, a green eye is replaces by a sparkling yellow wand on her profile, as her oldest jealousy has been resolved.
Harry and L both frown momentarily as they get a notification that a new trait has been discovered.
It's late evening by the time that the conversation wraps up, mainly due to Harry yawning at everyone as he tries to stay awake. The last thing he's able to do before he collapses is place the ladder to the front garden. Mechanically she climbs the ladders and goes in to cook dinner. She barely notices as she says she was visiting friends when Vernon asks. She doesn't even notice that she cooks mac & cheese automatically, as well as honey cake for desert, using the couple of jars of honey she usually keeps for special occasions.
She does notice when Vernon complements the cake and starts to make suggestive comments. Comments that she responds to in a way that she hasn't for years. When he suggests that they could make love, she responds with 'How about we try for a baby?'. His response of 'Anything for you pet' leads to them WooHooing in their bed.
The next morning she wakes up to an empty bed feeling refreshed, if a little sore from the bed. She frowns as she looks at the bed, especially when a description pops up.
IKEA flatpack double
Energy:4
Uncomfortable
It's true that it was an IKEA bed, but she didn't think it was that bad. It was then that the smell hit her, and she almost passes out from the stink. Looking around she sees a faint green smoke rising from herself, along with multiple items around the room, including the bed. Feeling disgusted, she rushes to the bathroom to have a quick shower to get clean before rushing around the house grabbing everything that has that green smoke and either putting it on the floor in the kitchen to be washed in the washing machine, or on the counter beside the sink to be washed up. Dudley watches in amazement as she buzzes around his room picking up all of the dirty laundry and discarded plates and mugs. That it until she drags him out of the room by his ear and down to the kitchen.
"Clean!" is the only thing she says to him while pointing at the huge mound of dirty crockery.
"But Mum! That's the Freaks job."
"Not today it isn't, I found it all in your room so you get to clean it. Now get to it."
"But Mum!"
"Don't backtalk me, you will clean those dishes. And you will remain here until I'm happy that they're clean. I will not have you turning into a slob like your father." – On her way to the toy room she opens the cupboard door and calls down the ladder – "Harry, would you be able to clean the bathroom please, it's an absolute state."
"Yes Aunt Petunia." Harry's voice floats up the ladder, but she's already gone.
By the time the morning has turned to afternoon, there isn't a single wisp of green smoke to be seen in the house, and all the toys in the toy room and Dudley's room have been tidied away. The laundry is all done, or in the washing machine, and Dudley is still working on the dishes after Petunia had to drag him back in five times. The only problem is that there was still a stink in the living room. It took another half hour to find the old beer can behind the books on one of the shelves around the room. With a sigh of happiness, she sits down on the sofa. Then she moves around trying to get comfortable, pulls a couple of toys out from between the cushions, moves around again, before perching on the edge of the sofa.
Giving up, she gets up and goes back into the kitchen to prepare dinner for Dudley and Vernon with Harry. She cooks spaghetti bolognaise, and puts it in the fridge for them. Finally telling Dudley that Dinner is in the fridge, she heads down to Harry's bedroom.
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"OK Harry, what's going on?"
Harry cocks his head, "What do you mean?"
"That cleaning frenzy, the green smoke suddenly coming from things that are dirty, the message saying that my cooking has improved to 4?"
With surprise clear in his voice Harry responds, "Aunt Petunia, if you look up and to your right, do you have a white bar that also has a picture with three horizontal lines in it? No, with your eyes not your head."
It's a little bit of a struggle to look up and to the right far enough as she's not used to it, but yes it's there, "I do."
"Oh cool. If you look down and to your right with your eyes, there should be a little picture of a box. I need you to focus on it. A panel should open up, and there should be a large crystal in there somewhere. If you focus on that you should be able to travel to the magic realm. I'll meet you there once you've done it. I'm sure that Simeon can explain this stuff better than I can."
It takes her nearly half an hour to finally get that panel to open, then her eyes flick away and she has to spend another ten minutes opening it again. Three tries later she's finally focused on the crystal that Harry spoke about. Finally, nearly two hours after she started, and feeling very frustrated, she disappears and finds herself standing in front of a large building. There's a brilliant flash of light that sears her eyes and leaves spots across her vision. When they clear she sees that Harry is standing beside her, Sunbeam on his shoulder looking smug.
Harry looks at Sunbeam, "Well I didn't know you could do that did I. Yes, well now I do I won't ask to unsummon you again. No, I won't do it without asking. I promise I won't try to unsummon you without asking you first."
Simeon and L come out of the building ahead of her, along with another young man. All three of them have a strange glowing symbol above their heads.
"Good afternoon, Harry and Petunia. We were expecting you here earlier."
Petunia blushes, "I'm sorry that's my fault. When I woke up this morning the whole house stank and was full of dirty clothes and crockery, so I just had to clean it."
The three of them look at her understandingly, "I understand, I wasn't sure if it would happen. But it seems like you've also gained the interface along with magic. I looked it up in the archives, and it's not something that always happened. However, as I was looking up information about first generation users for Harry I actually know a bit about this. From what we've discovered in the past, users of the interface shed Nano-machines constantly which seep into their surroundings and the people in the area. This allows the interface to interact with those items and people. Certain actions by users can kickstart the process of integration in those that have been around an interface user for long enough. We're talking years here. However, because the nano-machines aren't fully saturating their brains they rewire the synapses instead of just reconfiguring the pathways when learning new things. This causes a lot of pain, so many first generation users avoided using the interface for anything they didn't already know how to do. This will actually make it easier to teach you magic, though all three of us insist that you either learn spells from us, or study them from tomes without the use of the interface.
"If you use the interface you will learn the spell, but you won't understand it. Without understanding you won't be able to truly be able to use them for more than their basic uses. For example, the spell Repairo lets you repair any broken appliance. Fridges, TV's, Computers, Sinks, Baths, Etc. if you learn it through the interface, that's you'll ever be able to do with it. However, if you learn it by reading the tome yourself, or through one on one tuition, you can use it to repair anything. With a deep enough understanding of the spell you can even repair something like a chair even if all you have is one of it's legs.
"As I said yesterday, the interface is great for doing things that you already know how to do, but are drudge work, such as watering or weeding a garden, cleaning up things, or even cooking. That's the spell that I was going to teach you both today, but instead I think I'm going to teach you Scruberoo. It's a spell for scrubbing down people and things. People that use the interface to learn or cast this spell can use it to clean anything that the interface has highlighted as dirty, with the exception of crockery. Yes, that includes yourself. I'm sure that L and Morgyn can tell you of uses of their own magics beyond the obvious uses."
L speaks up, "Oh yes, Despairio is a classic example of this. It's most basic usage is to induce feelings of sadness. That's because it fiddles with the chemicals in the brain. However, when you really know what you're doing you can induce almost any emotion. Though you'll probably want to read up on brain chemistry before you start experimenting. I often use it to break up arguments, or to make someone that's annoyed me embarrassed for no reason. It's so funny to watch them having a nice conversation, and then suddenly go bright red and begin to stammer."
Morgyn takes over, "My school isn't quite so flexible, it wouldn't be untamed if it was. However Zipzap and Inferniate can both be controlled to a very high degree. To the point that you could use Zipzap to recharge batteries, or even power a TV if you are really good. Of course, it's much easier to destroy things or set them on fire. But even so, a low powered zap can make even the most recalcitrant student pay attention.
"That's by the by though. I'm here to have a look at your scar young man. Stand right there and don't move."
Pulling a wand from nowhere, Morgyn proceeds to cast a spell called Necrocall on Harry. Much to Harry and Petunia's surprise the ghost of a man floats out of the scar. Just as he's about to start talking, Morgyn starts to cast Dedeathify, and the ghost is caught in a field of magic. Around him a body starts to form, one that is missing large, very important chunks of the body. A deathly chill fills the area as a Grim Reaper appears out of somewhere and stands waiting for the spell to finish. All of the other people in the area start crying and put as much distance between them and the Grim Reaper as possible, including one unfortunate who steps through the portal, and promptly backpedals through it again.
As the spell completes the man collapses to the floor and the Grim Reaper walks forward before swiping his scythe through the dying person. In his place is the lid of an urn. A notification appears to everyone in the area.
A new collection has been discovered. Tom Riddles soul 0/7.
Morgyn picks up the lid and hands it to Harry, "Put this in your inventory. You can check your progress on the collection through the plumbob in the top corner of your inventory. Anyway, I've got a student to teach so I'm off."
"Erm, thank you? Also, what's a plumbob?"
Simeon takes over, "It's the name of the kinda diamond shaped pictures in the interface. L, I'm just going to take Petunia and Harry over to the shopping area to ensure she has a broom and a familiar, do you want to come or do you have things to do?"
"Oh, no. You go and enjoy yourself. I'm just going to send a duplicate to see Minerva. As her expression when Petunia finished her bubble bath was absolutely priceless."
Petunia goes bright red and Harry notes that her portrait gains the yellow colour of embarrassment for some reason. They start walking across the grounds to the portal that will take them to the shopping area as Simeon starts to talk again.
"Petunia, I want you to get a familiar and a broom because they make it much easier to learn how to feel your magic and direct it than trying to learn a spell first. The first thing I need to know is do you have access to your household funds?"
"I don't know, how do I find out?"
"If you look to the bottom left, you can see the total amount of money that you have. If you focus on it, you'll see the details of each source as well as any non-monetary household resources." – He pauses as Petunia's portrait goes fire-engine red again, before pulling a potion out – "Drink this, and then tell us what made you so angry."
While Petunia is drinking the potion Harry says, "I didn't know that you could do that. Is there anything else you can do in that corner?"
"Oh, yes if you focus you can bring up a self-portrait. This will allow you to see your conversation colour as well as the reasons for each emotion that you're feeling. Most people keep it closed, and only look at it when they want to know why they're feeling the way they are. If you're the owner of a property, you can also look at each of the people that live there and see what they're doing, issue instructions, or see their career and relationship details. Make sure you're sitting down the first few times you do that, if you're ever able to. Especially if the person is not where you are." He stops as Petunia starts to rant about who the hell is Cathrine, Rose, Lynn, Angela, etc. and why do they all have higher relationship bars than I do?
Harry and Simeon move a polite distance away from Petunia so that she can rant in peace. When her icon changes to the orange of being uncomfortable they return and Simeon offers Petunia another potion. Once she's back to an emotional equilibrium Petunia turns to Harry.
"When we get home, you are going to show me how to do that thing you did to make your bedroom. I am then going to redecorate and use all of the money in that bloody account. Did you know that he's earning more than twice what he tells me he's earning."
Simeon coughs, "There's actually a plot of land for sale in Glimerstone, it might be worth buying it so that you have somewhere to sleep near here. As you can only use Glimerstones once a day as they take around 24 hours to recharge."
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L appears standing in a corridor looking at a portrait, puzzled she looks around until the portrait speaks to her.
"Excuse me young lady, where did you just come from?"
"Oh I just came to visit Minerva. I'm L Faba, I met her at Petunia Dursley's house."
"Pleased to meet you, I'm Mary Queen of Scots. I'm afraid that she's out at the moment, you should probably try her office as the Headmaster is due to leave for the ICW on Friday, and her muggleborn escorting starts on Saturday, so she tries to get all the paperwork done before that."
"Oh, OK thanks. I'll be sure to do that. Thank you." She selects the 'take a photo with…' option from her interface phone and then disappears to reappear standing next to Minerva.
"Hi, how are you doing?"
Minerva jumps at L's voice, knocking over her chair as she does so.
"How did you get here?"
"I came to visit you at home, and Mary was kind enough to say that you were probably in your office. So I used the 'Take a photo with…' option to get to you." – She shows a phone with a photo of Minerva doing paperwork while L is making bunny ears over her head – "See. So now I'm here."
"I mean, how did you get into the school."
"I just answered that."
"But there's supposed to be wards that prevent apparition and portkeys."
"Oh, well I didn't use either of those."
A tall, gaunt man in black robes and smelly oily hair slams open the door and manages to get out "Minerva, I really must prot…" before a spark of magic appears in L's hand and suddenly there's a china duck sitting on the floor where he was standing.
"How rude, he couldn't even knock. Doesn't he know the proper way to speak to someone?"
Minerva finds herself nodding along before she realises what she's doing, "While that's true, that doesn't justify turning him into a china duck."
"Oh, don't worry, it will wear off in a moment. But who is that anyway, that thinks it's ok to barge in on a proper lady like you? Wasn't he taught manners as a child?"
"You mean like you just appeared next to me you mean?"
"I only did that because I had no other way of locating you, as I've never been here before so I don't know where your office even is, and I use transportilate for interface assisted travel everywhere."
"I, have no idea what you just said."
"Don't worry about it then."
"I, uh, fine. So what can I do for you?"
"Oh, I was just interested in the magic you use, it sounds fascinating."
"Couldn't you have just sent me an owl?"
"Given that I live in a different realm, no?"
"You live in a different realm. Which realm might that be then?"
"The Realm of Magic. I'm one of the 3 remaining sages, and my speciality is mischief magic. You're currently talking to a duplicate of me as I can't actually leave without naming a successor, otherwise what's left of the university will collapse."
"Erm, isn't that a little problematic?"
"Well, duh! Do you think I want to be stuck at the university? I want to be able to go out and party, WooHoo, and maybe get married. But no, I have to do all of that through a double, which isn't the same let me tell you. So when I find someone that's nice, I try to spend as much time with them as I can."
The duck turns back into a man, who staggers slightly, "What just happened?"
Minerva chuckles, "You were turned into a duck."
"Who?"
"Severus Snape, meet L Faba."
"Pleased to meet you Mr Snape."
"Likewise."
"So, tell me, what's a person that's mean, hates children, a genius, and a quick learner doing working in a school as a teacher?"
"I am a certified potions master. Minerva I can see that you're busy so I'll pop by later."
L mumbles, "Or never." More loudly she says, "Oh, do you mind if I read one of your books while you finish what you were doing when I interrupted?"
"Oh, yes sure. Go ahead, and thank you for the consideration."
L does actually take a book from the bookshelf to start reading, but not before discreetly casting Minionise on Snape, and then selecting "quit job" on the temporary interface menu. She smiles at the panic in his eyes as his body goes along with what she's commanded. She watches as he marches to Albus' office and loudly proclaims that he quits.
Albus looks up surprised and says "Now, now Severus, you can't mean that. After all, you swore an oath to me."
Frowning L quickly looks through the conversation menu at that, and under magic finds an option to swear an oath, selecting it she watches as Snape pulls out his wand and says.
"I swear on my magic that I will never work at Hogwarts as a teacher ever again. So mote it be."
When Albus' face falls, she goes back to her own portrait and starts to read 'Gamps laws, principles and exceptions.' When she gets to the exception about making food with magic, she giggles and casts Delicioso on Minerva's desk.
Minerva jumps, "What's that?"
"Oh, I was just reading this book on Gamp's law, and came across the bit about not being able to create food with magic. So I used a spell from the Practical Magic school that creates a random meal of acceptable quality. It can also be used to restore a spoiled meal too, making it as good as it was when it was first cooked. Go ahead have some, it's permanent and completely safe."
Minerva's work is completely and utterly derailed as she gets into a discussion with L about that spell.
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