Author's Note: This new chapter is at last up. Please let me know of any errors while reviewing it.


Chapter 16

A Disastrous Draft

Year 1 - Hogwarts Castle - Earth

Christmas Day was very nearly here; just around the corner, as it was only but a few short days away. Though, to the few students who remained at the castle, those few days until the upcoming holiday seemed more like the time span of several long years.

Hermione, however, was proving to be a rather great distraction for the whole lot of them (especially the ones in Hufflepuff House), from the agonizing and unimaginatively boring wait for the blasted holiday to arrive. She had managed to warm-up to a small number of the kids within the first couple of days while at the castle, but was still disinclined to let the majority of the Hogwarts students even get near her, as she was considerably afraid of them.

Susan, in fact, was gradually turning into something of a little mother, whom Granger seemed to favor the most over any one of the other students in Hufflepuff House that were currently staying at Hogwarts for the entire holiday season; as she would occasionally feed the precious bundle of joy during mealtime, change her nappies, burp Hermione after she had been bottle fed, play games with her, etc. But the little girl also received quite a lot of assistance from Hannah and a couple other students, who all eagerly took turns performing said tasks alongside her in regards to caring for the adorable cutie-pie. This effectively gave Ginny, as well as her older siblings (and also Harry), a bit more free-time to themselves.

Potter had to stay at Hogwarts with Ron for the holidays, due in part to the fact that Varner had left for Coruscant quite rather abruptly; thus allowing the young Padawan Learner absolutely no time to pack-up his things in preparation for the journey back to the city-planet (and the Jedi Temple) respectively. But also, in compliance to a request made by his godfather for the little boy to remain at the castle for his own safety and wellbeing; as the news which Harry had received from Black's many letters to him (via the large brown-coloured parcel that Hedwig had delivered) wasn't by any means good: the Senate had voted in favor of creating a "Grand Army of the Republic" in response to the ever increasing blackmail that was being imposed by a rapidly growing movement of collaborating star systems known as the Confederacy of Independent Systems (or simply the Separatist Alliance), who were fighting to gain whole and complete freedom - and thus, break away - from the Republic altogether.

Sirius had also stated in his letters to Harry that he had partly overheard the Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, speaking with Master Windu and Master Yoda in the High Council chamber - only moments after the two had called him up into the tower for a private meeting, where they had instructed him to request that his godson remain where the young Padawan Learner was for his own good, the next time that Black wrote to him; as a galactic-scale conflict (of which they had dubbed the "Clone War") was now fully raging across the stars - concerning the unsettling prospect in which Kenobi was told by the former Jedi Master, Dooku, that the Senate was largely under the strong manipulative influence of someone known only as "Sidious."

This most troubling news worried Harry a great deal: not only had the vast majority of those in the Senate voted their full backing and support of the Military Creation Act that he had only heard small snippets about while in passing over the last year or so, but that the galaxy at large was now in the throes of an all-out war.

And with the sudden appearance of the probe droid just months prior, the little boy genuinely feared that it was only but a matter of time before the war found it's way to Earth, as well - if it, in fact, hadn't already done so.

Regardless, even with all of this distressing news from Black concerning recent events, Potter managed to force the worrying thoughts out of his mind - it was the holiday season, after all; with Ron and him both feverishly anticipating what sorts of minuscule events (which the Professors had planned for the handful of students who were staying at Hogwarts) could possibly be, as Christmas was upon them…with only a little more than two full days left until then.

Both of the little boys, along with Parvati and Neville, had also been spending much of their spare time (while in-between classes, before the Hogwarts Express had come round to take the majority of students home for Christmas break) trying to find out any and all that they could about the person known as Nicholas Flamel - of which Hagrid had inadvertently let slip - without much success. And now, with Longbottom and the Patil twins away from school, Harry and Ron were virtually on their own to continue searching for answers.

They had indeed been looking through as many books within the Hogwarts library as they possibly could in order to find out just who this Flamel person was, and even more importantly, why his identity seemed so very "top-secret" that Hagrid adamantly refused to give them so much as a smidgen of a hint regarding his name, because how else were they going to discover just what it was that Snape was undoubtedly attempting to steal?

The trouble was that it was rather quite hard - impossible, really - to know precisely where to begin searching; not having the slightest inkling of what Flamel might have done to get himself into a book. He wasn't in any one of the several titles which they had checked thus far, that being: Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, Noteable Magical Names of Our Time, Important Modern Magical Discoveries, and not even A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry made so much as even a mention of him at all.

"This is completely hopeless, Harry!" said Ron in a sulky tone of voice with a bitter expression on his face, after spending many long and painfully grueling hours going through much of the library one afternoon, with absolutely zero progress. "We're never going to find out who Nicholas Flamel is!"

Harry was just about to say something, when all of a sudden, there was a dim yet brief commotion of some sort which could be heard coming from just outside the library. And when the two children rushed to see what was going on, they saw the few remaining Hogwarts students, as well as a small number of Professors, who were all making their way towards the entry stairs which lead down into the castle dungeons, and immediately decided to follow suit: both of them now even more curious to know what all the hubbub was about.

Upon reaching the entrance to the Potions classroom after making their way down into the dungeons, everyone who was present in the group instantly noticed what looked to be a thick pale greyish-blue-coloured plume of smoke rising up from underneath the classroom door.

"Everyone, out of the way! Back away from the door!" demanded McGonagall, and the small gathering of students instantly did as she had instructed.

A moment later, both she and Professor Flitwick took out their wands, and with a couple slight waving motions, they flung open the classroom door and was almost instantly met by a rather thick wall of coloured smoke. Luckily, the two Hogwarts Professors had managed to stop the presumably toxic cloud from spilling out into the corridor before anyone had come into direct contact with it, and just as they were about to clear the air of the smog inside of the chamber, the shutters of all the classroom windows immediately flung wide-open; thus allowing the cloud of smoke to escape rapidly out into the courtyard. Yet, just as it was beginning to do so, the cloud promptly started to swirl around in a large cyclonic motion, as though someone were manipulating it from right outside the chamber.

Harry instantly sensed something, or rather someone, through the Force. The young Padawan smiled to himself as he swiftly moved towards the open doorway of the classroom before either one of the Professors knew what was happening; being extra careful not to come into contact with the pollutants, while also using the ability known as Force Barrier to ever so gradually push the gases out of the room.

"WAAAH! WAAAAAHHWAAAH! WAAAH! WAAAAAAAAAAAHHH‼"

Suddenly, a very loud and seemingly echoing chorus of distressful wails could be heard coming from somewhere within the room, which were immediately followed by several piercingly loud and anguished shrieks of what Potter thought sounded to him like a… baby.

The little boy's suspicions were almost instantly confirmed, wherein, after all of the thick fumes had been totally expelled from the room out through the open windows, and then quickly dispersed by the individual standing just outside; thus clearing the air of contamination, Harry turned at once on the spot, only to shockingly discover several nude babies (five very small toddlers, to be exact), all of whom were bawling their eyes out in confusion and fear.

"Dear me! What on earth happened here?!" exclaimed Minerva, the minute she stepped into the classroom and surveyed the scene before her.

Looking about the room, Harry noticed several standard-sized Potion cauldrons lining a few of the rows of desks; some of which were cracked, while others had apparently shattered into pieces, almost like they were made of glass. And at the head of the classroom, stood the remains of a heavily damaged gigantic cauldron that rested on the floor near Professor Snape's desk.

'Professor Snape!' the Padawan immediately thought to himself, before quickly scanning the area behind the desk. "Oh, no!"

"What is it, Harry?" asked Ron curiously. "What's wrong?"

Harry looked over at the redhead and gestured towards an area on the other side of the Potion Master's desk. And when Weasley, along with Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick, all walked over to see exactly what it was that the raven-haired little boy what pointing at, Minerva gasped in absolute shock and disbelief, while Flitwick let out a quite rather astonished squeak at what he was now staring at.

"Harry!" came a sudden and familiar voice. The young Padawan Learner glanced up over at the open doorway right as Varner came striding towards the Potions classroom and gently made his way through the gathering of people and stepped into the chamber. "Thank the Force you're okay. I sensed-" The young Jedi Knight promptly stopped, as he could clearly tell that something was very wrong from the instant he saw Potter's rattled expression.

Just behind the desk, and lying in a jumbled mess of black robes and clothing, was a very teeny, very naked, newborn baby that was madly thrashing it's stubby arms and legs about, while also continuously screaming and crying at the top of it's little lungs in great distress.

Upon getting past the initial shock and disbelief of the whole situation, Professor McGonagall immediately went straight to the Hospital Wing to inform Madam Pomfrey of what had just happened down in the dungeons moments ago, but also to try and explain the situation to the Healer as best as she possibly could, with several of the students arriving (each one carrying a rather confused, terrified, and wailing baby in their arms) minutes later.

"In all my years, I've never once had anything quite this peculiar happen to even a single one of my patients who were brought into the Hospital Wing," declared Madam Pomfrey, who was busy examining (the now one-year-old) Draco Malfoy, shortly after she finished-up with examining both Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, who were now themselves mere one-year-old toddlers, too.

The two other toddlers who were also there, Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini, had apparently themselves been given significantly less harsher detention sentences by Professor Snape (who was, himself now by all accounts, no-more or less than a three-week-old newborn infant), though the punishment itself was due to reasons that were completely unrelated to the incident concerning Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, which is how and why they both came to be discovered inside the Potions classroom, as well.

Varner had arrived at the Hospital Wing a couple of minutes later behind the others: now carrying a still scared and crying Parkinson in his arms, though the young Jedi had managed to calm the sobbing baby girl down a bit. Yet, for some reason, the poor little thing was unwilling to release her rather tight grip on Josh's tunic, nor was she wanting to be separated from the young man's arms, even if it were for the briefest of moments, so that she could be examined by the Hogwarts matron.

The young Jedi Knight had also used his superhuman abilities, along with a few of the things he'd learned while at Ilvermorny School, to instantly create the necessary baby supplies and essentials that were currently needed to both clothe and feed the little ones; as they required a lot of nourishment and care, but also much comfort (of which the Hufflepuff students were more than happy to provide them), while the wrest of the Hogwarts staff were scrambling desperately to figure out just what had happened and how, who was responsible, but most importantly, how to fix the problem - if…they could, in fact, find a way to fix it at all.

Potter had asked the Jedi Knight why he was back so soon, given that the Clone Wars were prominently raging throughout the galaxy, and Josh merely smirked at him.

"Don't you remember, Harry? There's a certain special event coming up very soon - one that, as I understand it, you've been very anxious to take part in for quite some time now, am I 'rite?'" he simply remarked to the little boy.

For a brief moment, Harry didn't quite understand what it was the young man was talking about. But then, suddenly, much like the lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, it hit him.

"Oh, blast! The Gathering!" he exclaimed with immediate realization. "How could I have forgotten about that?"

Varner chuckled inwardly to himself. "It's all right, Harry. It's not like you've missed it or anything," he remarked coolly. "You've probably been so busy with your studies and whatnot, that you lost track of it, is all." The older Jedi softly placed a hand on the little boy's shoulder, while also gently rocking little Pansy to sleep with his opposite at the same time. "Don't worry, we'll get there on time. It's still a little more than a week from now. So just enjoy yourself, okay? I'll be around when it comes time to go there."

"Go where?" asked Ron curiously upon overhearing them.

"To attend the Gathering on Ilum," Harry answered.

Susan looked at the raven-haired Padawan Learner in utter confusion, but also with an air of curiously. "What is 'the Gathering'?" she asked.

"And what, or who, exactly is… Ilum?" inquired another student, while scratching his head in bewilderment.

Varner gave a rather amused chuckle upon hearing the little boy from Ravenclaw House ask such a question about the ice world.

"Ilum is neither a thing, nor is it a person. But rather, it's a place," remarked the Jedi Knight. "Furthermore, it's actually a planet."

All of the students, including both Ron and Ginny, all gasped in absolute shock at hearing this. "A planet?" asked one of the Hufflepuff students.

Josh then began to explain to the Hogwarts students that Ilum was a planet comprised entirely of snow and ice, and that the Gathering was a kind of rite of passage that was meant as a lesson for the young Jedi Initiates in order to teach them how to overcome personal fears and/or failings; with the Younglings essentially being tasked to go find and acquire a kyber crystal (a rare Force-attuned crystal that grew naturally within the sacred underground cavern known as the Crystal Cave - the entrance being located inside the Jedi Temple on the planet) that's specifically attuned to their individual and unique presence within the Force itself.

"Harry, you never mentioned anything about this!" exclaimed Ron, after Varner had finished - sounding a wee bit jealous. "Why didn't you say anything?!"

The young Padawan Learner merely shrugged. "You and I were so very busy with trying to find out who Flamel was, that I simply forgot about it. Besides, the Gathering is only meant for students from the Jedi Temple to attend, not students from Hogwarts - as Josh explained. Sorry, Ron, but I'm afraid that you won't be able come with me on this one."

Weasley immediately rolled his eyes and groaned rather gloomingly at hearing this statement come from his best friend - he wanted so very much to come to this "Gathering" with Harry.

A few minutes later, Varner gently laid Pansy down in her own crib - one of six that Josh himself had transfigured from several of the patient beds in the Hospital Wing - once the little one had tuckered herself out (along with all five of the other babies there, as well), due to her constant hysteria.

Once all six of the little ones were sound asleep, Madam Pomfrey (along with Varner's assistance - given his background of attending Ilvermorny School, as well as his regular "Muggle" courses in studying the field of medicine) set about conducting a much more thorough and in-depth examination of her tiny patients. She concluded that all of the children were in perfect health, both physically as well as medically, and that there were fortunately neither any short nor long-term ill effects from whichever set of combined potion ingredients that were in use at the time of the incident, once she had finished.

Yet that, however, was only just the good news to this current predicament. The bad news, unfortunately, was that whatever jumbled concoction of potion ingredients was being used; it had all but evaporated when both Potter and Varner had purged the Potions chamber of the thick smoke cloud - the result of which was most likely caused by the unknown mixture quickly turning into a gaseous haze that rapidly spread throughout the whole classroom. And there appeared to be not one single trace of the potions mixture remaining that could be analyzed in order for them to create a counter-agent, so that Snape, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson, and Zabini could all be restored to their normal state.

Moreover, it appeared that the regression properties of the botched potion (or potions - given that there were multiple cauldrons that had either been damaged and/or completely destroyed in the incident) had permanently erased their minds, coinciding with their actual developmental stages now being reduced to little more than mere infants: their memories, knowledge, skills, etc. - everything of who they formally were several hours prior - now lost…forever. And for all intents and purposes, it looked as though all six of them had to effectively begin life's journey… all over again.

Harry and Ron went to bed a bit earlier than usual that night - both of them exhausted from the day's events; between the two of them endlessly scouring the library for many long hours, and having absolutely zero luck in finding anything that even so-much as vaguely mentioned Flamel's name. But also, dealing with the crazy aftermath over the bizarre potions incident that somehow resulted in Professor Snape, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson, and Zabini all being physically, mentally, and emotionally regressed to an infantile state.

The two Gryffindors briefly laid awake in their beds before going to sleep, wonding: at least Professor Snape was no longer trying to steal whatever it was that Fluffy was guarding. But, then again, if it truly wasn't the greasy-haired (or rather, the formally greasy-haired) Potions Master who was trying to steal something from Hogwarts, then who else could it possibly be, and why?

The young Padawan planned to ask Varner whether or not if he knew anything regarding the name of Nicholas Flamel in the morning, the first chance that he got; as Josh was apparently staying over at the castle for the night, due to the fact that little Pansy Parkinson had almost immediately become attached to him, and didn't want the older Jedi to leave her alone, even for so much as a whole minute.

Harry also briefly contemplated on just how the immediate families and/or relatives of all six of the now little ones would react to the shocking and probably disturbing news of the incident, if and when they would be notified. The little boy thought about the remaining Potions classes that were scheduled for the rest of the year (if… they were still scheduled for the rest of term, that is), and more importantly, who exactly was going to fill the now vacant position, as well.

One thing was definitely certain, though: the remainder of Potter's first year at Hogwarts was gonna turn out to be most interesting, to say the least.