EVoNet Forward
Chapter 18
Muggle-born's No-go
Minerva McGonagall wasn't feeling one hundred per cent okay that morning. It had been around about six years since young Harry Potters ridiculous banishment and sealing, well, in actuality it was a little longer than that she thought tiredly, and now she had this to worry about. If she thought that she could get a job at another school, even if she had to go to Japan or Norway and learn the language, she would probably consider it at this point. She was almost one hundred per cent sure Dumbledore was only slightly less insane than his brainwashed followers.
Though, the sun was out, and it was a nice day she felt more annoyed than a little ill when she had these situations, and her boss didn't make life any easier. It was just that - well a large number of muggle-born children had been sent letters to come to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and they had surprisingly replied refusing the acceptance. Parents and students had tried refusing before of course, but never knowledgably using an actual owl, not even trying to send a letter by the muggle post, as they normally waited until the witch or wizard like herself turned up for orientation. That was extremely surprising, as though the letter says to send reply by owl (something she had said needed moving from muggle-born's acceptance letters as they didn't know what they meant, which was understandable as they didn't send letters by use of magically swayed birds). However, these muggle-born students didn't seem intent on going to learn magic, and she had never heard of so many refusals at once before.
Now she found herself having to travel to each of these children's homes during the rest of the holiday before the Ministry found out and sent out some goon to intimidate the child into going.
Minerva had never really liked this sort of thing, trying to convince the children without having them end up hating her, or resenting her. It could only lead to bad blood in the future, but she must help them see why they needed to learn to control their powers.
She paused in her trek as she realised with a roll of her eyes that she had almost walked past the nice looking home of her first muggle-born in the quiet suburb in Bristol. She walked up to the front door while brushing down her nice muggle woman's tweed suit, though, she had her suspicions that it was years out of date but figured with her experienced age nobody would care to say anything as she had seen other older muggle women wearing things similar before, and she kind of liked it as it was warm and suited her 'teacher-vibe' somehow.
McGonagall wrapped her knuckles on the door and waited only a few moments before a woman answered the door. "Can I help you?" she asked the strange woman at the door.
"You're Mrs. Rivers?" McGonagall asked crisply.
"Ms.," she replied. "I'm divorced… who are you?"
"I am Professor Minerva McGonagall," she answered before continuing. "I am the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"Oh, that school again?" Ms. Rivers asked while rolling her eyes. "Well, Kitty doesn't want to go. She wants to go to school with her friends, and not some boarding school miles away where she doesn't even get to come home for the weekends. You didn't even send a brochure so we could see what it was like, as that might have helped sway her as I can't force her to go. It was like you expect everyone you say is a 'witch'," she said using air-quotes, "to be wetting themselves with excitement or something," she said laughing and rolling her eyes again.
McGonagall's eyes had widened in surprise as this muggle woman was being so accepting of magic, and it normally took quite a bit of show and tell on McGonagall's part to convince them it wasn't an elaborate prank TV show or something. Though, thinking about it, a brochure selling the school to the children would probably be a good idea, but she doubted that Dumbledore would go for making one even though it would make things simpler. He didn't seem to like change much, and for some reason he was quite the scrooge when it came to spending school funds, even when they were needed, like for a brochure.
"Well… maybe I could speak with you and Miss. Rivers?" she asked hopeful that she could at least speak with them more to try subtly telling them that the Ministry wouldn't let her not go to Hogwarts. "I might be able to help explain our world and the benefits of Hogwarts?" she suggested as she was starting to worry.
Ms. Rivers shrugged. "Sure, be my guest Professor," she said stepping aside to let her in before closing the door and leading her into the lounge. "Would you like a cup of tea, coffee, or some juice, umm… well… we have anything and everything, and then things we've probably never even heard of," she said laughingly and confusing the older woman.
"No thank you," McGonagall replied, and as Ms. Rivers gestured to a comfortable single chair she sat down.
"KITTY!" Ms. Rivers then shouted out of the living room door, and moments later a small brown-haired girl came charging in. However, McGonagall had to wonder at the long thin pouch over the girls shorts attached to her left thigh with the strange blue moon logo on it with the word, Nergal with a red N and the rest of the letters in white.
"What is it mummy?" she asked with her blue eyes sparkling with interest as they looked at McGonagall. "I thought my new holster arrived," she said pouting cutely before smiling at McGonagall. "This one came with it, but I ordered this cool one with this cute animé bear on it," she said in delight gesturing the thing on her thigh.
"This is Professor McGonagall, Kitty," her mother quickly interrupted as she and her daughter sat together on the couch. "She has come to pay us a visit about the kind offer we declined for you to go to Hogwarts."
"Oh," the girl said still smiling as she turned to the stern looking woman, so McGonagall took that as a good sign. "So… what do you do at this magic school?" she asked, being the curious eleven-year-old girl she was.
"We learn how to use magic, and perform spells… let me demonstrate," she said as she withdrew her wand.
"Is that a stick?" Kitty asked trying not to laugh. "You're going to do magic with a stick?"
McGonagall gave a tight-lipped smile as this wasn't the first time a child had asked that. "No… this is my wand…" she said but didn't miss the baffled expression they both had, but with a swish and a flick she levitated the table and put it back down, but neither mother nor daughter looked impressed. "At first you'll have to say the spell but with time and practice you could be just as good as to not need to say the spell."
"That's it?" Kitty asked not in the slightest impressed. "I have a levitation app on my phone," she said with a sigh as she pulled out a slender aqua blue coloured thing from her pocket that had Sam-something written on the back, more engraved into the colour, so she couldn't read it properly, but it also had EVoNet written in a black interconnected way in a perfect circle, the E touching one side while the T touched the other and they managed to fill the circle nicely.
Then little Kitty Rivers tapped at the screen a few times, the first time flicking her finger across it to show off a finger print mark that opened up to a screen with loads of 'buttons'. McGonagall's eyes widened in shock as she watched the girl press one of those buttons and then the table showed on screen with a red counter like from tiddlywinks. Then as the child pushed the counter up as the screen highlighted the table green, the counter blinked green, and then the table lifted from the ground for a few moments before landing, and the girl locked the screen with a side button and put what must be her phone back in her pocket, leaving the teacher gob smacked.
"I have some awesome pranking apps too," Kitty continued laughing at the thought of using them. "If you want to impress me Miss, you'll have to do better than that," she said rolling her eyes.
"O-okay then," she answered looking confused and freaked but she waved her wand and the table turned into a small puppy, and this time both mother and daughter were surprised.
However, as the puppy yapped, and yipped Kitty's surprise turned to horror. "Y-you…! You're a criminal!" she cried out in anguish. "Living transmutation like is illegal! You are not allowed to make homunculi or chimaeras or use ZPE like that on living beings. We are taught these things at school now, and our devices are all bared from them – how can you do such a cruel thing?!"
"W-what…?" McGonagall asked looking baffled. If she hadn't heard about this law, then how did they, and cruel – was it cruel? She had never thought about it before. It was just the way things were, but now she thought about it, maybe it was cruel. However, that was beside the point, she was quick to change the creature back as the girl was having a fit. "I… I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about. The Ministry of Magic has not made such a law – and they wouldn't care enough to make one as far as I'm aware."
"You don't know?" Ms. Rivers suddenly asked startling the woman. "It must be from you people that Nergal got the concept for the EVoNet, and to use technology to artificially create special – almost magic like powers. And your people just hadn't noticed. I'm guessing my Kitty isn't the only kid choosing not to go to this school?"
McGonagall nodded and turned to see Kitty looking confused. "I'm afraid I didn't know about this law, please accept my apology," she was quick to say. She didn't want this girl calling the authorities. If they were right, then someone was using muggle science to create magic and that could be bad for her if she had broken a law while using magic; the same as if she were in another country's magical world and broke their laws involving magic, she could get arrested or fined.
"Well as long as you don't do it again," Kitty said with her smile returning slightly, but she looked more cautious this time. "But why would I need a cauldron and some creepy sounding things that were on my supply list?"
"For potion brewing," she was quick to reply.
"That's stupid," she said rolling her eyes. "I heard that Nergal has analysed thousands of components that used yucky things to make and artificially synthesises them so they can mass produce things that make poorly people well again. So, if I need cures for stuff like that, I'll go to a pharmacy silly, and they'll give me a tablet or something," she said looking thoughtful while McGonagall could only stare in horror as this was starting to sound familiar. "And it said wand," Kitty said with a frown. "But I already have one," she finished off opening the pouch on her thigh and pulling out a slick looking blue plastic wand with four thin rounded strips of lights running its length, and a handgrip.
"B… but wands have to use wood, or at least organic material," McGonagall replied in horror. How could all of her people miss the muggles creating magic? Heck, how could the muggles create magic? Could he have really done it? Could he get the last laugh and put everyone of his non-believers in their place, even after what they did?
Kitty just gave McGonagall a strange look and, shaking her head, she pointed her wand at the coffee table. "Turn the table from wood to steel!" she called out smilingly. McGonagall was startled as the light strips lit up with a holographic screen blinked on the 'wand' with the words transmutation before a stream of transparent light spat out of the end, changing the table from wood to metal, and it took less than a second without even having used a proper spell, or wand motions. She had just pointed the device and told it what to do.
McGonagall felt a little envious that the muggles seemed to have invented a way to use magic and somehow cheat by doing it a half-cocked way and getting better and faster results than even she could get in her own speciality, and then give that power to small children to play with.
However, she realised that the Ministry of Magic wouldn't like this. None of them would; it was him; he had done it even after having his power was stolen from him. Though, it was Dumbledore's reaction that would be worst. If the muggles could create magic then they might be able to detect it, and if they could; they might discover You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters. She might be out of the loop when it comes to muggles, but she did know they would use deadly force, and Dumbledore wouldn't like that at all. She wouldn't care, it would serve the Death Eaters right for all their crimes, but she wasn't in charge of anything but the students at school, and even then she was sure Dumbledore acted more like he only humoured her authority as he did not like sharing power or responsibility as he was a control freak.
McGonagall sighed tiredly as she sat back a bit in her chair and started asking questions. Their roles seemed to have been reversed but both mother and daughter answered kindly to humour her at least, after all what they knew were hardly secrets.
"So… who invented this… means to generate Zero Point Energy?" she asked after over an hour of talking. She had almost completely forgotten about the inventor. The man that owned Nergal, but she had heard the word EvansCorp, so she knew, and he would once more become Dumbledore's most hated and dangerous enemy with the Ministry likely doing barely anything and relying on Dumbledore as they cowered, and the Death Eater's – she didn't know what they would do. You-Know-Who may just wait awhile and watch Dumbledore get the beat down as the kids might say because, McGonagall was sure this time the outcome would be different as this EVoNet was worldwide, there was no going back, no matter that Dumbledore would believe there was, and Dumbledore and the magical world wouldn't be able to fight the muggles, especially if they had magic too.
"Harry Evans!" Kitty chimed out happily.
McGonagall had never before felt her blood run as cold as it did just hearing those two words, those two names, as it was finally confirmed even though she already realised. Harry had done it. He had given the muggles magic. Dumbledore and the Potter's were not going to be happy when she told them, and they were going to likely get a lot of people in trouble with the muggle authorities. However, there was a lightness she didn't understand in her chest to know Harry was doing well – better than well – he had actually done it – it wasn't every day a student told you they were going to do the impossible and you found out they did it while everyone had mocked them.
However, McGonagall found herself in a dilemma. She could save herself and others a lot of bother for a while and pretend that she didn't know about any of this, or she could go straight to Dumbledore. She sighed tiredly as she knew if the old Headmaster found out she kept this from him he'd be saying she was going dark or something and his Order would just believe him because they – those who weren't just 'meh' about the whole thing anymore were idiot puppets on Dumbledore's strings.
Frowning, McGonagall sighed again. She might be one of the very, very few people who thought for themselves in the Order of the Phoenix, but even she had made some stupid moves. Harry had come to her a few times during his time at Hogwarts telling her things, things she should have taken seriously that she didn't because she believed he was just a stupid little boy trying to be as great as his brother, and because she didn't listen, someone, unsurprisingly normally Terry Potter and his 'minions' got themselves into trouble and hurt.
However, as time moved on, McGonagall had seen Harry change. He no longer sought out help from a teacher, and in the end, seeing how un-equal the world was, almost totally destroyed Hogwarts trying to make the world equal and finally showing how much smarter he was to his brother – how much more dangerous – much more powerful – how easy it was to trick Terry and all those Gryffindors into aligning that power leech grid and the multiple runic pentagrams needed for his ritual disguised as a silly prank.
"If you ladies will excuse me," McGonagall finally spoke standing up. "But I have to… see the Headmaster. I'm afraid I might be late for an important meeting anyway, since I've been here longer than I should have, sorry to have bothered you for so long, and thank you."
"Okay, good luck," Kitty agreed smilingly as she led the old lady out of her house and closed the door with a grin stretching wider than it was as she turned to her mummy. "Mum… I think these weird magic people aren't very bright."
"I noticed sweetie," she answered just as there was another knock on the door and Kitty pulled it open to see two men wearing blue suits, showing their police ID with three men in black Nergal uniforms with white shirts and shiny shoes and blue ties with the Nergal badge on the right of their chest pockets and on their ties, and blue coloured metal wands in Nergal holsters on their thighs, but unlike Kitty's soft fabric holster that came with her wand, theirs were red metals like chain links moulded around their thighs and attached to their belts with wands clicked in.
"Good afternoon, Ms. Rivers, Miss. Rivers," the elder of the two spoke. "I'm Detective Mathews and this is my partner Detective Reynolds," he said shaking each other their surprised hands where they saw the slight tip of a wand holster of leather up his left jacket sleeve. "If it's not too much bother, we would like to come in if we may and speak with you."
"O-of course," Ms. Rivers agreed, quickly stepping aside with her daughter, and the five of them entered closing the door behind them.
However, once in the lounge while the detectives took seats with the mother and daughter, the Nergal agents pulled out their wands saying: 'mana scan' and holographic screen readouts came from the tops of their wands and a gently pulse of transparent light passed though the room, and may have spread through the house.
Mathews nodded for them to continue as he began, smiling reassuringly at the pair. "An 'unknown' woman," he began but they could tell he knew who she was from the way he said unknown. "just left this property. From our intel she was here to speak with you both about an unsanctioned school?" he asked even though Kitty and her mother could see he was just asking to start the conversation.
"Yes, Hogwarts," Ms. Rivers agreed nodding her head. "Kitty's not going so I don't see the problem."
The detective just nodded with a sad look. "Unfortunately, that is the problem, for them at least," he answered with a sigh. "Not, the one who just left, of course, Ms. McGonagall is like many of them just in over her head. However, we have it on good authority that more… mage… not nice like the woman who just left will arrive with threats of taking your daughter from you and erasing her from your memory."
Kitty and her mum were looking rightfully horrified. "T-they can't do that… that's illegal and kidnap!" Kitty cried out in horror.
"And we shall not let them," agreed the other detective reassuringly. "We're here to speak about this matter and secure your home from any unwanted intruders, as you can see – we do have some specialists – well as special as we can get with such new… issues…-"
"Sirs," interrupted one of the Nergal security agents. "It seems the house is riddled with unauthorised manas, most of which is used for spying… though nothing too invasive, recording wise, but it's quite obvious that they had entered the house to do it. Other than that the only mana we're picking up in the house is coming from one wand, two cell phones, the food replicator in the kitchen, and a few everlasting battery packs for a few devices around the house, and the young Miss. Rivers, other than the usual ambient energies that exist naturally."
"T-that's terrible!" Ms. Rivers cried out in horror. "I want whoever's responsible found and arrested!"
"We will be getting on to that, ma'am," the detective agreed nodding his head. "We are working in part as secretly as we can with Nergal to put a stop to these people and protect the children, so you will have nothing to worry about, so we can discuss your security arrangements as we shall be shadowing you from their 'detection' systems, and shield your home from unauthorized intrusion..."
To Be Continued…
