Patches
Severus wasn't in his office to greet the children when they arrived but a house-elf was. As they exited the classroom, Harry took a look at the chair behind their professor's desk, and just as he was about to walk towards it, the elf snapped his fingers, and five tall spikes shot up out of the seat.
Harry and Lyra stared at the elf, who just casually said, "Professor Snape tells Tweak to guards his chair from yous," then gestured for them to leave the classroom.
Once they were out, the door closed behind them, and the elf vanished with a pop. Whispers led the way back up the stairs to their common room, where they set up all of their new record albums in the corner where the gramophone was situated. After a quick game of rock-paper-scissors, which Whispers won, they put on some jazz piano by a man named Art Tatum and waited for dinner.
It was going to be a long evening of waiting before they could go see the unicorns later that night.
Hermione was incredibly anxious. Along with Penny and the Weasley twins, they had finished the helmet design, with a degree of success that she couldn't have anticipated before. Now, they needed to give a presentation to the Council of Quidditch Captains. It boggled her mind how such a thing even existed. She had seen no evidence in her time at Hogwarts that anyone, with the possible exception of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, could rationally sit down and discuss anything. When you threw quidditch into the mix, she didn't even see how they could do it.
The project had taken up her entire winter break, spending time at the house of Ron Weasley of all people, to be with the twins. It was there that she also discovered one of the biggest injustices she had encountered so far. Purebloods were allowed to do magic at home. There was too much magic around their households to isolate the individual magic of the children, so they were allowed to break the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery with impunity.
Fred and George's mum had her children believing that it still affected them and they were forbidden from using magic in their home. Percy tried to enforce it on the four of them as well, saying it wasn't proper for someone as young as Hermione to be violating the RRoUS, but after a kind request from Penelope, he dropped the subject. The twins had them working in their dad's shed which filled with the strangest enchanting and parts to muggle electronics. They said that there was too much magical interference in there for anyone to detect their use of magic.
The four of them worked tirelessly on the project, with Hermione only leaving to spend evenings with her parents, going to the library to look up books on mathematics to try to follow Penny's arithmancy work, and getting her replacement arm done. She even got to miss the Grunnings yearly Christmas party, which was such a relief that she wouldn't have to see Harry's cousin again. She heard the next day that her parents got into a shouting match with the Dursleys, but managed to avoid mentioning Harry's name.
She was busy setting up for the presentation, having skipped dinner completely because she couldn't even think of eating at the moment. Just like their research room, the terror twins had managed to locate the perfect room for making their presentation. Apparently, Hogwarts had a small theater that everyone seemed to have forgotten about.
On the fourth floor, there was a room with stadium-style seating that you had to climb stairs to the top of from the entrance, then walk down either of two aisles, past seven rows of seating, before getting to a band pit and a stage. They had set up five spots in the first row with plates for appetizers and glasses for drinks to serve the Captains, like VIP guests.
On the stage, they had two shaggy purple couches that the twins had conjured earlier along with samples of their work. There were five mannequins, covered with sheets, along with a smaller table in the front with a few of their other samples, also covered with sheets. A large chest was placed under the table with some practical aids they would need for the presentation.
Now, it came down to a waiting game. She sat on the couch and tapped her feet while waiting for her group partners to show up. She smiled to herself and realized that this was one of the first group projects she had been in where the other members pulled their own weight. It was crazy that she was probably the weakest link on a group project for the first time. Though that made her work even harder to keep up.
Thirty minutes after dinner was over, Penny and the twins showed up. She could almost always tell which was which now. Unless one was seriously pretending to be the other, she could identify them with just a few questions. They approached Hermione on the stage and looked around.
"Well, it looks like you've got us all set up," Penny smiled.
"We just need the refreshments," Fred said.
"Snickers!" George called out, and a house-elf popped into the room.
Snickers was a young elf, and in addition to a toga with the Hogwarts crest on it, he also had several small patches sewn onto it. He had a smiley face, a toucan, a set of Rolling Stones lips, a Grateful Dead bear, a British flag, a ballerina, and a strawberry.
"Can you bring up the arranged goods?" Fred asked.
He gave them a small grunt and a salute, then vanished with a pop.
"So that's how you know everything about the castle?" Penny asked.
"Not at all, apple of our brother's eye," Fred said with a wink.
"He tries to show us around every now and then, but we like to do our adventuring through other means," George told her.
Snickers popped back in holding a large icebox and started to put meat and cheese onto the plates for the Captains, along with a Butterbeer in each spot as well. When he was done, he levitated the box behind the purple couches, which they went to sit down on. George leaned over the back of the couch and pulled out bottles for each of them as well. However, when he put a bottle down in front of Hermione, she saw it was cider, instead of Butterbeer.
When she looked up at him, he said, "You didn't seem to like sweet stuff during the break."
Ten minutes later, the captains filed into the room; Marcus Flint, Tasmin Applebee, Oliver Wood, Roger Davis, and Cedric Diggory. Cedric must be there to represent a future Scamander team. They gazed at the room they were being presented in, obviously, none of them had been here before. Eventually, they made their way down to the seats in front and sat, with Marcus in the middle spot.
Looking at the bottle in front of him, the Slytherin Captain asked, "Do you have anything stronger than Butterbeer?"
Fred just gave him a smirk and asked, "Would you like red or white wine?"
"Red," Marcus instructed.
George snapped his fingers, and Marcus's glass filled up with red wine.
Seeing it happen prompted Roger and Tasmin to ask for white wine, while Cedric and Oliver both took reds.
When they were all settled, Penny took the lead.
"Roger presented us with this project to design new helmets for every member of a quidditch squad. This proved to be a difficult task, not just from a safety perspective. It was pointed out to us, early in the project, that the current helmet that keepers wear has almost no visibility issues, that the only real issue with it is it looks dumb and quidditch payers are vain pretty boys."
"And girls," George added, gesturing towards Tasmin.
"Except you," Fred added at the same time, gesturing towards Marcus, who sneered back.
"Anyways…" Penny continued, adding a pause and glaring at the twins, "We needed to design helmets that could protect from a bludger strike, didn't hinder visibility, and looked cool. We are proud to say that we accomplished all three of those objectives."
Hermione got up, out of her seat, and pulled the box out from under the table. From inside, she pulled out a set of beaters' bats, and two bludgers; one solid iron, and the other light and fluffy for training. Using her wand, she levitated the first of the five dummies to the front of the stage. Pulling off the sheet, was just a mannequin wearing pure black Hogwarts robes and a quidditch keeper's helmet - the current version that looked like a rugby helmet.
She tapped the training bludger, causing it to float up in the air, and then started to attack the head of the mannequin. Each time it hit, a pink splotch was left in the area it hit. After a minute, nearly every spot on the face and helmet was pink.
"As you can see," Penny began, "the current helmet does absolutely nothing to protect the face of the wearer."
Now, Hermione tapped the iron bludger, causing it to jump up and attack the mannequin, the first hit striking the helmet on the side, then the top, then the same side as before. On the third hit, there was a cracking sound and the neck bent a little bit. The bludger then went for the face, knocking the head clean off. When it fell to the floor, the heavy ball proceeded to pound the head over and over until it was totally smashed and whatever charm was attracting it broke, and the ball just went back to hovering. Hermione approached the ball and tapped it with her wand, causing it to drop into her hands and she carried it back to the table, placing it there.
"I don't think I need to explain to you why this is a bad design, for any position," Penny said grimly. The faces of all the captains mirrored her tone of voice.
George stood up and approached the front of the stage, "Knowing our goals, we knew that the first goal was full facial protection, our second goal was visibility, and the third was something quidditch players would enjoy wearing. Charms would come last, as magic could solve any problems we encountered."
Fred stood up and whipped the sheet off the table at the front to reveal five jet-black motorcycle helmets.
"These ended up being our base models." Seeing all the captains start to lean forward, he added, "Please save your questions for the end."
Penny picked up one of the helmets, "One of the reasons why no one has instituted invisibility charms on helmets in the past is that they are unstable and tend to fail at the wrong times or when impacted by physical objects. Any of you who have already learned disillusionment know that you also need to move delicately for active invisibility charms, and there is still some distortion. We have found a way around that problem."
This drew great interest from the captains, as they waited with bated breath.
"Instead of going with charms," Fred said with a sinister smile, "we went with curses."
The interest on the captains' faces turned from interest to shock and concern. Penny fired off a small cannon blast to snap them out of their worries.
"The curses will only affect the helmets, and they have been layered in a way so that they feed off each other. The solution to what curses to use and how to layer them properly was discovered by Miss Granger here."
Hermione blushed with the praise and the gaze of the older students in the audience, as Penny continued.
"The first curse we decided to use in the cluster, is one you may have heard of, 'The Emperor's New Clothes' curse." Tasmin and Oliver didn't seem to know what it was, so Penny explained. "This curse is applied to clothing and makes it invisible to everyone except for the person wearing it. Obviously, this is the exact opposite of what we want to happen, so when Miss Granger stumbled upon this curse, she proposed inverting the curse. That way, the wearer would be the only one unable to see it, while everyone else would."
Realization crossed the faces of the captains, that such a curse would allow for full 360-degree visibility, even if your head was in a box.
"From there, we picked out three other charms, and another curse to power the full array," Fred began. "The three charms for protection are a softening charm, a weightlessness charm, and an imperturbable charm. The softening charm will absorb any impacts on the helmet, the weightlessness charm will keep any additional weight off the player's neck, and the imperturbable charm will make sure nothing can stick to the surface of the helmet. Any form of weather or other potentially sticky objects will not adhere to the helmet, keeping the visibility completely clear. The imperturbable charm also adds a layer to the helmet which makes the softening charm not work as hard when the helmet suffers an impact."
George took over, "Like any of these charms, they can be disturbed or wear off, and the solution to keep them intact and powered was again stumbled on through the research of Miss Granger, who discovered an obscure curse known as the Pugilist's Curse." Seeing no recognition from any of the captains, he continued, "She found the curse in a court document from over one hundred years ago, when the defendant was arrested for muggle baiting. The curse causes the recipient to suffer a small headache when thinking about athletic feats, this damage increases when physical attacks are performed or received. The criminal defendant used the curse to fix a muggle dueling match and profit from the bets he had made on the outcome."
"We deconstructed the curse," Penny told them, "and instead of using it to inflict damage on the helmet, it now converts physical impacts into magic and channels that into the other charms and the Emperor's curse. All you need to do to activate the curse is slap the helmet before the game begins. From there, the desire to beat your opponents will be all that you need to keep it going."
Hermione spoke up for the first time, "Now, are there any questions?"
There was silence for a while as the captains seemed to think over everything that they had been told so far.
Roger was the first one to speak up, and asked, "What about long games? I know that in long games, my attention has wavered from victory to just having fun and flying around."
Penny answered, "If your helmet starts to feel heavy, it needs more power, and all you need to do is slap yourself in the head to get it going again."
"Can we try them on?" Oliver asked.
Fred snapped his fingers and the five black helmets floated over to the five captains, next to their plates.
They each put them on, and before they could say anything, Hermione told them "The curses don't activate until you buckle the strap under your chin."
After the buckles were clipped, they all stared around in wonder as their view must have instantly gone completely clear. No one else could see their eyes under the visors, but they must be looking amazed at the sight. They started to stare straight ahead as Fred and George picked up the beaters' bats and began walking in their direction.
The twins proceeded to chase the captains around the room and hit them in the head with the bats as many times as it would take for them to stop moving and just take a few more hits. Once they realized that there wasn't pain, just getting their head knocked around, they each allowed a few more impacts before the ginger terrors moved on to their next victim. After they had all settled down and taken off the helmets, checking them over for damage; Cedric was the first one to say something that wasn't threatening revenge on the twins for their actions.
"What are the other four mannequins on the stage?" he gestured to the sheets covering them.
The four presenters smiled at each other, then three of them nodded to Hermione, who didn't know she would be presenting this part of the show.
Turning back to the others, she started, "Well, um, do all of you like the design of the helmets here?"
She received five nods of varying enthusiasm.
"When we realized that the entire helmet would be both weightless and invisible from the inside, we started to have more fun with the design. Since the curse and charms affect the entire helmet, we figured we could change them into anything we wanted, and make them look even more interesting."
Hermione waited for nods of approval from the others as she approached the first covered dummy, and with a pull of the sheet, she revealed the first one.
This dummy was dressed in a Slytherin quidditch jersey, with flowing robes. The helmet, however, was green and covered with scales. There were two bright amber eyes, with split pupils on each side, and two giant fangs that ran down the front over the visor.
Hermione pulled off the next three, which revealed similar helmet designs on top of each quidditch uniform of the four houses other than Scamander. Each one was the represented animal, with Gryffindor represented by a lion whose mouth was open around the visor and a mane of golden hair around the top. Ravenclaw had a small beak pointing out from the top, with feathers along the sides. Hufflepuff had two small ears of the badger on the side with rows of tiny sharp teeth around the face, striped in black and white fur.
The captains were stunned into silence. Hermione took that opportunity to tell them, "The helmets can end up being anything you want them to be. Slytherins could have many different types of snakes for each player, and Gryffindor could have many types of big cats. Or you can just keep the basic design and make them with multiple colors or designs and the names and numbers of each player."
The five captains turned to each other and started to have a hushed conversation. Hermione sat down on the couches with the other members of her team and they all took a sip of their drinks and waited for the response. After just a minute, Marcus stood up to address them.
"All of you have gone above and beyond what we originally thought was possible for this project, we would all like to institute these helmets as part of the uniforms for our teams." He glanced over to Cedric, "And potential teams."
The four of them all shook hands and smiled at each other as Marcus continued, "If you could hand over your project notes, I can get the ball rolling and production started."
Penny started to gather together the project notes, but Fred and George stopped her.
"Not so fast there, Marky Mark," Fred said seriously, causing Hermione and Tasmin to spit out their drinks and choke before sharing a look and giggling. Everyone else looked at them in confusion.
George addressed Marcus, "If you would like to start production you'll need to have the school contact the Ministry, as we've already filed the patent."
"You did what?" Marcus looked furious.
"We… filed… the… patent," George repeated slower. "None of us were paid upfront, nor was there any agreed-upon fee for our time and efforts, so my brother and I organized it for ourselves. The patent has been filed with the following ownership shares; 20% for each of us four," he gestured to the project team while Penny and Hermione looked shocked, "and 4% for each of you five."
Cedric raised his hand, "How did you file it without our signatures?"
Fred smiled, "We have friends in the ministry. If you want to challenge our decision, I'm sure we can just re-file it with it split just between the two of us. Or you can accept the split as it is. The five of you did nothing for the project itself, Cedric was the instigator, and Oliver and Roger were the ones who brought it to us. Technically Tasmin and Marcus did the least, but we still included them in the split."
"I am the head of this council," Marcus sneered at Fred.
"For however much that counts for," George replied, as he rolled his eyes. "Look, this has the potential to go league-wide, maybe worldwide. We have complete records that at no point did anyone on the council even bother to inquire with the patent office about this project, nor did any of you approach us about a contract. So the split we have made is fair to all parties involved, and since I'm pretty sure that none of you on the council, with the possible exception of Roger, could replicate anything we've done, so you should just approve our contract, and backdate it to the beginning of the project."
Fred snapped his fingers and a large scroll of parchment appeared in front of the captains, then they sat back down with the Ravenclaw girls.
While the captains started reading over the contract, Penny asked quietly, "When did you have time to do this?"
"We do this for all our inventions,'' George told her. "We've got stacks of patent forms with us, all the time."
"The day after we invented shrinking sweaters and instant ginger powder, we patented those too," George smirked.
Hermione caught on instantly, "But you swore that you didn't do that to Malfoy and Crabbe!"
"WE swore that WE didn't plan anything and WE didn't do anything," Fred said with a smile.
"I did the planning," George said.
"And I did the doing," Fred said.
"Smart," Penny said with an approving nod.
Oliver stood up, getting the teams' attention, "We've decided to accept your proposal." He levitated the signed contract back to George.
"Great!" he snagged it out of the air. "Take your team's helmets as you leave." He snapped his fingers and each helmet vanished from its mannequin and appeared next to the appropriate captain.
Marcus grabbed the snake helmet and gave a dirty look to the twins before stomping off. George took another black helmet out of the box and had a short conversation with Cedric before passing it to him. The project team exchanged handshakes with the other captains and headed off to their respective dormitories for the night.
Once the captains had left the room, Fred snapped his fingers and a bottle of Firewhiskey appeared in his hands, along with four glasses on the table.
"My brother and I think we should toast the success of the project," George told the two girls.
Hermione looked a bit apprehensive about drinking alcohol, but as part of the project, she had used a book stolen from the restricted section, deconstructed two curses, and apparently been party to duping an older Slytherin out of stealing their work. A shot of alcohol looked tame in comparison, plus she didn't want to be left out.
She did have a question though, "How does the patent work?" she asked the older students.
Penny answered, "Due to the advanced nature of the array, I believe that we get allocated 8% of any sale that includes it," she looked to the twins for confirmation, and received a nod. "The current helmets sell for only ten galleons, but I assume with our improvements, they will go for at least five times that amount. From there, the 8% is split among the nine of us on the patent and deposited directly into our accounts."
"Additionally," George began, "since the array needs to be added onto a completed helmet and can't be transfigured, more advanced designs will end up costing more money. If it does go worldwide, at least fourteen helmets per team, plus backups and for training purposes, that will be quite a bit of money, even with the split."
"Since a lot of people won't be comfortable enchanting the helmets right away, or casting the curses that we have modified from the originals, you can bet that we will get a lot of buyers who will be coming directly to us to avoid mistakes in the enchanting. We can charge them whatever we want for our services, and set a baseline for the cost," Fred grinned.
Hermione was a bit overwhelmed but understood the implications of what they had just done. She looked at Penny, and asked, "Are all the R&D projects like this?"
"Definitely not, most of them are a half day's work for a few sickles to do someone's homework or charge a galleon or two for a runic array for some personal project. Though you're welcome to tag along with the project that Mr. Potter has for me next weekend. I can't promise there will be any money in it for you, but it will at least be educational."
"While that sounds incredibly interesting," George said, "Let's get onto the toast." He poured out the shots.
Fred raised his drink, "To us! When you combine creativity with intelligence,"
George continued, "And splash in innovation and magic,"
"Anything is possible!" they said together.
They all took their shots together. Hermione immediately started to cough and choke on the alcohol. However, being fire-whiskey, her first few coughs contained bursts of fire and the later ones were just smoke. Fred and George both blew out streams of fire before coughing a bit of smoke themselves. Only Penny was able to breathe out a full breath of flame without any coughing after. Fred and George applauded her between coughs as Hermione continued to wheeze out smoke.
Once Hermione had gotten control over her breathing, she told them, "Well, I'm never doing that again." Penny just smiled at her little apprentice, still a bit naive.
"One more thing," George declared, "Snickers!"
The patch-adorned house elf popped into the room, "Yes Misters Weasleys?" he asked.
"Your assistance has been instrumental in this production; providing the food, drinks, and theatrics to make it look like we could do wandless magic," Fred told him, causing him to blush and bow.
"We know you will never take any money from us," George added, "but you need to remember that you can always call on us if you need something, and we still will always show our appreciation."
George took a small box out of his pocket and passed it to the elf who accepted it with reverence. When he opened it, there was a clothing patch inside of a quidditch player on a broomstick. The whole thing seemed to sparkle and Snickers took it out and held it up like a trophy. He smiled and placed it on his toga, then after a brief flash of magic, it stuck there along with the others he had already received.
He grinned at all of them and asked, "Anythings else Snickers can dos for you alls?"
"Just take all of this back to the ballet room, please," George told him.
He just snapped his fingers and vanished, along with the rest of their things.
On the way back to their common room, Penny and Hermione were stopped by Oliver Wood at the end of the hall.
"Miss Granger," he began. "Would you mind giving me a moment with Penelope?"
"It's alright Hermione," Penny told her. "Just wait for me by the main staircase."
Hermione smiled and walked ahead.
"I haven't heard back from you about Valentine's Day," Oliver told her.
"It's still over a month away," Penny told him. "And I got another invitation from Percy, as I'm sure you're aware."
"He has reminded me that my request hasn't been accepted yet, but you were visiting his house over the break."
"We didn't spend any time together," Penny defended herself. "I was just working on the project with the twins."
"Still, I would hope that I might have some time with you myself, before February," he said hopefully. "I recently discovered a secret room in the library that might be nice to spend time in with a friend."
"I know many secret rooms there," Penny said with confidence and a touch of curiosity. "What's in it?"
"I want to leave that as a surprise, but I'll tell you the entrance is in the giant book section and is accessible through the cover of one of them."
"Is it a red book?" Penny asked.
"Blue. Is there another secret room through a red book?"
"Knowing the library, there are probably a few. You have my interest, and I'm free next Thursday evening. I'll meet you there at the circulation desk at 4:30 pm."
Oliver was a bit torn, that was Quidditch practice time. Worse, he was sure that Penny was testing his priorities. So he made up his mind to pass it.
"Sounds good to me, it's a date."
Cedric rushed back to the Scamander common room, with the black helmet he had been given by the Twins. They had told him that they had made sure it would be a perfect fit for Harry Potter. Now that they had helmets, Harry would have to join the team and bring along his sister and any of the others that tagged along with him.
Exiting the maze, he went straight for the first-year boys' dorm, only to find it empty. He looked around the common room but didn't want to climb one of the trees to see if he was up there. He did see Whispers sitting in the corner with that incredible portrait that had been helping all of them with their essays. Not seeing any better option, he approached the furry creature.
The portrait of Liborio Montessi was in the middle of trying to help Whispers with his pronunciation of different words, trying to get him to shape his mouth correctly so they would come out properly.
Cedric approached cautiously and asked, "Umm, Whispers?"
The demiguise turned to him, his eyes glowing blue for just a moment, then waited.
"Do you know where Harry is right now?" Cedric asked.
Whispers just gestured in the direction of the common room entrance, and enunciated slowly, "U-ni-corns, For-est."
"Good job, Whispers," the portrait of Liborio commended him.
That's right, Cedric remembered, there were a few others from their house out in the forest right now. Though it was still a couple of minutes before 10:00 p.m. Maybe he could still catch them. So, without grabbing his winter coat, he made a dash for the courtyard, to see a freshly paved path leading through the snow. He shivered a bit and ran through the courtyard to see a bright red glow, almost at Hagrid's hut, signifying Lyra using her staff to plow through the snow.
Letting out a big sigh, he looked at the helmet in his hands, and said out loud, "I guess this can wait till tomorrow."