The Provisional Laws of Acquired Behavior or Learning

Authors Note: So chapters from here on out (Except chapters where I need cliffhangers, mwahahah!) should cover an entire month, this chapter covers January 1992. When I finish the entire thing I'll reformat the previous chapters and post them on AO3. Spell checked by Grammarly so the spellings is distinctly American, oops!
*edit: fixed mistakes

Disclaimer: I don't at this time own any published work of Sega or JK Rowling, if I did I'd gut the current Sonic fandom and only allow literate people to contribute cutting the fandom back by 90% and improving the quality by the same percentage.

January 6th 1992, Hogwarts
Maurice stretched in place, his spine making a tension releasing crackling sound as he waited at the train station for the other students to return, with him stood Fred Weasley methodically flicking through a long coil of parchment as he chattered on about each item on his bounty list of missing items he and Blaise had been hired to find. Maurice hadn't been paying attention to what Fred and Blaise had been up to over the holidays, dimly he'd registered the two detectives bustling in and out of The Knothole with strangely wrapped parcels of found items and in some cases a few cages full of missing pets. "I'm thinking of putting an advertisement in the Daily Prophet" Fred said with a grin as he browsed the list "I'm pretty sure that some of the graduates have lost things they would pay us oodles of cash to find, even nostalgia has its price"
Maurice looked down the tracks at the approaching train "About time finally!"
"Who are you waiting for anyway?" asked Fred as he counted his way through the list again.
Maurice tapped a foot impatiently as the train pulled in slowly "Sophie, We forgot to get her a present at Christmas so we all chipped in to get her something nice, remember?" Maurice neglected to say that the group had made sure to get her something suitably heavy that could be explained as the reason she hadn't received it at Christmas time. There had been some debate about showing her The Knothole though that idea had been shot down as they didn't feel that they knew her well enough yet. "Hey! Sophie!" Maurice signaled with a yell and a wave spotting her in one window, Sophie looked surprised to see him.
Opening the carriage door once the train came to a complete stop and the student rush had lessened Maurice helped Sophie haul her large trunk onto the platform and deposited it with the rest of the luggage train. Sophie adjusted her windswept hair as she walked alongside him to the school a bit flustered "Thank you"
Maurice grinned in an approximation of a roguish grin "I'm a gentleman. So how was your holiday?"
Sophie nearly vibrated in place with excitement "I got an early apprenticeship with the Sky Patrol Task Force!"
"You're a first-year student how did you manage that?" asked Maurice as they made their way on foot to the school, despite having already heard of Sophie's promotion from Susan who heard it from her Aunt though Maurice had still thought that the S.P.T.F only enrolled people who had O.W.L's and N.E.W.T's to their name.
Sophie explained rapidly "Its part of their Junior Division project, Someone pointed out that Hogwarts doesn't teach a dedicated flying course just an introduction and had limited openings for students on the Quidditch teams so some people never get the chance to nurture their flying talent. It's not just flying though all members of the Junior Division can learn other things which transfer into other parts of the new wizarding army"
Curiosity piqued Maurice eyed Sophie "Like what?
Sophie almost spoke then stopped herself with an apologetic look "Sorry Maurice, The courses are classified to non-members"
Maurice shrugged "It's cool, what can you tell me then?"
Sophie's grin returned but before she could speak a voice called out to the duo "Maurice, You found Sophie-"
"Princess Susan, I hope you had a nice holiday" squeaked Sophie clearly out of her depth regarding meeting royalty though her reaction wasn't out of place.
Unlike the rest of the students Susan had undergone a uniform change to fit her rank and while she still wore the Ravenclaw uniform it had been modified, in place of her school house colors were the colours of the new royal house with gold, dark copper and dark crimson, the back of her robe had her houses new heraldry embroidered on the back that of a gold and copper acorn on a dark crimson field contained in a gold ring. As far as Maurice could explain it after hearing Hopkirk wax near lyrically about hidden meanings, the acorn represented the beginning whilst the dark crimson indicated conflict and old blood and the ring represented marriage and containment of the bloodshed or something like that. In addition to the robes Susan also wore a small golden circlet with stylized gold oak leaves with a ruby at the forefront on her head barely visible with her red hair, Regardless of how Susan was dressed though the gawking was getting embarrassing, thankfully she only had to wear the official royal uniform for events.
"Did you tell Sophie about the…" Susan hinted Maurice nodded with a look of realization and turned to Sophie.
"Susan and I got you a present but it only arrived after Solstice and was too heavy to send by owl so it'll be in your dorm room"
"Oh! You really didn't have to" squeaked Sophie blushing red unable to see past the royalty, defusing the awkward Maurice turned to Susan "Anyway Sophie was telling me about her holiday, She got an apprenticeship at Sky Patrol" That was all it took for chatter to continue awkwardness fading fast as the trio made there way to the Great Hall.

Great Hall
Hogwarts was rapidly filling up again Maurice noticed, looking at the nearly full house tables, it was odd after having more or less free reign of the empty castle over the holidays, still the likelihood of having the same thing happen next year was not high so at least he'd made the most of it and thoroughly mapped the school, figuring out the locations of the common rooms and various abandoned classrooms. He dragged his attention to the headmistress as she finally drew her welcome back to school speech to a close "-on that note, Due to unstable masonry the third-floor corridor is now out of bounds until it is repaired, this is for your own safety. The reconstruction should be finished sometime next year." And Maurice reminded himself yet again that he needed to find out what his friends did to cause that much damage to the third floor, because he kept forgetting to ask. Redirecting his gaze to Susan who took the time to talk with the various students who approached her during the feast, Maurice took the time to marvel at the change in her.
This was the first time that Susan had truly been amongst the regular population since becoming a crown princess and so far Maurice thought that she was doing a great job, there were times that she seemed to get a bit overwhelmed by the crowd but a very weak confundus charm fired into the herd to make them temporarily forget their questions on Maurice's part aided in reducing the crowding to a more manageable level.
By the time the people remembered the question they wanted to ask they would return in smaller groups or individually making them much more manageable, mentally Maurice thanked Mafalda again for teaching him the charm, the purposely weakened version had no telltale pink light and was apparently a favorite of wizarding bodyguards everywhere.
The tutor was surprising liberal with sharing her spell repertoire as well as offering tips and advice where it was needed, added to that the debates on history she and Susan had were something to be seen, educational too.

Dance hall, Hogwarts Dungeons
"It was good of Nick to let us rent out the Deathday Party Hall" spoke Fred behind the curtain next to the raised podium, Blaise eyed the slowly assembling crowd from behind the curtains "That's a lot of people down there, how careless of them"
Fred scoffed "You mean how profitable and I don't think careless really encompasses the abject stupidity of some of them! How do you even lose some of these things?"
Both Fred and Blaise eyed the line of cages full of lost pets containing everything from lost cats to silent Jobberknoll to a single lone Porlock who delighted in casually flipping off anyone who looked at it, handily proving that the Hogwarts pets list really was just a suggestion.
"So how exactly are we paying Nick anyway?" spoke Blaise as far as he knew ghosts had no need for currency, though that did raise the question of how Professor Binns was being paid and if so where the money was going.
Fred jerked his head to the unlabelled blue box on the side table that his brother Percy had brought in from home, though he'd had to fib a bit about doing it purely as altruism and house loyalty rather than as a promised payment "My mum baked a big cake with layered ghost pepper icing, strong tasting spices and a few taste amplifying potions. The ghosts are going to have it on display at their death day parties here for pretty much the rest of ever."
Blaise shuddered at the thought of being desperate enough to walk through rotting food just to taste anything "If I die and become a ghost please exorcise me"
Fred's immediate and highly predictable response "Only if you promise the same"
"Deal" Spoke Blaise distractedly peering through the curtains again "I think its time"
Fred eyed the audience sitting calmly in the seating "I think you're right, time to begin then" without further ado Fred sauntered up to the podium facing the audience with a grin that wouldn't be out of place on a crocodile "Welcome students! Like last year we'll be calling out your assigned Lot number, when we do so please have your cash in hand so we can return your lost items and pets in a calm and orderly manner, First on the agenda Lot 47, a pair of self-ironing dress robes and two charmed chameleon skin gloves!"

Slytherin first years female dormitory
The promised late Christmas present when it came was half the size of her school trunk and had a carry handle visible even through the mishmash of multicolored wrapping paper.
Lavender did not even bother to hide her curiosity lying on her bed with her hands propping up her chin and her bare feet idly waving in the air with an air of expectance, she knew better than to touch a fellow students things, especially as the prefects at the start of the year had handed out a list of privacy and security charms on the first day at Hogwarts and advised them to learn more.
Ignoring Lavender's blatant curious staring Sophie silently read the card attached to the wrapping a simple note 'Make sure room is cleared around the suitcase by a meter in each direction, then press the black button and stand back.' Unwrapping the multicoloured paper carefully so as not to tear it revealed a smooth cherry wood case with an ebony wood handle. Following the instructions and moving the case into the side of the room aware of Lavenders curious gaze Sophie pressed the black button on the handle and watched as the wooden case unraveled. Assembling itself like a complicated Chinese puzzle the case eventually reassembled into its new configuration, a tall dresser with a mirror which had drawers beneath the mirror and a wardrobe the full height of the mirror. Stuck on the mirror with spellotape was a magical picture of Susan, Maurice, Neville, Parvati, Fred and Blaise smiling and laughing around the case in the library and another note taped to the drawer.
Lavender whistled at the sight of the large high-quality portable dresser "Well, I know what I want for my birthday"
Sophie smiled softly and the writing scrawled over the photo.

Dear Sophie
We figured that someone keen on joining the Sky Patrol is going to be up in the air often, so here's a way to stop the day's weather wrecking your special day.
Everyone gets a friend a present on their first day on a new job, yours came earlier than most.
Ps. From Susan, I heard about the youngest person to join the new Ministry through my mother, I hope this helps.
Pss. From Bunnie, Open everything.
Merry Christmas.

London, South Kensington Primary School, 3:30pm
Miles waited as the other children filed out the school gates wondering what Maurice would say about his first day at school, it had been memorable it had to be said. Miles had a hard time fitting in with the other children though the problem had become clear to the teacher and Miles that the average reading level of the other children was that of picture books while Miles was reading long novels. Truthfully Miles liked reading, a habit in part inspired by Maurice's ongoing campaign to fill all the bookshelves in the house with second-hand books on near every subject under the sun for his benefit. Miles made it a point to emulate his big brother who's shelves were surprisingly littered with romantic war novels, which when asked about had resulted in a fierce blush and a mutter about teaching himself to read with them as a child and nostalgia.
With a boom Miles was jolted out of his thoughts before they could go further as Maurice materialized with a flicker of blue wind, his newly enchanted medallion necklace diverting all attention aimed at him for the act. "Ready to go home bro?"
A voice interrupted before Miles could say anything "Actually I would like to talk to you about your brother, you are young Miles guardian are you not?"
The following talk with Miles teacher and the headmaster was an enlightening one and arrangements were made for Miles to test up until he found his level. The teachers had expressed concern that Miles should stay with his age mates which was curtailed by Maurice calmly asking a bashful looking Miles what he thought of that idea. "They're kind of… not very smart?" a vast understatement "and I don't want to have to shove crayons in my ears to fit in" turning back to the teachers with lips twitching at Miles awkward admission it was immediately agreed that Miles would advance to his corresponding mental age level.
On the way home, a short run to the new London international floo, hub Maurice couldn't help but remark "Advanced for your age? Just wait till we have the Auto-Brewery set up."
"I'm going to blow them out of the water" Miles grinned and yawned the evening wind tousling his hair.
"I don't doubt you will" spoke Maurice expression softening at Miles yawn. "Tired?" Miles just nodded sleepily.
Maurice led him to their private Floo hub and with a pinch of Floo powder brothers vanished into the green fire, reappearing moments later in Scotland in their Floo room.
"A bath first, then dinner at six then bed at eight, okay?" Spoke Maurice ruffling Miles hair as he hung up their coats hanging up the medallion next to the colorful wizard hat that Neville had gotten him as a joke and locking the floo grate for the night.
"Okay"
Inwardly Maurice was happy that Miles wasn't the nightmare child Dudley was with temper tantrums, demands for candy and no set bedtime.
After a very sudsy water fight masquerading as an attempt to get clean during which the lives of many yellow rubber duckies met grisly ends amidst much diabolical laughter, Miles sat at the kitchen island munching on some chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy idly eying the green peas with thinly concealed disgust.
"Are you going to eat Big Brother?" asked Miles seeing Maurice only prepare a plate for Miles and box up the leftovers.
Maurice shook his head in the negative muffling a yawn "I'm stuffed from the Hogwarts Feast, I'll eat dinner here tomorrow but some feasts are mandatory"
Miles eyes lit up "All the students came back today"
Maurice nodded "That's right" putting the recipe book he'd been leafing through away, Maurice considered the first home-cooked meal he'd ever made for someone who mattered a success.
Miles fidgeted a bit in place before asking "Can I come to school with you?"
Maurice was not going to lie but at least decided to provide a logical reason for why he couldn't "Only on the weekends Miles, Hogwarts can be dangerous for those without magic, sometimes the stairs work sometimes they don't and magical pranks you can't dispel are not nice." Maurice could already see Mile's mood take a downturn.
"Oh" Miles spoke dejectedly.
Cleaning the cooking implements with a wand wave Maurice returned them to their places in the cupboards before joining Miles side of the kitchen counter an idea on how to distract him already planned out days before.
"Anyway I thought you wanted to build a treehouse?" teased Maurice causing Miles to perk back up "We're really going to do it?"
Maurice nodded as he chivvied Miles up the stairs to his bedroom "The forest is not forbidden anymore, I figured we could fly around and find a good spot for one on the weekend."
"Can Aunt Susan, Bunnie, Neville, Mr. Ninja Detective and Fred help too?" exclaimed Miles excitedly.
"I'll ask them" Maurice reassured with a smile "We could even make a competition out of it"
"But ours will be the best, right?"
Maurice grinned "I don't doubt it. Now finish your dinner."
"Okay!" Miles dug into his food.
Miles didn't last till eight falling asleep on the couch the days excitement catching up with him, Carrying him under the effect of a featherlight charm Maurice took Miles to his bed and tucked him in under the sheets, turning out the lights Maurice went to his own bedroom, settling down to read one of the better wizarding history novels in preparation for Susan's quizzing tomorrow.

January 7th, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, W.A.N.D Headquarters
Sergeant Rufus Scrimgeour met General Emmeline Vance's gaze evenly as he bluntly stated his thoughts on this latest assignment aloud "General, this sounds like a prank to me"
General Vance tapped the folder "Sergeant Scrimgeour I expect much the same, however, it is a good test scenario, depending on how your subordinates act they could earn promotions now they've certainly demonstrated a level of professionalism expected of the new system, they certainly have the skill"
The reforms had made it exponentially harder to join the ministry or indeed any facet of magical government in Britain, the competency expectations and stringent testing had skimmed the previous ministries workers by more than half.
Rufus could not hide his scowl and General Vance sighed "I know that many are unhappy with the restructuring of the Auror core-"
"Regardless of my personal feelings, I can see the benefits already, Its just-"
Vance interrupted him "You were in line for a promotion, The Auror Corps was a broken system Sergeant too easily infiltrated for those with money or influences and with no real checks and balances to stop corruption, the same could be said for every ministry department under the old administration"

Delving into the secrecy of the new Ministry, when the Auror Core was restructured, or rather more accurately put, wholesale replaced, the changes to the system allowed for laxer yet far harder hiring schemata conditional on the job training to bridge the skill gap. Military ranks had been adopted straight from Mundane Britain. With these new hiring practices completely lacking any hints of blood status preference in the hiring step many mundane-born became enlisted and with them they brought their own ideas.
Mainly magical military equipment or magical equivalents, so it was not uncommon nowadays to see the new combat active ranks of the British magical military adorned in close fitting uniform with various enchanted accessories such as communication rings that functioned like radios, optional cloaks with various enchantments from invisibility to fire resistance, enchanted riot shields and other classified projects. And this was only the scratching the surface of the changes in the Auror offices, other were far more startling.

Scrimgeour, however, knew that if he hadn't been injured in the Diagon Alley attack and forced on medical leave before the restructuring happened then he might have been a far, far higher rank, however galling the thought was though he knew it wasn't personal and the changes had enormously benefited the new core firing the dead weight, he himself had had the time to write a book when in recovery and laughed upon learning from owl notes from co-workers that another inept coattail rider had been given the boot. Still if he had to work himself up the ranks again through sheer bull-headed competence at least he'd be in good company this time, less paperwork was always a plus too.
"I accept the mission General Vance"
Vance nodded "May I have a list of those you wish to test?" She placed the large dossier in front of Rufus who began examining the profiles within proceeding to pick out a four in particular that stood out.
Waving the selected files and arranging them so all the photos and names were visible to Vance, Scrimgeour spoke "These two are ready as of now General, the other two are maybes, Honch Williamson and Vincent Proudfoot definitely, Gawain Robards and John Dawlish are possible but I'd want to give them a bit more cross-species training to get rid of any lingering creature prejudices"
Vance nodded and Rufus grinned roguishly. "Who knows? If those four are as good as I think they are we might have an operations team in the future"
Vance's expression which had until now been placid as she nodded along to his reasoning went flat which put it at odds with her now saccharine tone "No doubt you will name them something ridiculous again"
Rufus's nostrils blared like a charging bull at the slight, Paladin Team Sigma-Alpha 1 was a perfectly reasonable name for a military unit and General Vance was an unimaginative snob for dismissing it, Just for that Rufus was going to name this squad Paladin Team Sigma-Alpha 2 out of spite.

Wiltshire, England 06:30am
The people of Warminster had been living in fear since early January when the first of a spate of disappearances began, at first it had been assumed to be runaways but then it had escalated from the occasional one or two people to whole families, the fear reached fever pitch when a police team of investigators went to examine the cottage of the latest disappearance and abruptly lost contact one by one until the entire team went radio silent. Needless to say the ground control team were scared spitless. The army had mobilized and soldiers could be seen combing the city, an action touted as excessive until they too one by one also started disappearing. The unknown, presumably black Op unit had then arrived and been given absolute authority, the appearance of a shady shadow organization for once actually reassuring the local populace.
"So this is where the anonymous tip said" John Dawlish spoke quietly into his com ring laying flat on the lip of the hill.
Proudfoot scoffed "It's probably some idiot pulling a prank, I mean a cellar full of corpses, seriously Sarge?"
The 'Sarge' as his unit had nicknamed him, Rufus Scrimgeour resisted the urge to roll his eyes "Prank or no it is our job to investigate all tips and-" The sergeant trailed off suddenly alert.
"And what?" Prompted Robards.
Sarge ignored Robards in favour of casting a few diagnosis spells around "There's a ward line here, a really old one"
"One of the old families doing some baiting maybe" theorised William mood darkening at the implications as he continued casting his own diagnostics.
"But the old families wouldn't let their wards get into this state and if they were dead the ward would be down" rebutted Sergeant eyes narrowed.
Ever the cynic Dawlish who had taken to the improvised mundane studies like a duck to water drawled "Or exploded like a bomb or a unexploded one, What do you want to do Sarge?"
"Scan for ward boundaries then prepare to crack them"
"Is that a good idea Sarge? If it's one of the old families…" Williamson trailed off uncomfortably.
"We have the legal right" and the old families had no power anyway the most that would happen if he was wrong, would be a slap on the wrist.
"We have the boundaries metered out we may need to call in some reinforcement though to meet the corners, the borders look vertexed."
The Sarge swore viciously causing his team to muffle grins even though the news was pretty bad "They block warded?!"

Warding is a dangerous art, the fact that the warfare loving goblins immediately chose ward breaking and tomb raiding as a pastime when banned from waging all-out war should tell you exactly how dangerous.
There are many ways to ward a tomb, building or house in general, Block-Warding is when, instead of encasing a place in a spherical bubble a technique known as Bubble-Warding, instead a measurement of distance is chosen from a surface on the exterior house and using that surface as a anchor projects a block of ward some distance away.
As a result of Block-Warding to those looking through magical filters the house appears to be encased in large blocks of glass, this glass can appear coloured if additional enchantments are woven in.
Block-Warding can also peacefully coexist with Bubble-Warding as long as the bubble completely encompasses the Block-Ward perimeter.
When correctly set up Block-Wardings are horrendously difficult to break, designed to give the inhabitant of a dwelling time to escape, they are designed purely for stalling an attacker and giving the inhabitant time to prepare a counteroffensive from a reinforced position, the spell once had use in stopping projectiles from catapults. The kinetic energy from these ballista attacks was then stored as reserve power reinforcing the entire setup.
On the other hand Bubble-Warding is to create a bubble around a charged wardstone the size of the bubble depending wholly on the stored power of the wardstone.
The use of this combination with Block-Warding is restricted in modern times for two reasons such as the fact that the extension can sometimes result in a accidental theft of neighbouring land, simply because land deeds are never an exact circle as well as the fact that some bright spark had many years ago figured out how to tie the kinetic energy-draining effect of the Block-Warding and feed it into the Bubbles wardstone making their combined nature fiendishly difficult to crack.

However all of this knowledge rendered irrelevant at the instance when Dawlish went down with a panicked scream as he was silently attacked by the lurking Lethifold his screams becoming more muffled as the creatures drape-like body constricted violently luckily his teammates were not idle springing into action, saving him from the indignity of an empty-casket funeral.

January 9th, The Ministry Department of Mysteries
The Daily Prophet's headline blared the news as obnoxiously as they always had 'Lethifold in Warminster!'
The picture on the front page showed a group of Ministry soldiers grinning around a glass display case where a massive creature that could be mistaken for a large cloak or bedsheet pawed ineffectively at the glass. And didn't that ring a bell? Unspeakable Owl thought furiously as he raked through the piles magical cargo import records, searching for something that could have transported a Lethifold that large and was connected to Lucius Malfoy or one of his associates. Or, Owl paused in his movement, his enemies… He needed to see the condition of Malfoy Manor, to see just what the heck was going on.
"Are you sure you don't have an alternative reason for this rather than professional interest?" spoke the Head Unspeakable shrewdly.
"I'm sure I have no idea of what yours speaking of, sir" spoke Owl stiffly.
"hm, it's not every day a centuries-old blood feud ends with the extinction of another house"
"I was in Romania" Owl pointed out.
"Of course I don't suspect you" spoke the Head Unspeakable "I know better, should I call it sympathy for the devil?"
Unspeakable Owl teetered on the edge of indecision before nodding grudgingly.
"Then you can go, you can have a week max and any resources to investigate if you wish then I want you back on the underground surveillance team, Dismissed"
Owl paused at the door before he exited "Thank you, sir"
Unspeakable's Beaver and Bulldog were more than happy to escape their desk jobs for a bit of investigation though bulldog was making it obvious that the prospect of being allowed to rake around Malfoy Manor without the restrictions of the Aurors had him chomping at the bit in excitement.
"You were an old guard Auror weren't you, Poached by the Unspeakable's the first chance they got?" Seeing no reason to hide this fact Unspeakable Bulldog nodded "That explains the eagerness" Owl mused. The pureblood laws had made carrying out a decent investigation on their ilk that would hold up in court was nearly impossible, being allowed unrestricted access now was, to the average straight-laced ministry law enforcer, a bit of a dream come true. Beaver had no such eagerness the reason he had agreed to come on fieldwork mission was that he just really hated doing paperwork or all deskwork in general.

Wiltshire, England
The convoy truck, a large black lumbering beast of a vehicle enchanted to be sturdier than a challenger tank trundled its way up the path Paladin Team Sigma-Alpha 2 had cleared.
Despite having portkeyed the entire truck into a deserted field a mere mile away from the site because of the combination of portkey and country roads, Unspeakable Beaver was quite sure that Unspeakable Bulldog was the most disagreeable passenger and occasional backseat driver he had ever met in his entire life. Without even knowing the unspoken rules of being a passenger in a vehicle Bulldog managed to break almost every single one of them on the short trip. Fiddling with the dashboard and compartments from the back, not putting the seatbelt on, putting his feet up, noisily eating something with a crinkly paper, begging a anti-nausea potion off Owl and smudging the walls with his grimy hands in the process and when that didn't work moving to the front seat to alleviate the carsickness and finally just puking on the actual drivers lap when it became clear that seating didn't make the slight bit of difference. If Bulldog even though of lighting up a cigarette…
Unspeakable Beaver contemplated driving into a pothole on purpose just to see Bulldog suffer for the insult but restrained himself, barely. One day, mused Beaver mutinously Bulldog was going to need a getaway driver from someone he'd have gravely annoyed and on that day Beaver would happily knock that mans teeth in before being that getaway driver.

10th January, Hogwarts, Seventh Floor
Lee carefully manoeuvred the invisible crate along the corridor, he himself invisible and silenced to avoid detection, soon enough he was back in the wardstone room. Cancelling the charms on himself Lee opened the crate and got to work assembling the carefully sourced components.
Out in the corridor, the air shimmered and a figure faded into view gazing at the patch of wall Lee had just vanished through. Clad in a black bodysuit and concealing headwear the figure clearly female examined the wall and grinned "I think I've done it! I've found Hogwarts Secret Treasure Room!" The figure then frowned "If only that knucklehead hadn't found it first! He always interferes when I find something nice!" The figure began carefully casting diagnostic charms at the wall as well as setting up several listening charms, she'd get into that room even if it took her years.

11th January, Above the Forbidden Forest
"Have you found any place yet, Sue?" Yelled Maurice over the distance holding Miles and carefully steering the broomstick at the same time against the headwind.
With Susan, Maurice and Miles were Neville, Bunnie and surprisingly Miss Hopkirk each on their own brooms the discord detective duo having begged off the camping trip in favour of doing more detective work. Miss Hopkirk had elected herself as the supervisor of this for lack of better words camping trip into the Forbidden Forest, in reality Mafalda saw camping as a fun activity and had decided to live vicariously through her students. The treehouse competition, a cute bonding moment between siblings on Maurice and Miles part, would also let her gauge the groups dynamics better.
Susan was enjoying herself flying over the forest occasionally accelerating and decelerating to look for any good spots to build on, it was easy to tell she enjoyed the freedom of flight away from the observing eyes of the school students.
Bunnie was up for any outdoors activity thanks to her godfather who lived by survival guides and doomsday preparation books and thought them adequate bedtime stories for his young goddaughter.
Neville had come solely because he had never gone camping before in his life and had been bullied into it by Bunnie and when that hadn't worked, Miles watery pleading gaze had caused him to fold like a deck of soggy cards.
Consequently it was Neville who spotted something first and his lack of confidence on a broomstick to make him go investigating first such was his eagerness to touch the ground.
Following Neville on his slow descent into the forest it became clear what he had miraculously seen, nearly impossible to spot from above and impossible to get to on foot was a massive ravine in the forest. The large overhanging tree canopy from the massive trees at cliffs edge functioning as natural camouflage hiding the crevice, at the far end of the ravine was a sparkling waterfall creating a fast running river thought the bottom of the ravine. Light shone through the canopy leaving the wide open base of the ravine well lit, revealing another level of forest floor with verdant green grass, trees and wildflowers.
All six were silent as they gaze wordlessly at the hidden marvel Maurice broke the silence first "So I'm thinking a small log cabin in that clearing over there…" the rest of the group burst into noise as their own plans came into being.

12th January, Hogwarts, disused classroom, 6th Floor,
Tap tap tap went the sound of the stone as a thin flake of stone split off, landing on the pillow beneath, Ron Weasley inspected the stone flake and sighed "Too thin for a arrowhead, but I'm getting there" The book that Charlie had gifted him was thorough and well paced, Ron though himself a bit in love with the index feature, it made it easier to read than many spell books. Right now Ron was on the chapter that taught him how to make enchanted arrowheads using obsidian, reasonably he was on the beginner stage by practicing with stone arrowheads as obsidian if knapped wrongly could shatter into razor-sharp fragments and possibly injure someone. Under the supervision of Professor Silvanus Kettleburn Ron had already brought down two marmots and a large buck in the forest all of which had been cleared and found their way to the dinner table at Hogwarts, the pelts had been treated and sent home to his mother who Ron knew wanted to experiment with that sewing trick she'd learned in Romania.
Obsidian arrowheads also had another purpose he'd heard from one of the people of the reserve that you could catch fish using the right arrowhead and a thin fishing line and that obsidian lasted better in water, Ron had no idea if this was true but he really wanted to try it regardless even if he suspected it was a fish story.
Still even if it didn't work it was fun and his little sister Ginny had requested some pelts as well apparently of a mind to create her own unique outfit too, opposed to buying second hand which he was perfectly okay with as it meant his parents wouldn't be price gouged for everything next year when shopping for everyone.

16th January, Unknown Location
"Albus! Albus! Look at this!"
Sparks flying beneath his wand tip Albus Dumbledore continued to weave the enchantment into the steel with care "If you haven't noticed Silver? I am a trifle busy"
Silver, no doubt a code name to hide his real identity, had joined the ICW's forces a few ago and proven himself a valuable asset, It was because of Silver in the first place that Albus was with one of the ICW's taskforce squadrons. None had been more surprised than Albus Dumbledore when the boy had materialized in the ICW's building in a cloud of time sand with a dire warning of the dark future to come. Of course, that dire warning would have been a lot more helpful if the time traveler had known what had messed up the future in the first place instead Silver had been given leave to join the taskforce to track down another much less benevolent time traveler.
Albus had handpicked the temporally displaced boy's team with the best experts in their fields naturally this meant that they were mostly Unspeakable's, not his desired team-mates for the boy.
Despite Silver looking like a ten-year-old, it had been verified by spell and potion that the traveler had been affected by the time sand negatively and de-aged from his previous age of twenty to ten, thankfully not as young as he would be according to the current timeline or he wouldn't have been born yet. His new diminutive size had had an interesting effect on his fully mature magic allowing for higher impact attacks but completely wrecking any attempt to cast spells that required finesse. That was not to say Silver was useless, anyone who could effortlessly levitate a ten-tonne tank and fling it the length of two football fields with that much force was someone to be respected let alone multiple tanks at once with the same distance.
As a person Albus found Silver a bit uptight not in a arrogant way, but he had a habit of worrying seemingly ceaselessly about the future he's come from. Silver had travelled back in time chasing after another criminal, a time traveller who in the future had escaped captivity in Azkaban for murder most foul as well as holding the information required to undo the disaster which had wrecked the future Earth rendering it a barren wasteland, It was that fugitive that the ICW Taskforce had been assembled to fight, Naturally when your enemy had access to time travel and no respect for the space time continuum it led the pursuers to some very interesting places and timelines.
The only reason that Albus Dumbledore had even consented to join the taskforce and leave Hogwarts was that while he knew Lord Voldemort's Wraith was still floating about somewhere in Romania he also knew that the dark lord's former dogmas would find little to no support in his homeland, the pureblood movement effectively neutered. Albus smirked to himself at his own minor role in that event, he did not regret giving that all expenses paid month-long vacation tour of America he'd won in the Muggle newspaper to his Muggle studies professor at all, Quirinus Quirrell who had then returned from the vacation with a fire lit under him and his mundane passion renewed ready to inspire similar passions in his students had done more to shake the pureblood rhetoric from his school than anything else he'd tried.
Albus shook himself to pay attention to what Silver was saying as he sounded very upset as per usual, with a internal sigh and a wand flick Albus tied the enchantment at the halfway stage and broke away to face the ICW's most recent secret agent who was holding a newspaper in his face "This didn't happen before!" Albus had a sinking feeling in his stomach as he knew better than to ignore the time traveller's worries "What didn't happen before?" Silver shoved the paper at Albus who took the British newspaper slash gossip rag out of his face to read it properly, the title itself caught his attention instantly 'Amelia Bones, Queen of Magical Britain?' In it, detailed in much flowery language of how midnight raid's on Wizegamot residences and mass interrogation had brought to light mass corruption at all levels of society to a irrevocable level resulting in Amelia Bones the stalwart protector of the people seizing power unilaterally in magical Britain.
Of course, Albus noted wryly it didn't say what prompted the raids but he didn't even need to read between the lines to see that 'trusted sources' may as well be synonymous with 'Amelia Bones said so'. Nice to see the press was still bought mused Albus wryly, reading further down the page to see if he missed anything and finding nothing else of interest Albus took a deep breath "Well, we always knew that something was going to change with my absence, this has exceeded the best outcome we could have expected"
"The best outcome?! Are you serious?!" Silver's hair began to match his mood cycling through shades of reds and white in a nauseating display of metamorph ability.
Albus raised a brow and spoke in his most practiced I'm-disappointed-in-your-life-choices-my-student tone, the one he'd shamelessly stolen from Yoda in that delightful Star Wars movie Quirinus had broadcast in the staffroom to that one time.
"Well perhaps if you had paid attention in your history class then we could have nipped this problem in the bud by now?" Silver donned a disheartened look as the Grand Sorcerer spoke. "As it is" Dumbledore continued now sounding reassuring "We can only try to take care of problems as they appear in front of us, now tell me, has the team made any progress in tracking the Augurey?"
Silver nodded and handed over a old map taken from the archive "We think she went here in Munich around about 1927" It took Albus a moment to place the date and another to figure out why that particular date was important.
"Is that date significant?" asked Silver upon seeing Albus's expression abruptly freeze.

19th January, Hogsmeade Village, Bluewind House
Maurice yawned as he and Neville poked and prodded the brewery the duo had set up with minimal help from Bunnie and Susan. Miles was sitting on a tall stool kicking his legs.
"This took longer than expected" Maurice admitted slinking over to the wall with a tired yawn.
"What part? The ordering or the getting the cauldron down the stairs part" asked Miles thinking of the solid hour of swearing from Bunnie, Neville and Maurice as they carefully carried the very large heavy steel cauldron down the winding stairs to the basement.
"Both"
Neville sat next to Maurice as Susan began setting up the auto-brewery "Be glad we spotted the problem or in a week we'd have keeled over from lead poisoning"
Susan spoke not taking her eyes off the cauldron "I didn't even know St. Mungo's sold cauldrons made of stainless surgical steel"
Neville blushed "It's something I overheard"
Mafalda nodded watching the auto-brewery setup with a eagle eye, having been very impressed with the group's idea to speed up their learning "Pewter is a fine cauldron for hobbyist brewing and learning but for protracted use over weeks? No, the lead buildup would kill the drinker or make or make them really ill."
"Probably why no one thought of doing what we're doing" Maurice winced thinking of the price tag of the cauldron compared to pewter ones. "If it were any other potion I don't think we could do it. On that note please don't mess the potion up and ruin the cauldron, the staff at St. Mungos are money grubbing profiteering sharks."
"Why ever did you purchase a cauldron so big anyway?" asked Mafalda curiously, Maurice sighed "Considering how much potion we need it was a lot cheaper and less complicated than buying three separate cauldrons"
"That expensive?"
Maurice nodded "I'm thinking of setting up a grower for the ginger root and maybe a scarab beetle farm in the attic" thinking that without the group splitting the cost he would have been far more reluctant to buy one.
Mafalda nodded understanding Maurice's real reasoning "Doubling as a low maintenance pet for Mile, What about newts?"
"Mr. Jigger says that a new species of newt was discovered in the Amazon last month that can regenerate whole organs, I'm waiting for the trials to see what potions it can be used in. If it's cleared for wit sharpening usage I might be able to set up a breeding tank sometime next year or the year after, until then I'm just buying the livers."
A brief silence then Bunnie giggled "Imagine if ya'd got a pet Armadillo"
Maurice shuddered and walked out the door to general amusement with a parting comment "I draw the line at farming animal bile, thank you very much"

22nd January, LC-39A, Kennedy, Merritt Island, Florida, United States
Paradoxically, no one paid attention to the small humanoid being scuttling through the supposedly highly secured military base freely without an escort, But that was the nature of house elves, to remain unseen, sometimes with the aid of magic.
So the house-elf scuttled onward, an American scientific journal clutched in one hand and a cloth pouch in the other, spotting what he was looking for the house-elf vanished and reappeared in his goal. Carefully placing the pouch to an interior wall with a sticking charm and layering a concealment charm on the pouch the elf nodded to itself and quietly vanished.
Reappearing on a distant hill the elf could only watch as his master's last wish was either fulfilled or yet again delayed. It wasn't long, the house elf watched as Space Shuttle Discovery launched itself into the sky on a column of fire, taking with it is crew and their unknowing cargo, a non-descript pouch and the gold locket embossed with a emerald studded snake hidden within it.
On its fourteenth mission into space, a day into its estimated eight day flight, The Space Shuttle Discovery vanished.