CHAPTER 133: Genetics

It was August of the year 1996. The Human Genome project was well underway and Michael Evans-Verres was in the thick of it. Nobody knew how he was getting around, but the fact that he never put in reimbursements for plane tickets wasn't completely secret any more. Perhaps the scientists could have cared more, but they were too engrossed in their work to put in the right kind of work to actually find out how. Kind of like how, if you want to know how scammer has a fake power generator, the right kind of man to hire is a magician.

He had pulled something of a trick though. He ensured by slight of plan that DNA samples from Petuna Evans and Harry James Potter Evans-Verres were used in the sequencing of the human genome. With only two samples, it should drop out in reconcilliation, and he'd have to weed through the conflicts in secret to find what he was looking for. He was, of couse, looking for the Atlantean marker, but he couldn't just tell anybody that.

He was sitting in his hotel room in the evening after the conference he had just attended, with his phoenix on his shoulder again. This work had been hard on the phoenix, as it lacked the capacity for any amount of long- term planning and its heart yearned for the battle. But on a winter night six months ago he had stood under the stars and showed it the star Sirius and said "The time is coming when that star will explode. When it does it will extinguish all terrestial life on Earth. It is now my labor to see to it that when it does explode, humanity is brought through the storm." And his phoenix was content.

He had printouts in his hands. He was comparing the sample of Petuna Evans to the reference sample as it was assembled. He knew that among the differences one of them would be the marker, and that it would occur only on one side because she carried only one copy.

Near the end of chromosome six he found another difference. The lead-in marker where an activator would attach to signal RNA transcriptaze was different. At first he thought he was looking at just another regulatory variation and went looking for the end, but then he saw that they coded two completely different proteins. Polymerase splice error? Maybe something else? A completely new sequence inserted in the middle like this would play havok with crossovers. He scanned down for the resynchronization that would signal the end of the insertion. Two hours later he frowned. He hated round numbers. The sequence was exactly thirty thousand bases long and had seventeen protein activation sequences but no introns. Something was not right. In any case, there was nothing to do but check Harry's DNA and see if this was a mistake. But it wasn't a mistake: Harry had the same pecular DNA sequence in the same place. Then he checked the other sides, and found what by this point he was expecting to find. Harry had two copies but Petuna had only one.

He picked up the phone. "Cancel my appointments for tomorrow. Something has come up." He pondered where he would go and who he would tell first. His first thought was the Wizengamut, but only a few more seconds of though revealed this was a bad idea. His second thought was a little better. He picked up the papers and they burned up with him and they reappeared in his home. He powered up his personal copier and started to lay the sheets on it.

Petuna Evans had gotten used to his comings and goings by now, but this was out of the ordinary. She came down in her nightgown and asked sleepily what was going on.

"I found it honey. The Atalantean marker. There's nothing else this could possibly be."

"It's two in the morning. Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"The statute of secrecy is still in force, but I don't think there's a single Wizard other than Harry who reads the scientific journals. I'm going to get this thing published with no explanation before they know what's going on, and you're going to help me do it."

Two days was all it took and it was off to peer review. "The Case of the Missing Introns" got published quite rapidly. The inclusion of a couple of strands of Petuna's hair along with the laconic note "check the hair" had sped this thing past peer review at an unusually fast pace for this kind of thing.

The very next day Alastor Moody appeared within the Evans-Verres house looking even more grave than usual. "Harry Potter's patronous found the Dark Lord today and was sent back with a curse."

"A night is coming that makes Voldermort look like a sunny day by comparison. I battle now for all humanity that something may pass through the night and live for the new dawn, but if needs I must I can take a break from my true battle and turn on Voldermort. Though if he knew what I could never tell him, he would surely rather have peace with me, else the night destroy even he."

"Stupify. Innervate."

Harry caught his father before he hit the ground. "Sorry, father. I had to trick you as the Elder Wand cannot be passed willingly from one hand to another, and I have to keep Voldermort's hand off it."

Shortly thereafter, over three cups of coffee and two cups of cocoa (for Petuna was home and Hermoine was only a minute later in arriving), "And now we discuss battle plans. I have a scheme worthy of Merlin. Voldermort will not attack immediately but must first gather new followers to himself. There are no competant and powerful death eaters remaining save for Lucius Malfoy himself, but our strength is too far gone and he will not again be caught in an anti-apparation trap.

"Therefore I mean to raise up Dumbledore higher than Penelle ever did. Father, we must track down your starship and pull it from the warehouse and put it back into service, for Hermoine and I are going for Dumbledore. I must take the stone from the hospital with me, but I have in mind to pull a trick so that it is usable there even as it is in my pocket. In the hand of my deputy Nevelle Longbottom it will serve."

The phoenix screamed.

"Fawkes?"

Caw.

No, not Fawkes then. But Harry knew, they all knew, his plan was a bad one. A plan that's garden-variety bad doesn't get a phoenix screaming at you. If a phoenix knows your plan is bad, it is bad, hopelessly bad.

"Ok, new plan. I'll need a doomsday weapon sufficient to scare the Dark Lord into running away, and in the meantime some way to track down the resurrection stone. He likes intercontinental portkeys so 'somewhere nearby' is rather meaningless."

Professor Evans-Verres finally spoke. "I know just what to do, if you can stand unconquered for a little while."

"Come phoenix, I think it's high time me and my love disappeared."

They burned up, leaving Harry, Hermoine, and Mad-Eye Moody behind.