No words can describe the period of confusion that must have followed upon the non-appearance of the electricity.
— Tove Jansson.


In the afternoon light of a nearly imaginary library, Harry Potter turned a page...

Something rustled.

He was in the middle of an exciting bit in The Exploits Of Moominpappa — Hodgkins was rescuing three little fluffy clouds from a large wolfish one — and he continued through it as far as the words "fomenting compresses" before he realised that it hadn't been the page that had rustled.

He looked around.

There was a book trolley nearby, and the label on it that read Please Return Books Here For Reshelving had been joined by a new one that read Please Remember To Place Muggle Coursebooks In This Trolley.

He frowned. It was a strange sort of notice to add, since there weren't any muggle textbooks in Rupert's library, and even if there were he probably wouldn't take them off the shelf, and if he did take them off the shelf he'd certainly put them on the —

Oh, he thought. Right. Not a notice, a request.

He looked down at the carpet and thought about his old school — imagined it, imagined sitting at his old desk, imagined the books he'd used to use, imagined picking them up, flipping through them, the smell of old paper, history and spelling and —

— and with a thwap and a plop that made him look up, there they were, flopping over on the trolley. The history book fell to the carpet, and he picked it up. Shiny and new, and it didn't have anyone's rude graffiti in, but it was clearly the same book he'd used last year. He put it back on the trolley, wondered briefly why Rupert wanted his coursebooks, and then lost interest.

He turned back to The Exploits Of Moominpappa...

...but it was, after all, something like a warm afternoon and he didn't really feel like reading any further. It was a good place to stop, the Joxter had just crawled into a cloud for a nap.

He stood up and stretched and took a deep breath and wondered what he was breathing and decided that it was probably magic and oh, did it really matter? It breathed like air.

He let it out.

In the pause before his next breath he heard a humming noise.

That was new. Music, yes, nattering, yes, but electronic humming? That wasn't something you heard in the library.

Listening carefully, he tracked the humming through the stacks to a familiar flight of stairs he hadn't taken again since he'd found it.

(Why was that? he wondered as he pattered down the stairs. Had he forgotten? No, he decided, not exactly...it was more like the discovery had been sufficiently long ago that what was at the bottom of the stairs...well, it wasn't that it was unimportant, or that it didn't matter, or even that it wasn't interesting, but that it was history.)

He arrived on the lower floor in a rumble of rubber soles and there it was again, standing quietly in the middle of the beige marble floor: the big blue box.

It was humming. Or at least it was the source of the humming. He put his ear up against its door and, yes, this was the source.

He tugged at the door handle, and then pushed it, but the door was locked. The keyhole was located behind a circular cover that flipped aside. He flipped the cover aside and pushed his forefinger into the keyhole hard enough that his skin took on its outline.

He rubbed his finger and thumb together...

...folded his arms...

...and realised that he had a wand. Also a merlin action figure, a set of caretaker card-keys and a Medal for Magical Merit, but it was the wand that was of interest.

Well, he thought, why not?

He drew the holly rod and pointed it at the lock. "—Alohomora!"

...

Click, went the lock.

#

What was inside wasn't surprising because three months at Hogwarts, but it was certainly interesting.

A chamber, lit in orangey gold, lay spread out before him; its walls were distorted, almost melted, studded with spherical decorations; stairways at various points around its circumference led outwards and upwards to a second level with doorways in that led who-know-where; and a staircase in its centre led up to a transparent floor surrounding a pedestal that contained a perspex cylinder.

Inside the plastic cylinder...

Last Christmas, Dudley had gotten among other things a sort of electrically powered glass globe with a rod of steel wool inside; when you plugged it into the mains and turned it on, the inside of the globe lit up with glowing streamers. Until it got smashed, which was the usual fate of Dudley's presents.

It had been quite amazing. In retrospect it was also a toy, because what was inside the perspex cylinder was, by comparison, the real thing.

Living lightning in a bottle, a complicated tube of blown glass, filled with slow-moving arcs of plasma.

Fascinated, he climbed the stairs to get a better look.

The pedestal, which seemed to be made of yellow clay or plasticine, was covered with mechanical junk: dials and keyboards and switches and buttons. He found the emptiest part of it and leaned over it towards the at the slowly arcing spectacle inside the tube.

To his surprise, it seemed to react to his presence, parts of it bending nearer; one tiny strand in particular broke away from the mass and trailed towards him.

He leaned in closer still.

The strand reached through its confinement and touched him lightly on the forehead.

#

"...um," said Harry. "Whose doctor?"


A noiseless patient spider I marked,
where on a little promontory it stood isolated.
Marked how, to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, O my soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold.
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
— Whitman.

There is a crack, there is a line, and eventually there will be a scar and that scar will remain. It will remain as a memory of the work...
— Nicholas Serota.

Objects which function as conceptual links between spaces can bring unrelated spatial frames together... If something that cannot or should not be somewhere happens to be in that very place, then it can just as easily be somewhere else at the same time. It also follows, then, that the ability to be in two places at once can be ascribed not just to objects, but to people as well.
— Richard Cousins.

#

de juiste momenten, den richtigen Momenten, les points d'appui—

#

Westward Ho! (1: A Kitchen Full Of Elves).

Harry awoke with a start.

The holly wand in his pocket was purring against his ribs like a very oddly-shaped kitten. He rolled over onto his back and pinched the alarm into stillness.

Above him the roof of the blackout-curtained bed held total darkness, which in turn held that sort of faintly colourful hash that lay on the far side of black.

Outside the curtains something rumbled like distant thunder, or a rather more nearby somewhat phlegmy lion, and its name was Seamus, and it was going to keep rumbling until everyone was awake or someone got up and shot a Quivering Charm at its bed, and after a moment's thought Harry decided that he, personally, was that someone, and so he got up and did the honours.

He stood there in the dark and shuddered and yawned in the usual early-morning way, although since someone had finally been and sealed up the loose panes in the windows he was able to trade some shuddering for more yawning.

So, he thought, Anaxoragas's Deathday. Five o'clock.

He patted his pockets for his glasses, and wondered, while his limbs were reporting that while they were technically ready for duty they didn't have any actual enthusiasm for it, what would happen if he told Rupert he'd rather sleep in than go adventuring.

The glasses were tucked into his inside pocket, where he might well have put them, with a tissue wrapped round the lenses, which he wouldn't have thought to do. It was kind of nice having a built-in valet...

Nice, but weird.

Or — he thought, taking his book of photographs out from under his pillow and locking it in his trunk — maybe nice and weird.

Glasses in place, guided by faint moonlight, he left the dormitory for the common room.

#

He heard a faint pattering noise as he reached the bottom of the staircase, and thought he might catch the House Elves at work — stone steps weren't like wooden ones, you could be quiet on stone steps — but the room was empty when he entered it. Empty, and tidy: the only trace of the fun that had been going on earlier was a single paper aeroplane still circling the room. He grabbed it out of the air and found that it was made from someone's old Muggle Studies homework, an essay on the joke "The food is terrible and the portions are so small," including an explanation of why it was funny and an explanation of why it wasn't. He let go of the aeroplane and it flew straight into the waste-bin.

Paper aeroplanes, he thought. Some Muggle things catch on. Paper broomsticks, you never saw those.

After pausing to check the common room clock — eleven minutes to five; it was surprising his wand alarm was only that far off given that trees counted by seasons — he headed for the wash-room.

Once inside he set his glasses on the sink, ran hot water onto a fresh face-flannel and swept his hair back with it — he hadn't seen a barber in ages, he was going to have a pony-tail come June — then scrubbed his face from chin to scar, finally wringing the flannel thoroughly and leaving it on the appropriate rack, the one with a sign reading Wet Things Here in Percyish calligraphy and Like Percy in someone else's scrawl.

He took his comb from his pants pocket, raised it to his hair...

...and paused, and realised that in fact it was. His hair. Even when red...

Deeper red when it was wet. Sort of expensive-looking.

He drew the comb through it and thought: Christmas is coming...

...and then he paused again, gave himself a puzzled look and wondered: Why did I think that?

Oh, right: Eyes. Green. Hair and eyes, red and green. Well!

So okay, he thought, waving the comb in a small and uncertain oval, maybe red wasn't my idea, but it is sort of...cheerful.

He'd never thought of himself as a cheerful person before. Cheerful was, what was that word from the telly, aspirational.

Maybe, he thought, regarding the red sea on top of his head, I'll keep it.

Until Ron wants his colour back anyway.

Having decided, he laid in a part.

#

He was just finishing up — his bangs were now so long they didn't so much cover his scar as put it into witness protection — when someone caught his eye in the mirror, and it was very nearly him.

One thing Harry liked about Hogwarts was that it had people in it who actually seemed happy to see him. That one of them was occasionally looking back at him from inside a mirror, well, that was even more Hogwarts-y.

Hallo! said Rupert. Don't mind me, carry on abluding yourself. Ablutionising. Lavare, cantare. Whoa-ho-ho-ho. Tony Bennett. No. Sergio Franchi? No? Domenico Modugno!

{ Hallo yourself, } said Harry. { You're bouncy today... }

Get caught up in the moment! I've got a really cool model for the end of the universe worked out, some unexpected knock-on utility there, had some interesting insights into wands, and just now I was wondering whether the history of the wizarding world might be an expanding bell-curvy hypersphere temporally centred on 1966. Think about it, what if the world began in 1966 and history's been expanding fore and aft from there?

This was the sort of conversation you had at five-to-five at Hogwarts.

{ Why 1966? } he said.

The Beatles released a single with "Eleanor Rigby" on one side and "Yellow Submarine" on the other. The ultimate bi-polar coin-toss. A world of the isolated and the doomed versus a world where you've got so many friends they break set theory. Which do you prefer, philosophically speaking?

The Dursleys didn't do the Beatles — their record collection presently consisted of a set of teach-yourself-French LPs that Uncle Vernon had ordered by subscription and then never gotten around to playing, plus a scratchy copy of Grunnings: The Complete Songbook — but the Revolver album was a favourite in Rupert's library.

{ I vote "Yellow Submarine", } said Harry, and tucked his comb back in his trouser pocket.

Good lad. So did the New World. "Eleanor Rigby" got to eleven. "Yellow Submarine" beat it by nine. Are you ready for an exciting day?

Harry put his glasses back on. { What would you do, } he said carefully, { if I told you I left off in the middle of a dream and just wanted to go back to sleep? }

Skipping past the panicking and the arguing and the weeping, I'd stuff my point of view into my action figure and try to see the world on my own.

{ But it's a statue! }

Yes, yes it is, said Rupert. But it was made by Merlin, and I've floated it about in configuration space quite a lot — establishing the possibility, you see — so fingers crossed that the universe will grant that it's a magical statue and can do what it likes.

Harry peered over his glasses at Rupert in the mirror. { You mean you...would just leave me here? }

Well that sounds weirdly abandon-y, said Rupert. I've imposed on you too much already, is what I mean.

{ You think it'd work? }

Probably not — worth a shot though. You shouldn't be obliged to use your time on someone else's plans. Although they are quite important and you weren't actually going to say it, were you? I should caution you, I think I'm really, really good at being sad at people.

{ Nah, } said Harry. { I hope you've got this all planned out, though, you know I haven't given it any thought... }

Happily, yes! Item zero, pull out your caretaker card and we'll be on our way through Maintenance Space to the kitchens for item one, a well-balanced breakfast.

{ Maintenance Space! } said Harry, and dug into his inside pocket for the card-keys. { It's about time. How come we never use these? } he added, sliding the card into the hidden slot in the tiled wall. { I thought you'd forgotten all about them. }

No need to take unnecessary risks. You never know when somebody might be working on the plumbing. Though it is all copper, except for that one lead-piped sink in Myrtle's bathroom...anyway, I project Mr Filch will be sleeping late today, although Mrs Norris should be nosing about the entrance to the Common Room even as we speak, and the only other occupants of the tunnel won't rat us out.

The hidden door in the wall clicked open. Harry pulled it wider, stepped through, and closed it behind him by way of the metal disc on its other side.

Darkness as total as in his blacked-out bed surrounded him once more.

He exchanged the card-key for his wand and prepared to cast a lumos, but then noticed the faint sparkly hash. { Rupert. What do you call this...stuff I can't see but see anyway? }

I call it jolly interesting. Some call it eigenlicht. Lots of possible sources. Retinal noise, magnetic effects on the visual cortex — or, and this is the exciting bit, in your case, possibly magic. Something to contemplate, that — whether it's possible to see by magic, or just plain see magic itself. When was the last time you had an eye exam, by the way?

"I don't remember ever having had an eye exam," said Harry in a low voice. "Lumos."

The metal disc on the tunnel side of the door gleamed in the light. Harry looked at its crossroads symbol and the mysterious letters Q.C.I.C., and said "What do you suppose that means?"

Given the context, I'd guess quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Which generally gets taken as Who guards the guards? — but in here, it's probably Who cleans up after the custodians?

"But I've got a caretaker's card," said Harry, turning away from the plate and advancing down the tunnel. "So wouldn't it be Who cares for the caretakers?"

—I never thought of it that way, said Rupert, but I suppose it could.

Harry ran silently down the sloping stone floor towards the kitchens.

#

He didn't need to use his key-card again, because elves were bringing baskets of fruit and vegetables in from the greenhouses and the kitchen door was wide open.

He stepped through the doorway into a thick hot cloud of fresh-baked bread.

He grabbed for his handkerchief with one hand and raised the back of the other to his mouth because drooling in the kitchens is unsanitary, and then crossed over the drain in the stone floor into the main part of the kitchen. There were sinks here, big sinks, the biggest sinks he'd ever seen, floor-standing sinks, some of them very nearly showers; and, come to notice the tubing, you could skip out the 'nearly' part.

"Welcome, Harry Potter," said a kitchen elf. Harry waved, nearly a mistake.

"Hi," he said a moment later. "Um, wow."

That's Davvy, if you don't recognise him. You're expected.

"That's some bread, Davvy," he said. "That's brilliant bread."

"It is coming out of the ovens now, Harry Potter," said Davvy, and waved him over to a deja-vuishly familiar table (he had been down here before, though he'd not quite been in his right mind).

He sat down on what he now recognised to be the chair that Malfoy had been using on his previous visit. There was a brief storm of aproned elves that rained utensils and crockery, and there was breakfast, and the breakfast was good.

#

Maybe it's all made from dust, he thought, biting into a butter-drenched bit of bread, but it's the best dust ever.

It was a good thing it was dust, because this was a working kitchen, currently doing breakfast for 280, and in the walk-in sinks the elves were disassembling pigs into bacon and sausage — boars, really, a set of boars that had somehow been recorded, like a three-dimensional photograph, while walking somewhere. It should have been quite disgusting, but it was done so cleanly and quietly that it wasn't. The unused bits were simply Vanished, possibly to reappear as part of the next set of duplicated boars.

He looked around with interest. Not everything was from magical storage; mushrooms were being brought in from a tunnel that sloped down further into the dungeons, and baskets of Professor Sprout's new pyramidal tomatoes were being toted in from the greenhouses, though everything was being elvishly duplicated many times over.

Muggle castles had armies of peasants, said Rupert. Magic's better. Heads up, Harry, there's a house elf at your right hand. Probably named Gliffy.

Almost startled, Harry looked to his right and, yes, there was an unexpected elf, offering him a paper-wrapped parcel that was as large as the elf itself.

"Gliffy?" he said, taking the package and hoping the question sounded more like is-that-you than who's-that.

The elf did a sort of curtsy-bow. He (or possibly she; or possibly elves made entirely different arrangements) was wearing a tea-towel rather than an apron, which meant a house elf rather than a kitchen elf; it was closed with a sort of gold wire bow-tie.

He hadn't felt a sudden breeze of Apparation, and according to Captain Wood his peripheral vision was better than good.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

"A house elf," said Gliffy in a slightly formal tone, "is completely invisible, yet always in sight."

Harry cocked his head. "Is that a quotation?"

"It is from The Book of Gusty Winds."

"Elves —" he caught himself at the same moment that Rupert caught him, before he could finish with 'have books?' — "er, elves are amazing."

"To give satisfaction is our endeavour, Harry Potter," said the elf, stepping backwards.

Something inside the package slipped, and Harry looked to it momentarily, and when he looked up again Gliffy had disappeared.

Go on, urged Rupert, open it, it's not exactly an early Christmas present but it's the best I could do.

He undid the cord and unfolded the paper to reveal a black jumper, a black jacket, thick black trousers to match, a black cap, and a manila envelope with his name on it. It was the kind of envelope you got when you forgot to empty your pockets before kicking your clothes under the bed — or rather the kind of envelope other people got, because he personally had long since had pocket-checking habits drilled in by Aunt Petunia.

Rupert said, You can't go out in your school robes, so I made a few inquiries. Don't open the envelope yet, it's a surprise.

{ Inquiries? } said Harry, unfolding the jumper. He'd never seen it before, but his fingers found it strangely familiar.

Got to wondering about the elvish laundry facilities. You knew they did the washing and drying — and repair work?

He had noticed the mysterious disappearance of certain long-standing and well established moth holes.

And several people in the common rooms have added an inch or three in various dimensions since September but their clothes have never stopped fitting. So I took a wild guess and deposited a note under the bed asking for particulars. The jumper's your moulted-elephant-skin one, suitably modified. The trousers and jacket are refurbished discards. People are always leaving things behind they think they don't need.

{ And this? } said Harry, examining the cap. It had a muted gold Hogwarts shield on it.

Topologically modified Beanie of Shame. That'll wear off, though. Propellers are cool.

Harry finished the last of his bacon and got up from the table, feeling as though he should leave a tip. Not that he had anything to leave a tip with, except an uncashed Owl Postal Order, although the sealed envelope jingled in a way that suggested otherwise.

The elves bussed the table too quickly to ask them whether it was appropriate, or even ask them whether asking them was appropriate.

Where to change clothes? Certainly not in the middle of the kitchen.

Cookbook closet, that's what I want, he decided, and found his own way there.

After a few minutes of thumping among the hanging garlic and leeks he moved on to the next step: what to do with his robes. He thought about that while reshelving the books he'd knocked down while changing.

Well, he thought, picking his robes up off the floor, it's worth a try.

Harry stepped back out into the kitchen, paused to brush himself down a bit, as you do, and then said, experimentally, "Gliffy?"

"Assistance is available, Harry Potter," said a voice at his elbow.

Well, that worked. "Er, good!" he said. "Is there a...laundry chute around here?"

"Gliffy can take your clothes," said the elf.

"Thank you," he said, turning them over. "Oh, and, um, would you tell whoever sewed this shield they did a really nice job?"

The elf smiled and said "Gliffy knows."

"Oh, was it you? Well! Um."

"Will there be anything else?" said Gliffy.

"Fastest route out of the castle?"

Gliffy pointed with a long thin finger, and then, while Harry was registering that the Maintenance Space tunnel was the way out, vanished.

"Huh," said Harry, and stuck his hands into the pockets of his sort-of-new jacket because that was the sort of thing one did in a "huh" context, and then pulled them out again because there were gloves in the pockets — black ones, familiar looking.

Those you'll want to put on, it's cold out, said Rupert.

"Aren't these the gloves of, you know, Iphitus Malfoy?" said Harry.

If Iphitus Malfoy had actually existed, said Rupert with a degree of sourness. Take that as a lesson: yours truly is not always — strike that, two lessons. Yours truly is not always right, and — no, three lessons: one, not always right, me; two, when we look at something ambiguous we tend to see what we expect to see; three, there are always more lessons to learn. Could be anyone's gloves. Anyone with the initials I.M. Anyone with the initials I.M. who is a wizard. Irving Merlin, that's whose gloves they are. And that's assuming I actually read the monogram right. Is it actually an M, or is it an over-wiggly W?

It was hard to tell. M ω 3 Σ

It's like on those restaurant menus where someone put the curse on cursive and you end up getting an omelette and clotted cream when you were really looking forward to finding out what an omegette and crottled greeps were, and they say sir, try it, no one walks away from our omelettes and you say watch me, I've got an allergy to broken eggs — did I wander off there? Yes I did. Anyway, could be an em, could be a double you slash double vee, could be Greek — sigma, omega, who knows? Anyway they're yours until Irving Merlin asks for them back.

Harry put the gloves on while walking towards the tunnel exit — they fit neatly — then turned through the open door and headed down towards the open exit grate, carefully stepping out of the way of passing elves.

Can you guess where you're walking to? inquired Rupert.

Harry turned his jacket collar up. He'd been promised an adventure, and Hogsmeade, the place to go because there's noplace else to go, wasn't likely to be it.

"The dock? If you want to take a boat across the lake to the rail station."

Good thinking, full marks, only drawback is possible early morning traffic. It's the main gates for us.

"Gotcha," said Harry, and jogged out of the tunnel. It was a beautiful morning at the end of November — pitch black.

And it was jolly cold out. His jog quickly turned to a brisk run, and he bounded across the dew-slick grass towards the carriage loop.

#

"Urg!" he said, and bounced into the air, nearly dancing in the cold. He spun around and walked backwards. The warm orange night-lights of the school glowed tantalisingly. The crunching under his feet was gravel but could as easily been breaking ice. He swore.

"Merlin!"

It wasn't much of a swear. He wanted something bigger. The biggest thing around was the school.

"Hogwarts!" he cursed. "Hoggy warty Hogwarts it's cold out here!"

Hoggy warty Hogwarts? said Rupert.

Harry continued bouncing down the road towards the gates. "Hogwarts," he said, "Hogwarts. Teach us something please, whether we be old and bald, or young with scabby knees —"

What in the wizarding world are you singing?

"The school song. Don't you remember? … You should remember it better than I do."

I don't remember it going like that.

"Our heads could do with filling, with some interesting stuff — for now they're bare and full of air, dead flies and bits of fluff — so teach us things worth knowing —"

Bring back what we've forgot.

Harry tripped and had to jump to stay on his feet. "Hey?" he said. "What was that, then? You do know it."

There was a long pause. I've forgotten a lot of things, said Rupert. I'm remembering some. Wisps. Atmospheres. I've been devising a system for remembering everything, but I'm wondering — what if the school is protecting me?

"The school? Protecting you? From what? How?"

I'd probably have to ask the school. All those magical people and their wands moving around in the halls, directed by self-relocating stairs, so they take the paths the school wants them to take — I think I just begged a question, there. Hogwarts is a bit like a brain, so why shouldn't it have a mind? I'm a mind waltzing around in a larger mind, I'm wrapped up in it. As to the actual mechanism — have you noticed that the school doesn't teach alchemy?

"Is that one of those...rhetorical questions of yours?"

Yeah, probably. Alchemy's nearly science. In China the alchemists declared certain subtances yin and others yang and then systematically permuted them and ended up discovering gunpowder. You don't know the rules, so you invent rules and experiment until you figure out what the real rules are. That's how you get to working out mechanics. I don't even know how to experiment with magic. I'm still in the nosing about phase. I'm wandering around in the dark. Which is why you're wandering around in the dark, for which I apologise.

"Eh," said Harry. "It's not that dark..."

And it wasn't. Over the past few minutes the sky had gradually revealed brilliant detailing: it was still black, but with a sheen of deep blue that had nothing to do with approaching sunrise, and studded with what seemed a third again more stars than he'd ever seen during Astronomy — a low-hanging moon was making its presence known behind the forest — and beyond the gates ahead the night was brilliant with electric magenta and green sheets of aurora.

The word ethereal came to mind, and it occurred to him that ethereal was a very un-Dursley word.

Now there's a good omen, said Rupert. Harry Potter, how often do you find yourself thinking, this could possibly be the best day ever?

"Me?" said Harry, wiping his eyes because they were weeping from the cold. "Basically never. Well, maybe once."

Doesn't that sky make you want to ask for a transparent roof on your dormitory?

Harry looked up at the ever-thickening clouds of stars. Kerjillions of stars...

"Yes," he said. "Yes it does."

#

It was almost a disappointment to arrive at the main gates.

"Okay, and now what?" he said.

First off, let yourself out with your caretaker key.

Harry unzipped his jacket with regret. "What's in this envelope, anyway?" he said, shifting it around to get at his pockets.

Well, for one thing, a sort of a permission slip for you to be off-campus. Part of the Dursley extortion I negotiated for you. You didn't notice.

"You seem to be doing a lot of things behind my back." Harry pulled out the resizeable mop, put it away again, wondered briefly whether it was possible to fly a mop, found the cards and inserted one between the gates, which obediently unlatched.

No, I've been doing things in front of your back, that's where the writing surfaces are. You're ambidextrous, you know, you're just not used to writing with your wand hand, so you tend to leave it lying around with nothing to do...

"You know that's a bit creepy, don't you?" He pushed the gates open and let himself out, expecting a groaning squeal of complaint from the hinges, and maybe a side order of alarms, but no, it was a smooth and silent experience...

People using other people's hands without permission is creepy, I very much agree, that's another reason I'm thinking action figure. Ever since I got here — well, ever since you took over motor control and I stepped back into the shadows — I've noticed there's something a little wrong with me.

"A little?" snickered Harry, closing the gates carefully; they locked themselves.

Oi! Thank you very much, yes, a little! A touch of...inexplicable secretiveness. It feels like a habit of long standing. I don't like it. Now, item two: pop quiz! How many national quidditch teams in the UK? Best guess will do.

"Twenty," Harry answered promptly.

Twenty teams with how many fans per each?

That he hadn't ever thought about. "There's hundreds of people in the stands at the school matches. I mean, adults."

Fourteen hoggy warty Hogwarts players means twenty-eight parents, fifty-six grandparents, throw in a smattering of great-grandparents, everybody brings friends, that gets you hundreds. For a real match, ten times that many. My estimate is about fifty thousand quidditch fans in the UK. Current UK population about fifty million. Do you think one in a thousand people is a wizard?

"I don't think you can hide that many wizards," Harry said doubtfully.

Quite right. But somebody's keeping the butterbeer vendors in business. Wizards, you can't hide wizards, it'd be like hiding lit fireworks, the sparkler kind come to mind, but you can hide squibs. Wild guess, ninety percent of the attendance at quidditch matches is squibs.

Leading to item three — no, hang about, sidebar, could I...have the knees now?

Harry sighed: just when the day was getting interesting. "All right," he grumbled, and prepared to disengage motor control.

And item three — raise your wand hand, would you please?

"Okay, and why?" said Harry, his wand hand raised high in the dark.

Why indeed! How are squibs going to get to the matches? Side-along Apparation? Nah. If you wondered how a squib differs from a muggle? They can't do magic — for some reason, probably to do with, well, something or other — but they can see magic, they can use pre-mixed magic, aaaaand...

(...Rupert paused for no readily apparent reason...)

...they can keep their hand in!

WHUMF

Out of nowhere, three stories high, and as shamelessly plum-coloured as anything Professor Dumbledore had ever worn, had appeared…a bus. Its engine rumbled like a contented tiger, its electric headlamps spilled gold over the red vines clinging to the gates, and its license tag declared KBE 1975.

Omnibus ex nihilo! said Rupert proudly.

Harry thought this was as good a time as any to let his knees give out, so he did.