The Safeworld Network
In this chapter: the Jedi arrive! And Emma, and Gandalf, and Aragorn & co… read on, please!
Chapter 9: Portkey Problems
"That was a bit of a letdown" remarked Morgan as she sat down next to Lillian. They had just had their second Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson, and were not impressed with the stuttering Professor Quirrell.
"I know…but we have Transfiguration again today," pointed out Lillian. "That should be interesting."
"Mmm,' agreed Morgan, "and we have double potions today. That should be fun."
Morgan could have literally fit her fists into Fred and George's mouths. When they finally closed them they continued to stare at her with wide eyes.
"Someone call The Daily Prophet! This kid thinks potions is gonna be fun!"
Morgan rolled her eyes at them, grabbed an apple off the table, and headed off to Transfiguration.
They met Theodore on the way down to the dungeons, and he walked them the rest of the way down. They took seats in the middle, respecting the invisible line running down the middle of the classroom, but refusing to be separated by it.
Snape started the class by taking attendance. He paused at Harry's name, then finished and began what Morgan guessed was his yearly speech.
'You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word – like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death – if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
Silence followed this speech. Theodore raised his eyebrows. Morgan could tell she was going to like this class.
Then Snape gave a pop quiz, or rather a test-Harry-to-see-if-fame-is-really-everything quiz. Harry didn't know most of the answers. Morgan did, but she thought some of the questions were a little unfair. 'I mean, who remembers what you get when you add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood, anyway?' she asked inwardly.
Harry lost them a point for his 'cheek', and potions progressed, growing steadily worse for the Gryffindors. Snape set them to work making a simple potion to cure boils. Morgan quickly learned that potions was quite similar to cooking, something both she and Lillian were good at. They split up the work evenly, and soon their potion was simmering merrily over the fire as each of them took turns watching it while they waited to add the porcupine quills.
Unfortunately, Neville and Seamus had never been good cooks (Neville's gran wouldn't let him go within 10 feet of a stove) and managed to melt through their cauldron. Their potion was now oozing across the floor, burning holes in people's shoes. After telling Seamus to take Neville to the hospital wing, Snape rounded on Harry, deducting another point from Gryffindor because Harry didn't tell Neville not to add the quills before taking his cauldron off the fire.
All in all, most of the Gryffindors left the dungeon in low spirits. Morgan, on the other hand, was extremely happy. She had found a class that she was almost certain to get an A in.
Not that that meant she slacked off or anything. Far from it. In fact, the first Saturday of October found her outside of the door of the office of said potions teacher, about to do something no Gryffindor or first year (or any year) had done before.
Knock.
At 6:00 am.
Without a detention.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Come in."
Morgan opened the door, suddenly nervous.
"What is it, Miss Ylime?"
"Um, sir, I was wondering…"
"Yes?" His tone was clipped, impatient, but not harsh. Morgan felt her previous confidence return.
"I was wondering if I could use the classroom for a few hours. I wanted to run an experiment, but the common room has carpet and the girls in the dorm would kill me… I kinda need a stone floor and lots of room."
"Anything else?"
"Ummmm…do you have any titanium?"
'Merlin's beard,' thought Snape, 'What is this child going to do?'
"Professor!" Snape straightened up from writing a rather large 'F' on the essay of a student whose initials happened to be LJ, and shook his head.
"She's either succeeded," he muttered, "or I'll be sending her to the hospital wing in a dragon skin bag." With that charming thought in mind he opened his office door and entered his classroom, and was nearly knock flat by a very excited Morgan.
"I did it! I did it! It works! It works!"
"What works?" Snape tried to sound aloof and disinterested, but really he was dying of curiosity.
Morgan led the way over to the table she'd been working at. Strips of metal were carefully labelled and lined up neatly on the table, though many of them sported melted edges or gaping holes. On the floor at one end was Morgan's pewter cauldron, and next to it…
"Is that the Christmas punchbowl?!?"
"Is it? Oh… I just asked Kirkby if he could get me a bowl made entirely out of crystal, and this is what he gave me…"
"Who's Kirkby?"
"A house elf down in the kitchens… that would explain why he asked me too have it back by Christmas…I thought he was joking…Anyway, coming back to the point," she said, switching gears abruptly, adopting the air of a science fair participant presenting her project to the judges, "Neville's mishap at the beginning of the year, while unfortunate, was really quite fascinating, and got me thinking, 'if that mixture can burn through rubber and pewter, what else can it melt?'"
"My first task," she continued, "was to recreate the original formula. I had to tweak it a bit," she held up a very old pair of NIKE Airs, whose bottoms were blocked off with tape, with varying degrees of holes in each square, "But I got it right eventually."
"And the punchbowl?"
"We saw what happened to Seamus' cauldron when they did this by accident. As it was my theory (and hope!) that it would burn through even stronger metals, I couldn't just use iron or steel, either. But I did know that most corrosive agents don't work on crystal, so I transferred the solution to the punchbowl before I put the quills in. And I was right. It didn't burn through the crystal. But…"
"It worked on everything else?"
"Exactly."
"Even the titanium?"
"Even the titanium."
Snape let out a low whistle, a rare sign that he was extremely impressed. "Incredible."
"My thoughts exactly sir. I mean, consider the applications… intelligence agencies, national defence… I bet CSIS would pay thousands for this… Not that I'd sell it to them…"
"Well, Miss Ylime, what do you plan to do now?"
"Go to lunch."
"Come again?"
"Well, Fred, George, and Lee won't be back till two, and I can't do anything until George brings me the vials I asked him to pick up for me, and it's 11:57, so if you don't mind me leaving things here I think I'll go get lunch…Were you planning on coming sir, or would you like me to pick something up for you?"
"No, that's fine. You go though. I doubt anyone's going to touch anything…"
With one last look at her project, Morgan left for the Great Hall. Snape remained staring at it for sometime, lost in thought.
'The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan? Then she must be the fourth New Marauder member I keep hearing rumours about…No! She couldn't be! Since when would a Marauder get up at 6:00 am to spend their entire Saturday morning doing research for fun?! Since when have the Marauders let in girls?
But how else would she know how to get into the kitchens? Why else would they be picking up stuff for her in Hogsmead?' Snape let this train of thought run around and around inside his mind for awhile, but finally concluded that she must be in the New Marauders.
'Perhaps she'll be a positive influence on them,' was his final fleeting thought before he turned and, after throwing a quick protection charm around Morgan's table, returned to his office, and his marking.
Knock, knock, knock!
"Come in!"
"Hello sir!" Morgan looked around at Snape's office, as if seeing it for the first time. The walls were lined with glass jars, including the wall behind his desk. Each jar contained a different coloured potion, and suspended in some were bits of animals or plants. There was a cupboard in one corner, which probably contained his private stores of potion ingredients, and a chair that looked like it had never been sat in.
"I noticed you weren't in the Great Hall, or maybe you came in after I left…anyways George still hasn't gotten back, and I had a few hours to kill, so I decided to bake some cookies for Kirkby, and that only took half an hour so I made some brownies, and I thought you might like some." Morgan held out a Tupperware container filled with delicious-looking brownies. Snape took one, sniffed it, and took a bite. They were good.
"Did you really make these?"
"Yeah." Morgan said this as if it was obvious.
"You made a house-elf cookies? You sure you haven't got that backwards?"
"When somebody does something nice for me, I make them cookies. Or, in your case, brownies. It's a Christie thing."
Snape rose, took another bite and swept out the door into the classroom. Morgan followed, and attempted to touch her project. Her hand bounced back.
"What the…?"
"It's a basic protection spell."
"Cool. Can you teach me?"
The next hour was spent learning, and perfecting the spell until Morgan could support Snape's weight. George arrived right on time and watched in amazement as Morgan and Snape bottled the potion, discussing chemical properties and possible applications as if they were talking about the weather. Snape offered to store them in his private collection, and agreed to allow Morgan to take one bottle for herself.
After quickly bidding Snape "G'day," George left the classroom. Morgan made to follow him, but was stopped by Snape.
"Morgan, this substance you've discovered…it could be rather… dangerous if it were in the wrong hands."
"Sir, if you're referring to the New Marauders… no offence, but do I really strike you as that stupid?"
"No. No indeed. Good afternoon, Miss Ylime."
The weeks wore on. Morgan managed to keep up with her homework, and do some extra research on the side. And she was still running experiments.
But tonight, as she carefully laid out a heavy Advanced Transfiguration textbook and two new, unsharpened pencils, she wasn't attempting to brew a potion.
She was trying to make a portkey.
She wasn't trying to do anything fancy. Just bewitch the pencil to transport her from the empty classroom to her dorm room. It was supposed to be simple. Well, as simple as a spell that comes from a textbook labelled Advanced Transfiguration. A short, direct incantation, followed by a time demotion. A quick, easy first test.
And one, as every scientist knows, that was doomed to fail.
But as she pointed her wand at the first pencil, she wasn't thinking about what might happen if something went wrong. She wasn't thinking about anything but getting the spell and the parameters right.
So when the fist didn't work, she tried again with the second pencil. When that didn't work, she resigned herself to the fact that, tonight at least, it wasn't going to. She was just packing up and preparing to return to the common room when a sudden hiss and a loud POP! caught her attention.
For a moment she could do nothing but stare at the scene in front of her. An entire table full of people had appeared before her, eight of them seated, all male, and one girl standing beside them, apparently serving drinks. Now, however, she was standing stock-still, staring at Morgan in shock, as the contents of her pitcher emptied itself into the now over-flowing cup of the blond man seated on her right.
But one's brain has a way of choosing to work again at the oddest of moments, and now Morgan's was working at top speed. The implications of this for time, space, and humanity… she could not even begin to imagine half of the possibilities, but it was probable that she'd broken at least fifty of those rules Hermione was always talking about. And, unfortunately, while this was all still running through her mind, one by one the strangers slowly became aware that something was amiss, beginning with the blond man.
"Sis, the wine's supposed to go into the cup, not my hand…" he said, then looked up at her face, and following the direction of her eyes brought his gaze to rest upon Morgan. They had caught everyone's attention now, and nine pairs of eyes were turned on Morgan, with expressions ranging from curiosity to complete and utter shock.
It was too much for Morgan. She bolted out the room, locked the door, and ran to find the only person she could think of who could help her get out of this mess.
Dumbledore.
Ooooo, cliffy…