Almost Happily Ever After
CH 27 Magic spaces and Dudley's drills
Preview; Harry sighed with pleasure when he saw Ginny. He was a lucky man, and he knew it. Ginny looked at Harry looking at her and smiled. He was a lucky man and she knew it.
Last chapter was the first published with the help of two new Beta readers, Quintaped71and ChaseChic. They have posed a major question about part of the chapter, and as a result I have had a much better way of approaching something that was always supposed to be a major part of this series of stories. Thank you! We revised a series of previous chapters, and ChaseChick left. I am always open to more help.
Every Monday morning Harry was part of a major management meeting. Heading the meeting were Gawain Robards and Al Van Lente when he was in town, and Carmella when Al was out of town. Gawain was much more familiar with the details of the Ministry rules, and usually took the lead. The younger staff, Ron, Cho Chang and Seamus Finnigan were always there, as were 4 of the American Aurors who were acting as supervisors. Ron was always asking questions, and was making more of an impression on Al all the time. Cho Chang and Seamus Finnigan were also making good progress as potential leaders.
Every Monday the kidnapped girls were mentioned. Nora Jones family had been most cooperative. The family were being asked to send lots of money to the kidnappers, but they could only afford a pittance. The Ministry's position was that they could not help financially. If they did it would just encourage more kidnapping.
"Nora may die because her parents don't have enough money?" Harry asked.
"We don't think so," Gawain answered. "Whoever did this, we feel that what happens to them it will happen no matter how much or little money the family sends the kidnappers."
"She may, though?" asked Harry.
"Maybe, but we can't just give the kidnappers all they want either. It's a tough situation," Gawain said.
"What about Pansy Parkinson?"
"The Parkinson's are being most unhelpful," Gawain said. "We think they are probably sending the kidnappers a lot of money, but we can't prove it."
"Bill Weasley and his team have some information that the Parkinson's are trying to liquidate assets," Harry said. "I don't have any more specific information though."
"Are there still rumours that Bellatrix is involved?" Harry would frequently ask.
"Strange rumours," or something like that was the usual answer.
Al VanLente usually brought up the problems the Magical Community was having hiding from security cameras. He also brought up the advantages of reviewing what the security cameras caught, especially with some of the low level of stealing with evidence of magic. There were also a few disappearances of prostitutes that looked like they might be linked to magic, but none of this was easy to prove, and frequently the information they needed was weeks old before the Ministry found out about it.
Harry thought they ought to be working much closer with the Muggle Police, and Al agreed, but making that kind of change was going to take a lot of time.
A couple of weeks after the second attack the French Aurors Laura and Jean asked to meet with Harry and his team. Harry arranged a time agreed to meet in the small office he was sharing with Carmella, Marcelle and Igor.
"We think we know who is responsible for the Sectumsempra cuts," Laura said. "Basil Avery is British but he has been on the Continent for most of the last thirty years acting as sort of an enforcer or supervisor of Riddles properties."
"I didn't think the Avery who was a Death Eater was that old," Harry said.
"Oh, that's Clive Avery, the younger son," Laura said. "Basil was one of the early allies of Riddle. The oldest son Carl has been clean, as far as we know, managing the family property and money. Clive has been missing since the Battle."
"Have the Avery's been managing the Riddle properties?" Harry asked.
"Well you can't call them managers," Laura said. "They mostly tried to make sure people didn't cheat Riddle, didn't steal money or use too much on their own living. We think they've skimmed some money off for themselves, but not all that much."
"How did you figure that out?" Harry asked.
"Because when someone got one of the Avery's mad at them they used the Sectumsempra curse, then healed it but not well," Jean said. "I realized after seeing Laura's cuts that I had seen some cuts like that, and when I figured out WHO had the cuts the WHY became pretty obvious."
Laura said, "Jean and I interviewed four families that had a member with healed cuts like mine. All of them were involved with properties that had been owned by Riddle and you now own. We had to promise extra protection to all of them to get them to talk and to make them feel safe. The one person we captured after that last raid in France sort of confirmed that Basil was involved, but only after we had figured it out on our own."
Jean said, "I have tried to find out all that I can about the Death Eaters and their predecessors, everyone who was an ally of Tom Riddle. When I heard that Professor Snape invented the Sectumsempra Curse I recognized that he and Clive had been friends at Hogwarts and afterwards. I don't know if Snape taught the curse to anyone else but he obviously taught Clive the curse, and we are almost sure Clive taught his father Basil."
"Are these properties you investigated all on the Continent or also in Great Britain?" Harry asked.
"All in France," Laura replied.
"You need to talk to my business manager and brother-in-law Bill Weasley about all the Riddle Estate properties," Harry said.
As Jean and Laura left Harry noticed that they were holding hands.
After Harry was back from the Potter Estate offices he asked Carmella, "Are we any closer to finding the kidnapped girls?"
"I don't think the Avery family has anything to do with the kidnapped girls," Carmella replied. "It's not like Riddle set up an organization that could function after he died. Everything went through him, and I think we are dealing with several independent groups at this time."
As head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement Arthur Weasley was in charge of Azkaban. Harry was most insistent that the Dementors be kept out of the wizard prison, and Arthur had Harry go with him to Azkaban at least once a month and sometimes more often. They would stand at the place where wizards talked to the Dementors and repeat that the Dementors had to stay a couple of hundred yards away from the prison, but should continue to guard the perimeter of the prison.
Harry always felt somewhat depressed after these meetings, with feelings he could not quite voice.
Usually you could not tell Dementors apart, but once during the spring a Dementor appeared who was larger and, Harry had to say better defined, that the usual Dementor. This Dementor said, "Arthur Weasley, you have fought us before. Is it not enough to have two sons die, to have seen one die in your wife's arms? You continue to confront us and you will see more decedents die!"
"We are all going to die," Arthur said. "My family and I will serve the good, no matter the cost."
Then the Dementor spoke to Harry saying, "And you, arrogant Harry Potter. You think your suffering has ended? You keep confronting us and your family will pay. You may lead a charmed life while everyone around you suffers."
"I will do what is right, not what is easy," Harry replied.
"And watch your friends and family suffer, you fool," the Dementor replied.
After they left Harry asked Arthur, "Can the Dementors really foretell the future?"
"Only bad things, and then only part of the story," Arthur replied. "Losing Fabien and Fred was hard. We almost lost Molly when Fabien died; she was oppressed by the Dementors for a while. But we have our living children, and the memories, and now their spouses and it looks like we have grandchildren on the way. What the Dementors don't say is that there are so many more joys than sorrows."
"What are Dementors, Dad?" Harry asked.
"I'm not exactly sure what they ARE," Arthur answered. "Maybe someone in the Department of Mysteries knows."
Harry went down to the Department of Mysteries and was told to see Carrow Croaker, because, "He knows as much about death and dead creatures as anyone."
Carrow Croaker was a small man, as small as the little wizard that presided at weddings and funerals. He looked like he could be related too, although the wizard that presided at weddings and funerals was always well dressed and Croaker was a somewhat dishevelled and distracted individual.
"What are Dementors?" Harry asked Croaker.
"They's kind of like nutting with bodies, sort of," Croaker responded. "When you really depressed you want nutting, no pain, no joy, no nutting, which is why so many really depressed commits suicide. They breeds on all the bad stuff. Since a Dementor who gives the Dementors Kiss stays one Dementor we figures it takes lots of depressed and bad souls to make one Dementor."
"But they can breed?" Harry asked.
"O yes, enough unhappiness, enough depression, and they breeds all right," Croaker said.
"Can they really foretell the future?" Harry asked.
"Only sort of. They predict death all the time, but we all die. They not always accurate n even when they are what they tells is only part of story. Like, you'll see your wife die. Maybe she dies at 150 and you live to be 152. Not exactly a tragedy."
"They say I'll watch my friends and family die," Harry said.
"Maybe, some, sort of, but they's not telling the whole story," Croaker said. "Can't live your life afraid of what them creatures say. We all has some sorrows in the end, but most of life is way better than what they predict."
"Can they die?" Harry asked.
"Seeing how they's already dead they can't exactly die, but they can and do fade away," Carrow said. "They needs feeding to stays, feeding on death and depression and agony and pain. Keep em away from all that n they fade away all right."
Harry was uneasy after this conversation, something else to brood over. He didn't even have children and he was worried about prophesies about them.
"The last time I saw the Dementors," Harry told Al later, "they said that my family would pay for my arrogance in ordering the Dementors around. Can they foretell the future? Am I endangering my family in confronting them?"
Al pondered Harry's remark for a bit, saying, "Give me a chance to word this correctly." Finally he said, "It would be nice if our Chrystal Balls really foretold the future. Dumbledore and a number of other people could see that there was going to be a big confrontation between you and Riddle, but how and where was vague until it happened. That why there were not a lot of Aurors and others from the International Aurors' Association to help you.
"I think there may be some truth to what the Dementors are saying. If you stay on the course you are started on you will become a very important figure in the world wide Wizarding Community and your hatred for Dementors will bring you into confrontation with a lot of them. Confronting Dementors is not without risk.
"Harry, if I had more to tell you I would."
Harry was determined to do what was right, but confronting Dementors was added to his worry about how to build a good Auror Department and capture the rest of the Death Eaters and rescue the kidnapped girls, not to mention his worries about the safety of everybody he loved, especially Ginny.
Harry was spending some time each week talking to Kreacher. Occasionally they would go to Grimmauld Place and work on the Tapestry, which was getting more and more complex. If you reduced the size of the names you could have quite a number of generations on it. They traced the Potter name back to a female ancestor who had married a Potter. There were no Peverell last names in Britain that Kreacher knew of, but Harry was a direct decedent of Ignotus Peverell. Kreacher did say, "Elder Wand and Resurrection Stone yours by right," after pointing out Harry's heritage. Harry did not find this a particularly comforting thought.
Meanwhile Ginny and Hanna Longbottom were going to school. They were spending a lot of time together, because their class schedule was much lighter than Hermione's. They and the baby had lunch together almost every day.
One day at lunch all seven of the Gryffindor first year girls came over to see Ginny and Hanna. "Can we talk?" one of them asked.
"Sit down," Ginny said.
"No, later, privately," the young witch responded.
"Why?" Ginny asked.
"We want to talk about girl things, privately," she said.
Ginny looked at Hanna. "Friday noon all right?" Ginny asked. "We don't have any classes for a couple of hours, and neither do you."
"Fine," one of the young girl said, and all the other girls nodded in affirmation.
That Friday after lunch all seven of the Gryffindor first year girls and three of the second year girls showed up. Ginny and Hanna brought all of them up to the sitting room that Harry and Ginny used. The sitting room expanded to hold all 12 females, and the same young witch said, "We want to know about growing up, like periods and sex and everything!"
Hanna and Ginny looked at each other and laughed. "Everything?" Ginny asked. "We'll start with periods. How many of you have had at least one period?"
It turned out that all but two of the girls had been told about a woman's monthly period, although less than half had experienced their first one. One of the second year girls had not, and was very worried until Ginny said "I didn't have a period until the end of my second year. I was worried too that I wasn't growing up."
Ginny and Hanna made sure all the girls had the special knickers a witch wore for her period, and knew the spells that would make it more comfortable and less messy. "If you feel at all uncomfortable go to the infirmary," Ginny urged the girls.
About this time baby Frank Longbottom woke up. Hanna changed him, showing all the girls what a little boy looked like. It was the first time over half the girls had seen the bottom of a boy of any age.
Hanna then opened her blouse and one side of her nursing bra and started to feed the baby
"Do you like being a girl?" another one of the young witches asked. "It seems like a lot of bother, with things leaking out of your bottom and top, and having babies."
"I never thought much about it," Hanna said. "I really didn't think I had much choice in the matter."
Ginny said, "I thought I wanted to be a boy when I was little, because I was the youngest and a girl and it seemed to me that I couldn't do what the boys did. But now I've done lots of brave and dangerous things that most boys couldn't dream of doing, and I've sort of got it all."
Another one of the young witches said, "Girls change, get big on top and big hips, some real big. Nothing like that happens to boys special boy parts. Boys just get bigger bodies."
Ginny and Hanna looked at each other. "Boy parts change too," Ginny finally said. "They get bigger." Ginny's face got real red when she was saying this. "We can talk more about that when you are older."
The conversation carried on in this vein for over an hour.
One little witch sat in the corner not saying anything for the entire conversation. It was clear to Ginny that something was bothering her, and she pulled her aside as the girls were leaving and said, "You look worried. Would you like it if you and I had a private conversation?"
The little witch nodded yes. Ginny looked at her schedule, and they agreed to talk the next Monday after lunch, just the two of them.
When Monday rolled around Ginny asked, "What is your name?"
"Tammy," the witch said.
"You were one of the girls that needed the special knickers," Ginny remarked. "Did your mum ever talk to you about becoming a grown up witch?"
"I live with my mum and her mother," the little girl said. "I've never known a man in my life. Mum says woman should have babies without men and abort all the men babies."
"Is that how you feel?" asked Ginny.
"No, but, it's just that you and Mr. Potter are sort of like the happy ending to the fairy tales I read as a child, with him winning the big battle and then getting married, and that's sort of what I want, I guess, but you are the only person I know who has ever had a happy ending."
"Isn't Hanna and Neville, Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom, a happy ending?"
"Sort of, I guess. What happened after the battle? Did Mr. Potter grab you and kiss you and proclaim his undying love right after he won?"
"Tammy, the ending of battles is not as neat and pretty as the fairy tales portray it. I put my mother down to sleep because she was exhausted and not in good shape, and took a nap. Hermione and Ron, the Head Girl and my brother, got Harry to bed. I did wake up first and I was there when he first woke up."
"What did he say? Was it romantic?"
"He said he had to use the loo."
"WHY? That's not romantic at all!"
"Well I expect that he said it because he had to use the loo pretty badly," Ginny said, laughing. "I told him he was filthy because he was, and he looked and felt much better after a shower. We were a couple right after the battle, but it was pretty awkward and busy and not quite as romantic as in a fairy tale."
"When he proposed was it real romantic?" Tammy asked expectantly.
Ginny tried to think of how she was going to answer this one. Finally she said, "He proposed in front of my whole family, in the Great Hall here at Hogwarts. I guess that was pretty romantic, but so much was going on it wasn't the kind of thing you are thinking of.
"Tammy, Harry and I are very happy, but our story together is really just started."
"Where do you live when you are not here?" she asked.
"Harry has a house that we are remodelling, but we can't live in it now," Ginny said. "Last Christmas we stayed in a room in my parents' house."
Ginny and Tammy talked for some time.
When they were done Ginny reflected on her life. It didn't feel finished. It didn't even feel like one part had ended and another had started, totally. She was married, which was good, real good, but living at Hogwarts with HER house not finished. Oh, every other week or so she and Jack K. got together, usually at the house, and it was beginning to be HER house, but it wasn't finished yet.
The sun dress she wore for her wedding had been used a few times since. It was a nice dress, but no special wedding dress. And every time she thought about her rant at the wedding she got ashamed; she really had used the iTouch-of-Lust /i spell way too much.
The battle had ended, but it was like they really had not celebrated the victory yet.
She was still a student, with a room at her parents' house. She didn't feel like she was quite a "grown up" yet.
She shouldn't be like Tammy, but she still hoped for some special "Happily Ever After" ending to mark the end of her student days and the beginning of her life as an adult. It was probably too much to ask, but that was how she felt.
Monday February 22 Harry finally got to meet Herodotus Budziszewski, Carmella's husband, and his assistant Tom Jones. Harry had to stop and see Al and Gawain first, and tell them he would be sort of tied up with Carmella's husband and the questions about magic space, but if they needed him he could make himself available. Both meetings took a little time, and it was 8:45 before Harry walked into the office.
Herodotus Budziszewski was a large light skinned black man, over six foot tall, with very broad shoulders and a modest middle age belly, with very short white hair. He wore a great big smile, had a very wide mouth and very white teeth, He also had what looked like two artificial fingers and an artificial foot or lower leg and foot.
"You must be Harry Potter" he said, "I'm Herodotus Budziszewski, and this is my assistant Tom Jones."
"Glad to meet you" said Harry. "What should I call you?"
"Hero-do-tus Bud-zis-ze-wi-ski, that's my name," he said with a big smile. "Unlike you I can't get people to call me a hero, and I hate 'Bud' so I tell students that half their grade is pronouncing my name correctly. It's really not all that hard. Hero-do-tus Bud-zis-ze-wi-ski."
"Hero-do-tus Bud-zis-ze-wi-ski," said Harry, "pleased to meet you."
"Now that you have pronounced the name correctly you can call me wi-ski, like the drink," said Wiski with a big smile on his face. "I'm sure you are wondering about these," showing Harry the artificial fingers, and lifting his leg to show the artificial leg and foot. "Too many experiments with apparating too far or into too many difficult places. Splinched myself a few times, and could not always get all the pieces back together again. Magic spaces are tricky, my boy. We're learning more about them all the time, but they are tricky."
Harry and Carmella and the Marcelletti's and Jim Shook all went with Wiski and Tom to the places where the dark wizards appeared to have come in through the underground rooms. Wiski and Tom could both feel the presence of something, and they were almost sure where it was. Getting to it was a problem. Wiski said, "I wish we had a magic drill." Harry asked, "What's a magic drill?" Wiski said "If you take a normal drill and drill to where a magic space is the drill goes right through it without ever going into it. The magic space just is not there in 3 dimensional space. But if you had a drill that was more than 3 dimensional when it got to the magic space it could not just go through it like it was not there. It would be forced to go into it."
"Is there any substance that is in more than 3 dimensions?" asked Harry.
"Some magic carpets are. The stuff that goes between fireplaces on the floo network here, or our closets in the US, that is definitely in more dimensions that our 3. I have heard that in Europe they use some sort of magic shielding to keep magicians from messing with electrical and electronic signals; in North America we learn to control our magic better, we have to, so we do not usually use the stuff. I would like to see it."
Harry said, "We have just built or remodelled houses, and they used insulating paper. I am sure the contractors have some."
They went over to Griffin and Grunt, and Wiski took a small sample of the insulating paper but more importantly took the name and address of the company in Switzerland that made the insulating paper.
The next day Wiski and Tom were in Switzerland, and the next and the next. Harry asked Carmella what was going on. "They are really excited about something," she told Harry, "but you are going to have to wait until they come back to find out what. He is a fascinating exciting person, and I love him, but you have to take him on his own terms. He put everything he was interested in on hold for me and our children a couple of times, and does love us, but he lives in his own world most of the time."
Friday they were back. "We theorize that you need to put some of this magical stuff inside a drill," said Wiski holding a tightly rolled up piece of the insulating paper. "Fascinating stuff. They put twenty seven layers of aluminium foil and twenty eight layers of Teflon into this machine and get out what looks like 9 layers of foil and 10 of Teflon. The other layers are there but in other dimensions. They somehow duplicated and enlarged and modified a machine that makes magic carpet threads to make this. They can use other materials. No one knows where the other eighteen layers of aluminium foil are, although if you take a small piece apart you can usually find all twenty seven layers. Do you know what a Möbius strip is?" Harry shook his head. "You take a strip of paper like this" and Wiski took a piece of blank paper that was sitting on the desk and cut a strip about 1" wide and 11" long." How many sides does this piece of paper have on it?"
"Two sides, a top and bottom," said Harry. "Right" said Wiski. Then you fasten them together like this" and he twisted the paper 180 degrees so he was fastening the top to the bottom. "Now how many sides does it have?"
"It looks like it still has 2 sides," said Harry.
"Ah, but looks are deceiving, Harry. Draw a line on top of the paper parallel to the sides, and keep drawing until you come back to the beginning," said Wiski.
Harry drew the line. He kept drawing and drawing, and the paper went around twice before he came back to the start. It was magic. The line was on both sides of the paper, yet he had never gone over the edge.
Wiski explained, "That is a 2 dimensional object, the flat piece of paper, twisted into 3 dimensional space. The insulating paper looks like it is 3 dimensional material twisted in some higher dimensions of space. If I could just roll some of the insulating paper up real tight and stuff it inside a drill. We just need somebody who makes real special drills."
Harry thought. Uncle Vernon made drills, but he had never paid any attention to what kind of drills. It seemed like a dull stupid business, especially when compared to the magic world he was being introduced to. But Dudley seemed interested in the drill business. "I may have somebody who could help" said Harry.
The Potter Estate offices had real working Muggle telephones connected to the world wide phone network. So that Friday afternoon Harry went to the office and asked Bill if he could use the phone. Bill answered "Sure, but why don't you just use your mobile?"
"I can call Muggles on this?" Harry asked, looking at the little instrument in amazement.
"Sure," Bill said. "Just don't make lots of calls while you are apparating all around. For security reasons I use the landline phones while I am in the office, but the mobile works, as long as there are not too many witches and wizards around or the space isn't protected by wards."
Harry took out his mobile and called the Dursley home. Aunt Petunia answered, "Hello."
"Is Dudley there, can I speak to him please?" asked Harry.
"Who is this?" a suspicious sounding Aunt Petunia asked.
"Harry Potter. How are you, Aunt Petunia?" Harry replied, trying to be cheerful and upbeat.
"I thought we were done with you and your kind," Aunt Petunia replied.
"I'll try not to bother you, but I would like to talk to Dudley," Harry said.
There was silence on the phone, and a short time later Harry heard Dudley's booming voice came over the line. "Harry Potter! How are you? I'd love to meet with you sometime."
"I was just going to ask you to meet with me and some other people," Harry said. "I have some questions about drills. I'll pay for a good dinner, and even cover your transportation."
"Well dad knows more about drills than I do. Do you think he ought to come along?" Dudley asked.
"Well, it has to do with drills and magic. I expect asking your dad to come along is a rather bad idea," Harry explained.
"Fascinating!" Dudley said. "I'm on! When and where?" They agreed to meet that night, about six thirty.
Harry gave Dudley the address of the Leakey Cauldron, saying, "If you can't find it just call. My mobile number is xxxx-xxxx."
Dudley answered, "My mobile is xxxx-xxxx. You are better off calling it." Very quietly Dudley said, "Mum acted like the phone was slimed or something. I don't think she wants to talk to you." Then a little louder Dudley said, "Is your wife, Ginny, coming? She sure is cute! I'd love to talk to her."
"Sure," a beaming Harry replied, "I'd love to bring her along. See you tonight, Dudders."
"See you tonight, Harry," Dudley said in closing.
Harry took the floo network back to the rooms at Hogwarts. He told Ginny a little of what had happened, and said that he wanted her along, looking her best. Ginny was usually very ready to get dressed up and go out, and she was more than willing, putting on a bra that showed all her shape, a blouse that was just low cut enough to show some cleavage (and her scar), and a skirt that was tight around her nicely shaped hips and was charmed to sway as she walked.
Harry sighed with pleasure when he saw Ginny. He was a lucky man, and he knew it. Ginny looked at Harry looking at her and smiled. He was a lucky man and she knew it. Ginny ran her hands down over her breasts and down her front and said, "A little Happily Ever After?"
"You're still my fairy tale princess, love," said Harry as they took the floo first to Grimmauld Place and then to The Leaky Cauldron. To their surprise Hanna and Neville were both there, working not visiting.
"My uncle is sick, the help is balky and needs some direction, and I am the only one in the family left to run this place," said Hanna. "Too many good people died in the war. I don't mind running the place, in fact was planning on learning how after graduating. Now I may have to quit school not because of Fred," she pointed to the baby playing in a playpen on the floor, entertaining customers, "but because of this," pointing around at the establishment.
Ginny remarked to Harry, "I haven't seen much of Hanna the last week or two. Now I know why."
By this time Carmella and Wiski had arrived, and Harry introduced everybody, making sure to introduce Hero-do-tus Bud-zis-ze-wi-ski. Wiski smiled in appreciation. Dudley had become just magical enough, or just used to magic enough, that he could find the Leakey Cauldron, and he came in and there was another round of introductions. Dudley worked hard at Hero-do-tus Bud-zis-ze-wi-ski, which started Dudley off on the right foot with Wiski.
"You remember Ginny," Harry finished up with.
"She's even cuter than I remember from the wedding," Dudley said to Harry, although he was looking at Ginny with a big grin on his face, and then, "I am very glad to meet you, Mrs. Potter" to Ginny, giving a slight bow and holding out his hand.
Ginny shook Dudley's hand, and said, "Call me Ginny. When people call me Mrs. Potter I feel like an old lady. It's good to meet you, Dudley." Ginny looked at Dudley somewhat cautiously; this was the cousin who had given Harry so many problems when Harry was growing up, after all, and he was huge, six foot four and about two hundred and fifty pounds.
The five left to go to a nice Italian Restaurant that Harry knew that was just a block away, and the five sat down for dinner.
"We don't make simple twist drills," Dudley explained. "There's no money in those. Offshore competition took that market away years ago. Most of ours are specialized. A lot of rock drills for underground mining. Specialized gun drills with lubricating channels in the middle. We work with a lot of carbide, CNC machining hard to work with materials. My dad can be an obnoxious man, but he knows his drills. I'm spending all my free time trying to learn as much as I can before he dies of a heart attack like his father and grandfather. They were all fat as pigs and unhappy uptight type A people from what I understand."
"Do you work there now?" asked Harry.
"I go to school during the day, then work a partial night shift most nights," said Dudley. "Hard on the social life and the hardest I've ever worked in my life, but I am really worried that dad will die before I know enough. It was hard on the company when he was away. My uncles kept everything running well enough, well in some ways it ran better without my father yelling and fuming, but no one knows rock drills better. He spent a lot of time underground before he got too fat."
"What do you know about the magical world?" Wiski asked Dudley after they had ordered.
"We, Mum and Dad and I, had to go into hiding last year, the year Harry was on the run," Dudley started out with. "I got to know a lot! I got to be good friends with some guys about my age, and they explained a lot."
"Do you know about magical space?" asked Wiski.
"Like when you try to cram 25 people in a dining room that should only hold a dozen and the room just seems to grow?" asked Dudley.
"You have the idea," Wiski said. "There can be hidden rooms, ones that don't exist unless you have the way to get in. Our problem is that we are almost sure there are magical rooms in some places, and we can't get in."
"But if they are magical, if they are not there in ordinary space, how could you drill into them?" asked Dudley.
"You couldn't with an ordinary drill. We think that maybe if you used a drill with some magical multidimensional stuff in it you might be able to get in," Wiski explained.
Dudley thought a bit. "Oh, extra dimensions, like string theory, that says that atoms are made up of ten or eleven dimensional strings. Are you saying magic uses string theory?"
Wiski laughed. "Not quite. It is interesting that string theory doesn't contradict what we see happening as we examine the magical world with a little more science, but we haven't gotten any practical predictions out of string theory yet."
"I guess no one else has either, although the math is way too difficult for me," Dudley said. "You have magical multidimensional stuff?"
"We think this stuff," and Wiski brought out a little of the shielding paper, "is sort of like a Mobius strip, with more dimensions of stuff than you can see. They make it by taking twenty seven layers of aluminium and twenty eight layers of Teflon and combining them, and this has only nine layers of aluminium that you can see but the other layers are in there somewhere, in magic space not our normal space."
"So if a Mobius strip is two dimensional twisted into three dimensional space, this is three dimensional twisted into four dimensional space?" asked Dudley, examining the shiny thin sheet of material.
"We think so," Wiski said. "Except we are not sure if it is twisted into one more dimension or more than one dimension."
"Wow! Could you draw it on a computer?" asked Dudley. "I'm learning Computer Aided Drafting, so I can program the mills that make our drills."
"I could send you a file that showed you what we wanted in three D." Wiski said. "All we can show you is this paper in three D, however. Even better, you send us a print of a couple of rock drills, and I will get someone to show what modifications I want. Mostly I want a drill within a drill, and this stuff wrapped around the inner drill so it has to go through the magical space too."
"I'll e-mail you a catalogue," Dudley said. "Dad sends everybody printed catalogues, but this is a lot quicker."
"We are just getting into e-mail," Wiski said. "Can you get it to me on a CD?"
"Sure," Dudley said. "We don't have solid models of all the drills yet, but I can get you some if you need it."
"We have a student back in California working on CAD. I know he can take IGES or STEP files," Wiski said.
"Can you draw things in more dimensions, like draw the extra dimensions," a wide eyed Dudley asked. "I mean you can draw a Mobius strip on a computer, and all sorts of other things. Could you mathematically model the other dimensions?"
"Maybe in theory," Wiski said. "We figure that each extra dimension would take two orders of magnitude more computing power, and we don't have easy access to computers powerful enough yet. We don't have the mathematics worked out either. The other problem is that we are not sure we are dealing with only one extra dimension, or if our dimensions are the same as the ones in string theory or alongside them, or something even weirder."
The conversation went on for about half an hour more, with Dudley and Wiski sharing sketches. Only Wiski and Dudley knew what they were talking about.
As this conversation was going on Ginny got confused, then turned to Harry and said, "What are they talking about?" Harry shrugged his shoulders.
Carmella said to Harry and Ginny, "Most of this is as much above my head as it is above yours, and I've been married to the man over 50 years."
Dudley and Wiski spend more time talking about just what Wiski wanted made. Finally Dudley said, "Harry, can I get paid for making these drills? Is there a way some non-magical company can contract to have these made?"
Harry said, "I can arrange that. You are going to need to meet some people who will be the contact people. Is there a way you can be the sole contact person for this? We do not want your dad to know what is going on."
Dudley answered, "I can tell dad that it is a contact made through the college. That is sort of the truth; if I was not going to college to learn to be an engineer and work in the drill factory you would not have contacted me. And for my dad money talks. If we have a R&D contract with a company paying real money he will not have a problem with it. He will probably just be real proud that I have begun to earn my way."
Harry said, "I know that the Harry Potter Estates offices deal in Muggle money as much as in Galleons, and am sure we can set something up. I'll talk to my brother-in-law Bill Sunday or Monday."
Dudley wanted to leave a little before the others. "I have a little homework to do and I don't want to risk missing the busses running for home. It's real good to see you again Harry. I was so awful to you when we were growing up I was worried that you would never want to see me again. Going into hiding, and seeing how nice your people are, and what an ass my dad is, really changed me. At least I hope it did."
"You're my only cousin," Harry said. "It would be good to get to be friends."
Dudley looked at Ginny and shyly grinned. "Mrs. Potter, Ginny, I think you are the cutest girl I've ever seen. Gee is Harry lucky!"
"I think Harry's pretty lucky too," Ginny smirked, preening, then she got more serious, saying, "I am very glad to meet you again, Dudley. I was all prepared to hate you, and I think I may like you, if I can ever understand what you are talking about."
"Multidimensional magic," Dudley said, shaking his head. "Do we really understand what we are talking about?" Dudley asked Wiski.
"Only sort of," Wiski admitted.
"Good night, everybody," Dudley said as he walked out the door.
Harry paid the bill, and he and Ginny got ready to leave. "Have fun tonight, young lovers," said Wiski, "I know Carmella and I will," and he turned to Carmella, who was looking at him with love and maybe even a little lust in her eyes, and gave her a kiss.
"They have been married more than 50 years, they spend over half their time apart, and they are still deeply in love," whispered Harry as they took their leave of the older couple.
"Don't even think about being gone that much," said Ginny. It sure did not take Carmella's encouragement to get them to enjoy the rest of the evening together.