" . . . I'm about to tell you something which I know will make you shimmer to the bone." –Magpie2005, "The Kingdom of Darkness Rises"
"Yes, all right," said Captain Sirius Black of the U.S.S. Phoenix, indulgently. "I know how much you enjoy watching our transporter beam work, Professor; if you think what you have to say will inspire us to use it, go ahead. We're all ears, aren't we, Mr Moody?"
"Well, then," said Dumbledore, ignoring the ambiguous grunt from Black's first officer, "I received an owl a few hours ago from my Transfiguration mistress, who had taken it upon herself to go down to Bletchingdon and examine the Cetiosaurus femur your science officer was so interested in. By judicious use of a few diagnostic spells, she determined that there was an instability within the calcite that was slowly transmuting it into a unique kind of spiralling crystal structure – not unlike the substance you call dilithium, in fact."
The two Starfleet officers exchanged sharp glances. "You're sure of this?" said Black.
For answer, Dumbledore handed him McGonagall's report; he studied it intensely for several seconds, then pulled out his communicator and flipped it open. "Black to transporter room," he said. "You still have the coordinates for that fossil deposit of Podmore's, Marlene?"
"Aye, sir," said his chief engineer.
"Beam me and Mr. Moody over there," said Black. "Now. That's an order."
With well-trained promptness, Commander McKinnon complied; the two men's figures briefly shimmered green before Dumbledore's desk, and then vanished entirely – and Albus Dumbledore, legendary hero of the wizarding world, sat back and clapped his hands in childlike delight.
"Crow was the only one who knew the secret. That she had been accepted into Hogwarts when she was 11, but her ant hadn't let her attend." –LittleLucy10, "Andrea's First Adventure"
"Why did you turn down Professor Dumbledore, Andrea?" said Crow. "Don't you want to go to Hogwarts?"
"Of course I do, Crow," said Andrea tremulously. "More than anything, I want to. But I can't. The Queen won't let me."
Crow stared. "The Queen?" he said. "What does she have to do with it? I didn't think the Queen even knew about Hogwarts; isn't it the Prime Minister's job nowadays to…"
"No, no," said Andrea impatiently. "Not Queen Elizabeth, Crow. I mean the Queen! That Queen!"
Crow's gaze followed her pointing finger, and he stared for a long moment at the ant farm atop her bureau. "You're kidding me, right?" he said.
Andrea shook her head, her face as pale as a sheet. "The day I got my letter, she spoke to me inside my mind," she whispered. "She said that I belonged to her, just like her guards and foragers did, and that she wouldn't let me go someplace where she wasn't welcome; if I tried, she would scramble my brain's symbol-recognition capacity so badly that they'd have no choice but to let Madam Pomfrey euthanise me when I… oh, Crow, don't look at me that way! I'm not crazy, I tell you! Lots of people's pets turn out to be psychopathic servants of the forces of darkness; it isn't my fault!"
Crow nodded soothingly. "Right, Andrea, sure," he said. "See you at Christmas, then."
"And whose side shall this unlikely heroin choose?" –rayanoshana, summary to "A Snake in the Gryphon's Den"
"Heroin, is it?" said Voldemort speculatively.
"Yes, My Lord," said Snape. "By a million-to-one chance, I happened to be testing a blend of acetic anhydride and Pensieve fluid at the very moment when Peeves decided to start flinging poppy-seed pods around the dungeon; several of them landed in my cauldron, and, when the smoke cleared, I had a highly addictive morphine derivative infused with Elizabeth Annasach's personality on my hands."
"And Dumbledore doesn't know about it?" said Voldemort.
"Who could have told him?" said Snape. "Peeves and I were the only witnesses, and Peeves would never dare to let the word out that he had synthesised heroin in the castle, however inadvertently. You know how the Bloody Baron feels about anything that smells of drug peddling."
Voldemort nodded; like every Slytherin since a certain incident in 1893, he had gotten an earful from his House ghost on this subject in first year. "Well, that is excellent, Severus," he said. "A natural instrument of evil, brought into being by a grotesquerie of fate, with the mind of an impressionable Slytherin first year… truly, there could be no more suitable ally for us. See that you do everything in your power to make a good Death Eater of it."
"Naturally, My Lord," said Snape.
(Which was agreeing to little enough, since he and Dumbledore – whom he, not Peeves, had told about Lizzie – had pretty well inured her by now against any blandishments the forces of darkness could muster. But Severus Snape hadn't become a master double agent by mentioning things like that.)
"True, he had feelings for Lysander that he couldn't explain . . . Feelings that made him want Lysander's kiss and his touch just as much as Lysander wanted his. But he couldn't deny that the feelings that held him to Scorpios were a lot stronger." –FronkIero, "Your Eyes the Colour of Rainclouds"
"You know it can't work, of course," said Albus Potter.
"Oh, yes, I know," said Lysander Scamander, manfully swallowing down a painful lump in his throat. "If we mean to serve humanity the way our parents did, we can't let our appetites betray us into despising the very thing that makes us human. The encounter of man and woman must be as solemn a thing as that which comes of it; it would be inexcusably frivolous and selfish to parody it in our own bodies, for no better reason than because we desired the pleasures of each other's touch."
Albus stared at him. "Is that what your mother taught you?" he said. "She really is loony. No, it's not that at all; it's just that… well, you're a Virgo."
Lysander was just getting ready to draw himself up stiffly at the insult to his mother and to sound philosophy, when this last bit brought him up short. "Come again?"
"That's right, isn't it?" said Albus. "I could have sworn I heard someone wishing you and Lorcan a happy birthday just a week after we arrived at Hogwarts."
"Well… yes," said Lysander. "Yes, of course we're Virgos. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Oh, I could only ever be with a Scorpio," said Albus. "It's a basic part of my psychological makeup; the mere thought of being romantically involved with someone who wasn't born between 24 October and 21 November inclusive just fills me with uncontrollable repulsion. That's why I didn't jump that cute owl of yours as soon as I saw her; tawnies don't mate in the autumn, you know. So no hard feelings, right?" He smiled brightly, and rose from the table. "See you round, Sandy."
As he walked away, Lysander slowly reached for his goblet and took a stiff drink, wishing it contained something stronger than pumpkin juice. "Whoof," he murmured to himself. "And I thought I had problems."
