Chapter 5 – A day at the ministry
Nov 7 1991, Forest of Dean
Victor was leaning next to a tree while watching his brother and his girl arguing about some magical theory or other. It was fascinating in a way. He understood the words that they were speaking individually but when they combined their words into sentences the meaning was lost on him. Magic was magic and it's as simple as that. They both complemented each other in the worst way; overcomplicating the basics, or at least that's how it felt to Victor.
At the moment they were setting up a tent, and now that Tom had Hermione to do his wandwork, Victor had more time to appreciate the finer things in life, like the clear forest air, the sunshine, the smells and the blonde girl who was trying to sneak up on him and failing. Victor turned around to face her.
"Hello." He said with obvious curiosity regardless of his confusion.
Luna froze in the middle of her approach, moved her head to lock eyes with Victor's. Her pose as comical as a cartoon villain clearly up to no good.
A moment passed between them before she relaxed her body.
"Hello!" She responded. She was oddly delighted in a situation where Victor was sure she took the wrong approach. Sneaking wasn't her gift or talent.
"Hello?" This time it was more of a question. Naturally things went downhill from there.
"Hello!"
"Hello…"
"Hello!"
Eventually Victor got bored with the game and decided to introduce himself "Victor, nice to meet you."
"My name is Luna, want to help me with something?" Luna asked Victor after giving her name.
"Sure, what is it?" replied Victor. He was down for anything that got him away from the Book#1 and Book#2.
"Excellent, put your hand on my banana." Luna replied while holding out a banana.
Victor, without giving it a second thought or understanding the underlying joke, put his hand on the banana and disappeared along with Luna.
-oOo-
"Did you hear something?" Hermione asked Tom as she was working on enlarging the inside of the tent.
"No." Tom replied as he was trying to remember the next steps of enlarging a small space.
-oOo-
Nov 7 1991, London
The moment Victor's finger touched the banana he felt like he was thrown into a washer. He saw colours spinning around him like someone put a rainbow inside a blender all while his body felt like it was being crushed to a wall. After a few seconds of this everything stopped; the spinning, the colours and the force. He materialized on a busy London sidewalk and naturally vomited.
"Suck it up buttercup." Luna said to Victor, "The day is still young and our loved ones will only be distracted for another hour." Luna said cheerfully as she handed Victor a napkin and a glass of water.
"What in the world was that!?" Victor asked.
"A portkey." Luna replied cheerfully.
"What's a portkey!?"
"Victor, you are sounding too much like your brother at the moment. Leave the inquisitive questioning with our respective bookworms. They are the ones who tend to ask too many questions." The girl said before swirling around and dragging him off to the phone booth.
Victor didn't even have a chance to gain his balance or his thoughts. Being half dragged into a phone booth and mildly irritated by the randomness of the situation. He can handle random! It was literally his life, but whatever the heck just happened was beyond even him.
"Warning next time?!"
"Oh get over it!"
"We could have met you in London…" Victor said, trying to gain the upper hand.
"Hmmm…" Luna hummed in reply, "...and how many hours later would that be? Besides, the portkeys aren't that bad! When you gain control of your magic it won't be that hard!" She said exasperated by his complaints before putting a coin in the phone and dialing a number.
-oOo-
"Vernon Dursley, managing director of Grunings, how may I help you?" Vernon said automatically as he answered his phone. Sounding polite, professional, and dignified as he only expected important people to call him.
"Hello, I heard you started making a new smaller drill head, is that true?" Luna asked in reply.
"Yes, we started manufacturing the LX-15, LZ-25 and the LY-22. Which are you interested in?"
"The last one," Luna replied without knowing anything about the drill bits.
"Ah yes, our premium drill, and how much do you wish to order? We only accept a minimum of a thousand orders. We do offer discounts if you order above two-thousand."
"I would like to order ten-thousand drills please."
"TEN THOUSAND!" Vernon exclaimed, "That would cost you about a million pounds!"
"Yes, ten thousand, I do need a lot of drills. I do represent a lot of companies that need that specific drill."
"I see," Vernon did see, they wanted to buy it in bulk to upsell to specific companies. Ideally he would get the names of the companies and sell to them directly to increase his profits, but if he could close the deal and ten thousand LY-22s at once the factory would be set for the next 6 months. "In order to start to process the order we would require a deposit of at least 100 000 pounds."
"Of course, of course." Luna replied, waving her arm in the phone booth as if to shoo away the problem, "I've already had my secretary handle the paperwork, she had a meeting with you a few minutes ago. She should have handed you a check at that time."
"I'm not sure what you mean." Vernon responded in a skeptical tone.
"Vernon, I told you what to do, now do it!" Luna's eyes glowed a bright silver in irritation and unbeknownst to Vernon so did his. Suddenly Vernon knew exactly what she was talking about.
"Of course, I already gave it to accounting. Very good Ms… I'm… I'm sorry I didn't catch your name."
"It's Mr. Cornelius Fudge." Luna replied.
"Mister? I'm sorry you don't really sound like a man."
"I had vocal surgery." Luna replied while putting down the phone, they had more important things to do. She couldn't spend all day talking to Vernon on the phone.
-oOo-
Victor rolled his eyes as he slipped his sunglasses on. He didn't understand what was going on, but he did know it was bad news for the person on the other end of the call. 'Well at least she's more interesting than the bookworms.'
Luna picked up the receiver again, dialed another number and the phone booth started to sink into the ground.
"Woah!" Victor exclaimed. 'A lot more interesting than the bookworms.'
-oOo-
Nov 7 1991, London, Ministry for Magic, 30 minutes later
"I take back what I said. I want to go back to the bookworms." Victor complained aloud.
When the elevator lowered them down Victor thought that the sight was magical, rows of fireplaces going down an underground hallway, paper airplanes zooming above his head, centaurs talking with goblins. Then reality kicked in and he realized the mundanity of it all. It's like someone copied a regular office building and just replaced regular office supplies with their supernatural equivalent. No creativity, no creativity at all!
Then to add insult to injury they needed to stand in line to enter the ministry proper. They needed to have their persons scanned by the magical equivalent of a metal detector to make sure they didn't smuggle in a pipe bomb or something. Instead of having werewolves or vampires as security, you know, beings with heightened sense of smells or faster reaction speeds. They had a few underskilled (and most likely underpaid) rent-a-cops do searches. Said cops were currently arguing with an elderly witch about her charmed handbag. The pimple filled just graduated teen was arguing that the bag was dark magic while the witch outspokenly, and loudly, argued that it was enchanted with a german waterproof charm.
"Why?" Luna asked as she stood next to him.
"I'm bored."
"Why?" Luna asked as she stood closer to him.
"We've been standing in line for the past hour."
"Why?" Luna asked as she stood close enough that her nose touched his cheek and her eyes were starting to creep him out.
"Because you said we needed to get our wands checked before we can go in. Or you get your wand checked since I don't have one."
"Why?" Luna asked as she slowly poked him on the nose.
Victor started to reply but then closed his mouth realizing what game Luna was playing.
Luna, after realizing her fun was over, gave Victor a different answer. "The world is what you make of it and you will only be bored if you allow yourself to be."
Victor thought about that as he looked around searching for something interesting. One of the things that caught his attention when they first entered were the "double faced people". People that had a face on top of their regular face. With a closer look he realized that the top face was a more attractive and well kept version of their original face. He realized that he was seeing some sort of beauty charm.
Without any other thing to do Victor started to dispel the charms.
A man trying to invite a woman to lunch blinked as the woman's face exploded in wrinkles and he saw a couple of missing front teeth.
A man walking with his old friend missed a step when his friend's stomach exploded in size. Yeah, men used charms too. He didn't realize his old friend let himself go so much that he would actually use Pretty Magic as some men called it.
A red haired man with his red haired kid along with his pet rat walked near Victor. The rat started to grow larger and fatter, slowly morphing into a bald buck tooth man. Everyone stared at the three. The rat man stared at the father and son. Then someone screamed.
Victor used the confusion to grab Luna and bypass the line entirely.
-oOo-
Nov 7 1991, Forest of Dean
Tom looked up from supervising Hermione. "Victor? Victor!?"
Hermione, realizing what was happening, quickly threw her book down and started to help Tom search for Victor.
It didn't take long to realize that Victor had wandered off so they quickly grabbed the essentials and started to search for him while yelling his name.
Eventually they found themselves in a clearing with a single tent. They ran to it. Luckily for them there was an elderly blonde man near the entrance.
"Hel…" the man started to greet them but was quickly interrupted.
"Excuse us!" Hermione yelled, "we are searching for our friends, did you see him?"
"Yes, or maybe no. I've seen a lot of people," the man replied, "how does your friend look?"
"Black hair, slim build, glasses…" Hermione continued trying to describe Victor as best as she could.
"Oh! Of course I've seen him! I saw him on the intersection of Brown street and King Charles street in Godric's Hollow on the 26th of June in 1971.
Hermione tried to compute that response.
"Have you seen him more recently?" Tom interjected.
"I believe the last time I saw him was on the night of October 31st in 1981."
Tom began to realize the problem…this man might be insane.
"Sir! Our friend isn't much older than we are!"
"Ahhh" the man said calmly as he scratched his chin in thought, "that complicates things. Tell me more details, it might help." The man's excitement would have rivaled a contestant on a game show. Yet he couldn't help but wonder if they meant the young Victor who was currently with his daughter. Shaking his head as if to clear it he decided it was best to stay out of his daughters business and keep that to himself.
Adventures are best one Lovegood at a time. The levels of chaos they provoked as a group have accidentally caused and ended wars. Interestingly enough not a single marriage has started without some form of chaos in the background. He smiled to himself as he gazed lovingly at Tom. The next Lovegood. Even if he wanted to remain a Riddle the magics wouldn't allow it. Lovegood's have been around since before even Merlin! The amount of them all over the world would fill an entire stadium. Maybe a reunion was in order…
Not all branches held the exact same name. Addams happened to be his favorite cousins. He should write Morticia about Luna! Then again the last time Luna and Wednesday got together they tried to…
"Sir!" Hermione yelled in frustration startling the man straight off memory lane.
"Why…young Hermione…no need to yell."
The two children's growing frustration prevented them from realizing they never gave him their names.
-oOo-
Nov 7 1991, London, Ministry for Magic, Level 9
"No." Victor replied.
"Please?" Luna pleaded.
"Still no."
Luna was particularly convincing and it had everything to do with the natural magic of her family, so far her plan worked just as well as silly string, however like the string sometimes it falls in unexpected patterns and she finds herself in situations like this.
They were standing in front of the locked door to the Department of Mysteries, with all the chaos unfolding in the upper floors the DoM decided to lock their doors just in case, which was expected. A logical move by a logical group of people. What was unexpected was Victor's unwillingness to unlock the door.
"Why not?" Luna asked while stomping her small foot on the ground.
"So far everywhere I've been with you was either vomit inducing or boring. First time I followed you, you put me in a tornado that was inside a washer. Shame on me.
Second time I followed you I spent 30 minutes waiting in line. Shame on me again.
Third time you ask me to follow you. Shame on you.
I might be stupid, but I'm not…"
"There's a lot of gold inside." Luna said, before she could come up with another argument to convince Victor, the door to the department flew past her and into the wall.
-oOo-
Nov 7 1991, Forest of Dean
Hermione was sweating over a fire as she was peeling potatoes. "Are you sure this ritual will help us find our friend?" Hermone questioned the blonde man.
After they realized that the man didn't know where Victor was and that he was a wizard they asked him if he knew of a locator spell to find him. Luckily for them the man answered in the positive and before they knew it he took out a crock pot and started giving them instructions on a summoning ritual.
"This ritual never failed me." The older man replied.
Hermione grunted and turned back to peel her potato while Tom was holding back tears as he was chopping onions.
-oOo-
Nov 7 1991, London, Ministry for Magic, Department of Mysteries, Evidence Archive
The Department of Mysteries is one of the most misunderstood departments of the Ministry for Magic. When people think about the department they imagine esoteric research and a vault of hidden dark spells. The truth is much more boring. A few hundred years ago when the Department of Research was running low on funds they decided to "research" the best way they could get as much funding as they could. They expanded their department and took on responsibilities from other departments to take away parts of their funding. From the DMLE they took on the job of cataloging, analyzing and storing evidence. From the Department of Finance they took on the job of excavating a new vault and protecting the ministry's funds, They completely absorbed the Department of Divination and stored all the prophecies ever made and they also absorbed another five lesser known departments. In the end the new Department of Mysteries got its name because it became such a huge amalgamation of departments that even the people working there didn't know what they were doing.
Luna walked through the department like she was born in it, which was true, her mother did go into labor here while working on some paperwork. Luna knew where to find the evidence storage room, which row she would find the items collected from the year 1981 and on which shelf she would find a bone white wand of yew and phoenix feather.
"Finally," she said aloud as she grabbed the wand from the shelf. As a Lovegood she, like the rest of her family, had a sixth sense on the world around her, including the past and future. A sense that she needed to use to navigate the various bad futures to get to her happy ending.
As she walked back to the entrance she realized she lost sight of her companion. She turned around and walked through the Department of Prophecies, it was one of those departments that is connected with multiple other departments so it's easier to catch sight of her missing…
"Hello!" Victor appeared right in front of her. He was holding a suspiciously large bag flung around his shoulder. Victor's appearance was so sudden that it made her take a few steps back and hit her shoulder on the shelf behind her.
Both Victor and Luna stared as the shelf slid a few feet back from the collision. From the shelf an orb rolled off. The orb hit the ground releasing a translucent image of Trelawney as she was reciting something, "born as the seventh month dies!"
"What was that?" asked Victor.
"Just Trelawney."
"Who she?"
"No one important, just a quack, a fake, a charlatan, liar, con artist, cheat, fraud, imposter, phony, pretender…" Luna continued as Victor stared at her.
"I think I got it, thanks." Luna either did not hear him or ignored him and kept on going. He learned some interesting words that day.
-oOo-
Nov 7 1991, Forest of Dean
"Are you sure this will work?" Hermione asked for the umpteenth time. She never went camping and all her knowledge about the subject came from TV so she wasn't prepared for how hot a campfire would be, how long it would take to prepare the fire, set up the tripod for the soup, the soup itself.
The most annoying thing for her was the cold forest air hitting her back while the burning hot fire was hitting her face as she stirred the soup or well the summoning potion as the old crackpot called it. It took her an embarrassingly long time to figure out that he was making them prepare a garlic soup. When she realized she might have been tricked she decided she might as well go along with it in case it was real magic.
"Will what work?" asked Victor as he held out an empty bowl.
"Victor!" Hermione yelled, "Where in the world have you been?"
"This blonde girl came out of nowhere, made me touch her banana, that upset my stomach so much that I had to vomit all over London, stood in line for forever and then I robbed a vault. Don't worry, in the end I got her back by scaring her, broke some weird orb thingy with a head in it. That's about it really… anyway… she thinks she is sneaky but she ain't got shit on me."
-oOo-
Tom had enough and didn't even want to listen to Victor's excuses so without looking too closely he grabbed Victor's sleeve and started to drag him back to their own camp. Tom never realized that he grabbed the blond girl next to him or that said blonde girl waved goodbye to her father who was waving back as he enjoyed his soup.
-oOo-
Nov 7 1991, London, Ministry for Magic, DoM, Reception area
"Hello dear madam, I would like to check on this prophecy," Dumbledore said as he gave the unnamed clerk a piece of paper with the prophecies' identification number.
"Please follow me." The bored, underpaid receptionist said as she escorted the Headmaster from the reception desk, down the hallway and into the proper room. When they entered they saw a scene of utter chaos, people in uniform were rushing around trying to act busy and not panic as they surveyed the remains of what was the Hall of Prophecy.
Long ago in order to save money, instead of expanding the Hall of Prophecy, someone decided that they should just make the shelves as high as they could, facilitating the need of brooms to reach the higher shelves. It seemed that during the years one or more shelves started to weaken and today they collapsed on one another making the shelves resembling a house of cards knocked over.
The receptionist, not noticing or most likely not caring about anything that isn't connected with her and her paycheck, pointed to the North-Western part of the room, and left the old man to get there on his own.
-oOo-
Nov 7 1991, Forest of Dean
"Oh and I forgot to mention Luna destroyed the room of prophecy. She was trying to find the exit and tripped over her own two feet. A whole row of shelves started falling. Not sure why she tried to sneak up on me while she can't even walk properly." Victor said before taking a few spoonfuls of soup. Victor ignored the fact that his brother had grabbed the wrong person, there was fresh warm food in front of him. His brother could handle Luna, or not.
Hermione, while half listening to Victor, also focused on the blonde Tom dragged off. Grumbling about wayward little brothers with no sense of focus. Victor continued to eat his food and watch the scene play out before him.
"Eh! She's his girl anyway." He shrugged, grabbing a few bits of roasted potatoes and a slice of bread. Victor made himself comfortable as he sat next to Mr. Lovegood, giving the man a nod and a thanks for the meal.
"No problem! I told you, Hermione, the summoning ritual always works." The man responded happily before the two went back to enjoying their meal in silence.
Hermione was holding herself back from grabbing the pot and bashing Victor's head in. Ever since she met him and his brother, Tom, her more violent tendencies started to manifest. Worse was that she didn't know if it was a good thing or bad.